The problem of evil has confounded the philosophers as well as the commoners alike. Why evil persists in this world created by an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God who is supposed to be benevolent and just? It is perhaps one issue that has given the stick to the sceptics and the agnostics, as also the atheist to beat the believers. If there is God how do you explain evil? Certainly, a logical question to raise. And we still don’t have any convincing answers. Maybe, we will never have an answer except for that one reason which most religious thinkers provide — the doctrine of Karma. But this also cannot answer the problem of infinite regress convincingly. And that may again be a question that leaves many corollaries. However, though not all evil can be explained philosophically, a large part of evil prevailing in the world can be explained psychologically. And Lord Krishna explained this in his many answers to the different characters of the Mahabharata at different times. He talks about the faculty of free will that human beings have been given to guide their actions in life. It is not exercising of this free will that leads to evil in this world in most cases. The ability to discriminate between the right and the wrong calls for a special quality that can only be explained by the Sanskrit word Vivek, having hardly any English equivalent. So, the Lord comments on Duryodhana’s foolhardiness by stating that a man’s nemesis is the result of his own injudicious thinking. Vinash kale viprit budhhi is what He had said. And it is the envy that guides this injudiciousness. Envy is one of the three basic emotions that human beings are born with, the other two being love and rage. Other emotions are manifestations of these three. It was Envy that led to the killing of Able by Cane as the Bible tells us. The stories in the Indian Pauranik texts also tell similar tales about how envy perpetrated evil. Envy, then, has always proved to be the cause of most of the evil in this world down the ages. From the ancient to the medieval to the modern, history is full examples that validates this hypothesis. The many kingdoms perished due to envy, the many wars were fought due to envy. Envy is essentially a demonic trait that results from a bloated or a bruised ego. Most of the time, rather all of the time envy is a result of non-acceptance of reality and without any proper reason. Against this backdrop let us examine the current snooping controversy related to Pegasus. Why do people snoop at others? Why this interest in others? Simple reason is envy. What is the other guy up to interests only those who feel threatened. Envy is a result of insecurity. Insecurity to one’s position. But those who perceive the threat are not the only ones to be blamed. Threat often is created by suggestions and oblique references communicated by some vested interests. It is a paranoid reaction resulting from some false beliefs which the human ego nurses. The fear that someone’s position is threatened due to the presence of someone else. But this is a fallacy. When the position someone is holding is in itself transient having a limited life why this fear of losing it. That perhaps is the crux of the problem. To expect for a permanent position in a temporary world.

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com