It’s a wonderful world. Not.
It is becoming an increasingly disturbing trend as to how Indians are now seeking out reasons to show agitation, grief and discontent – and bringing public life to a grinding halt.
Fine. That is acceptable to an extent.
But unprecedented deaths in these situations cannot be justified under any circumstances. Whether the public grievance is real or imaginary, it is provoking a riot and an apparently inevitable death of a number of people, that cannot be ignored. The bottomline is that this is a practice so wasteful, so pointless that it is hard to believe that the people involved are not realising it!
Frenzied fans of the thespian Rajkumar went on a rampage in Bangalore, pelting stones and targeting vehicles in and around the stadium where his body had been kept. Six persons, including a police constable, were killed in the violence.
Why? Why did the people have to resort to violence because someone died of perfectly natural causes? Why did they have to resort to burning down buses and stalling everything? What is the whole point!?!
The latest this is that now, residents of Vadodara are rioting because an old dargah that is two centuries old was demolished by the local municipal corporation. So far five people have been killed and several injured. Curfew was imposed in the area to put a stop to the gruesome killing, especially after an unruly mob of 1500 set ablaze a car burning alive a muslim gentleman, late on Tuesday night. In the Vadodara incident, the government bodies claim that they were only going ahead with a well-announced demolition drive aimed at all kinds of illegal structures, including shops and temples as well. The demolition order was preceded by an effort from Muslim organisations to have it declared as a heritage structure, which was refused by the mayor of Vadodara. The mayor’s justification was that there is no dearth of such places of worship that spring up on public land and that they should be treated like any other illegal structure.
A weird incident - A couple in Gujarat exchanged wedding vows over the telephone after the bridegroom could not make it to the ceremony due to violent clashes in the bride’s city.
What all this really tells us that Indian people are not capable of managing discontent without having chaos on the streets and public areas, which leads to the pointless and tragic deaths. It is as if mobs looting, damaging and burning public property and stalling a normal life have become the symbols of protests and anger in democratic India.
All the sane and probably more effective methods of raising objections or debating have become useless and irrelevant. Killing, violence and unrest have become the first choice of the aggrieved!
The irony of it all? While all of this is claimed to be in public interest, it is the public that suffers the most.
Fine. That is acceptable to an extent.
But unprecedented deaths in these situations cannot be justified under any circumstances. Whether the public grievance is real or imaginary, it is provoking a riot and an apparently inevitable death of a number of people, that cannot be ignored. The bottomline is that this is a practice so wasteful, so pointless that it is hard to believe that the people involved are not realising it!
Frenzied fans of the thespian Rajkumar went on a rampage in Bangalore, pelting stones and targeting vehicles in and around the stadium where his body had been kept. Six persons, including a police constable, were killed in the violence.
Why? Why did the people have to resort to violence because someone died of perfectly natural causes? Why did they have to resort to burning down buses and stalling everything? What is the whole point!?!
The latest this is that now, residents of Vadodara are rioting because an old dargah that is two centuries old was demolished by the local municipal corporation. So far five people have been killed and several injured. Curfew was imposed in the area to put a stop to the gruesome killing, especially after an unruly mob of 1500 set ablaze a car burning alive a muslim gentleman, late on Tuesday night. In the Vadodara incident, the government bodies claim that they were only going ahead with a well-announced demolition drive aimed at all kinds of illegal structures, including shops and temples as well. The demolition order was preceded by an effort from Muslim organisations to have it declared as a heritage structure, which was refused by the mayor of Vadodara. The mayor’s justification was that there is no dearth of such places of worship that spring up on public land and that they should be treated like any other illegal structure.A weird incident - A couple in Gujarat exchanged wedding vows over the telephone after the bridegroom could not make it to the ceremony due to violent clashes in the bride’s city.
What all this really tells us that Indian people are not capable of managing discontent without having chaos on the streets and public areas, which leads to the pointless and tragic deaths. It is as if mobs looting, damaging and burning public property and stalling a normal life have become the symbols of protests and anger in democratic India.All the sane and probably more effective methods of raising objections or debating have become useless and irrelevant. Killing, violence and unrest have become the first choice of the aggrieved!
The irony of it all? While all of this is claimed to be in public interest, it is the public that suffers the most.
What a pity.
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Other blog entries in Mostly Pointless related to recent happenings in India
India Files: This is outrageous! (April 4th, 2006)
Textbooks in Rajasthan compare Indian housewives to donkeys, and call the latter more loyal.
Living in a box (March 30th, 2006)
The proposal for 50% reservation in premier institutes in India – a few quoted reactions and a proposed solution to the issue.
My dear…there’ s a very simple reason for this.
Look at the character of the mob. Almost all of them have little education; those who do have low-end jobs or are jobless. They are also the ones who spend their waking hours bubbling hotly in a crucible where lack, want and indignity rule.
Thus situations like Rajkumar’s death or the Vadodara incident are opportunities to lash out at a society that has given them such a raw deal.
And then there are the politicians who prey upon their vulnerabilities by recruiting them as all-the-booze-u-can-want soldiers in order to fight their filthy wars.
Hi Bhamini… I agree with you totally, and in fact what you say makes a lot of sense. I should be apologising that I could not see this aspect of the society.
In fact after I read your comment, I actually told my friends that we have been blissfully neglecting this section of the society, and assumed everyone in these riots to be financially sound people who just get a kick out of stalling normal life.
May be shortly I will write something on people like me who ignore this existing faction of the society. LOL… But thanks for the comment anyway!
U are always welcome pal.