EQUALITY
Equality is defined as sameness.
Some of its synonyms are: likeness, parity, similarity, equitability, evenness,
comparability, justness, impartiality and egalitarianism.
According to the Greek philosopher
Plato (427-348 BC) all men are by nature equal. They are made of the same earth
and by the same Creator. The poor peasant is as dear to God as the mighty
prince.
In The Merchant of Venice, a play
written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , Shylock says: I am a Jew. Hath not
a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
passions! fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the
same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is?
If
you prick us, do we not bleed?
If
you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If
you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?
In
his poem “Death The Leveller”, the English poet and playwright James Shirley
(1596-1666) says:
“The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre
and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and
spade.
In
a secular democracy all citizens are equal before law. Here, equality is
undeniable to any class of people, rich or poor, high or low according to their
castes.
Finally
this balanced opinion of the French
writer and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778):
They
who say all men are equal speak an undoubted truth, if they mean that all have
an equal right to liberty, to their property, and to their protection of the
laws. But they are mistaken if they think men are equal in their station and employments,
since they are not so by their talents.
*****
G. R. Kanwal
29th October 2025.
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