Why fuss over ‘respect’?

Some students of Intermediate II year have reportedly indulged in a lot of vandalism at Narayana Jr College at Kompally on the outskirts of Hyderabad. From the manner in which they locked the warden’s room from outside, and went on a rampage breaking the glass panes with iron rods and brandishing broken tubelights, it appears they drew their inspiration from movies.

But their target was not the administration, as one would expect given the extremely strict conditions in which students stay in such hostels. It was the junior students who were supposedly not showing ‘respect’ to the seniors by not greeting them and not buttoning up, and so on.

Is respect something we should expect from others? Yes. But it should be separated from certain forms of showing respect, like compulsively wishing, and exhibiting a degree of subservience. These forms of behaviour are not uncommon in our society, but as a logic, they belong to the same class as feudalism and are something that do not belong to our age of equality and mutual respect.

So, it would be a better idea to avoid disrespect rather than exhibit respect.