Mass Hysteria

About Mass Hysteria
Note: This is another article written in the year 2001. The examples and references thus, might appear old but they do convey a point. Moreover, I did not want to 'refine' it. Just wanted to preserve the thoughts I entertained at that time.

For a very long time I was planning to write something about mass hysteria. The events, which had and have been taking place around me, were compelling me to express my views on the topic. At the very outset I must clarify that I am no authority on the concept. Surely I am as naïve as any other average layperson in so far as a complicated topic as the one chosen by me is concerned. But, it cannot be denied (and my fellow brethren who have spent a considerable part of their life in India will agree to this), that being an Indian itself makes one more aware of the concerned subject. In other words, an Indian can boast to be an exponent of mass hysteria much more easily than anyone else in this world. For those readers who are still trying to figure out the head and tail of this article, let me be a bit more explicit… Indians I believe are more prone or susceptible to the phenomenon of ‘mass hysteria’ than any one else. And no, there is no need to grit your teeth and brand this as an outrageous act of blasphemy, for it will only prove my point. It will indeed show that we have become increasingly intolerant of any negative perception about us. This intolerant attitude I believe, is the breeding ground on which mass hysteria thrives. Have you ever wondered as to why on some occasions we let ourselves be governed by the minds of others? Why we let ourselves be incited by religious or political lords? Why on hearing anything antithetical to our age-old beliefs we become eager to shed the ‘social’ part of our entity and become animals in pure? In short, why for Godssake we fall prey to the herd instinct and fail to see reason?

As I have already pointed out that I am no authority on the subject of mass hysteria, so I shall take help from other sources to define the term. As per the Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary, ‘mass hysteria’ means a feeling characterized by herd instinct. It is a part of crowd psychology as well. The term can be applied to situations in which a large number of people exhibit the same kind of physical symptoms with no organic cause.
Freud, the great psychoanalyst opined that it is the undischarged emotional energy of an individual that manifests itself in the form of hysteria. Having defined the term let me proceed by citing some incidents as examples… All these examples have been taken from the time period when I had developed enough maturity to ponder over them, i.e. the examples are comparatively fresh.

I wonder how many of you remember the famous Ramar Pillai who became infamous too soon. He is the man who jolted the wits out of reputed scientists and researchers by claiming to have made ‘herbal fuel’ not so long ago. Initially everyone was skeptical…thanks to good education. Then suddenly he decided to demonstrate the use of his invention and did that successfully! Despite the fact that he never disclosed the ‘trick’ of making his ‘organic elixir’, the scientists believed him… thanks to the aura that Ramar was able to build around the concept by favorably exploiting government’s urgent need to find a substitute for petrol. The scientists were taken for an embarrassing ride. Why did the scientists and why only them, the general people as well, failed to see the obvious? Why did they not use their famous ‘rational’ thinking to detect and defy the concoction? Why did they make themselves so vulnerable to the herd instinct?

Then, at one point of time God decided to oblige His creation by accepting milk from them…remember? I was in the second year of my college and that makes it 1996. I still have a vivid memory of the grand occasion, when ‘superstition’ was given the authority to grant ‘logic’ a day off. Every person was vying to get the status of being ‘the chosen one’. Litres and litres of milk were offered as ‘prasaad’. For those who never got a chance to give his offerings to the Almighty came home depressed and heart broken. The sheer massiveness of the crowds at some temples created law and order problems. Then finally God decided to end his liquid diet by granting a barber the wisdom to see the truth…which till now was hidden in the well-known principle of ‘surface tension’! So, a not so learned man (and this is in comparison to the large intelligentsia which spares no opportunity at flaunting the superiority of their brain cells), was able to see through the shenanigan supposedly played by an American- Indian crony. Why couldn’t the learned detect the prank? Why did the ‘junta’ allow themselves to accept the bizarre? Is it not true that the incident primarily happened because of our intransigent and rigid religious perceptions, which refuse to see reason when matters of ‘faith’ are touched upon? The answer is YES, a big and bold one. Had our faith not been blind, had our souls understood ‘Him’ correctly, and had our body experienced well, the sordid state of hunger; we could have been able to see the crying infant who kept on waiting for his share of milk (which was never to arrive); we could have been able to see the gallons of milk which literally went down the drain; and finally we could have been able to realize that His hand which feeds the mouth can never possibly accept the food which He has made for His own children.

From God let us move to lesser mortals… the ‘godmen’. I must say that their hypocrisy makes even me hysterical! Just a joke! Coming back to the topic, these godmen appear to be graduates in crowd psychology to me! Otherwise there is no other way they could pull such huge crowds. People pay homage to them, treat them as incarnations and they have a field day exploiting their sentiments. They accept gifts, live lavishly, allow their feet to be touched by men and women twice their age, but people, blind in their faith or working under the hypnotic spell of their sermons, again fail to see through the obvious. Perhaps here the public is not justified in being blamed. The nature of populist measures taken by these ‘godmen’ is such that anyone can get ‘affected’. Still the fact that people do fall prey to the same old ‘herd instinct’ cannot be denied. They take divorce from all logic and succumb to the charms of magic! Don’t they possess the prudent wisdom to differentiate a garb from a God? Had they been true messengers of God, they would have opted to live a simple and serene life…much like say Mahatma Gandhi or Swami Vivekananda. (these examples have been cited just to reflect upon their simple lifestyle and not to suggest that they were messengers of God) Instead they roam around in limousines, carry cellphones, indulge heavily in myriad philanthropic activities, and even live abroad! Really, I pity those people who either fail to, or obstinately refuse to see through the reality of their crimson robes.

In conclusion I must cite two recent examples… remember the infamous monkey man or kaala bandar episode? Of course you must be, for it is too ripe and horribly good to be forgotten. Hysteria played havoc and forced innocent, terror stricken people to commit suicides. Sad.

Recently the release of ‘Gadar’ saw a strange phenomenon…many of the people who protested against its screening claiming it to be against their religious sentiments did not even see the movie in the first place! Clearly, they were playing in the hands of someone else. A spark was shown and the people ignited their passions…the rest was taken care of by our very own ‘herd instinct’. Bad.

Dated: September 30, 2001/ Sunanda Bharti.