Spring Onion
PDF VETERAN
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Messages
- 41,403
- Reaction score
- 19
- Country
- Location
A crisis of values By Kuldip Nayar
Friday, 31 Jul, 2009 | 08:40 AM PST
INDIA not being an exception, South Asian countries are lessening in fundamental values. In an unequal society, the urge to survive has come to prevail.
The result is that people have stopped differentiating between right and wrong. Politics or sheer greed may have accelerated the slide and is there for all to see and experience.
Indias case is worrisome because it has had uninterrupted democratic and secular rule for the last six decades, except for a brief period of emergency (1975-77). What deepens my anxiety is that public protest against social crimes, official excesses or human rights violations is becoming rare. It seems as if society has lost its sensitivity and the truth has come to be a relative term. Even the intellectuals seem to believe this as is evident by what Robert Frost said, Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in or out of favour.
A few happenings in the last few days indicate that democratic India, claiming its heritage from saints and Sufis from time immemorial, is weakening in moral fibre. An open society does not mean a valueless society. But we are reaching that stage.
Haryana is next to Delhi and Singhwala village is not too distant. When a girl and a boy marry from the some gotra (lineage) the khap biradari (caste) to which the couple belong sentences them to death and tells the family to leave the village.
Despite being given police protection the groom is thrashed to death when he goes to get his wife from her village as the 20 policemen run away. The biradari is not repentant and wants to mete out the same punishment to the girl.
What torments me is that there is no protest in Haryana or Delhi. Not a word of regret by the state chief minister. His American-educated son, a Lok Sabha member, sheepishly tells a TV network that the boys death is a result of certain customs of the area.
Parliament which wastes time on trifles is silent on the cold-blooded murder. Believe it or not, political parties, including the left, raise no objection because the state assembly elections are due in the next few months and, therefore, no party wants to offend the electorate which is influenced by one biradari or the other.
Whether the murder in Haryana was an honour or dishonour killing is for the nation to decide. But why is there a death-like silence? Why has the intelligentsia not said a word against the incident? The All India Democratic Womens Associations estimate is that 100 boys and girls are murdered or forced to commit suicide every year in Haryana due to love affairs. The elite in Delhi discuss such tragedies at dining tables and merely shrug them off.
Take another happening in Patna. A woman is stripped publicly in the heart of the city as scores of people look on and do nothing. Bihar is a gone case. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar remains silent for three days and then takes action by suspending some police officials.
Yet the people who stripped the woman go scot-free. It is only when a TV channel shows the incident live and displays pictures of four boys that the administration moves. Again the matter has evoked little protest either in Bihar or elsewhere in the country.
In Delhi, a student, an aide of Prof H.S. Sabharwal, is killed outside his college for pasting posters for a candlelight vigil to bring Sabharwals killing into focus. Sabharwal was murdered in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh three years ago for having protested against the Students Union election. Six activists of the youth wing of the BJP were tried but the court had to release them because the witnesses turned hostile.
The judge said that the accused might be guilty but he could not convict them because of lack of evidence. He accused the police of hiding something. Obviously, the intelligence under the state could not probe beyond a point.
The police are yet to act. The accused may have gone scot-free because of legal technicalities. Yet the fact remains that Sabharwal was murdered. Who did it is not known. Here not even the moral policemen of the BJP said a word to condemn the murder of first Sabharwal and then his aide. Once again, there is no public protest. Even students remain silent.
Indias topmost painter M.F. Hussains work cannot be exhibited at the countrys apex art exhibition. The organisers are afraid of the Sangh Parivar which says that nude pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses are not acceptable. These paintings are decades old. Why have they become objectionable only in the last few years? What is shocking is that even artists and intellectuals do not protest much less demand the exhibition of Hussains paintings.
On the other hand, the Lok Sabha resounds with the protests of former ministers that their security has been reduced. They get a contingent of 21 National Security Guards each. The public resents the expense because it can have that sum of money spent on better law and order. The government ultimately gives in and announces that there will be no cut in their security.
What it boils down to is that MPs have a different standard of morality. For that matter, members of the elite have come to accept symbols of authority as part of life. If the government machinery in our country is to be rendered safe for our children, MPs, MLAs and panchayat members, it must give a better account of itself by standing up for the basic values of an honest and efficient administration. That alone can resurrect the peoples lost faith in our politicians.
If a democratic heritage is to be left for future generations, we should want the truth again to be enshrined in its legitimate place in the social, economic and political scheme of things. There is nothing unattainable or profound in this. It is a simple human message.
The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.
Friday, 31 Jul, 2009 | 08:40 AM PST
INDIA not being an exception, South Asian countries are lessening in fundamental values. In an unequal society, the urge to survive has come to prevail.
The result is that people have stopped differentiating between right and wrong. Politics or sheer greed may have accelerated the slide and is there for all to see and experience.
Indias case is worrisome because it has had uninterrupted democratic and secular rule for the last six decades, except for a brief period of emergency (1975-77). What deepens my anxiety is that public protest against social crimes, official excesses or human rights violations is becoming rare. It seems as if society has lost its sensitivity and the truth has come to be a relative term. Even the intellectuals seem to believe this as is evident by what Robert Frost said, Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in or out of favour.
A few happenings in the last few days indicate that democratic India, claiming its heritage from saints and Sufis from time immemorial, is weakening in moral fibre. An open society does not mean a valueless society. But we are reaching that stage.
Haryana is next to Delhi and Singhwala village is not too distant. When a girl and a boy marry from the some gotra (lineage) the khap biradari (caste) to which the couple belong sentences them to death and tells the family to leave the village.
Despite being given police protection the groom is thrashed to death when he goes to get his wife from her village as the 20 policemen run away. The biradari is not repentant and wants to mete out the same punishment to the girl.
What torments me is that there is no protest in Haryana or Delhi. Not a word of regret by the state chief minister. His American-educated son, a Lok Sabha member, sheepishly tells a TV network that the boys death is a result of certain customs of the area.
Parliament which wastes time on trifles is silent on the cold-blooded murder. Believe it or not, political parties, including the left, raise no objection because the state assembly elections are due in the next few months and, therefore, no party wants to offend the electorate which is influenced by one biradari or the other.
Whether the murder in Haryana was an honour or dishonour killing is for the nation to decide. But why is there a death-like silence? Why has the intelligentsia not said a word against the incident? The All India Democratic Womens Associations estimate is that 100 boys and girls are murdered or forced to commit suicide every year in Haryana due to love affairs. The elite in Delhi discuss such tragedies at dining tables and merely shrug them off.
Take another happening in Patna. A woman is stripped publicly in the heart of the city as scores of people look on and do nothing. Bihar is a gone case. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar remains silent for three days and then takes action by suspending some police officials.
Yet the people who stripped the woman go scot-free. It is only when a TV channel shows the incident live and displays pictures of four boys that the administration moves. Again the matter has evoked little protest either in Bihar or elsewhere in the country.
In Delhi, a student, an aide of Prof H.S. Sabharwal, is killed outside his college for pasting posters for a candlelight vigil to bring Sabharwals killing into focus. Sabharwal was murdered in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh three years ago for having protested against the Students Union election. Six activists of the youth wing of the BJP were tried but the court had to release them because the witnesses turned hostile.
The judge said that the accused might be guilty but he could not convict them because of lack of evidence. He accused the police of hiding something. Obviously, the intelligence under the state could not probe beyond a point.
The police are yet to act. The accused may have gone scot-free because of legal technicalities. Yet the fact remains that Sabharwal was murdered. Who did it is not known. Here not even the moral policemen of the BJP said a word to condemn the murder of first Sabharwal and then his aide. Once again, there is no public protest. Even students remain silent.
Indias topmost painter M.F. Hussains work cannot be exhibited at the countrys apex art exhibition. The organisers are afraid of the Sangh Parivar which says that nude pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses are not acceptable. These paintings are decades old. Why have they become objectionable only in the last few years? What is shocking is that even artists and intellectuals do not protest much less demand the exhibition of Hussains paintings.
On the other hand, the Lok Sabha resounds with the protests of former ministers that their security has been reduced. They get a contingent of 21 National Security Guards each. The public resents the expense because it can have that sum of money spent on better law and order. The government ultimately gives in and announces that there will be no cut in their security.
What it boils down to is that MPs have a different standard of morality. For that matter, members of the elite have come to accept symbols of authority as part of life. If the government machinery in our country is to be rendered safe for our children, MPs, MLAs and panchayat members, it must give a better account of itself by standing up for the basic values of an honest and efficient administration. That alone can resurrect the peoples lost faith in our politicians.
If a democratic heritage is to be left for future generations, we should want the truth again to be enshrined in its legitimate place in the social, economic and political scheme of things. There is nothing unattainable or profound in this. It is a simple human message.
The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.
