CHENNAI: Looking at newspapers of major metro cities, it is clearly evident that attacks on the aged have increased enormously in the last couple of years. In most of these cases, culprits have been their long-trusted domestic help who robbed them of their life’s savings and did not spare them either.
There is no surprise that such incidents get media attention for a while but little comes out of it in the long term. Thus, it looks as if the culprits are free to move around and the victims have nowhere to go. Under such a scary scenario, there is not only growing distrust in the government and the law and order machinery, but also lack of faith in interpersonal relationships. The need of the hour is to lay equal emphasis on developing a culture which produces human beings of benign conduct. In the above cases, greed for money led the people to perform immoral acts, and as such cases continue to rise, a coldness has set into the system, which callously ignores the victim’s pleas. This does amount to a breach of law, but it begins with a breach of morality.
Unfortunately, no one dares to talk of morality these days, for those who do, are accused of ‘moral policing’. Most people dismiss morality by saying that it differs from person to person; so who draws the line between right and wrong? It is possible to dissolve this difference by understanding spirituality as it is based on the truth that every human being is intrinsically virtuous and possesses qualities of wisdom, purity, peace, love and truth. So, any act that goes against these fundamental qualities amounts to immorality and disturbs the social fabric. And so, to cleanse society of crime, there is a need to foster a culture of spirituality.
Spirituality adds dignity to how people look at each other. There is a need to use the latest technology, media and government channels to empower people to recognise their own goodness so that they obey laws themselves, and even if some people err, others in the society respond to the victims’ appeals with greater responsibility and humanity. Such a culture would then be able to create harmony deep within people where laws cannot reach, and promise an inner security that fences and guards cannot provide.