“What did she say?” I asked the man behind the school book counter of a shop, whom I noticed smiling and bewildered at the same time. I happened to be there, to shop for some school supplies for my few months old daughter, as if, she was to use the same very soon. I was an overexcited father, missing his daughter back home in Pakistan and trying to shop the world for her in Paris. I was there on a weekend break, having travelled from Germany, where I was undergoing a couple of months of training. She, hardly 10 years old, had left the shopkeeper surprised who in turn pleasantly surprised me on two accounts; one, that I found someone in France, finally, who was willing to speak English and, two – shall follow once I conclude.
Social responsibility is not what I want to deliberate on, in isolation, in these columns, but it is the set of values and attributes at work backstage, which draw my attention. By the way, it is not environment too, for which I want to make a point here. However, I will be linking the construct of social responsibility with the incident narrated above. It will indicate how important it is to be aware of the prevailing issues around us, how imperative it is not to be ignorant. Only aware individuals make empathetic societies. Awareness is one value that is not just dependent on knowledge, but also on your own will. Being knowledgable but not enabled to make use of the same is indicative of a flawed understanding of the context or the content. Once an individual has understood thoroughly and is willing to apply the acquired knowledge for a better sense of one’s surroundings, only then social onus seeps in.
Adaptability to living in a society is another pillar on which social responsibility rests. Abiding by the norms, dos and don’ts of expected social behavior, are pivotal for not only adaptation but also for acceptance. The more the acceptance gained, more one is expected to be socially responsible, though not a thumb rule in a society with deep set class division, like ours. Levers are provided in the form of social pressure and laws of the state. Adaptability in fact manifests the capacity of an individual to respond to social change. Social support networks also play an important role in social adaptability.
The awareness and adaptability propels the individual – the basic social entity, to identify, select and perform one’s societal role. As the contours of this role crystallize, the need for social justice also creeps in. Distribution of wealth, privileges and opportunities start assuming importance within the context of social justice, which in turn is characterized by social security and economic justice in the modern era. It is not only about “rights” it also is a charter of duties of an individual towards the society. And talking of duties, one truth reveals all – the complex relationship between social and legal justice.
At times it is believed that legal justice is just an application, an off shoot from the stem of social justice and at others it is not considered a justice issue at all. Efforts have been made to define social justice as “substantive” and legal justice as “procedural” justice. All said and done, in my opinion a strong and delivering legal justice system assures delivery of social justice, prioritizing what one merits, over what one inherits. In the absence of a responsive and a strong legal justice system wealth clogs in few hands, privileges are denied and opportunities are not created but destroyed. Solving the justice jigsaw therefore not only demands values, but also their implementation.
The implementation of values has gone cumbersome in today’s global village and it is so because somewhere in discerning the complex relationships in this bigger picture, our moralities get overawed. We can view them as a scene in the rear view mirror for few seconds, diminishing or fast changing, but not enabling us to savor it. Yes, for sure that doesn’t mean that everything moral has to go or had gone haywire. Individuals and societies who invest in social responsibility not only through corporates, but primarily through habitats and their ecosystems – homes and families – reap the fruit of delivering values.
Going back to the beginning, two was, when the man behind the counter replied, “she asked me about the paper used in the book being bleached or unbleached and when I told her it was bleached, she returned the book telling me that she didn’t want to be a party to the printers for polluting her rivers”. It was the sense of social responsibility of that ten-year-old girl, who taught me that day, that year, in my thirties, that bleaching paper with chlorine can produce toxic dioxins, which can play havoc with our waters and eco system. How earnestly I wished my daughter could follow her one day, someday, hoping that our next generations, turn out to be more sensitive and considerate to surroundings, relations and duties, as compared to us or our predecessors. That they turn out more socially responsible.
