The recent firing incident in PU shows we have failed as a society

By now almost all of you have read or heard about the recent firing incident that took place in the Panjab University campus. Allegedly- a spat between two political groups resulted in a firing and subsequent arrests and mudslinging between the parties. Now I am not going to into the politics of all this but simply take the reader’s attention from all of this to a very important issue that has taken a backstage amidst all of this i.e. how we have failed as a society.

Cops at the campus after the firing incident

First off, there are some difficult questions that need to be answered- why are arms being brought inside the campus? Whether it is being done by insiders or outsiders is irrelevant, why is the need to carry them alongwith you at all? And why have we become so impatient that at the slightest of provocation one starts brandishing violence?

Answers to this are many, many political many otherwise but the most glaring of all being that we have failed as a society and as human beings. Punjab is a state that prides itself on being the bravest, of course since the highest number of army men serving are the inhabitants of this place. But they are also known to be the most kind. The humility and the love showered by the people are examples that are spoken highly of…yet of late there has been a change in this reputation.

Do you? Because I surely as hell do not.

Suddenly we are the people who are famous for being loud, uncouth, violent who love showing off their wealth. Atleast that is what our culture is depicting nowadays- you hardly come across a song that does not talk about violence (a la AK 47 or something about picking up a fight with another guy) or booze or objectifying women. Or movies that are in a really bad taste and show the people as dumb and the like. Is this not all a reflection of what we have become? Or is it the other way round? These songs, movies and happenings around us are teaching us that it is okay to preach violence and be rowdy and unruly because for some reason it is cool and swaggy to do so?

Whatever it is, it reflects poorly on us and is a portrayal of our deterioration as humans. Being on the campus it scares me, for it makes me think of the innumerable shooting incidents that occur in America that we keep hearing about and it the very thought of it shudders me to the core that today it has happened outside the law auditorium, tomorrow it can happen inside any of our departments and by the time we realize what a huge blunder we have made by allowing such petty politics in our campuses, it will be too late.

While we love aping the West, I hope we do not go down that road when it comes to this.