Responding to Provocation through Patience
Suppose a situation arises that threatens to turn into violence between two communities. There are two ways to respond to this. One way is by exercising patience. The other way is to get agitated. If you get agitated, it is bound to only further escalate the conflict and degenerate into violence. On the other hand, if you control yourself and exercise patience, the problem will be nipped in the bud and soon finished off.
Here, I would like to cite some instances to illustrate how by exercising patience, one can douse the flames of communal conflict.
Once—this was way back in the 1960s—it so happened that a Muslim man beat a cow that belonged to a non-Muslim. This was in Lucknow, in the vicinity of the Dar ul-Uloom Nadwat ul-Ulema, which is one of India’s largest madrasas or Islamic seminaries. The cow was badly injured, and it soon died.
When the non-Muslims of the area heard that a Muslim had killed a cow, they were enraged. A large crowd of angry people gathered and began heading towards the Nadwa, raising slogans.
This was a very delicate situation. The crowd could easily have set the Nadwa on fire, and then the whole of Lucknow could have been rocked by rioting. The authorities of the Nadwa hurriedly got together to decide what to do. They agreed that there was just one way to respond to the angry crowd—by handing over to them the killer of the cow. There was no other way to save Lucknow from going up in flames. And so, the Nadwa’s authorities approached the man who had slain the cow. They explained to him how delicate the situation was, and about the very real possibility of the Nadwa, and, indeed, the whole of Lucknow, being rocked by communal violence. And this, they said to him, was all because of him. If only he were to give himself over to the angry crowd, things would cool off. “We know this may be very dangerous for you,” they explained, “but we hope that you will receive God’s help and that nothing will happen to you.”
The man agreed to their proposal. He came out and stood before the angry crowd. He said to them, “I have killed your cow, and so, you can do whatever you like to me. However, I must say that I did not strike the cow with the intention of killing it. I only wanted to chase it away. It was just by chance that it died.”
When the man appeared before the demonstrators and they heard what he had to say, their anger cooled off. The men who were earlier bent on angry confrontation simply agreed to let the matter rest by taking from the killer of the cow the cost of the animal. The money was given to them at once, and the problem was amicably solved.
Consider another instance of how patience and avoidance of confrontation can prevent an unpleasant situation from degenerating into violence between communities. Many years ago, a group of non-Muslim men were found slaughtering a pig in the bushes behind the Hadi Hasan Hall in the campus of the Aligarh Muslim University. It appeared that they planned to throw the flesh of the pig in the university campus, in the hope that this would instigate Muslims and that this would then lead to communal riots in the university area. It so happened, however, that some Muslim students spotted what these men were up to. They at once informed the university authorities, who, in turn, called the police. The police rushed to the scene and arrested the men. In this way, because the local Muslims responded to a provocative situation in a wise manner, without taking to confrontation and violence, Aligarh was spared the threat of being rocked by communal riots.
These instances show how conspiracies can be defused and rendered ineffective by responding to them through wisdom, rather than through confrontation. They illustrate how even when there is every possibility of a communal riot breaking out, it can be completely avoided if people act wisely. No matter how sensitive a situation may get, it contains within itself the possibility of being peacefully resolved. The necessary condition for this is patience. No matter how unfavourable a situation may be, the wise response is to avoid getting agitated. If you lose your patience and get worked up, you will lose your reason. And if that happens, you will not be able to perceive things properly and make the right moves that you need to in order to defuse the situation.
Another necessary thing in such situations is the need to consult others. When decisions are taken on the basis of mutual consultation, they involve ascertaining the views of many people. In this way, the decisions that are taken would be based on a wider perception of matters. Mutual consultation also enables you to benefit from the opinions of people who can see things in a more balanced way. This makes the decision that is arrived at potentially more meaningful, effective and realistic, unlike a decision that is made by people who are heavily prejudiced one way or the other.
In a provocative situation that can easily escalate into violence between communities one must desist from making one-sided allegations. Instead, one must exercise generosity and willingly acknowledge one’s mistakes. It generally happens that when people see their opponents refusing to acknowledge their mistakes, they get very agitated and seek to take revenge on them. But if your opponent sees that you openly and wholeheartedly admit your own mistakes, their hearts will melt. They will suddenly warm up to you. They will begin to feel that by your acknowledging your mistakes they have given you the ‘punishment’ you deserve and that there is no way that they could or should further punish you.
In the face of a provocative situation that threatens to degenerate into a communal riot, you must never try to take the law into your hands. In a country that enjoys the rule of law, if you take the law into your hands you will make yourself a criminal. In this way, you will create two sets of enemies for yourself—one, the person who has done something wrong and from whom you want to exact revenge; and the other, the governmental authorities. If you hand over the matter to the authorities to handle, you extricate yourself from the controversy, as it were, and leave the authorities and the person who is bent on creating trouble to handle it between themselves.
True and effective effort is always silent. It does not make a hue and cry. If in the face of an unpleasant situation you start shouting and agitating, it only shows that you are overwhelmed by your emotions. People who are driven by their emotions cannot take any meaningful steps. Meaningful and effective action emerges from serious reflection and contemplation. Making a hue and cry in the face of a difficult or challenging situation renders a person completely incapable of seriously considering and evaluating matters. This rule about conflict-avoidance applies as much in the case of individuals as it does in the case of entire communities.
