Candid Corner
“Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything – except his own nature.”
Henry Miller
There has been a spate of incidents of late involving violence, rape and other such monstrous indulgences which should put humans to shame. But, in reality, does it really make a difference to people who are relentlessly engaged in crass and malevolent pursuits which do not leave even the littlest time to attend to such sicknesses and, much less, initiate some credible effort to remedy them?
It is actually scary to be alive in a world which seems so full of creatures moving along by their evil instincts without scant realisation that what they may be indulging in is so wicked and so shameless. It is as if they command a celestial injunction to administer justice of the most demeaning kind to all who may not be inclined to imbibing their whims and fancies. It is as if their minds have stopped functioning and their senses numbed as they ride a rollercoaster ravaging through columns of humans. Those who do not give in to their writ are deemed to have lost the right to their life. One cringes at the sheer brutality that these animals are capable of inflicting upon those who dare to disagree. Such people forfeit their right to be called humans. They are some form of beastly creatures, come here masquerading as humans to hide the ugliness within. Their cruelty is fathomless and their inhumanity brutal. They are moulded of a different material and cannot be explained in mere words. It is Shakespeare who spoke about such creatures in King Lear:
“I’ th’ last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,
Which made me think a man a worm.”
And in Julius Caesar:
“I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than such a Roman.”
And again in King Lear:
“Howl! Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack.”
Much of this is also reflected in our daily undertakings. In a desperate and maniacal pursuit of selfish interests, we lose sight of reason and decency. It is as if special rights and privileges have been bestowed upon some who can use them as and when desired and in a manner that may be deemed right. In the process, we may trample upon others’ rights and tarnish their dignity. But that is of no consequence. We are like dead weight going through the motions of living which does not carry a meaning.
Every time a beastly act is brought to notice, there are loud proclamations of administering exemplary punishments to the perpetrators to teach them a lesson. Along the way, people generally forget about it till another incident of a similar nature happens which elicits a replication of outbursts of the last time. One has been abreast of a sequence of such vows followed with little to no action which generates a no-fear atmosphere for these animals to continue stalking their prey. The victims keep falling, some losing their lives, but the beasts are neither contained, nor discouraged in any meaningful manner. Things have deteriorated to such an extent that it is no longer possible to set these monstrous creatures apart from those who may still have some human feelings stirring within their beings.
In the absence of justice and consequent despondency that it breeds, all that mortals can do is raise their hands in prayer that those who seek should be rewarded and those who have been bereft of their way should be shown the right path. That may not be the best of remedies but, with a corrupt, inefficient and manipulative bureaucracy lording over the system, this is just about all that is left within the reach of the people.
Much is to blame. Principally, the system is to blame which does not offer effective laws and mechanisms to punish such inhuman acts. Then, whatever laws are there which could lead to administering punishments of a minimal kind are laid hostage in the grip of a rampant environment of corruption where everything is up for sale for a price. If some crime ever gets beyond the stage of investigation, it falls prey to the corruption that is layered in the corridors of the judiciary. Cases drag on for years, nay generations, with no justice ever in sight. On top of that is the gross antipathy of those who are associated with such matters. So the whole thing is lost in the labyrinth of multilayered corruption spread through a host of institutions of the state which deal with such matters.
This is what encourages these criminals to not only continue their beastly indulgences, but to do so ever more daringly. It is as if there is no fear to deter them from committing such fiendish acts. At the end of the day, these crimes are couched in a host of self-righteous espousals. While the whole habitation may be coerced into pleading for reprieve for the criminals, there is none who would come to the rescue of the poor and the powerless segments of the society. Injustice is built deep into the fabric of the system that is practised.
But then such a system breeds reaction where people are forced to take law into their hands and start dispensing justice of their own making. That brings forth a different kind of people who are born out of deep discontent with the existing dispensation and feel that they have a right to go their own way to secure justice for the wrongs done to them. This is a dangerous trend which has been increasing for a considerable time, creating a breed of rebels who have been forced to practise their own brand of injustice, at times more brutal than what they may have been subjected to. This would inevitably mean privatisation of justice in the hands of those who have been the victims of one or the other form of injustice.
We often talk about the inefficiency of a system. These symptoms are much worse than just inefficiency. These are rooted in the making of a system which is neither effective nor relevant to meet the demands of the times. This system is plagued with innumerable shortcomings and enormous dysfunction. It needs changes to make it respond to contemporary requirements which the society is plagued with.
But there is a method here. The system has been crafted with the intent that it should not be equipped with features to deliver. Instead, it has been rendered subservient to the hubris of those in the seats of power, most notably the bureaucracy, so that they are able to manipulate it to advance their petty personal objectives. It is a deep-rooted mess which is not confined to one person alone. The entire institutions and their managers are complicit in this game plan to perpetuate their shenanigans.
I dare say that the vilest component of this whole manifestation are the members of the infamous bureaucracy who have succeeded in keeping themselves insulated from any changes which, from time to time, may have been incorporated in their service rules and regulations. These individuals may have intense differences among themselves with regard to insatiable lust for catching the most prized posting and accruing other benefits, but they are glued as one when it comes to protecting their interests. Because of the key role the bureaucracy plays in implementing the plans of the government, it is imperative that this institution is given a comprehensive overhaul that has been long overdue as, without that, the delivery to the needy and the impoverished sections of the society would remain a pipedream.
In the absence of justice and consequent despondency that it breeds, all that mortals can do is raise their hands in prayer that those who seek should be rewarded and those who have been bereft of their way should be shown the right path. That may not be the best of remedies but, with a corrupt, inefficient and manipulative bureaucracy lording over the system, this is just about all that is left within the reach of the people.
