The taming of the beast within

By Usha Bande

What we need is a little more primitiveness and a little less taming. — A.H. Maslow

NOW that we are close to the new millennium, thinkers, philosophers, scholars and ideologists are trying to find out means to make the 21st century world a better place to live in —a world not stalked by violence and aggression, but made livable by the cherished values of non-violence, love and peace. That is something healthy to look forward to. Since aggression and violence are not intrinsic to human nature, as some social-psychologists and anthropologists contend, it is possible to change the present crime graph. But then, the proverbial question looms large: "Who will bell the cat?" How and who could be trusted to bring in transformation? Law-enforcing agencies? Preachers? Moralists? Or man himself? The moving finger stops at man himself — yes, only the individual man and woman can wrought inner transformation.

"Non-violence can be learnt. One can learn to be unaggressive simply by not being aggressive," asserts Ashley Montagu, the social-psychologist. Ashley further observes that there is is "no necessity about aggression. It is not something that must inevitably develop and mature. Humans are no more wired for aggression than they are for organised violence."

Examples abound in world history of great men who conquered evil by love and sympathetic understanding. The Bishop’s magnanimity towards the culprit in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Lord Buddha’s affectionate dealing with Angulimal, the notorious criminal, King Shivi’s healing touch to the wounded bird and many more stories, anecdotes and facts are a pointer towards the fact that humans do place a negative premium on aggressive traits. When Lord Jesus Christ forbade his disciple to use sword to counter the mob and warned, "those who use the sword shall perish by the sword," he gave a great lesson of non-violence. Gandhiji’s use of the weapon of non-violence and non-aggression against the brute force of imperialism provides a befitting example to forward our thesis that the expression of anger and aggression can be controlled. A leaf from the social structure of some of the primitive societies still existing on the surface of this earth can display how these tribals control violence.

In our culturally-oriented language-use, the word ‘primitive,’ however, brings to mind the work ‘savage,’ and savage connotes something ferocious, cruel and uncivilised. That is because our language equates the "primitives," the "tribals" with the primates, the predators who are instinctively violent. But anthropologists, who have stayed with and studied some gatherer-hunter societies, away from the civilisation, have high admiration for the methods the tribals have evolved to control aggression.

The Eskimos, living in the most difficult environment and in the most inhospitable lands in the world, consider violence and aggression as repulsive. Not that they have no ill-temper or quarrel. Quarrels occur between individuals or between groups but these seldom result in violence. The traditional manner of settling disputes is by contestants’ "assaulting" each other with reproachful songs. With song and music the attack is mounted by the victim on the victimiser. The other party too replies with music and songs much to the delight of the on-lookers. After a while anger subsides, tempers cool down and the suffering party withdraws, satisfied with having avenged the wrong.

Among the East Greenland Eskimos also, the song contest is the customary means of resolving disputes. Even the murder of a relative may be avenged by starting with reproachful songs and ending in applause. Here is what an anthropologist records:

Since skill in singing is greatly admired, and the artistry of the performer so absorbs the interest of the audience, the cause of the contest tends to be forgotten, and the focus of attention is entirely upon the wit and skill with which the contestants attempt to oust each other. He who delights the audience most and receives the heartiest applause is declared the winner. Singing ability, indeed, equals or outranks gross physical prowess, and brings great prestige.

This reminds one of the "Tappa" contests and the "Gidda" performance so popular in Punjab. In "Tappas", challenge is hurled at the opposition party to which the addressee responds with a counter-reply, followed by a quick give and take. Much mirth is generated and the contest ends on a happy note. If we study the "Gidda bolian" carefully and objectively, we find that women bring out the whims, the peculiarities, and the eccentricities of their husbands, mothers-in-law and other members of the in-law household. Each singer has a short story of woe (in one couplet) to tell. Again, each "boli" generates much laughter. The girls come forward with "bolian", and then dance and clap and give room to the others to express. Today, "Gidda" and "Tappe" are parts of the already rehearsed and staged programmes. But it is possible that in the hoary past, these must have been evolved by society to help the members take out their bitterness and ire and gain psychological release. The biologic potentialities for anger and aggressive behaviour are thus lessened.

Among some of the tribes of Australian aborigines, quarrel takes the form or talking and talking all day long, throwing spears or boomerangs but with such accuracy that they do not hit anybody. W.E. Harney, who lived among the aborigines of Arnhem Land, gives an interesting account of native fights. "All day it will go on, with plenty of running about and talk and natives scruffing one another, but very little bloodshed. Although they throw spears and boomerangs about, it is very rarely that a person is seriously injured." In fact, the talkers are not the fighters, they are the protectors. They keep the combatants away. The combatants roar and shout but they are never allowed to face each other. After some time tempers cool off and peace is restored. "Implicit in their behaviour is the wise principle of arbitration," says Harney.

Another tribe of central Australia named Pitjantjatjars has a singular method of clear aggressive drives. They fight "ceremonially," following the rule of turn and turn about. The fight clears the air and there are no grudges. Once the quarrel settles the dispute, the fighting parties assist each other to receive first-aid.

The Pygmies of the Ituri Forest of central Africa have an interesting practice of shouting and inviting the entire community to partake in a quarrel even if it is a domestic squabble. Colin Turnbull lived among the Pygmy society for three years and found them unaggressive both emotionally and physically. They may get angry, slap children or quarrel over some issues but anger is short-lived and quarrels are rare. In fact, Turnbull points out that their occasional outlets of anger are designed to provide "insurance" against intentional, calculated aggression.

In our country, too, some of the tribal societies studied by anthropologists show remarkable signs of non-violence. The Todas of the Nilgiri Hills are pastoral tribals who live in amity with each other. They have their primitive weapons like clubs, bows and arrows which they take out only on ceremonial occasions. Likewise, the Baigas of Satpura region are unaggressive and friendly. An Anglo-Indian anthropologist, Verrier Elwin, records some interesting incidents he encountered when he stayed with the Baigas. During the World War II reports trickled in about the traumatic war events. An old tribal woman came to Elwin, full of concern, and remarked: "This is how God equalises things. Our sons and daughters die young of hunger or disease or the attack of wild beasts. The sons and daughters of the English could grow old in comfort and happiness. But God sends madness upon them, and they destroy each other, and so in the end their great knowledge and their religion are useless and we are all the same."

This does not, however, mean that the tribals know no violence and that they are the "noble savages." They, too, have their ill-tempers, vengeance parties, witch-craft and murders. But, as many case-studies have shown, the early societies, who had to counter the inhospitable nature, had learnt the art of amity and co-existence. They are ferocious but not unscrupulous. Among the Kung Bushmen of Africa if a quarrel becomes heated and if some one shoots a poisoned arrow, wounding a member of the other party, hostilities cease immediately and a "trance dance" starts. Everyone, including the rival parties, joins the dance, a kind of ritual healing of wounds.

In our country and culture, we, too, have been instructed to practice methods to control our aggressive tendencies, not through philosophical treatises or didactic literatures but through small everyday proverbs, anecdotes, songs and games. Tulsidas’s Ramcharit Manas records how during the Shiv-Parvati wedding, the bride’s party sings songs hurling reproaches at the bride-groom’s party and how everybody enjoys it. This method of giving vent to fear for the future of the daughter prevails in some parts of the country even today. Such folk songs are sung at weddings with impunity.

One folk tale, upholding the wisdom of controlling aggressive behaviour, shows how a merchant coming back home after 12 years discovers a stranger in his bedroom. In anger he takes out his sword to kill his wife and the man. But suddenly he remembers the words, "when angry, count up to a hundred."

He takes control of himself, wakes them up and discovers, much to his joy that the handsome young man was his son, he had left behind 12 years ago, as a little boy.

Out marshal games, the various sports competitions, the riddling contests to solve disputes were probably ingenuous devices invented to discharge the aggressive forces within us. The "Quantum leap" from his biological heritage to his cultured form, has landed the homo sapien on precarious grounds. His behaviour is now dominated by his culturally learned responses, than by predetermined reactions. Aggression, Eric Fromm says, is a biological given construct. But the biologically programmed aggressiveness is not malignant. It is life-serving and adaptive and is reflected in his instinct of "flight or fight" for survival. The harmful one is the malignant aggressiveness, characterised by cruelty and destructive tendencies.

In his much-acclaimed novel The Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows how the children stranded on an island create hell instead of heaven. These are British children, coming from the so-called "cultured" homes. The struggle for power leads them to quarrels, quarrels to fights and from thence to killings. One of the contrary, a Belgian physician, Dr Alphonse Van Schoote, while travelling among the islands of Melanesia, came to know of a real-life story. A group of children were left on one of the islands inadvertently. The elders, after leaving them on the island went out, planning to return to pick them up. But, a storm kept the elders away for some months. When they came to the island finally, fearing the worst, they found the children in a state of amity, co-operation and co-existence.

During his tour of India in the late 1980s William Golding was asked why his children in The Lord of the Flies create problems when other fictional children are recorded to have pulled on well (Kidnapped, The Coral Island). To this, Golding replied that he was tracing man’s fall from Grace. Man is a moral being, the Nobel Laureate said, but he has lost his original nature somewhere along the journey. Is it culture and civilisation, then, that makes us vicious?