We the Punjabis have failed them


 By Rajesh Sharma


Less than a week to go – and it will be a month since Shruti Sachdeva was abducted on September 24. The probe is on. The police is being blamed and ridiculed by turns. The opposition has taken out the whip to thrash the government right and left. True, it is the wretched state of law and order which a minor girl’s abduction by a spoilt brat with ‘criminal’ record has highlighted. But is that all? Is not the crime also a symptom of some deeper, more insidious malaise?
To put it briefly but not sweetly, the girl’s abduction is the ripe fruit of a poisonous tree that has been cultivated over the years by all sorts of people among us. The brand of politics that has established itself as the only viable kind, with its deadly blend of wealth, force and an extremely uncouth disrespect for law, comes first to mind. Next, one thinks of the new economy which treats the spectacle as the only reality. Phrases like ‘reforms with a human face’, ‘the feel-good factor’, the sensex as the mirror of economic health, despite their inbuilt irony, have pushed the substance out of sight. What matters is the appearance, and that too loud, vulgar, immodest appearance. Modesty, restraint, quiet grace are out. Salman Khurshid’s foul and furious vapours are just a side show in the great Indian wedding.
The centre stage of this great wedding is, expectedly, the Punjab – with its unquenchable craving for myths. The land once praised for never letting an invasion pass unresisted has surrendered abjectly to the most pernicious of invasions. A certain dandyism has slowly invaded and settled in our souls. Indeed it has become the trade mark of the Punjabi male self. Popular cinema, pulp journalism, vulgar music videos, obscene jokes with a tadka of sexism and casteism breed more happily in a culture in which SUVs, roadside bars and barbecues, and barber-fresh beards define honour and self-respect. Women, then, will be the natural prey of the male animal that is raving to break free in fantasies of criminal self-glorification. This animal did come out to prowl during the Gurdas Mann Nite in Punjabi University at Patiala recently. I am sure it has not been caged or tamed; it has only retreated into the shadows, and is waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on its prey.
The more I contemplate the scene, the more it fills me with dismay. The sages, the gurus, the bhaktas, the Sufis, the martyrs – they were not of us. They were dissenters. They fought against us, for our sake. We have failed them – in failing to fight against ourselves.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Saddening! Depressing!! Soul-tainting!!!
October 18, 2012 at 10:28 AM
Daljit Ami said…
I agree that We the Punjabis have failed them ....
October 18, 2012 at 5:24 PM
M L Raina said…
Are we witnessing another version of the apocalypse that Biblical
prophets foretold? With our feelings gone numb,are we too groping for
a 'bronze horseman' whom the great Russian poet Pushkin imagined would
salvage our plight?

October 18, 2012 at 5:25 PM
Badri Raina said…
misbegottne modernity i had called it; in the book.
sad; this is the way the world ends--with the deadly self-absorption of the classes, and god's desertion of the masses.

October 18, 2012 at 5:25 PM
Subhash Chandra said…
Saddening! Depressing!! Soul-tainting!!!
October 18, 2012 at 5:26 PM
Rahul said…
Is this time not the time when we afraid of discipline? Perhaps we need to redefine 'freedom' in its relation to 'discipline'. Popular cinema makes us feel as if we are free to touch what is obscene in our life. Do we really know that we are too much disciplined for this kind of freedom. This article shows that we have lost other forms of disciplines suggested by the G
urus and the Sufis. Are we free to choose that?
October 24, 2012 at 6:45 PM
rooted in my village - manoranjan dhaliwal said…
Hi Rajesh,
I have been introduced to your blog by my niece, Manreet, who was a student of yours until last year.
I have really liked this blog for its content and hope to be visiting it often.
Cheers!
May 8, 2013 at 2:50 PM
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