Battered into compliance…
In a recent incident in the state of Kerala, a bunch of wayward students gruesomely physically tortured and then starved a young batchmate to death while 200 odd students stood and watched. In short he was lynched. However, nobody intervened. They were supposedly too scared for their own lives to stop the ghastly crime.
Technically, 200 students could have easily overpowered a few goons, but were instead overpowered by the fear of the impending consequences of intervening. Some went a step ahead and joined in the crime. For a good 3 days of the ongoing torture, nobody informed the law enforcers until one person mustered the courage to anonymously tip off the child’s parent. The internet then went berserk at the indifference of the batchmates and college authorities alike. However, I really doubt if the same people would have done something had they been in the vicinity.
The point I am making is that, many a times our outrage is untimely and misplaced. While I agree that little kids may be terrified of taking on local goons and getting embroiled in situations that may potentially risk their limb, life or career, it only requires some thinking on the feet to inform the parents back home in secrecy. In most cases parents would stand up for their child irrespective of what powers are involved.
This is not the only situation. I have seen time and again people not stand up for someone wronged. I honestly do not find anything manly about indifference. (When I use the term manly, it is a generic usage for all humans). Some people are of the assumption that manliness is about pumping it out in the gym or looking a certain way or the other extreme of taking on a bunch of goons alone. Thanks to a unhealthy dose of make believe movies and cheesy albums.
I think manliness is about counting when and where it matters. It is about having decency and conscientiousness. No one in their right mind finds pseudo machoism admirable and certainly not flexing over the weak. There is also no manliness in threats of violence or rape threats. As I mentioned to someone on Medium, some people aren’t inherently bad. As in, they by themselves won’t indulge in any questionable behavior, inflict violence verbally or physically on a fellow human but yet are still problematically indifferent to people and situations around them.
A much younger me once saw a bunch of bikers ram on to a car perpendicularly and then fall off it. The occupants of the car then alighted only to assault the said bikers in full public view. I was returning home with my parents late one evening when we saw the whole scenario unfold in front of us. The people involved weren’t goons but regular men who were fed up of youngsters speeding. I was crying for them to stop while my father asked me not to intervene and he himself did not. My enraged mother on the other hand had to ask the men to stop and let go off the kids. Three different reactions to the same situation.
I have been molested in public and have people watch unflinchingly including my own family members except mom. So, if anyone believes all men are nice and dandy, you are living in a bubble. Men have to hold other men accountable every time they make a careless or deliberate misogynistic statement or act in ways not of befitting behavior because that is much easier than a woman holding a man accountable after he screws up. Just like women need to hold other women accountable for eg: when they encounter work place bitchiness/cattiness. But, it is much rarer to find a woman publicly assault another person. There are obviously cringe exceptions though :/
This whole practice of ragging in the guise of being respectful towards your seniors needs to stop. This whole idea of impressing upon your freshers your superiority in a caveman style only makes them lose whatever little respect they have for you. There is no need for a junior to do your assignments. It is not the same as delegating work in the workplace. I have never felt the need to do a tap dance to prove my loyalty to people or jump through hoops like a circus monkey to please anybody. It is not about ego. It is about not encouraging stupid and crass behavior.
I understood this as a teenager and got ostracized by my so called ‘seniors’ for the whole of my undergrad years. So, I spent most of my undergrad years as an outcast with just some of my batchmates for company. Honestly, I prefer the company of a few good ones than people with fragile inflated egos. I do not expect my juniors to act all submissive around me either. I doubt if sucking up to them would have been any much value addition. Today, I think not. People who want to truly help will do so either way.
A lot of how you are has a lot to do with what you have grown up seeing around you. If you have seen domestic abuse and normalized it, you will probably think it is okay to abuse a fellow colleague or your spouse. When you are ragged and forced into compliance, you think it is okay to pass on the abuse to the oncoming batch of students. You need a release and they seem like the easiest target. You also start considering the ones opposed to the idea as the deviants while you are truly the social deviant to begin with.
You have to earn your place and respect in the world. Where there is fear, there may be compliance but there is never respect.
