Trust to exploit?

     A few years back, one of my hostel mates said to me ‘my parents trust me’; it was her reaction for my surprise look. She was talking to her boyfriend, when her parents called her. She called back later and said them that she was talking to her teacher. When I heard this, I looked back at her in surprise as I was witnessing everything. When the second call ended she said to me the sentence I stated above ‘my parents trust me’. Actually I had no problem with anything; her talk with boyfriend, her lie about that to her parents later or anything. But I was a little bit surprised to hear that she was ‘talking to a teacher’. I did expect a ‘friend’ or ‘classmate’ at the place of ‘teacher’. So I looked at her in surprise, but she thought I was questioning her lie and she gave me the reply ‘my parents trust me’. But that pushed me into deep confusion ‘what the hell now this means?’ Do her parents trust she doesn’t have a boyfriend? Do her parents trust she doesn’t talk to her boyfriend? Or do her parents trust she doesn’t lie to them? Whatever they meant, they were wrong; she had done all the three things. It is always a person’s choice how to live. But my doubt still stays there where it formed 6 years back. Was she right in saying ‘my parents trust me, so I can do anything?’ Should we try to keep trust unbroken or we can just break it at any times and just fake it still there? Or is it ethical to exploit somebody’s trust to our profit? 

      The thing ‘trust’ is very important in current scenario, it was always, but now it’s more important as how often people exploiting it, more than ever! The above incident was just a daily affair. But it is not right to exploit trust. In the whole incident, the calls or lie was not something big when comparing the fact that my friend thought she could easily deceive her parents because they trust her. In any relation; personal or public trust develops between two people very rarely, it takes time. So when that happens, it is our duty to keep it rather than exploit it or break it mercilessly. For that it is important whom we trust or who deserves our trust. We don’t have to fall in the trap of people who just want to utilize our trust.

      When I trust a person, of course I expect that is as a two way process. When I befriend somebody I usually let her know my personality, like ‘okay this is me, you don’t have to have any assumptions’. When relationship deepens the trust factor anchors more. It is not like when she hears something bad about me, I expect her to disbelieve it. If that person knows me well and she knows what she hears is a lie then I would love to hear that the person opposes it. But even if that doesn’t happen I expect my friend comes to me straight and ask about that or clear it. That is what trust means to me. I don’t expect my friend hears something and then act accord with that to me later. It hurts. The right to ask ‘what is truth’ is trust brings us. If I fail in inducting that much faith in a person even after year’s long friendship then I should check my choice of friends. So trust doesn’t make you believe somebody blindly, it gives some right to you as well as your friend (or whoever in that position) to talk about things and clear the air.

     So some people exploit trust of others and some reluctant to trust. The third group of people is curse of our society. These people trust blindly others. They are people who sit with zero power to reason. And these people are us; at times we all fall into this category. But unlike some of us there are people who are permanent members of these groups. Want to know who? The followers of political leaders, the followers of political parties, the followers of religious leaders, the followers of fringe groups, the followers of terrorism in the name of religion and god etc. Well, in these groups two are predominant in my place at present time, the political leader followers and religious leader followers. Following somebody is not a fault. In fact our country provides us that basic right; follow or trust anybody you want. But does that mean you support anything that done by people whom you follow?

       Here in my country there is no shortage for corrupted politicians. In a number of times some of them caught red handed. But even with all these evidences in front of people they are ready to fight for them. These politicians’ turns after turns eat our money and then when they caught, escape with the support of people. The first sentence the politicians say when they accuse of something like a crime or corruption is ‘people know me well, they will give answer to this’, that is they just make a suggestion to people to get into the streets and show their support. And before hearing this completely people are ready to die for their leader. I just don’t get it, some leader stole our money and enjoyed with it and when he comes under scanner, why they invoke people’s sentiments and ask them to prove or answer his actions? But what to say, there are his followers ready to fight his opposition as well as the law and order to prove their leader innocent. This is called trusting blindly. It doesn’t matter for the followers whatever the truth is, they are ready to homicide for the leader. They fight with others, undergo fasts, protest in many ways or even commit suicide to release their leader. These people are the ones who are not ready to look at the facts spread in front of them. Whatever happens, these tainted leaders and parties will be elected by people the next time too.

      The famous God men of this country do the same. People trust them badly. They make people believe that they are gods. And then when they are accused of murders, rapes, economic offences and other antisocial activities, the followers lead processions and strikes on their support. They veil human shield before them so that the people get hurt before police could touch them. And whoever follows the logic and questions the antisocial activities will face the wrath of followers. They will make the lives of people who question the atrocities horrible. And again the accusations fade away slowly, the ‘gurus’ continue with their blessings and foreign trips.

    The above mentioned cases are common here. I don’t and I can’t question somebody following a person or a party or anything else; But to what extent? To my knowledge every human being got with something called as common sense. But even after seeing all the evidences of these leaders’ fraudulence and malpractices, people are ready to trust them. So what is trust in this case means? Why don’t the followers think, ‘yes, I’m a follower of this person and he/she should prove me first his actions or innocence; since I follow this leader he/she is accountable to me’. Why these followers think ‘I’m a follower and it is my duty to support even if the person is terribly wrong’. And I know the answer; they, the followers are raised as dolls in the hands of leaders, they are raised to fight whoever opposes their leader, they are raised with the idea that people who question their leader are enemies. And more importantly these political or religious ‘dons’ play well with the religion or caste card. So the sincere attack against abnormalities done by leaders by normal people suddenly change to the attack against specific caste or religion in the eyes of followers and well, the followers now add caste tag to their protests and start street fights.

     The ‘ammas and babas’ of this kind rules our country. If political leaders face criminal offences the religious leaders help them to come out of it, and vice versa. But people follow them blindly till their end. If somehow they realize their mistake they change their leaders but not try to use their logic to live. For the leaders the trust of their followers is just to exploit at the times it needed. And the followers don’t value their own trust something worthy; ‘You do whatever you like, we will follow you; you are the leaders, lead us’. For a moment if we think of responsible and reasonable followers of somebody who question his actions, I don’t think, that leader may have the courage he has now to cheat; at least considering the fact that his main weapon against the law is his followers. This accountability on the name of trust is the only thing we needed to keep many menaces like corruption at bay. But we don’t consider ourselves worthy of trust; we just trust others and trust blindly. We don’t think giving trust is a two way process. And we don’t trust in the power of our trust.