THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN ON 15TH JAN, 2005:-

TTHE REPUGNANCE OF HUMAN LIFE

Going by the sense of euphoria and excited state of existence one is made to believe in, in terms of the intrinsic value of human progress, human life, the human being, his rights and duties, almost everything that is human in character for that matter, it comes as a surprise that such euphoria is actually a myth; merely a visage or veil of half truths presentable to our sense of morality. With the progress of civilizations of the world, the fundamental development that has accordingly and almost equally accompanied it is the positivism and evolution of social institutions and their applicability to human conditions. This has resulted in, most importantly and primarily among other things, according a sense of respect to such said improved human conditions. This polar shift of definitions and respectability appropriated to humanity has functioned to award even the lowest strata of beings some semblance of worth. Yet the actual non-derivation of benefit and understanding, meant to be borne out of such civilizational progression, has been by the subject matters themselves, namely the mass of humanity. In basic terms it means that man has been unable to realize the worth of his own life and of others, which has been allowed to him in lieu of the advancements performed in international social mentality and morality.

To take very obvious and persistent examples from the Indian context, keeping it as a case study for further reference, one is able to conclude very clearly that the worth of human life has degraded in exact opposition to the actual increment of such worth fundamentally. But let it be kept in mind that such disregard for human values, obviously holding a higher meaning than the definitions of the past, is prevalent most frequently among interactions and relations of man and his fellows.

Whenever there are deaths in and around us, one feels a momentary sense of plight and pity towards those who have passed, but within the blink of an eye our thick skins and black hearts are immune in the face of such tragedy. It shall be wrong to say that our skins absorb the shock and make us numb, our hearts going mellow yet being strong, since that would be conceding too much to us narcissistic beings. It would mean that we do withhold some feeling for the loss of human life…………… whereas we as ‘sensitive’ individuals have sensitized ourselves to the point that it is probably blasphemous to hold regard for mishaps of humanity. It is probable that we have been subject to so many miscarriages of justice and human rights being dealt as playthings that make us immune to their violation. Alternatively our sense of morality has ‘widened’ considerably, so as to include the sense of falsification and lack of sensation when it comes to the destruction of human existence, be it via rights violations or killings, deaths or the blatant discount given to the extinction of life.

Another notion that has come into prominence is the projection of man as a mere unit of society, in his being a number; such a number that slowly gathers more like itself to fill up the spaces of the disillusioned social reality we live in. He is given no other characteristic other than a number, his existence being definitive within numerical boundaries, the sort of numerology that makes up his own social order. He has no personality such as a gender, name, face, social relations, profession, education, intelligence, mannerism etc. His person actually does not exist unless it is satisfactory of a single point agenda, which is his stance as a unitary statistical being. An express deviance from the characteristics of individuality, towards numerical plurality, would qualify him further. The disregard of people, in not allowing them the basic consideration for being human and merely regarding them as a number has taken wide spread proportionality. One would realize upon a little probing that the status of people has come to the standpoint in India, where the most applicative and correct opinion that has come to become is that life is cheap. The loss of life, or its shameful disregard in the form of the violations of the rights life possesses, means nothing to today’s man. It doesn’t matter if one man dies or a hundred, if millions are terrorized by insurgency or one is traumatized by wrongful prison detention. The price of life is so bargain able; it can be treated as a commodity amongst men and nations. One barely needs to see the sort of ‘collateral damage’ caused to the people of Kashmir or the North East for that matter, when innocents are killed unjustifiably and very cheap too. So cheap that life itself does not anymore allow us to see itself as something which is meant to signify the very meaning of our existence, something which is so important to pin-point who we really are and what status do hold in the world.

We as proud people of the 21^st century wear our sentimentality on our sleeve in the sense that we are ready to debar misgivings in the world under the false awe and self inflicted blindness of economic and secondary individual consumerist progressivism. To us, human life accounts for merely a number whereby a fractional change in the overall percentile does not make any miniscule, let alone sizeable difference. If we were to take the case of the death of somebody their memory fades away in a matter of time. Man’s greed and selfishness, his hunger for consumption to satisfy only his singular ends, gives him a very narrow mentality, a limited scope of view, when it comes to regard and respect for humanity. His scope is limited merely to those objects and occurrences that primarily satisfy his needs and wants. The remainder of happenings in and around him, he tends to disassociate since they do not provide him any gain, material or otherwise.

It is apparent to any and everybody that we are truly in a sorry state of affairs. But to realize the root cause of this problem we needn’t look very far, for we are the obvious culprits. This decoration to humanity is prescribed by none other than its own fellow-beings, people like you and me who seem to be so aghast over the discovery of such a repugnant phenomenon. People themselves are responsible for holding such a view and it is we who have led to according each other and ourselves such a degradable status and meaning of life. It is via our own actions and views that we give others around us a lowly, detestable value of existence and then we go on to propound and practice the thesis to such an extent so as to make such value of life an acceptable social norm which then eventually applies to us also. It is a vicious circle which encircles us, whereby we as individuals at first violate or allow for violations of rights and then secondly ourselves further it by our actions, to make it acceptable within society. Once the sort of disrespect with which we regard and react to human rights becomes prevalent we ourselves are bound to be its victims, and upon self inflicting this calamity, make a huge hue and cry at the supposed unexplainable, unimaginable and blatant violation of our rights.

Any person chooses to go through this cycle either overtly or covertly but he is always a member to the scheme. Most of the times there are sections of people who are aware of the wrongs they are perpetrating, abetting and supporting and go on doing so since they have a specific belief and self excusing and justifiable reason to it. The other sections of people are covert operators whereby they operate by practicing daily discriminatory methods of overlooking human rights either knowingly or unknowingly. It is these people who are the most dangerous and pose a detriment to social institutions. Those who have open agendas of human rights infringement are more easily spotted and dealt with in the manner deemed fit under law and the aegis of civil society, but those who are covert in furthering their agendas are more difficult to pin-point and exterminate from our society. Organizations such as the VHP and Bajrang Dal are more prone to regulation and confinement since they have a proclaimed and pre-defined program, whereas parties such as the BJP are not openly allegiant to discriminatory ideas and practices so are more likely to be let off and hence may cause more damage to the social fabric in the long run.

Now that we have been fairly critical, there should exist a proverbial silver lining to this dark cloud. As has been said earlier, the scope, meaning and definition of the concept and subject matter of human rights have considerably increased. The regard and respect to human life has also increased manifold, in addition to life itself being accorded the status of the most important and paramount qualification of a personality and individuality.

But these are comparative notions which have progressed from the earlier, older norms which were governing humans and their rights at that time. Compared in the light of past definitions and outdated baselines, the meaning and understanding of the concept of human rights has come far, which is by no means a miniscule feat in itself. And agreed that the current trend is shaped towards the progression of the concept of our rights, but the rate of this progress is slowing and the direction wavering. The shape of this improvement has evolved from a straight upwardly moving line as in the past, to the shape of a curve, which shows signs of decelerating and declining, finally taking a negative slide.

Seeing the repugnant state our human rights are in, there needs to be some remedial practices and points of view which once adhered to, may provide a corrective for this repugnancy. Primarily, man has to strive to establish a society with minimum class distinctions and differences. If there is a lesser void between stratas of society and the different peoples of the world, the cause for most of the repugnancy that has grown towards human rights shall decrease. This seems inevitable since in such a state man shall be more equal in all spheres of his personality and opportunities which can shape his person and humanity shall not be restrictive to a few and devoid from others. In an equalist society it is possible then to fairly allow for unbiased competition between men who are in no way superior to each other via any secondary qualification save the singular and primary qualification which may set them apart i.e. their aptitude. This does not mean we strive to establish a classless society where there exists a singular class, most calling it the proletariat. This is seemingly impractical and unachievable given the socio-economic conditions we operate in and the limited time frame we have for the implementation of effective civil liberties, if we are to conquer and slay the evil of human repugnancy.

The initial flow of the current thought process has been two fold with individuals (forming part of active society) disregarding liberties singularly, based on the norms prescribed by society, and society changing and flowing itself in such a direction so as to incorporate the repugnancy of human life within the social fabric. Social integration of the individual opinion which respects humanity, along with an overall change in the way society looks and feels about human rights issues is the call of the hour. Social institutions like the State, Church, Media, Intellectuals, Public Opinion, etc., which define and delimit the extend of the rights available to men in society, need to be reformed and made more democratic and transparent to incorporate a profound understanding of the subject matter of rights. With a reform in these social institutions, the obvious trickle down effect shall be seen in the conduct of individuals, who adhere to the rules relating to human rights, deriving them from the definitions laid down by the above organizations and institutions.

But above all what is most elementary and important is the need to make a strong and committed beginning. Such a start shall be the foundation to all of man’s ideas and actions, his opinions and understandings of the issues of respect of life and the rights it confers on us. We have to start at the conditional level of reunderstanding and valuing human life from the beginning, having regard for the worth of life and the duties its’ respect imposes. If the basis of all our actions is going to the observance of the sanctity of privileges of fellow members and keeping it as our guiding light for the performance of any action, then the shambled condition we are in may improve. With the respect of the rights of another comes the benefit of according respect to ones own rights and making others aware of their duties towards us.

The situation today stares and screams at us to wake up from our self imposed slumber, turning a blind eye towards human rights violations and not providing them the due reverence they deserve. We must have hope in the spirit and will of man and believe he has not devolved to such disgusting depths where he may one day fail to recognize and respect others rights.