– Mohammed Talha Siddi Bapa
Bengaluru: In an age dominated by instant gratification and digital stimulation, the tragedy of our times is the quiet decay of youth – a generation increasingly enslaved by the tyranny of its own desires. From substance abuse to pornography, from moral detachment to psychological distress, today’s young people are drifting through a storm of temptation that promises happiness but delivers emptiness.
It is in this climate that the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) has launched a nationwide campaign titled “Haya: Meaning, Morality, Tranquillity.” The campaign seeks to revive an inner sense of modesty, rebuild moral consciousness, and provide an alternative narrative to a culture drowning in excess.
At the launch of the Haya campaign in Karnataka, during a press conference in Bengaluru, SIO Karnataka President Adi Alhassan underscored the campaign’s goal of rekindling inner modesty and moral awareness among young people.
“Haya essentially means modesty. Through this campaign, we want to remind people that human beings are not merely material bodies, but moral and spiritual entities as well,” he said.
He observed that society today is ruled by “cheap dopamine,” where immorality is normalised and instant pleasure is mistaken for true happiness.
The State Secretary, Mohammed Yusuf Saqlain, echoed similar concerns, highlighting how modern youth are being consumed by addiction, depression, and identity crises.
“We need engaged and goal-oriented young people – the kind Islam expects them to be,” he said.
The campaign includes campus lectures, public meetings, counselling sessions, mosque sermons, and dialogues with psychologists – all aimed at rebuilding a culture of self-restraint and purposeful living.
A Moral Crisis of a Generation
Across the world, sociologists and psychologists alike have warned of an epidemic of moral fatigue. The very age that offers boundless access to information has left millions feeling lost, addicted, and disconnected from meaning. The smartphone has become both the confessional and the cage; the body a playground of desires, and the mind an abandoned temple.
Youth, once celebrated as the age of discipline, discovery, and daring, has been hijacked by distractions. The thirst for pleasure, often confused with freedom, has transformed into a slow suicide of the soul.
Long ago, American writer Orison Swett Marden reflected profoundly on this phenomenon. He wrote that those who resist their impulses in youth, who discipline their passions and desires, are the ones who later build “great business empires and lead nations.” In other words, self-control is not repression; it is the foundation of greatness.
His insight rings truer today than ever. In an era of indulgence, restraint becomes revolutionary.
SIO’s Effort: A Timely Moral Intervention
Against this bleak backdrop, SIO’s Haya campaign stands out as a rare and much-needed initiative. It reminds young people that modesty is not backwardness; it is a form of strength. It is a return to balance – a call to anchor one’s desires within the bounds of dignity and purpose.
By blending moral education with psychological awareness, and combining faith-based principles with community engagement, the campaign attempts to restore what modernity has stripped away – the harmony between the body and the soul.
If successful, Haya could become more than a movement; it could be a mirror, reflecting back to our youth the truth that inner peace does not come from indulgence, but from discipline.
Hope Beyond the Noise
Today’s generation stands at a moral crossroads. On one side lies a culture of self-destruction masked as liberation; on the other, the timeless path of self-mastery and meaning. The challenge is monumental, but so is the potential for revival.
The SIO deserves appreciation for daring to begin this conversation, not with condemnation, but with compassion; not with fear, but with faith in the youth’s ability to rediscover themselves.
In the end, it is not wealth, fame, or freedom that defines a generation but its capacity to rise above its own desires.
May this campaign, Haya: Meaning, Morality, Tranquillity, become a turning point – reviving within our young people not just modesty, but the courage to be truly human again.
