The spate of daylight and midnight heists, of banks, jewellery shops etc, not to speak of routine robberies, within the space of a month in TN opens up interesting avenues for grinding the mental grist. So while the cops chase and hunt down the thieves let us spread our dragnet deeper and wider over self and society.
Humans by nature have nerves of ‘steal’. Eyeing a neighbour’s nest cuts across gender, age, class or stature. For the caveman, self-preservation may have been the provocation for his predatory and possessive instincts, but evolution ensured that humans retained and regaled in their acquisitive urge even if well provided for. Colonial empires have been propelled and marketing empires of the present have prospered, courtesy, this core itch. If in the past a king was no king if he didn’t conquer, now, in the modern material milieu, you are no good if you don’t have two of everything you don’t need… and certainly one more than what your peer has, by hook or crook.
It is when the covert tendency to covet is put into overt action that criminality and immorality attaches itself. Law and religion may dissuade that felonious act but the fatal attraction lingers. While restraint and reform are lofty themes, pinching goes beyond kleptomaniacs. This is said in a larger perspective of including in the arc of theft all acts of keeping to oneself what is not legitimately one’s. From under-invoicing to tax evasion to over-pricing to sleaze to defaults to many business practices and common acts, all constitute a form of theft. And all of us have four fingers pointing inward!
At the risk of sounding like a thief’s advocate, it needs to be stated that only direct and surreptitious usurping of identifiable objects is included in theft. In that, the community of thieves has truly been shortchanged by law and lawful looters. Here it makes sense to delve into the mind of a thief. As we said earlier, converting a natural acquisitive instinct into a nifty act of lifting calls for a leap of faith followed by the crossing of the legal Lakshman rekha. Also, initial success is heady and addictive. All thieves know that they may be nabbed one day or meet some bloody nemesis like our bank robbers whose frequent forays to bank counters ended in an encounter. But the general consensus and code amidst thieves is: it is fine as long as it goes and any way worth the time as state guest, what with free timely meals and a secure shelter, even while their stash (less deductions by way of statutory mamools) is safe till their release. Again, a thief is a thief only when caught and till then he could even parade as a leader. So why blame thieves when actually the entire political class operates on this logic?
The thief’s case is not yet rested. There can be no theft without an equal and opposite invitation, which of course is no justification. While I am not sure if thrift can discourage theft totally, a consumption-driven economy is certainly a fertile ground for thieves. Though the mere possession of an object is enough to invite the gaze of those evil eyes, vulgar display drives vicious designs in the party of the other part. But alas, almost all modern possessions are meant more for show than for use. Cash, black or white, and riches, legitimate or otherwise, have to manifest in some physical form. Also, the first five senses enjoy a brute majority over the sixth and their gratification prevails. Clearly, victims today meet the thieves more than half way with their offerings on a platter. It takes a truly moral thief to say ‘no’.
The north Indian bank robbers seemed like a professional gang but there are also suspicions that they may be linked to Maoists. It is quite possible that with cash on hand, Mao may have been expelled from their scheme. But motives and modus operandi apart, society too lends itself to the growth and grooming of such elements. Disparities, deprivation, depravity and desperation are dynamites ticking underneath. An upwardly mobile middle class India with its conspicuous consumption and condescending culture is constantly igniting an angry and hungry BPL India languishing in total squalor and terminal penury. Inflation, which is both the cause and effect of the former’s rising incomes, however, hits the latter too and most. A slumbering, superficial Constitutional apparatus, which too is mired in politics, personalities and pelf, offers no hope or consolation. So, to the betrayed, brutalised and bleary-eyed poor, it does not matter if someone else’s wealth is well-earned or ill-gotten, so long as it can be taken. Indeed, stealing may gradually turn into a kind of social healing. Add to it other social ills like peer comparisons over gadgets and lifestyles, adolescent addiction to drugs and promiscuity, and we have a toxic cocktail that spawns and spurs theft across a populace pre-disposed to purloining.
It is truly a painful paradox that even hard-earned wealth is a woe: that every land has an owner and a grabber, every jewel a wearer and a snatcher and every kitty of cash, a keeper and a taker; that every attractive object attracts attention as well as attack. Indeed, your cherished thing of beauty is a danger for ever!
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