India : A nation of dysfunctional Identity
There has been news in many channels about the Tehelka expose on Gujarat mass killing. And today another news came. In Karnataka JD(S) announced to give unconditional support to BJP to form the Government. When the reporter quizzed the bete noir of Deve Gowda on the expose on the saffron brigade's role in Gujarat'a carnage, he said it is conspiracy of Congress party! Realizing that it is not even funny, he gave the matter-of-fact answer that he is trying to protect his party, indirectly saying that he can't keep people in his party if he does not support BJP; not because of Ideology, mind you, it is just that he cannot match the money that his MLAs are being offered by the other parties.
Amusing? I guess it is, after all, we are talking about Indian politics. 'We', under the intellectual insulation of the banner of educated class of India, have learned to separate ourselves from the all the bad vibes that Indian politics emanate.
There was a bengali rhyme that I heard when I was a kid, that apparently mothers used to scare their kids. It said that the Marathas would come raiding if they didn't go to bed soon. During 18th Century Maratha cavalries used to raid in villages of Bengal and stories of their cruel killing and vandalism became the subject of folklore. The raiders would loot, arson and kill, at will, the women, men and kids in vicarious celebration of their win against the farmers. I doubt if the then Bengali farmers or the Maratha raiders shared the common vision of national Identity at that time.
In 1946, when Jinnah and his cronies realized that Jinnah's dream of becoming the prime minister of India will not be fulfilled and Congress will not give in to his demand of Pakistan, he called for 'direct action'. Thousands of people slaughtered each other in one of the bloodiest riot that ever have happened in India. It is said that thousands of mutilated bodies were lying on the roads of Calcutta, for days, waiting for the British army to clear. This was recorded as the great Calcutta killing in the history. Government was said to restrain the Police so that rioters could fulfill their mission without any problem. [check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Action_Day]
In 1984, when the then prime minister of India was assassinated by two sikh guards, Delhi experienced another of its darkest days when thousands of Sikhs were hounded and slaughtered by frenzied mobs. As usual the Police disappeared from the roads during this time also. Of all the political statements that came out afterwards, I remembered one statment made allegedly by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, saying,"When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake".
2002 repeated the history when Ahmedabad, Vadodara and almost entire Gujarat started what the leaders called 'the retribution of the Godhra carnage'. Tehelka's expose on the design and people who planned that are accounted with graphic details in their news portal under the the headline that says, "the Truth in the words of the men who did it". Disturbing. No 'disturbing' is a very mild word for that. It is shocking how much hatred one could have to be able to talk with pride on those animal behaviour and not feeling even a glint of remorse.
I was puzzled. History tells us that India has always been invaded by others and we have been overpowered almost in all cases. Be it the first Muslim invasion of sultan of Ghazni, or 500 years later, the invasion of Mughals, a small number of outsiders always won over large army of India.
Indians as we know are known to have submissive psyche. Individually, we avoid direct confrontation and have always proved ourselves to be a great subject under different dynasties, clans, empires. East India Co. ruled the whole country till 1857 with just 10,000 people of their own! In most of the cases the Kings prefered to sell their loyalty to British empire than fighting for freedom. Then where does this almost bestial aggression come from, aggression so cruel that it does not spare kids, pregnant women, old man? And why this aggression manifests only when there is a group of people together? How many times have you heard of mobs torching buses, shops or killing people as opposed to a single person's aggression causing the harm to the society?
Mob behaviour or herd behaviour, the experts say are shown by weak predators. A group of animals fleeing a predator shows the nature of herd behavior. Typically the herd aggression is an act of defense; a trait developed by weak predators for their individual survival against stronger opponents. Hyenas show this behaviour pretty often and they are known to be more fierce when they are in herd.
In the last hundred years, we have seen us to be deadliest, ruthless and cruel when we are in groups. The dreadest riots in history can only be found in the history of this subcontinent.
It almost feels like we are bunch of canines, afraid to face the world alone and wait for an opportunity to bite in the anonymity of a group. Our strength is in our numbers, like the Hyenas. We are equally ferocious like those animals especially when we are part of a mob.
Long time back, I saw a group of kids attacking a dog on the road. The dog was running for its life and the kids were pelting stones at that fateful creature. Each time the dog barked as it was hit by the stones, the kids would jump with vicarious joy. Sadist? May be but the same kid would run away if the dog charged back.
I think it is the psychology of victims and cowards. Riots, arsons, mob-killing are our opportunity to get out of this overwhelming truth, our repressed Identity. A bunch of non-achievers, losers that we are, our only way to taste the win is by being part of anonymous, almost histrionic, celebration of aggression. It helps us to lose our Identity and feel like winners. We should enshrine this deliberate act of humanity, the best bakery, the charred houses, shops so that as Tarun Tejpal wrote in his editorial, we as a nation do not forget our coward bestiality and hopefully not repeat.
Amusing? I guess it is, after all, we are talking about Indian politics. 'We', under the intellectual insulation of the banner of educated class of India, have learned to separate ourselves from the all the bad vibes that Indian politics emanate.
There was a bengali rhyme that I heard when I was a kid, that apparently mothers used to scare their kids. It said that the Marathas would come raiding if they didn't go to bed soon. During 18th Century Maratha cavalries used to raid in villages of Bengal and stories of their cruel killing and vandalism became the subject of folklore. The raiders would loot, arson and kill, at will, the women, men and kids in vicarious celebration of their win against the farmers. I doubt if the then Bengali farmers or the Maratha raiders shared the common vision of national Identity at that time.
In 1946, when Jinnah and his cronies realized that Jinnah's dream of becoming the prime minister of India will not be fulfilled and Congress will not give in to his demand of Pakistan, he called for 'direct action'. Thousands of people slaughtered each other in one of the bloodiest riot that ever have happened in India. It is said that thousands of mutilated bodies were lying on the roads of Calcutta, for days, waiting for the British army to clear. This was recorded as the great Calcutta killing in the history. Government was said to restrain the Police so that rioters could fulfill their mission without any problem. [check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Action_Day]
In 1984, when the then prime minister of India was assassinated by two sikh guards, Delhi experienced another of its darkest days when thousands of Sikhs were hounded and slaughtered by frenzied mobs. As usual the Police disappeared from the roads during this time also. Of all the political statements that came out afterwards, I remembered one statment made allegedly by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, saying,"When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake".
2002 repeated the history when Ahmedabad, Vadodara and almost entire Gujarat started what the leaders called 'the retribution of the Godhra carnage'. Tehelka's expose on the design and people who planned that are accounted with graphic details in their news portal under the the headline that says, "the Truth in the words of the men who did it". Disturbing. No 'disturbing' is a very mild word for that. It is shocking how much hatred one could have to be able to talk with pride on those animal behaviour and not feeling even a glint of remorse.
I was puzzled. History tells us that India has always been invaded by others and we have been overpowered almost in all cases. Be it the first Muslim invasion of sultan of Ghazni, or 500 years later, the invasion of Mughals, a small number of outsiders always won over large army of India.
Indians as we know are known to have submissive psyche. Individually, we avoid direct confrontation and have always proved ourselves to be a great subject under different dynasties, clans, empires. East India Co. ruled the whole country till 1857 with just 10,000 people of their own! In most of the cases the Kings prefered to sell their loyalty to British empire than fighting for freedom. Then where does this almost bestial aggression come from, aggression so cruel that it does not spare kids, pregnant women, old man? And why this aggression manifests only when there is a group of people together? How many times have you heard of mobs torching buses, shops or killing people as opposed to a single person's aggression causing the harm to the society?
Mob behaviour or herd behaviour, the experts say are shown by weak predators. A group of animals fleeing a predator shows the nature of herd behavior. Typically the herd aggression is an act of defense; a trait developed by weak predators for their individual survival against stronger opponents. Hyenas show this behaviour pretty often and they are known to be more fierce when they are in herd.
In the last hundred years, we have seen us to be deadliest, ruthless and cruel when we are in groups. The dreadest riots in history can only be found in the history of this subcontinent.
It almost feels like we are bunch of canines, afraid to face the world alone and wait for an opportunity to bite in the anonymity of a group. Our strength is in our numbers, like the Hyenas. We are equally ferocious like those animals especially when we are part of a mob.
Long time back, I saw a group of kids attacking a dog on the road. The dog was running for its life and the kids were pelting stones at that fateful creature. Each time the dog barked as it was hit by the stones, the kids would jump with vicarious joy. Sadist? May be but the same kid would run away if the dog charged back.
I think it is the psychology of victims and cowards. Riots, arsons, mob-killing are our opportunity to get out of this overwhelming truth, our repressed Identity. A bunch of non-achievers, losers that we are, our only way to taste the win is by being part of anonymous, almost histrionic, celebration of aggression. It helps us to lose our Identity and feel like winners. We should enshrine this deliberate act of humanity, the best bakery, the charred houses, shops so that as Tarun Tejpal wrote in his editorial, we as a nation do not forget our coward bestiality and hopefully not repeat.
posted by GoogaSur at 6:45 PM
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