I always think that the real offenders at the half way mark of the century were the bystanders, all those people who let things happen because it didn't affect them directly. -- Rabbi Hugo Gryn, Holocaust survivor
On August 14, 2002 on the eve of India’s independence day celebrations, a young girl traveling on the subway in the economic nerve center of India, Mumbai was raped in the presence of other passengers. No one came to the young girl’s rescue. She is in a hospital recovering from her wounds, mute for days from a post-traumatic shock. Initially, doctors at the hospital thought she was mute, until she finally spoke a few days later.
What transpired on the train shocked most people, but did not surprise many. Rape does not make headline news in India anymore. It happens with such frequency, and mostly to members from the under-privileged classes that, most cases of rape go unreported and ones that do get reported fall on the dead conscience of the millions in India. In spite of people who have dedicated their life to help victims of sexual abuse, in a nation with more than one billion people, their presence is not frequently noticed.
Much discussion has ensued from this ghastly incident. More importantly, people from all walks of life are discussing the impotence of the bystanders. Fear of personal injury, fear of getting involved with the police and public indifference is perhaps the reason for their inaction.
The ‘Bystander Syndrome’ is in many ways a global disease. Rapes, murders and massacres is casual news for the consumer. The ghastly stories are left dangling on the conscience of millions without offering avenues for an average individual to get involved, and to feel that he or she can make a difference.
For millions of people life goes on until something strikes home; something personal, to a loved one, and the world is perceived to have instantly gone awry. For most people, their influence of concern extends, and remains within the walls of their home.
In a country like India the Bystander Syndrome has manifested itself in an extreme form. Rape after rape, killings after killing, massacres after massacres and now with a new twist, rape in subway cars with a live audience.
In many ways the Indian psyche has been preparing itself for this shameless drama on the subway train. Generations of non-stop communal violence, caste based violence, gender based violence, and the ineffective response of a nation, held hostage by the whims of power hungry politicians and officials in the midst of a population that is pre-occupied with propelling itself toward greater economic prosperity at all costs.
For hundreds of years, a vast segment of the population in the Indian sub-continent, has been effectively en-slaved by the savageries of the caste system. A caste system that has produced a lineage of castes consigned to the task of cleaning the excrements of their neighbors, generation after generation, with little hope to break the endless cycle of stench filled days and any respect for their public health service from the larger society. The only thing that has changed is the name used for this class of people.
For hundreds of years they were the ‘Untouchables’, Gandhi called them ‘Harijans’, post-independent India labeled them as ‘Scheduled Castes’, and the decade of the seventies brought a new movement with a new label ‘Dalits’. One might point to the Indian version of the affirmative action that has created avenues for the so-called ‘Lower Classes’. Indeed, many have extricated themselves out of the pathetic existence of the ‘Lower Classes’ in India. Yet the social and psychological stigma of being a ‘Lower Class‘ remains alive in the minds of millions in India, preventing a genuine integration of the ‘Lower Classes’ within the national melting pot.
For Indian women - the mothers, the daughters, and the wives – many have been rewarded with female feticide, infanticide, and for the ones lucky to make past these ghastly ‘gifts’, molestations, rapes, dowry, and the thankless job of raising a family.
The year 1984 was a witness to another stream of savageries, perpetrated by the Indian body politic. Thousands of Sikhs in India were burnt alive, and thousands of women raped in broad daylight, in the capital of the widely advertised ‘Most Populated Democracy’. The nation responded with disparate voices expressing sadness and shock. In the end India could not muster enough spine to arrest the perpetrators of these crimes for that would require the hands of justice crawling up the dirty sleeves of its political leadership.
The response of the common man, the masses and even some Sikhs, was indicative of the ‘Bystander Syndrome’. Not even an iota of shock and grief ever got translated into mass peaceful public protests or thousands courting arrest, to protest the genocidal atrocity. A year later the streets had recovered and Sikhs had re-opened their businesses. It was life as usual.
Some might point to the resilience of the Sikh community in the face of grave physical dangers, yet for thousands directly affected by the tragedy, ‘Time’ was slapped in their faces to heal the wounds. Credit goes to individuals and organizations with compassion and courage that did come forward to help the victims of the tragedy, but millions stood by quietly.
The nation’s response to the 1984 genocide prepared it for a replay in Gujarat in March 2002. In response to the burning of fifty Hindus on a train, thousands of Muslims were burnt alive and thousands of Muslim women were raped in the ‘Highest Foreign Investment’ state in India.
In response many expressed shock, shared their grief and there were even small public protests, but as usual millions did not care. Like before there were enough voices justifying the tragedy as opposed to applying the healing touch to the victims. Some brave and compassionate individuals and organizations came forward to help the victims of Gujarat, but their number was significantly small. Gujarat 2002 may have prepared India well for another tragedy in the near future.
The mindless mobs of the future can bank on the millions of ‘Bystanders’ to pave way for another string of killings and rapes.
Who is to blame for all this? Not Hindus, Sikhs, or Muslims, but a methodical and psychological perpetuation of a selfish greed sprinkled heavily with programmed indifference. All too often in India society rewards an individual not for his or her sense of civic contribution, but a personal level of achievement regardless of the means employed. The poor struggle to find the next meal of the day, the middle class spits outs engineers and doctors at a heartbreaking pace, and the rich still finding ways to get richer.
An entire nation has been converted into a nation of sheep numbed by the drudgery of bureaucratic daily existence, a salad of sex and action packed adventures from Bollywood, projections of the bright economic future, 24-hour television full of dramas invoking the godly spirits from Hindu mythology and shows that encourage patriotism to fight the “demons from across the border”, talk shows, sports, and much more. A billion plus Indians wait for the next show on TV, the next Bollywood flick, the next Indian millionaire and occasionally are made aware of a rape, a killing, and a massacre.
