When we lose our humanity…

Man’s cruelty to his fellow being knows no bounds and is there any better example of this than the recent incident in Bengaluru where a 29-yearold woman was murdered and her body horrendously chopped into 30 pieces and stuffed into a refrigerator? The Bengaluru police have zeroed in on the main suspect who is supposedly from West Bengal and are hopeful of nabbing him soon but what has left people shocked beyond belief is the increasing occurrence of such inhuman acts, which defy civilised norms and point to a new and emerging trend of unimaginable cruelty towards ones’ own kind. The first such case to shock India’s conscience was the rape and murder of a paramedic in Delhi about 12 years ago when sent the nation reeling in shock.

The perpetrators have since been sent to the gallows and the incident could even have played a role in the downfall of the then Congress - led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Then came the Shraddha Walkar case in which a 27-year-old woman was murdered by her boyfriend following an argument and her body cut into pieces and kept in a fridge at their house in Delhi. The case is ongoing and interestingly came to light only after several months when the father lodged a complaint on his daughter going missing. The Kolkata doctor’s shocking rape and murder again brought the nation together in protest with the medical fraternity standing shoulder to shoulder while seeking more security and speedy justice for the victim. The Badlapur shocker from Maharashtra in which a school attendant sexually assaulted little girls, was another incident which sent a shiver down the spines of parents with school-going children; how could they be at peace at home when such predators were on the prowl on school premises? In the latest twist in this case, the accused was shot dead by the Maharashtra police in retaliatory firing. And now comes the chilling episode from the IT City with Bengalureans yet to reconcile to the fact that such a ‘murder most foul’ could happen even in their serene surroundings.

For if a mere murder was not enough, the accused in this case has chopped up the body and loaded the pieces into a refrigerator, maybe to escape detection or for some other unexplained reason. Are all those lessons on morality, culture and the need to adopt a value-based philosophy of life, which parents and educational institutions try to inculcate in kids from an early age, going in vain? In the mad rush to catch up with the lifestyle and trends in a money-driven society, are we losing sight of our basic moorings which place us apart from animals? There is no doubt an erosion of the good old virtues from earlier times like kindness to fellow beings, the ability to share and care, empathy for the deprived and the less endowed lot and the magnanimity to rise above oneself and reach out to others in times of need. The deep-seated instincts of a capitalist society where the urge to outdo others pushes people beyond the limits of humaneness, could have something to do with the demoniac behaviour we have been witnessing in recent years which seems to be violating all limits of decency.

It is obviously time to return to our moorings and make sure that in the mindless pursuit of wealth and affluence, we do not lose our essential traits of humaneness and the ethos of a civilised society. The only silver lining on the horizon is the awakening of the human conscience, spurred by social media and the proliferation of TV channels with the outrage against such crimes fast assuming a national character. Let us hope that in due course, this will lead to the building of a national resolve to fight and stop such incidents.