The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.

Every individual in today’s world is unique when it comes to habits, background, country, religion, talent, ability etc. Each one of us has its own share of strengths and weakness. However some people outperform others in their field either by their actions or by set of principles they follow. Such people are labeled as successful or great by the society they live in. Some people argue that degree of greatness of a person cannot be judged by their peers or contemporaries. According to them, greatness of individuals can be best decided only by those who live after them. However, it is the actual contemporaries or fellow peers that can be the best judge of a person’s greatness.

For example, consider the Indian cricket batting legend, Sachin Tendulkar. He started at the age of 16 in the international arena and immediately created an outstanding impact in the world of cricket. Within few years of playing cricket, he was awarded the Wisden Crickter of the year award. The jury for this award of comprises of both the past and current players. .Hence one can vouch for the fact the greatness of the legend Sachin was judged by his contemporaries. Also cricketers, who started playing cricket after Sachin era, also hail his greatness by the sheer number of records against his name. But to say that greatness can be decided only by those who live after an individual will be a false judgment.

Fellow people who work with great people are the best judge of those people’s greatness. They are well aware of the current situation, challenges under which that person excelled and, level of perseverance required. People who live after the era of that great personality can only judge the greatness by the sheer weight of statistics. They cannot perceive the difficulty environment which existed in the past, rather their comparison or judgment would be based only on the numbers . Hence such people cannot be the best judge in deciding the greatness of individuals achievement.

Consider another example, Indian social activist and now leader of Aam Admi Party, Arvind Kejriwal. He has done a lot of work in fight against corruption. Considering the present day situation in the democracy, problems by faced by social activist ; a lot of eminent personalities in field of politics and journalism have identified and recognized Kejriwal’s good work and his achievements. Probably generations to follow may not venerate kejriwal greatness because they were not there at the difficult times when he did all the arduous work.

To conclude, while deciding the greatness of a person, one has to be subjective in one’s judgment. One has to consider all the possible factors while analyzing the achievements, not just numbers or output. Generations to follow might declare or recognizing the greatness of a individual posthumously, but that would only be based on the past records or data available in books. Hence, contemporaries are the best jury while giving an individual tag of a great person.