Dec.19, 07: Violence… looking up my PC dictionary, it’s explained to be something as “A turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc.” or “An act of aggression (as one against a person who resists)”. It’s funny how we, the bhadrolok-filled bangali somaj and I guess Indians in general, look at this whole subject. Most of the time, we pretend it doesn’t exist. When we are forced to admit that it does, (thanks to the widespread media these days) we condemn it vehemently. When we find out for ourselves that it does, we tend to stay clear of it (Dekhis, abar kono jhamelay joriye poris na jeno) a hundred miles or more, if possible! And ultimately, when it’s a case of bashing up a poor guy who might or might not be a thief caught (or allegedly caught) stealing a broken pressure cooker from some wealthy household which owns six of them, we take part in the violence as whole-heartedly as we might flock down to see an India-Australia one-dayer at the Eden Gardens. Wait, I’m being a bit of a racist by saying ‘we’ all the time! All of us aren’t like that, are we?
It happened that only yesterday I was watching my favorite Aparna Sen-directed movie ‘Mr. and Mrs. Iyer’. For those of you who might need a little who’s who here, it’s an acclaimed movie about two persons from two different religious and cultural backgrounds meeting each other thanks to a bus ride which is affected midway thanks to a burst of communal violence (It’s an awesome movie. Everyone should see it!) Anyways, let me come to the interesting part here! I saw the movie yesterday, and only today, my college was struck by a sudden spurt of violence out of nowhere. It was a feud between the SFI and the VFI, the two parties in our college! There was a five-minute long fistfight, but what’s important is that the rumors and predictions of repercussions started soon after. It is a blur to me when I’m being invited to play the blame game (seriously, I’m not being diplomatic here). I don’t have much idea who started it all even though I watched the whole thing rather interestedly from the 2nd floor balcony, along with several of my friends and college-mates! All I know is it probably started with who gets to stick some posters in front of the college or something!
Bottomline is, I didn’t participate in the violence. I kinda fell in the third group I was talking about, na? That cozy little ‘Stay Clear’ group… you see, in my defense, it was like a mini-war, between two groups… and I hardly think it wise to try and stop any of them! I don’t belong to any of those groups, and both the groups might beat me up in the end thinking I’m one of the ‘others’. But then, violence isn’t restricted to some sort of feud between two groups, is it?
About a month ago, a couple of thieves were caught in our locality. They were (allegedly) seen sneaking into someone’s place and the person who saw them loitering suspiciously around raised an alarm. And guess what? An army of men, women and children, from our locality and the neighbouring ones, gathered on the spot. Some were, amazingly, armed with things like bamboos and stuff (Actually, all this happened during the day when I was in college. So you see, this reporter friend of yours wasn’t in the thick of things. This is being reconstructed with the help of my friends who happened to be eye-witnesses… or maybe a little more than that). Those two guys were cornered like two trapped mice in a fix, and were bashed up indiscriminately for some time. Now, when I was listening to this deposition from my friends, most were excitedly giving me a blow-by-blow account (literally) of the bashing process (it wasn’t a pretty story, trust me!). And suddenly, one of my friends, Rishav, made a contradicting comment that certainly didn’t contradict (it actually mirrored) my line of thinking! He said he had actually tried to dissuade the people (however unsuccessfully… still, I gotta give him kudos for trying) from bashing up those poor guys. And he actually used the term ‘poor’ (or maybe a close synonym of it) to describe the guys, unlike the others who definitely used a couple of expletives. I was glad to hear (after getting home) that even my mom had tried her best to stop the bash-up of those two guys.
Well, in the end, much harm wasn’t done as they were released on the condition that they brought back a cycle they had (allegedly) stolen a week from then. Their vehicle, a cold-drinks carrier, was meanwhile locked away in our locality. As far as I know, they never showed up again, and their vehicle was handed over to the police. I mean, couldn’t they call the police the first time they caught those thieves, instead of bashing them up like anything?
Well, far worse mob-beatings have taken place in and around Kolkata… all over India, actually! Common folks (the mob) justify it by saying that the cops are useless. Well, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t… killing someone or beating them up badly in public is no civic duty of ours either…
Signing Off (Am I?)
-Jagannath (Jesse)
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