Violence

         I was in the sixth grade when I encountered this experience. Myself and my cousin sister were traveling with our grandparents from Wai to Satara. It was a packed 'State Transport' bus which was to take us to our destination. If my memory supports me, we were on the 3rd seat from the last. And while the bus was about to make a move, I heard a guy on the very last seat utter some unclear words. It then appeared that he was referring to the guy sitting on the seat parallel to ours. And within no time this guy from the parallel seat of ours got up, took his 'chappal' in his hand and started hitting the uttering guy!

                I could not believe my eyes then! Violence, according to me, was limited to Bollywood movies! But to see a weak and a helpless guy getting insulted in front of a crowd was intolerable! It then appeared that the uttering guy was drunk. But everybody was in a mood to teach him a lesson (!). The bus left Wai and was on its way to Satara. There is this scattered countryside on the way. The bus conductor asked the driver to stop the bus at a place where there was no human population visible. The bus stopped. The drunk guy ( the guy who was uttering..) was pulled out of the bus by almost everyone. My grandparents pleaded the people not to beat the guy....but no one was in a mood to stop. They all beat the guy black and blue, broke his equipments, tore his shirt and left him stranded on that deserted countryside. The only thing I remember after this was me crying all the way towards Satara. Those tears were not out of fear, but out of anguish! I cannot stand a strong overpowering a weak....I cannot stand violence!

                      And violence still continues to raise its ugly head in our society! People are so impatient that 'collar grabbing' has become a common thing to do! This is coupled with the fact that Bollywood movies show violence as a cool thing and hence we move to the extent of justifying violence. No one is sensitive in such a situation. Why couldn't anyone in that bus think of tolerating the nuisance of a drunk person? Didn't they feel anything when he was left stranded on the road? And what was the need to break his equipments and tear off his shirt? Questions like this continue to haunt me even now!

                    Frustration is a single reason why people react violently. In this world where we live in a cycle of 'earning and spending', with 'savings' taking an unwilling back seat, frustration goes hand in hand with the daily sunshine! But this violence is not physical violence alone. An insult or a taunt is a sign of psychological violence. A public abuse also joins the latter category.   

                     But there are certain psychological consequences of violence. Firstly, it breeds violence within you. And secondly, you are desperate to express it. A police inspector abuses the police constable every day. The frustration the former encounters through his seniors is expressed in the form of a psychological violence towards the constable. The constable's mind now breeds violence and he expresses it in the form of a 'physical violence' by beating his wife or children! Call it an extension of the exploitative society or call it a consequence of it. But violence is a part and parcel of the society that boasts of winning its independence through 'ahinsa'.  

                   But why only the police department? Every department in this country - through the shadows of 'corporate culture' - experiences violence! Corporate culture, I am afraid is run by the 'rich people', for the 'rich people', through the 'middle class' people! There is no inclusion of the lower economic strata of the society in this entire 'culture'! The rich aim for their targets and pressurize the middle class to achieve them; but frustration breeds in this attitude. The middle class in frustrated to see the rich plundering all the facilities, while they are left stranded traveling in public transport. But the middle class have the lower class to pass on their frustration. And the frustration pyramid is built up. Violence stems up in our mind this way. And the drunk person in that bus became the reason for it to erupt!

                      Demands, dominance, insult, 'out of the way' expectations, shouts is what is responsible for this individual violence.

                   But violence in our country has transcended the individual levels to enter the societal levels as well. The Naxal violence in the eastern and central India, the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the communal violence in the country has proved that frustration has penetrated through communities! The root of all frustrations here is the economic frustration! The lower classes are given the glimpse of money and asked to riot; and they do riot with a hidden glee of damaging stuff which they can never perhaps earn and buy! This poverty is painted with religious, regional or the linguistic pictures! But the inherent reasons of violence here remain poverty. 

                       Yet poverty is not the only reason for the spate of violent attacks in the country. I thought over this when I read about the Naxals in the states of West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and parts of extreme eastern districts of Maharashtra. Here, the reasons of violence extend from poverty to indignation. Indignation due to various reasons! Imagine when you see your wife or daughter being beaten or raped by a police officer and you could do nothing in response! Imagine your situation when you are insulted or hit in front of all others! Imagine someone abusing you in front of everyone! Someone not paying you for your work!  The Naxal atttacks which we have seen are a repercussion of the treatment the people have been receiving from the government officials for years! This coupled with the fact that they have no developmental activity in their region for decades. In this case, violence is the result of unending exploitation, insult, oppression, poverty and most importantly - indignation! The Middle Class population sees only the attacks by the Naxals, but fails to see why they attack the government machinery! Has the anger in them resulted in boycotting everyone who is a government representative? 'Nationalism' was no value here! But we are breaking the society somewhere by not treating them properly.

                            The way the two 'economic classes' react to violence is a branched topic. The rich class is not bothered to look at it as they are busy in the four walls of their house and their life is in the four windows of their car. But the way the middle class looks at violence is a matter of concern. This is the class that craves for a 'settlement.' This is because their life is a balance of earning and spending. This class is so engrossed in attaining a level of comfort for themselves or for their coming generation, that they hardly turn an eye to the violent happenings elsewhere! To this class, development of the country is the sole objective! While development for the rich class is not a matter of concern, for the very poor it is the distant reality! 

                           There were riots in one of the rapidly developing Indian state. The CM of the state is accused of encouraging rioters in order to suppress a certain community and hence walk the stairs of power! The biggest praise for the CM because of the development is from the middle class community. This is the class which stresses the fact that riots should be forgotten and was a 'sad part' in the state's history. But this class was nowhere seen during the riots, This class had confined itself to the four walls of their apartment during those dark days. And it will still do so in case of a riot. But the people affected during the riots have a different experience altogether! Some of them have seen their parents getting killed, while some of them saw their children. Some people have gulped the anger of seeing their wife getting raped in front of a mob whereas some of them have seen raw murder through their eyes! But the middle class is not concerned about them! They do not know that development cannot solve the anger and indignation of riot affected community!  

                    This is not only the story of that state! Be it a temple-mosque issue or issues in Jammu and Kashmir or even the violent  issues after our Prime Minister was shot dead! The middle class wants to forget it, the rich class in not affected by it whereas the 'affected class' cannot forget it! 

                         And yet  people continue to claim that they are sensitive! We shed virtual tears on the social networking websites. But how many of us have the humanitarian attitude to the people affected at the ground level? Can we compromise on development for all inclusive social justice?We have to shed off political party ideologies, religious ideologies, class attitude, linguistic issues to feel for that suffered common man! Because at his level, there is no religion, no language, no ideology, or even nationalism; for he has only one thing to ponder on - how to get two meals a day for himself and for his family!