BENGALURU: Do you agree?” This seemingly innocent question is deceptively dangerous, because if the answer is in the negative, battle-lines are drawn. The seriousness of it then depends on the magnitude of the issue at hand on which agreement or disagreement happens.If a friend you are out with likes chocolate ice cream, and you don’t, the disagreement still concludes on a harmless note. Disagreements are of varying degrees, the seriousness of which inevitably depends on what is being disagreed upon. A ‘yes’ is always appreciated because there is no cause for friction of ideas; a ‘no’ can be a matchstick lit in a gas-filled chamber.
In school, as a 12-year-old, I remember the day when my friend was beaten up by bullies in our class. He was not in agreement with the consensual decision of contributing money to buy a birthday gift for our teacher. My friend, a creative mind, had made an artistic piece himself to present it to our teacher. He felt that since he had done it, there was no need to pay separately. He had made a beautiful cardboard boat with masts and all, and a card attached to it, saying: “Dear teacher, may you live a long and a happy life, guiding us through our life which is like this boat without a rudder!”
The bullies, fearing that others in the class may follow in his footsteps and not pay up, ganged up on my poor friend. The rest (including me) stood in silent agreement with them for fear of being targeted themselves by the hulks of the class.
Guess what? After beating him up, they even smeared ink on his face and uniform (familiar act, right?).
I felt guilty for not stepping in to help my friend, but fear had got the better of me. Later, when I mustered some courage to speak to him through my guilt, I asked him, “Weren’t you afraid of them?”He replied: “I was. But I was more afraid that my boat would go waste. I had made it for her, and from all of us.”
Bloodied, ink-smeared and all, but not an ounce humiliated, my gritty friend presented the gift to our teacher as she stepped into our classroom. Her smile turned into an expression of shock at the sight of his face smeared with ink mixed with blood pouring out from a deep cut on his left brow, and swollen cheeks from the punches by the cowards.Some incidents in life remain in the crevices of the brain as memories and get revived when similar incidents take place around you.
Jonathan Haidt, an American social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and author, opens the introduction in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion, with a reference to a 1991 incident in the USA. Rodney King, a black man, was almost beaten to death by four Los Angeles police officers. The incident was videotaped. The entire country watched it on news channels. But the next year, when the jury failed to convict the four police officers despite the evidence presented, Los Angeles erupted in six days of bloody riots, claiming 53 lives.
On May 1, 1992, King was moved to make an appeal to the people for peace after a horrific case of violence targeting a white truck driver. His appeal was: “Please, we can all get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out.”