Lathi and Buffalo Philosophy

I have been brought up in an environment where it is taught to us that at the end of the day justice prevails and finally it is the rules and regulations matters in a democratic set up. Being a student of Management, we have been dealing with the terms like ‘motivation’, ‘satisfaction’, ‘moral’ etc. and many more. We use to teach our students about various ways to running an organisation, several ways to handle a crisis situation in an organisation so that the organisation should run smoothly.

But gradually, I started to believe that all these are simply jargons and eye wash techniques. In fact what ultimately prevails in an organisation is “mighty is always right” or as per the popular Hindi saying “Jisaki Lathi usaki bhais”.

At the end of the day, irrespective of the legal or moral rights or wrongs, the person with whom power is there, emerge as a ruler. This is seen irrespective of anything.

There is one Mr. Director. He is not obeying the order of the court. Court is also not taking a strong note of this till today. When I interacted with him after the verdict of the court, he said that “I will not let you join this Institute of my own. If you can pressurize me through court then things will be different, otherwise I will not let you come here”. This is ridiculous. Indirectly he is also asking me to have my own lathi which should be very strong also and he will understand the language of only lathi.

I think all the rules and regulations are simply an eye wash. They are created to run the society smoothly but it is also a well-known fact that human being is criminal by nature It may sound absurd that human being is criminal by nature but this is the hard reality and the interesting part of the reality is that whether we like it or not but we have to accept it.

Thus, human being is basically a criminal entity and if all the human become criminal then it would be difficult to run the society in a smooth manner. Therefore, in order to run the society, we frame rules. But there are some people who have got mastery in broking these rules and set up a parallel system with the help of their power. Many a times, these people are able to acquire power because nobody else is resisting them. And if someone protest them then, out of them one with a greater power and support emerge out to be a winner and set up the rule “Jisaki Lathi usaki bhais”.

Buffalo is very important in our society. It gives us milk, its dunk is used in the farm land and there are many such usages. Unfortunately, interesting part is that this buffalo also understand the language of lathi only. It does not understand the language of love, rules, regulations, laws etc. Therefore, in spite of best of the best rules and regulations framed in the society, we need lathi to implement these rules.

When this buffalo is no longer useful to the person with lathi, then they leave it and there is another saying “Gayi Bhais Pani me”.

The previous person, when he was holding the post, he has the lathi and with this lathi he used to control the entire system. Finally when he realized that this buffalo is no longer useful to him, he left it saying that “Gayi Bhais Pani me”.

Last time, when I met the present person with a mighty stick in his hand, he was not understanding my views. I was trying hard to convince him about my views, my problems, about the next course of action and its implications, but he was not even ready to understand. He is making this proverb meaningful, “Bhais ke aage Bin Bajaye Bhais Rahi Paguraye”.

And I realized that there is only one way of making this buffalo understand, which is to acquire a lathi because this buffalo will only understand the language of lathi.

The power of lathi is the meta-physics here. There was one political leader in India...who said to his followers that .."Apani lathi ko tel pilao". By doing this, the lathi will become stronger. Giving oil and making it stronger is the epistemology of lathi philosophy. How to make this lathi powerful,  How to acquire this lathi, various ways of using the lathis and its related knowledge is also the additional part of epistemology here and there is ethics behind this. By and large, the society value this ownership of lathi, and if on the basis of this ownership we are able to get milk this gives us happiness and happiness is always viewed aesthetically in any society. Which means it has got axiological value too.

Thus, irrespective of anything in the society, what finally prevails is the lathi and buffalo philosophy. 

So, my friends, try to have a control over the lathi, either by muscle power, or by intellectual power or ant other thing.... Though it is the very primitive philosophy, but at still it is holding good in the society and in the days to come there are every reasons that this will remain a valid philosophy.