Of violence and protests

 There used to be a time when, news channels reported people protests in other countries, be it middle eastern or Latin American, the common footage would be that of a mob throwing stones from one side and shield carrying riot police in other side firing tear gases and water cannons. Broken shops, damaged vehicles, injured personnel and people are stock footage level commonalities across all those incidents. Very rarely such scenes used to happen in India, Kashmir being an exception. Not saying that our country is utopia where people are very happy or devoid of incidents. But such mob fury related ones were quite rare and few at the scale with which it happened on other side of the world. Nowadays, it has become so common that, it feels, as if such acts are ingrained on the minds of individuals as a valid response for any issue, irrespective of its scale and nature. In last couple of years at least, there has been so many such incidents be it for farmer issue, population registry, road expansion, exploratory needs, common exams, army recruiting and the list keeps increasing. As recent as this week, with the violent clashes over a kid’s death in a private school, where the mob has not just destroyed school property but also the certificates and other documents, branding a question mark on the future of more than 3500 students and scores of staff of that school. It feels as if, when such incidents happen people see it as a means of getting famous, having their 2 seconds of sun on the tv screen!! Nothing else defines such barbarism or mindless mayhem. This nation has been born out of protests and it has shown the world a form of protest which abhorred violence. In what happens to be its 75th year of independence witnessing such acts of violence for every issue, makes one wonder how far we’ve moved away from the set path that defined our country. Be it political parties, enemy nations creating mischief, selfish and narcissistic media, those who are hell bent on shaming the nation and similar others with shared motive, are all shamelessly in synch destroying the general order. As silly as a building being sealed resulted in a critical junction on a metro city being blockaded for general public during peak hours, without any notice, throwing the normal life in disarray. Not just that. Such sporadic and sudden acts of violence are so scary that, it makes the general public dread to come out of their house!! Institution that was once considered safe is being portrayed as a mystery mansion where not just your child’s education but very own existence is lottery!! With so many suicides and unnatural deaths being reported alongside harassment of every evil kind being subjected to, kids these days have a much more bigger challenge of surviving schooling and coming out unharmed, leave alone the burden of books and studies!! Imagine the perspective with which those kids will be seeing the society and when they enter adult phase, all those pent up rage and pain are bound to come out in disruptive ways. Future looks really worrisome and scary!!