Corrosion of Humanity
#1 at Sahaas — the Literary Competition organized by CLIMB DTU
Acid. A chemical that is capable of being a part of our daily living as an essential component of several resources with its low pH level and corrosive nature.
Pain. A sensation that can be stimulated by an external damaging factor.
Humans. A highly evolved species capable of discovering and inventing new ways which change the world in every way.
Capable of love. Capable of care. Capable of hate. Capable of death. Capable of emotions beyond comprehension.
Liya is a young girl who lives with her abusive parents in a village in deeper parts of South India. She sees her parents fight every day for every possible thing that could instigate a disagreement. She sees her father hit her mother every day.
The mother lashes out and tries to instigate arguments.
Every day she sits with anger and hates her father and mother. One day, she walks in to find the mother unconscious and burnt with a strange liquid that was sizzling on the ground and her face. The sight of it makes Liya shut down with horror. From the father’s point of view, he shows no remorse for performing such an act.
Lack of guilt, remorse and care of the father makes Liya wonder “What if it is normal to act like this? This is only regular physical assault gone too bad.” Many years later, she undergoes the same physical and mental abuse. With no awareness to face this, when things go bad, she hurts the other person physically. The chain reaction continues. We see a woman or a man with acid burns and we feel sympathy, pity perhaps empathy. Yet there is a long way to go before normalizing a person with acid burns.
But again, we are still trapped in aspects that go against basic elements of life such as physical and emotional discrimination based on race, colour, religion, education, money. There are several studies, resources, talks on the victims. What about the perpetrators? What is happening in their inhumane point of view? Humans can love to an unimaginable extent. At the same time, humans are also capable of showing hate to an unimaginable extent. But does not love and hate exist in every human?
Going back to the seventeenth century, the first cases of acid attack on humans were reported. It could have been due to any reason. But the fact that a substance can not only hurt the person physically but gives a lifetime of trauma and scar and suppress the person’s life in general, seems to be a befitting “punishment” for someone who “angered” the perpetrators.
A study by Patel (2014) tried to list down the reasons for acid attacks in South Asia and the difficulties faced by an acid attack victim. It said that most of the acid attacks regardless of caste, religion or race, perpetrators do acid attacks for marital/love dispute, property disputes, general petty arguments, and other possible causes that could have hurt the perpetrators so-called ego. Indian Beauty standards have their own agenda in instigating complex and insecurities in our population that suppresses the lives of many. Spotless, fair complexion is admired and anything less than that is constantly tried to be resolved or compensated with constant determination.
In this pitiful state of society, the highest level of trauma could be destroying a person’s exterior according to the perpetrators. Sadism exists in humans. But humans practice what they know only if they have no inhibitions towards practising it, knowing there is no serious consequence. We can go on trying to put out laws on acid sales and fight for more severe conventional punishments for such perpetrators. But is there something deeper beyond just the cause and effect of acid attack? I see a lot of factors in this.
Lack of education, childhood exposure to abuse and sadistic behaviours, normalizing corporal punishments and physical assaults such as slapping, using objects or substance with the intention to hurt, lack of respect in general towards people, lack of a mentor, poverty, in general, attributing to several other causes. The cause is deeper. Much deeper that brings out hate, anger, and sadism.
Where will be love, care and humanity when there is no exposure to it? The roles of parents, teachers, and people in our environment in general play a major part in building a human and their character. What they see and hear is what they will think to be the norm. Isn’t it?
So, is the fault just on the perpetrators? Or is it also on the society which normalizes several inappropriate and inhumane behaviours? Victims continue to remain as victims who emerged as strong and powerful people. But nothing can erase or cover the trauma.
Although there is an unfortunate inhumane part of the human world, there is the other half that empowers, encourages, and celebrates people who overcome their traumatic pasts and live through it. There is a part of the world that is exposed to good and basic humane aspects of life. Maybe we should try to instigate the basics of decency and kindness in the world of the perpetrators as corrosive and destructive as the acid. We say, “Make Love Not Scars”. But what should we do about the people who only know how to make scars and not know what love is?
Authored by Oveya Karthik (oveyakarthik@gmail.com)
