Culture of hooliganism

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the news that the situation in my hometown Pune is critical because some objectionable material about Shivaji Maharaj was circulated in social media. I was not surprised by the circulation of such material but was surprised by the extreme reaction to this in Pune. It is shocking to see that a city like Pune which remained calm even during the Babri mosque demolition and many other sensitive incidents is behaving like this. I guess the spread of social media hatred finally caught up with Pune. People use social media for so many reasons, some people use it to spread good messages, and discuss valid and relevant issues; at the same time, some people use it to circulate junk like morphed photos of people. Their only intention in circulating anything like this is to create social disturbance and such violent reactions fulfill their expectations. Actually, these people who think that they are protecting someone's honor are playing in the hands of those antisocial elements. These two sides help each other to serve their purposes. First, some anti-social elements release something which is derogatory in nature and then some people act exactly according to the script to make a big deal out of it and create havoc. Instead of condemning the actions or opposing them in a nonviolent way they destroy public property and disrupt public life. What do they achieve by doing all this? Nothing. They just waste public money and time. But these people fail to understand this simple thing and keep on making the same mistakes again and again. This has become so regular pattern for some political parties, so regular that it has become their habit, they don't miss any single opportunity to exploit any such incident. 

This culture of hooliganism is not good for any society. Especially for a country that is aspiring to become a superpower. Freedom of expression is a very important right in any developed society. I agree that freedom of expression also comes with some responsibility but it also comes with the right to offend. In any developed society, there should be ample scope for expressing offensive things without any threat of violence. Actually feeling offended or angry about something is not that bad but that feeling should be used to propagate any violence. Silencing the messenger is not the proper way to fight the message, we have to tackle only the message even if we don't like it not the messenger.

I don't understand how disturbing public life by violent acts or destroying public property serves any purpose. How does destruction help in nursing hurt feelings? How more hatred can be the answer to hatred? Won't such violent reactions serve the purpose of people who intend to create social disturbance by spreading rumors or objectionable material?  Why to help them? I think now it is time for everyone to think about how to tackle these types of situations peacefully. For every objectionable material release 100s of messages that portray positive things about that person, rather than getting offended try spreading your own message. This will automatically negate the efforts of people who are trying to spread negative messages. If those antisocial elements see that their tactics to create social disturbance are not working they will automatically stop. By reacting to such incidents in a violent way people are making these posts or materials more popular. These incidents help to publicize such acts and encourage these antisocial elements. We need to realize that no one can insult or hurt our feelings until we allow them to do so. No post, photo, or anything can insult a person like Shivaji Maharaj, people like him are an inspiration for many by trying to insult such people some people show their own level of understanding, and it doesn't reflect anything about these towering personalities. Everyone has the right to study, analyze, and even criticize anything and anyone, criticism is not an insult and should not hurt or offend anyone. We should be mature enough to handle criticism in a peaceful way. Once we learn these simple things then we will stop getting offended by the stupid acts of some people and such violent reactions will stop. It is a must to get rid of this culture of hooliganism, after all, we come from a country where Gandhi used nonviolent methods to fight the mighty British Empire.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]