Recently, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan was trolled and attacked for a remark on intolerance in India. I was feeling bemused but safe till I myself became a victim of aggressive intolerance.
Driving home on the evening of 30th November 2015, I encountered an oncoming car in a narrow lane. I had about a foot of space from the open gutter on my side but did not dare to risk. Finally the other car came through driving over a covered gutter. However he rolled down his window to give me a lesson in driving. I responded pointing out that he could have avoided the impasse. For reasons best known to him, he seemed offended that I spoke in English and shouting, insisted I speak in the local language. I replied harshly and decided to move on. At this point another man got in between the cars and citing my choice of words began to yell at me and bang my glass after shutting my mirror violently. He then abused me pulling my t-shirt roughly at the neck through my open window.
The situation was getting out of control and I tried to move away. I misjudged the distance between the cars as my assaulter was in between and trying to avoid hitting him, I clipped the other car’s rear bumper. I now stepped out of the car. My aggressor and the driver came yelling at me. He asked the driver to hit me, which he did repeatedly! This man, claiming to be a lawyer, an educated man was the instigator, like in the Dadri lynching case. The battering assault did not stop even after I screamed apologies and begged them to stop hitting me. He egged on the gathering crowd that ‘such’ people should be beaten and finished on the road, without involving courts and the police. In this locality dominated by a majority community, no one came to my rescue and instead supported the assaulter.
Once the beating finally stopped, I got into the car and locked myself in to call my mum. But my keys were grabbed from me. I was trapped in a hostile crowd. After my mum arrived, the violent instigator, the so-called educated lawyer began arguing violently with my mum, waving his fingers in her face. When she asked him to stop his aggressive gestures and to talk politely, he took his slipper in his hands and waving it, threatened to hit her. Is such savage behavior expected from the so called educated men of our country? He then threatened to beat me mercilessly and leave me by the roadside. Realizing that arguing was useless, we decided to close the matter. There was no remorse for the violence, not in the aggressors, nor in the gathering crowd. I was, instead told to be thankful it wasn’t worse. I recount this horror not for sympathy, not for apologies, but to enlighten other naïve people like I once was of the intolerant scum of this world.
