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Reflections on the rave party
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Reluctance to recognise traditional model of ethics is leading to the crisis of urban youth
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PHOTO: MOHD. YOUSUF
CURRENT AFFAIRS Discos and nightclubs have become `cool'
The recent police action against rave party reveller at a Pune farmhouse on charge of drug abuse would soon fade from public memory. Nevertheless, the incident seems to unmask larger truths of the Indian society. Responses to the event would vary depending on the age and ideological predilections of people.
While concerned parents might worry about the corrupting influence of money power and invasion of the decadent West, large sections of the metropolitan youth are likely to dismiss the event as totally inconsequential, blown out of proportions by a prurient media. It is after all, cool to break norms and to appear rebellious.
At the heart of the present crisis of the urban youth lies the insufficiency of traditional models of ethics to govern lives of the young in contemporary India, prompted by late capitalism and a dominant consumer culture.
Traditionally, Indian society prided itself in the Dharmic approach to life and the upholding of the four fold order: Kama, Artha, Dharma and Moksha. In actual fact, however, the first two invariably gave precedence to liberation and salvation.
Importance of Matter or Material Life, pursuit of wealth and prosperity, were regarded in the final analysis as subordinate.
The old fashioned socialism that the Indian intelligentsia so fondly cherished during the Soviet era, fitted in admirably with our ambivalent approach.
Janus-like, we led two lives. The license-quota Raj led to an unprecedented institutionalisation of corruption especially by the all-powerful State.
The model that is currently imposed on India primarily by the United States or the so called American way of life, has led to at least four major consequences: a single minded, obsessive pursuit of wealth and worship of money power as ends in themselves, trivialisation of the human body, insult to Nature and the environment, and finally a cult of self love.
It has to be noted, however, that these trends may have emerged from the modern West, but these are not the only ones to exist there. There are other competing ideals as well, corrective in nature.
Regrettably, we do not seek to tap such sources of what may be termed the `usable' America. We do not wish, for instance, to connect with the American work ethic and the American professionalism or the philanthropy of corporate America.
We only know how to ape the American hedonism and consumerism in a mindless manner.
We must not blame the youth, but our own selves for the current state of affairs. When we push each child to his/her limits for corporate success and see their worth only in monetary terms, when we make them wrecks for the sake our vanity and empty glory, then we pave way for the consequences we sadly decry today. The onus, alas, is upon us and the kind of life values we wish to cherish.
It is therefore important for us to uphold an alternative ethics before the nation, one that seeks the fulfilment of the Eros, the pursuit of the individual self and the collective good, in a balanced and wholesome manner.
For only by so doing, can we base our relationships on deeper and lasting foundations.
SACHIDANANDA MOHANTY
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