What is the price of a life? What does it mean to replace somebody? What does it mean to put a price tag on ones, our your head?
Is money ultimately everything in life? Compensation in a lot of cases, is done in cash. Be it road traffic accidents, where the victim holds the offender guilty of committing a crime and responsible for covering his expenses and replacing the income he cannot earn after the accident due to the disability incurred as a result of the accident. In most cases of road traffic accidents, the employer of the victim compensates the victim. In aircraft crashes, the airline compensates for the accident victims. It might have been the pilot's fault, a crew member may not have performed a routine check properly, a machine part may have malfunctioned at the last minute, the plane could have been forced to fly to keep the schedule and necessary repairs ignored,or worst of all, unexpected bad weather putting all efforts of a safe flight in jeopardy.
In any case, the compensation for aircraft crashes come from the airlines, in the form of money. So we come to the original question, what is the price of a life? Or rather, should a price be put on life in the first place.
In the ancient and medieval times, when a murder occurred by accident or by purpose, the death of the guilty was mandatory to say that justice has been done. Over due course of time, this practice was renounced as barbaric and hence a different form of justice had to take its place. Life sentences were introduced. 15 years, 20 years, jail for life. Death sentences exist even today but are almost not applied these days. A number of masterminds of terrorist attacks either languish in jails or roam freely in havens of terror. But the death penalty for them is hardly applied. A good example is the Pakistani boy caught by the Indians during the 26/11 attacks. In spite of all the evidence, the law took its course, the murderer gets 5 star treatment and after the announcement of the verdict, the murderer appeals the verdict, making a mockery of the system. But what about all those people killed on that fateful day? What compensation was given to them? Did they ask for any? Did the government take troubles to address the problem and make the quality of life better for those people?
In case of loss of life, the best thing to do is to accept the bitter truth of injustice done and move one, because clearly, no compensation is enough to replace the life of a loved one. Compensating with money is no different from buying an animal at a department store or meat from market. It just reduces life to a commodity. Andrew Gilchrist, the Australian cricketer likened to his auctioning during his participation in The cash rich Indian Premier League to a cow being put at an auction. That is what money does to life. In many parts of the developing world, farmers unable to pay loans commit suicide. This becomes news and the media blames the government, giving the opposition some leverage against party in power. The government announces compensation in cash for its inability to prevent a farmer's death, announcing large sums of money to the surviving members of the family. The opposition makes a mockery saying this will lead to many to commit suicide as it is a short cut to getting rich.
No matter what intentions, what reasons, what the excuses, end result is that money cannot compensate for loss of life. It devalues life and reduces it to paper.
Price of life in Afghan war
This message is for the American and European soldiers killing civilians in battle, calling it collateral and believing the compensation in the form of cash should keep the rhetoric against the presence of their armies in foreign lands low.
Hope they get the message that value of life is not money. It is what right you have done in the time one had to utilise. Life is a race. But it is not a race against time. It is not a race of good versus evil. It is about doing the right things and avoiding and preventing the wrong things. And the winner is not the one who has done the maximum number of good deeds and prevented the maximum number of bad deeds.It is about doing the right things till the last second in life.
Is money ultimately everything in life? Compensation in a lot of cases, is done in cash. Be it road traffic accidents, where the victim holds the offender guilty of committing a crime and responsible for covering his expenses and replacing the income he cannot earn after the accident due to the disability incurred as a result of the accident. In most cases of road traffic accidents, the employer of the victim compensates the victim. In aircraft crashes, the airline compensates for the accident victims. It might have been the pilot's fault, a crew member may not have performed a routine check properly, a machine part may have malfunctioned at the last minute, the plane could have been forced to fly to keep the schedule and necessary repairs ignored,or worst of all, unexpected bad weather putting all efforts of a safe flight in jeopardy.
In any case, the compensation for aircraft crashes come from the airlines, in the form of money. So we come to the original question, what is the price of a life? Or rather, should a price be put on life in the first place.
In the ancient and medieval times, when a murder occurred by accident or by purpose, the death of the guilty was mandatory to say that justice has been done. Over due course of time, this practice was renounced as barbaric and hence a different form of justice had to take its place. Life sentences were introduced. 15 years, 20 years, jail for life. Death sentences exist even today but are almost not applied these days. A number of masterminds of terrorist attacks either languish in jails or roam freely in havens of terror. But the death penalty for them is hardly applied. A good example is the Pakistani boy caught by the Indians during the 26/11 attacks. In spite of all the evidence, the law took its course, the murderer gets 5 star treatment and after the announcement of the verdict, the murderer appeals the verdict, making a mockery of the system. But what about all those people killed on that fateful day? What compensation was given to them? Did they ask for any? Did the government take troubles to address the problem and make the quality of life better for those people?
In case of loss of life, the best thing to do is to accept the bitter truth of injustice done and move one, because clearly, no compensation is enough to replace the life of a loved one. Compensating with money is no different from buying an animal at a department store or meat from market. It just reduces life to a commodity. Andrew Gilchrist, the Australian cricketer likened to his auctioning during his participation in The cash rich Indian Premier League to a cow being put at an auction. That is what money does to life. In many parts of the developing world, farmers unable to pay loans commit suicide. This becomes news and the media blames the government, giving the opposition some leverage against party in power. The government announces compensation in cash for its inability to prevent a farmer's death, announcing large sums of money to the surviving members of the family. The opposition makes a mockery saying this will lead to many to commit suicide as it is a short cut to getting rich.
No matter what intentions, what reasons, what the excuses, end result is that money cannot compensate for loss of life. It devalues life and reduces it to paper.
Price of life in Afghan war
This message is for the American and European soldiers killing civilians in battle, calling it collateral and believing the compensation in the form of cash should keep the rhetoric against the presence of their armies in foreign lands low.
Hope they get the message that value of life is not money. It is what right you have done in the time one had to utilise. Life is a race. But it is not a race against time. It is not a race of good versus evil. It is about doing the right things and avoiding and preventing the wrong things. And the winner is not the one who has done the maximum number of good deeds and prevented the maximum number of bad deeds.It is about doing the right things till the last second in life.
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