Policymakers wake up!

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): As a researcher in public policy, I spend a lot of my time trying to understand the marginalized sections of the society. By marginalized, I mean slum dwellers, tribal populations, and the rural sectors in India. They are marginalized in many ways, because although our government’s policies have been trying to look at their welfare, they have not yet been able to implement its goals. A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that these people are almost voiceless, and their needs and problems are not heard. What I am keen to understand is, do you think an understanding of spirituality could help to alleviate these gaps and help in implementing these policy processes better?

Acharya Prashant (AP): See, where do these inequities, dissimilarities and exploitations come from? They are not mandated by the heavens. And there have always been inequities, and man has always been exploitative. The reason lies in our fundamental biological constitution.

When you go to the jungle, how much compassion do you see? You do see some kind of cooperation there, right? And that too is for the sake of survival, food, and sex. Compassion is very hard to find in nature. Exploitation you can find very easily; opportunism you will find at every step. Every organism is caring…