ASKING FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE

ASKING FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE Know Your Limitations O NE day a washerman set out for the riverbank along with his donkeys. The local residents told him that they would let his donkeys pass through their area on one condition, i.e. they should not bray, because they did not like the noise they made. The washerman replied, “I could have fulfilled your condition if you had asked me to stop my donkeys from kicking anyone, but it is not in my power to stop my donkeys from braying.” This story aptly illustrates the issue of communal riots. The root cause of most of the riots that occur in India is that whenever one community’s procession passes through a neighbourhood populated by another community, the latter makes the condition that the procession must go on its way without any provocative slogans being raised. But this is a condition which can seldom be met. There are always certain participants who feel compelled to raise provocative slogans which in turn, incite the other community to retaliate, generally by stone-throwing. This starts off a chain reaction of hand-to-hand fighting and sometimes even shooting. The result is the kind of large-scale riot, which brings in its wake death and destruction for the entire locality. There is no doubt about it that leading processions through the streets is a shallow business. It is only shallow people who participate in such activity. Serious, educated people seldom join in. In other words, a procession is much the same as a string of donkeys, except that it is made up of human beings. To demand that such people should refrain from raising slogans is totally unrealistic. This is because they are constitutionally incapable of maintaining discreet silence. The crowd that is gathered in a procession or any such public enterprise possesses some distinct characteristics. Gustave Le Bon has studied notable features of crowd in his scholarly work Crowd: Study of the Popular Mind. He writes: A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. So far as the spoken words are concerned, we must show patience, for the damage done by the spoken word is purely psychological. But so far as actions are concerned, we should apply restraints, for actions are largely aimed at physical harm.