Doctrines of Harm - by Atul Singh

 

A friend and I were discussing the reason certain societies get left behind, while others succeed. East and West Germany, South and North Korea, India and Pakistan; being some examples, where the same people bring forth vastly different outcomes over a period of fifty to seventy five years which is basically 2-3 generations, when left to marinate in the systems that they chose or were forced upon them. 

The cases of Germany and Korea are rather straightforward. Democracies versus authoritarian regimes in the guise of communism in both cases. Also market driven economies versus top down planned economies.

The case of India and Pakistan is a bit unique and more interesting. Both have by and large market driven economies. Pakistan has pretended to be a democracy multiple times with the army holding the reins of the “democratically” elected leaders. The “establishment” essentially a polite way to mention the one who shall not be named (The Army) primarily decided the fortunes of the country. The main objective essentially being to permanently stay in power and make fortunes for themselves. 

Aside from this there is one more dramatic difference which is that Islam is the state religion in Pakistan. Ostensibly the reason for the bloody partition that directly killed over 2 million people was that Muslims did not want to live with Hindus after doing the same for thousands of years. 

Now seventy five years later there is a report card of these two societies. The success of Chandrayaan 3 which was India’s mission to moon that landed a rover on the South Pole of the moon has become a watershed moment. Both countries are looking at themselves with fresh eyes, trying to gather themselves and understand where they stand and where they want to go. 

Doctrines are assertions that we adopt and then end up living by. They mostly play out in religious or political context, but both those naturally descend into real lives as beliefs and behaviors, either empowering a people or depleting them. Pakistan also has subscribed to certain doctrines of harm.

A classic example of the same is how women are viewed and treated. 

Human beings are undoubtedly the most intelligent and evolved of all species. In that specie, nature’s most important task of procreation and nurturing falls on a woman. Human babies take an inordinate amount of time to become self sufficient. This owing to the development of their big brain and commensurate growth in size of head, which cannot happen in-vitro, else the baby won’t come out. For the size of the human body our brains are proportionally the largest in any species. So it takes a good ten years for the human baby to become self sufficient in basics of even procuring food. That is longer than the entire life span of most species. So a human mother has to have the resourcefulness, compassion and resilience to nurture the next generation for that long not just once but multiple times in her life. It stands to reason that such a being is ordained with extraordinary faculties. 

In light the above when we see these beings (women), in very large numbers, being put behind a black colored bedsheet called Burkha all their lives, or forced into economic bondage of their men and treated primarily as reproductive machines, you realize that is it a Doctrine of Harm. It is a doctrine that is neutering half the population from achieving their full potential. It will be very hard for such a society to ever achieve it’s own full potential.

Another such example of a Doctrine of Harm is the concept of heaven and hell, based not on what you do but what you accept as truth. It is rampant in certain parts of the world and is the most used tool to convert people into a way of life and control them for the benefit of Clerics. It has produced innumerable wars and immense pain around the world, because one group has entitlement to heaven based on their belief and another group on their belief. Even though their heavens are different, they still fight. This is because in this doctrine good and bad behavior does not yield heaven or hell, just an acceptance of a belief does. So people are willing to kill and subjugate thousands of others and never ever take responsibility of their own bad behavior. They got a free pass because they accepted a certain assertion as truth. 

These and similar doctrines need to be defeated by regular folks like you and me for the world to be a better place. We cannot give them any quarter. Because when they win, they don’t give us any, such is their power over men.