Why is violence prevention complicated and exhausting?

Part of the answer may lie in the reality that the problem is deep rooted and steeped in widely held attitudes.

When we were developing our intervention, we began by exploring how people understood the violence they were experiencing or perpetrating.  Four key themes emerged:

First, some adults saw violence as a benevolent tool for guiding children (and even women) and for preparing them to be disciplined members of the community. Parents said this without reservations and teachers asserted it as their responsibility. Men saw it as an expression of their masculinity and religious leaders endorsed it as a moral imperative.

Second, many rationalized the violence as the only effective way of redirecting behavior and of cementing learning. The underlying argument was that without pain there could be no gain, change, or learning. Many said that only such a forceful intervention yielded results and it was an efficient way of establishing order and imposing control.

Third, some people said that this way of interacting has stood the test of time and has been shown to be benign, beneficial, and even an expression of love. Some said, ‘I was beaten, and it did not do me any harm, and showed that he cared’. They asserted that it was part of their culture or supported by quasi- religious edicts such as ‘spare the rod, spoil the child,’ and that such imprimatur added legitimacy to this way of relating.

Last but not least, many adults argued that they reserved this option as a last resort. They began with conversation and explaining, and only turned to corporal punishment, shouting, or humiliation as a means of asserting that the behavior had exceeded limits of tolerance.

These are not fringe views.

They are held by thoughtful and compassionate individuals who are stalwarts of their community. They are held by teachers we deploy as stewards of our children’s development. They are held by religious leaders and policymakers. These views may be held by your relatives, colleagues, and even your parents. Perhaps, deep down, there may even be fragments of this belief sitting unresolved within you. After all, the views have survived for a long time, often held sincerely, and have found subscription in diverse places on this earth.

It is this dissonant reality that makes this work complicated and exhausts frontline practitioners.

At home and in your community, you might find yourself hiding your truth and feeling unease. You may have some awareness of feminism, a cogent analysis of patriarchy, and a political vision around what constitutes a just world. Yet, you may also be exhausted from always being in a confrontational posture and feeling on the margins of the community you are immersed in. You may also sense that the work of influencing others and fostering meaningful conversations may require an empathic understanding of where they are standing, and why, and what they are clinging to. If you find yourself at this nexus, let me offer some reflections that may help.

Familiarity does not make it right.

It is normal to feel conflicted about beliefs that you may have grown up with but now feel discordant with. Many adults, and particularly men, learned that it is legitimate to assert power over others. They saw that society had bestowed on them the responsibility of ensuring compliant individuals under their purview, and that they were being responsible members by exercising this power. Far from it being an abuse of power, they felt it was responsible parenting or being a good husband. Yet in gentler and respectful conversations, many may concede that such masculinity was burdensome. That such parenting also led to alienated children who resorted to passive aggressive behavior, or rebelled against controlling environments as soon as they could. When a safe mirror is offered, there may be a possibility of inching closer to recognizing that there may be a better way of influencing than assertion of will over another.

Perspective matters.

The adults who held some variation of the views articulated above saw the violence as an event. They conceptualized it as happening in finite timespan, and bounded by a provocation, consequence, and subsequent changed behavior. However, the recipient of the violence did not experience it in such a neat manner. It invoked in them fear, brewed shame, and created an impetus for meaning-making that involved denigration of the self. The violence was rarely seen as an isolated event but became their context. It affected their sense of who they were, and their place within the space they moved in. Awareness of such corrosive consequences may tamper resorting violence as an expedient option.

No pain, no gain is misconceived.

Many adults believed learning can only occur by associating pain with the undesirable behavior. Pain may bring compliance and internalization of the aggressor’s value system (‘my father beat me, and I turned out ok’) but we also know that it comes with a heavy price tag of loss of agency, a diminished sense of self sufficiency, and ultimately leaves the victim stranded in a state of dependency on the perpetrator. The fact that learning is a process and not an event, that it requires navigating multiple stages and acquisition of skills rather than a simple association and memorization, undercuts this strategy. Pain and fear may coerce a person into compliance, but it does not teach them the value or the correctness of what was being taught.

Frustration is not a strategy.

Adults who resorted to violence rarely had clarity of purpose. Violence is an emotional reaction of an overwhelmed person, and not a carefully rationalized parenting philosophy, or an expression of responsible citizenship. Most people who perpetrated violence did so in moments of chaos rather than control, and its manifestation was primarily due to frustration rather than a desire to impart education. Most came to regret action taken in such a state and then rationalized it after the
event, out of shame.

I would like to leave you with one final reflection. If you are involved in articulating to the lay public why interpersonal violence is ineffective and unjust, you are having to step outside the mainstream of opinion. In the maelstrom of such conversation, know this; that violence between two people is an expression of power. No matter what the inciting event may be, or the rationale that may be offered for it, at its heart, it is an assertion of dominion over another. The act establishes a hierarchy and requires that one person must submit to the will of the other. It is an end of a respectful honoring of another’s dignity, and an assertion of supremacy. That is what makes it unjust, egregious, and profoundly consequential. That is why your work is so crucial.

*This piece originally appeared in The Times of India on 21 October, 2023. Read more here.