Pensieve 2.0

The expression law of the jungle is often used to describe the unjust, chaotic world of violence where the weak perish and the stronger survive and thrive. It particularly refers to what happens in the wild, every animal has to kill something smaller than itself to survive. My favorite contemporary Indian author Devdutt Pattnaik uses  the Sanskrit phrase matsya nayaya to describe this, his illustration makes the concept a lot more clear to understand.  In human society this phrase is used mostly pejoratively to mean absence of law from the society. Yet recent event forces one to question if it at all we can condemn it anymore.

Recently, Chetan Bhagat published an Open Letter to Indian Change Seekers on his Times of India column which I found quite out of sync with reality and to be brutally honest, completely absurd and insensitive if not diabolic. I did comment there but character limit prevented me to actually refute his "theory" though I had written it. What I ended up doing is criticizing without giving appropriate reasons which is not very mature thing to do. Further, attacking a person instead of his argument violates the rules of rhetorical logic so I am not even writing a reply,only refuting his argument.

Few hours back Facebook introduced Graph Search which could truly be the biggest innovation Facebook has introduced since its inception. Graph Search will provide a unique way to find information on people, places, photos etc. What excites me is the fact that it doesn't seem to challenge Google in a big way. Of course, the feature was introduced only few hours back and is not available to general users so it may be too early to make such statements but it is the respective motto of both the Internet giants that suggests it. While Google has always said its aim is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful" Facebook says its mission is to make the world more open and connected. Of course neither is being truthful but the fact remains that Google has always wanted to organize information, Facebook wants to connect people, their interests, places.

The mindset has to change,this has been repeated almost ritualistically after the heinous crime in Delhi that has left the nation ashamed. But how does it begin ? The underlying cause is the growing intolerance of independent women among a large section of people. From passing lewd comments,harassment in public place/transport/at work, the obnoxious custom of dowry, domestic violence and instances of honor killings are some of the other misdeeds and offenses arising out of the this misogynistic mindset prevalent which in worst cases leads to rape and brutalization of women. To ensure that such gruesome acts are never repeated it is necessary to find out the reason for the intolerance and a feasible solution to end it.

Rancorous uproar for justice after every brutal crime  including and especially crime against women may represent popular sentiment but somewhere down the line they also reveal a hypocritical outlook. The demand for more stringent laws and strict enforcement being raised by people from across the spectrum; from the Parliament to the small town tea-stalls, is in essence retributive reflecting a mindset not much different from the mindset of the offenders. The shock, outrage and anger are genuine but it is not very clear if it arises entirely out of the wrong done to a young student or the fact that these offenders have glimpse of the monsters lurking within us. After all   these people must have been very much part of our society less than a week back. They might have taken part in anti-corruption movement and even joined the chorus denouncing rising rate of crime against women! One cannot really say.