Abid Hussain Rather
It is the basic essentiality of a civilized, cultured, peaceful and an educated society that its each and every member should stay away from social evils and contrarily moral values should get the highest priority to flourish within the society. History is witness to the fact when the people of a society lack moral values, different social evils start strengthening their roots there which ultimately lead to the downfall of that society. When a society starts misusing the blessings of nature, its people get indulged in various indecent activities which finally results in the destruction of that society. We are people of the modern era where science and technology has transformed and revolutionized each and every facet of our lives and made our existence comfortable. Nature has bestowed us with countless blessings through science and technology which have eased our adversities and difficulties. There are both positive as well as negative aspects associated with the usage of these scientific blessings. When we use these blessings in a positive way they make our life comfy cozy and open up new vistas of progress and prosperity for us but when the same blessings are utilised wrongly they turn into malediction and foster many social evils in the society. Then these social evils ultimately lead a society towards destruction. The idea of morality and modesty slowly fades away from such societies and its people particularly youngsters get involved in various social evils. Ironically, people of such societies feel proud of their social evils as these evils become customs and rituals of such societies with changed nomenclatures and the people involved in such evil activities are honoured, encouraged and awarded as such people are presumed and envisaged as the role models in the society. Alas ! Such societies remain inebriated with their excessive inclination towards social evils which keeps them nescient and incognizant of their immediate downfall. Famous English historian Arnold J. Toynbee after analysing the rise and fall of human civilizations in his classic 12-volume book ‘A Study of History’ has rightly concluded that civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. It is pertinent to mention here that progress and prosperity of a society depends on its youth who are the precious assets of a society and can lead it to different heights of development. But when the youth of a society get engulfed in wrong, immoral and immodest activities, then destruction and devastation is the ultimate fate of such societies.
Nowadays social media has gained much fame and has become inseparable part of our lives. Almost each and every individual of our society irrespective of his age, sex, gender or profession is involved with social media. When used positively, Social media can be much useful and beneficial as we have seen in last two and half years of COVID-19 pandemic. It has been much helpful to students, government institutions and other business entrepreneurs during the times of lockdown. But we shouldn’t forget that social media can be much dangerous and it can become the worst tool for spreading immodesty and immorality when used for negative, notorious and disgraceful means. When we have a look at the other parts of globe, we see people getting much benefited by social media. They are using it to disseminate knowledge and useful information. They are using social media especially YouTube as a powerful tool to teach and learn different skills and crafts. People in other parts of the world remain updated about current affairs of the world through social media. But when we look at our valley, we feel ashamed and disappointed. Instead of making social media as a useful tool, our social media influencers are using it to disseminate immorality and immodesty besides making fun of simple, innocent and mentally and physically disabled people. They are highlighting, pinpointing and publicizing the shortcomings, flaws, faults and imperfections of others on social media in the name of roasting, which is morally and religiously prohibited, thereby murdering the moral values and virtues in our society. They are feeding our youngsters with the doses of insanity and absurdity by uploading the insane videos of mentally challenged people on social media. Few social media handlers are wasting the time of our young generation by uploading the futile videos of their daily personal activities (vlogging) thereby publicizing and mocking their own personal family secrets to common masses. One wonders what kind of message they are trying to give the society through their daily vlogs and it is really ironical to notice our youngsters wasting their precious time in watching such useless videos which divert them from their main goals and encouraging such so-called social media influencers.
It is the biggest tragedy of our society that we mishandle, misuse and torture mentally unsound people by uploading their videos on social media and make them viral. We use such people as a source of enjoyment and recreation for ourselves and when we irritate and torture such people beyond limits they too cross the limits of madness and blaspheme our religious sentiments or commit some serious and irreparable mistakes. Then we start hating them and speak ill about them. But I believe those supposedly educated and civilised individuals who provoke and aggravate these mentally challenged people to commit such serious mistakes are the real culprits and much more mentally retarded than these mentally challenged people and such people should be strictly punished. These notorious and ignominious people make fun of these simple and innocent people by inviting them as special guests at various functions and take their funny and meaningless interviews which they later upload on social media for their personal interests. They tease and torture them whenever they find a chance by clicking their photos or taking their videos and later on making them viral on social media. These ignorant and uncivilized people are unaware about the fact that people who can’t differentiate between good and bad and whose knowledge and intellect doesn’t make them capable of distinguishing between right and wrong are not worth to be called as human beings and such people fall below the level of animals.
I am of the opinion that people who upload these insane, indecent and futile videos on social media are not solely responsible for disseminating immorality and immodesty on social media but all those people of our society are equally responsible in this heinous and iniquitous act who watch, like or share such videos or encourage these people in one way or other to upload such videos. People who watch and share these iniquitous videos on social media unknowingly become a media for spreading immodesty and immorality in our society. Let’s not forget the fact that if we will stop watching or advertising these videos by sharing them on social media and when we will stop encouraging these people for these heinous crimes, they will automatically stop uploading these insane and iniquitous videos on social media. Every individual in our society should always keep in mind that our every single act on social media is watched and recorded by our Lord. We have to be answerable before our Lord on the day of judgement for what we have uploaded, watched, liked or shared on social media and we will be solely responsible for our deeds. So we should always avoid and prohibit from spreading misinformation, immodesty, immortality, iniquity and indecency on social media and it is our moral and religious duty to immediately report all such content on social media which leads to dissemination of immorality and immodesty in our society. Let our deeds shouldn’t degrade and humiliate us before our Lord on the day of judgement.
(The author can be reached at [email protected]).
