Beautiful Thought

She is Chained !!

2009-02-02T15:03:00.000+05:30

In the recent time what happened in Mangalore raise lot of question and concerns among us. The issue is debatable and need the views of the public. On the eve of our 60th national republic the issue of Mangalore happened which is issue of shame on the democratic country!!

I condemn the brutal and unprovoked assault by “self-appointed moral police” on young women in the city of Mangalore. I feel what happened in Mangalore raise different questions and here my opinion with the whole issue. What Sri Rama Sene did in the premises of Amnesia pub was shocking and it depicts the morale of few people in the society! Any group or the individual is not entitled to take the law in their hand and they don’t have the right to raise voice against the individual choice!! Also this need to note that ‘Individual choice’ is the right of every citizen in this country. The violence what we observed in the city was the violation of the Democratic freedom and Human rights of the all citizens including men and women in this country. I am very much disturbed by the sharply escalating trend of political and social violence against women in public and private space as a means of enforce, particularly interpretation of culture in the name of "culture, religion and country", which is been taking place in different part of the country. I excoriate all such forms of the gender based violence against women, children and also the attitude of those societies which makes such violence acceptable with in the family, social and public sphere. It needs to note that this is not an isolated attack done by the group of so called ‘moral police’; we can find different instances in different parts of the country. It is evident that, this incident is profoundly contested by the political power that supports a narrow and fanatical view of Indian culture and also repressive attitude towards women in the society.

1. Drinking is individual choice, any person; group or Organization can't enforce the prohibition of drinking on one person (I think law can do that)!! Question may raise not even parents can ask there children? Yes they can ask, ban, punish etc! It’s like tomorrow if my parents ask me do you drink and why? I need to answer to them, because it’s the issue between me and my parents. Religious organizations like Ram Sena not have the right to ask this!!

2. Ban on drinking - We need to be practical, just give a thought about - is this is possible? Gujarat is a dry state - but violence against women and crime rates are more in that state!! So you can't judge or come to the conclusion as drinking lead to violence! I do agree that it's one of the factors for many accidents and crimes.

3. Gender: In our society by 'tradition' women was suppressed. Many of them told if women drink what about the family... bala etc!! We talk of equality where we see it? Women are chained and will be chained if she is independent also!! How the society thinks I will give an example: Recently in my field work I came across this dialogue ''Madam, that lady divorced her husband, because she was very arrogant and not able to adjust with his family". I asked the person, why that lady divorced? By any chance you asked her personally? He not had the answer!! I was not wanted to know the reason here I wanted to point 2 things:

How judgmental we are in our thinking?

The finger is always pointed towards women.

Drinking can be seen in urban and rural area. Alcoholism is one of the major social problems in the rural area and here the lower class women also drink why these political interest groups not talking about it? Let see for different reason people drink and I am not mentioning it here. Ragu you mentioned the elite women drink and go to pubs. One needs to look why they go? For dinking there are other factors than fun and more over women go out and have a drink are due to the socio-psychological reasons also.

Just observe the friends they make and the relationship or bonding they have with these people. We think the elite women have more social mobility than other people in the society, there are gender studies which focused with above issue and findings are really tell you different version of the stories and they highlight the silent exploitation which is going on inside the house.

Lastly, as few people pointed out Education is the best tool to make youth aware about drinking and its effects. We tell in the rehabilitation center that, drinking is disease. If your female or male friend is drinking just be little rationale to think what may be the cause for alcoholism than just blame him or her for drinking.

Silent Spring- Worth reading

2007-05-11T15:45:00.000+05:30

“For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death”

Rachel Carson

First published in the United States in 1962, Silent Spring surveys mounting evidence that widespread pesticide use endangers both wildlife and humans. Along the way, Rachel Carson criticizes an irresponsible chemical industry, which continues to claim that pesticides are safe, and imprudent public officials, who accept without question this disinformation. As an alternative to the "scorched earth" logic underlying accepted pest-control practices, the author outlines the "biotic" approach— cheaper, safer, longer acting, natural solutions to pest problems (for example, controlling the Japanese beetle by introducing a fungus that causes a fatal disease in this insect). The primary inspiration for the book was a friend of Carson's in Massachusetts who was concerned about dying birds in her hometown where the authorities had sprayed DDT to control mosquitoes. At about the same time, a disastrous pesticide campaign against the fire ant of the Southeast was receiving national attention. Formerly a science writer for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, A native of rural Pennsylvania, she had grown up with an enthusiasm for nature matched only by her love of writing and poetry. Her books Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of The Sea were hymns to the inter-connectedness of nature and all living things. The educational brochures she wrote for the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as her published books and magazine articles, were characterized by meticulous research and a poetic evocation of her subject. She already had some acquaintance with research on pesticides, and she was ready to speak out. Originally planned as an article, Silent Spring became a book of more than two hundred pages and it took 4 years for her to complete this book and the only outlet she could find was the book publisher Houghton Mifflin. It reminds one that the book's effectiveness was due mainly to Carson's passionate, poetic language describing the alleged horrors that modern synthetic chemicals visit upon defenseless nature and hapless humanity. Though Silent Spring is without question her best-known book today, Carson was already a national literary celebrity when it came out. As work of social criticism, Silent Spring represented a considerable departure from the natural history with which she had made a name for herself. Whether this would have been a turning point in her career or merely a detour is impossible to know because Carson succumbed to breast cancer only a year and a half after Silent Spring appeared. What is clear, however, is that her public image was irrevocably transformed. The chemical industry would quickly spend more than a quarter of a million dollars to discredit her. Carson's Silent Spring had as much impact on late twentieth-century life, though an environmental consciousness can be discerned in American culture as far back as the nineteenth century, environmentalism as it is known today has only been around for about forty years, and Carson's book is one of its primary sources. It exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement. This book wrenched environmentalism from its relatively narrow, conservationist groove and helped transform it into a sweeping social movement that has since impacted almost every area of everyday life.

Naata

2007-05-11T15:24:00.000+05:30

Recently I happen to see a short documentary called ‘Naata’ and this movie is about a number of divisive concerns that form a part of contemporary India. This movie is in an interview narrative form and takes the viewer across a number of uncomfortable questions for the modern middle class to secular urban setting. It’s the story of the two people of Bhau Korde and Waqar Khan, the activists & friends, who are involved in the conflict resolution, working with neighbourhood peace committees in Dharavi, reputedly, the largest ‘slum' in Asia. It tells about the migrant people who came from different part of the India. The story highlights the life situation in the Mumbai. When we see Dharavi today it’s a small Mumbai with in the Mahanagari. Naata tells about the history of these people who came and settled here in different times from way back 19th century and the majority of the migrants are from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. In the earlier Dharavi was a small place with few numbers of populations. When city began to expand the Dharavi also started to expand its boundary. Now there are more than 8 lakh people are living here. The place was not suited for the settlement in the initial period, the first generation migrant made it a place comfortable for living. When the people migrated, they bought their family occupation and they started there life in that and gradually some of them shifted to other from of occupation due to the impact of globalization. Dharavi is having major role to play in the economy of the Mumbai. As all type of the commodities from food to leather and from handmade to Machine made products are manufactured here and it’s having good market also. This is mainly due to the less cost of production because the labour charges are very cheap here. In the name of development Dharavi became the victim, as the people were asked to vacate the area. Waqar Khan came to the Dharavi in the late 1970’s from Bareily from U.P with the dream and but here he saw the reality of the ‘Mayanagari’. Initially, he sold bananas and now runs a small shop of ready-made clothes in Dharavi and works for the same cause. After the assassination Indira Gandhi, when Khan was one his way back to Mumbai in train a group of other community people started to accused the Sikh family in the compartment and with the humanistic approach he helped the family to reach there home in Mumbai. This incident made him more aware about the communal harmony in the community. Naata is a communal bond between the residents of Dharavi. Naata expressed that the Dharavi community was prone to develop communal violence in time of the Babari Masjid destruction, riot in the Ahmedabad. Khan and Korde met when the Dharavi Mohalla Committee was created by then Mumbai police commissioner Satish Sawhney in the backdrop of the 1993 riots. They felt that there is a need to build a communal harmony among the resident of the Dharavi community. They discussed it and they thought of doing a poster which depicts the communal harmony and they selected 4 children with a different costume resembling each religion and with the Slogan of ‘Hum Sub Ek Hai’. In the later stage they felt that message need to be reach to all the people in the community. When they discussed it in the Mohalla community they felt that Mass media is better way to cover major sections of the society. They thought of doing a movie in the communal harmony and they were searching for the theme and at that time the Gujarat earthquake happened (2003) and a small incident of it inspired them. They took it as theme of the movie and selected the team and did the movie and gave it the title as “Hum Sub Ek Hai” The movie depicts the communal harmony between the Hindu and the Muslim community by helping and donating the blood form his body to another person of different community. In this juncture, it’s expressed that there is no Hindu or the Muslim blood, but all the blood are same in a whole we are all Indians. When they got good response from the people they felt that this needs to be communicated to major portions of the population and so they took the help of National channel to broad caste the movie. Naata is having a two story in this one is the story of Dharavi and secondly the story of the Kalyani in a narration form by using different symbols. Symbols are one of the way by which the message can be easily convey to the all. Kalyani expresses that although her parents are from different states but she is belonging to both the states and in a whole to India. When it came to religion she felt that she is not related to any religion. Here the story tells that how the society identifies an individual with his religion. In the whole the story is told in Both Hindi and the English and it is also having the Flash back in accordance with the time. The society in which it was happened was the lower and the middle class people. This story was done in view of all age people. Korde and Khan concentrated more upon the children to spread the harmony of the community. Naata is having the multi genre in it as it explain the reality of the life with the form of documentary, its having the horror of the Dharavi people, the collective effort of the community people for the spread of secularism in the community . Both the Hindi and the English were used in this film. In Naata we can also see the use of subtitles in while narration of the dates and period with a newspaper. Naata which mean the bond of the people depicts the communal harmony of the people. We may be from different caste, religion and the race but we are all one and in a whole it tells that we are brothers and sisters of a mother. Director’s purpose was to capture the Korde and khan’s harmony in the celebration of the secularism and other theme of the film was to interwoven with glimpses of the inter-religious marriage and what the couple will feel over the situation where the child had to identify its religion in the society. In a whole the Naata is one of the good examples for communal harmony. It can become a motive force for the other people in the different communities to spread the blossom of harmony.

Social Work and Social Work Research

2007-05-10T10:56:00.003+05:30

In the recent time Social work profession emerged as one of the demanding profession with in the development sector. There is much scope for the social work profession in the job market and social work brings along with it the job satisfaction to an individual when she/ he do valuable to the society. Today the modern complex society brought different social problems and which need the guidance from the professionals. During my master’s there were few colleges in my vicinity which provided Masters Program in the social work. Today this course has spread like a mushroom and more than 15-20 colleges in the neighboring towns are offering this course to the students. One of the major factors for the growth of school of social work domain is due to the fact of hundred percent job placements for these professionals. Its mainly due to the fact that there is a need of social worker in all the settings of the society, the rationale of this is that we are dealing with individual and there society. Society and individuals are not objective but they are subjective in nature. This character of the human being affects the personal professional and social life and which is neglected in the present digital world. Today there are different specializations within social work profession. India is having its own standard social work course pattern and it identified four different standardized specializations in India and many schools are offering these four courses along with new types of specializations. Tata institute of social sciences is one institute which initially brought the western concept of social work in India way back in 1936. Later the program spread across the country and only few schools had the monopoly over this school of thought. After NEP in India there was shift in the ideology of the life style among the Indian middle class and along with that it brought the new social constraints. This gave the opportunity for new areas of specialization to be explored with in the development sector. I am from community development specialization and personally I felt that our pedagogy is outdated and there is a need for an innovative ideas and subjects within this specialization which can help the professionals later in there work domain. Today I stand as a research fellow and got an opportunity to take few courses which are in demand today. I felt that these courses need to be added in our national specialization standards. As a research fellow I have to deal with two roles with which I will be identified in my professional domain they are Social worker and Social Scientist/ Researcher. Here there exists a clash between these two philosophical schools. Social work is my passion and Social research is the sector through which I am able to address the issues which the social worker unable to do many a time. Social work is practical and field based domain and Social research also comes with the field based approach and is more focused to understanding the practices and constraints of the society and come out with different policy and programs to over come these constraints and recommend to the sate and national committees. The role of the social worker is as initiator, promoter and educator etc. She /he provides the assistance to individual, group or community to over come there social situation. The assistance is not in the form of financial assistance, instead we make them aware of their conditions and provide guidance to over comes the problems. They are the decision makers for there problems. Change is inevitable in any society but the time factor depends on the mobility of the people with the outside world. If a NGO enters a remote village it will take at least minimum 5-6 years to bring in concept of change in the village and it need to know that this can be differ also which is depend upon the people of that village. One of the important work ethic of the social work professionals is to work within village environment and crate awareness among the civilians of the society. The positive and negative traits which come along with the social work profession need to be discussed. The positive traits like recognition, individual growth, satisfaction, etc. The negative factors like low payment political favors and interest, lack of co-operation from community etc. One of the constraints in this sector is the availability of the funds. Funding agencies are increased over the decade but there is lot of competitions for the funds in different organizations across the country. If a social worker is paid good salary and remuneration for the work he/she does in the rural community sector they can help in the development of that society. There are many areas with in society which are in need of the social workers and also the draw back with in the social work profession made me to realize the important of bringing ‘concept of research’ in the social work domain. Social work research will help in connecting the reality with the policies of the government and it can help a social worker to become the voice of the voiceless people in the community. Social work research can interface with the social work profession which will provide the platform for the expression of thought and ideas through research articles. The research reports will help the different committees in time of policy making and these policies can be of region specific and can address different approaches which are based with the ground realities of the region. This time when I was doing my pilot study for my research the major problem which I faced was to identify my two different roles and to follow them effectively in my field site. I am social worker my ethical principal is to value human needs and social research philosophy teach us to observe and collect the existing data from the field site. Social researcher plays the role of a observer in the village setting and had to point what happening around in the field site. In the qualitative research the researcher looks for both the objective and subjective information’s in the study area. Here, I had to adjust myself to the social situation and convey my goal of approaching them and not to disclose everything as what I know about the project which is implemented in these areas. We can do that also but not during the time of my data collection but after the major data collection is completed. It’s ethical on researcher’s part to disclose the conclusions and recommendations to the community. Where as in social work profession we interact with the people and express our ideas to them and the main motto here is to make people aware about the issues or situations so that which can help them in over coming their constraints. In conclusion, there is growing demand for social work profession in India, but the social work research need to be developed in India. I hope that many youngsters to opt for social research and work for the development of subaltern and rural sector of the country and help the government in bringing the region specific policies in different sectors of the society. I wish many youngest get interests in the research and work towards more practically oriented policies for the community.