How to ruin a 'drunk' cop's life
Let's come clear at the outset. Almost everyone, except may be doctors who recognised his symptoms, had a laughter riot at the expense of the "drunk cop", Salim, who featured in a "viral video" that was circulated in August last year.
In "Drunk Delhi Police man on Delhi metro-Funny", we saw Salim doddering, losing his balance, desperately trying to clutch on to a side-handle on the Delhi Metro, but falling spectacularly. We found it hilarious; in fact mildly scary that a policeman, who we naturally assumed was inebriated (don't we see oh-so-many of them doing exactly that, stinking filthily of cheap liquor while "on-duty" as we slink away) would be found in a situation as ridiculous as this.
But Salim wasn't drunk. He suffered a mild stroke on the train and that is why he fell. The 50-year-old cop had to undergo what his counsel claimed was the "worst sort of defamation" that anyone had to face on social media. He was suspended from Delhi Police, but soon after he got a clean chit from the then commissioner, BS Bassi, in addition to an apology from the force. But his wife suffered a stroke after all the initial backlash against Salim, and when he became one of the most shamed and laughed at figure overnight.
Yet, what lessons can we extract from this curious episode of intersecting afflictions?
Our insta-upload culture
Exactly why was the person who shot the video of an apparently drunk cop tottering and falling on the train, busy with his mobile phone camera and not extending a helping hand? What is the need to film and document everything, especially something perceived to be hilarious that could "go viral" online, even though it might be poking fun at an individual and might have consequences, often disastrous?
We are seeing a rash of viral videos that somehow testifies to a culture that's feasting on its collective impatience, eager to post anything and everything for the sake of a few likes. We upload a million selfies, videos of boys thrashing dogs and cats, brawls caught-on-cam, random fights on the streets and somehow find it pleasurable to watch and share such "candid moments".
That we are a bunch of voyeurs doesn't need reaffirmation: just look at the "Sunny Leone hot" videos that get shared like there's no tomorrow. Remember those MMS clips that were forwarded before everything shifted base to social media?
It hasn't happened for us if it's not online. We can reference it only via YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, bookmarking our own lives on these internet shelves, leaving nothing for private consumption. Our memory bank is getting emptier by the day, while we fill up our world with contagious fictions of social friction.
Figures of authority, or objects of ridicule?
True, there was a strange inversion of order as Salim, in Delhi Police uniform, lost balance and fell flat on his back on the train compartment. You'd expect the cop, wielding his lathi and flaunting his belly (more often than not), to intimidate you with his mere presence. Agreed his mere presence is normally daunting. No one can talk freely or just be with a prying cop around.
Yet, when Salim fell, it was funny. For many. Notwithstanding the reason, which was found out only later, the hilarity of a policeman on-duty making a magnificent fool of himself got lakhs of titillated onlookers. Only online.
A clownish cop is an inversion of order, though not necessarily in India. This comedy of errors affords a space where figures of authority can be suitably humoured, perhaps even ridiculed.
"Drunk Delhi Police man on Delhi metro-Funny" is both a subversion and confirmation of what the public at large thinks of Delhi cops - unfit, unruly, drunk, inefficient, and a far cry from the heroic policeman that a typical Bollywood hero would play onscreen. Everyone had fun at Salim's expense because no one thought it was more than what the video, erroneously, pointed at.
Humiliation is funny
However, this also underlines another telling side of our society. We think humiliation is funny: in fact, we make a spectacle of humiliation. Just look at reality TV everywhere. Ridiculing, debasing others is a stock television drama trope. Scripted or spontaneous, there's something insidious and deeply troubling about a society that considers shaming and showing a mode of entertainment.
Yet, this is hardly new. Men and women have been whipped, stoned, stripped and subjected to other degrading public humiliations from the dawn of time.
The online world of shared videos just takes this one step forward; integrates our innate predilection for masturbating at others' public shame with technologically-facilitated and addictive thrill.
Expressions of insensitivity get the upgrades as we "progress". For Salim, it was a nightmare through and through.