Our response to the event, more than the event itself,speaks of the condition of our society. The bare bones version of the story isunsettling to mind, painful to heart, and traumatising to soul. The normalhuman response to such despicable incidents is not to talk about it at all, andjust tend to believe that nothing of the sort happened. It doesn’t mean to lookthe other way. In the immediate, it shows the utter disbelief, and total shockon the incident. And in the enduring, it depicts sense, sensibility, andwisdom.
Making it a part of gossip is indicative of sickness.Bringing it to sermons, with drama and detail, is more than sickness – it’sperversion. Sensing a chance to peg a particular variant of politics to suchincidents is downright criminal. And bringing a divisive angle to what isplainly heart rending is appalling; it’s actually a treason against Kashmirisociety. The only reason such an incident demands focussed attention is theneed for justice; punishing the culprit, and restoring confidence to thesociety.
The persons, societal structures, and the governmentinstitutions that deal with such incidents directly, should be allowed to dealwith such incidents. Let’s momentarily suspend our deep suspicion of thegovernment institutions, and not allow our inverted relationship with thestructures of power to hide some serious faults with our collective behaviour.That can be dealt with separately. What the state does here, it does. Weshouldn’t be discussing about night-being-dark each time someone points towardswrongs we commit in the day. So, can we honestly look into what we do on allsuch occasions that finally reflects our insensitivity towards the victim, anda disregard towards nailing the actual problem.
Normally, If anyone can help in dispensing justice, it’sbetter he routes his contribution directly to the concerned persons orinstitutions – societal or governmental. Our state of mind is such that even ifwe find the concerned structures dealing with the case efficiently, we areinterested in messing it up deliberately. Unfortunately, we have seen this inthe past as well. We are more interested in politicising crime, rather thanfighting crime. This attitude finally makes us a participant in crime thananything else. This is a broad impressionistic remark, that can be mildlyagreed with, or sharply resented to. But if rage and anger are set aside, wecan stand before the mirror and see what is smeared in our face. One of theugly marks would tell us how we hide the crime if it points to us, and not thestate. If justice is the ideal, we must singularly pursue it.
Beyond this, there are other things that deserve attention.This, because we keep encountering such situations in one form or the other,and each time our societal response hurts us finally. So some points thatsurface up deserve mention.
One, we rush to conclusion even in the midst of the firstflying version of a story. It’s a weakness of mind, and a temptation tosensationalise things. It doesn’t only uncover our fickleness, it shows we arebasically corrupt. Those who don’t waitfor the truth to come, always fall for the falsehood. After 30 years of theactive conflict with the state, we havehardened in this attitude of somehow feeding everything into the politics ofagitation. We have almost lost the capability of looking at the things as theyare, because we always conclude that they are what we wish them to be. It hasfatally incapacitated our society, and terminally crippled our politics.
Two, we normally miss the human angle to such stories. Idon’t know is there an element of deliberation in this, or we have lost thecapacity to capture human. Crime, howsoever grim and ugly, is a part of humanconduct. Kashmir is not the only place, and ours is not the only condition,where such things happen. We don’t look at things normally, and that is abnormal.
Three, we make sweeping generalisations about our society.Our society is a mix of good and bad, like any other human society. We unleashthe dogs of self flagellation to mutilate our own face. Our preachers narrateit in a way that momentarily it looks like we are all condemned beasts.
Four, with a willing promptness, we bring the largerconflict dynamic into play. This is worrying, to put it mildly. Ourrelationship with the state institutions is duplicitous. We are unable todefine our connect with these structures clearly. There are some seriousquestions we need to ask ourselves, individually and collectively, on how weare related to these structures. The way we push this all to other-side ishypocritical, unrealistic, and plainly untenable.
Lastly, and most importantly, we miss the point that oursociety is under a terrible pressure given our apathy towards it. We, and bythis I mean the dissenting civil society and the Resistance politics, have beencriminally negligent of what we have done to our society. We have impoverishedour people, and ruined the relationships that act as a defence againstcrime.
By underlining these points, the purpose is not to make ashocking incident look like normal. Never. The point is that our response toany such situation should be normal. And by normal, I don’t mean mild anduncaring. All it means is that we should use our eyes, ears, and mind beforepronouncing judgment, or flailing limbs. By closing down colleges anduniversities, by vandalising public property, how do we help the victim! And bybringing in, somehow, the disputed nature of Kashmir into the frame, can wealways escape the fact that we have ruined this society.
Lastly, in this holy month, let’s pray for the victim. Let’sask God to balm the bruise, and restore the family. This is a wound that hardlyseals.