An article of Prasoon joshi was published in NBT at page no. 8 on Sunday, 25th April, 2010, under the headings: We need thinkers, not ‘Babas’. He has given his thought in this write – up, I agree with him on some points and also disagree on many issues which I want to share with others. You may not fully agree with me as no two things are same in this world, so you may pardon me.
In Prasoon’s article, he says, ‘why are so many ‘Babas’ present in our country. They hurt our feelings and even then, they come and go and get respectable position in the society. What is the reason behind it? In real sense Baba is the need of men. In western countries, there are also such people called thinkers and you may call them psychologist. People share their mental and emotional problems with them, and get advice from these psychologists. People try to understand the meaning of life through them. Every human being needs one man who could guide him about the both ends of life. It is true that every man is sad and discontented with his life so that he definitely requires a guide. That is why an industry has been formed to cash this concept and get maximum profit out of it.’ ‘Need is on both sides; if Baba gets benefit from people, people also get blessings from Baba. People definitely feel pleasure from Baba’s speech. Either this joy is temporary or we can say that this gives and takes policy is continued,’ Prasoon clarifies and adds it in his article, ‘In our country, people are uneducated so that this industry exploits people as other type of industry does. Such exploitation can’t happen in west as the law is very strong there.’ This is just a part of his article.
I want to share my views on the above statement. Parsoon, himself admits that Baba is the need of this country and he works as the psychologist does in the west. He raised the issue of exploitation of people. Here, my view is this, if you follow any body blindly, there is always a chance of exploitation, and it happens all over the world. Many times we read in news paper that a priest is caught for the allegation of sex abuse etc. Second point which Prasoon raised is illiteracy. He says illeteracy is the root cause of exploitation but I want to say that the learned society is also being exploited.