Political Assassinations in India

I. VIOLENCE is endemic in Indian public life. According to Lewis F. Richardson (1960), India stands in the middle range among nations in respect to rates of murder in proportion to population. But violence, including deadly acts, may have increased in India in recent years. Be that as it may, political and social turbulence is an outstanding characteristic of India today (Times, London, 1967; New York Times, 1967). To an extent the violence in India is similar to that occurring currently in the U.S.A.-it is systemic. The violence accompanies the struggle for self-assertion of the poorer classes and castes and provokes a violent response from upper castes and classes. The social structure appears threatened; law and order are invoked against the troublemakers; the police are eager to wield the billy club. The inclination to physical violence is facilitated by the lack of inhibition in Indian culture, except in the case of caste untouchability, against physical contact. The bars against contact are group prohibitions rather than individual ones; on the other hand, tactile deprivation is widespread in the U.S.A. Men in India often hold hands; it has not occurred to them that this indicates a homosexual tendency which is sinful. Violence is an aggravation of physical contact, especially where it becomes pathological because of prolonged tactile deprivation. John Steinbeck gave a moving portrayal of this development in Of Mice and Men (1937). The author notices the ubiquitousness of tactile contact in continental Europe, where also it frequently develops into a quarrel. Thus physical violence, short of serious hurt or death, may not appear as objectionable to Indians (or Europeans) as it does to Puritans. Another preliminary remark concerns the existence in India of what a British psychiatrist termed homicidal rage (Carstairs, 1957). It occurs frequently in northern India where, in the course of a quarrel, one or both participants seemingly lose self-control completely and would stop at nothing in inflicting harm on the antagonist. The onset of the rage is the signal for the bystanders to intervene. The rage socializes the quarrel insofar as the participants, having become helpless and lost control, are dependent upon the bystanders. Although Carstairs noted that businessmen learn to act angrily, in order to pressure repayment of loans from their clients, he underestimates the ritual aspect of the homicidal rage. Violence in India is highly ritualized, though to varying degrees in different areas. The author estimates that it increases as one moves from northwest to southeast. Thus it is least ritualized in the Punjab in the northwest and most in Madras and Kerala, where long drawn-out and seemingly violent quarrels are enacted in well-rehearsed gestures. Kathakali ballet dance, which is indigenous to Kerala, includes gruesome scenes, such as beheading the enemy and drinking his blood. Yet this State is much less violent than other parts of India, where artistic and ritual portrayal of violence is much rarer

Geography · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Health and Conflict Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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