‘The Survival of the Fittest’

Herbert Spencer’s famous line from years ago is as apt for the Darwinian theory of evolution as it is for man’s survival today, only in a different aspect. 

It's just a few days since news came of a 14-year-old girl sent back from the Burmese border after India tried to deport her back to her native. The girl who was found unconscious in Assam 2 years ago, has no idea how she landed up there. Despite her request to send her to Bangladesh where her parents stay in a refugee camp, we as a nation stand helpless as she would be as much of an illegal immigrant there as in India. But on what humanitarian grounds can we justify our need to deport a child who may be subject to religious persecution or abuse of any kind in an unsafe environment such as the one in Burma?

Not many of us would have forgotten the face of two-year-old Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who drowned while on a dangerous sea trip to gain refuge in Turkey. The world stood shocked and sad and we had an outrage on social media. But the situation is not any much better today. The International Rescue Committee states that there are nearly 80 million refugees in the world today. The struggles they face are devastating and range from hunger, lack of education, vulnerability to crime, abuse, and trafficking to the latest pandemic. They are in an unimaginable struggle to survive. 

Ironically, the world is almost at the zenith of civilization. From electric cars to Mars missions, the elite and lucky have their share of comforts and treasures.

What nags, surprises, and enrages me is - is this crisis really unresolvable? Are man-made laws liberating us or restricting us? Have we become insensitive to the cries of the people around us? Are we selectively blind, deaf, and mute? Are we in a race to exterminate the vulnerable? 

While Darwin’s theory described a process of nature’s selection, we now have a ‘deliberate semi-blinded’ conscience. Dancing like puppets in the hands of a few authoritarians, we are running a blind race for our own survival.

Do we not know the solution or aren’t we looking for the solutions?