Lethal words

#LongPostAlert

But, please do read through.

Is it essential that we have an opinion on everything? More importantly, should we always express it?

A bit of a backstory which made me ponder this question:

There is this dubsmash type app which got quite a traction lately. It is becoming infamous for the mostly  unrestricted / uncensored content in there and became a discussion point for social media addicts (like me) when the it is found that the child killing illicit affair couple made a handful of dubsmashes in them before this incident. Coming back to the point, there was this boy, who made (conceivably) feminish dubsmashes in that. Apparently, he faced a lot of mockery, trolling and bullying in there. I have come across few of his videos and for some reasons, I did not like his videos either, but chose to ignore it and muted his profile so that I wont see that anymore. You should note here that I said “There WAS a boy”. Because he is no more. I came to know through several sources that he has committed suicide (seems he ran into a train). Also, it seems, that he has a physically challenged younger sister. Absolute cinematic tragedy, only it happened in real life.

Can I be sure that all the mockery happened in the app is the sole cause for his decision? No. No one can be sure of it. Seems he didn’t leave a note. But it cannot be ruled out either. What did he do wrong, actually? He failed to fit in to the social standards of a “man”. For all that we know, he could just be a feminish person, or he could be a Gay or Transwoman, who is on the painful process of gender and sexual self identification. Did he harm anyone? Did he deserve all the bullying he has faced? Did he deserve to face a such a tragic and painful death?

Why do we want to hate someone just because they chose (to be precise, had to) to do things in a different way? Are we even entitled to have an opinion that they should not be this way? A small, harsh comment in social media, a tease on the sidewalk, an insult from a friend - these can look like small things individually. But, consider the collective effect of this harshness on the victim. (Yes. VICTIM). No single person delivered the deadly blow. But, every single one of them, single one of us, is complicit in this murder.

It is not the first time I hear that a person has committed suicide because of bullying, trolling and social pressure. Honestly, it happened so many times around me, I kinda lost track of the count. I was part of an organisation which tracked and gave support to these kind of people, I happened to hear one suicide news at least per month. That is the data for one small subset of people in parts of Chennai. Cannot even imagine the scale of it happening around the country, especially in the rural areas where the resources available for suicide prevention is very little.

It is in my opinion that the suicides are inherently murders. Only, we cannot pin point the perpretors most of the time. Only, instead of finishing someone off with one lethal blow, we collectively continue to torture them for a long period of time without our knowledge and ultimately killing them someday. 

Next time, when we feel like shaming somebody, feel like passing comments or feel that someone is being abnormal (in our view), let us think for a moment before passing it. Is that opinion really necessary? Is it going to good for anyone? Does his / her action going to really affect me in anyway? If the answer is no, then we are not entitled to spread that kind of negativity. Let us take responsibility for all the blood that is already in our hands. It cannot be washed out easily. But we can decide to not add anymore in that.