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Monday, August 25, 2008

The Blame Game

People always blame the law, lawyers and the judges . This is a shame in today’s day and age considering that most people are born prudent enough to judge right from wrong. Recently I read an article in times of India about a 16 year old girl who killed herself because she got in to social networking so as to make friends which went terribly wrong when she got sexually involved with one of her internet friends. Who as anybody can guess took advantage of her and she decided to end her life. The article blames the law for being flimsy.

Let’s go back a few decades when mothers used to warn their children about talking to strangers and divulging information. How different is it today? Fine, the internet exposes us to more people, but that’s a risk we take up on ourselves. But does that mean we ought not to be cautious as to whom we talk to and what we talk about? So when one is in one of these networks one can use their god given brains and exercise caution. But if people are on the net for all the wrong reasons, there is no helping them.

People always find it easy to blame someone else for their wrongs because then they are not answerable for the consequences. In this instance, the author of the article is blaming the law. For me the girl is the wrong doer. Why? Because, in spite of knowing the dangers she indulged in activities which resulted in her ending her life.

Reading about such deaths is disheartening but at the same time it could have been prevented. A life lost. For what?Predators are everywhere, and the only tool we have is CAUTION.
Now coming to the lawyers, the BMW case after the NDTV expose has resulted in two lawyers being barred from practice for 4 months and have been slashed with a fine for Rs.2,000. My non lawyer friends have been telling me that, the fine and punishment are way too light for the offence committed and that they should have had a more severe punishment. At a certain level I do agree, but the expose has done the two lawyers more harm than one can possibly measure by way of punishment. So the punishment may be light on the face of it, but facts are contrary to the general public’s belief.

Now coming to the judges, the recent case of the mother in her 26th week of pregnancy found her child had a congenital heart problem and wanted to abort the child.Unfortunately for her, the law does not permit abortion after 20weeks of pregnancy. Making this woman an exception would have resulted in an abortion rampage by the not so willing parents (in cases where the child is a girl). But everyone looked down upon the judge’s decision and criticism flew from all corners. People, People, People… before you blame anyone please stop for a minute and be the devil’s advocate before you reach an opinion.