Sparsh

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self. ---B. R. Ambedkar Individualism will loose its meaning if it becomes part of the crowd or even ignore society. Because we have to recognize the complex inter dependencies of modern life. To become rebellious, one needs a certain understanding, a certain alertness, a certain unprejudiced mind. Even life itself is a lesser value than our individuality and our rebelliousness. When one is sacrificing oneself for something far greater and more beautiful -- for freedom, for individuality, for expression, for creativity; one is sowing seeds for future generations of liberty. Rather than only contempt for authoritarianism, one needs sufficient wisdom to architect new system. Discontent with current regime is a sufficient, but not eno...

Using Hinduism or Islam as a badge of cultural identity rather than acting from the tenets of humanism has sown seeds of bigotry and hate in us. We misguided look at the past for golden age to prototype our utopia of the future. Faith dilutes the rational thinking of the people and the destruction of Babri Masjid was one shameful incident of independent India based on such blind faith. Under the evil ideology, people lose humanity & descend into organized homicidal insane savagery. I sum up the religious glorification concept in this line. One has to unsubscribe to our polite cultural belief of respecting religions. There is a circle of violence in the name of religion going on and there is no pinpoint for me to mark the origin point. Sometimes we evaluate history using contemporary reasoning and perhaps misrepresent the events in our minds. But, the overall look on the development of religion as institutions will help in seeing the corrosion of its principles. Religion...

This article give my crude ideas on justice at this point of time. For clarity, I have neither read the book " The Idea of Justice " by Amartya Sen nor " A Theory of Justice " by John Rawls. Justice is both personal and social in every aspect. Both of aspects are interdependent and produce effects that change the path of society and individual respectively. The rule of law is directly taken by man from nature. Hence, it always go in hierarchical structure rather than equality for all. Hence, providing justice to all is a complex phenomenon. We have to know the difference of revenge and justice. People want a scape goat as the front face to accuse swiftly and get a justice. One can certainly defend domination in the name of freedom, but those oppressed by such a view or practice of freedom would say that not all freedoms are equal or equally worth defending. Oppressed has more sense of justice than oppressor, hence concept of justice should be studied always fro...

I am not interested in sensationalism in these sensitive times. I talk about phenomenon in the state of cultural stagnation and political apathy. Reading and education is do ours bit to build democracy as effectiveness of democracy depends on the awareness of its citizens. 1- Indianhomemaker tells us: What do men need liberation from ? 2- Half of India doesn’t even have access to the judiciary. what do courts mean to them? Lawyer Prashant Bhushan speaks to Amit Sengupta of Tehleka on Who is a public intellectual, who can pass for one in India? 3- Amrita Preetam Imroz : A love Story of a Poet and a Painter . Just read to understand the intimacy of the love and poetry. 4- Dubai for a common purpose : to make money as smoothly and painlessly as possible, even if that means turning a blind eye. 5- Greg Satell explains: The Difference between Social Media and Social Networks. 6- From fields to a BPO in 6 months : A first-of-its-kind women-only BPO started by 'Harva' ...

Question- How do society cope with its problems ? Answer - In the first step, Intellects of the community discover the malpractices going in the society. They are noticed by all but not viewed as problem in the general conscious of the group in the authority (monetary and political in charge). Intellects present the problem so that its long term ill effects can be understand by the individuals. Then in final step, they modify or replace the practice with the new one. Hence, society moves from one processing system to other till the existing one corrupts. But this minority of intellect of the society breeds in the environment where rational voice is not suppressed by the fear of violence of authority or extremists. Thus how society evolve and their idea of justice expands. All human rights & social equality movements have given value to this freedom and democracy of the human life. The basic condition of the peaceful co existence in diverse society (each group is diverse in th...

Frederick Douglass had written over a century ago. “ Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them … . The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Naxal problem is making up a civil war like situation in India. And we are talking the losses in the terms of loss of life in encounters. The big picture is going beyond our imagination and tales of exploitation of dalits , labours and adivasis is echoing the real India. Shoma Chaudhary examines the tricky and dangerous terrain of Operation Green Hunt , the offensive against Naxals, might blow up in our faces: " Dalits and adivasis comprise a staggering one fourth of India’s population, yet are disproportionately destitute and low on the Human Development Index scale. Worse, they suffer the most humiliation and indignity: the proverbial insult on injury. Our country represents a show where 77 percent of Indi...

The seed of post was sown when Joie de vivre commented in mine recent post that we live in the country where Logon ko democracy ka D bhi nai pata . She was absolutely right that Indians have a long way to go to understand the values of rights and duties of citizen. Personally, I don't have very strong belief in democracy but have a faith in swift and vigilant justice. Yet democracy seems to me as best way of giving voices to myself and the people. This is my naive attempt to understand the complex relationship of justice and democracy. Democracy is ethically right but intellectually void.-- Max Kislanski I once asked my father why people rate parliament above supreme court running on constitution. He replied me that constitution is made for serving the people not the vice-versa. When representative of people at Parliament veto supreme court verdict, they are abiding the rule of people only. I was silenced then. After many years, this memory resurfaces in studying Shahbano Case . ...