By Rahul Kumar:
Every once in a while we come around instances that make us think, think about what’s right and what’s wrong, think about whether I should do something that is impeded upon and whether or not the society we live in decides upon the guidelines for our acts. Hindrances are always created against Individuality and ideas that may be indifferent from, or against the so called “society”. All my life I’ve always been told that society’s the ultimate deciding factor what you may call the “morals”. Well the Guwahati incident was one such incident that made me think, should the power to decide the morality or immorality on a subject be given to our so called “society”, and till when this “society”.
Well to start of I’d like to mention the fundamental rights given to us by our constitution. Right to equality, Right to freedom, Right against exploitation, Right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, Right to Life and Right to constitutional remedies. Constitution was created as an ultimate keeper of what is to be considered as right or wrong, the idea was to create a system of liberty and freedom. But has it been successful in what it had been created for? The instances like Guwahati girl molestation case, Mangalore Morning Mist Homestay Assault case, the assaults on youths in pubs, violence against people celebrating Valentine’s Day on 14 of February are a hard strike against the constitutional bodies created for the purpose of safety of the rights given to the citizens. Somewhere and somehow the system has been failing to give the people what’s rightfully ours. The police and the so called system which we have appointed as our saviours have been not more than unsuccessful in creating an environment of peace and safety.
Now coming to our so called society; today the society or the people we’ve been living with makes me wonder about the word we often brag about “humanity”. What really constitutes humanity is the basic question today. Is the stripping of a girl for the sake of your morals a sign of humanity? Is beating helpless girls in a pub or whatever place they are in, human behaviour? Well any act by human constitutes humanity and such instances really do not project a very good definition for this word we’ve been bragging our whole existence and distinguishing ourselves as a superior race. To be very honest I feel no pride in this humanity when I see the brutality of the acts exercised by the so called humans.
The genocides, killings, wars, rapes all these are the acts and inventions of this superior race, this genetically and mentally most advanced race on planet. And the worst scenario of this is witnessed in our country. Equality was supposed to be the foundation of our country as dreamed by the greatest minds who laid the foundation of this country. The just and equal society was the dream once seen by Mahatma Gandhi who we proudly call father of the nation. But have we been following his footsteps? Are we really creating the country what once was dreamt by one of the greatest minds in history? We’re so caught up in our regressive thinking that we’ve been completely overlooking the rightness of our acts. The thing that most astonishes me is the irony with which we act. We proudly mention our culture every now and then in conversations and discussions and praise ourselves for how these cultures teach us love and respect. However, when it comes to the act, all the preaching of love and respect goes futile. The biggest irony is that we have to hide to make love, while the violence is exercised in broad daylight. And with the instances of rapes and molestations that have become an implacable part of headlines in newspapers these days gives the real picture of respect we’ve been giving to the girls which according to our “culture” are the reflection of goddesses we pray to. The killings and murders we do every now and then in the name of god, I am pretty sure god doesn’t really want any of it.
Today the society has been divided into two ideologies. One is youth and other is the one that has been prevailing since ages long forgotten, which the so called wiser, our elder one’s don’t want to get rid of. The end result is that the youth is victimised by their moral policing. The problem lies in this regressive thinking of theirs. The need of the hour is for this new generation to take control over the system and society, to give rise to the new ideologies and implement them. It’s high time we take a stand for what actually is right and put down the old rights decided by the society consisting of old ideologies and regressive thinkers.