Fools' Collective

Unity is strength or something to that effect!
Was it a TV doordarshan’s educational commercial or was it in some book?
Somebody breaking a twig, and then some twigs are bundled together and he tries to break it, to no avail. Unity is Strength.

So true, indeed.
We have seen it in our freedom struggle, we have seen the Suffragists, and we have seen many revolutions fought on the strength of Unity.
United we stand, they say.

Now, does a Mob qualify for unity as we know?
Well, I guess so. Strong, they are, for sure, these mobs.
We have seen enough riots to doubt it. The damage they can cause could only be compared to a natural force like the Tsunami or The Katrina.

But are mobs wise? How does a mob think?
Yes, certain rioting mobs have been known to be instigated by politicians, but are we kidding ourselves. Just blaming the politicians as if there have never been a Mob who started without an evil politician fanning them. There are enough politicians who do the fanning, but the Mob as mobs should be is already irrational. Opportunist that they are, politicians just use them.

Mobs have never been known for their wisdom though. Herd mentality can best be described by the stock market, even in very mature markets.

There was a riot at Ghansoli area in Navi Mumbai on the Thane Belapur road, and some people were dead. Police firings you see. I don’t know if the police couldn’t have used Tear gas and rubber bullets. Shooting at Rioters is something every repulsive. On the one extreme it is taking donkey’s years to give a fitting sentence to some proven rioters who actually killed innocents, and one the other extreme, the police is shooting rioters. But that wasn’t the point.

Apparently, some person molested a girl. He/they did something very wrong.
The molester should have been punished.
The molester happened to be from one community, different from that of the girl.
It was wrong for the community of the girl to accuse the community of the molester, but they did anyway. What had gotten my goat was the fact that, the community of the Molester stood as one, Mob mentality, and instead of punishing the Molester, because he was first from their community and then a molester, the fought the attacking community. Maybe it started out as a self defense, but it ended up in a riot anyway.

A foolish act. Leading to several foolish acts. Left a few men dead.
Nobody would even ask about the poor girl who was molested.
And the police have shot real bullets at rioters.
I though they always use rubber bullets.

News about the riot.

On a better note, Kunjarani Devi, who hails from MANIPUR won India's first gold medal of the 18th Commonwealth Games in the women's 48 kg weightlifting in Melbourne on Thursday.