Pritam's Blog
Gandhi, Feynman, Bajrang Dal, And A Curious Tale Of Power Structures
Back in the 1930s, it was believed that stuttering was genetic. That is, if you were born a stutterer, nothing could be done about it.
Dr Wendell Johnson, a speech pathologist and a severe stutterer himself didn’t believe it to be true. To prove his point, he performed an experiment on a bunch of kids whom he divided into two categories — ‘normal speakers’ and ‘stutterers’. However, six of the children in the group named ‘stutterers’ didn’t actually have any problem with speech.
During the experiment, the ‘stutterers’ group, including the six children with no stuttering problem, was exposed to negative therapy. They were given instructions and training on how to avoid stuttering. Basically, they were told that they stutter.
The result? Five of the six children with no speech issues before started stuttering after all these months of experiments. Of the remaining five children in the same group, the condition of three became worse.
Dr Wendell Johnson was able to prove that stuttering was not genetic. The findings helped in the development of new ways to treat people with stutters. But in that process, the lives of those kids were ruined. They had to cope with the effects of such labelling for the rest of their lives.
As I was reading about this ‘Monster Study’, I couldn’t help but wonder if the irreversible damage done to these kids is justifiable in any way — is this ‘collateral damage’ in the process of understanding and coming up with new ways of treating stuttering acceptable?
No, of course.
A wrong thing is wrong no matter what. No amount of reasons can justify it. It doesn’t matter who has done it or why it was done, or even what good things have been achieved through it in the end. It is wrong. Period.
It is quite unfortunate that we tend to overlook many such wrong things in our day-to-day life. They are, apparently, petty and insignificant, compared to other, more serious wrong things. And sometimes, we just stay blind to some wrong things done by someone because, hey, that person has done so many other right things.
For reasons unknown, the train of thought led me to Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Feynman, and Bajrang Dal.
Gandhi’s contribution to the nation cannot be denied. He is, indeed, the father of the nation. But that he was obsessed with the idea of sexual abstinence to the extent that he performed creepy experiments involving other people isn’t something to be overlooked. We cannot isolate this from him and cannot overlook it because of his patriotism and other humanitarian actions.
Richard Feynman is celebrated for his contribution to the world of Physics. He was an extremely brilliant teacher, a great writer, and an OK-OK artist. But does that mean we should overlook his misogynist side?
Now, coming to Bajrang Dal, of course, the religious militant youth wing of VHP doesn’t fit in the same category as that of Gandhi and Feynman. I wrote the name along with the other two to attract attention. But they are not totally irrelevant also.
Every year around Valentine’s Day, the forever single members of Bajrang Dal make the headlines for some or the other things they do, including violence, to disrupt the romantic celebrations of young couples. They are subjected to ridicule and mockery at the least. Even some parents, who themselves behave like Amrish Puri from DDLJ with their grown-up kids, get pissed off. But I feel, in some ways, Bajrang Dal goons are better than such parents for you don’t have to deal with them on a daily basis.
To mock and condemn such parents is equally important. Afterall, it is from these parents that Bajrang Dal and the likes get the audacity to poke their nose in matters that do not concern them. They just take a prevalent culture to the next level. We cannot be selective.
Just like we cannot be selective when looking at Gandhi or Feynman or even the Monster Study.
And we cannot overlook things just because they happened decades back. Because at the end of the day, there is always a certain power structure involved enabling all the wrong things that happen.
Be it Gandhi, Feynman, or parents with apparently good intentions, it is a certain power structure (that bestowed on them a certain authority) that enables them to do what they do. Not questioning them just because they have a better side inadvertently naturalizes the power structure and hence, the wrong things.