Is cruelty now a way of life?

On New Year’s Eve, even as you and I were congratulating ourselves on escaping an annus horribilis, a video was being shot in UP’s Pratapgarh, showing some young men mercilessly beating to death a gorgeous Gangetic dolphin with axes and sticks. The surprised dolphin, known to be the gentlest of creatures, desperately thrashing about trying to escape the net in which she was caught. Then, when she realised that escape was impossible, she gave up the ghost and lay back gasping, as the water in the canal turned red with her blood.The dolphin is an intelligent mammal, with emotions that are akin to ours. It is a critically-endangered species and India’s National Aquatic Animal. That may not mean much in a country where poaching of wildlife and the random killing of street animals continues to be a popular sport; and gods are still appeased with animal sacrifice. But what struck me the most about the video was the glee with which those young men kept beating the hapless dolphin. It was clear they were revelling in the kill. medium nocaption80236998You could hear voices offscreen telling them to stop, to not needlessly kill the animal (dolphins are not eaten in India). But it fell on deaf ears. And the video went viral. Voyeurs love snuff videos. It doesn’t matter to them who or what is being killed. Snuffing out life is an instant draw on social media, a reason why so much of animal cruelty happens openly, in front of the video camera. The more violent the crime, the more its impact. It is the immaculate machismo of horror that entraps the viewer like a deer caught in the headlights.Since the murder of a dolphin is punishable under Section 9/51 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, an FIR has been filed, I hear, and three of the killers (all below 20) have been picked up. Since we all know by now how things in UP function, we don’t expect them to get anything more than a rap on the knuckles. They would have been garlanded by the local MLA were it not for the fact that last August, Prime Minister Modi had announced Project Dolphin, to protect the endangered species.It’s not just UP. There was a video from Chennai showing a young medical student throwing a dog from the terrace of a building. The dog was picked up from the street, taken up to the terrace and placed on a thin ledge. She was visibly scared and can be seen nervously wagging her tail, unsure about how to keep her balance. The young man is then seen lifting her up and dropping her. Her shriek as she hits the ground is blood curling. This, too, went viral. The young man who dropped her - a final year student from Madha Medical College, who has taken the oath of Hippocrates of Kos - and his videographer friend got away with a token fine. medium nocaption80237005Taking inspiration from them, a 21-year old mechanical engineering student from a reputed college in Vellore, posted a video of himself throwing a month-old pup from the terrace of his house, killing it on the spot. Animal activists tracked him down and discovered that he had been making such videos in the past as well, with stray pups picked off the street. No, he was not apologetic when questioned. He told the reporter: “I killed a dog, not a human being.”You may have noticed that I have not named the guilty. I don’t want them to get more publicity than they already have. Such people feed off notoriety. It puffs up their self-esteem, emboldens them. That’s why they allow themselves to be filmed. They know millions will watch the videos. Fame and notoriety, flip sides of the same coin, will be their instant payoff. As for punishment, what deterrent is a Rs 100 fine when the recognition of millions lies on the other side?But cruelty is like an amoeba. It swiftly multiplies, leading to more heinous crimes. If you cannot show compassion to other species, you can never show it to your own. That’s why six-month-old babies get raped and killed. And 80-year-old grannies too. Sex has nothing to do with it. Or why would someone insert broken glass bottles into a woman’s genitals? Or sharp metal objects?No, cruelty is just a way of life. The man who tried to kill a checkered keelback in Kandivali East last weekend by putting a used condom on its head is no different from the man in a yellow shirt who chased down and axed his hapless victim in broad daylight on a busy Hyderabad street. Cars whizzed by. Passers-by filmed it. Those videos, too, went viral. The young kids who celebrate Diwali by tying firecrackers to the tails of street dogs and setting them on fire, will one day burn down your homes during a riot and join lynch mobs to kill people they don’t even know. These are not disjointed events. They are part of the same cycle of life.A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean, said Robert Redford’s character in the 1990 movie Havana, adding that scientists “can even calculate the odds”. Whether they can or not, violence has this curious habit of breeding itself.We do not live by fancy highways and fast trains. We live by a moral code. Once that moral code starts to break down, anything can happen. And when anything can happen, it usually always does. Pritish Nandy writes an incisive fortnightly diagnosis of the state of our imperfect democracy.(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own)