Admitting takes courage. spin off on Gandhi.

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earth1978

@earth1978

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Posted: 13 years ago

this is a spin off from the Gandhi's thread.

at the very outset i am apologising to chitrashi if she even remotely finds anything offensive about my post.

and i am also making it clear that i am not comparing myself to the man , freedon fighter or father of the nation.

but my take on the issue of gandhi and a recent incident in my own life ( again i am NOT looking for any support here ) i want to outline the attitude of society.

gandhi was extremely horrendous in his treatment to kasturba. it came as a shock to me that the man who steered the nation to its freedom due to the policy of ahimsa practised DV.

but he admitted it. how many men who beat up their wives have the courage to admit it? very very very few.

infact up untill now i have never seen one! they go to lengths to cover up their actions even making their wives wear fully covered clothes and iving false medical histories.

it takes a phenomenal amount of courage to ADMIT ones faults. as being human's we all do have faults. they might be apparent or not. we have inherent deficiencies in our nature.

do we as a society able to give recognition to this fact? do we as society give the erring party a chance of reform? do we give them the support and encouragement they deserve for bringing out positive changes in themselves?

no. we do our level best to pull them down. we do our level best to belittle them and keep remining them of their faults. we keep looking for a chance to get back at them and bash them up.

how prudent is that?

a small incident of the sorts i witnessed ... i had an escalated argument with someone recently in an onlien forum. i might have been carried away but then in my view even i was provoked . the thing is i realised and tried to correct by offering an apology. but i still had and have people reminding me and judging me by what wrong i had done instead of my subsequent efforts to admit my mistakes and do damage control.

i even have people monitoring my threads and posts to even unrelated people ad new forums i am visiting.

the whole issue makes me question ... are we as society open to reform? or only interested in bashing to take out our own emotions and give our selves the much needed pat on the back for being good compliant citizens?

being humans we ALL have faults ... no one can claim i am beyond any fault. the ONLY thing that can be done is to realise, apologise and improve. since no one can change the past. are we conducive to it?

are we open to change our opinions and judgemens? will we let the person in question to try and brin gout a reform in himself? or we will keep criticising and harrassing till that person quits teh scene but remain unchanged!

i think a person who is open to change and reform should be allowed to do so. may be criminals remain criminals due to our attitud of out casting them.

GANDHI has committed DV. being an ardent supporter of human and women's rights here is no way i can condone him . but the fact that he admitted needs its recognition and if he had tried to reform his attitude towards his wife then even appreciated.

and yes we cannot change the fact that he succeeded where others failed.

thank you for listening people and again i apologise to anyone who might be offended in my post.

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earth1978

@earth1978

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Posted: 13 years ago

hitting father ...humm actualy ur example has me stumped ... i never thought of that.

shameless nes as in swaggering a la CSI miami types where they admit int he interrogation rooms?

lol i never had that in mind ...

Edited by earth1978 - 13 years ago

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Purva

@-Purva-

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Posted: 13 years ago

No it doesn't take courage to admit to DV. If you see the episode about DV, there's a whole segment of interviews of men who grin and admit shamelessly that they hit their wives. They actually felt proud of it.

Like I mentioned on another thread - the symptom of a man who really is into hitting his wife or indulging in DV is that - he'll hit her, then feel sorry and apologize, then go in for some extravagant gesture to show that he's changed and once the wife is lulled into a sense of security - start the cycle all over again.

This is why most abused wives find it difficult to leave their husbands, they really fall for the false tears and the assurances of love and think that the abuse is a one off incident and not that the shower of love is a one off incident.

But again that has nothing to do with Gandhi. Fact is that till we have a contrasting point of view or account from that period we cannot come to a holistic judgement. Do we have a first person account from Kasturba about her life with Gandhi - no we do not. Do we have any memoirs from her sons or any other impartial observer - not about her marital life. The only account we have is from Gandhi himself and I don't know how much reliance to place on that.

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Purva

@-Purva-

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Posted: 13 years ago

Coming to the second point you raised - that of allowing a person to reform and society's pre-judgement. That is really a tricky one.

In the US a child-abuser is forever branded and forbidden to be in any area where there are small children. In our country we try to protect the abuser instead of the child who's been victimised. Is that fair?

In our courts a judge asks a rapist if he's willing to marry the girl he's raped and if he agrees, then he's not given any punishment and all charges against him are dropped. Is that justice?

A filmstar runs over his car over people sleeping by the roadside and runs away. The next day his driver appears to say that he was driving the car, even though eye-witnesses placed that star in that place and saw him getting down from the driver's side. Anyway, the star pays huge monies to the families of the victims and isn't sent to jail for even one day. Is that justice?

In short there are certain crimes for which there can be no mitigation. Society cannot forgive or afford to make a mistake about the assertions of certain criminals that they have changed. The risk is too great.

For certain other mistakes, if someone has apologized in public and private (Though in my opinion there is no need for a private apology, if a public one is made) then the matter should be laid to rest. Those who cannot get past it are just childish and bullies. One simply has to learn to tune them out. This is the cyber-world, here one has the power to select whom to listen to and whom to completely ignore. If you ignore them, you defeat their purpose - which is to continue causing you emotional injury.

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earth1978

@earth1978

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Posted: 13 years ago

Originally posted by: Chitrashi
No it doesn't take courage to admit to DV. If you see the episode about DV, there's a whole segment of interviews of men who grin and admit shamelessly that they hit their wives. They actually felt proud of it.

Like I mentioned on another thread - the symptom of a man who really is into hitting his wife or indulging in DV is that - he'll hit her, then feel sorry and apologize, then go in for some extravagant gesture to show that he's changed and once the wife is lulled into a sense of security - start the cycle all over again.

This is why most abused wives find it difficult to leave their husbands, they really fall for the false tears and the assurances of love and think that the abuse is a one off incident and not that the shower of love is a one off incident.

But again that has nothing to do with Gandhi. Fact is that till we have a contrasting point of view or account from that period we cannot come to a holistic judgement. Do we have a first person account from Kasturba about her life with Gandhi - no we do not. Do we have any memoirs from her sons or any other impartial observer - not about her marital life. The only account we have is from Gandhi himself and I don't know how much reliance to place on that.

yes i is called as vicious cycle. unfortunately in cases of DV theres a scope of very little improvemnt if any.

but i do believe if he wrote it in his biography ... it was not about swagger.

anyhow in general my post is about ... do we accpet privious criminals an offer to reform?

hard question again becuase if it a sex related crime ... even i will have doubts with that man living inmy neighbourhood and mixing with my kids.

but someone who is driven to crime due to financial reasons etc ... i think they should be given chances to reform themselves if they truly want a rehabilitation. without us being judgmmental and biased about them all the tim reminding them of their previous faults e. thats not conducive to any reform they might want to undergo.

especially relevent in cases of former terrorists who surrender ..

Edited by earth1978 - 13 years ago

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Purva

@-Purva-

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Posted: 13 years ago

Originally posted by: earth1978

yes i is called as vicious cycle. unfortunately in cases of DV theres a scope of very little improvemnt if any.
but i do believe if he wrote it in his biography ... it was not about swagger.
anyhow in general my post is about ... do we accpet privious criminals an offer to reform?
hard question again becuase if it a sex related crime ... even i will have doubts with that man living inmy neighbourhood and mixing with my kids.
but someone who is driven to crime due to financial reasons etc ... i think they should be given chances to reform themselves if they truly want a rehabilitation. without us being judgmmental and biased about them all the tim reminding them of their previous faults e. thats not conducive to any reform they might want to undergo.
especially relevent in cases of former terrorists who surrender ..

Whoa!!! Hold on right there. Noone, and I mean no one, anywhere in the world has ever heard of a "reformed terrorist" - show me one, and I'll show you a crystal clean Ganges and Calcutta without traffic jams, no I'll show you an honest politician.

I would be reluctant to give a job to a man convicted as a thief, call it unfair or what you will, but I can't take the risk of that man getting tempted again and harming my parents when they are alone at home or something.

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charminggenie

@charminggenie

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Posted: 13 years ago

Reforms for criminals - are concerned is one of the trickest areas of our judicial system, subjected to a society's perception about the committed crime.

Like Chitrashi mentioned, a case where a rapist agrees to marry the victim, he is branded as reformed and is allowed to lead a normal life but where is the justice in that case, he ends up living among his potential victims and has a lady to pent up his aggression and he can beat her up whenevr he wants.

But then on the other hand we have juvenile criminals with future ahead, can they be reformed, mayb ,mayb not.

But the real questions arises how the perception of the crime remains with the society, if a rapist marries his victim , his crime is taken so lightly, its burshed of as if everythng is alright, a dowry case has its own sympathizers , somewhere the seriousness of the crime and its gory effect is lost.

Now coming back to Gandhi, well I have doubts about it being an example of regret, i need to hear Kasturba's account but personally i feel DV is a very heinous crime which our society turns a blind eye to and feels its a husband-wife matter, so if a person is let off easily without a formidable punishment it wouldnt do any good to stop this practice , also icons like gandhi should have pushed for many stringent laws against it if the regret was that big.

Gandhian Philosophy is an excellent way of life but there should alwayz be an evoluton not a stagnation of our morals and ideals.

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Picasso9

@Picasso9

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Posted: 13 years ago

Originally posted by: charminggenie

Now coming back to Gandhi, well I have doubts about it being an example of regret, i need to hear Kasturba's account but personally i feel DV is a very heinous crime which our society turns a blind eye to and feels its a husband-wife matter, so if a person is let off easily without a formidable punishment it wouldnt do any good to stop this practice , also icons like gandhi should have pushed for many stringent laws against it if the regret was that big.

Gandhian Philosophy is an excellent way of life but there should alwayz be an evoluton not a stagnation of our morals and ideals.

I love the last two paragraphs. Fantastic summation. 👏 Nothing to add to that last line. Perfect!

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earth1978

@earth1978

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Posted: 13 years ago

Originally posted by: Chitrashi

Whoa!!! Hold on right there. Noone, and I mean no one, anywhere in the world has ever heard of a "reformed terrorist" - show me one, and I'll show you a crystal clean Ganges and Calcutta without traffic jams, no I'll show you an honest politician.

I would be reluctant to give a job to a man convicted as a thief, call it unfair or what you will, but I can't take the risk of that man getting tempted again and harming my parents when they are alone at home or something.

chitrashi hold on ... some one might knwo something which u may not. so kindly have patience or ask for an elaboration.

terrorists or front liners in such operation ... may are youn gboys in their teens ... who are forced to pick up arms not even by their own choice but due to pressure and threat to their families.

yes very much a reality ... in kashmir and even the khalistan movement ...

when they surrender we as a society refuse to accept them again.

they r not asking to be reintegrated to ur system , or live in ur neighbour hood ... just learn soem vocatiponal course and earn respctfully ... but we deny them employment or even a peaceful life which just means "leave me alone" ... we take jibes at them and make it impossible to co exist ... we make them outcasts! result they have to turn to violence again thi stime again not out of pressure or threats but becuase they have no other option to.

sex offenders of those hwo kill for pleasure or out of their own will are different matters ... and i dont want them anywhere else except jails.

again i have seen people just like to view things on surface ... not considering it from many angels and categorising things in mere two coloumnns of white and blak.

Edited by earth1978 - 13 years ago