One Light = One Life

Every year, I watch the bright Diwali lights from my window. It is a beautiful sight; all neighbourhood buildings beautifully lit up in different colors and designs. The festival of light that illuminates the earth and even the sky, I am sure the view is even better from an aircraft!

Photo by Dhivakaran S from Pexels

Diwali is about peace, harmony and brotherhood not just with our neighbours, but also with society at large. It is celebrated on the darkest night of the month with lighting of diyas/lights, floor decorations bursting of crackers, meeting friends and family not to forget the parties!

As I walked back to my room, I watched news about a few dark nights around the world that won’t be lit up this year or probably for years. Humanitarian crisis engulfing Afghanistan where desperate parents are selling daughters to aged men for food and money; one of the many horrors unravelling in Afghanistan. All the money or humanitarian aid and support has dried up. The video showed a 9-year-old being married off to a 55-year-old man for 2000 USD and there are many such cases there. More than 20 million people in Afghanistan don’t know where their next meal will come from and with winter is coming, the humanitarian crisis will only deepen. More people will die of hunger and the entire country will become extremely vulnerable to nature and economic crisis. Another nation where there is a massive food crisis coming up is North Korea where the ballistic missiles have more priority over the inherent dignity and right to live.

What’s the value of One life?

Now before I go ahead, a caveat! I do not believe in a Utopian world where there will be no darkness or a just world, where everyone is a good soul, no crime and no inequality. NO. But like Diwali, it IS our duty to light up a ‘diya’ of hope on the darkest night. The darkest of nights end and have sunlight at the end of it. But we still have to light that diya, not for us, but for others, so that others can see.

This Diwali, world leaders caught up their respective G20 summits to create more collaboration to strengthen the strong nations and create more defence alliances. I wonder why using that power to defeat the dark forces in places like Afghanistan where the parents have to sell their children to buy their daily bread isn’t on their ‘to-do list’. I hope no parent ever has to do that! While the leaders are discussing imminent threats of climate change of COP26 summit as I write this, I believe it is crucial to understand that the most important threat in the next 2 months is the humanitarian crisis and food shortage in countries especially as the winter sets in. It was amusing to read the friendly banter between the UN and Elon Musk on a small percentage of the wealth of the rich being able to solve the plight of the poor around the world!

Most governmental organisations and bodies like the UN don’t come under any accountability for their inactions. They spend hours presenting papers and media interactions on crisis and plans. We need more actionable private companies who can deal with such crisis. If war can have private contractors, so should humanitarian crisis of food shortage too. We can have private organisations deploying their resources to fight world hunger. Jeez! add these CSR points to their stock market prices or valuation points, see how everyone gets around!

‘Common Prosperity’ a national campaign launched by Chinese President, attracted a lot of attention from investors across the world on the impact it will have over the luxury goods sold in China. The regulatory crackdown on soaring inequality is being evaluated with the impact on the top 500 companies and not really reported as, how common prosperity will lead to more spending and probably a better lifestyle for all. It will create a more robust economy and consumer spends. While it is the opposite of what I just wrote about private companies playing a role in solving humanitarian crisis, in China it’s the State that is taking the initiative. This just goes to show that both the state and private players can do well on a large scale if the agenda is to create more profits with the participation of all and create common prosperity.

Common prosperity believes in the value of one life, even the lowest defined denominator in the strata of the society and appreciating his/her contribution to the growth of this society. It will be great to see if this redistribution of wealth proposed in China happens with a growth mindset and yet manages to keep the aspiration levels for consumption that leads to a growth intact while creating that much needed common prosperity!

Some days, I wish like in our mythology a modern-day Ram wages war on the darkness that is engulfing the humanitarian situation across the world. Let’s give them that lifeline. As I went back to my window, I saw a firecracker light up the sky and hoped that it reached the darkest of corners.

Even if it is ‘missiles’ used to bomb the perpetrators of this humanitarian crisis or ‘the torch’ of a humanitarian aid that reaches hungry civilians stuck in winter cold, let there be a light that saves the world!

One Light = One Life

Happy Diwali!