A great myth persists among the youth of today that somehow being senior to someone in an institution should automatically earn them their respect and that the junior should strive endlessly satisfy his seniors and should always be willing to go out of his way to please them. Such an attitude leads to countless cases of abuse and culminates in violence quite often. While it is understandable that the senior would want his juniors to offer him the due politeness that he deserves, but to try and solve any sort of dispute between themselves by accusing the junior of misconduct, that is, taking advantage of the circumstances he cannot claim any credit for, is not acceptable.
Very often it is witnessed that when a junior makes an off the beat remark about his senior or does not acknowledge his presence, the consequences are much worse than when the opposite holds true. In such scenarios, the senior wastes no time in making an attempt to enforce his authority by stating simply, “Remember who the senior is here,” or if the senior is not well mannered as in so many cases, he would raise his voice and declare in a commanding tone, “It seems you are not particularly aware of how one should behave with his seniors. Do you want us to teach you?” As a result, most often the junior has to bend his knees whether he is willing or not. If he does not, he has to pay the terrible price of being humiliated by his seniors hunting in packs at every possible situation.
The reason for such an outlook among the youth may be accorded to the culture of our country which enforces the belief in every child that questioning their elders is a punishable offense. During the course of their life, they are conditioned to believe that they deserve the same subservience from those younger to them which they reserve for their elders. It is an unavoidable consequence of a culture as authoritarian as ours. The real conflict arises when a senior indulges in behaviour which is bound to raise some sort of objection from his junior who has to suffer from the same. When the senior observes his authority being questioned, which he interprets as a threat on his honour, he immediately falls back to the argument which is very conveniently suited to rescue him from a tight spot, “I am the senior here, behave yourself.”
The very notion that someone should be respected by virtue of his position, which he has not earned for himself is distasteful. That a position itself should ensure unquestioned authority without any repercussions for its abuse is particularly not on terms with a generation which struggles so much to highlight the importance of individual liberty.
Ragging and bullying is a manifestation of exactly such sort of an attitude between students. A particular group of students believe it is their right to torment their inferiors. Although the enactment of the Anti-Ragging laws has certainly reduced the number of violent cases of ragging to a great degree, bullying in schools remains unchecked to an intolerable extent. And even though the teachers of the school would claim there’s no bullying of any sort in their institutions, it persists to a greater or lesser degree in every school. The dimension of bullying is slightly different from ragging. In every class, the bullies tend to be the muscular kids while the bullied are always the ‘quiet’ kids in the class or those who are a bit ‘different’. While in ragging, every junior regardless of their personality is subject to torment. The roots of both these evils, however, lie at the same place, the thirst for dominance over others.
Power is one of the basic psychosocial needs of every individual. The desire to manipulate and control at least some aspects of another’s’s behaviour if not entirely exists in every single person in this world. This trait of one’s personality, dubbed the Power Motive in psychological terminology, is cause for endless strife and needs to be constantly kept in check. However, in an organised social structure the promotion of this motive is crucial to its survival. In every culture, the elders are entrusted with the responsibility of making the decisions necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the family. Thus, at the family level, an individual is infected with the idea that the elders are not theirs to be judged which has the adverse effect that children grow up with the notion that age is a criterion enough to command authority over others.
For instance, one of my friends pursuing his graduation from a certain college in Tripura has to address his seniors as ‘Brother’ or ‘Sister’ at all times. On the face of it, the rule seems quite harmless and evens an adequate form of etiquette while addressing one’s seniors. But that is not how it is. The failure to greet one’s seniors as such or acknowledge his presence leads to certain undesirable consequences. Verbal abuse followed by some sort of punishment such as writing a certain line for a thousand times or so (Kindergarten stuff) is the normal course of events that follows. One is forced to ask at this point, if some sort of etiquette is forced on a group of individuals by another which has the power to do so, does the etiquette continue to carry any sort of value at all?
Admittedly, the relationship between seniors and juniors are a lot more cordial now. Seniors and juniors share quite a friendly relationship without any sort of animosity whatsoever in most colleges. However, numerous conflicts have occurred in the past and continue to do so in the present simply because some individuals assume they are entitled to a certain privilege simply by virtue of their position and neglect the fact that it’s something they normally have to earn for themselves. One should always be mindful of the fact that Respect is never demanded, it is earned through hard work, patience, diligence and observation of certain social norms. Also that etiquette when enforced with underlying threats loses its value completely and ends up being a hollow show off for conformity. And if an individual is of the opinion that age alone should be enough to ensure subservience and all manners of etiquette from his juniors, then the person, quite simply, is not worthy of respect of any sort, much less etiquette.
