Hate crime and not Criminals

To begin let us first consider a hypothetical situation where a society is in a state of total collapse, where there is a lack of food, water, and money. 

In this given situation I think most of us; in fact all of us would resort to stealing, looting, fighting, and killing for survival if we had to. 

But in a day to day normally functional society, most of us will not need to resort to such behaviour for most of our lives. Most people are found saying things like – “Stealing is wrong and I would never steal. And if someone does he/she should be punished for it”, without realising that they would never steal because they never find themselves in a position where it becomes a choice between stealing or dying and that may be some other people steal and kill because they find themselves in such situations. I think in such drastic scenarios most of us would steal and kill if we had to.

But in a normally functional society that we live in on a day to day basis most of us will not need to resort to such behaviour for most of our lives. And most of us judge other people’s actions as right or wrong from our individual level of comfort, without realising that we have created a society in which everybody is selfishly competing with one another for survival, and in such a paradigm everybody is constantly trying to secure more resources for themselves and lesser for everybody else. In such a selfish and competitive paradigm people who succeed get rich and continue to get richer, while people who didn’t have the situations working in their favour lose and stay poor. 

So poverty is part of our social structure, it is woven into the very fabric of human society. If there are rich people, there will be poor people. Unless of course we evolve to a point where we all freely share all our resources equally.  

And in this poverty stricken daily reality of the majority of the world’s population living under poverty line, struggle for survival is a day to day reality and just like any other human being would in such situations, these people resort to whatever means they have to, in order to feed and protect themselves and their loved ones. 

So looking at the broader picture we are all as individuals equally responsible for the crime in the world, because we let our selfishness blind us from seeing that in our individual pursuit for more, we let some of our brothers and sisters slip through the cracks and live in conditions that no human or animal should live in. 

And if pushing fellow humans to such situations of desperation wasn’t enough, we then punish them by the law for doing something that we all would have done in similar situations. 

And in doing so, we are doubly wronging our fellow human beings. First we push them to a point of desperation and then we punish them for doing something that we all would have done in such desperate situations.  

Of course I cannot deny that there are some sociopathic people out there who commit crimes because they love it. But I have to admit that most of the sociopathic tendencies are bred in the horrible conditions that the poor of our society live in. And so even in case of such sociopathic people, it is the environment or the condition that is to be blamed which is poverty. 

And poverty is the direct result of uneven distribution of wealth which arises out of each one of our individual attitude of trying to secure more for ourselves and less for everybody else. 

In conclusion, I think arresting and locking up individuals who have committed crimes might be necessary, at least till a situation has been understood and resolved. But it is nowhere close to ridding the society of crime. 
An unhealthy act is an outcome of an unhealthy mind, and an unhealthy mind is an outcome of an unhealthy environment. We need to examine the environment. 

Through this thought I wish to at least make people think twice about this issue, if not rid the society of crime completely.

Bollywood and It's Role In Indian Society | Escapism

Usually I am not a TV kind of a person, but these days I am in Uttar Pradesh and I am guilty of being in front of the television more than I would usually like for various reasons.

But yesterday while flipping through channels I came across this movie called Agaaz (starring Sunil Shetty as the lead), and decided to watch a few minutes of what was going on.

The scene was that the protagonist was being stabbed by political rowdies, while his baby sister was being raped by one of the gang members in broad day light while the whole society watched in silence.

And now I think I understand why there are so many repetitive bollywood movies being made and watched for decades.

Also I am not a big fan of Bollywood films because of the very same reason - I feel they are repetitive in the kind of emotions or scenarios they are trying to bring out. Because I personally like to explore as many different emotions as life has to offer.

Most of the bollywood films deal with the same scenarios of love between people of different social statuses, political rowdyism and so on.

But now I understand the reason behind this.

These scenarios are a part of people's daily lives, and while real life usually does not have happy endings. These movies certainly do.

Since people have lost hope of justice in society, they at least like to see truth win over evil in their fantasies by putting themselves in the shoes of the protagonist or any other character.

This is the reason why there are innumerable movies being made and watched over and over again about the same life scenarios.

This is a perfect example of cinema being used as a form of escapism.

And this is in a country who tag line is "Satyameva Jayate" - "Truth always wins"

If this doesn't open your eyes to how hypocritical society is, nothing will. And remember me and you and everyone is part of this society. So don't detach yourself from the term "society" while reading this.

Also these kind of films are still more popular among the rural population of the country as compared to their urban counterparts.

But by that I don't mean there is less injustice in cities. But the urban people don't get to see such injustice out in the open so often because they are much higher up the social/economic ladder.

But these kind of scenarios are still a part of daily lives of the rural folks.

Nobody wants to change the society. While the poor helpless people live their lives with no hope of justice, the rich and influential people who can make a difference don't want to do anything.

They just want to give them ways to escape their miserable existence for a few hours. And there is a reason why the rich and influential who can spend billions of dollars on such cinema don't want to do anything about these hopeless situations.

And the reason is - Because they are already rich and safe. These problems are not a part of their life, and so they sit and do nothing about such hopeless inhumane scenarios. All they do is make a spectacle out of these sad situations in the world so that they can make more money from these hopeless people and get richer and richer.

Such movies will continue to be made and watched till life doesn't become worth living for majority of the population.

Also escapism in cinema is seen as such a normal and obvious thing. To the thoughtless people of course. Think about this for a minute - What good is a life if you constantly need ways to escape it?

Now why don't things change? Because everybody is selfish. Anybody who is happy sitting comfortably in their homes and look at these problems of the world while only taking care of their own careers and lives is selfish and is part of the problem and not the solution.