In the great epic The Mahabharata, Balaram, the elder brother of Lord Krishna, plays a curious role. When the two clans, Kauravas and Pandavas prepare to fight the great battle, Krishna joins the Pandavas, but Balaram, to whom both Duryodhan and Arjuna are dear, decides not to join any side. Instead, he goes off to pilgrimage during that period.
Was Balaram right in not choosing one of the sides? What would the course of the war been had he sided with Kauravas or even the Pandavas? The battle of dharma that Mahabharata was, poses various dilemmas, including, the neutrality of Balaram. The similar dilemma extends to everyday life when one has to choose among conflicting narratives.
What does one do when one has to choose? Choose anything.
Every choice we make gets our mind to evaluate pros and cons, ease and difficulty, dharma and adharma, cost and benefit and many such factors. We get conditioned fast and deeply and then these evaluations becomes mundane for things that do not affect us much. It is only when the situation poses a challenge, when the conditioning is at loggerheads with new set of thoughts that conflict arises.
So, does being neutral take away the burden of making a choice? And in doing so, does it absolve oneself of the conflicts?
There are no easy answers to that.
Think about the numerous battles of narratives that are fought, as an extension, in the social media. There is a constant pressure on one to choose, to take a side. Is neutrality an option available though?
Yes, perhaps neutrality is an option available when one is faced with situations where there is a conflict between ideology depicted in a movie, where there is a fight over origin of a food item, about a certain depiction of history, etc.
But there are certain situations where the line gets drawn.
When it comes to neutrality, parts of Nobel laureate Elie Weisel's famous acceptance speech is often quoted. And in those beautiful lines are defined those situations where neutrality ceases to become an option. (many people I know, know nothing about Holocaust. If you, the reader is one of them, I plead you to read about it)
His famous lines are part of a story. Excerpt from his Nobel Prize speech:
"I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
I remember he asked his father: “Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?”
And now the boy is turning to me. “Tell me,” he asks, “what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?” And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
So was Balaram, the "centrist", erroneous in his choice? To be a centrist is all right, to be a fence sitter is all right. That can as well be someones moral compass. Not everyone, especially in the public (real or media) appreciates confrontation. It is for the competing narratives to sway the centrist. Arjuna could not do that to Balaram, Duryodhan could not do that to Balaram.
Would participation of Balaram saved many more lives? Would the war have ended earlier had he sided with Pandavas? Would he have persuaded Duryodhan to end the battle earlier? There are no answers for these questions, but the possibilities are aplenty.
To be or not to be neutral. That is the question (h/t Shakespeare). To sum it, I feel, it is all right for someone to be neutral about many issues. In a networked society, constantly outraging, one can choose ones peace of mind over chaos. But when it comes to issues of injustice, of oppression, of stifling of freedom, neutrality would not confer high moral ground to the individual. The luxury to be Balaram may not always be there.
Was Balaram right in not choosing one of the sides? What would the course of the war been had he sided with Kauravas or even the Pandavas? The battle of dharma that Mahabharata was, poses various dilemmas, including, the neutrality of Balaram. The similar dilemma extends to everyday life when one has to choose among conflicting narratives.
What does one do when one has to choose? Choose anything.
Every choice we make gets our mind to evaluate pros and cons, ease and difficulty, dharma and adharma, cost and benefit and many such factors. We get conditioned fast and deeply and then these evaluations becomes mundane for things that do not affect us much. It is only when the situation poses a challenge, when the conditioning is at loggerheads with new set of thoughts that conflict arises.
So, does being neutral take away the burden of making a choice? And in doing so, does it absolve oneself of the conflicts?
There are no easy answers to that.
Think about the numerous battles of narratives that are fought, as an extension, in the social media. There is a constant pressure on one to choose, to take a side. Is neutrality an option available though?
Yes, perhaps neutrality is an option available when one is faced with situations where there is a conflict between ideology depicted in a movie, where there is a fight over origin of a food item, about a certain depiction of history, etc.
But there are certain situations where the line gets drawn.
When it comes to neutrality, parts of Nobel laureate Elie Weisel's famous acceptance speech is often quoted. And in those beautiful lines are defined those situations where neutrality ceases to become an option. (many people I know, know nothing about Holocaust. If you, the reader is one of them, I plead you to read about it)
His famous lines are part of a story. Excerpt from his Nobel Prize speech:
"I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
I remember he asked his father: “Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?”
And now the boy is turning to me. “Tell me,” he asks, “what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?” And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
So was Balaram, the "centrist", erroneous in his choice? To be a centrist is all right, to be a fence sitter is all right. That can as well be someones moral compass. Not everyone, especially in the public (real or media) appreciates confrontation. It is for the competing narratives to sway the centrist. Arjuna could not do that to Balaram, Duryodhan could not do that to Balaram.
Would participation of Balaram saved many more lives? Would the war have ended earlier had he sided with Pandavas? Would he have persuaded Duryodhan to end the battle earlier? There are no answers for these questions, but the possibilities are aplenty.
To be or not to be neutral. That is the question (h/t Shakespeare). To sum it, I feel, it is all right for someone to be neutral about many issues. In a networked society, constantly outraging, one can choose ones peace of mind over chaos. But when it comes to issues of injustice, of oppression, of stifling of freedom, neutrality would not confer high moral ground to the individual. The luxury to be Balaram may not always be there.
