A rant from a long time ago... written on January 26, 2009
H’s brother died today.
I don’t know H too well; he’s a part of the Grip team that I have been working with on the last two shoots. He’s a young boy, all of nineteen, quiet and unassuming. And forever smiling. Today I got to know that he had a younger brother, a brother he lost to a local train accident.
This is about as close as I have come yet to my fears being realized, and now I am angrier and more scared and helpless still. Why is it so? Why is human life so worthless in this country? How many deaths does it take for us to sit up and take notice? Why are small numbers over a period of time so easy to ignore?
It seems to be a pattern. Small offences are forgivable, it takes a big jolt for people to really react. It’s as if we become habituated to things, and learn to accept them, because we feel so powerless to do anything about them. So we react with anger and outrage to bomb blasts that kill hundreds in the same local trains that claim hundreds of lives per month anyway. Somehow these hundred deaths are worth reacting to, their stories worth telling, their families worth supporting, while the other nameless faceless ones who lose their lives in the simple act of leading a normal life on a normal day go unnoticed because its something we have got used to.
Let me try and understand this. I read the papers, mostly HT, and I listen to the news on TV occasionally. And then there is the internet; chain mails, and Facebook groups. There seems to be a lot of anger in the people, especially about the recent attack in Mumbai. And what is it exactly that people are reacting to… the deaths, and the lack of security, the inability of the establishment to deal with terrorism, and to react to emergency situations.
I would have imagined however that there would be curiosity about finding the root of the problem, or atleast a drive towards it. There is most certainly a rise in terrorism. There is also a rise in violence in general, and in the crime rate. There is a rise in intolerance, whether it is towards another human being, or an entire community. And there is a rise in the concept of instant gratification. It’s a reflection of the society and the times we are living in.
Inconveniencing people brings instant gratification. It disrupts their peace, and they react immediately and strongly. And killing near and dear ones is the greatest inconvenience one can cause. If you inconvenience a critical mass of people, you get a certain amount of reaction. A few years ago, a few AK 47s would have sufficed. Then came the bomb. Now its serial blasts. Every time however people got used to it, and the reaction diluted. So I guess the brains behind the terrorists had to get more and more creative about it. They had to keep increasing the critical mass. When serial blasts stopped eliciting the desired response, they decided a change of tactic was in order. Some bright fellow came up with the idea of a sustained attack that would last a long time, a siege, so to say, of a place where the wealthy and the noticeable hang out. November 26 was born.
What next? Serial blasts across the nation?
(I still think the most creative was 9/11. That was a stroke of genius. Or maybe it was obvious to a more disruptive mind than mine.)
And towards what cause? I’m not entirely clear…
There are several points I am trying to make here. The situation is so complex, and there is so much to react to, that it makes me incoherent. I hope I can be excused for it…
The first is the rise in intolerance. It didn’t come about overnight. Nor is it confined to a single act. Its around us everywhere. Its what our children are growing up watching and imbibing. It’s there on the roads when we don’t allow a car to overtake, or grab a parking space. It’s there when we make a run for a bus instead of standing in queues. It’s there when we bribe government officials to get our water connection ahead of people before us. It’s there, and every new generation will be more intolerant that the one preceding it if we don’t accept and address it soon.
The next (ironically) is acceptance. We have learnt to accept injustice, even crime. We have become quietly submissive to restrictions on our daily lives, than fight for our freedom and dignity. So it is than women are afraid to step out after dark in Delhi, or people in Mumbai won’t voice their dissent against the likes of the Shiv Sena or the MNS, or Mayawati in UP or Modi in Gujarat. The force we have to fight is either too large and obscure, or too powerful to fight against. The fight seems too long drawn out, and the rewards too elusive, besides the fight is itself as thankless as it is fraught with danger. Faced with such odds, it’s hardly surprising that people make the choice that they do.
The next is insensitivity. As long as something doesn’t affect us directly we ignore it, or don’t give it its due, until it grows so large that we can’t ignore it anymore. Take the case of the Kashmir problem, or the insurgency in the North east or the Maoist movement in many states.
H’s brother wasn’t the first to die in a local train related accident, nor will he be the last. Accidents will keep happening, and people will keep getting injured and dying, a few everyday, until we decide to do something about it.
H’s brother died today.
I don’t know H too well; he’s a part of the Grip team that I have been working with on the last two shoots. He’s a young boy, all of nineteen, quiet and unassuming. And forever smiling. Today I got to know that he had a younger brother, a brother he lost to a local train accident.
This is about as close as I have come yet to my fears being realized, and now I am angrier and more scared and helpless still. Why is it so? Why is human life so worthless in this country? How many deaths does it take for us to sit up and take notice? Why are small numbers over a period of time so easy to ignore?
It seems to be a pattern. Small offences are forgivable, it takes a big jolt for people to really react. It’s as if we become habituated to things, and learn to accept them, because we feel so powerless to do anything about them. So we react with anger and outrage to bomb blasts that kill hundreds in the same local trains that claim hundreds of lives per month anyway. Somehow these hundred deaths are worth reacting to, their stories worth telling, their families worth supporting, while the other nameless faceless ones who lose their lives in the simple act of leading a normal life on a normal day go unnoticed because its something we have got used to.
Let me try and understand this. I read the papers, mostly HT, and I listen to the news on TV occasionally. And then there is the internet; chain mails, and Facebook groups. There seems to be a lot of anger in the people, especially about the recent attack in Mumbai. And what is it exactly that people are reacting to… the deaths, and the lack of security, the inability of the establishment to deal with terrorism, and to react to emergency situations.
I would have imagined however that there would be curiosity about finding the root of the problem, or atleast a drive towards it. There is most certainly a rise in terrorism. There is also a rise in violence in general, and in the crime rate. There is a rise in intolerance, whether it is towards another human being, or an entire community. And there is a rise in the concept of instant gratification. It’s a reflection of the society and the times we are living in.
Inconveniencing people brings instant gratification. It disrupts their peace, and they react immediately and strongly. And killing near and dear ones is the greatest inconvenience one can cause. If you inconvenience a critical mass of people, you get a certain amount of reaction. A few years ago, a few AK 47s would have sufficed. Then came the bomb. Now its serial blasts. Every time however people got used to it, and the reaction diluted. So I guess the brains behind the terrorists had to get more and more creative about it. They had to keep increasing the critical mass. When serial blasts stopped eliciting the desired response, they decided a change of tactic was in order. Some bright fellow came up with the idea of a sustained attack that would last a long time, a siege, so to say, of a place where the wealthy and the noticeable hang out. November 26 was born.
What next? Serial blasts across the nation?
(I still think the most creative was 9/11. That was a stroke of genius. Or maybe it was obvious to a more disruptive mind than mine.)
And towards what cause? I’m not entirely clear…
There are several points I am trying to make here. The situation is so complex, and there is so much to react to, that it makes me incoherent. I hope I can be excused for it…
The first is the rise in intolerance. It didn’t come about overnight. Nor is it confined to a single act. Its around us everywhere. Its what our children are growing up watching and imbibing. It’s there on the roads when we don’t allow a car to overtake, or grab a parking space. It’s there when we make a run for a bus instead of standing in queues. It’s there when we bribe government officials to get our water connection ahead of people before us. It’s there, and every new generation will be more intolerant that the one preceding it if we don’t accept and address it soon.
The next (ironically) is acceptance. We have learnt to accept injustice, even crime. We have become quietly submissive to restrictions on our daily lives, than fight for our freedom and dignity. So it is than women are afraid to step out after dark in Delhi, or people in Mumbai won’t voice their dissent against the likes of the Shiv Sena or the MNS, or Mayawati in UP or Modi in Gujarat. The force we have to fight is either too large and obscure, or too powerful to fight against. The fight seems too long drawn out, and the rewards too elusive, besides the fight is itself as thankless as it is fraught with danger. Faced with such odds, it’s hardly surprising that people make the choice that they do.
The next is insensitivity. As long as something doesn’t affect us directly we ignore it, or don’t give it its due, until it grows so large that we can’t ignore it anymore. Take the case of the Kashmir problem, or the insurgency in the North east or the Maoist movement in many states.
H’s brother wasn’t the first to die in a local train related accident, nor will he be the last. Accidents will keep happening, and people will keep getting injured and dying, a few everyday, until we decide to do something about it.
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