Society, Social Media and Our Misplaced Sense of Good Samaritans

On the morning of 24th august I was going through my daily routine of reading newspaper, the first page had news of sexual assault of a six year old girl in the country capital. The second page had news of how a juvenile who was part of the crowd protesting against rape and murder of a girl was nabbed on charges of raping and murdering the same girl, this too in the capital.

Nevertheless when you start your day on such notes you ought to worry about what has this world come to. Why the heck we have so many demons in-between us, all in an inseparable form of petty human beings like us.

An hour later when I came online the very first story that came to my attention was a facebook post by a girl named Jasleen Kaur. In her brief post she claimed that she was verbally assaulted by a man at a red light crossing in Tilak Nagar area of New Delhi. She withheld the actual exchange of words citing facebook’s policies of removal of offensive content but expressed that the boy has also challenged her to go make a complaint and he will deal with it.

By then the post had grabbed enough attention to have been shared more than several thousand times. Many popular pages and groups have picked it up and were propagating it to a larger audience at a tremendous rate.

I opened twitter on another tab and found another story building on the sidelines of this. Someone had discovered that girl being a supporter of a new-born political outfit as well as an employee of a national media channel of questionable ethics.

There was nothing black and white anymore but indeed various shades of grey. The Sherlock’s of social media were busy making one or the other versions of the story. The old tweets of the girl were being scanned, captured, clubbed and shared.

Her previous photos were dug up and were being shared proficiently. By evening the unknown lady of yesterday was a trending topic on twitter and the center of attention on facebook.

By the day end her facebook post had 92,305 shares and counting.
Nevertheless being an active member of several social media groups I came across a friend who just had a conversation with the father of the alleged molester.

Their version of the alleged dispute was as such, “Saravjit and that lady did have verbal exchange near Agarwals but apparently the lady was on that crossing “enforcing” her ruling party’s “traffic maintenance program” and was forcing folks to adhere to their own set of traffic rules and such in the “middle of the road”. She ordered Saravjit to shift away from where her party workers were “campaigning” and when he refused on the ground that it is a public road there was a verbal spat and the lady promised to show “the power of Aam Admi”.

It was also mentioned that this overbearing and abusive attitude of the lady was the reason that many passerby’s supported Saravjit instead of the lady (a fact she admitted but portrayed in a completely different manner).

Indeed as I write this I have been told that two eyewitness passerby’s have been already traced and they confirm Saravjit’s version of the event and one of them seems to have an actual mobile clip of the whole exchange which the family fully intend to make public and produce in court.

Now this is a cross-road that I wish to keep open to perspectives, debates, denials and admittance’s. Yet as much as I know the harm has been done anyway.

We as a society and as very socially aware, enlightened and worrisome citizens of this great country have already clicked our mouse and keypads around a hundred thousand times to defame and convict a fellow citizen.
In the present era of enlightened sense of social responsibility we all feel obliged to contribute our bit towards a better future of our beloved country. Sometimes we feel a status, a like, a retweet or a share does that for us. No denying the fact that it surely makes a difference. Every voice raised does makes a difference in my opinion. But doesn’t a power come with a responsibility?

Wouldn’t it be fine for us to be more responsible towards what impact an individual, a tribe, a social outfit or a complete generation can have of our deeds?

From when exactly did we start convicting people on a mere status update?

What exactly are these courthouses, judges and lawyers then doing anyways?

Will anybody bother to tell me from when did my rights of expression gain so much weight to give others a right and reason to devalue, demean and call names to any individual that they don’t even know a bit about?

When did this transformation of democracy take place? Last I read my rights stretched as far as somebody else’s nose. I couldn’t poke around least call names to anyone I didn’t knew about without his consent and within being in boundaries of my rights granted to me by the constitution of this great nation.

Notwithstanding the fact that we all have fierce and outspoken opinions on public figures and they are always under constant scrutiny of society and we the people but they do get to face all these flacks after being a party to certain number of privileges.

In my opinion celebrities and commoners can’t be equated under the same rule of thumb when it comes to criticism and opinions. It is just as simple as the fact that not everyone gets a Z+ security without paying for it and when they do they do get it for a reason.

So let us all sit back for a moment, revisit our conscious sense and hunger of being a Good Samaritan and analyze what all it takes to be one.

The fine line between black and white, good and bad, right and wrong are all so blurred, please do take a moment before you decide to jump fences.