Degradation of Life

There was a time when we had some values that would allow us to claim we were better off, as a society, than others, in not only South Asia, but many other societies across the world. I am talking of the time when Late Prime Minister Shastri was a Railway Minister. After an accident which led to deaths on railway tracks, Shri Shastri, the then Railway Minister, had owned moral responsibility and quit his office.


Few days ago, I read a report on a Minister in the Uttar Pradesh Government. This minister fled from the scene of accident. He was travelling in his official car and his driver lost control of the vehicle and killed a school boy. I am talking of Gopal Nandi, and the school boy named Saurabh. Is it not bad enough that the officials travel with horns blaring and with large entourage? The public pays for all this. And if there has been an accident, would it not behove a human being to show some sense of responsibility towards a fellow human being, his victim. What kind of example are the ministers setting now?


Is it too much for the common man in India to expect even common human decency? Where have we gone wrong as a society? And where do we go from here?


We as individuals have been overcome by apathy. We are no longer appalled by such incidents. We have become insensitive to the suffering of our fellow citizens. So long as our kith and kin are safe, we don’t want to get involved in any fracas. No sense of shame revolts us over the state of affairs.


To bemoan other values in this blog would be belabouring the point. And it is not my desire to do so. Yet, I do think that we are quickly spiralling down a slippery path which leads to hell.


I know this will raise many heckles, this bleakness that emanates from the pathos of the present situation. But I don’t want to mince words either. If we don’t act now, we will forever rue the situation which will overwhelm us all. For sure, we will become a replica of failed state as is evident from our neighbourhood.


For a minister from a party which came to power based on the slogan of empowering the poor, to exhibit such lack of respect for human life of the very poor smacks of utter disregard for those very people. To be very honest, I had been very glad when Mayawati had won absolute majority in UP though I was among the minority in my circle of friends. I felt, that Indian masses had ushered in the long awaited revolution, not through barrel of the gun but through the power of the vote.


To me her winning of election was equivalent to the Nobel Prize being awarded to Rigoberta Menchu. Both represented the very marginalized segments of society who had seen centuries of discrimination. Alas! The similarity ended soon enough and once again, the people elected to rule have begun to display the arrogance of Mughal aristocracy.


Last year, after 26/11, when Deshmukh had resorted to Terror Tourism, by taking along people like Ram Gopal Varma on a tour of Taj, there was widespread revulsion and he was forced to quit. I hope we can exercise our collective conscience and demand that Gopal Nandi must quit his cabinet post for fleeing the scene of accident. We must force some degree of introspection on political class which has become totally cynical because they have become used to treating the people with utter contempt.


May be I am expecting too much from people but is it not time that we raise our voice, as a collective so that no life is degraded, be it in Mumbai Taj or be it in the back waters of UP.


Can we for once, value life for what it is? Can we for once stop being so remorseless about people being felled by recklessness? Can we, for once, demand that we all receive a humane response, no matter what the station in life is of either the victim or the perpetrator of the crime?