Current Moral and Social Landscape In India
We are living in the age of moral dystopia, a norm-less era where it is difficult for men and women to be human and convenient for the state to be less than neutral, just, and fair.
Leaders not only fail to keep their pledges, but they are not even expected to keep them.
The government wears its majoritarian colours with pride, unabashed and unedifying.
Monuments, offices, and houses all seem to be judged by the faith or political predilections of their builders and occupants.
If you question the actions of the government or the actions of non-state actors taking out hate marches, you become the most vulnerable.
Conformism is the norm today.
Humanism, justice, and freedom have all been consigned to the deep freeze, to be retrieved at some indefinable point in future.
Now, the value system has changed, and shared living is no longer a cherished ideal for millions.
Buildings belonging to a particular community are being brought down under the guise of law-and-order problem and an exercise of ethnic cleansing is being conducted by the State.
Today, we wish to hold to account a king or an invader for the ignominy he probably visited some 400 or 1,000 years ago.
But we find our lips glued together when it comes to seeking justice for victims in Manipur or Haryana.
These are indeed times of moral foibles.
Every nation has its moments of neuroses. In our case, it is collective short-term amnesia. We watch and we forget. We read and we move on.
Be it a man being lynched, a shop being demolished, or a woman being brutalised, our memory seems to be like a sieve.
Today, the executioners of injustice don’t need a mob with its tridents, hammers and pickaxes. Today, bulldozers get down to work.
People often make videos, but few attempt to save the life of innocent people.
Anomie is a lived experience in ‘New India’.
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