Editorial, "SPARE THE CHILD OR BEAR THE ROD!" in 15 December 2012 LAW ANIMATED WORLD

SPARE THE CHILD OR BEAR THE ROD!

seems to be the new axiom for the Norwegian neo-barbarians who have unjustly detained and after a trial, which looks quite unfair even by our Indian standards, sentenced our Indian Telugu couple Chandrasekhar and Anupama to 18 months and 15 months imprisonment respectively for an alleged offence of violence against their own child. It was the 17^th century English poet, Samuel Butler, who in his poem Hudibras, perhaps using a Biblical root, coined the saying ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, which has later been adopted by and often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. Truly so, and 

we have a similar axiom applicable to more variegated circumstances declaring ‘dandam dasagunam bhavet’ [the rod delivers many good results] that is also meant to work and be applied in the course of child rearing. We are aware that some of our own intellectuals recently disapproved of these two traditional axioms and the practices indicated by them saying the times have changed and the concepts of human rights and duties have transcended this constricted ancient thinking and now domestic violence, especially violence against children, is to be seriously deplored and so the Norwegians were perhaps more correct in this regard. However, this distorted interpretation of the so-called ‘good’s of the seemingly progressive thinking and law of the Norwegians, for that matter of the ‘developed’ West, overlooks the general moral degeneration in human and family relations in those countries and systems and the rise of so many other vices like drug-addiction, maniac acts of violence by spoilt children, promiscuous and abhorrent sexual practices, child and woman trafficking and above all racism, veiled or open, etc. and the rise of demonical terrorists like Anders Breivik (more fanatical and cruel than Kasab of 26/11 mayhem whom we hanged recently) and the so mild punishment of such dastardly criminals. Also overlooked is the imperative need to accord the foreign residents in any country due respect and enough freedom and facility to follow their own cultural, traditional practices so long as they do not interfere with the public peace and law and order. On both counts we people of the Orient seem to fare better than those of the Occident – especially the Norwegians – who fall so short of real ‘civilization’. §§§