The desecration and savage murder of a six-year-old child,
it would seem, had the entire nation recoiling in shocked
horror. No civilised society should have to face such social
darkness nor should any tolerate it. This, coupled with the
rising tide of young criminals, must send the alarm bells
and ghantis (small brass gongs used in pujas and pronounced
ghan-tease) ringing. Time to blow the sankha (conch shell)
to assemble the panchayat to deal with the challenge.
A significant percentage of our young are engaging in destructive
antisocial behaviour. Why? To get an answer, we must first
ask the question: whose responsibility is it to ensure that
the children of the nation are inculcated with proper values?
The answer to that must be the parents. Of course the school
system, community, national and religious institutions also
have important roles to play. But the prime responsibilities
must lie with the parents. That is why they are called parents.
A parent is more than the “child father” or “child
mother.” Parenthood transcends and exceeds the mere act
of copulation or that of giving birth. It involves nurturing
and caring. There is no responsibility more important that
that of parents. When they fail, society breaks down, as we
are witnessing.
As our society, sailing on the turbulent sea of material progress
and being buffeted by the waves of development, industrialisation
and globalisation, historical institutions are being displaced;
those of community kinship, extended families, marriage, peer
censure, shame and morality. Many and complex are the factors
involved in getting us here. It did not happen overnight and
it will certainly not disappear overnight. Nevertheless, we
need to start to apply the brakes to this runaway problem.
When faced with a new or complex problem, the solution path
lies in starting from first principles. The home, base of
operation of the family, is the starting point. What is happening
there? Homes come into being when families come into being;
for the purposes of raising and caring for our children.
Parental responsibility was inculcated into prospective parents
and it was implicitly and explicitly understood by the new
couple that both the family and community expected them to
take this responsibility seriously. Failure to do so resulted
in censure from both family and community. And yes this system
worked because most people possessed a sense of shame.
In other words, these age-old institutions were predicated
on the assumption that the sense of shame acted as a restraint
on immoral and irresponsible behaviour. This assumption is
no longer valid.
We cannot legislate shame (though it would nice if we could)
and therefore a new approach must be adopted. Some societies
have brought or tried to bring the “production”
of children under legislative control. This is a step that
we should not contemplate. But we certainly need to bring
parenthood under some sort of legislative scrutiny. A bill
of responsibilities of parent to children and society needs
to be brought to the front burner.
In a society dominated by vociferous calls, and quite rightly
so, from all sections of societies, for the respecting of
human and other rights, we desperately need to introduce even
louder calls for the observance of familial and social responsibilities.
The laws of any land are meant to protect both the individual
and collective interests in a balanced manner. So, for instance,
by way of example, we have laws that govern the granting of
a driving permit. It allows the individual to engage in an
activity that benefits him/her and at the same time protecting
(or should protect) the society at large by ensuring competence
through the granting and renewal of driving permits. A minimum
age limit set to engage in the activity.
Let us now, for a moment, extend the frontiers of social thought
without trying in any way whatsoever to open Pandora’s
box. It is illegal for an adult to become intimate with a
minor. Should it not be even “more illegal” or at
least just as illegal for two minors to become intimate? Is
this not the “loophole” that is being “exploited”
presently with so many schools children become mothers and
fathers? If there is a minimum age for marriage, should there
not be a minimum age for parenthood?
It is downright puzzling that the right to sex, especially
among minors, is treated as a social or moral matter by the
some “religious” ones and thus no moves or calls
are being made to bring it under legislative purview while
the same right for consenting adults of the same gender, as
strange as it may seem to many of us, is treated as the greatest
“sin” in the world with vociferous noises of condemnation
and calls for its banning by law.
Marriage (the best known institution, to date, for the creation
of families and stable societies) grants the right to sexual
intimacy. With that right come the knowledge and acceptance
of parental responsibility. With this age old institution
under threat and more and more children being produced outside
of its boundaries, the time has come for us to recognise that
the old paradigms no longer hold true.
For the sake of the children and society, a bill of responsibilities
of parenthood must be defined and proclaimed. Those who break
this law must be made to feel the full force of its consequences.
Prakash Persad
Chairman, Swaha Inc.
