Dreaming for a self-regulated society
Mr Ashok Kumar Nayak
It is estimated that there are 8.7 million living species exist in this world. Of these species, human beings are the most precious one .Let’s go back to the primitive age when the human beings were wandering in jungle in search of food, more particularly for their existence. They are termed as social animals for the nature of their living.
As time passed by, they learnt several things, polished their behaviour and reshaped their life style to settle in cluster by building houses. They framed certain laws and customs to regulate them by forming society. The popular Oxford Dictionary defines society is the aggregate of people living together in more or less ordered community.
As per the concept of sociologists, “Society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.”
In our society a single individual is counted as a component. Though it is a small component yet its contribution for the society plays a pivotal role for its progress, prosperity and existence. As one one raindrop together makes ocean, similarly each individual is very important for building a strong and better society.
The society in general is influenced by individual behaviour, fellow feeling, loyalty and solidarity with one another. Our Indian society has earned a wide popularity across the world for its rich cultural values and glorious tradition. Many people from the western societies intake several golden principles inscribed in our Vedas, The Gita and other Manuscripts for their self-guidance. But I am seriously disheartened when I see people follow the pattern of western society without knowing the pros and cons of their culture and also they are quite ignorant about better aspects of our own. I would prefer to quote here an everlasting experience of my life. I was a post graduate (physics) student at Ravenshaw University in 2007. While travelling one day from Cuttack to Puri by train with my friends, I found that three people of Denmark were chanting the mantras (hymns) of lord Shree Krishna flawlessly in a splendid manner. They were the devotees of Lord Krishna and were going to Puri to have Darshan of Lord Jaggannath. I was overjoyed to have direct observation that Western people chanting the hymns of Lord Krishna. During my interaction I was curious to know from them their idea about Indian society and Western society. One white man replied with smile that as per their opinion Indian society is lame but has strong vision and western society is blind with strong legs, unity of both can make our world better. I was enlightened to hear the admiration of our society but at the same time disappointed when I listened some negative remarks about our people which nonetheless may be true. He expressed his views with an ease that Indians are lazy and have less fellow feelings i.e. reluctant to uplift other downtrodden so as to make a flourishing society.
The twenty first century has brought numerous changes and a lot of success for the human race through rapid industrialization, INTERNET service, health education and many more unimaginable things. It dressed up the human beings with ultra-modern attire and renamed the society as civilized one. But in true sense, “Are we really civilized?”, a million dollar question indeed. A person with splendid attire, having fluency of many languages is no longer a civilized man. In true sense, “work speaks louder than words”, means a person would be counted as civilized one when he/she has a sense of responsibility for the society, his/her behaviour and attitude influence other with high class discipline.
What is the necessity for a self-regulated society?
Modern society is the society where people prefer to show up rather to contribute their valuable time and labour in fruitful way. Such attitude is surely bane for the society and everybody needs to think about it. A self-regulated society is my dream concept which I have conceptualized from my experience as a responsible public servant .Let’s think about the childhood age, we were guided by our seniors and taught us how to meet the challenges in real life to achieve success. But the irony is that the same child although properly guided by the cultured parents, shows deviant attitude and behavior in public in their grown up stage. The said child still needs guidance and penal provision of law to steer his/her life. In the ancient society there were two types of laws such as reformative and repressive and in my views the former is the best to guide human society. Here we will see how can we reform and contribute our share to make our society worth living. The study of our population indicates that its wider base is occupied by the youth that is people of age group 20 to 45 years. Hence our youth needs to be reformed and steered in right track to make our tomorrow better and better. The contribution of a squirrel during construction of SETU BANDHA in Treteya Yug is the best and suitable example for us. Our youth should take it as a bench mark while contributing their small but valuable time and labour for the betterment of society. By making strong punitive provisions only in the law of the land cannot prevent crime as much as we think. Moral education and reformation can yield better fruits.
Let us see few situations where our disciplined and regulated behavior contribute a lot for betterment. Almost all people in the twenty first century know the rules of road safety but love to disobey it inviting risks to their valuable lives. Statistics show that 151 thousand fatalities are being reported each year due to road accidents. Here people think that helmet is only required to avoid police checking. But one must know that our lives are very precious and it is our sole responsibility to safeguard the same. Our disciplined and regulated behaviour in this regard to obey the law must be useful for us as well as to influence the wrong doer to follow the right track.
Sometimes in Urban areas we find the street lights glow even in day time and water taps for public supply run unnecessarily. Most of us never think to put out the lamps and to close down the water taps. We prefer to skip our responsibility and forget our role as responsible citizen. It is our duty to safeguard the public property and resources. We need to accomplish our share of work without waiting for others to do. This is another element of a self-regulated society.
It is highly annoying to be inside heavy traffic rush and most of us think that the law enforcing agency is not doing its job properly. They usually forget their own role in that situation. It is estimated that there is only one Cop for every 10,000 population in India. Is it possible for one cop to meet the need of ten thousand? Here is the necessity of self-regulated society. We need to think twice before parking our vehicle on roadside whether it affects other’s conveyance or not.
We see strong solidarity between our citizens during INDIA-PAKISTAN cricket matches. We do expect the same solidarity in every situation for a flourishing nation. Let’s give a helping hand to the needy voluntarily and be an example for others. Why do we choose foreign products for our use instead of country made one? Is it the element of true patriotism? Though it is found that in some fields Indian products are a bit inferior in quality in comparison to foreign products yet we can manage. You can buy, you can foster the economy and finally you can contribute to invent products parallel to other foreign products. The thing is that we lack such amount of love and interest for our own products. We can’t be a super power in the world if our scientists accept the high salary jobs of foreign land. Their love for the nation and dedicated service will bring us to this context, we need to accelerate it.
Let’s throw some light to the role of public in our society specifically in control of Crime. Stringent penal provision for crime is not the solution always. We need to be more disciplined and reformative to STOP crime. Our purpose will be achieved to some extent by public awareness programs and moral counselling. After all if crime takes place what will be our role as a member of self-regulated society? People love to be silent spectators if robbery, murder, rape like heinous crime even happens in front of them. It is highly disgusting to remain silent if such things happen before us. What do we think generally is the antisocial may take revenge on us and hope others to raise voice. If we think like this, who knows, tomorrow may be our turn. It’s the time to be a voice not an echo. In most of the cases prosecution fails to prove the case in the court of Law. Biggest reason behind it is the witness turns hostile to depose evidence due to several reasons. It’s an appeal to stand firm and erect against crime. We need to be more responsible, organized and exhibit strong solidarity and fellow feelings for others. This is the urge of a self-regulated society. Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties are splendidly enshrined in the constitution of India. But we focus more on fundamental rights and prefer to right for its enforcement. It is good to have hour justified rights but on the other hand we ignore our fundamental duties. If we do our fundamental duties in true letter and spirit, formation of a “self-regulated society” may not be a distant dream.
