The next day we were taken to Kalpeni some 8-9 hours away from Kavarathi. The Kalpeni lagoon is more beautiful than the Kavarathi one and there are facilities there for snorkeling, kayaking and other activities. It was my last year's visit to Kalpeni last year that drew me again to the islands with a voracious appetite for more of the blue lagoons. The Lakshadeep seas are spectacularly beautiful and a visit there is something to cherish. Now to the people and their way of life and the topic on hand - ethics and religion. Because of the isolation, the people of the islands have to depend very much on each other. Thus when an islander say A goes to the mainland on some errand he is entrusted with many tasks and errands by his neighbors, friends and even acquaintances such as to buy medicines, bring money and letters from relatives on land and so on. He obliges them or rather has to oblige them for the simple reason that if he obliges them now he can depend on them to carry out some of his errands when they visit the mainland in their turn. In a way, his apparent selflessness in carrying out errands entrusted to him by others has a very selfish motive in that his selflessness and generosity will be repaid and will serve him and his needs in the future. There is little violence or dishonesty on the islands as violent and dishonest men and women are given a wide berth by the others and consequently such men of violence and criminal tendencies would find life very difficult indeed to get along on the isalnds. Such ostracism is unthinkable and so they stick rigidly to their codes of honesty, fraternity and other virtues, which are absolutely necessary for an isolated society to function as a unit of interdependent units or persons. The people of Lakshadeep are wholly Muslim though of various sects of Islam – there are Sunnis, Shias, Ahmediayas, Shaffis and Qadiyanis among them and in recent years even communists have set their roots there. However, ethnic violence is rare due to their isolation and interdependency as we have noted. I have heard even many educated men and women proclaim from the housetops that if it were not for religions there would be no ethics and morals and we would be for ever at each other's throats like animals. If religion were to be the driving force behind ethics, we would have to conclude that it is Islam that forces the people of Lakshadeep to be so ethical in their behavior with others. This conclusion would be ridiculous and tentative. If the people of Lakshadeep were Christians, Hindus, Buddhists or even atheists they would have had no choice but to follow honest and ethical codes. It is not religions and superstitions that force them to the idyllic codes of conduct towards each other, but simple logical necessity and economical expediency of quid-pro-quos. Such codes of ethics and morals are absolutely necessary for the individuals of a society to cooperate with each other and thereby to be more efficient economically. Stationary agrarian societies were probably more ethical towards other ethnic groups as they had more opportunities to interact with other ethnic groups. Pastoral societies in contrast were mostly nomadic and were looked upon with suspicion by others like the Gypsies are even to this day. Consequently, members of pastoral societies had to depend on each other to a much higher degree than stationary societies like those of the islands described above. The higher degree of mutual cooperation between members of nomadic societies was offset by a high degree of suspicion, paranoia and animosity towards other societies. The Israelites were such a society of nomads for whom cooperation between its own members were a matter of life and death and animosity towards other groups were a matter of natural social evolution. It was in order to forge an ethical infrastructure for mutual cooperation within the Israeli society that Moses drew up the ten commandments for his people to follow as the commandments would ensure less of internal strife and more of mutual cooperation. In contrast when it came to others like the Midianites and the Ammonites whom the Israelites encountered on their wanderings, it was the law of the jungle that reigned supreme and rapes, arson, genocides and total annihilation were the order of the day. It was this sectarian code of ethics that Judaism, Christianity and Islam inherited from the Israelites. -- Myth Buster Cataract is the third biggest cause of blindness. By far religion and politics remain the first and second. "All new ideas good or bad, great or small start with a one-man minority" - anonymous 
Posted by: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>
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