The State of the State's Mind

Exploring a sudden spurt of aggression in the native’s behavior pattern

RAJIB KUMAR

It felt good to note that a leading Kolkata newspaper has at last taken note of the growing intolerance and aggressive behavior among the state’s citizens. I recall having briefly dwelt on this subject in these columns some months back.

Attitudinal changes are most often a result of multiple factors. We have consciously or subconsciously come to celebrate aggression. Whether it is the bowlers running down the pitch toward the batsmen or movie stars stalking co actors, deep down we have come to emulate our more “aggressive” celebrities…whether it is the shirt flinging Prince of Kalkuta or the topless Salman Khan.

As I pen these thoughts I have in front of me the morning’s papers reporting a case of wrongful confinement of a teenager girl role-playing domestic help. The poor fella apparently was made to toil in darkness and without fan from morning till late in the evening till her 30 something owners, a working couple, would get back from work.

Every other family I encounter in recent times tends to have a story or two to relate on domestic violence or terrorism.

The other day while coming out of a police station on B T Road, reporting a taxi who rammed our car my colleague and I were astonished to bump into a couple in their late 30s rushing to the officer on duty, blood stains all over their clothes and blood gushing out from some parts of their body: a case of domestic violence/terrorism.

Why are we encountering a situation where incidents like these including ones where young people are resorting to physical assault leading to incidents as hair raising as severe injury culminating in death on such trivia as loss in a game of cricket?

One argument that holds some credence is that while these went unreported until recently, thanks to a dozen TV news channels and an equal number of newspapers private have put our hitherto “private” drawing rooms under the scanner.

How far is the above assessment correct?

Viewing this from a different angle: people of this state have been traditionally the emotional kind, what with a creative bend of the mind above the national per capita; the bhadralok, therefore, has been less of aggression and its increased intensity in recent times has been almost unheard of in the past.

Well, we’ve had one Bantala some 15 years ago where a lady officer of UNICEF was subject to an act of medieval barbarianism. Again, political party or ideologue based hooliganism have been a staple diet. These, however, at best have been stray incidents or not necessarily reflective of societal behavioral patterns as a whole or a personality trait of the average native. In fact, the Bengali was until recently viewed as “extremely polite and gentle, accommodating and compromising and (even) to some extent submissive” by his non-Bengali brethren within and outside the state.

As HR Professionals, our adoration of competency mapping questionnaires notwithstanding it has become pertinent that we be appreciative of changing social trends and fads as employee attitude cannot be interpreted in isolation; in other words, without encompassing the proverbial “social animal” parameter (without sparking off another debate between the schools of psychology).

In subsequent editions of Offline we shall be talking to ladies and gentlemen across the social and professional spectrum in an effort to find some clue to this changing psyche. We encourage you, the reader, to share your views and experiences as my colleagues and I endeavor to probe deeper into the state of state’s mind. You may please send your views to rajib.kumar@materialworldind.com or offline@materialworldind.com


(Offline, Volume-4, No- 11, May 2007)