Curious case of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

 that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

 In year 1776, while writing Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jafferson must have have had some divine intervention to write such words of pure gold.

This excerpt has been a guiding light for most of the democracies across the world.

India too had taken cues from the US constitution while drafting Indian constitution in late fifties. The use of 'We The People' is a testimony to the fact that as a country, India gave foremost importance to the equality of human being without any prejudices towards race, colour, caste, religion or ethnicity.

What Indian constitution promises to all citizens are Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. These four virtues are ingrained in the Preamble of Constitution which was accepted in January 26th 1949.

In another 6 month, India will celebrate 70th Republic day with full pomp & show of strength and cultural heritage but somewhere the very soul of this republic would be bleeding.

The very fabric of cohesive society is breaking, strand by strand. The constitutional right of justice is robbed everyday, liberty is challenged almost on a daily basis, equality is no more evident and fraternity is dying untimely death.

The Question of Life and Liberty?

Before pondering into the question, let me ask, have you heard about Madhu Chindaki, Pehlu Khan, Manik Roy, Akbar Khan ?

You might have heard about Pehlu Khan or Akbar Khan as mainstream media took up their cases and ran episodes in prime-time. They were targeted by Anti-Cow-Smuggling gangs which call themselves as Gau-Rakshaks.

These gau-rakshaks gangs, whom I prefer to see simply as murderers, have become an extra-judicial system in itself where no law of land works. Mob-justice has subdued the system and clearly there is a tacit collusion between political leadership and Police which never fails to wag their tails to keep their interests taken care of.

I haven't heard any instance where Police has done lathi-charge to disperse gau-rakshak mobs, leave aside use of bullets. Why Police is so helpless?

Indeed it is impossible to tame the local administration without the weight of political pressure and the mob-gangs have secured this tactical advantage in their favor.

Apart from gau-rakshah gangs we have a larger problem of violence. It is evident that the violence is considered the first and best approach to settle score with anybody. Be it college level gang-wars or gun-fights between rival gangs, everywhere dominance of violence is intriguing.

Political class has been successful to shamelessly legitimize such horrific killing by sugar coating it with false religious pride and flaming emotions on the hardliner agenda.

In almost every case of dispute, rather than sitting across the table and settling the issue, it is the violence, show of power and status which rules the roost.

Other two names Madhu and Manik were beaten to death for what reason ?

For stealing rice and hen respectively. Thus, for perpetrators, life of a man was cheaper than that of a hen and a bowl of rice.

For almighty's sake, in every religion which India has, feeding the poor is considered sacred act and we have a case where Madhu was not only beaten to death for stealing food but also while he was being lynched, selfies were taken and posted on social media.

His brutal murder not only shook the social conscience but left a scar on the face of human values.

But this is not the end of story, we hear such heinous crimes committed everyday but no one challenges the status quo.

One such story was about Manik Roy, who was beaten to death over the suspicion of stealing a hen, yes, a hen.

It is appalling to see the extent of violence inherent in our society and the diminishing value of life.

Gandhi must be rest-less in heaven after having spent his entire life teaching non-violence to this very nation.

Where is pursuit of happiness ?

Long ago while reading about Malcolm X, i tumbled upon a phrase 'the hate that hate produced' which essentially summarizes what is happening in India. It is the hate within the society, systematic subjugation of social cohesion, which has lead to this convulsion.

For a long time, this violence was simmering inside the larger masses and it is the political leadership who never paid any attention to the breaking fabric of social order.

Today's men are not happy. They are not satisfied with what they have, they are in constant state of aggravated self-indulgence, false pride and search of monetary gains.

This pursuit of happiness is certainly misplaced as 'happiness' is by-product of your positive actions.  Happiness is all about positive emotions, specially when your basic humane needs are satisfied.

Earlier happiness was searched in the teachings of religious books, now it is searched in the morbid bundles of money bills. 

I see it is the lack of social leadership which is hampering our society. We have political leaders, we have gang leaders, we have business leaders, we definitely have religious but I can categorically claim that we don't have social leaders.

Our political leadership is intellectually bankrupt and morally corrupt. Barring a few, most don't have an iota of leadership quality which can take society together towards one common goal - a prosperous country.

Is there a way out of it ?

There cant by one answer to this question, there can't be water tight solution but i believe we can achieve it by turning to moral teachings. By learning to lead, lead and live positively.

Thus there is a solution to this puzzle but it is a slow path to redemption. As a society, we need to learn to value each life irrespective of social-religious-economic status.
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Thankyou for reading, I would be interested to know what you think of the changing society. Do you embrace the change or do you feel we are not going in right direction?

Please share your thoughts in the comment section and share the article if you liked.
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