E-Paper
Mad with grief
On thursday, Karnataka should have been mourning the death of one of its most popular and revered figures. Instead, it completely lost its mind.
On thursday, Karnataka should have been mourning the death of one of its most popular and revered figures. Instead, it completely lost its mind. Not only did fans of the 76-year-old star Rajkumar forcibly shut shops in Bangalore, but they also went on a rampage, burning tyres, raising angry slogans, smashing objects in one massive mass frenzy. Considering there was nothing unusual about the death of a 76-year-old person of cardiac arrest, the spontaneous mob violence was inexplicable.
If one sees society as a collective of individuals acting and reacting within similar or the same parameters, grief can seek out a violent therapeutic outlet. Within the confines of ‘sanity’ — itself a relative definition — externalised outpourings that go beyond the variations of ‘breastbeating’ can provide relief. In the case of masses, as in the case of bereaved individuals too, when this proactive display of sorrow crosses the line of the law, one is left stumped. Not only was a large majority of the ‘protesting’ fans otherwise law-abiding people, but one would think them as ‘sane’ individuals too. One man’s sanity may be another man’s stark raving madness — whether it be protesting party workers before their leader or fans of a cricketer literally howling about injustice meted out to him — but there is nothing relative about the law. That, of course, still doesn’t explain why thousands of Rajkumar fans went marauding about town. And to hear some of them blaming the government and Karnataka’s ‘heartless politicians’ for the star’s death was surreal, to say the least.
In Elias Canetti’s classic Crowds and Power, the European writer investigated the strange transitions that take place when individuals in various mental states gather into a force that comes with numbers. Bangalore witnessed such a temporary suspension of sanity. The question is whether a death of an icon — or any other tragic incident — is all that it takes for a state to lose its bearings.
