LIFE IS LONG JOURNEY BETWEEN BEING HUMAN TO BEING HUMANE

 

Life is a colourful journey  of a human taking as a virtue of birth. Being human refers to the periphery nature of man projected as negative whereas being humane refers to the inherent nature of human being with calmness, composure, peace and good will for all.

Humans have to take the journey between being human and being humane to achieve greater heights of success. Also to see themselves as a changed individual. As a saying goes, ”Be the change you wish to see in the world”, to make earth better place to live.

Humans can be referred from their evolution. They have been constantly involved in innovation, from generating  fire out of stones to language and so on. The human civilization changed after Industrial Revolution in a flywheel pace. The reason behind human renaissance, can be best explained with a saying that goes as ,"Necessity is mother of innovation”. On one hand profits were enjoyed by capitalists. On the other hand ,there was suppression of labours, inequality ,poverty, hunger, malnutrition ,slavery that prevailed. It seems there was no humanity.Machiavelli had projected pessimistic role of human nature. He said, "Man sooner forget the death of  their father than the loss of their patrimony" .He asserts that ,man is cruel, selfish, cunning . He would do anything for power. Power seeking nature of man can be seen in monarchy, autocracy, fascism and majoritarianism. The famous quote regarded as "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is true in most cases. If their is honey drop on your tongue you cannot resist from tasting it. Similarly goes with the case of power. It makes man to lose everything for that. Capitalists originated led to more innovations improving the choices of rich people, at the cost of the poor people.

                                             The industrial revolution led to colonisations in many parts of the world which led to the suppression of basic human rights such as freedom, right to equality, right to dignified life. This was done through colonial policies such as Jaghirdar , Zamindari system seeking the blood of the peasants. At the same time ,American and French Revolutions happened which mostly demanded liberty, equality and freedom. This produced echo across the globe and  they called for abolition of slavery, to preserve human rights. The other instance which proves the nature of man is World War-1,2. And now, the  Russia-Ukraine conflict leading to World war-3. Also,the nature of human can be revealed in his dealing with the climate change and preservation of earth. He has been insensitive and regards only technology,  encroaching the domains of other species on earth, leading to alteration of ecosystem where COVID was believed to be the result. The other effects are rise of sea levels, earthquakes, landslides, floods, global warming, droughts and so on. The wide spread of the virus is due to globalisation which indeed is his innovation for profits. In addition to it,developed countries not providing vaccines to developing countries citing the incentive for innovation also reveals character of human.

               After World War -2 Cold war, has been devastating. Proxy wars between 2 super powers affected the newly formed independent countries  also called the Third World countries. Examples are the division between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, North Korea and South Korea were made permanent.

                                             The role of super powers such as America, earlier USSR also changes the pattern of living style in under developed countries  which they use "Theory of vacuum” which says that major powers need to ensure the security of the states, this forms the responsibility on them to take up that issue, which they sight reason for involving in the domains of other sovereign countries. It’s involvement in West Asia and Afghanistan. The training by US to Mujahedeen groups to over throw Russia's  puppet government. It then led to terrorism after the withdrawal of USSR from Afghanistan and disintegration of USSR. For the raise of terrorism in the world super powers were responsible. American hegemony can be seen in many forms in the world. This explains the rich countries only look up for their profit.

               This raises a question whether fundamentally  was man bad, cruel, brutal and nasty?

It seems so but not always true  .Aristotle said,"Man is a social being”. Man cannot live without society, without mutual cooperation and coordination. Each human has different characteristics with their own set of talents, strengths and weaknesses. So, all cannot be treated as same. But wherever, most of the elements are same they can be regarded as one.

Humans have certain positive aspects as an emotional being and with psychological effect. The suffering of the poor do matter to few individuals, our popular leaders like Mahatma Gandhiji for Ahimsa and Satyagraha , Sardar Vallabhai Patel for his courage , Jawaharlal Nehru for his vision for peaceful world , Mother Teresa for her kindness, Nelson Mandela against apartheid, Martin Luther king for rights and so on.

Rousseau proposed for the general will (Good will of all  people) of people will prevail. Women were the major victim of all the suppression from history. This raised feminists movements across the world demanding rights, freedom.This generated waves of feminism across the world. Then, Anti-Apartheid movements began in south Africa .Now with Globalisation there was special importance of human rights issues, also importance given to basic rights such as right to freedom ,to have dignified life. The other prominent struggles are for counter terrorism ,human trafficking ,insurgencies, social movements to fight against social evils like child marriages, abolition of dowry, female infanticides, environment movements like Chipko movements. The demand for peaceful co-existence has been seen in raising the voice of developing world for new world economic order where developed and developing countries have fair chance to have their voice ,take actions on same basis. The demand for the actions to mitigate the climate change by developing countries on the developed countries need to become more strong, need to be made more binding, they also need to be accountable.

               The process of human reaching from human to being humane is a gradual process which is being done as evidenced from the above. But, there is need to improve the pace of the progress. One must not lose hope in humanity. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "If  one drop in the sea is dirty,then it does not make the whole ocean dirty. One must not lose faith in humanity".