Would you choose justice or equality? Let’s see this through.
Equality – whenever this word comes up, I am immediately taken back to “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, one of my favourite books. In it, he so wonderfully stated that some animals are ‘more equal’ than the others.
In my opinion, equality, as an idea, is quite far-fetched for a country like India, which is still laden with casteism and hierarchies. In addition to these, there are undertones in our daily lives that make equality a distant future – it sure hurts me to say that.
Here, in this majestic country, ‘we’ believe that the privileges, which we enjoy as individuals born to particular sections, are our ‘birth-rights’. We also think them to be inalienable, much like our fundamental rights. Quite in contrast, we can spot a lovely dichotomy here. We fail to acknowledge the beauty of chance. How can these be our ‘birth- rights’, when these privileges were simply gained because we were lucky enough to be born in a particular family? It may entitle us to our family’s property and share and all those materialistic things that we may crave for. However, it doesn’t entitle us to impose or enforce our standing in the society on others.
A by-product of equality is the issue of reservation in present-day India. Now many people like me, who aren’t looking for a vote bank, would say that this concept ruins that of equality. This, despite my acknowledgement of the fact that the upliftment of the downtrodden is of utmost importance – since without it, we won’t reach anywhere.
My proposition, however, would be to enrich people and provide them with quality educational facilities during the primary and secondary stages. In my opinion, by reserving seats, we tend to send out the message that one is weak, that they need such supplements to stand somewhere in the society, leave a mark on it, or to achieve whatever one wants to. On the other hand, if the basics and fundamentals are in place, then people will be able to fight on the basis of merit, without the need for reservation.
Reserving seats, moreover, serves as a discouraging factor for those, who, having faced the ill-effects of reservation, start to believe that hard work doesn’t necessarily translate into success. They start to believe that ‘some are more equal than others’, and that the way is paved just for a few. Feelings of inequality stem up in the society – and somewhere, justice goes missing. In my opinion, where ever there is inequality, injustice is a given.
The human mind, which is always in a state of chaos, crops up into two frames. After all, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t break in too. From this point on, contradictory statements follow.
If equality in a society means having a ‘classless society’ where socialism prevails – and everyone gets their fair share, with no one being disappointed or deprived or discriminated against – it would be the most ideal form of a society. There, you would have justice and equality sitting on a bench – hand in hand, being the best of friends.
The rich would understandably have issues – their argument would possibly be that it’s their hard earned money, which would be totally valid, in my opinion. But what about the greater good? What about getting rid of the evil of inequality, which is so deeply-rooted and widely-prevalent? What would you do then? Would you rather have 10,000 people equivalent to one – or would you have everyone at par? My answer here would be both, since I’m advocating for equality and justice.
I would however like to apologise for asking such a trick question. The ‘e’ with which justice ends is the same ‘e’ with which equality begins – there is no separating one from the other.
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Featured image used for representative purposes only.