Prema Jayakumar

Listening to the speaker at a recent lecture on Harappan civilisation, I found it fascinating that none of the artefacts found so far in excavations are about violence. The speaker specially mentioned it. He said the seals did not show weapons or violence by humans on other humans, the statue that has become the symbol of the civilisation is that of a young girl rather than a king or a lion or something of power. The civilisation was also a very civic minded one, with common amenities for the people and visitors being provided for very carefully.

The fact that he found this lack of obvious violence worthy of mention made me realise how much we worship violent action, glorify it. For all that we claim to be civilised, to believe in the rule of law, there is an atavistic instinct in most of us that glorifies violence, preferably in a righteous cause. Most of our heroes are ‘action heroes’ and action usually means physical violence. Yes, it is understandable that any nation is forced to glorify the deeds of its soldiers, since they protect the lives of those who live behind the shield of their presence and their protection. Even so, even after ‘a famous victory’ as the one quoted in ‘After Blenheim,’ the people who are left behind say they don’t know why it was a famous victory, but it was one.

There was a time when the protection of law was not easily available. It was necessary for everyone to be physically prepared to defend oneself and one’s own and to attack if a threat was perceived. A sort of law of the jungle. But surely, this is what settling in civilised areas has made redundant. There are rules of behaviour and these are for the most part followed. Aberrations are checked by the society as a whole.

It is the phrase ‘righteous cause’ that I had used earlier that is the problem. When each set of individuals (because violent action is usually a group activity, rarely a solitary one) believes that his and his group’s (again I use the male pronoun because group violence is usually a male activity still) cause is just, does that justify violence? Surely disputes among students in a college don’t need to be settled so violently, leading to bloodshed and even death occasionally?

It is not the fact that such actions occur that is frightening, but that they are glorified later. I’ve been told by a friend that there are a lot of posts in the social media, not only justifying the violence that occurred, but glorifying it, even saying that if provoked, there would be more violence. Why do our young people feel that violence is the answer to anything they do not like in this world, be it a political ideology opposed to one’s or a girl who does not want to marry you while you want to marry her? What makes them so angry, so ready to destroy everything around?

And it is not as though we haven’t learnt that valour need not be violent. In fact true non-violence requires much more of courage than violence. And it brings results. We were taught this barely a generation ago. That is the world we inherited.

We really need to take a look at the world we have given to the people who come after the grown up generation of today to understand the anger and the destruction that flows out of them. Yes, every generation of youth has been angry, has wanted to change the world. But usually, at least at that idealistic age, it has been to change the world for the better, to destroy inequalities, to create a fairer and more equal world, a world where more people can be happy.

It is now another sort of violence that comes from resentment that anyone dare oppose you, the individual, the group, take something from you. A sort of, ‘How dare they, I’ll show them’ reaction to any set back. This ‘showing them’ is usually violent. It is something children grow out of, and to hear grown up people justify such attitudes is frightening.

Instead of hoping for the progress of civilisation, should we be praying for a move backward to the peaceable nature of the Harappan civilisation which again had belonged to us, just as the non-violent movement did, a civilisation where people seem to have lived in harmony and welcomed visitors with hospitable pleasure?