Beware of Mohalla Majoritarianism

In Sindhudurg, Maharashtra, parents of a 15-year-old boy were arrested after complaints that the teenager was spouting 'anti-national' slogans during last weekend's India-Pakistan cricket match. The parents were granted bail by the local court, and have been asked not to leave the area. The family's scrap shop - which allegedly didn't have the right permit and was left intact until Monday - was razed by the local council. From when was it a crime to cheer for a cricket team pitted against India, a Pakistani team included? What next? Arresting for listening to Pakistani ghazals? For having a poster of 2024 Paris Olympic gold medal-winning Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem - and pal of India's 2023 World Champion Neeraj Chopra - on a wall? If the police had one job, it was to quell the escalating argument between the boy's family and the complainants, not, for all purposes, join the mob.

We are talking about an excited teenager reacting to an excitable cricket match. For his family to be booked with charges including 'promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion', and for making 'imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration', would have been comic if it weren't so tragic, and alarming. To add insult to injury, lawyers have reportedly refused to defend the accused.

When a society behaves like a banana republic, acts like a banana republic, quacks like a banana republic, logic dictates a certain conclusion. The police should be read the law book and trained to not bend to mohalla majoritarianism. For a 15-yr-old, cheering or jeering a team or country is part of a healthy counter-establishment growth curve. Beware a society that takes itself too seriously, and falls over each other to join the herd.