Dark Carnival Of Violence
By Poonam I Kaushish
Violence is the rhetoric of the times. Pick any newspaper any day. Splashes of social schism gore into news headlines. Murders are committed in broad daylight in busy thoroughfares, seven rapes occur every minute alongside dowry deaths. Even the most gruesome violence shocks no more. Wherein, brutality and beastiality have become synonymous in modern India. Turning rule of law into rule by law!
Over 10 days poll-bound Bihar has been rocked by back-to-back killings targeting businessmen, politicians, lawyers, teachers and citizens with police blaming it on widespread availability of illegal firearms and ammunition. In Haryana’s Gurugram a father shoots his daughter a State-level tennis player as he is fed-up of society’s taunts of living off her.
In Meghalaya an Indore woman kills husband on their honeymoon and puts his body in a gorge. She confesses to hiring killers with her lover. Ditto in Meerut where 32-year-old ex-Merchant Navy officer is killed by his wife and lover with his body chopped into 15 pieces and put in a drum. They are caught when his six-year-old daughter says, “Papa’s in the drum”.
In Haryana’s Bhiwani a social media influencer confesses to killing her husband with her boyfriend by choking him to death with her dupatta. In amchee Mumbai an auto driver is mercilessly beaten up and forced to apologise for ‘anti-Marathi’ comments. Wherein, it’s difficult to distinguish between a bahubali, mafia don and neta as all are rolled into one.
In Kolkata a 24-year-old law student is gang-raped inside a college by an ex-Trinamool Chhatra Parishad leader, three months after rape-murder of a postgraduate trainee at a Medical College. In Karnataka’s Hampi two women are raped and three men thrown into a canal. An 80-year-old grandpa deflowers an innocent five-year-old in Haryana etc. So, what’s the big deal?
Stray incidents? No. Graze a car and you could be shot dead, nobody sees red at the sight of blood. Even if some is spilled in an over-populated nation, what difference does it make? In the Union Capital gang wars are passé. The dichotomy? Gangs are operating from jails? How? Are jail authorities hand-in-glove? Why is no action being taken?
Clearly, the level of aggression coursing through political and social India injecting venom in citizens is worrisome and fraught with serious ramifications. Certainly, people have plenty to be angry about. Unemployment, rising prices, lawlessness etc. Two, polarization thanks to technology and social media is more extreme than any physical ghettoisation.
Underscoring, violent inputs across society with rabid politics of hate, communalism, religious hatred resulting in mob violence online and offline creating a domino effect destroying innocent minds and turning them into monsters of venom and hate. Pointing to society’s utter moral bankruptcy.
Educated youth use tech and Internet to wage online ideological wars against communities. Targeted violent contents are openly shared across X, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp. Remember a Muslim man killed in Palwal video was shared on Facebook along-with a 14-year-old Muslim boy beaten for venturing inside Dasna Devi temple to drink water video was uploaded on social media.
Questionably, where is society heading? It is not a question of grotesque but a wider and larger problem — violence and anger leading to total breakdown of institutions, society and ethical values. Replacing moral rules with naked force, hypocrisy and fraud.
Killing yet another signpost of an increasingly enfeebled system. Symptomatic of complete lawlessness that has gripped the country. A new cult establishing an order of hatred and rage. An eerie stillness filling the senses with smell of death, mayhem and brutal carnage held hostage by rampant goondagardi.
Who is responsible? The onus lies on all: politicians, bureaucracy, police, ‘protected’ criminals. Politicians and police are two sides of the same coin. Both viewed nowadays as venal and incompetent. Fake encounters. Torture deaths. Want to get rid of somebody? Call up the “Police-wala Goonda”.
Criminals in khadi hustling and muscling to fulfil people’s aspirations. And hot young blood? Who rape for kicks and kill for a drink. In this milieu can criminalized mafia dons be far behind? Who now have taken recourse to “out of court settlements” and extortions. And what about the new intolerant rage sweeping across the country? Turning religion into burning embers of hatred.
Forebodings are in the air: rising prices, over-population, urban decay and proliferating of slums. The administrative system has practically collapsed. A life-style of Nano Yuppiesim has brought forth macro consequences of socio-political environment neglect. Where another crisis threatens.
The truth? Even as we have achieved political and economic freedom we still remain hostage to errant elements of society. “lopsided economic growth has created a dispossessed population which cannot relate to Western cultural values and norms,” asserted a social scientist.
Fundamentally, acceptance of high-handedness allows perpetrators to claim democratic sanction speaks volumes about the growing societal acceptability of the idea of instant justice. Even if the aam aadmi does not relish the dark carnival, the repeated performances de-sensitise one if it is not followed by empathetic action. Eventually, they view it as a cultural product as barring the immediate shock and headlines, media too chooses to ignore it.
One could argue this happens because of our failed criminal justice system and police high-handedness whereby methods being used to terrorise people have been perfected of demolishing homes without due process on the facetious pleas of unauthorised constructions, flouting zoning regulations or destruction necessary for the lofty cause of national development making it impossible to challenge it in court. Sic.
In fact, some States boast of their governance record on the basis of ‘encounter’ killings. The celebration of elimination of suspected criminals by Telengana police of suspected rapists is a case in point. A dystopian Constitution and an alternative set of laws where the police (rather than courts) summarily award punishment to persons accused – but not convicted – of a crime.
Judicial procedures to check legitimacy and validity of Government functioning and officials has become a victim of prejudices against citizens. While courts revel in non-deliverance of speedy justice. Instead, they appear keener to protect the rights of authorities who subvert the law than perform their job of legal oversight. As a consequence, hapless citizens are crushed by procedural injustice.
Perhaps, one of the main reasons for people taking law into their own hands is because courts only act as meek protesters at best and mute spectators at worst. Resulting in lawlessness being exacerbated manifold wherein legal falsehoods and subversion of due procedure are considered par on course.
Where does India go from here? In an environment wherein adoption of strong-arm tactics to extract one’s pound of flesh has become second nature, it’s time to realise democracy is not a harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a gun. In a milieu where good governance and accountability is hallmark of Government, we need to cry halt to increasing degradation.
We need to break free from this trance of dark carnival through collective resistance. Violence is unacceptable. Stringent and timely action is vital. Else as Mirza Fidvi’s says, “Democracy ka janaaza hai, zara dhoom se nikle” (It’s the funeral procession of democracy let’s make it carnivalesque.) — INFA