Less Equal Than Others
by Jamuna Maruth

As an intelligent species, we all have our priorities. Food, clothes, music, the list goes on. It's only natural that we would like to have choices in many of our activities. Problem is when we start applying this concept to people, (i.e) , when we see people according to our 'preferences', we discriminate against them.

There are many factors that discrimination may be based on. Most of the time, the phyical appearance is a reason. Since this is the first feature noted by people, they make decisions in their mind based on it. Physical features that lead to discrimination may be - disablities, facial features, etc. This is the worst possible form of discrimination, as it affects the entire social view of the individual in question. Facial features is a factor that dies down in a while. But it’s the people with disabilities that have the toughest time trying to prove themselves. And not all the countries give them the freedom to do it. In every place from schools to workplaces, such people are not 'preferred'. But, in reality, they work better than normal people do. One example is Kutty, a man with only one leg, who continues to amaze audiences with his dancing abilities (a movie was made on him recently). The sad thing is, even when this has been proved time and again, a view still exists that people who lack normal abilities are only good for sympathy and cannot achieve anything substantial.

The next most common basis is factors-by-birth, like color, gender, religion, caste and nationality. This may not be something that an individual is embarassed about. Infact, they ought to be proud of their origins and identity. Nonetheless, this too, invites unnecessary trouble. This kind of discrimination is decided by the environment in which a child grows up. By allowing a child to move freely with other children, even if they are from another religion or state, parents will be raising the child to be a nice human being who does not care how or where his/her friends originated. This will allow them to have a secular view of the world around them, which eventually widens their influence. This kind of discrimination is a little different. It also fires the process of reverse discrimination, (i.e.) discrmination the other way round, like employing more women (just because they are women) even if there are equally qualified men present. This may seem less harmful, and more like a balancing act. But even this, if allowed to grow beyond a limit, is as bad as regular discrimination. Not only employers, even the masses practice this. Here, nobody cares if the 'other' person if from an upper or lower caste, higher or lower 'birth'. If they belong somewhere else, one is not to have any acquaintance with them.

Apart from the two kinds, there is another reason, lesser than the two, that can fire discrminative behaviour. It's the habits or activities of a person. When individuals don’t do like society believes they should, they invite criticism from different quarters. But this is not necessarily damaging as the person can always prove his character or if he has a few people around who know about him.

Discrimination is an ability given by God to help us know what is right and wrong. But we must never allow this ability to override our conscience. If you do an honest analysis as to why you don't like somebody, and the answer pops out that it's because they are not like you, it will truly seem strange to you.