Engaging hate with humanity

The recent killing of Muslim teenager, Junaid, aboard a local train in Haryana as the result of a fracas with communal overtones, has left many asking urgently how such acts can be prevented. We saw hundreds protesting this and other such reported acts of violence targeting Muslims in India as part of the #NotInMyName rallies that took place in several Indian cities.

Going by the many placards that people carried to these rallies, there is a palpable shock at these acts and the failure of the law and order apparatus in stopping these hate crimes. These protests do have their place and could become an opportunity for us to discuss the ugly aspects of the current political climate in India, where an extreme kind of majoritarian voice is no longer regarded as insane. However, if we reduce the entire debate to a slanging match between those supporting the BJP and those opposing it, we will be left with a more divided and angry India than before.

Getting to these mobs then calls for a completely different kind of activism from the one that merely requires feeling outraged and morally superior to those committing these unimaginable acts.

We require, in fact, to get up-close and personal with hate.

All of us learn early to latch on to a habit of self-assertion that seeks validation by making itself an opposite. In individual relationships we have the binaries of man/woman, adult/child, teacher/taught and so on. In the moral sphere, it comes down to right/wrong, real/false and, of course, good/evil. When polarities are loaded into ideological cannons in society we have the case for paranoia and the targeting of one group by another. It all boils down to who is more powerful at that moment. 

But the inflammation of anger into hatred takes place within individual human beings, much before the mob appears. This progression bears close examination because it is only an individual who can be made to question, examine and see reason, not the mob. We need to ask a fundamental question. What is it that makes us hit out in anger or shut down our empathy?

While there are many answers, the one that may hold some real solutions is not most easily parsed and may even sound like an apology for those who engage in violence. Yet, if it is not said now we will be chasing down hate with hate. 

It is a primal sense of loss, of being cut away from the source of who we actually are, that governs behaviours that appear excessively harsh, unexplainable and completely unwarranted. Therefore, while we cannot close our eyes to these acts of violence around us, there is nothing to stop us from hearing what may be a cry of desperation gone horribly wrong. We must for a moment regard the mob through a lens that it vehemently denies using on those it targets. That of a shared humanity.

If we can say to those in the mob that I look at you not out of disgust, not out of anger, but as someone who also equally carries the burden of hate, there may be a chance that we can pull back those who don’t flinch before using the knife on another.

The author can be contacted at @homernods.