To Rizwanur From a Classmate

Tanmoy has e-mailed me this post ages ago. But I was unable to merely copy paste it at my blog. Sorry Tanmoy. I will not be THAT late in future, if you honor my mailbox with your sensitive posts again.

The death of this young man, Rizwanur, created a political storm and heads rolled in the process. The CBI still wants time to solve his mysterious “suicide.” But how his classmate Tanmoy views the whole thing? Read for yourself.
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It has been a long while since I have posted something afresh on this space. Being busy with office and family serves as the easier excuse but it is more to do with my inability to find something positive to write about because not at all times I feel like writing about my personal life.

Rizwan-ur-Rahman was my classmate and a better student than I was. I still remember in class six, we participated in one quiz together where he answered one of the most difficult questions that Derek O’Brien would have ever asked in a quiz. I don’t really know what grave crime he ended up committing that he had to die in such mysterious circumstances but I know one thing such incidents show the intolerance and frustrations that our society is suffering from. His death made me feel so miserable that I can’t express in words. I keep on wondering that while both of us were playing around in our school corridors none could probably gauge what lies ahead of us?

I sincerely hope that the truth behind his death his unveiled and justice is done but whether even justice in this case would help us to help our beleaguered society to rise, I have my doubts! The cynicism is more because most amongst us have accepted the current social fabric as the way it is and I have my doubts whether we want to contribute to its change.

Every day when I open the newspaper sitting in Delhi I find numerous incidents which defy any definition of civilization. In most of these the main protagonists are affluent, staying in plush localities, have basic literacy, command respect amongst their circle of friends. What is more surprising is the fact very few in this city are bothered that such an incident has happened around them and involving one of them. People out here have taken their helplessness for granted as they don’t even try and discuss whatever has been happening around them. I don’t think they even read newspaper to be generally aware.

Truly surprising for me because here I am in a state of stupor where my helplessness on such incidents is rendering me ineffective, non-productive according to a colleague as I am feeling miserable for being unable to contribute anything to change this social state. And to top it all, I make the mistake of feeling that if not everyone but most people who think they are educated would be as affected as I am.

While living in society there is hardly anything that is personal as howsoever selfish we might be we are at some point or other impacted by the happenings around us. We may not realize it all the time because of our ignorance but the day we would be directly impacted, I wonder how we would react especially when most of us prefer to remain unaware.

Economic growth statistics show us amongst one of the emerging Nations but undoubtedly we are facing tremendous social degradation with every passing day. Day in and day out we are leading an insecure life that is superficial and one of an escapist. We prefer to be the way we are and accepting being numb and in effect our superficial human existence is turning us into schizophrenics foolishly celebrating their insignificant existence.

Time to time I harp on the same topic and I know that. I do it because this ineffective society is the biggest mystery that I have ever encountered and I honestly feel clueless how this would sustain itself. Loopholes exist in all systems but unless and until there is universal public commitment how do these loopholes get blocked, I wonder!

Take the case of Nandigram for instance. It is easy to state that the ruling Government is responsible for all these killings, but aren’t in some way or the other all of us responsible to give rise to such events repeatedly in our country. We say, what could we have done? I am in search of a way out because I myself do not know and I am ashamed of my state because of this incapacity, but then there must have been ways. Still – there must be ways in which we can possibly contribute.

Whenever I have tried to analyze the situation at Nandigram I have had biases. At times I have felt the West Bengal state government is supporting this mass genocide and at times I have felt that trusting Mamta Banerjee’s oft dwindling credentials is the worst that I can do. But in all these I have felt perhaps as individuals we have not done enough to prevent such events from happening and thus all should share the blame by taking only side which is of humanity.

But being ignorant as I have been mentioning we are nipping the smallest of chance in changing any such scenario in its bud. May be I am stupid in thinking that our awareness of the situations that we live in would probably save us from a doomsday which might be looming large but one thing is for certain the doomsday would certainly come. Any theory would tell you that a state of disequilibrium is not sustainable but then we might end up paying heavy price for the society to attain equilibrium.

These phases would probably pass. Perhaps in our lifetime we would not see any change in our mindset. The growth statistics would keep on showing promise but in reality I feel we would never be able to call ourselves civilized and progressive if our social fabric does not undergo a sea change towards humanity. And awareness and sensitivity is the first step in making a difference. In a world where apparently technology is in our command, I think we should not wait for the likes of Buddha or Vivekananda to emerge from amongst us unless we believe technology has only gifted us better weapons of mass destructions but not humanity. Whatever might be the case, we need to emerge for us to survive otherwise ignorance would someday set our own house on fire and it can be any day! But by the looks of things in the environment I am currently in I feel surrounded by people in perpetual stupid slumber.