There is a need to make our social fabric neat and reload it full of human values
Sajjad Bazaz
It is heartening to learn Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir Umar Farooq, one of the most influential personalities of Kashmir, has emphasized on making mosques effective centres of social awareness and reform, in the wake of constant social challenges faced by the society, besides being places of worship.
This is exactly what Kashmir direly needs as the place during the three decades of violence became a den of social aberration which remained unfocussed. Neither the society atlarge, nor the authorities during the period were attentive to the growing menace of social turmoil. Actually,the intensity of violence was so high and widespread that the moral breakdown of Kashmiri society continued unnoticed.
Amid this social turmoil, Kashmiri society witnessed gradual loss of human values and during the process the society lost civilized tag and got engulfed in the whirlpool of moral degradation where inhuman incidents are surfacing at regular intervals. Most of the moral degradation stories remain hidden as such incidents are not reported. In fact a look at various criminal acts which took place (and continue to take place) here indicate ‘total criminalization’ of our society. This situation is basically a deep scar left by the three decades of violence where criminal acts were the order of the day and it had become a distant dream to make criminals accountable.
Unfortunately, generally speaking, the crimes during the period of three decades of violence had the backing of society, wittingly or unwittingly. We observed generations growing amid this total criminalization of the society and resultantly, the present social set-up is in disorder.
Here National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data of the year 2021 is worth mentioning. It reveals that J&K’s crime graph went up by 24.6% in 2 years. The cognizable crimes jumped to 31,675 in 2021 as against 25,408 in 2019. The data shows that the year 2020, which saw the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, recorded 28,911 cognizable crimes in the UT of Jammu & Kashmir. It further reveals that 136 people were murdered in 2021, 30 lost their lives due to extremism or insurgency, two to political reasons, one to honour killing, 10 to love affair and three to illicit relationship.
According to the latest report of the NCRB, the region reported over 3700 cases of crime against women in 2022, which is the second highest among UTs after Delhi, the latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has revealed. Jammu and Kashmir recorded 3,716 registered cases of crimes against women, behind Delhi in this regard. The NCRB report reveals that Jammu and Kashmir has registered nine cases under section 304B (Dowry Deaths) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2022. Additionally, 42 cases under section 305 (Abetment of suicide of child or insane person) and 306 (Abetment of suicide) of IPC were also registered in the region.
Besides, as per the report, the region has also registered 500 cases under section 498 (Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives) of the IPC along with two cases under IPC’s section 326A (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid). Notably, the report sums up that Jammu and Kashmir has not been too far from Delhi in the cases pertaining to kidnapping and abduction of women.
Undoubtedly, the increasing trend of crime rate in our society is a horrific reality, with far-reaching possibilities.
Precisely, in the past three decades, criminalization of our society has been deep rooted and scant attention has been given to nip the evil in the bud. At the moment, our approach to the criminal acts has been reactive and we have been poor learners from these incidents as we lack a hedging approach to this menace. If we have a serious look at the growing criminalization of our society, we would find our socio-economic structure reaching an advanced stage of rot during all these years. With the advent of Internet and social media platforms, the situation is further worsening as the technology is being misused more than put it productive use. Mostly the young ones surrender themselves to the glittering offers of the social media platforms, advertently or inadvertently, to satiate their enthusiasm.
Even as J&K has come out of the violence cycle and unprecedented economic development is taking place on large-scale, the social disorder in Kashmiri society refuses to die. Why is our society still receding deeper and deeper into this abyss with each passing day? Is it on the verge of spreading beyond all manageable proportions? Let’s have a look at some of the factors responsible for turning our society into this era of criminalization.
J&K has always remained a region gripped in unemployment crisis. We have seen a huge army of youth who have no jobs or avenues to earn a respectable living. This segment of our society has always remained the priority of vested interests who lay hands on them in lieu of some bucks and use them for their own petty interests. Then there’s the poverty factor. It needs no elaboration, as all of us are aware that poverty exposes a person to high risk of taking to illegal and unlawful routes for survival. It’s here corrupt people in society rob the common people of their moral character.
Misuse of Internet and social media platforms has been rampant and assumed dangerous dimensions. Everyone and everything in the cyber space is emerging as an evil era taking toll of our youth – where some turn out as oppressors and some as oppressed. So elders are duty bound to keep a track on the activities of their young ones while roaming in the cyber space and continuously hammer lessons to them about the multiple risks associated with it.
Then comes to the impact of television on society vis-a-vis social change. Gone are the days when television was a medium which used to get all members of a family to sit as a full unit to watch programmes full of family content. But following tremendous advancement in the medium, which saw unending expansion of TV channel networks coupled with revolution in programme production, the families started disintegrating. This disintegration owes its origin to falling moral values promoted through programmes telecast from these television channels.
The changing pattern of television programmes today promoting immoral values has brought embarrassment to the responsible parents as watching a TV serial or a reality show with their kids is as good as sitting on a live time bomb. The themes of the programmes, serials (obviously not all of them) etc. today don’t fit in a family where parents and kids jointly can watch the TV.
I still remember one of my acquaintances stating that the television channels have put us to shame. “They have made our position awkward as our kids ask us questions which we are not able to explain,” said my acquaintance. Basically, his kid while watching a programme asked him a shocking question – ‘what is a porn star?’ He lost speech and couldn’t utter a word in response to this innocently asked question by his innocent kid.
Why does ‘porn star’ strike the kid’s mind? Actually, the channel had run a film teaser in which Sunny Leone was the lead female star and the background narrator proudly described Leone as a famous porn star.
Precisely, evenas the television and social media platforms have revolutionised the medium of entertainment, vulgarity and obscenity seems to have been embedded as a permanent feature in the content of the programmes. These channels of entertainment over a period of time have also contributed to the criminal upsurge in our society. The content on these channels of entertainment through serials glorifies falsified life-styles and criminal tendencies. This way our young minds are exposed to the blatant glorification of crime and brazen propagation of the philosophy of ‘success at any cost.
Now, there are two major challenges which every one of us irrespective of our positions needs to negotiate for the protection and welfare of every strata of our society. One is to immediately stop criminalization of our society and another is eradication of this gangrene. Both need political and social will. If we fail to focus on the issue, it would irrevocably lead to the decay of our whole society. We can grow as a civilized society only if we are more organised, and have a better understanding of our role in the development of society. The key to successful eradication of criminal factors from our society lies with the attitude of our younger generation. Their response to the menace can only make or break our nation-building process.
In this context, the call for making use of mosques for social awareness and reform is timely. Such an initiative can go a long way to make our social fabric neat and reload the Kashmiri society full of human values.
(The author is a veteran journalist/columnist).
