Fairness
There is a video doing
the rounds in Face book. A Labrador is
seen seated between a young man and an old man.
The young man takes away the TV remote from the elder. The lab snatches it from the young man and
gives it to the old man. When the young
man again tries to snatch it back from the old man, the lab gets all over the
young man and thwarts his move. The vide
could have been shot with a script. All
those featured in it would perhaps be actors.
But there is another video showing the reaction of a monkey in the face
of discrimination. The experiment found on you tube is by one Frans de Waal
called the ‘fairness experiment’.
See the angry reaction of the monkey which is given cucumber when the other one is given grapes, for the same stones in exchange.
Do humans react like this?
Having been on an evolutionary hierarchy we ought to be.
The answer lies in the ‘Ultimatum Game’. In this test, two sets of people are selected. They are told that one of the persons will be given a particular sum of amount. It is to be shared by him with the other person, in whatever proportion he deems fit. The other person is entitled to accept the share given to him or reject it. If the second person keeps his share, then both of them could retain the respective amounts. If the second person rejects the share given to him, then both lose it. The total amount has to be retained. The rules of this game are made known to both the players. And in the end it was seen that even if the first person did not give an equal share, the second person accepted it knowing full well that he did not get an equal share. It is because he did not want to lose that amount also, by rejecting it, even if it meant that he was allowing the first one to have a higher share.
Now, we have to decide whether we are better than the monkeys.
In our own department, we can see that even when we pretty well know that the share of promotions given to the Customs is exorbitantly higher than the actual ratio they are entitled for and we are deprived immeasurably, we keep tolerating it and in fact co-operating with the exercise, just to ensure that let at least the peanuts keep coming.
In a recent letter, AIASCT brought it to the knowledge of the Board that out of 269 promtee ACs proposed to be regularized, as on 1.1.2022 not a single one is from Central Excise while 40 are from Customs Preventive side and 229 are from Appraisers side.
As if
it requires to be brought to the knowledge of the Board.
There will be advisors who keep counseling, let it go on, you can keep on raising your concerns.
This is the basic reason why all inequalities flourish among humans. Because we are far more calculating and ‘intelligent’.
We claim to have descended from the ‘fair monkeys’.
R. Manimhan
18.01.2022
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