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Social justice: It is the next frontier!

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DQW Bureau
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The manner in which the Jessica
Lal murder case is proceeding, is a sad commentary on our judicial system. It
makes one feel sad. For all the developments that one talks about, when it comes
to basics, one is left wondering how much is it all worth.

Some one is shot in the presence
of so many people and it takes more than a year to start proceedings in the
court. Worse still, it is supposed to have been a gathering of the ‘high
society’, but we hardly have anyone wanting to stick his neck out and tell the
truth.

Obviously fear of back leash is
more potent than the protection that the police offers. For all the hype that
Delhi police has been engaging in, it needs to introspect seriously. Probably
the first thing it can do is to stop wasting public money on useless propaganda.

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Shift focus from here to the
elections taking place in several states and the news that almost all parties
have fielded candidates with criminal records. When confronted, the political
parties have a convenient answer. ‘Don’t vote for criminals. You must vote
with your eyes and ears open’. And when well-educated professionals turned
politicians make such statements, one wonders which way the nation is headed.
When the institutions are to be controlled by such people, you wonder if the
police can really be blamed for what it does or what it doesn’t.

If all this was not enough, you now have this case of juvenile delinquency and Net porn.

The problem probably is not as much of what is wrong, but the brazen attitude and defiance exhibited by people
justifying their acts. The manner in which ministers have organized marriages of
their children in the recent past, leaves them with little moral ground to
preach to their subjects.

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So why am I talking about all this? What’s all this got to do with IT?

It’s high time that IT got deep into these areas and helped improve the functioning of our security
agencies and the judiciary. Without enforceable law one will only move from the
primitive form of jungle society to a hitech jungle society–deadlier than its
predecessors will.

Where is the problem? Is it a problem of capability, or is it a problem of the will to achieve something?
Going by statistics, one would tend to believe that the government is one of the
biggest spenders on IT. But what and how much has it achieved? Or is the problem
elsewhere? Is it the lacking of leadership? Has it got to do with
accountability? Has it something to do with the attention required for nurturing
these institutions? Is it the lack of vision?

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Too many questions, What? Yes, but may be we have forgotten to ask ourselves these questions? And that’s why
we are in the state we are in. As individuals, we are too busy doing things to
please people in power. And not asking ourselves if what we are doing is right
or wrong.

But then, where is the motivation, you might ask? Look at what happens to crusaders. To those who
question the order. To those who probe into the wrongs of people in power. They
get side lived!

At the end of the day, therefore, it is not what IT can do for you, but what do you want IT to do for
you. In the same country you have the space program that matches the efforts of
world leaders and makes you feel proud.

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Does our police force and the judiciary have the will and vision to transform itself. Do they empathize with
the sufferings of the common man knocking on their door for justice? For all the
hype, do they care enough to find ways and means of helping those who need them
most?

Surely our learned friends cannot be unaware of the sweeping benefits that IT is bringing about across the
world and in their own country. What initiatives have the judiciary and the
police taken to collaborate and help bring justice to those who need them?

As I have said many times, anything that is complicated from the outside cannot be a good model. All the
complexity of a system must lie at the back-end and must help present a simple,
easy to operate front-end.

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IT has the tremendous capability to create simpler front-ends–only if one is willing to use it for what it is
worth. For that matter, any tool can be potentially used for both constructive
and destructive purposes. It is upto us what we choose.

And that brings us to the very basic question of human values–which has to do with the individual.
Unfortunately, in a world gone berserk on materialism and greed has overtaken
everything else. There is no time to introspect and ponder over what is right
and what is wrong.

At the end of the day, the computer remains what it was a decade and more ago–a dumb box. It still does
what man wants it to do. HAL of Spare Odyssey 2001 still remains in comic
strips. Man is still supreme. And he decides to use IT at his convenience.

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It is sad that IT has remained only a business tool. It is yet to make a mark on the social front in the true
sense. But that may call for a social revolution of sorts. Till then, the common
man’s empowerment will remain a dream. And the prospects of being granted
justice, a nightmare–from one Jessica Lal to another!

Sumit Sharma

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