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@article{187273,
        author = {Swati Pal},
        title = {The Ethics of Memory: Ancient Indian Insights for a World That Forgets Too Quickly},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {6},
        pages = {6030-6041},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=187273},
        abstract = {In an age defined by information excess and shrinking attention spans, societies are developing an unprecedented capacity to forget. At the personal, political, and civilizational level, memory once revered as a moral responsibility has become fragile, fragmented, and easily manipulated. This article argues that forgetting is not merely an individual lapse but a profound ethical failure that distorts justice, weakens democratic accountability, and erodes cultural integrity. Drawing upon ancient Indian philosophical traditions, particularly the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Buddhist mindfulness, Jain ethics, and Vedantic reflections, this study retrieves a deep civilizational wisdom on remembrance as a duty (smriti-dharma).
Through close textual readings, the article examines the epic warnings against communal amnesia: Yudhishthira’s reflections on the social cost of forgetting injustice, Sita’s erasure as an example of patriarchal memory practices, Karna’s forgotten lineage exposing structural bias, and the Shanti Parva’s discussions on preserving moral memory across generations. These insights are placed in dialogue with contemporary political psychology to explain how nations often sanitize violence, rewrite history, and normalize injustice through strategic forgetting.
The article further analyses how digital technologies accelerate this amnesia, producing short-lived outrage cycles, algorithmic distraction, and curated memory-loss. Finally, it proposes a framework for “ethical memory” grounded in Indian epistemology prioritizing slow attention, mindful civic education, intergenerational storytelling, and transparent historical practices. By combining ancient philosophical wisdom with contemporary socio-political concerns, the article argues that societies that remember consciously are better equipped to pursue justice, nurture compassion, and prevent the repetition of harm.},
        keywords = {Ethics of Memory; Indian Philosophy; Smriti; Collective Forgetting; Mahabharata; Ramayana; Digital Amnesia; Political Psychology; Cultural Memory; Democratic Accountability},
        month = {November},
        }