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Institutionalised Evils

 Bernard Shaw's play, Captain Brassbound's Conversion, is a study of various kinds of evils or follies masquerading as virtues. Justice is in focus particularly. What we imagine as justice is often nothing more than revenge.

In the play, Howard who is a judge and his sister-in-law Cicely who is an explorer arrive at the residence of Rankin, a Presbyterian minister in Morocco. Howard's brother Miles was a friend of Rankin. Miles is no more. He had married a local woman and moved to Brazil where he died. Howard believes that the widow and her family members seized all the wealth of Miles. He used the judiciary to grab that wealth for himself.

Cicely wants to explore Morocco and Rankin arranges a guide, Captain Brassbound. It turns out that Brassbound is Miles's son and he seeks to take revenge on Judge Howard for the injustice he perpetrated on the bereaved family of Miles in the name of justice.

"Justice!" exclaims the judge. "I think you mean vengeance, disguised as justice by your passions."

Brassbound's response is that the judge's justice is nothing more than vengeance either - "the vengeance of society, disguised as justice by its passions." The state pays the judges to wreak vengeance on certain people - often the poor and the helpless.

Can you imagine justice catching up with the affluent and the powerful? They can take lakhs of crores of rupees as loans from public sector banks and never repay. The state writes off their loans. When a poor person is unable to repay his loan of a few thousand rupees, his little property will be confiscated and his children thrown on the streets. Justice.

The state which rakes in nearly two lakh crore rupees in the form of GST alone every month - forgetting the other countless taxes we all pay every moment - has no money for welfare schemes meant for the weaker sections. But the leaders have all the luxury imaginable. Organised theft becomes a virtue just because the government sanctions it.

There are many other organised crimes masquerading as virtues or religion or nationalism in India today. We are deluding ourselves or letting someone who imagines himself as a global Messiah delude us in the names of cow protection or defence of culture or national language, and so on.

Bernard Shaw's play mentioned above ends with a charismatic but rather unrefined person wielding an exotic charm on Cicely. Sheer luck saves her from self-destruction, however. She knows that she is being drawn mysteriously, almost supernaturally, to a force which she doesn't like, which she can't like. But fortune favours her. "How glorious! How glorious! And what an escape!" are her last words, the last words of the play.

All are not as fortunate as Cicely, however.

I don't know why the following pics find their place in this post!






Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanNovember 8, 2023 at 4:36 PM

    Hari OM
    Would that this was only an Indian problem - sadly this popuplist form of governement looms large in the world just now, the behaviours common to all such governments, the constantly crying nationally poor whilst living individually megarich... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 8, 2023 at 8:08 PM

      True, Yam, the situation has changed all over the world - almost. Maybe, the concept of Kali Yug is not altogether a myth.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeNovember 8, 2023 at 5:03 PM

    Ironic that a leader so popular needs security!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liz A.November 8, 2023 at 10:45 PM

    Society created rules to benefit the rich. One of these days we'll wake up to the fact there are more of us than there are of them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. peppylady (Dora)November 9, 2023 at 3:11 AM

    Lot of places is loosing the middle class.
    Coffee is on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 9, 2023 at 5:01 AM

      Sadly impoverishing system though the opposite was the promise.

      Delete
  5. CareenaNovember 23, 2023 at 1:59 PM

    I can only think of what we in our limited capacities can do here. Write blog posts, that to is no less dangerous these days, but maybe we will have to if only to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 23, 2023 at 6:57 PM

      Yes, we are in an Orwellian kingdom. Helpless. I can afford to write like this just because I live in Kerala.

      Delete

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