Degeneration of Morals and Values in the Indian society

What are morals or values or ethics? These are defined to be the Standards of human behavior; principles of right and wrong. However in the modern times, degeneration of values and ethics has become very rampant. Where have all our Morals gone. Today, 'Moral' is a word which is just limited to the moral books of some primary classes. It is no longer a valid word for an Indian mind too, just as it has lost its meaning in the western world, several years ago. Morals have become a word sleeping in the dictionary; I would rather say it has disappeared from the dictionary as well as people's life. Reverences, obedience, kindness, love, affection, were some of the values but in the present scenario these have been substituted by lust, greed, hypocrisy, hatred.

The younger generation has an attitude of "I don't care". Degraded moral values have become a fashion for them. In schools, students proudly admit that they smoke or have indulged in some sort of bad activity. They forget their ethical values and duties towards society and the nation. Morals and values are just the past. It’s depressing to see the newspaper early in the morning to witness various murder and rape cases. Programs telecasting about various ill-treatments of woman and deaths and accidents score a greater a viewing rate as compared to any discovery channel or something useful (not really these days. The main cause for the rise of such uncivilized grounds of terror and hatred is just the result of inappropriate educational values right from the childhood and nil importance to human values which need to be imbibed to the student at an early level. The increasing practice of doing everything just for the sake of money has killed the minute pieces of kindness making them dormant forever. Practising morals has become so rare that anyone following the basic morals is considered mad, sane and a scapegoat for all. One seeing today's India can never wholeheartedly admit this was birth place of great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and never believe this was where Mother Teresa did miracles in helping the poor and disabled and now can we ever even imagine of such personalities to be born again!


I think the one who exhibits or acts with his or her morals becomes a laughing stock. So eventually he loses belief in them and starts resorting to corrupts means. People no longer believe in paths that are shown by experienced ancentors. We have started believing that, we are the masters of our lives and no one else is responsible for its make up or break up, forgetting the fact that we can learn a lot from the experience of others too, especially from those elderly people, who lived a life of simplicity and contentment with a generous, kind and compassionate mind. Now-a-days even babies know the meaning of 'performance'. They are told to 'perform' well in pre-primary classes, 'perform' well in primary classes, 'perform' their best in their board exams, 'perform' the most in their graduation and perform the utmost and the impossible for the rest of their lives. Such children, who are born and brought up with such a mindset and attitude just learn to concentrate on improving their performance, no matter in what way they get it, at the expense of self-interests and of course at the sheer expense of humanistic attitude and moral values.

We learn to smoke, believing that it is just another habit like eating, we learn to drink, convincing ourselves that it is good for our health, as dictated by some ongoing research, we learn to cheat, thinking that we can bring about great 'performance' at the end. We have started believing that humans are polygamous by nature. We have started believing that there is nothing wrong in filing a divorce, if the new husband or wife unfortunately doesn't speak the 'right' word in each other's own dictionaries.

We look for an opportunity to push our old age parents to the so-called 'Loving old age homes', where the word 'love' has exchanged its meaning with the word 'money'. We look for a best chance to ditch our partners and enter into a new promising career, that is more financially stabilized. We look for a golden opportunity to leave our parent employers, just for the sake of a little addition to our annual package. In short, we just act like monkeys, hopping from branch to branch, without a proper goal, without concentration and without inquiring ourselves if we really need something. Our politicians need to accumulate huge wealth, fearing for their lives.. Our bureaucracy is focused upon shredding their responsibilities, whenever time permits. Our judiciary is no longer dictated by books of law but by loads of money. Our teachers, students, doctors, engineers, public servants, social workers, all have lost their real goal, forgotten their real identity, moving towards only one thing in their lives ' Money and fame'. There is no real Indian sage anymore. Only scandals remain. There is no reliable media, which works for people's welfare and awareness. Only scandal 'pages' remain.

And what about business? Even, in the corporate world, values are on the verge of extinction. The newly founded companies make misleading advertisements, to catch and hold the attention of the target audience. It is another matter that their products belie the claim. Worst still are dubious companies, selling spurious products, for making a quick buck, putting the lives of the innocent millions in peril? The Birlas, the Tatas, the Mafatlals, are only the few Corporates who still have protected the ancient values and ethics of the Indian culture.

To sum it up, we can say that many factors are responsible for the degeneration of morals and values in the Modern society.