The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Thursday 20 August 2015

TWO DISTURBING DEVELOPMENTS ON WORLD HUMANITARIAN DAY

August 19 is 'observed' as World Humanitarian Day. Yesterday was August 19.

Yesterday, on August 19, we had two developments that, we can say, left us in bitter taste.

And to add to the misery, one came from an institution that is often seen as the last resort to get justice in India - the Supreme Court.

Read this:

"I am very much disappointed. 18 years back, I lost faith in God and 18 years later, I lost faith in judiciary. One thing which I have realised is that the court of law is not same for the rich and the poor. Rich people can get away by paying money but for ordinary citizens, judiciary is different. Had it been the lives of children of politicians and judges, justice would have been done within a year. Judiciary "cannot understand the plight of a mother who has stood 18 years before the court to get disappointment. Nobody cares about ordinary people but rich and powerful get away."

These words from a frustrated mother are symbolic of a larger (and deepening) mindset in our society (getting wider realization with every such development). The mother, Neelam Krishnamurthy, had lost two of her children in the 1997 fire in Delhi's Uphaar Cinema that had killed 59 people.

Verdicts in the case, including this one yesterday in the Supreme Court, clearly tell owners were responsible and thus Ansals, the owners, were directly culpable.

And under a legal system, where our Constitution sees rightful interest of even one life above all else, the loss of 59 lives by 'criminal negligence' and 'administrative manipulation' should have called for a harsher punishment.

But, here it was no punishment at all and for people like Ansals who are billionaires - (an ordinary Indian may not earn Rs. 1 crore in his entire life) a sum of 60 crore doesn't mean much - if it can buy them freedom from the legal procedure.  

We don't know what led to this decision-making that will certainly set a precedent, but its message in masses has certainly not gone well - with many equating this decision as 'inhumane'. And incidentally (and accidently), the decision came on World Humanitarian Day.

On the same day, the news of a similar disturbing development came from West Bengal. According to a news channel, doctors of West Bengal's main hospital in Kolkata, indicted in report of causing death of a teenager (medical negligence), were 'let off only a warning'.

Here we need to keep in mind that West Bengal's health portfolio is with chief Minister Mamata Banarjee.

But efforts and desperate pleas of economically poor parents fell to deaf ears. Even a case has not been registered yet in this ghastly crime against humanity - where a child was denied her 'right to life' in an 'absolute' way. And this medical negligence case is not the first one in West Bengal, or in India. And sadly, it will not be the last one.

The two development on World Humanitarian Day came as shockers - with varying degrees gloominess.

The Supreme Court judgment in the Uphaar Cinema Fire case is potent enough to set a precedent where high and mighty will feel above the law by being able to buy anything with their riches.

'Justice delayed is justice denied' says the common saying and the Uphaar case can rightly be placed in the league where justice is denied by frustrating the victims who had lost their family members - 18 years is a long time - a further victimization.

Legal remedy is an expensive affair in our society, especially in higher courts, i.e., High Court and Supreme Court - and with the Supreme Court's decision, the notion has got reaffirmed again. Ansals could afford the best legal minds (with their deep pockets) and the case was delayed to a disturbing wait of 18 years.

And what happened, even after 18 years, rubbed salt into the wounds of the victims. Everything cannot be purchased or compensated with money or material means, especially a person's life - our Constitution is based on that - and here, the society lost its 59 people - and there was no physical punishment but a monetary fine.

The two developments yesterday were potently, symbolically anti-humanitarian, anti-thesis, to the underlying concept of World Humanitarian Day that says - "It's a day to celebrate the spirit that inspires humanitarian work around the world".

Well, we need humanitarian feelings first - and acts to inspire and inculcate action, driven by such feelings - something that was hit hard yesterday.  

Hope, it will not go unnoticed. Hope, the developments that were thrust upon us, will see a different, humanitarian finality in the days to come.   

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/