Transition

Communications and social interactions have graduated from human messengers, letters, and cinemas to online messengers, e-mail services, websites, social networking sites, mobile phones, clubs and organizations, pubs and discotheques. Public recreation encompasses one of the largest business empires in the world. Multiplexes, restaurants, pubs and discos have promoted recreation and social integration on a gigantic scale.  The online services have lead to massive information sharing, mail messages can be sent to opposite ends of the planet in a matter of seconds. Internet provides such a vast amount of information and knowledge base that specialists in various fields can hardly claim to be the only sources of information. Online groups have lead to new forms of protest. Even politics and law are adopting these new mediums of communication. Net banking provides the service of buying any product or subscribing to any service from opposite ends of the world.

Mobile phones have brought in a revolution in connecting people. One can always see youngsters chatting and talking endlessly on their latest gizmos, exchanging loving messages for just ten paisa. Teens just can’t live without a cell phone as music, videos, pictures, and friends are their life. As compared to two decades ago, we can often hear youngsters say, “I want to enjoy, everything else is so boring. For this tech-savvy generation letters have been replaced by SMS and e-mails and for may even books have been replaced by accessing information on net, gaming, partying and just having fun. Children have become net addicts and gaming zealots. While internet and cell phones have revolutionized communications, the negative effects have to be countered.

This fun-loving generation with bulging pockets wishes to party all night. Discos and pubs are doing robust business. The fundamentalists are furious over this social and cultural change and are trying to dictate their own moral codes. Attacks on pubs by right wing groups are becoming frequent. The annual hullabaloo over Valentine’s Day is only getting fiercer by the year. Incidents of intimacy among boys and girls in public places and attempts by police and senior citizens to prevent them are also commonplace. These plus the trend toward live-in relationship that is catching up in metropolitan cities are all indicative of the changing social mores with which the Indian society is yet to come to terms.

The friction that one hears and reads about in India is the result of the pangs of transformation that the society is going through. There is a lot that has indeed changed. Globalization and faster means of communication and travel is definitely speeding up the process. While it is necessary to ensure that youngsters don’t indulge in bad habits such as drug abuse in the guise of having fun but one fails to understand why the police is unable to curb moral policing. The onus for ensuring a smooth social transition lies with the government, which must not only bring about laws that are in tune with the changing times but ensure that these are enforced fiercely. Under the circumstances, it is imperative that the laws are updated. Equipped with antiquated laws, police are often at a loss to take action against self-righteous groups who assume the right of moral policing.