One of my friends sent this case to me:
A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other abandoned. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.
One train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course towards the abandoned track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?
Let’s take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make…………….
Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally.
But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place? However, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how far-sighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, without any concern who was right and who was wrong.
The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train. We should not sacrifice right at the luring of a popular decision. “What’s right isn’t always popular; and what’s popular isn’t always right.”
After reading this piece about making bold right decisions, I thought about another two real life cases: Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi and Rajiv Goswami killed himself (although he was saved, he died afterwards because of the injuries).
One important question that comes to me is; who should have died, if it was necessary for one of them to die, in order to solve a problem. Nathuram Godse killed Gandhiji, because he thought him responsible for the massacres of Indians during partition riots. If Gandhiji didn't give his consent for partition of India, there won't be any partition on religious lines, and so no communal riots and no molestations of women. But here again we miss to reach the basic question: who was the creator of this partition? Was it Mahatma Gandhi or was it Muhammad Ali Jinnah? For how many years, either within or out of the Indian National Congress, did Jinnah demand the formation of a separate Muslim state [Link1][Link2]? Was not Jinnah fundamentally responsible for the partition? Any attempt by Gandhiji to stop that communal partition would have resulted in communal riots any way, in order to support their demands of a separate state. Therefore, if Nathuram was real patriot, why didn't he kill that root cause in 1946 instead of sacrificing that Mahatma in 1948?
Similarly, there was a single person vastly responsible for implementing the caste based reservation system in the name of Mandal commission report VP Singh. But the over enthusiastic young man, Rajeev Goswami, took the extreme step and burnt himself. He was not a single case, as in the anti-reservation protests, several other young students all over India attempted this extreme step of suicides in order to force the government to stop implementing Mandal commission's caste based reservations. But why did Rajeev sacrifice himself? It goes without saying that a right sacrifice in this condition should have been the person fundamentally responsible for the condition. After all:
“What’s right isn’t always popular; and what’s popular isn’t always right.”
There is another decision which stands apart: the decision by LTTE to kill India‘s former PM Rajiv Gandhi. It is important to note that the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which introduced Indian peacekeeping force in the north Sri Lanka and devastated the LTTE, was signed by Rajiv Gandhi along with Sri Lankan President JR Jayawardene. LTTE incurred huge losses. Whom to blame for this loss? Think from the mind of a terrorist. If they had to kill at least one, whom they would choose to kill? A Sri Lankan President or an Indian former PM? Sri Lankan Presidents may come and go; they will continue fighting the LTTE. But Rajiv Gandhi was more responsible, and killing him would have sent a message to the nearest neighbor India for generations to come. Therefore, while Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, JR Jayawardene died a natural death at the age of 90 [Link]. This decision of the LTTE has gone down well. No subsequent Indian government has been dare-devil enough to get its hands into the Sri Lankan affairs.
Could we think of any more such right decisions? Of course there are many.
Please note that the interpretation of these cases and the manner of comparison with the case of children playing on the track is my personal opinion. There has been no attempt to glorify the act of killings or suicides which are extreme steps and should be avoided at any cost.
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