Punctuality Paradox

                    Punctuality is the psychological consequence of technological and social change occurred in our lives. We have been changing the definition and dimension of punctuality from time to time.  Punctuality becomes selective and situational.

                     In our earlier civilization, agricultural work was the dominating work culture.  It was dominant but not based on so much inter dependency as modern work. So if a worker was late for his or her work, it did not put any significant pressure on the entire work. When society moved forward, the bureaucratic structure was the ideal type for all most all work cultures and punctuality became a rule. Still it has been a rule.  Hierarchical structure, report on time, dependency and productivity have made punctuality as a cultural value, individual attitude and moral pressure. It is more than just a rule to adhere.  Officials, workers, students and middle class have re-calibrated their ethics with punctuality as a doctrine for disciplined lifestyle.

                New technological changes create a new class i.e Cyber Class. Some sociologists call this class as Cyber Coolies. This class redefines the concept punctuality.  Nine-to-five job is a myth for this class. This class has all the permission to use computers for their official uses at any time, round the clock and overall at their own will also. Some extent performance and hierarchical pressure are responsible for this.  Job done, client satisfaction, on a client calls are the prevailing factors which craft a causal attitude by techies towards time, particularly for punctuality. If a techie goes to office by 9 AM and returns to home by 10 PM, don’t be surprised or next day if he or she goes to office by 12 PM and comes to home 8 PM, don’t be surprised again. It is the new definition of punctuality now.

                 Yes, punctuality is really essential for a civilized society. It should be a habit, courtesy and value. According to Mahatma Gandhi, we need to cultivate the habit of punctuality and acting according to program; the index of national efficiency will go up. But espionage on punctuality is a new official trend now. It has put up punctuality into the cycle of fear. Surprisingly, the young masses make the punctuality situational and conditional as like they treat conventional morality. That means we use punctuality and morality whenever and wherever we need on the basis of particular situation and context.

Rape: A powerless situation

    This piece of writing contains three stories on rape and its interpretation.

                  First story is from Tolstoy‘s “Kreutzer Sonnata”. The main character of this novel is a Russian writer who lives with his wife. Every night husband has a violent and humiliating sex with his wife without considering her decision. Husband feels pity and miserable each time he rapes her. Sex without consent is rape. Husband thinks that his wife is just an object of bestial desires. After some days, he gets disturbed with his own cycle of sex, hate and violence. One day he decides to kill his wife. He wants to end the misery that both husband and wife go through. Finally he kills his wife. Husband justifies that his dead wife becomes a human being rather than an object of desire in his eyes now. He begins to have a compassionate feeling for her. That empathetic feeling for his wife was absent previously. He justifies that women will never be treated as full human beings as long as sexual desire exists. Yes it is true. As long as the patriarch society controls female sexuality and considers women as a property, the status of women will be like an object.  Unnao rape case, Kathua incidents are the examples where women are dehumanized and treated as a disgusting thing.

                  The second story is from Prativa Roy’s Gandhiji Kahithile. In this story, Ganapati who was a Gandhian follower lived with his physical handicapped wife and a daughter named Masal. Masal was good student. One day some miscreant youth caught hold Masal on the way to her college; sexually assaulted her. She appealed them to leave by citing Gandhiji’s statement that it will be called Suraj (good governance) when women can freely and safely move at the dead of night. The miscreants abused Gandhi – Gandhi gave us independence, made us unemployed and no bride for marriage. Then Masal was raped and murdered.  Here this story depicts about the governance failure on Women security and protection. Also it shows another side of consequences of unemployment linked with crime.

                 The third and last story is from a FB post. This is all about a conversation between a mini skirt, a Saree , a Burkha and a baby girl’s diaper.  Mini skirt says that society blames me for rape because I am bit small to cover women’s leg.It provokes male and attracts. A Saree comes forward and says that I cover the entire body but still those who put me on are not safe and getting raped. Then Burkha interferes. And says what about me, I cover all the body and there is no space at all to show anything. The women who wear burkha are also being raped. Finally Baby Diaper in a melancholy voice says listen to me, I can’t even speak properly, I do not know how to dress and undress. Mom does everything for me. I don’t find any reason of being undressed and raped.  It symbolizes that females irrespective of caste, class, age and community are vulnerable as far as sexual violence and rape is concerned. The ugly mindset and wanton intentions of males are responsible for rape. A study reveals that rape gives a higher rate of risk factors for death and disability to women. This risk factor of rape is bigger than cancer, war and accidents.

                  The rapist should be punished and rape victims should get justice. No doubt on this. The fear of rape is a daily reality for many women. It is limiting their freedom movement and also reducing their quality of life. Fear of rape is becoming a norm for women and a part of woman’s culture to be passed from generation to generation.

              Whatever has happened in Hyderabad, where a young vet doctor was raped and brutally killed by four young men then the four accused were killed in an encounter by police gives a mixed reaction in society. There are two schools of thoughts on this incident.  For one school of thought the act of police by killing those accused is really a good move. This move can trigger fear among sexual perverted. The judiciary system is slow and there is trust deficit. This school of thought advocates immediate and instant judgment. This school also advocates for mobocracy.  And for another school of thought, this act of police is a threat to democracy and to judiciary also. Law and judiciary system are here to give justice. They promote reform in judiciary system.

                Public anger is an important motivation for justice. It can motivate punishment of wrongdoers. Retributive punishment is regarded as the principle factor in public satisfaction with justice. Anger, disgust and shock are rising up when we hear any rape and murder incident. Actually we are disapproving other people’s sexual behavior which is not legal. Emotions carry a very powerful force in the way individuals and law deal with sexual issues particularly rape. Anger and disgust dominate the emotions. Anger which is called as moral anger justifies its compatibility with liberal humanistic ideas of justice, whereas disgust as an emotion is sidelined. Moral anger also gives a path to justified revenge. So when four accused in Hyderabad vet rape and murder are killed by police, our moral anger celebrates over moral justice.

Loneliness

The symptoms of loneliness are feeling empty inside and thinking like unloved. We live in group or in community to avoid our loneliness and to avail socio-psychological security. Communities create institutions like family, marriage and kinship etc. to address loneliness in a personalized way.    The social institutions are changing and community does not have much control on individuals, loneliness is spreading and becoming an epidemic.

Unhappy, unloved and dissatisfaction are the new buzz words to rationalize loneliness. This also creates a form of social isolation. There is a very thin line between loneliness and depression. Loneliness is very personal whereas depression is a pathological and psychological term.  Both the terms are so widespread that they become a shared experience. Even we consider it as very normal.

Loneliness is gendered. Loneliness of women in general is underrated, less valued, less discussed and trivial in nature as like women’s anger. For example, as a woman if you show your anger and dissatisfaction or if you cry and sit alone or you are feeling unloved and feeling empty, these attributes actually negative. But these bad traits are considered and treated as very normal, in some extent these are also ignored by your family, friends and peers. Surprisingly, in case of men all those negative attributes mentioned above for women are valued and respected including anger. Male anger and loneliness is respected and labelled as masculine. Loneliness is always being a neglected factor for housewives .They are the target audience. Their loneliness is less discussed as it does not provide any economic benefit. As mentioned earlier, loneliness is an epidemic now. Most of us are affected by this but as per the need of institutions we have to show our loyalties by hiding our loneliness.            

This loneliness is created by us. Modern society believes in diversity. When we are in social diversity we help people to become individualistic and to create a sense of separateness or else we will become similar.  The more we become individualized, the more it becomes difficult to find a friend or a mate with same values and interest. We become very selective and choosier in our social circle; automatically it leads to weak social ties. Loneliness is colonized and modernized also. Now our aloofness depicts our status.  We impose a sense of loneliness among our children by selecting, deselecting and re-selecting their peers, choices and freedom.

Loneliness is a market economy. It is huge business. Travel, entertainment, night clubs, drugs, alcohol, bars, prostitution and above all Social media and Apps (Dating apps) are rising up. These mediums eradicate individual loneliness for a time being.

Loneliness is not sadness or depression. The opposite of loneliness is not happiness; it is liveliness .It is a condition. Don’t overreact to this. We are all human beings and are not so perfect.   We all are having some unmet needs, unfulfilled desire, far reaching dreams and recurring problems.  If we are conditioned to loneliness for a long run, we shall become meek and may become mentally ill.

Love: Confused or Conditional

I love your eyes, your cherry lips

The love that always lingers

Your way with words and random blips

Your skilled computer fingers

 These lines are written by John Denver, a famous lyricist. The last line is a thought provoking one, which depicts the future of love and future of mate selection. Denver tries to say love and working skills both are important. 

Social change is unavoidable. It changes our socio-personal dynamics and social institutions. It allows us to think something unimaginable.

Can you imagine that your children will prefer to live as childless parents? Can you imagine a family with several husbands and one wife? (The craze for a boy still dominates and also a genetic tinkering is on the way to pre select the sex of your child)  Finally, can you imagine homosexual’s families with children as their own?  

We can ignore these permutations but cannot deny its possibilities. We have noticed many types of changes in our conventional institutions. The family has changed, from extended to joint then joint to sub-nuclear. In case of institution of marriage, traditional form of marriage converted into trail marriage and Dual career marriage (both husband and wife are in jobs) transformed into Dual career marriage with no children which is trending form of marriage now.

What about LOVE then. Is love also changing its dynamics and having a new spectrum?  In the pre-industrial era, physical strength, compatibility, submissiveness and level of tolerance were the attributes of partner selection. Love was more biological or physical.  In the next era, physical love converted into Meta physical and psychological.  Romanticism was dominated by songs, poems and imagination. Companionship, sex (not for progeny), warmth and support became the features of love. Finally, the modern era comes. Love is in the air and everywhere. Love overshadows the barrier of caste, color, class and income; these were previously played a vital role in love and marriage.

New era lovers fall in love, they prefer to working rather than simply waking –up. They prefer weekends rather than weekdays. They prefer reciprocal gift exchange. Modern day love has added sexual and psychological need plus a sound rational brain plus conscience, responsibility, self-discipline and work matter virtues. Love birds discard the single minded logic also.

Love has been a confused entity for society.  For example :  If I love myself then I am selfish or narcissist, If I love other then I am self-loathing or dissatisfied and if I love my opponents or enemy then my love is ineffective.  

The structural changes of love may look like rational but selection of a mate is purely emotional and hormonal. The evolution of love explains us to be more skilled and innovative in practice. But, Love doesn’t have any nomenclature. Above all, love is blind.

Are you healthy or free from disease?

The term health is multidimensional and vague as well.  Health or being healthy does not mean the absence of disease or absence of preventive, curative and diagnostic services. WHO defines health as an embedded state of physical, mental and social well-being. Well-being is a combination of both subjective and objective components such as standard of living, level of living and quality of life. Health is a state of life with continuation.

The zenith point of health is positive health and the bottom is death. In between positive health and death, we shall find many spectrum such as better health, freedom from sickness, unrecognized sickness, mild sickness and severe sickness. Positive health is state in which the individual capacities for participation in the social system are optimal.  Since positive health cannot be achieved because it is influenced by many peripheral factors including emotional breakdown, which is still a dominant part of our lives.

We generally analyze health only in physical and mental dimensions.  We ignore the other dimensions such as emotional, vocational and spiritual.  Mental health is not emotional health.  We can find that these two dimensions are closely related but in reality they are two different entities. Mental health is all about KNOWING or COGNITIVE POWER, while emotional health is all about FEELING.  The modern era is facing a new challenge in health that is vocational dimension of health. For example, if somebody loses job or if he or she is forced to have a mandatory retirement, there is a maximum chance that he or she will be trapped in vocational health crisis.  Another dimension what most yoga gurus opt is spiritual health. It is all about searching the meaning and purpose in life defying the health and disease.

We can define health but cannot define disease.  Disease has many aspects. Some diseases are because of their extreme nature  such as food poisoning, some are insidious like mental illness or arthritis and some are carriers like typhoid, where individual seems to be healthy but can infect others. There are plethora of diseases from short term to long term and visible to invisible.  Let’s define the terms which connote a state of unhealthiness. Illness and sickness are the two widely used terms. Illness is all about a subjective sate of the person who feels aware of not being well where as sickness is a state of social dysfunction, means the role individual plays when he or she feels ill.  Above all, disease is all about physiological and psychological dysfunction.

Like health, disease has also changed its dimensions. Each decade produces a new pattern of disease. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory infections, Alzheimer and other dementia, lung cancers and diabetic are new emerging and top rated diseases since 5 years. TB, diarrhea and HIV/AIDS have dropped down rapidly.

Being healthy is a continuous process; it is not a single time achievement, whereas the nature of diseases is an ever changing phenomenon. In future we may define health and disease in our way which suits our ecology, technology and demography rather defining them in a stereotype and rhetoric. We are aspiring for being healthy simultaneously we are less immunized to modern diseases. Such a contradiction!!!!

Cannibalism: Can you imagine eating human flesh?

Can you imagine eating human flesh? This was the topic discussed by Magnus Suderlund in Gastro summit. Humans should now start to eat humans. It can save earth. The climate change is so conspicuous that we can ignore it but we can’t escape from its effect, the effect of global hunger. So a new form of Cannibalism: eating human flesh is needed as mentioned by this professor from Stockholm school of economic.

The term Cannibalism is coined from a group named as Caribs. From Caribs group Canibe was extracted. And finally from the term Canibe the actual term Cannibals was originated. As per some historical writings Columbus coined the term Cannibals. It was referred to an indigenous people in Guadaloupe Island. It is also believed that Columbus and the queen of Spain had connived and stigmatized that community as human eaters for some economic benefits.

In real, there is less documented evidence to support cannibalism. In contrary, there are many tales and narratives which also support this disgust act. Culture plays a significant role in promoting cannibalism. “Fore people” in New Guinea eat their own dead relatives as a community event. This form of culturally induced cannibalism is regarded as a ritual honor. Eating human flesh by fellow community members spread a disease, which is known as Kuru. This kuru disease is fatal in nature. In some parts of China, young offspring (sons and daughters) would offer their own flesh from thighs or fingers to their sick and weak parents as a food to recover. This type of cannibalism is called as filial cannibalism.

 In the year 1972, passengers waited for a long time and started to eat dead co-passengers in Andes plane Crash. This cannibalism is accepted because of extra ordinary circumstance. Famine and unfortunate expeditions are the examples where people eat the bodies of the dead. They eat to save themselves from starving to death.

Journal of Forensic Science has categorized the cannibals. This journal terms this as pathological cannibals. Paraphilia a state of pathological cannibals is referred to those who experience an extreme form of sexual desire which are gratified by dangerous activities. Nithari case, Noida in the year 2006 is the best example to refer the paraphilia cannibals. The businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in Nithari and his servant were accused of killing more than 10 children and suspected to consume children’s livers and other body parts. Another type of pathological cannibalism is the result of severe psychotic mental illness. Ego, narcissism and mental imbalance instigate this act of eating human flesh.

In 15th Century, a brown powder named as Mumia was used to cure certain medical complicacy and diseases like epilepsy, hemorrhage and nausea. This Mumia powder was made by mummified human flesh. This powder was medically approved at that time in Europe.

Cannibalism is a savage act. But still exist in a covert form with a cultural and psychological shield.  Many biologists studied this cannibal behavior among species. But in case of humans it is a taboo. Tribal and aboriginals are dehumanized and demonized as cannibals. Most of us are some extent cannibals because we eat meat. Scientifically there is less difference between human flesh and animal flesh.

Secularization and Modern Society

Secularization is important. But whether is it important to civil society or to a state. For the modern society, secularization of the larger society is very vital. It can promote and assure a secular state. But in some countries, secularization is associated with secularism. In other words it is also known as religious tolerance.  If we wish for a secular state, we must abandon the doctrine of intolerance & we need to accept the irreversible process of modernization & the resultant decline of religion.

In the initial phase of modernity, secularization was treated as an effort of market condition, it means secularization should be analyzed in economic way. Again the modernity sees the process of secularization in political way. The advocates of secularization tend to be also opted of a centralized bureaucratic state, in which local elites have been replaced by national elites. For them, secularization is also a process that implies political centralization, the abolish of local and religious autonomy, the marginalizes and disestablishment of old elites and revolution in social morals. In nutshell, the concept of equality comes in to front.

Religion can be understood not as an ideology to fight with secularism but an option to cope with the contingencies of life. The failure and the lacuna of secular regimes can be addressed through religious resources.  Till to date, we have been struggling to understand religion. It is a gift of western modernity. In sum, we can say that the secularization is the combination of an assertion about changes in the presence and nature of religion and a collection of related explanations of those changes.

A Rape Video: Re-imaging The Porn Or A Digital Violence

A rape video of a teenage girl is viral on twitter. I mean to say, yes it is on twitter. Twitter is the intellectual Face Book as claimed by the users. This video is circulated and re twitted in thousands. A rape video does exactly what it connotes a woman or girl, getting raped, filmed by somebody, shared and went viral. It reaches to us by any means but social media.  The motive behind the rape video is not fun. It is done for blackmailing. Blackmailing for what. Money ..no. The real aim is to make her silent. The fear and threat to upload and circulate the video online or offline is used to compel rape victims into silence. A silence of shame.

When a rape video is uploaded into an online platform it violates the digital sexual consent. It becomes more dangerous when that video is used as porn. The definition of porn has been changed since the arrival of Mobile phones, CCTV and Web Cams. When a jilted lover uploads a live feed or hidden camera shows a girl changing her clothes in mall trail room or a rape video which is circulated in Social media does not help the victims or even we are not thinking to report those but it is helping to fuel our sexual fantasy.

People in my age group must have remembered 2004 DPS MMS. It was a buzz thing at that time. Still many videos in same name are floating in porn sites. Just to revitalize the memory, that DPS MMS depicts an act of oral sex between a teen age girl and her boyfriend. Viral term was not coined at that time. Scandal was the popular term at that time. So that video was scandal not viral. Middle class section was not prepared to accept the video content, they wondered how a girl was doing all those things..mean that kind of thing. Only white people in Pronos could do all these. Awwww… this was because of western world.

It was not circulated in western world; in India a Pan Shop keeper also had the access to sell that DPS MMS cd (CD was a popular medium for storing digital content at that time).  That video which was a scandal had some effects. Which are gendered? The boy who was involved in that video, whose identity remained unknown for public, who was hidden behind the camera only missed a cricket match. Remember the girl. Off course we do. Who was involved in that video, who was visible not only in video but in every media, paper, in CD, in porn site and in fantasy, was forced to leave the school and eventually left the country.

So the take away from this piece is that like all sexual violence, digital violence is gender specific. It targets women. Sunitha Krishan #ShameTheRapist campaign against viral rape videos is involving CBI and Cyber Crime to give justice to rape and victimized by digital contents.

Lets talk about Sex...Secretly

The institution of marriage is in danger, divorce rate is increasing worldwide whereas Sex without institutionalization or legitimatized by society is growing.  It means we are searching for sexual pleasure outside our societal norms. Prostitution, virtual sex, sex toys and pornography are the new mediums of sex or self-sex. The imagination of sex and availability of cybersex has distorted our cognitive power to define sex. The hard-core contents of sexography have made women as receiver and passive. The woman body is consumerized through these sex contents. A female body and her sexual desire are myths. Its instigate male to decipher female perplexed sexuality. We get addicted and try to imagine  things, which shows female desire and sexuality in a romantic way. 

History has witnessed the misinterpretation and the misrepresentation of female sexuality by the patriarchal society.  Controlling the female body is always symbolized as the exercise of male power. Cyber bulling , misogyny and believe in controlled relationship are the reflections of disrespecting woman body and her sexuality.

Woman sexuality and sexual pleasure have cascaded through the religious interpretation of controlling sexuality. Most of the religions and religious leaders never support the openness of female sexual desire. In modern era, Sexuality is empirically analysed and medically decoded. A psychological substance is added to define sexuality and showing desire for sex is considered as a disease and mental illness. Now, the society has adopted the social instruments to define sexuality and tried to provide a freedom to discuss about women’s desire.

Sexuality is not concealed itself into the biological sphere. It has become sociological.Human sexuality is open to a wide range of socio-cultural variations. Still, sex and sexuality are the taboos, a less discussed topic and a theme not be chatted publicly.  We are addicted to cybersex and looking for things which can enhance our sexual urge. Gandhi ji said sex education can be achieved in true sense when we use our sexuality for progeny and when we learn to control our senses particularly our sexual urge.

Media Diplomacy and Media Trial

Media has shifted its attention from kaleidoscopic views of news and communication. The new identifications of media are “media‐broker diplomacy” , “alternative court trail room” and “marketing consultancy"

In media broker diplomacy, journalists temporarily adopt the role of diplomats or officials. The journalists serve as mediators in international negotiations; currently we see some News channel anchors are acting as diplomats for India to solve Kashmir issues with Pakistan. They are journalists, not foreign secretaries or high commissioner. A mock fight makes the situation real as if media will solve the international and bilateral issues.

Media becomes a court room and the its judgments are based on the prime time survey. Twitter and Whatsapp message decide the media justice. Do you think that Media can be an accuser, an investigator, judge and executioner? It is difficult to play such roles at a time. Dr. Kafeel Khan was accused and stigmatized as a murderer of 60 children at Govt hospital Gorkahpur by Electronic media. It has happened much before the court’s decision. Recently he got a clean chit by Allahabad high court. Now what will be the media’s stand to reinstate his lost esteem?

The popular social media apps like Face Book, Twitter and WhatsApp are the New Media for accessing news and worldwide views. They provide so much news, information and facts that generally users don’t want to read or to access. Plethora of news, information and facts put people in a dilemma between knowing and understanding. It also places us in a paradoxical situation of trust and distrust. This creates a gap. Modern digital society is very personalized in its selection and always prefers to live in isolated state of information. Then it is becoming very hard to fill the gap between belief and disbelief. Fake becomes real and Real becomes Fake in this gap. Media is taking advantage of this situation. It hypes, spins, twists and lie. Sometime we are convinced; if not then we are confused.  

What is the difference between Nationalism and Patriotism?

Are we motivated to become a nationalist or dedicated to become a patriot?

Patriotism can be defined in a sentence as “ I love my country “ . I am more affectionate and willingness to defend my country.  Patriotism focuses on people. Gandhi said that the cult of patriotism teaches individuals have to die for family. Family for village. Village for district, District for province and province for country. Patriotism is humanity. It makes human and humane. It is not exclusive. A patriot never hurt other countries to serve own country.

 Gandhi ji says “I want the freedom of my country so that others countries may learn something from my country….so that the resources of my country may be utilized for the benefit of mankind “

Nationalism whereas focuses on state not on people. In one sentence “My country is better than your country or My country is the greatest”.  Nationalism is a strong instrument to unite people at war time or freedom struggle. It unites people but unites against other people. Nationalism is guided by religious identity and political misgiving.  Partition in India and Japanese invaded China, are the outcomes of nationalism.  Internationalism is possible when nationalism becomes a fact. Nationalism is not evil. But narrowness, selfishness and exclusiveness of modern nations are evils. Each wants profit at the expenses of others and rises on the ruin of others.

Tagore says: Nationalism for years has been at bottom of India’s trouble.

Technology and Social Inequality

Technology has the revolutionary power and people around world are enjoying this. Still there are 

anxieties and challenges around the potential role of technology for our everyday lives. Technology is cheaper, widely usable and universally accessible. It does not change the fact that rich people afford more than poor. The successive changes in technology and polarized use of technical skills have created a social inequality.  

 Deskilling, Automation, Flexible employment and Just in Time are the modern reflections of inequalities.Gender pay gap and  formation of new social class are the add on for social inequality. 

Can technology and techies solve the social inequality? Answer is YES.

o   Techies should not be alienated from the mainstream of society. It means technology and technical people should focus on social issues, social justice and social participation. When a technology is socially acceptable by the people , it creates a revolution like social media movements.

o   Techies should make technology on the basis of social context. It should not be intuitive but it should fulfill the real needs.

o   Technology should not overpower us but it is used for empowerment. Overpower leads to misuse.

o   Techies and technology should be aimed at social engineering. Changes and development should rope in to the framework of capacity, policy and planning.

o   Finally technology should be like a bridge rather than like a jack, which connects but widens socio -economic gap.

Hinduism and Non violence

".Hinduism  with its message of ahmisa is to me the most glorious religion in the world as my wife to me is the most beautiful woman in the world but others may feel the same about their own religions" M K Gandhi 

It is the doctrine of ahimsa (nonviolence)and practice of ahimsa , which enhance the Hinduism as one of the religions of tolerance. With many hurdles and cultural barrios , the doctrine of ahimsa is still embed in the mainstream of Hinduism. It is growing and still encouraging many people to assimilate with this thought . Indians are not weak to be violent but it is the tradition of Hinduism and doctrine of ahimsa which makes Indians sublime. It takes a fraction of second to become a devil but it needs a generation of tolerance and social acceptability to become non-violent.

Ahimsa is the highest ideal. it is meant for the brave never for cowardly .Ahimsa is the great principle which no power on earth can wipe out. Ahimsa can be spread only by the believers.

So, believe in Non violence and practice Non-violence ….Hinduism promotes it.

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Father of a Country

Constructing an image of "Father of a country" for any one, should pass through the critical scrutiny and his contribution towards the fabric of the Nation. The legacy should be questioned. The tag "Father of Country" will erase much of the wrong decisions and doings. It increases the social acceptance without being contested. When this tag and his legacy are tagged with any political party, it enhances popularity and criticism both. Mzee Kenyataa was declared as father of the country in Kenya, he ruled for 15 years like a king, placed opposition leaders in house arrest, shared many lands and benefits to his own people. Still the country is idolizing him.

Making an Icon for any country and above all considering him as the Father Of the country is a process. In this process, he has to tolerate the friction of time and to face the critics. Sometime he is to being ignored and often getting prestige.  Father of a nation is a legend who is remembered for his sacrifice and identity. The tenacity of this type of role models always goes through a meticulous social experiment. It is a real litmus test to become a father of the nation and being worshiped by the people. They not only provide ideas but also emulate a pattern of constituent roles and inspire individual life by enlightening the soul.

Scrutiny & evaluate the legacy and let the history and people decide, who should be remembered as the father of the country. Because history is made by these legends.

Violence: A sociological insight

It was an early morning in East Africa. I am about to start for my university. Due to emergency invoked by government, there is no regular transportation. Army and police are everywhere to curtail protest and used as a precautionary measure to handle any violence. Meanwhile, I am at leisure to look at some Odia online newspapers. In Odisha also the headlines of papers are covered with violence. Those are Political as well as personal violence. It is really disturbing. I teach criminology and deviance studies in university. Theoretically I understand violence. It is an aggressive form of deviant behaviour. The range of violence covers micro to global level.

Violence is a serious violation of human rights. Human rights are meant to safeguard the human lives, their dignity and their freedom at every point of time. But it has been ignored repeatedly. Of course, we do have international and national level of laws to protect the human rights. Sometime violation of human rights issues are the effect of governance and policy decision. We blame governance and its interrelated institutions. Human rights have categorized the forms of violence into many types. It can be defined from state sponsor to traditional to individual.

The forms of violence are rapidly changing. They have changed their structural and functional dynamics. It is not only the new technology but most of the cases romanticism also spurs the new form of violence. The ultimate end of any form of violence is perilous to society. We know it. Our rationality and morality vary often bend before aggression and dominance. It makes us a rational fool and cultural dope. There are myriad of socio-psychological theories of violence. They narrate violence and cause of violence as biological sub structure or psychological superstructure of the individual or individual relationship to the social environment.

Any form of violence is pathological. It asphyxiates the human relationship, human lives and wellbeing. It shuns the value of human equality. We need a response to handle this. The response may be personal or civil. Those can be achieved only through community and interpersonal based social action. As a sociologist, I firmly believe denial and fear for the violence should be stopped from the micro level. Another factor which provokes violence is the relative approach of society towards this.it is not happening to me/us mind-set. Society has constructed the horizon and paradigm of violence and labelled it.

Civil society and community engagement in safety are considered as the immediate solution for violence. Since the traditional communities are losing their grip on citizens, their socialization, value incorporation and local policy making, the new forms of civil society come forward to shape the victimization and citizen wellbeing. The emerging forms of new communities are moulding the intra and inter relationship among the individuals. Over all the civil society and community compel the moral obligations as active citizens and engross the social justice.

Some extent our social narratives and social communication are also equally responsible for augmenting violence. We give more attention to violence and promote violence, knowingly or unknowingly. It is whether in the form of movie or mythological stories. We live in a country where non-violence has grown up from a movement to an ideology. But still we failed to practice it. Violence is a heedless and impetuous behaviour; on the other hand non-violence embarks a new pure form of conscience and self-policing.   We should practice the Gandhian ideology of nonviolence where you fight with extreme brazen force without using the force in return.

The areas of concern for violence and its impact attract many think tanks. The dimensions of violence are different but the indigenous nature is same. Violence is contagious. There is no panacea for this. It is growing as an epidemic. From school killing in USA to genocide in Africa or honour killing in India, it has contaminated the global society and human values. Social advocates mull over always to find the cause and blame a particular class, religion, race, community or gender. But real truth is that it has become an insidious undercurrent behaviour which cannot be ignored because of our evolution as human being.

Social wellbeing can be used as an antagonistic factor against violence. Social wellbeing consists of social security and its associates elements. It can be achieved by tolerance, equality, individual welfare, respect and forgiveness. The role of state and its institutions are equally important to channelize those into individuals. In addition to this, violence victimization should be handled in human ways. Society should learn how to take care of violence victims rather to label or stigmatize them. The pejorative way of society in assimilation makes them ghettoized and social pariah.

We are living in a welfare global state.  Therefore we feel secured we strive for security, we demand for security as well. We live in group or in community for security.  Because of the security alone singular “I” convert to plural “We”. But the violence dishevels our boundary of security. Then we ponder over for different alternative security mechanisms. It is becoming a cyclical. This is not the solution. Unless and until we consider the fellow being as like us, it will be easy to hurt every time. Unless and until we feel the core inside of human beings and we pay respect for the humanitarian values, violence will be regular phenomenon. We should learn how to forgive others. Forgiveness is the salvation from the cycle of hate.