The Times of India has a unique view about our rising mob violence. It cites the Salwa Judum or people’s militia in Chhattisgarh, the Islamic fundamentalists baying for Taslima Nasreen’s blood in Kolkata and the lynch mob in Assam who stripped a tribal girl to prove that India’s prerogative to violence as a nation is being usurped by the private citizen. The newspaper sees executions by the State as India’s right to violent action when faced with unspeakable crimes.

The ordinary citizen, fed up with the inertia of the state machinery is increasingly taking law into his own hands. When this called state-monopoly to violence is misused by the state itself, like in the Gujarat Muslim pogroms, people take the law into their own hands.

To condone the stripping of a woman in Guwahati by leering youth as letting off steam at the frustration with the reservation system is to encourage violence. Conservative groups like the Salwa Judum can and should never be justified. Ironically, the very writing of such an article helps establish violence in the extra-judicial sphere.

The impulse to violence is more psychological than social. Freud has proved the existence of the Pleasure Principle or ID. This Id seeks to hurt others for its own selfish joy. Freud connects violence to sexual dysfunction. In this light, all violence is a result of a deeper malaise. Our countrymen are getting increasingly lonely and thus their pent up feelings are bursting out as savage violence. Violence is innate to us.

The Nobel Laureate, William Golding in his 20-century classic, Lord of the Flies, shows how kids on an island finally cannot tolerate peace and start cannibalizing each other. To merely see India’s rising violence as a social phenomenon is to simplify the issues at stake. The diagnosis has to be correct for the treatment to be effective.

Notice that while some give in to violence, not all men bow to it. In a large group of children who are abused as kids, only a very few will grow up to abuse other kids. Again this is not because the former have been abused but simply because they are just abusive men. Similarly, even if the State functions well in meting out justice, violent men will still find excuses to kill others. Our country needs psychological healing to help cope with strained inter-personal relationships.

America has witnessed many serial killings. The serial killings are more a fallout of loneliness than any grand desire for justice. Of course, blood-lust may be disguised under various noble garbs.

These lynch-mobs are no better than the terrorists who bomb our cities! Violence is not about becoming private. Private acts of violence are getting more attention due to the callous mainstream media.

Via: TOI

Images: Telegraph UK & Hindu on Net