08-20-2005, 03:00 AM
FWIW:
I was at an educational institute in Kanpur during the 1984 riots. From the morning itself there were rumors going around. We bicycled to the gate to see what was going on. Few people there said that some truck-drivers had been attacked. When we were biking back to the hostels, I saw the most disturbing sight.
A mob of ousiders, looked like not very well to do people, had gathered in a mob outside a sikh professor's house. The whole family was outside in front of the house, in a state of panic mixed with bravery. The professor had his sword out and he was standing there facing the mob. The house windows appeared broken. The mob had these lowlifes with sticks etc and they were making threatening noises but were not moving forward, except some occasional wavy motion.
We were a handful of students there. One of those lowlifes suggetsed that only if students 'supported' them....
We rushed back to the hostels and soon a large number of students gathered behind the mob and told the mob to get out of the campus. Seeing the students gathering in numbers, the rioters left. A number of them could be recognized and were later reported to the police.
For several days students patrolled the campus and made sure nothing bad happened. From the halls we could see flames burning farther away in Kanpur city. Several sikhs from the city temporarily moved into the campus.
Seeing the mob up close and the bravery and desperation of a respected sikh family of the professor(with pre-teen children) standing outside their home defending against that mob, was a very strong personal experience and has made me very suspicious of 'mobs' that sometime go with the euphemisms of mass-movements or mass-reactions.
It may be possible to come up with cause-effect analysis of riots, but riots are never justifiable. A mob , after it forms, has its own personality, it is viscious, vengeful and unpredictable. Some people get trapped in a momentary mob-frenzy and do something that they would regret rest of their life. Others are just willing fodder for the evil that a mob usually represents.
I was at an educational institute in Kanpur during the 1984 riots. From the morning itself there were rumors going around. We bicycled to the gate to see what was going on. Few people there said that some truck-drivers had been attacked. When we were biking back to the hostels, I saw the most disturbing sight.
A mob of ousiders, looked like not very well to do people, had gathered in a mob outside a sikh professor's house. The whole family was outside in front of the house, in a state of panic mixed with bravery. The professor had his sword out and he was standing there facing the mob. The house windows appeared broken. The mob had these lowlifes with sticks etc and they were making threatening noises but were not moving forward, except some occasional wavy motion.
We were a handful of students there. One of those lowlifes suggetsed that only if students 'supported' them....
We rushed back to the hostels and soon a large number of students gathered behind the mob and told the mob to get out of the campus. Seeing the students gathering in numbers, the rioters left. A number of them could be recognized and were later reported to the police.
For several days students patrolled the campus and made sure nothing bad happened. From the halls we could see flames burning farther away in Kanpur city. Several sikhs from the city temporarily moved into the campus.
Seeing the mob up close and the bravery and desperation of a respected sikh family of the professor(with pre-teen children) standing outside their home defending against that mob, was a very strong personal experience and has made me very suspicious of 'mobs' that sometime go with the euphemisms of mass-movements or mass-reactions.
It may be possible to come up with cause-effect analysis of riots, but riots are never justifiable. A mob , after it forms, has its own personality, it is viscious, vengeful and unpredictable. Some people get trapped in a momentary mob-frenzy and do something that they would regret rest of their life. Others are just willing fodder for the evil that a mob usually represents.