Did we Achieve salvation, enjoy Eid and Fast In Shawal?

With the Covid Pandemic spreading like bushfire, engulfing countless lives in its wake, it is talk of the deadly virus that dominates dinner table conversations, official discussions and social gatherings, limited as they are. In the past year masks, sanitizers and social distancing have become part of the new normal life and there is no end in sight for them yet. The papers are filled with grim stories of innocent lives being lost, scenes of pandemonium at hospitals and there is hardly a home left which has not been afflicted by Corona. Though the death is dancing at the doorsteps of everybody, yet flouting of norms is common place in our Valley as I discovered on my visit to the local butcher on Arafa day. I was shocked to see people pushing their way through, in complete disregard to social distancing standards and their own safety, while the smug faced butcher sat high like an overlord watching his serfs. I tried my best to be in line and maintain social distancing in the hope that others would follow the same, but to no avail. Another shock ensued when the butcher himself decided the quantity of meat that I should take, paying no heed to my need, thereby maintaining perfect distancing from courtesy and social etiquette though it would have far better if he would have maintained social distance instead. Similar was the case with the fruit sellers who quoted sky high prices, knowing the customers hands were tied, with fruits being indispensable during the Holy month of Ramadhan. Take the example of milk seller who adulterated milk with water for monetary benefits during the month known as a Month of Repentance. The bitter experiences led me to introspect how even during the holy month; people who fasted dutifully here simultaneously committed moral and social wrongs that defeated the very purpose of Fasting. Profiteering, amassing ill gotten wealth- the deep cultural malaise afflicting our society, remains unchecked because we choose to condone rather castigate. What is particularly worrisome is that even crimes of moral turpitude, earlier unheard of, no longer prick our society’s collective conscience let alone warrant severe condemnation. Rather they are finding their feat within our social fabric, at the cost of our moral values that continue to erode. This is the society which damn cares for this moral degradation and instead is deeply involved in the squabbling and bickering of whether the Loudspeaker is to be used during Namaz or not and hence, wrangling inside the mosques which is a sign that we are a ill society. Take the case of a Kashmiri girl from Pattan of District Baramulla who murdered her husband with the help of her paramour, that too at the time and during the month of Ramdhan. The woman had illicit relation with a man and conspired against her husband and brutally killed him leaving the body near the cowshed to let people and family believe that he has slipped down and died a natural death. The reaction by religious groups, media and other sections of the society was chaotic and doleful to the heinous crime. In reaction to this shocking and shameful incident, the lukewarm reaction by the society perhaps marks a change and transition in our moral values which were the best practices of our age old society.
My son who had returned to the valley from his official duty after a long time, was sharing Sehri just besides us in our sitting room during Ramdhan when out of nowhere he said that he had been proud of our clean moral and cultural record when it came to criminal acts such as murders, illicit relations, conspiracies against family members and immoral activities but this Pattan squalid episode had forced him to think otherwise. This sentence of his put us in a flashback mode. Having seen the larger part of the previous few decades, such crimes we can recall were never a part of our society. Our society may have had a number of problems, we may have been accused of being turncoats, collaborators, arrogant, hoarders, irritating, unpredictable, rumour-mongers, even treacherous at some point of time, but never has our society had this “criminal” tendency has never been imported to our valley of Saints and Rishies. But what is happening around our society now at present clearly enunciates, is our moral degradation and collective downfall as a society. We have gone from bad to worse and are breaching new boundaries in our “filth accumulation”. As already mentioned a number of crimes have been normalised in our society as if they are a part of our routine schedule. The element of huge profiteering, black marketing, adulterating eatable and drinkable items and hoarding in the month of Ramdhan by business / shopkeepers community who fast for 30 days, offer every single Taraveeh and then on the auspicious occasion of Lailat ul- Qadre beg for mercy, has already received a social approval with the business Groups and shopkeepers not irked by their conscience to stay away from such practices. Here, it is heart wrenching and painful that our business sect increase rates more than the approved and legal fixed rates during the months and occasions like Ramdhan and Eid. Similarly the practice of corruption and bribery by other sections / persons does not achieve a breakpoint at any point of time. We have lost our moral decency to talk, the art of conversation is missing, our arguments turn into fights and abuses and without even looking at who is standing on the other side we start shouting. Such “social degradations” unfortunately have been normalized way back in our society and we blame the divergence or somebody else for way too long for these problems. Blaming something of a political nature for something which is societal in nature is tantamount to comparing apples with oranges. The threat that is lurking around like a tiger in ambush waiting for his prey is “normalisation of this heinous crime now”. It doesn’t take long before something is normalized and before it is relegated from front page news to page 5 news. When something is an exception and happens in exceptional circumstances, it gives birth to a reaction and a strong rhetoric-Pattan case being the example, but when something happens repeatedly over the period of time with one or two cases reported every single day, it just becomes a part of your life and you learn to live with it. The month of Ramdhan was an entire month during which Muslims focussed on purifying themselves, tried to get closer to Allah, and grow in their knowledge/faith and morality. And now the month of Shawal has set in and on the Ist day of Shawal we celebrated Eid. Some Muslims observe six days of Fasting during Shawāl beginning the day after Eid ul-Fitr since fasting is prohibited on Eid Day. The Prophet (SAW) says in a Hadith that “the six days of Fasting together with the Ramdhan Fasting, are equal to Fasting the entire year”. Now the question is that did we really achieve such salvation and deserve to enjoy the Eid and now follow Sunnah of our dear Prophet (SAW) to observe Fast for six days in the month of Shawal. I leave this question to the READERS?
(The author is Director Academics at J&K Board of School Education. Views are his own)
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