A disturbing violence is on the rise
Rapes, killings and disrespecting the dead were not what the people of India were known for
The disturbing incidents of violence over the past few days have shaken the country’s sensitive people to the core. Out of habit, we may choose to blame the rulers and the government for this. But this will be running away from reality. To an extent, the responsibility of preventing such incidents also rests with our society.
The first macabre incident is from Pataudi in Haryana. A woman and her grieving daughter were returning from a hospital with the body of her deceased husband. On the way home, two tyres of the ambulance got punctured at the same time.
As soon as the vehicle stopped, goons emerged from the fields nearby. On gunpoint, they demanded that the mother and the daughter part with all their money and jewellery. The mother and daughter kept pleading with them to let them go, but the goons didn’t relent. The police’s preliminary probe revealed that the goons themselves had littered the road with iron nails to puncture the tyres of vehicles passing through that deserted stretch.
This is happening in a country where people used to stop in their tracks when they saw a funeral procession. Leave aside crossing the path of the procession, they began praying for the departed souls and their family members. I’ve seen a number of friends do this in my childhood. These included Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Today, if those who rob people taking their loved ones on their final journey call themselves Indians, we should feel like getting angry with ourselves rather than take umbrage over their misdemeanours.
Similarly, a video that recently went viral on the Internet compelled me to gnash my teeth in anger. A few louts had surrounded two young women in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur district. One of them was filming them and the others were harassing the girls. Didn’t they have mothers and sisters at home, the agonised girls were heard asking them. So far, we had witnessed such scenes only in Bollywood movies, but it was real and frightening. Ironically, a campaign was launched on social media saying that all the perpetrators belonged to a particular religion. Since when did criminals become religious? Did they also conduct a caste and religion postmortem of those convicted for the December 16 gang rape in Delhi?
A day before the video went viral, the news about the Jevar incident near Greater Noida was making headlines. Even that incident is heart-rending. A few people from Jevar were compelled to venture out late at night since they were tending to a lady relative who had been hospitalised. On the way, goons robbed them and dragged the women from the family into the fields and gang raped them. A male relative who resisted was shot dead. A similar incident had taken place in Uttar Pradesh a few months ago.
At that time, there were attempts to politicise the incident. Similar condemnable attempts are again being made. The truth is that in times when a father helplessly watches his daughter being raped, a daughter sees it happening with her mother and the son’s body lying next to them, only blaming governments won’t suffice. The monsters who carry out such crimes are all around us. We have to identify these monsters. The more we ignore them, the more emboldened will they get.
At a time when there is talk about building a world-class highway, there is no attempt to ensure adequate security. Although ensuring law and order is the government’s job, why can’t those who revel in the spike in property prices after the construction of national highways come to the police’s assistance? Why do they remain helpless bystanders?
It isn’t that the malaise is limited to the Hindi heartland. You may recall that two years ago, people attacked a prison in Nagaland’s Dimapur to kill a rape accused. In another such gruesome incident, S Swathi, a young Chennai-based technocrat, was hacked to death in a public place. Clearly, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Kamakhya to Dwarka, there is a rise in such shameful acts of violence.
If we look at it, since Independence, we have discarded the model of village security. We may want to revisit our administrative history and social values.
During the British Raj, a watchman was enough to keep all mischief at bay. Today we have home guards and watchmen apart from the police, along with the department of civil defence. But these are misused to further selfish agendas and political gains.
I would urge those shedding tears at street-side tea stalls or on social media to discard their hollow, outspoken ways and roll up their sleeves. They should realise that the victims of such unfortunate incidents are people like us.