He was not coward; neither was he timid. But if there was a machine to measure the mental pressure he had been facing, it would have shown how much distressed he was to take such a step. Saying him coward is like shrugging off our own responsibility or covering our very own contribution in his murder. Yes! It was a murder- a murder done by our own society. Rohit Vemulla’ suicide note stripped the bare reality of our mentality. For the sake of bragging, we often say that we are living in 21st century. But the recent incidence has clearly brought forth the huge moral crisis India is facing, the route cause for which is deliberately ignored.
That said, the student was not alone in his struggle. The reality is many among the socially disadvantaged groups are fighting with this situation daily. Their life is like a war in itself. They are struggling to get even the basic necessities- like education, food, water, religious freedom, and what not. Though our constitution has numerous provisions to ensure the same but the ground reality does not needs explicit mention. Due to our own mentality and the weak implementation of the said provisions, we are forced to continue the reservation system even after 7 decades of the freedom. And even that too isn’t obviously successful in transforming the attitude of the masses. The culture’s rigid caste system remains engrained in huge swaths of the country— for instance, scores of young people have been killed in one conservative northern state for marrying outside their caste—reflecting a deficit of social mobility
Besides, there are numerous other issues. Many recent surveys have pointed out the Low female Labour Participation rates for women. It is quite low for around 25% and itself questioning the reasons for so many missing women in the Indian workforce. Well, the reasons are hidden somewhere between us only. There are numerous social constraints, infrastructural deficit, and inadequate financial inclusion of this weaker section of out society. But, in my opinion, the greater share is taken over by the social constraints. Ask a women and she will tell you that she would be ready to ignore any other difficulty in her way if she manages to have the moral support of her family, her society. Not a day passes by when we do not come across the sexual assault or misconduct with any of them. We are so used to hear all this that we don’t even pay heed to the news unless it happens with some of our closed ones. What does this reflects? Our inherent attitude of not doing anything to change the status quo; to assert the patriarchal attitude; to have women at the lower rung in the societal strata; to compel them to voluntarily abandon their desire to fly high in the skies of their dreams.
Moral and Ethics have become epics in India. The wind of Westernization is flowing wildly and our youths are just directionless in its flow. No one values customs, traditions and morals which were once the identity of the country- in fact the one who does is rebuked by others as if he is living in Adam’ era.The sexualization of the the culture of Bollywood, media and fashion industry has followed economic liberalization. Sex related allegations hit a billionaire ‘Godman’ & his son, Ministers, a prominent editor and even SC judges. Recent cases of sexual misconduct have two special features- they involve high profile accomplished men and not the callow youth but fairly mature men. Complaints of corruption, rapes, sexual harassment & official snooping targeting women are keeping the investigative agencies and law courts very busy. These things seem to be more like we have become very use to.
It is not that these sort of complaints arrived here suddenly. The conspiracy of silence has actually ended and newly empowered women are coming in the forefront to speak about trauma they went through. They are no longer afraid to hide their identity. Identity should of course be hidden by those who have done wrong but ours is a society in which we compel the victim itself to hide herself into the darkness of ignorance. Why? Because the whole problem lies within our very own mentality. No one cares to delve deeper into the logic as to why should the victim be made to realize as if she herself has done some wrong, which actually she hasn’t. We have our politicians and public figures who act so casually over the matters of rape incidences as if nothing serious has happened. When the one, whom we ourselves have made our leaders, are behaving like this- we can easily imagine the status of the society.
There’s also the great divide between India and Bharat that keeps showing up. No matter how much India beats its liberal chest, Bharat continues to follows its own moral agenda. We live in two nations. One, in a hopeless minority, which is driven by the Nehruvian spirit of scientific inquiry and its own evolved vision of India, and the other, which lives in a time warp, immune to the moral and intellectual influence of India. India has failed to include Bharat in its moral universe, and Bharat equates India with sex, drugs, rock and roll. India’s civilisational crisis has reached a state of nuclear fission because our society has ceased to have a moral locus. Our leaders have reduced themselves to caricatures who carry little moral authority. Our civil society is thoroughly discredited. Our media carries the taint of paid news, with its moral guardian seems to be unable to do anything about. Our religious leaders have been reduced to being performers and contortionists on prime-time television. Even the TV programs to brought forth the bare reality of masses hardly scratched the surface of our collective soul – we don’t like to confront our moral inadequacies.
There are growing incidences of intolerance everywhere. Given the fact that India has always been the land of diversity, one will expect to find no intolerance issue as tolerance is what has made us stand today with our heads high since time immemorial. But today, some secessionist groups, in the name of religion are digging out the old issue of whose religion is superior actually. Those Dharma-pravaktas are not even aware of the actual significance of religion which is to provide people spiritual peace and self realization- & not to push them into the endless race of who is superior.
Besides, environment and the threat looming over us due to its distortion by our own activities, has yet not acquired the concern among masses as it should actually. Despite the continuous efforts on global as well as national level, people are hardly aware of their personal responsibilities. They are just too ignorant to the issue and no one is ready to tweak anything in its comfort for the sake of environment. Indiscriminate cutting of trees for urbanization, industries, infrastructure development has worsened the situation even more. Even though the SC recently discontinued the The National Capital’ Odd-even road rationing policy and the surveys later carried out pointed towards increased pollution levels as ell as traffic problems- but no one cared to raise their voices to keep continuing the scheme. This reflects the inherent ignorance in attitude of masses.
On the economic front, though, India is performing quite satisfactorily. The improvement in India’s economic fundamentals has accelerated in the past 2 years with the combined impact of strong government reforms; RBI’s inflation focus supported by benign global commodity prices.The economy has witnessed a significant economic growth in the recent past, with the size of the economy continuously growing with steady speed.
The steps taken by the government in recent times have shown positive results. Numerous foreign companies are setting up their facilities in India on account of various government initiatives like Make in India and Digital India. The Government of India has launched an initiative to create smart cities as well as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation for cities. Apart from that, the IMF and other prominent rating agencies have forecasted for positive growth due to improved investor confidence, lower food prices and better policy reforms. As per the latest report by World Bank, India is leading the World Bank’s growth chart for major economies.
Though there are problems as well like India’s demographic situation is problematic, with a growth rate of 1.25 percent per year & at the same time joblessness is an enormous issue but keeping in mind the positive steps taken we can hope positively that they will be out of sight in recent future. The actual threat which is looming over is Moral crisis. It is what we need to take care of diligently.
Morality within an individual takes birth in he family itself. So, basically it is the responsibility of each individual, each family to have a positive contribution in the larger process of nation building with their small but significant steps. We will have a growing economy only when the internal societal structures and threads are strong. The govt. needs to take care of the loopholes on economic front too so as to keep a tab on increasing inequality problem of the society as well. A sound economy would emerge out of a sound moral structure only- one without the other is simply unstable in longrun.
RELASHIO 