The Rule of the Rott
Let me introduce you to the Rule of the Toppled Tumblr: the rule that is blocking our way to an inclusive society
Someone toppled a tumblr while walking. Who gets the blame?
Depends on who toppled the tumblr, says my father.
If a kid did it, then the elders will ask, “Can’t you look where you are going?”. If an elder knocked the tumblr over, then they will ask, “who placed this tumblr here?”
Let us call this the Rule of the Toppled Tumblr or Rott.
This tendency to blame those with less power—in terms of numbers, institutional strength, wealth, or cultural hegemony—for anything going wrong or anything that one doesn’t like is a threat to an inclusive, harmonious, and thriving society. A fully functional and equitable democracy.
It is a sign of the society being diseased.
It is a threat to our life. Our well being.
And yet, we have been practicing Rott for a long time.
Let me tell you a story. This is a real incident, not one of my father’s stories. :)
Once a group of young men were massacred in a small town. Let us say, they belonged to Group A. The people responsible for the massacre were from Group B. After much pressure from people of some standing in Group B, the state government set up an inquiry commission. The judge who led the commission was from B as were the officials such as the police officer in charge of the town. The civil right advocate examining the conditions that led to the massacre were from B. As were most of the witnesses.
How did the procedure go?
And what was the result?
Was there equality before the law?
The commission did lament the massacre but blamed A for it. One man claimed that the youth who were massacred had misbehaved in public places (harassed young women). Now, the witness who claimed this—among the people who were involved in the massacre—could not provide specific instances of the said misbehaviour.1
The advocate appearing for A, also from B, asked: Say that is true. Is death penalty a just penalty for misbehaviour?
Another question asked and ignored: Are people from B who misbehave in public subject to death penalty too?
The police officer in charge said they were not aware of the massacre; even though bodies were recovered from the officer’s well. The officer claimed many thousands of youth from A had attacked B and the violence was in self-defense. Even if the town itself did not have so many youths, and even if all the youth in town at the time of the massacre attacking B was quite impossible. And if such were the case, how could men from B have killed the youth from A without sustaining injuries themselves?
None of the counter questions mattered.
The inquiry commission refused to blame B. The report mentioned local Bs saying that A were to blame because they refused to assimilate.
The police from B did not charge anyone. The judges from B did not convict anyone.
People were murdered. But no one killed them.
Everyone blamed A for it though.2
Who do you think were the protagonists in this story? Which communities?
Does that matter to justice?
Does that help with deterrence? That is, ensuring that no people feel entitled to commit a similar crime in the future?
Let us move onto another story.
Once up on a time, a bomb went off in a city. Or a town. Some place in this country.
Many died.
There was chaos. Fear. Suspicion. Conspiracy theories.
Investigative agencies found the people responsible. The police registered cases. The court conducted trials. The judges convicted the accused. The Supreme Court held the conviction to be right.
In time, the state released some of the people involved for good behaviour.3
The accused and the victims mostly belonged to the same religion.
It does not matter whether the massacre took place in Kilvenmani,4 Hashimpura,5 Bidar, Manoharpur,6 Kalinganagar,7 or any other place. It doesn’t matter if Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, or Adivasis were murdered. The response is always the same.
The Hindus vanish from the story. So do people of the dominant castes.
People were murdered. But no one killed them.
What happens when the composition of the groups change?
When Rajiv Gandhi was murdered, the government apprehended the culprits and punished them. Unlike in the case of Indira Gandhi, no pogrom against the co-religionists of the culprits followed. Sikhs and Hindus are different, aren’t they?8
A suicide bombing killed a leader, a former prime minister. Yet, nobody blamed the religion of the leader. They are not Muslims after all.
That lack of consistency in assigning responsibility my friend, sibling, family, reader, is Rott. It is Rott in our mind and Rott in society.
Someone once built a monument. A temple, mosque, stupa or a church, a park, library, a statue of a great man or an emancipatory event. It does not matter what it was. Just that someone built it.
It had a life. It was celebrated. People visited it in joy.
It was also decried by some as antithetical to culture. Art. Science.
Pointless, it was called.
Ages later. Could be decades, centuries. Millennia. The monument was destroyed.
Time went by.
Someone else came along. And on that site they built, or rebuilt, another monument. A temple or a stupa. Church or a mosque. Mausoleum or park. It does not matter which type of monument it was. Just that someone built it.
Now, it is part of a tourist circuit.
It is still celebrated. Some see it with joy. Some long to visit it.
And there might be people who think it is a waste of space and money.
Which monument am I talking about in this example? Does it matter?
It could have been an Ashokan Buddhist stupa destroyed by the Shunga dynasty that followed the Mauryas.9 It could have been a temple destroyed by Indra III or Aurangzeb or a mosque destroyed by a group of individuals who belonged to the majority that held power in a democratic country.10 It does not matter if it was a colonial building transformed into the seat of power of a democratic government or a new building constructed for that seat.
What mattered was the power of the people who built the monument and that of the people who destroyed it.
People had power, and they used it to transform their environment and imprint themselves on it. They destroyed what they did not like. To show a king, a community, or a group their place. Or in rare instances, to claim space for themselves.
Imagine a city where nothing’s
forgiven your deed adheres
to you like a scar, a tattoo but almost everything’s
forgotten deer flattened leaping a highway for food
the precise reason for the shaving of the confused girl’s head
the small boys’ punishing of the frogs
—a city memory- starved but intent on retributions
Imagine the architecture the governance
the men and the women in power
—tell me if it is not true you still
live in that city.
—Adrienne Rich11
What does the destruction of a mosque say? Merely that Hindus are in power and that Muslims will be shown their ‘lowly’ place.
What does the vandalism of an Ambedkar statue say? Merely that dominant castes are in power and Dalits do not have a claim to respect or pride or space.12
What does the destruction of forests for Adani coal say? Merely that rich people from the dominant castes are in power, and that the poor Adivasis will have to make do. And that the non-rich from the dominant castes do not care.
We practice Rott when we refuse to look at power and instead claim retribution and an ethics of community in the politics of monuments.
We practice Rott when we look around and think that our imprint needs to be in our environment. But refuse it when a person or a group different from us and marginalized ask for their fair share.
We who hold power: in numbers, in institutional strength, in wealth, or cultural hegemony; Hindu, dominant caste/brahman, non-tribal.
We may protect ourselves for a while, but Rott remains. And Rott destroys.
A while back—may be decades back, may be just years—a group of doctors and students protested a law.13 They polished shoes, cleaned cars, and pulled rikshaws to suggest that after the government implemented the aforementioned law, these jobs would be their future.
Universities, networks of professionals, and the press alike rallied in support of the protestors.14
Who were the protestors? Which group did they belong to?
What does that say about the protestors’ idea about these jobs and the people who did them?
One day, a student died by suicide in an educational institution.15 It doesn’t matter which year it was. How long ago. Because it could be any year, any time.16 It could be this year, five years in the past, or thirty years in the past, and it would have happened.17
The institution constituted a committee to look into the matter. Was discrimination at the institution responsible? Was the institution responsible? These were the questions asked.
Family and some of the peers, mostly from a marginalized background, reported slurs, unkind jokes, consistent attempts to run down the self-esteem of the student. Many peers, mostly from a dominant background, made derogatory comments about the student. As did some of the professors. Cultural differences were disrespected. Divisions were enforced.
The institution released its inquiry report after investigation.
There was no discrimination, the institution said. The student died because they could not cope with the high stress environment of the institution. The student had difficulties meeting academic expectations and hence, decided to end their life.
A family was brutalized. A community was traumatized. But no one did it.
Life went on.
“I did not know that people from our community”—that is, brahmans—“were working as maids,” a cousin once observed. In a discussion in Facebook, a group of people lamented that people from their community—brahmans—needed to be nurses and touch others. While others lamented that there were no brahmans to take care of their sick; they had to depend on non-brahmans to take care of them.18
People of the upper/privileged castes, as in the protests above, routinely fear having to work in these professions that they disdain when governments, after much moral shaming and political agitation, decide to enact a law of proportionate representation.
Yet, when people belonging to the communities whose professions they disdain aspire for education and professions that would confer respectability, wisdom, and happiness on them, these same people of the dominant castes consider it an attack on them.
They ignore or deflect when some of those youth who aspire for better die at the hands of their dominant caste peers who believe that they, and only they, are entitled to higher education or white collar employment.
We practice Rott when we think that certain professions, a life without fear, a life of dignity is our birthright. But that others who aspire for that dignity and that life are failures.
We practice Rott when we refuse to be Asha workers or sewer cleaners. Street sweepers, a construction labourer, coal miner, or a domestic maid. But think that others should be working those professions to serve us.
We practice Rott when we don’t value the work of those who build our world and keep our environments and our houses clean. But think that people who write, code, or design should be the richest.
Rott narrows our life. Breaks us into fragments. Makes hate our tool. And grievance our state of mind.
Fear of justice is its child. Anger against equity its sibling. Shame and guilt its shadow.19
Rott makes us defensive and ignorant. Exultant in the basest of instincts. It keeps us from a just and equitable society. From friends and lovers and peace. It reduces us to war, war, and more war.
War with Muslims. War with Dalits. War with Adivasis.
War with anyone who is not like us.
Is that the world we want? We of the upper caste, the majority community, the ‘middle’ class? The brahmans?
Will that world save us? That world of anger, hate, pain, and fear?
Stop practicing Rott.
Ask for others what we want: justice, dignity, comfort, an environment that reflects them.
That my friend, sibling, family, reader, is the secret to happiness and a life without fear. A life of no war.
Kannabiran, K.G. and Kalpana Kannabiran. The Speaking Constitution: A Sisyphean Life. Gurugram: Harper Collins, 2022. Loc. 5238 - 5302.
Dr. Christine Fair pointed this out while discussing different types of political violence on twitter.
https://twitter.com/CChristineFair/status/1638244316647702528?s=20
Rich, Adrienne. Rusted Legacy. As quoted in Taylor, William M., et al. Prospects for an Ethics of Architecture, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.
Dutt, Yashica. Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir. Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2019. Pp 80-84.
https://theswaddle.com/teaching-like-a-savarna/. Not just Prof Ravikanth but other Dalit/OBC activists keep saying this, with proof. But brahman dominated institutions deny, deflect, make counter accusations.
My father described this discussion to me some time back. I don’t have Facebook and have no link to this discussion.
Kinouani, Guilaine, “Reflections on group analytic training & shadow phenomena PART 1.” Race Reflections. https://racereflections.co.uk/reflections-on-group-analytic-training-shadow-phenomena-part-1/. Beyond paywall. I am not directly referring to this article. But I am pretty sure Guilaine’s mention of shadows in this article influenced the imagery that came to my mind while I was writing this piece on the day after. Plus, a lot of the analysis also likely comes from her work with Race Reflections and her books.