How Civilised Is This Civil Society We Live In?

Sometimes I seriously think of stopping my subscription to daily newspaper simply because each morning there is very disturbing news on the front page without fail. Why spoil the mood right in the morning, haahn? Just look at some of the front page headlines in today's Deccan Herald. "Hindu groups big threat: Rahul"; "Girl child sacrificed in Mangalore" (with a picture of a room containing tantra - black magic - materials); "Maoists massacre 7 Forward Bloc members (with picture of a few scattered dead bodies). And there are many news items inside the paper, which are so disturbing that the very meaning of civilisation becomes questionable.

The first thing I do everyday after scanning the front page headlines is solving the day's SU-DO-KU. The mental exercise prepares me to read the news columns with a sane and stable mind. After solving SU-DO-KU, I straight away go through the letters to the editor section. That makes me feel that we still have truly concerned intellectuals around us.

State Governor fights with incumbent government like a stooge of the opposition party, editorial column fearlessly calls ex-CJI a liar in the context of the retired CJI denying the allegations made by the Madras high court chief justice with documentary proof regarding the latest and biggest 2G scam, a renowned columnist promoting Dalit cause laments not because 2G scam happened but because the king pin in the scam is a dalit!

There are intellectuals like Arundhati Roy declaring her support to Marxists while they were killing security guards at will right in the middle of busy public streets and daring the government to arrest her, soon declaring that Kashmir is a free land and the government doing nothing. And there are secularists and human rights activists supporting freedom of expression when M.F.Hussain painted Hindu gods in the nude, abundantly displaying his cowardice by not painting similarly the revered icons of other religions.

The supreme court says in a passing remark on record that Bombay high court has something rotten, to which the Bombay high court not only expresses its displeasure but also legally appeals to the supreme court to expunge the remark from records and the supreme court outright rejects the plea making me liken the spat with some 5th grade pupils.

One Julian Assange succeeds in breaking all Internet security codes and reveals to the world documentary proof of the most disgusting things that happen between world governments in secrecy.

God men and religious gurus living in most irreligious materialistic ways are brought to the notice of unsuspecting devotees with documentary proof such as video clips which the gurus deny as concocted or doctored. One of the most popular guru having the widest following aspires to become the prime minister of the nation to bring back the black money stashed away in Swiss banks, which is said to be so huge that India needs no tax collection to run the administration for the next 30 years.

No! I am not depressed. I am only wondering if at all we are a civil society. I wonder if so called intellect is one more illusory creation of the stupid greedy mind!

Only very little is said in this article; lot more remains unsaid. After all, me, an old junk forgetful and unfit to live in this civilised society!