Kolkata doctor rape-murder: When will we learn to 'empathise'?

Kolkata: It’s been a fortnight since the gruesome RG Kar catastrophe and society is reacting in predictable ways. While mostly everybody is finding it painfully difficult to 'empathise'.

A section of folks are thrilled to ‘politicise’. They are not at fault, for demonstration of contextual loyalty defines the pay cheques. So the present will invoke the past, the past will provoke the present while data acts as gullible scapegoats, in a much larger carnage.

Some others are quite content to ‘dramatise’. Doctors on strike are endangering the lives of many, especially the poor, without access to private healthcare. While others embark on vigils that are certainly meaningful but truthfully transient. Patients will suffer, but life's a stage and all that jazz.

Those with the mandate, are thrilled to ‘analyse’. Media, designated or volunteered, is indeed abundant in the broadband age. Comparisons drawn sincerely to the inglorious past, in geographies old and new. Experts pop up from every bush, with gravitas and affirmation sprinkled liberally. TRPs, the presiding deity.

A few, denied the graces of wisdom, are strangely inspired to ‘trivialise’. Ill-advised media bytes or Greta Garbo disappearances, leading to mammoth public fury. 

The brands they are or endorse may bear the brunt, albeit temporarily as public memory is shorter than the fuse of Dara Singh or The Great Khali.

Many, rightfully enraged, are in the mood to ‘victimise’. Aided logically by the highest form of the judiciary and provoked emotionally by the Kangaroo Courts of the internet. Death by hanging, soonest and goriest, is a prevalent redemption myth. Perhaps, a licence to move on to the emerging festivities.

The largest chunk is spending lavish energies to ‘sympathise’. From the high ground of entitlement, in public security and private empowerment, it is sincerely deemed to be a matter demanding spontaneous dismay. Albeit, a tragedy beyond ‘our’ manicured realities, and seemingly, the neighbour’s problem.

‘Politicise. Dramatise. Analyse. Trivialise. Victimise. Sympathise.’ Artificial sentiments that are dictated by our perceptions of reality, imperatives of economic sustenance or an overpowering sense of guilt. Not entirely inhuman, but insufficiently human. Which is why we need to ‘empathise’.

Empathy is the ability to understand how another person feels as if we could easily have been them. In a realistic and not cinematic scenario, Therefore our reactions are dictated by a shared sense of society and community, not the convenient  ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative.

The lady could easily have been any of us. A  throbbing mirror image. A lovable daughter. A dutiful wife. A doting mother. A sensitive sister. A thoughtful friend. A diligent neighbour. The lady is one of us. In fact, she is ‘us’, deep and real.

So, let’s stop posturing and shed the contrived personas. There are enough valid theatres in life to wear the ill-fitting hats of conformity and tokenism. It’s time to act and let this be the abiding legacy for our future.

Zero tolerance to even the barest hint of abuse. Starting with casual conversations, private or public. Just as a person committing a murder is reported instantly, the same must apply to even casual offenders. Using the conduits of judicial law, organisational processes, public space etiquette and community censuring. Nipping abuse in the bud is the only way, no room for escalation. It will take time, but results will show.

Then, to sensitise every lady in the know, whether an Uber Auto commuter, a public bus regular or a Wagon R driver. That the next victim, in our unpredictable society, can very well be ‘You’. There are landmines everywhere and while freedom is guaranteed, safety must be earned. Denial and naivete are surrogate killers, active awareness is a lifesaver.

When we genuinely ‘empathise’, a significant societal momentum will surely emerge. A force more powerful than any diktat of law or barricades in the streets. The sooner we learn, the quicker we will act. 

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