Despite discord in ideologies and agendas, forming the so-called coalition Governments, often inviting the adjective unholy, by various otherwise warring political parties both at the Centre and in the States as well as Union Territories seems to be the order of our times, more as a norm than exception, all for making merry with power and pelf drawing generously from public funds, as the newspaper-savvy masses read in the dailies of all hues and remain as passive witnesses to the goings on helplessly. Their volatile relationships based on ambition and greed conforms to the saying “There are no permanent friends in politics but only permanent interests” attributed to the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965). The land’s multitude of players, mistakenly identified as leaders, are accepted as role models for the country’s youth in nurturing relationships with trust as stable as the bubbles on flowing waters of rivers. The world of business, particularly in the country, abounds with partners ruining their brittle relationships on money-sharing plank. Closer home, the bonding between urban-based working couples has tended to get broken well ahead of the child-bearing event in their life.

Philosophers of the land who walked in flesh and blood in distant past have scripted their views on the importance of harmony and tolerance as the hallmark of stable relationships enduring for the lifetime of the people bonding together and empathising among themselves selflessly. Their ground rules for nurturing relationships within the family and in society seem to have been thrown to the winds in our times.

Going by reports of episode in the dailies taking place across the country, even the proverbial mother-child relationships have gone bust, not to speak of other intra-family relationships such as between father and son, ending in criminal acts including killing. Various policies and measures aimed at progressing towards the ideal of inclusive society being introduced by successive administrations over the past decades, including the ongoing controversial Citizenship Law, seem to have boomeranged, as reported in the media. The global scene of fractured relationships between countries and the national scene of bitterness among different States on counts of territory and sharing river waters are not showing signs of abating. The time-honoured Guru-Shishya relation at all levels of the world of learning is more an exception than the rule in the present dispensation of society.

Sociologists and researchers in the field have their task cut out in fathoming the factors that drive people apart, starting from dislike and distrust, while scholars may have to wear their thinking caps and lay down the ground rules of addressing ruined relationship issues.