The work of a social reformer is, as the name depicts to reform the society of the times in all its aspects.
If I were to be a social reformer, I would strive endlessly to retrieve the lost ground of the status of the Indian family. This I would like to do as, I feel that the family is the hub of all the developmental activities of a society. A group of healthy families makes for a healthy society and this, in turn results in the growth of a healthy nation.
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My heart weeps when I see the dwindling and weakening of the fabric of the Indian family. All homes have inadvertently been converted into houses in the modern trend of the shaping of families. Evils like drug addiction and the like have come to stay and destroy our new, coming up generation. All these evils are coming up owing to our children growing up in creches and elders being sent to homes for the aged. All this situation has given birth to a loosening of the threads of family ties that existed here not very long back.
All this is happening because the women have started working outside the homes and, the home, which was once their priority sphere, has become secondary to their career. The woman’s career, her salary, her independence have got the first priority and in the bargain the family suffers. The effect of the modern trend of women working has disastrous results. Homes are lost somewhere in the labyrinth of official and social activities. With this loss of the unit of the home, all virtues of the institution have also got lost.
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If I were to be a social reformer I would try to improve the status and life in a family. Women would work outside the home only if, either there would be dire need for money to keep body and soul together, or they would be having no responsibilities of elders or children at home. In this scenario, the home would once again become the haven it used to be. Every member getting his/her due love, care and respect.
Another change I would like to introduce as a social reformer would be to infuse religion in every life. These days of completely materialistic attitudes and material gains, people seem to have lost sight of the God outside and within. The technological outlook of man seems to feel no need to see God nor to believe that HE exists. It is this attitude of people in general that I would like to see changing. The simple reasoning that God is the Creator does not at all find place in the minds of people to-day. I would organize debates and conferences in which the undisputed power and the existence of the creator would be highlighted. How can God ever be exiled from the lives of men, and their social beings. This is exactly what is happening and the degradation is there for all of us to see.
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By religion I would not insist upon men going to temples or other houses of worship. Instead I would insist on men bringing religion in their behaviours and attitudes to their fellowmen.
Last but not the least, I would give a thrust on ethics in our education system. Finer values of life would be imbued in the small children so that they would grow up into good citizens and good human beings. This again I feel is getting absolutely eliminated from the schedule of our education system. This is why we find the younger generation is turning out to be unethical and without any finer values that go to make life healthy and happy. I would suggest that these values be inculcated in the children from day one of their education. At that stage of life finer values find place in the child’s psyche but, as the child becomes older these values are of no use to them as, they have not tasted the fruits of these values.
With this family in place and people having a religious outlook and ethical values I think I would have done my best as a social reformer. With these objectives achieved, society would become highly civilized, moral and ethical. The social reform of my dreams would then be near complete.