Imposed equality is often the most insidious inequality Gita 04.13

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Imposed equality is often the most insidious inequality. We live in an age which celebrates equality. Any kind of discrimination, racial, gender, religious, is all frowned upon in today’s world.
And yes, in the past there has been discrimination and that needs to be corrected. But while celebrating equality as a virtue, there is a concerted attempt by some influential social groups to impose equality on society. So, imposed equality means a denial of the diversity that is present among people.
Say, for example, some people may be wealthy and some may be poor. Now, it’s possible that those wealthy people may have gained their wealth by exploiting the poor. And exploitation needs to be checked.
But it may also be possible that the wealthy people might be more talented, more resourceful, more responsible. And that’s how they have become wealthy. And those who are poor might themselves be irresponsible, not having good habits.
And therefore, they may have degenerated to a lower level. So, what do we do in such a situation? We need to recognize that each one of us has a responsibility to grow spiritually. And a responsibility to grow ourselves means that while society can facilitate us in some ways, the primary responsibility for the individual remains on the individual.
So, there is obvious inequality is where there is discrimination against some persons are just not given something and some people are lavishly given certain things. But insidious inequality is equality which actually hurts. Say, for example, if a patient, if somebody is sick and they are said that, Oh, the hospital will treat all patients equally.
And that means all patients can have access to the same food. Well, no, that equality can be insidious because some patients may take certain food which can ruin their health, which can even act like poison for them. So, for diabetic patients start taking lots of desserts, it can ruin them.
So, what do we do in such a situation? We need to have some regulation. Yes, and you can eat this food, you can’t eat this food. And so, in one sense, that’s inequality.
But that is not for discrimination, that is for elevation, for improvement, acknowledging the situation of the people. So, for example, if students, some students are deserving, but somehow they don’t get admission in good colleges, then it’s good to open the door so that they can be admitted. But suppose we decide that this particular group, we let those people enter into top colleges or top companies, irrespective of whether they have the merit or not.
Then this hurts not only those who are actually talented, but this hurts those students also because they cannot compete with more talented students and then they feel inferior. They sometimes have to resort to unethical means to somehow succeed. And eventually the quality of education and the quality of the products of that education becomes lower.
So, there should be equality in terms of opportunity for everyone. But we can’t have equality in terms of results. That this is what needs to be, everybody should have the same marks, everybody should have the same income level.
Everybody should be equal. That is not going to work. And that actually will make even things that are working stop working.
So, there has to be an intelligent division of labor. And one such model of division of labor is presented in the Bhagavad Gita in the form of the Varanashram. And diversity is something which is innate in human society.
So, if you understand that these four Varanas are innately present in human society and they all can elevate and we all can become elevated according to our particular position, then we seek equality of opportunity according to our levels and we can all contribute materially and elevate ourselves spiritually. Thank you.