20 years ago, I
moved to South Korea and from then on, much of my time was spent there. I owe my education and my son’s education to
Korea. I owe my extended international ministry
experience to Korea. In fact, the most productive
decades of my life were spent there. Life
had begun to tempt me to settle for good.
But God’s call to preach the gospel in South Asia never gave me rest in
that beautiful and peaceful nation.
It is now three
years since we said goodbye to Korea.
From such a clean, comfortable and safe environment, suddenly we found
ourselves struggling to navigate through the dirt, dust, danger and difficulty
of life in Nepal and India. Such a reverse
culture-shock was not what we had expected.
However, the reverse
culture-shock is not my point in this article.
Rather, it is the realization that in these three short years, we have
become accustomed to our environment. Stinking
piles of garbage in streets do not look strange. Swarms of flies covering meat shops, unhygienic
food stalls, unorganized traffic, crossing the road from wherever we want,
power outage for days, and things like these have become normal parts of our
life; they don’t appear any stranger.
Even the wish for improving them is slowly disappearing. How soon, our mind has made peace with our
surroundings! Indeed, man can become prisoner
of his environment.
Human mind is a remarkable
thing. It is so powerful; it can think
the unthinkable and imagine the impossible.
But at the same time, it is so weak; it can be forced to accept black as
white and white as black, it can become devoid of independent thinking. In societies where traditions and tyrannies
reign, free thinking becomes a crime and soon people begin to follow their
traditions without giving a second thought.
The proverbial frog in the pan cannot imagine a jump giving it a better
chance at life.
Prior to the
declaration of independence, many Americans were debating the idea of
independence from or reconciliation with the UK. There seemed to be some support for reconciliation. But for free thinkers like Thomas Paine, the
idea of subjugating oneself to a foreign power was absurd, stupidity and out of
common sense. On 14th of February
1776, he published a pamphlet titled “Common Sense” in which he gave a
passionate and well-reasoned plea for independence. Knowing fully well how old habits die hard, in
the very beginning of that pamphlet he stated his apprehensions saying; “a long
habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance
of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of
custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
Paine imagined a
country like no other on earth and urged his American compatriots to go for
independence and on July 4th the same year, his dreams were
realized. Fortunately, Paine did not
have to wait for a long time for time to make converts; there were enough
Americans with reason to see the reasonableness of a nation that he imagined.
People against
the idea of independence, he called them; men of corrupt intent who cannot be
trusted, weak men who cannot see, prejudiced men who will not see, and moderate
men who cannot challenge the traditional way of thinking that says “European world
is better.” In other words, these men
could not imagine something better than what they had at hand.
Paine admitted
the America of his time was way behind Europe but he also predicted that in a
short span of time, an independent America can become
the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. In less than a century of her independence,
America proved him right.
With their
immense potentials to become advanced societies, India and Nepal are bound to
remain prisoners of traditions and invisible tyrannies ruling these nations for
thousands of years if there are no men like Paine. In the name of traditions, free thinkers are shunned
and persecuted. Superstitions are never
questioned. Rulers and politicians enrich
themselves. Public is given a heavy dose
of religion so that the rulers can exploit them.
Thus, an average
Nepalese or Indian cannot imagine of living in a society where free thinking is
respected; where streets are clean, amenities are accessible, government works
for the people, paperwork can be done without bribing, and where police
protect the public. Rather in societies
like ours, deterioration is normal, development is abnormal.
Human mind is remarkable;
it can adapt to live in any place and condition. It can become violently resistant to change,
even reason becomes impotent. Thus, when
Paine said “time makes better converts than reason”, could he be possibly talking
about our societies in South Asia? The American,
European, Chinese, and even African societies have demonstrated their capacity
to accept change for the better. Indian
subcontinent on the other hand has resisted change for a very long time that
now even the wrong can be right and right can be wrong in the name of
traditions and customs.
