It was a small news item, tucked away in the right hand corner of the inside pages of one of the leading English dailies in Delhi some months back; a corner where perhaps most readers never get to reach leave alone read, as they go about rushing with their lives. It was a news item which said a youth in Britain was jailed for urinating on a dying woman. Urinating on a dying woman, that too for fun!
I was not sure if I had read the heading correctly, so I read on. It seemed too depraved and mindless an act. But as I read on, my gut churned at the sheer perversity of human mind. Not only was the act reprehensible in itself, but the grief felt was manifold deeper. The woman had perhaps seen no other side of this world.
To be bullied, ridiculed and wounded in body and spirit just because one is born disabled or has become so because of some accident is a telling story on the so called civilized countries of this world, where such mindless acts of hate are common. At school and college level it is more brazen and overt; while, at work places more covert. The youth are at the forefront. Their physical strength and energy gives them the power to hurt others with impunity.
The victims are always the weak and under dogs; those who are physically, financially, legally or racially at a disadvantage. Like the recent footage on the CCTV of a subway where a young Spaniard shamelessly battered a young Ecuadorian girl. What was more depressing was the fact that no one said anything in her defense.
How can any jail term compensate for a lifetime of humiliation? What is the basis of such cruelty without reason or provocation? No laws, no constitution or jail term can teach people to be decent and compassionate to others. This, only parents or those who raise children can teach. But, in a world increasingly becoming selfish and hedonistic, where homes are being ripped apart by divorces and children the means to settle scores between spouses; where TV channels beam day in and out acts of violence; where neither home nor school is an oasis of caring and sharing; who is going to teach young people to love and respect other people’s weaknesses and needs.
The world is raising monsters. In a world crazed by physical perfection, the imperfect are not to be tolerated. Only those with perfect attributes are idolized, even if it has come about through surgical correction. But, imperfections, read ugliness, cannot to be looked at.
Bullying has become such a social menace in countries like the US that children are increasingly dropping out of schools. Fear of peers has made the educational institutions a formidable place for the well behaved and decent. In fact, bizarre forms of ragging in our own country are pointing towards the direction our own young people are heading too.
In a world where families have gone down from joint to nuclear to single parents, how are the young ever going to learn to cope with the frailties and infirmities of the old or the pestering and badgering of kids. People with zero tolerance are increasingly becoming the order of the day. It is all about I, me and myself. Walk over others, for they don’t matter.
