Right Lessons
Like George Orwell puts it in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Ethics defines the character and integrity of an individual, which is also reflected in their work. Here’s an interesting story by our founder Tapan Misra on this topic:
There lived three great friends. They were a lion, a donkey, and a fox. One day they decided that they will hunt together and eat together henceforth to celebrate their friendship. Those who eat together will stay together like a family.
They hunted a deer. As gracious as a lion is known in the animal world, he requested his friend, the donkey to divide the deer into three equal proportions. Donkey, as plain as he was, divided the dead deer into three equal proportions.
The lion got enraged. He slapped the donkey hard with his paw and the donkey died instantly. He then looked around and asked his friend, the fox, to divide the donkey into two equal portions. The fox took a small piece of the donkey's meat and gave almost the full donkey to the lion. The lion was visibly very happy. Grinning from ear to ear, he asked the fox, "Where did you learn this nice art of dividing?" The fox promptly replied, " My dear friend, from that donkey only."
When my son was of mouldable age, I narrated this story to him many times. Many of my colleagues and friends may recount having heard the story from me. The story still fascinates me as a classical case of drawing right and wrong lessons from the same set of observations or experiences or education.
The first lesson, drawn from this story, is that the world is unequal. Mere survival instinct dictates that it is better to accept the inherent unfairness, ingrained in the world, rather than attempt to change the status quo.
But the hidden lesson is actually being given by the donkey's sacrifice. He wanted to bring a change in the status quo by implementing the principle of equal rewards for equal efforts and finally paid the price, with his dear life. Unfortunately, I have found that most people missed this lesson when I narrated this story.
Most of the ills of our society, polity, professional world, governance, and many other fields of human endeavours are due to our inclination to display the behavioural traits of the foxes when we face the challenge of bringing a change. We pay the price of being status-quoists. No point in crying hoarse to escape the malady if we do not display the courage of taking the bull by the horn.