Corruption – a bane

Corruption is today a world-wide phenomenon. In our own country some people in high positions have been charged for it.

A corrupt person is termed immoral, dishonest and unscrupulous in his dealings. His disregard for honesty, righteousness and truth results in his alienation from society. He is treated with contempt. But as erosion of values leads to decadence, remedies for the social malaise remain elusive, and so no amount of contempt can eradicate corruption which is a symptom of decadence.

Corruption is the most virulent when crises everywhere threaten the very existence of the society and the faith in life is shaken. It has always been there like tie leech, but when the system grows weaker and the boat flounders, it gets bolder and drains its victims of the last drops of their blood.

The older the system the weaker it grows and fails to solve the riddles of life that grows more complex every day. So men lose faith in it and let it drift down. At this point corruption takes over and plunges the entire society. After Second World War the old system with all its values was left in a shambles. The crippling effects of the war, the recession and depression, and uncertainties in a faithless world of maimed and moribund encouraged cynicism in a section of the population.

This section included the government officials dealing in essential commodities. They found the post-war conditions ideal for fishing in troubled waters and getting richer. They formed a sort of vicious circle in which moral values and honest intentions no longer held valid. The flourishing black market in essential commodities, adulteration of even baby-food, bribery, fraud and economic, political and administrative manipulations with an eye on earning profits has brought untold misery to the people.

One would say the corruption in India has an ancient lineage; it is sanctified by tradition. The author of the Arthashastra made some remarks on government officials of his time which are relevant even today: “Just as it is impossible not to taste the honey or the poison that finds itself at the tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government servant not to eat up at least a bit of king’s revenue. These in the post-war world became only bolder while eating up government money and accepting bribes.”

Today, when India is free, these officials representing all government departments are very close to the most corrupt businessmen who are too unscrupulous to let any opportunity of amassing profits slip. This collision broadens the base of the vicious circle and corruption spreads like wild fire to engulf the entire society. The political and social guardians depend only too much on the richer communities and they look indulgently on while these communities hold the entire society and the government to ransom.

Homage to Bismillah Khan

Residents of the Bhirung Raut Ki Gali, where Ustad Bismillah Khan was born on March 21, 1916, were in shock. His cousin, 94-year old Mohd. Idrish Khan had tears in his eyeas. Shubhan Khan, the care-taker of Bismillah’s land, recalled : “Whenever in Dumaraon, he would give two rupees to the boys and five rupees to the girls of the locality”.

He was very keen to play shehnai again in the local Bihariji’s Temple where he had started playing shehnai with his father, Bachai Khan, at the age of six. His original name was Quamaruddin and became Bismillah only after he became famous as a shehnai player in Varanasi.

His father Bachai Khan was the official shehnai player of Keshav Prasad Singh, the Maharaja of the erstwhile Dumaraon estate, Bismillah used to accompany him. For Bismillah Khan, the connection to music began at a very early age. By his teens, he had already become a master of the shehnai. On the day India gained freedom, Bismillah Khan, then a sprightly 31 year old, had the rare honour of playing from Red Fort. But Bismillah Khan won’t just be remembered for elevating the shehnai from an instrument heard only in weddings and naubatkhanas to one that was appreciated in concert halls across the world. His life was a testimony to the plurality that is India. A practicing Muslim, he would take a daily dip in the Ganga in his younger days after a bout of kustiin Benia Baga Akhada. Every morning, Bismillah Khan would do riyaazat the Balaji temple on the banks of the river. Even during his final hours in a Varanasi hospital, music didn’t desert Bismillah Khan. A few hours before he passed away early on Monday, the shehnai wizard hummed a thumri to show that he was feeling better. This was typical of a man for whom life revolved around music.

Throughout his life he abided by the principle that all religions are one. What marked Bismillah Khan was his simplicity and disregard for the riches that come with musical fame. Till the very end, he used a cycle rickshaw to travel around Varanasi. But the pressure of providing for some 60 family members took its toll during his later years.

The Hazy Pollution in Asia

A vast blanket of pollution stretching across South Asia is cutting down sunlight by 10 percent over India, damaging agriculture, modifying rainfall patterns and putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk, according to a new study.

The startling findings of scientists working with the United Nations Environment Programme indicate that the spectacular economic growth seen in this part of the world in the past decade may soon falter as a result of this pollution.

Research carried out in India indicates that the haze caused by pollution might be reducing winter rice harvests by as much as 10 percent, the report said.

“Acids in the haze may, by falling as acid rain, have the potential to damage crops and trees. Ash falling on leaves can aggravate the impacts of reduced sunlight on earth’s surface. The pollution that is forming the haze could be leading to several hundreds of thousands of premature deaths as a result of higher levels of respiratory diseases” it said. Results from seven cities in India alone, including Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmadabad and Kolkata, estimate that air pollution was annually responsible for 24,000 premature deaths in the early 1990s, By the mid 1990s they resulted in an estimated 37,000 premature fatalities.

“The haze has cut down sunlight over India by 10 percent (so far) – a huge amount! As a repercussion, the North West of India is drying up” Prof. V. Ramanathan said when asked specifically about the impact of the haze over India. Stating that sunlight was going down every year, he said, “We are still in an early stage of understanding of the impact of the haze.”

Asked whether the current drought in most parts of India after over a decade of good monsoon was owing to the haze, he said, “It was too early to reach a conclusion. If the drought persists for about four to five years, then we should start suspecting that it may be because of the haze.”

India, China and Indonesia are the worst affected owing to their population density, economic growth and depleting forest cover. The preliminary results indicate that the build up of haze, a mass of ash, acids, aerosols and other particles is disrupting weather systems, including rainfall and wind patterns and triggering droughts in western parts of the Asian Continent. The concern is that the regional and global impacts of the haze are set to intensify over the next 30 years as the population of the Asian region rises to an estimated five billion people.

Generation Gap

Individualism, at first, saps the virtues of public life; but in the long run it attacks and destroys all others and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness. With the nuclear family concept gaining ground, the traditional hierarchy within the family has broken down. Elders feel like intruders in the home of their children, people are silently witnessing violence to family life, its health; it is tearing apart the fabric of family as an institution. These distortions may be construed to be causes and consequences of the generation gap that is becoming more and more pointed and pronounced with each passing day.

Teenagers and the youth are increasingly seen to be beyond control and a world unto themselves. More and more of elders, their numbers going up rapidly are finding themselves lonely and unable to adjust to the ways of a fast-changing, increasingly busy and self-centred world.

The phenomenon ‘generation gap’ apparently delineates two sets of different persons having distinct physical and mental make-up, but in reality it is much more than meets the eye. Essentially, it is a difference in attitude or lack of understanding between young people and older people. It is reflected in the choice of dresses, music, opinions and other behaviour patterns.

No society, group or family set-up is free from the tensions and traumas born out of the generation-gap, where on one end of the spectrum stands the balding or greying head of the family and on the other the defiant and disobedient youth ready to break all barriers so that he or she can assert his/her point of view to the extent of being a ‘rebel’. Like the two banks of a river or the cultural contours of the East and the West, the twain fails to meet even halfway.

The problem, though touching and taunting may not defy a solution if both the youth and the age sit together with open minds and come to terms with realities. In a situation where the youth is active and aspiring, the onus lies on it to show reasonable restraint and respect to the elders who claim to have seen better days and behaved differently with their seniors or blood relations.

 The older persons, on their part, should give up living in a world of illusions and self-delusion and address themselves to the changed milieu, where their role is passive. No two generations are alike in their perceptions and preferences. If the younger one is aggressive and assertive, the elder one too is not very polite and pliant. Blaming the new generation for everything that has home wrong in the society is like showing a red rag to the bull. The generation gap has been the rigorous reality of life since ages.

In the dying years of the present century, the hiatus between the two seems to have become more pronounced and painful because the younger generation is moved and motivated more by career considerations or calculation than by care, concern and compassion for their elders. In the absence of ‘a cause’ for which they and their elders may stand and share one platform, crass commercial consciousness has widened the chasm between the two, leaving behind a trail of bitterness, complaints and grudges against each other.

Since each new generation becomes out of tune and touch with the upcoming one, it is in the fitness of things that the youth of today exhibit understanding and adjustment with the older generation now, so that it does not suffer the burden of ‘guilt conscience’ in its greying or balding period of life. The adults also need to introspect and think about the differences they had with their parents.

Should there be Homes for the Aged in India?

With the joint family system gradually disintegrating in India, the nuclear set up of families has become the order of the day. The hardest hits due to breaking up of joint family system are the old, aged people. In the West, Old Age Homes have been a common practice. However, in India family bonding has often proved strong enough to take all in the family in its warm fold. But, for quite some years now, Old Age Homes have become a necessity even in India in the changing circumstances. The nuclear families often have no place for the old parents and grand-parents. If, at all, they get to stay with their children, they are treated as unwanted burden. They feel humiliated, rejected and isolated. So, with the provision of alternatives in the form of Old Age Homes in many states, some old people prefer to be in such homes as they provide facilities, freedom, dignity and even company.

Old Age Homes were earlier looked upon as abode for the old men and women who had no one to look after them. But the scenario is changing fast. Today, Old Age Homes are no longer just for the needy but also for the people who want to spend their life amongst the people of their own age. Old Age Homes in India are also changing with times. Today, along with the traditional old homes, we have retirement homes which are societies for the elderly. These Homes are a new way of life that makes sure that the person gets the ambience he or she is looking for. Everything right from health, food, lodging and entertainment is taken care of.

Ideally speaking, there is no substitute for a caring affectionate family which has a long association with parents and grandparents. Children should be taught to retain the family values right from their childhood at home and even at school. Old men and women belong to their children’s homes and they should stay an eternal part of their family. But, just in case, things go sour and suffocating for them or if they don’t get the well-deserved respect, they, at least, have a respectable option in the form of these Old Age Homes.