On the luxury of indecency

I quickly wanted to express my thanks to blog readers who kindly responded to recent posts; I will respond in a little while to the very pertinent issues and points of critique raised about my arguments in those reflections. My apologies for the delay. For now, I wanted to add some additional reflections about the horrendous events in different cities in India (each reflective of some repellent variety of intolerance, hypocritically carried out in the name of Indian "values), and what Gandhi might tell us about the nature of these events.
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The incidents that I am referring to include the shameful attack on pubgoers, especially women, in Mangalore by the Sri Ram Sene, the vandalism in Bombay University by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. They might also be extended, to the symbolic real, to include Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's comments about "pub culture" and "boys and girls walking hand in hand in malls" (I wonder if Mr Gehlot feels the same way about domestic violence and sati).

These events are part of a larger culture of disregard for rule of law where celebrities, criminals, politicians, and religious leaders threaten, intimidate and /or even kill Indian citizens as a matter of course, or seize land, or take over religious, political, or social institutions as if it were their personal fiefdom. The Imam of Jama Masjid, Imam Bukhari, for instance, treats the area surrounding the mosque as his personal property. As this article notes, it is also misused as a sanctuary by all kinds of vile sorts. If you visit the area, it is commonly referred to as "Buhkari ka ilaka" (Bukhari's domain / property).

The children of rich industrialists and the riff-raff of the Bombay film world (of which there is no dearth) can kill citizens while driving drunk or shoot endangered animals; politicians can, in cahoots with the underworld, murder citizens to steal their property, even as we endlessly congratulate ourselves on the strength of our civil institutions, our growth rates, and our technology whizkids.

I have been trying to grapple with why it is that this kind of uncouthness, violence, thievery, and yes--- terrorism, for it is surely that--- has become increasingly acceptable as a form of legitimate political 'reasoning' in Indian society. More specifically, it has become a particularly effective form of political reasoning, and one that civil society appears helpless to stop, as group after group, criminal after criminal, politician after politician (often the same as the previous category) resort to it as a strategy to achieve what they want.

As always, it is Gandhi who provides an invaluable insight.

In an essay on the Bombay terrorist attacks, Faisal Devji speaks of "Gandhi’s dictum that religious violence is a form of luxury because its combatants’ lack of political responsibility allows them to rely upon the state to reassert order."

This idea of Gandhi's can be amended to explaining political violence of the kind committed by the Shiv Sena, MNS, Sri Ram Sene, Samjawadi Party, BSP, and assorted groups of all religious persuasions who are "offended" by one thing or another.

The violence committed by the intolerant is a luxury because the perpetrators of such violence know that their victims will not retaliate.

I am sure that millions, if not tens of millions, of Indians would find it immensely satisfying if Pramod Muthalik, Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray, Narendra Modi, Imam Bukhari, Abu Azmi, the riff raff of the Bombay film industry, and criminals associated with various underworld gangs were to be the receiving end of the same kind of intimidation that they subject others to.

That is not a solution anyway.

But it will never happen.

Because most Indians are fundamentally decent and good people, most Indians are people who actually do have values, and most Indians do not allow themselves the luxury of indecency.

All goons and thugs know this fact about the people they harass. They consider decency a form of weakness; hence their strategies --- death threats, killing people, threatening their spouses and children, assaulting women, threatening to throw acid, destroying an office.

Each and every one of these individuals and groups that claims to defend 'religious' values or 'Indian values or culture' while attacking innocent citizens is an utter and absolute disgrace. Their acolytes, whether academics, journalists, South Bombay celebrities who fawn over them in columns or invite them to their parties, or marketing gurus or investment bankers, or business tycoons who cultivate them, are also a disgrace.

Most Indians may not know how to respond -- or may not want to respond- in like to violence and thuggery. At the very least, that may be read as a confirmation of their essential decency. Those who commit acts of moral obscenity as well as those who side with the perpetrators of moral obscenity perversely and parasitically exploit that decency in promoting their culture of violence.