“Bagh mangsho khete
ashe, manush taka khete ashe”
…is what my friend came up with in one of our debates as the
justification for the crimes people commit against other people. His statement
literally means “Tiger comes to eat meat, people come to eat money,” and I
inferred that it means a tiger’s natural craving for meat is akin to a person’s
natural craving for wealth and pleasure, and that it is therefore rather
reasonable by the natural order of things if people cheat, steal, extort or
kill for the cause of wealth, power or pleasure just as tigers hunt down their
prey. It’s an amusing statement, partly because of its comical disposition combined with his
earnest exclamation, and partly because the first half of its inferred meaning
is undoubtedly true but the other is a logical fallacy. Human beings strive for
wealth as a carnivorous wild animal strives for meat off its prey, very true,
although it’s still debatable whether other animals display the level of greed
beyond their primary needs as us gentle humans do, but that’s another story. The
second half of the meaning his statement was conveying, or what I thought it
was conveying is that it is normal for humans to commit petty offences to major
crimes against other humans and that it’s similar to how a tiger would maul
down a human if given the chance. But nope, that ain’t right. Over the years of
debating with other debatable people (and losing on several occasions albeit
learning from my errors) I have developed a tendency to pick out straw man
arguments, inaccurate stereotypes and forced analogies that people often use to
try to prove their point, so I couldn’t just let this one slide; I decided to
write a whole post about it.
Analogies are useful as examples, but more often than not
they’re forced:
A tiger isn’t a human
being, and neither is it a part of our society. If tigers could speak and
reason like us, we’d have told them to go on and not mess with us, else face
punishment. A human being on the other hand might get his/her way temporarily
by cheating, thieving and killing, but it’s not beneficial for him/her in the
long run. We have learned to recognize that such people are dangerous to our
existence and so we being social creatures have ganged up to form a ‘society’
that actively punishes such offenders. Such is our functioning. So from an
evolutionary perspective, criminals might get immediate benefits but they’ll probably
be the ones to perish sooner that the others (unless they get into politics). My
point is it’s not normal for people to harm other people without consent. We
should never be scared of perpetrators and accept their misdoings calling them normal.
If the damn government or the police are corrupted and they challenge our
freedom and liberties then we must fight them too in our own ways, alone or
with others. But fight we must because if we don’t, we’re letting them take us
for granted and then we’re indirectly helping to perpetuate more corruption and
crime.
(A related note: It’s not okay for even animals to harm
people, so that’s why we don’t let tigers eat our children and call it normal;
we hunt them or put them into captivity in some national park if they’re lucky.
Being an animal lover, I prefer the second option.)
On a fine spring mid night, me and a bunch of friends were
wandering about in the streets, enjoying the calm of nighttime as we often like
to do, when the police caught us and fined us for the perfectly legal and
innocent act of walking in the streets late at night. It wasn’t a big deal
really, but when you add up all the numerous incidents of the police harassing innocent
people at night – couples spending some time alone, friends out for a drive or
maybe just folks returning form a late night party – all perfectly legal activities
yet somehow criminal in the eyes of fraudulent policemen, it is a big deal! These citizens have the
right to go out at night and do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm
others. What gives policemen the right to stop them and restrict their freedom?
The police might defend their position by saying that it’s a preventive measure
against antisocial activities, but according to our laws a person can only be
punished if proven guilty. When there is no evidence against these civilians,
why are they being fined and harassed? It’s plainly because of what we call
‘corruption’, in this case the want for a few rupees. It’s also because of a
regressive mentality that pervades among certain policemen who look upon night
farers as intrinsically criminal. The
police aren’t defending our freedom, they’re defining our freedom! Instead of striving to give us complete
freedom to do what we want, which is what they’re paid for really, they basically
set rules for us to follow to be “free”. Add to that the fact that when the
actual time for law enforcement comes, some (not all) of these policemen resort
to lazy slut-shaming and victim blaming to avoid investigating genuine rape or
molestation cases. Oh and did I mention that the two policemen who caught us
were drunk themselves?
So started an argument between me and my friend that
considering the system won’t change any time soon, for us people who love
hanging out late at night, which is the better option right now?
- Not let the corrupted policemen restrict our freedom and still go out at night knowing that there is always a 5-10% chance of facing harassment again. Or…
- Submit to corruption, accept this incomplete ‘freedom’ for now and not go out at night.
The first is risky but you get to rebel and you get to do
what you want. The second is safe and probably the more intelligent option considering
our powerlessness in front of government officials. And then there’s something
else we can do, irrespective of which option we choose. This involves a slow
process of change and a difficult task of aiding that change through speaking
out, protesting in groups, letting people know their rights and liberties and compelling
the police to uphold them. Of course, it isn't that important an issue to riot over tomorrow, but in my opinion, every little issue involving our basic civil rights is an important issue to riot over someday if needed.
