Thou Shalt Not…Your Neighbour!
It
is extremely important to maintain cordial relations with your neighbour,
because they are the nearest ones in times of emergency or on any need.
However, the actual conduct of such relationships belies common wisdom and expectations:
fundamentals of the working of a human mind normally determining this
conduct—if we concentrate on the modern age in particular. It’s a more or less confirmed
fact of the human mind that one starts disliking a thing once s/he has it or
owns it, and so always looks out for things of others. If one is living with
the neighbour in flats of exact architectural details one may like the
furniture arranged in the neighbour’s flat much more; if one’s spouse dare not
speak out how more handsome or beautiful the neighbour’s spouse is s/he may
expertly deviate to the apparels used, and how more attractive those are than
theirs; those wafts of fragrance of cooked food from the neighbour’s kitchen
would obviously make one’s mouth water in open detriment to the food cooked in
one’s own kitchen; and so on.
That
it is very wrong to either envy or to covet your neighbour has been proved if
we take it in a historical perspective. At least one of the Ten Commandments
tells you:
“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his
ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
--Exodus 20:17”
Therefore, ‘don’t envy thy neighbour’ is fully justified,
because any of the impulses of the human mind vis-a-vis a neighbour can lead to
petty quarrels on a daily basis or even a long-term enmity resulting in a polluted
environment that is bound to impact your life adversely.
However, in the modern context, and with diplomatic
ramifications, things can be different and tricky. At the macro level we can
think of many nations having neighbourly disputes and tension ranging over
decades or even centuries. For this writer’s convenience the eternally fighting
neighbours—India and Pakistan—can be adhered to here.
For some stakeholders in India there has been a substantial amount
of historical evidence that seems to suggest that Pakistan does envy India—be it
India’s development or India’s technological progress & innovations or its
vibrant democracy or its diverse yet peaceful atmosphere. Since the Partition
and the Independence in 1947 Pakistan has been seen as a chronic victim of its ‘envy’
factor: the wars and skirmishes, the border disputes and violations do justify
this. This is most unfortunate that Pakistan refuses to learn from the lessons
imparted through the decades, and just to carry out enmity, calling a day a
night if India prefers calling a day a day, the country has done more harm to
itself than its neighbour. The scenario is, of course, getting more and more
complex in regard to international alignments and interests. Now, what about
India, how is it executing its neighbourly duties?
India has been trying to be a perfect and tolerant neighbour,
often putting the emphasis on peace and on the dialogue process, and at other
times meting out ‘punishment’ which is sought to be justified as inevitable in
view of the neighbour’s excesses. Therefore, it can never be proved that India
envies Pakistan; but there are some other ‘issues’ that go beyond our
neighbourly behavioural pattern. In recent years India is seen to demonstrate a
keener interest on the ‘punishment’ part rather than on maintaining the peace
dialogue: some voices argue that this is because of the growth of nationalism
taking place in India over the last few years. As it were, Pakistan is becoming
sort of an external factor for India to thrive on in its bid to promote nationalism,
jingoism and the like. For many other Indian stakeholders, prominently the
pro-establishment print media & television news channels, the like-minded
political parties and an intricately complicated matrix of other interests the
word ‘Pakistan’ has become an existential slogan—they fear extinction without
that. In this particular case we, in the spirit of history, can still vouch for
‘thou shalt not propagandize’ or ‘thou shalt
not make use of’ kind of neighbourly behaviour commandments.
At the micro level too, the modern sophistication has brought in
its wake heavy roadblocks to our analysis. Let’s take an example of two
neighbours living in identical flats, having all modern amenities and not
suffering from any of the ‘envy-covet’ factors. The digital outlook notwithstanding,
one of the neighbour families cannot help but fall prey to age-old traditions. They
believe in offerings to the souls of ancestors, and loving all the animals as
integral part of God too. So they keep on offering food scraps and feeding the
crows, the dogs, the cats and the like round the clock on their balconies,
inside their rooms and in the common passage outside. Obviously, this causes
extreme disadvantage and irritation to the other family: the birds sailing into
their balconies too in search of more; the animals lounging in the passage and
down the staircase impairing thoroughfare; and whenever the neighbour is away
from home those animals ambushing their front door—threatening to come in
anytime the door has to be opened. Leaving out the ‘envy-covet’ factors as
secondary, we cannot avoid but confront here a new factor ‘curse’. Yes, the
hapless family can only indulge in angry curses, thrown silently at the other due
to diplomatic reasons lest the relations get out of control. Therefore, armed
as we are in the historical perspective, we can safely add one more commandment
‘thou shalt not curse’ here.
So we have seen, despite having the support of history, that the
neighbourly behaviour syndrome is still fraught with many other dangers—lurking,
secret and the unknown.
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