Status Quo

This week two shops in my vicinity were robbed by breaking-in after midnight. Big deal, one might say. The entire nation is busy in deliberating the heinous crimes with children like rape and brutal murder, what a shop-lifting (by breaking it in the night) counts for? Nothing! A usual petty illegal act like pick-pocketing or casually carrying a weapon or driving a vehicle without license, not a serious organized crime, you know! And though I am presumably proud of my locality, it still falls under the jurisdiction of my City of Knowledge, its sophisticated State and progressive Country it belongs to, I must not forget. So what makes me so irked to write about such a mundane, insignificant and commonplace incidence? 

May be my education, may be my disposition, may be my conscious or may be my status – as a characteristic citizen of an independent nation – that compels me to contemplate on the happenings around me and think about a solution to something that is not even recognized as the problem in first place. We are being conditioned not to look at any fundamental issue as a problem as long as there is no dearth of fickle problems presented as issues that need immediate attention and rabid solution!

Grass-root level problems are beyond the numbers in the files they are dumped in and hypothetical statistics couldn’t be a real solution. Facts and figures sound good to hear and even succeed in making an impression of a calculated strategy and learned decision. However there is a simple indicator to perceive the situation and act accordingly. In management lingo it’s KPI – Key Performance Indicator, accompanied by KRA – Key Result Area, both used to monitor and measure the progress towards objectives and modify the course of action in case developments are found otherwise. In layman’s language, it is as simple as a system of understanding and reciprocating a particular situation.

For example, when a baby cries, the mother understands that something is wrong with the baby and as the baby does not have many demands, the first probability of it being hungry, mother feeds the baby to check whether it resolves the issue. Majority of the time it does and at some rare times when it does not, the mother checks for anything else that might have gone wrong with the baby. With the conventional wisdom and motherly love, she doesn’t think it necessary to take the baby to the multi-specialty hospital and put it under all those tests with modern equipment. Even a baby that does not know anything has a method of communication with its mother and mother uses it as an indicator.

These signs, signals and symptoms are omnipresent all around in the society and any sensitive, receptive and conscientious mind full of empathy could easily read them and (re)act accordingly. GDP, Nifty and Sensex are numbers that provide statistics to represent a hypothesis and not the ground reality. While IHDI is an index that talks about ‘Human Development’, even with an egoistic prefix of ‘I’ making it ‘Inequality-adjusted’, still being just a number in rank, is no match for GNH.

Crime rate itself is the biggest indicator of society’s health. Suicide is a punishable crime as per the constitution, so is murder and everything in between, including atrocity and bribery. Unfortunately every Indian Penal Code is being executed in some place or other relentlessly all around and what is more awful than the rampant crime itself is the fact that we are getting used to it; we turn the pages of the newspaper and switch between the NEWS channels with equal composure that defies our disquiet persona otherwise. We are made to believe that we are on the right path, there’s nothing wrong with our society and moreover, if there is, you cannot do anything about it. This is dreadful!

A stand that ‘it has been like this for years and it’s not a recent development’ is as stupid and dumb an argument as destructive and manipulative it is. For, firstly if it has been like this for years the same could not be a justification for it as people are always hopeful for improvement in the state of affairs and if similar things are continued in multiplicity and severity, all the calls of ‘transformation’ were futile, it will prove.

Secondly, such arguments show the preparedness to accept such incidences as routine and try to ‘regularize’ them with settlement just like any other wrongdoing that can be ‘negotiated’ by compromising the code of conduct. Finally, it is fatal as it, in effect, encourages the mentality behind the crime by jeopardizing the situation and making an ‘issue’ of it for personal and institutional gains. This is not just unacceptable but absolutely appalling and disgraceful.

The last man jumping the traffic signal at a crossroad and the stooges committing hideous crimes like abduction, rape and murder are different only in severity of crime and not in the mentality behind it to challenge the code-of-conduct. The underlying arrogance of nothing can do any harm to them for their wrongdoing makes me worried, concerned, apprehensive and fearful. When even a layman dares to break the law without fear of consequences, the society surely is sick, very very sick and needs to get well... sooner the better! Till then the air of fear and suspicion will keep me afraid...

I am afraid for the farmer that is thinking of committing suicide tomorrow.

I am afraid for the newborns who wouldn’t find a school that would embrace them tomorrow.

I am afraid for the school children who would be drop-outs for one reason or other tomorrow.

I am afraid for every girl child that either will not be allowed to take birth or live with dignity, if borne.

I am afraid for the women who would share the fate of their ancestors even in the 21st century.

I am afraid for the inequality and disparity that will give rise to many law and order situations tomorrow.

I am afraid for the educated youth who wouldn’t find a job to go astray tomorrow.

I am afraid for the citizens of democratic country who would forget their role in the system tomorrow.

I am afraid for myself following the suit and restrain from expressing my point of view tomorrow.

I am afraid for having the point-of-view I am sold to tomorrow.

Are you...?

Silver Lining - Rapist Asaram is sentenced for life imprisonment by Jodhpur Court yesterday; Way to go...