On becoming comfortably numb

Something is happening to us We donrsquot feel outrage any moreWe feel other things certainly Such as offendedmdashespecially when socalled ldquoreligious sensitivitiesrdquo are involved The offence can escalate to fury of the howdarethey kind as it did in September 2016 when a rumour got around Dadri Uttar Pradesh that a certain man with a certain kind of beard was at that very moment eating beef in his house with his familyYou may recall that a crowd surged to Muhammad Akhlaqrsquos house and butchered him in front of his family Although 18 people from the mob were arrested their lawyers pleaded that they had ldquobeen provokedrdquo and should be released as though a crime of passion is somehow heroic rather than savage To set the record straight no beef was found at Akhlaqrsquos house and no law in the country makes beef consumption punishable by death or even punishable at allSo we no longer feel outrage but we do feel fury as when someone contradicts us on a WhatsApp chat We feel road rage whether wersquore on the road or not if someone gets between us and where wersquore going Anything can follow from foul curses that vilify mothers and sisters to assault and manslaughterHow is outrage different In my laymanrsquos world outrage is powered by an overwhelming sense that something unjust and unjustifiable is happening and needs to be stopped Unlike hypersensitivity fury anger indignation and road rage outrage is egofree India became independent because of Gandhirsquos calm outrage not anybodyrsquos flash of anger Outrage is your higher self recognising an inequity whether minor or worldchanging local or global Your outrage at a man feeling up a woman in a crowded bus can be just as intense as at hospital workers withholding the release of a dead childrsquos body to its parents until they pay a tipmdashor at the rape and butchery of Rohingya mothers and children by Burmarsquos military Unlike anger which eats up your soul outrage empowers it making it incandescent It makes you want to actI believe wersquore losing that wonderful weaponOn October 7 2016 a month before the US election Donald Trump claimed he could touch women wherever he wanted because he was rich and famousmdashldquoYou can do anything grab lsquoem by the pyrdquo There was instant worldwide outrage Trump was widely condemned prominent members of his own party withdrew their supportThis year the same Trump lewdly mimicked oral sex with a microphone five days before the electionmdashand went on to a resounding historic victory There was thunderous applausemdashfor a convicted felon an inveterate lifelong liar with neither morality nor civility known for feeling up women and enriching himself by exploiting his presidencyThere was no outrageMoving on The UN Human Rights Office has verified the deaths of 8119 Gazans since the war started The Gaza Health Ministry says the correct number is 43300 Close to half of the victims according to the UN were children mostly between five and nine and a quarter were womenNo outrage though there were raised voices at coffee bars How dare the Israelis in the same useless shrill voice as How dare the Pakistanis and How dare the MaoistsMoving on On Sunday many tenants were evicted from their homes in the Santacruz Air India Colony recently acquired for redevelopment by a certain Mr Adani Ailing elderly people in wheelchairs were forced out of their homes one old woman still clutching her oxygen cylinder In the hurry to eject tenants one house was sealed with two sisters still inside Litigation is going onYou will be forgiven for not even knowing about it If you do know but donrsquot feel anything in particular we will not punish your lack of outrage We will say that you like me and everyone else have become comfortably numbPsychologists call it psychic numbing referring to the notion that the more people are brutalised or die the less we careldquoOne life is tremendously important and valuable and wersquoll do anything to protect that life save that life rescue that personrdquo says Paul Slovic a University of Oregon professor who has studied psychic numbing for decades ldquoBut as the numbers increase our feelings donrsquot commensurately increase as wellrdquoBecoming desensitised by relentless statistical shocks makes you less likely to do anything to stop genocides react to natural calamities or feel any alarm that our planet is on fire already through climate changeA desensitised person no longer sees something thatrsquos odd as odd accepting it as banal and mundane says Gracie Eppler in The ObserverThere may be a way out These days when I see a statistic I dig deeper for a single story that illustrates it because it will touch me somewhere that numbers donrsquot reach Once I find a moving story I share it in the same news and social media Just to stir the potldquoIf I look at the mass I will never act If I look at the one I willrdquo said a remarkable woman in KolkataHer name was Mother TeresaYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper