Tales of Stone & Steel

Diamond is priceless. It is loved and liked, adored, worshiped and prized. Diamonds are the object of desire for so many, the sparkle in the beauty of ladies, the glamour in the abodes of emperors. Diamonds adorn and elevate whatever they touch. And they therefore command a price, one that so many are eager to accept.

But this diamond comes from a quarry, a mine where stones and coal are found. Ravaged and mutilated, rubbing their glorious and latent worth with the grime of coal and the worm infested earth, they lie there, waiting to be recovered, recognized and reborn. A complete and arduous process of mining them, separating them from the dirt, washing, cleaning and processing occurs. Skilled hands and costly machines then cut them with care, imparting the very shape that makes their worth come out of the mould of centuries of disuse and neglect. Polishing adds the glint that makes the diamond arrive, that makes the stone from the quarry rule the hearts of men and women alike. And thus, the transformation is complete.

Such diamonds, skillfully cut and adroitly polished then adorn the high and mighty and take their place in the wealth of nations.

Let us look at another story.
The pig iron, nothing more than a solidified mass of metal with some rusty strength and lots of brittleness is put to great torture and pressures, processes of immense heating and sudden cooling. Components are added to it and the whole treated with great care and skill in expensive steel plants to bring out the steel, the ruler of the world of men. It is steel, the life inside concrete, the metal that shapes the dreams of armies, of megacities and of man’s conquests over sea and land.

And now let us look at what is happening in a society called India.
In this land there has surfaced this breed of disgusting, ignorant, selfish to the point of self-destruction, deaf, blind and brainless leaders of the masses (or so they are) who in their ugly anxiety to wield power even from their deathbed, would not hesitate to use diamond still uncut and unpolished, iron still not fired enough to be steel in the vital task of nation building. This breed of maniac politicians will not understand reason, simply because they are incapable of understanding, that every process has its place and value.

If these leaders are truly socially aware and their heart weeps at the plight of the weaker sections in reality, beyond the cartoon strips of Laxman, they will endeavour to give the stones from these communities a proper process of cutting and polishing, they will provide the pig iron of this vast unfortunate society with the blast furnaces and the steel plants that can mould them into the finest steel. But no sir, this they won’t do, for their goal is not the betterment of the common and the poor and the downtrodden. Their goal is simply to keep on cornering votes for themselves and their equally idiotic, anarchic and haughty political parties. And in this process, they will keep destroying whatever the nation’s spirit and the endeavour of the hardworking and enterprising citizens of this country builds and achieves. Be it the IITs or the IIMs, be it the global software prowess and the Infosys’ and the Wipros, be it the now galvanised old economy giants; in short, be it India Inc.

And yes, they are not going to be deterred from their ugly designs by any amount of reason. They will use the ill-made steel in vital places of the nation’s infrastructure, they will mingle the yet uncut and soiled stones with the best of the diamonds and they will not stop to consider what damage this can cause.

And trouble is, there are learned and educated people who seem to support this agenda of slow self-annihilation. All the wisdom in the world teaches that to achieve something great, you need time and patience and proper technique. Social justice is not something which can be achieved through shortcuts and laws. And yet, who can ever reason in front of child like greed and ignorance.
The King of Nepal tried his hand at this. Look what happened to him. He thought he could, by means of a brutal and barbaric shortcut, gain access to the throne of Nepal and control the fate of millions of Nepalese. That was not to be, although the king’s glee would undoubtedly have been immeasurable when he had climbed the throne. Obviously he thought he had achieved something great without so much as breaking a sweat (or even a tear) over it.

But hoping that this simple logic would be understood is also being equally foolish. For when we have given ourselves vultures and crows to rule us, we have no right and reason to complain. The constitution was written with the aim of making the caste stigma disappear, for giving every citizen equal opportunity. But what we have actually done is that we have burned the caste hatred almost muscle deep in the psyche of Indians (I hate the quota nominee like I hate no other and I won’t ever mince words to say this) and we have focused on giving equal ‘reward’ and not equal ‘opportunity’ to earn that reward. Does this seem worthy enough for your attention and your thought? 

Your answer please!