[IBNLive] What can we do?

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Saturday , June 14, 2008

Whenever I hear of corruption at different hierarchical settings of the civilized world a strange uneasiness grips me.

Is it just the fault of a single person who is doing it or is it a social process set in motion by certain conditions. Is it inevitable or are we too busy to consider otherwise?

While pursuing the thought on this social dilemma I came across an interesting piece of article in CNN-IBN which described how in certain parts of Karnataka.

Which had plummeted below poverty line and were helpless are being revived with the powerful administration of the state government and through implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which was perhaps the worst economic fiasco of UPA government in most parts of India.

So is the corruption really inevitable? I already see an exception to the argument.

It also nullifies any blind assumption of "political turmoils giving bureaucracy the power to do anything" as Karnataka has seen the worst of political scenarios among the Southern states in the recent times.

Although many may disagree with the subsequent argument but I feel it is more of our present social process of growth that molds the individual and its behavior to great lengths.

Take for example the start of all intimidation processes, the bullying at school or in the neighborhood.

How many children really put up a brave front in light of such events. They generally keep quiet, submit to the enforcer's wishes and try to pass by.

In some rare incident when they manage to tell the parents, the best you can do is talk to the parents of the bully and get him a light scolding or a "you are grounded for so and so days" kind of rhetoric.

Most parents don't even want to indulge in these child squabbles and spoil their time and reputation. The bully whenever he manages to get off from the last punishment decides to extract vengeance and acts on his minatory calls made earlier resulting in further demoralization of the victim and strengthening of the bully's might for he has now achieved the noble power of "consequences".

This is the most rudimentary form of naked dominance and strictly divides the society into two parts, the submissive ones and the enforcers.

The damn parents never try to solve the problem by encouraging the victim to stand up against its oppressor with double the courage with which he fell last time and neither make the bully realize that society responds to friendship and virtues in a far greater measure than petty acts of domination.

Courage need not be violence and non - violence need not be cowardice if used in the right way.

To stand against sure defeat and then rise from its own ashes as a phoenix and stand back even taller is courage.

Maharana Pratap was not courageous just because he was a good warrior rather he was courageous because he never bowed down before Akbar even though he had to lose his beloved daughter due to the harsh times.

The story just doesn't end here, it is rather the epilogue for what goes on in schools and then in colleges.

Who hasn't heard of the nefarious term "ragging" in his college life. Almost everyone out there has in some or other form always experienced it.

Even though I find multiple government and Supreme Court directives banning and condemning it but there seems no end to this heinous act.

Leave everything aside and take the case of top educational institutions like IITs.

Did people who belong to the top 1 per cent of academic minds of the nation give up ragging? Well according to official statements we despise ragging but on the inside authority turns a blind eye or is lazy enough to crackdown on it seriously.

It is all a big joke to them a casual affair and nobody seems to do anything to stop it. Although I admire the fact that in IIT Kanpur there is a very gentle standard of interaction with juniors compared to other colleges where physical violence and intimidation is the order of the day but it is still far from over and what does it really result in?

A broken individual who has been taught to submit to the wishes of the oppressor and if he can't do so he is either ostracized or brutally ridiculed and given public humiliation as a demotivation for further followers.

The word "consequences" again leaves a deep impact here. Can we as seniors never understand the concept of love and friendship rather than abuse an opportunity where we have the chance to shape the best of lives.

Does inflicting pain and being a sadist seem so irresistible that we forget the joy which we get in forgiveness and virtue. We say that we will treat the juniors in the same way as we had been treated because we also went through that same phase.

What are we and what are we creating? Puppets who will submit whenever somebody gets him in a tight spot.

Trust me people we are the fore bearers of our own destruction.

We are creating a blind army of submissive slaves as we were made by our seniors. And what do slaves do, they follow their masters.

Today you are the one but tomorrow when somebody else controls them it can be very well be used against you. These same bondages of consequences make people forget their humanity and turn a blind eye on crime when they are police officers.

These same people with no original thoughts later become politicians who just know how to work for their benefit. The only ideal they have learnt is being intimidated and in turn intimidating others for sheer personal benefit.

Use abuse and throw seems to be the flavor of our times and then these same puppets jabber around in dingy overcrowded Local train compartments or in the luxury of their air conditioned offices that " It's all society which is guilty you know.

We are ordinary people what can we do?" Well for starters go and get back your humanity which you lost a long time ago.