A shocking incident in Shillong, (India), where a four-year-old girl was found brutally murdered has once again forced society to ask a slew of uncomfortable questions. What sort of world have we built where the first instinct of many is not to grieve but to sensationalize such tragedies recklessly. Instead of offering prayers and expressing compassion, many netizens rushed to put up the victim’s photograph on social media even though she was already deceased. How easily they turn a blind eye to unbearable trauma this inflicts on the grieving family, especially while the police investigation is still underway to uncover the truth behind her death. This is a deeply misplaced instinct. It’s like those people who rush to take pictures with their phones when they see someone being swept away by floodwaters, instead of trying to save the person.
Given the rapid rise of horrifying incidents like brutal sexual attacks, kidnapping, drugging, and murder, I totally agree with social activist Jeniffer Dkhar from Shillong that the world has become so cruel that even clear-headed people find it hard to think straight. Faith, trust, empathy, and compassion are now just empty words with little meaning in today's world.
Well, we speak of progress, yet our moral compass has gone off track. Let me cite a couple of instances involving tender children who were murdered. These are cases that send shivers down the spine!
This July in Kheda, Gujarat, a seven-year-old girl, who should have been cradled in the loving arms of her parents, was thrown into the Narmada canal by her father. Why? Because he longed for a son. Just imagine the mindset of such a man. Another shocker: just a few days ago in Karnataka, a mother, who was in an illicit relationship with another man, inhumanly tortured her five-year-old daughter for two days. That woman and the man tied the girl’s hands, kept pouring boiling water over her, and then threw her alive into a river. What could drive a mother to take such a monstrous step unless her mind had been poisoned by immoral influences? Of course, when the heart is ruled by craving, cruelty becomes casual.
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Yet again, about three months ago in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, another woman, also involved in an extramarital affair with a man— a trend that seems to be spiralling out of control— killed her five and one-year-old children by feeding them poison-mixed “rasgullas”. The kids were seen as obstacles to her fun-filled romantic life with her new lover. What has been cited here is merely the tip of the iceberg. The question is: Where, truly, are we heading as a society? How can we stomach such horror and still carry on as if nothing’s out of place?
We boast of being modern, yet we are no better than savages. Our minds these days are cluttered with images of moral decay and indulgence.
What is worse is that these days our children mistakenly look up to glamorized actors and actresses as role models. These are people who rose to fame by shedding modesty and shamelessly stirring carnal desire among gullible audiences -- all under the guise of entertainment. Are they not complicit in feeding the minds of the masses with grotesquely sexualized content, day in and day out?
We find the government, our supposed guardian, fully “culpable” for allowing such moral erosion in society in the name of artistic freedom. What could be more appalling than the government honouring flagrantly immodest and morally wayward actors and actresses with “Padma Shri awards”? Have Ekta Kapoor or Karan Johar, a Padma Shri recipients, not filled the heads of our unsuspecting daughters and mothers with tales of premarital flings, marital betrayals, and extramarital affairs through an endless stream of cheap serials on TV channels? Hardly any entertainment celebrity today stands up for family values.
Behold, their minds corrupted by such immoral TV serials, begin to chase after illicit lovers, as mentioned above, children are no longer safe in their homes, let alone in schools or on the streets. More precisely, this is what happens when the sanctity of “motherhood and fatherhood” is torn apart by brutal hatred, particularly fueled by unchecked lust and delusional obsession.
Paul Lyngdoh, former Arts and Culture Minister of Meghalaya, has remarked, “There are monsters in our midst.” He is absolutely right. Given the situation, I would go further and say that there are monsters breeding inside our minds. They literally feed on our loss of values. Despite having all modern resources and academic qualifications, we have completely failed to understand why love, empathy, and compassion within us are being replaced by greed, unhinged lust, and delusion. With every passing day, we watch society sink deeper and deeper into the mire of depravity.
(NG-FA)
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