Who Is Man And Who The Beast?

NEW DELHI: The morning newspapers recently forced a graphic start to the day. They contained the image of a majestic, wild leopard being clobbered to death by young men. Various interpretations and stories followed. But the violence of the image continues to linger in my mind.

What really happened remains a fuzzy story. A two and a half-year old leopard from the Aravalli forests accidentally strayed into the Sonha village outside Gurugram around 40kms for New Delhi. There are contradictory accounts of the leopard first being sighted in a field at 8:00am where it allegedly attacked a man, to the big cat being spotted inside a small farmhouse by two local men.

What is clear is that the police were informed of the ‘spotting’ and a mob of 800 to 1500 people came to surround the animal. The leopard which was most likely on a hunt for food was cornered by men in the village who then proceeded to attack the animal with axes and batons. They clobbered the animal for three hours and then dragged its body on a victory parade. On this victory march young men took turns in pulling the dead animal by its tail around the village and even took selfies with the dead corpse.

The men of the village claim that the police and rescue team reached late and were ill-equipped to deal with the situation. They claimed that they feared the animal would damage property and people. Hence they felt justified to take the law into their own hands. On the other hand, the police claim that they had tranquilizer guns, nets, safety equipments and veterinary doctors on hand to manage the situation but the unruly mob did not allow them access.

The crowds were so large that the police argue they were incapable of managing or pacifying the people. Experts have claimed that the animal was trying to escape into open pastures but was not spared by the wrath of the throngs of men gathered at the site.

Leaving aside the contradictory narratives of the events, what is shocking to me is not the fact that villagers choose to kill and badger a wild animal to death. But the celebrations and performances of victory after the violent killing. A display of violence and beastliness by man, which is celebrated and commemorated with photographic evidence.

The chilling selfie of around twenty young men and boys smiling and posing with the dead leopard’s bloody head lying lifelessly on the ground is ‘evidence’ of this cruelty. Rather than remorse at the gruesome violence, there is a sense of triumph and celebration.

Such celebration of male violence and aggression is something that I have been trying to study and understand over the last one year. From aggression on the metro and buses, to road-rage and fights on the street, to rape and murder, and in this case the killing of an animal, men’s violence in India takes many forms and folds. To understand this violence a little better, I’ve been observing and talking to young men about these issues.

The men I’ve met and formed close friendships with are tender, caring and fun young men who have several hopes for their futures and several doubts about if they will make it anywhere. They are vulnerable young men who are capable of great displays of emotion, love and care. Yet they are also embedded in cultures that are extremely violent.

Men and their masculinities come in many changing forms in India. What it means to be man does not have one definition nor is it defined and determined by biology. Men’s gender identities are performances that fall along a wide spectrum of gender identities and keep changing throughout histories, societies and cultures.

For example Japanese men today value humility and modesty as markers of their masculinities but German men might value drinking beer as a sign of their masculinity.

For young men in India, demonstrating anger, aggression, violence and power are extremely valuable qualities in order to act like a man. Violence does not come naturally or easily to young men or indeed to all men. Yet there is a powerful culture of masculinity where various forms of violence by men are celebrated and encouraged. It is in this frail culture of manly bravery and risk that a sense of being a man is established through violence.

The spectacular images of violence carried out by young men from Sonha when ganging up and clobbering the young leopard hints at the social and cultural consensus that exists for men to be violent. In a similar celebration of violence, in Delhi I have observed young men tell tall tales of violence “sar phod diya tha meina uska” (I broke his head open) or “kisi ne gadi ko touch kar diya to mein chodta nahi hun” (If anyone ‘touches’ the car, I don’t let him go).

Similarly parents often normalize and prepare sons to violence: “maar khake mat aana” (Don’t get beaten up) or “rona maat” (don’t cry) and male friends demand violence as a marker of their bond “bhai bata kitne bande bulaun’ (Brother tell me how many men should I call?). In such cultures, violence is something that gets intimately tied with ways of being a man. The effect is an image where various forms of men’s violence starts to appear normal or even natural.

The group of men who killed the leopard acted with great impunity. The armed men prepared with axes and batons points to the ostensibly planned intention to not just stun and subvert the animal but to silence it forever. The men posted photos and selfies whilst parading around the animal they had fought victoriously and killed violently.

Under the rationale of ‘protecting’, and a ‘natural’ response to the situation, such acts of violence almost seem to look not like acts of violence but like sensible and legitimate responses from men. The blurred boundaries between the way cultures of masculinities operate to tie men and violence together, allows for beastliness to become ordinary, almost incidental.

Yet it is not individual men who are at fault here, it is a culture that is built and maintained in complex ways that needs to be dismantled. Such a culture of masculinity where aggression against other peoples and animals is acceptable is not just dangerous for the men involved but for all people, animals and life that surround them.

(The writer is a D.Phil Candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford)