The basic need to fine-tune

BW & Gray

- The basic need to fine-tune - 

Presentation is very important but it seems living up to words is not. Preaching from atop high horses is grand, but falling off it painfully is not grandly in consideration.


Growing up in the country, every individual does so listening, taking in and also making attempts to practice the high-held religious and cultural values. The story line on this has however and of late turned awry.


Take this not-so-distant incidence for example:


The government’s supposedly ‘never-intended’ plan for slaughter houses was in any case taken as confirmed by the citizenry. Passionate arguments shooting rapid from all corners were a highly appreciable demonstration. National sentiments unanimously pooled in with no apparent need for orchestration/synchronization. Under different situations, for such overwhelming unity, the presence of an individual or institution championing this or that cause is always mandatory.


GNH-values empowered arguments and high-held religious-values-backed reasons at the time took center stage to stop the imminent. Even with such unanimity, the movement was getting diluted even as it was making pace. A chief reason happened to be the hypocrisy of one’s affinity to the very thing under protest.


Plainly put, try recollecting just freshly (with the auspicious month’s end) how meat stalls were crowded with buyers and how stocks got swept clean almost as fast as they could be replenished.


Now, what is that? An enactment to cancel out the previous enactment. It is exactly the swashbuckling knee-jerk reaction we move into without second thoughts soundly cemented.


Same can be said about how Buddists in a Buddhism-practicing country persistently continue to (literally) rob Buddhist values. In just over two years past, 586 sacred structures (565 chortens and 21 lhakhangs) from across the country were vandalized and robbed of their precious nangtens.


Just desserts have followed the acts, but punitive measures aren’t exactly what solves issues. While the law may pick up steam clamping down on matters, it is essentially every respective citizens’ designated role to do their bit.


Educating minds always helps.

Published as column for Business Bhutan on June 20, 2015

BW & Gray or Black, White & Gray is a column published in the Business Bhutan and solely tagged with the pieces written by this Author.