Barbarism is all pervasive

I’m in the midst of reading The Last Mughal. Today I read about how barbaric the sepoys had turned during the 1857 revolt, and it seems, as far as Delhi was concerned, it was less of a revolt, and more of rioting and brutal killings. And these brutal slayings happened on both the sides — whoever had the power butchered the other. So I was just thinking, as a race, humans are more violent than animals. We simply kill and torture people just because we can. When the British had the upper hand, they tortured and killed the Indians in all conceivable manners, and when the Indians got the control briefly, they didn’t differentiate between women, babies (even in the wombs), children and men.

During the 1984 riots I myself saw people being burnt alive. In Gujarat after the Godhra carnage, a pregnant woman’s belly was ripped apart with hands and the baby was shredded to pieces. And this is not unique to India. The blacks in the US were burnt alive, were cut into pieces while they were still alive and while the onlookers clapped in delight. The horrible killings in various civil wars in all the continents cannot be described in words.

It’s a normal perception that cruel deeds of arson and butchering are conducted by the people of lower strata. Even most of the people who indulged in rapes and looting during the 1857 revolt were mostly Gujjars, chamars and dhobis.

But then what about the Nithari incident? This guy was rich. He studied in one of the best schools and colleges and moved in the most elite circles. What sort of socio-economic background prompted him to rape, murder, and probably eat children?

Given a chance, humans are prone to orchestrating the most heinous cruelties one can imagine, just because they are capable of.