The 21st century human takes pride in being a part of the Forward March of humanity. Inventing ways of leading a smarter life on Earth, we’ve almost believed that the direction in which we’re surging ahead with all our power is the perfect direction to move in. We like calling our ways ‘progressive’, but does a forward march necessarily mean that we’re progressing ahead?
Progress as a society would mean evolving from a place of ignorance to that of awareness, taking everybody together in that direction. But is our society’s advancement from the past to the present an advancing growth of values, mind and the rationale?
Scrolling through the latest music releases, I find catchy titles and music with really good beats, which means that the entire nation is grooving to the music while chanting something like, “Gandi Baat”.Funnily enough,the creators of such music talk about the existence of subtle sexism even in the music of the older times, which means that the meaning thence derived about ‘progressiveness’ is the shift from subtle to explicit and unabashed sexism. While accepting and openly promoting such evolutionary trends, are we actually progressing ahead with our value systems?
Being a woman, I walk alone on the streets with a belief of doing a very bold task, but at the corner of my mind I know that however bold I feel, the intent gazes that follow me all the way do intimidate me. I keep the fear away from my face, but I avoid meeting those men in the eye. And that is what makes me rethink of our society’s progress, the fact that even my mother and my little sister have gone through the same trail of emotions while walking on the streets. Similar gazes, similar defense, have we really progressed?
Flipping through the newspaper, I find the government promoting religious scriptures with all its might, or people fighting over others’ food preferences sidelining their own livelihood in this ‘secular’ nation. Talking about this with my peers, I get insights about incidences of religious intolerance in our nation’s history. Does this then mean that all we’ve been doing ever since is deciding on the superiority of one religion over the other?
As people of a country growing at a phenomenal rate, isn’t it time that we pause and think whether our march ahead is taking our society towards a more rational light? No economic growth is capable of realising the progressive potential in its true sense unless the people of the nation aren’t surging in the right direction. It is time we ask ourselves crucial questions, because if we continue walking blindly ahead, we’re soon going to see our people and society collapse due to misdirected advancement, while being incapable of understanding the cause of the collapse.
Priyal Mahtta
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