Friday, January 15, 2010

What happened to our Values?

Anybody who watched, Vetri lying hapless on the road with a group of people around him who dared not to act to save the life of a fellow human must have been annoyed and would have gushed with anger. For those who didn't are inhuman.

I was frustrated and could not even understand why at least one in the crowd could grab any of the numerous vehicles standing around and take the inspector to a nearby hospital. Why the heck should they wait for the ambulance to come and pick him up? Wasn't that insane? Is a human life less valuable compared to the interiors of the vehicle? Numerous questions arise.

Certainly I would want the heads of the Ministers, Collector who were at the scene. Though I do agree that the cameraman must also be questioned, I don't questioning him taking the video. For it had created not just a stir but made us sit back and think about the values of the society.

The incident evoked sharp criticism from everybody who can think and Sreevats suggested enacting a law, as in Germany, to punish those who do not help people in danger and distress.

Though creating a law can improve things, personally I feel enacting the law won't bring a sea of change. However it's better than keeping idle and forgetting this barbaric incident with time. How the law will be implemented is indeed a matter of speculation since the people who were at the place of the incident were law makers, custodian of the law and people of fourth estate who have the work of making sure the former are acting properly.

I think this incident makes us to stop form the fast paced day to day life and think about where the values in our society is heading. Vetri during his dire minutes was not alone, but there were couple of ministers, a collector, numerous policeman and a number of common man, of course everybody out there is a common man. What gives great pain is that none of the common man acted immediately and brings us to the question of the values existing today.

This may be the land in which Akbar, Ashoka, Vivekanda and numerous other man of great sanity, noble minds once walked upon. It seems we have just stuck their names in our history books and missed the good values they followed. This one case has embraced us just because of the fact that it was videotaped, certainly in a country of billion people more barbaric acts must and are taking place which never come to our notice. People like Vetri, Ruchika, Manjunath are exceptions and come to our notice evoking our emotions and slowly forgotten with time.

During my College days at 5h, we constantly used to discuss this topic extensively about where we as a society are heading towards. And one thing which I used to state and would love to reiterate over here is that, if we want to make a change we need to change the way the moral education is imparted at schools. I don't have the personal experience in other parts of India, but I can state with strongly that Moral Science has been a forgotten subject in the schools of Tamil Nadu.

It is a subject I would say which requires utmost importance, the art which when practiced properly can impart good values and virtues to the children who turn out to be the common man who witnessed the incident at Tirunelveli. So how do we go about doing the change is a different question. Just blabbering here in blog won't move things forward.

I will stop my rant for now and think about what I can do from my part to develop responsible citizens which is the want of the hour. This kind of death shouldn't occur for any human being alive.

3 comments:

RamNarayanS said...

They left Vetri to die. :( Again, who are they? Us. We have a morals problem. It is not an easy way forward, but we have to do it somehow.

Sathish Mayil said...

As you said, they are us. That's why I also mentioned "What happened to our Values"

RamNarayanS said...

Reminded me of the scene from Anniyan. People around maybe did not want to have their car interiors stained. Cha, what folks.