Yash, the hero of the big budget gangster film that is soon to hit our theaters, gave a clear warning to teenagers in an interview the other day - "This is not a film for children, they should not watch it." The trailer indicates that this film will be one that will be filled with violence, drugs, sex and revenge as 'heroism'. Years ago, Emraan Hashmi, who is celebrated in Bollywood, had also openly said something similar. The actor clarified that he does not want to show his films to his son and that he even controls his YouTube viewing. However, teenagers who worship them with heroism and take up their films with frenzy, are trying to imitate and follow them and make the scenes on the screen their life experience.
Teenagers have been arrested in a recent incident of the murder of an elderly family member in Karuvatta, Alappuzha, and the stabbing of a school principal in Nalgonda, Telangana. Police officials explain that both these murders were extremely brutal and that the children were enjoying them like a movie thriller. This raises a big question before us: How does such a ruthless addiction to violence develop in the innocent minds of children? The police's explanation is that in both cases, the factors that motivated them to commit the murders were their addiction to the luxurious life they are seeing in the digital world and the inspiration of movies. When a terrible chemical intoxication is added to it, even the calm-natured teenagers become violent 'toxic animals'.
These cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the number of murder cases involving minors in 2024 was 1120 and the number of attempted murders was 2243. Kerala also has strong warnings ahead. The total number of juvenile cases registered in the state increased by 62 percent between 2022 and 2024. These figures are not meant to scare us, but only to remind us of the vigilance we need to maintain with children.
The family environment is very important in the physical and mental development of children. How is the relationship between the child and the parent, is there communication at home, do the adults know where the child is going and with whom he is spending time, and is there a lot of violence and humiliation at home? These are crucial. If we look back on a child's life after they have been involved in any crime, that is the biggest failure. How many signs would they have shown before that? Parents and teachers should talk openly about sudden changes in behavior, continuous aggression, distance from school, intoxication, insomnia, and excessive digital obsession. In that case, the danger of being too busy to see or hear them may be the dangerous groups they end up with.
Society cannot wash its hands off the responsibility for a crime committed by a child by blaming movies, mobile phones, family or drugs. The society in which all these factors are involved also plays a role in shaping the child. This is a time when even primary school students who cannot write Malayalam correctly know the eight differences between a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. It is important for parents, teachers and the government to recognize this change. If what the accused child said in the Alappuzha incident is true, then the responsibility for the inadequacies in shelter homes is also our failure as a society. Shelter homes, juvenile homes and rehabilitation centers are often not places that provide comfort or shade to victimized children; on the contrary, if they become centers that turn them into dangerous criminals, the question to ask is not only 'what happened to these children'; but also what happened to us.
We have another bright picture of this generation. The world has seen the political and social involvement of the new generation in the recent popular uprisings. The Jency, who question corruption, injustice and abuse of power, who use technology rapidly, who find and organize information at a speed unimaginable for the older generation. The last person to pale in comparison to their political enlightenment was the Vice Chancellor of Kerala University, Dr. Mohanan Kunnummal. But a drop of cyanide is enough to poison an entire clean lake. Therefore, we must not hesitate to understand and solve the problems of teenagers as a social issue, rather than reducing them to the problems of individuals and families.