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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Marginalization in modern society

It was shocking to read Shobha Dey’s article on clear polarization of communities in Mumbai, post 26/11 and it is to the extent that even premium educational institutions deny admissions to the students from a particular community!!

This polarization and the subsequent marginalization of a group/ community was evident in early 60s in rural India, but predominantly between the rich & poor classes and this led to outbursts and fights for the marginalized in many parts of the country by virtue of Naxalism and other pro – poor ideologies! Even Phulan Devi and her contemporaries of Chambal were classic examples of the outcomes of these marginalizations and suppressions of communities, families or individuals for generations! However, it could not last long because our visionary politicians, who preserved the values of democracy to involve everyone in the democratic process and the Country had a roller coaster ride on inclusive growth as there were multiple political forces pulling the threads from different points to keep an equilibrium. However, the globalization brought greater pace in growth and eventually the controlled economy begun to open up and in place of the Controlled economy, there came market driven economy! Though there was a great surge in growth, it also created a huge divide between the rich and the poor!!

Meanwhile, there was a phenomenal leap in the economy (How good that was for the common man is still debatable…), the divide became widely evident in the rural parts of India and this eventually landed up in marginalization and exploitation of the economically backward classes…!! Instead of addressing the issue to bring the divide closer, our modern day opportunistic, uncouth and short thinking politicians used these groups to maintain them as vote bank classes by further dividing them in terms of religions, communities and regions for their petty benefits of power!

This has led a society to polarize dangerously with more & more classifications and sub groups of divisions, which is dangerously lethal, if not controlled! Our competing media also played a major role in sensationalizing non issues and by associating themselves with the hidden agenda of various PR agents, influential power centres and business houses!!

The marginalization of every group or community will definitely lead to an outburst over a period of time and with the modern day dynamics, it could be instigated by many factors and there are enough hate groups with clinically accurate agenda waiting for using these ‘on the platter’ opportunities for extracting easy advantage!

Accepting the fact that “Rama Rajya” is no more possible in the turbulent modern times, my only call to each one of us as individuals, families and communities, is to empower our young ones with an unbiased thought process, where he/ she should not take up arms under the order or influence of the species of social miscreants, who spit only hate venom in the name of caste, creed religion and regions! To achieve this, every child in every family should be sensitized towards these social evils and their thought process should be immunized to challenge every external influence by activating the consciences of each one of them!