Rise in crimes due to degradation of values: Justice N V Ramana

The steady rise in incidents of molestation and intolerance is a result of degradation of human values, Supreme Court Judge Justice N V Ramana said today, urging people to speak up against these cases.

Justice Ramana, in his address on the last day of the two-day conference on 'human values and the legal world' here, quoted German-Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller and said no one can protect people from such incidents if they do not speak up for values.

"(Students) should be taught moral, social responsibility to care for their compatriots and follow 'dharma'. We must not only provide these values from early age to our children, but also we must adopt them ourselves. We have been seeing a steady rise in cases of molestation, intolerance etc everyday, which is nothing but a result of degradation of values.

"As citizens, if we do not speak up for values and pre-cautions, we cannot protect anyone from such heinous crimes. We cannot sit quiet in a corner and think that no anti-social element or a bad neighbourhood would affect us. Man being a social animal, cannot isolate himself from the society," Justice Ramana said.

He tweaked a Niemoller poem and said, "Because I did not care for the monstrosity. Then they came for the neighbourhood, and I did not speak out because I was not in the vicinity. Then they came for the friends, and I did not speak out because I was not the one. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me".

Niemoller's poem "First they came for" dealt with the attitude of German intellectuals after the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets. Various adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in numerous languages. It deals with themes of persecution, guilt and responsibility.

The original poem goes thus, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me."