Organised mass violence or terrorism (as is widely called today) is an outcome of radicalisation of a group or community of people towards achieving of certain commonly intended goal. Indeed, collective violence – be it, by the Crusaders and Christian missionaries during the medieval times, or by the Taliban and ISIS (Islamic State) group since the mid 20th century, or by the Bajrang Dal and ‘Gau Rakshaks’ (cow protectors) in recent years, and all other fanatical violence that we have been witnessing due to hatred towards people of different class, ethnicity, etc., mainly stemmed out from two certain specific psychological factors.
Odd as it may sound, the major causes of mass violence all over the world, identified by psychologists, are the two traits in humans that we admire as positive qualities and encourage in our children; high self-esteem and moral idealism. On the collective level, we give high self-esteem, the narcissism of a community, the great sounding name of honour, glory and justify any number of acts of cruelty and murderous violence in its name. But there is even a greater source of violence that bedevils our individual and collective lives; moral idealism.
Once you believe that your violence is a means to a moral end, the floodgate to brutality are opened. As long as the perpetrator of violence maintains his moral commitment, to his faith, to his religious community, or whatever other communal cause, he rarely displays guilt or shame of his murderous actions, something which is not true of the same actions as a member of other kinds of groups. Most major atrocities of the last few decades, and which trend continues even today, were carried out by men believing they are creating utopias or defending their faith or idealised community from attack.
Idealism, psychologists warned, is dangerous because it is inevitably accompanied by the belief that the end justified the means. If you are fighting for God, for your religious community, or for whatever other communal causes, then what matters is the outcome, not the path. Once you feel you have a moral mandate, you care much less for rules and legalities – the quest for ‘justice’ tends to be contemptuous of the notion of fairness.
Unfortunately, there have been eloquent voices that have defended violence in seeking justice. In India alone, for instance, in the last 1980s violence against Kashmiri Pandits was justified as the inevitable angst of long-suppressed Muslims in the valley. In 1993, many Mumbaikars argued that the Shiv Sena-sponsored rampage against Muslims was a necessary act of pre-emptive protection for the Hindus. Dawood Ibrahim and his fellow conspirators answered by organising lethal serial bomb blasts across the financial capital two months later, which was also hailed by many as a justified tit for tat.
Even the recent sectarian violence in various parts of the country is seen by many as an essential pre-emptive measure to curtail the march of the Hindutva brigade towards making India a ‘Hindu rashtra’.
Such claims, however, have a hollow ring to them as people of all classes, regions and religions live in dread of the next random bomb blast or riot. There is now greater awareness that violence is the worst curse on the humanity, and that we are currently paying the toll for having long justified the killing of innocent people.
Psycho-analysts point out that ‘hot’ mass violence inevitably turns into a ‘cold’ carnage characterised by meticulous planning and calculation.
Moreover, violence that begins with a clear purpose acquires a life of its own, fulfilling obscure wishes more than its consciously intended goals. It begins to exercise a dangerous fascination from which we cannot avert our attention.
We get a glimpse of this fascination in many kinds of collective violence, especially of the revolutionary kind. This violence has been described as one that binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in a chain, a part of the great orgasm of violence which surges upwards and outwards, spreading like an inextinguishable wildfire, victimising anything and everything in its wake.
What can we do? The need of the hour is a blanket rejection of violence, no matter what the cause. Justice is extremely important, but we need to hold and teach our children that value of compassion is above that of justice. When Gandhiji, in contrast to revolutionaries of the Left and the Right, insisted on the priority of means over ends, he was intuitively aware of the malignant violence inherent in the other position. Gandhiji’s warning about an eye for an eye making the whole world blind has acquired a new sense of urgency. It also makes non-violence a practical imperative rather than a lofty or distant dream. Significantly, ‘Gandhi Jayanti’ on October 2, has been designated as the ‘International Day of Non-Violence’.
Experts are of the opinion that in the short term, there is no alternative to a firm resolve of the State that violence, no matter what the stated cause, will not be allowed. A firm police action at an appropriate moment, can prevent the outbreak of the violence which will otherwise spiral out of control. In the longer term, we need to focus our educational efforts on emphasising the value of compassion, of which fairness and tolerance are important constituents, as much as of justice, of rededicating ourselves to the priority of means over ends. We need to awaken our natural human compassion to counteract our perhaps equally propensity to violence and not just cede the battlefield to the latter.
Indeed, compassion needs to be awakened in each one of us and thereby help in opposing/rejecting violence regardless of the factors that triggered it. This does not mean that we live in an atmosphere of superficial, or pretended, harmony. Instead, it is important to acknowledge and address our differences in a peaceful and civilised manner.
A minimal respect for the others’ right to life, can empower us for the hard work of bridging divides. On this year’s International Day of non-violence, let our motto be “live and let live”. Is there anyone who wants to say ‘Amen’ with me?
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
