Paromita Vohra: Unmistakeable me

Mumbai Police pay homage to late head constable Vilas Shinde, who was brutally thrashed by a biker at a petrol pump in Worli on August 28. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

For a few weeks, we, in this city have been waking up to repeated stories of young middle-class people assaulting the police. So far, these have resulted in one death, one attempted drowning by throwing a cop into a pond during visarjan and more than one incident of slapping or beating. Most recently, a young woman, on being apprehended by a policewoman for a traffic violation, argued with her, called her brother in to join the fight and later, slapped the cop.

The mistakes being pointed out are often such tiny ones - asking young men to stand in line, telling a young woman she was driving too fast - that the disproportionate response can only be seen as dystopian. These are not expected tales of deep class divides leading to violence in the classic sense of poverty leading to crime. Rather, they are stories of a certain entitlement from people in a place of relative privilege, refusing to admit a mistake and lashing out at those who "dare" to point it out.

Cultural conversations mirror this behaviour in a certain way too. Established filmmakers get into twitter spats with reviewers who have criticised their films and start abusing juries who have not selected their films for awards.
Acclaimed writers, on receiving negative reviews, dismiss critics as jealous cats or snobs (the preferred response of a certain best-selling writer) or, as one writer tweeted last week, eunuchs who observe and judge in the harem but do not practice (practice sex one assumes - which presents a rather limited definition of sex, but that's another discussion). Some, who identify themselves as feminist, respond to critiques from other feminists with tantrums about exclusion and silencing.

What does this disregard spring from? As with everything, it partly mirrors the economic culture, which generates and advocates ever more aggressive models of not just advancement but endless, limitless advancement, advancement which is its own justification, at the cost of all else around us - people, environment, ethics.

As the numbers that such a system values, are increasingly the basis and definition of all success, it becomes harder for us to recognise other parameters of success or value - like beauty, insight, knowledge or co-operation. It seems to spawn a culture of infantile egocentricness which is confused for individualism and freedom. Any arguments based on the aforementioned values are then seen as sour-faced and outdated or even an attack on one's freedom and rights.

It is as if in a culture of extreme individualism and false languages of equality, everything becomes very personal and we operate in isolation, not as part of a network or interconnected social system which we co-own with others. Counter-culture as all counter, no culture.

To be asked to stay in line is seen as a curtailing personal freedom, not maintaining smoothness for the general public; being stopped for speeding is seen as an attack on the self not a reminder of rules that preserve the safety of all on the road. Hurt at a critique of one's work becomes a dismissal of the very idea of criticism.

Of course it is embarrassing to have a mistake pointed out and crushing, sometimes piercingly painful, to be criticised. But, to be told you are wrong, is not the same as being wronged, just as being offended is sometimes not about hurt, but about power.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at www.parodevipictures.com