The English word 'evil' cannot be translated in any Indian language. There is no synonym of evil in Hindi or Tamil
The English word 'evil' cannot be translated in any Indian language. There is no synonym of evil in Hindi or Tamil. And yet when this is pointed out, everyone feels odd. They keep offering alternative words that mean 'evil'. Surely evil exists!
A few years ago, the Dalai Lama said there is goodness in all human beings ufffd even Hitler. This idea annoyed and irritated many in the West. How can anyone say anything good about Hitler? Recently someone tried to say that the punishment against Shiney Ahuja was too harsh. He was silenced with the rhetoric: how can one speak in the favour of a rapist?
Evil means the absence of good. Implicit in the word 'evil' is a religious concept. It means the absence of God. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that everything that exists is a manifestation of the divine. And so nothing can be devoid of divinity. And so nothing can be evil.
Most Indians believe in rebirth and the theory of karma. As a result, every event is a product of some past deed. Even the worst of events can be explained by karma. In one Purana, for example, there is the story of Sita accidentally killing a pair of lovebirds and getting cursed by the surviving bird that she too would be separated from her beloved. In another Purana, Vishnu, the preserver of the world, beheads the mother of a sage, Kavya, who attempts to help the Asuras. For this action, Vishnu is cursed ufffd he will descend on earth in human form and experience death. Thus even God is subjected to the laws of karma. When everything is karmic, the notion of evil is not needed to make sense of a terrible action. That is why in Indian languages, there is no concept or word for evil.
All this makes evil a cultural concept, not a universal one. The rational discourse aligns itself with the 'evil' discourse and justifies the existence of 'evil' through words like psychopath and sociopath whose usage has shot up in recent American crime-based television series like CSI or Dexter. It stems from a clear need to justify killing of the undesirable. Basically, what we are being told is that there are human beings on this planet who do not deserve mercy or pity. Like the Orks of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we are being told they have to be killed. We cannot live with them.
In India, the word 'evil' is being replaced by the word 'corrupt'. Increasingly, influenced by Western religious and political and social discourses, Indians are believing that the way to create a better world is by getting rid of 'evil' politicians and 'evil' bureaucrats and 'evil' businessmen, using lawful and if necessary lawless means. This is a dangerous trend. It means we have stopped looking at people as human beings who can in different situations be heroes and villains. Instead, we have chosen to box all humans as good and evil; boxes from which there is no escape.
There seems to be an urgency to declare people as evil or corrupt and no urgency whatsoever to reflect what makes people evil or corrupt. Refusal to reflect indicates an arrogance that we already know. And that certainty is a dangerous trend.
ADVERTISEMENT
The author is Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group, and can be reached at devdutt@devdutt.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
