Pavan Verma
Hindu Voice UK, August 2008

Recently the subject of knife crime in Britain has caught the national attention more than ever before after a series of stabbing incidents, many of which have been fatal.

A very long time ago, I used to carry a knife around. It was pretty stupid, and in hindsight I regret it. The question is: what was it that made me, a little Indian boy from a religious family, think it was a good idea to carry a knife around?

It’s hard to pin down one’s journey into wannabe gangsterism to one factor. But a lot of young people, myself included, start to act in a way that is perceived to gain us respect by our peers.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to be known as “strong” per se. In fact there is something innate in human beings that makes us respect people who can fight or wield weapons. This is due to a million years of history in which men who could fight were more likely to be able to secure food and protect their families.

The question is how, while accepting the unavoidable allure of violence, society can channel this basic human tendency so that it isn’t so mindless and destructive. The problem today is that many young people try to act hard by involving themselves in mindless violence that ruins lives, and think that starting trouble with passers by is OK. In trying to combat such violence one of the problems, which has failed to gain significant mention, is the glorification of violence and thuggery in many parts of modern culture, so much so that many people feel that acting tough is a key to being respected.

It has been said by a great Hindu philosopher of modern times that “entertainment moulds the attitudes of an entire nation; therefore entertainment should seek to be constructive and educative.”

The glorification of stupid mindless violence in entertainment is quite pronounced in certain forms of music and film. Once I was on a basketball court with a few friends, and some guys came and started playing on the same court. After a few minutes it was clear they wanted to cause trouble with us and within an hour or so an altercation broke out. It was stupid and mindless. Amusingly at the end of it, one of the troublemakers said something along the lines of “Sorry about the trouble, it’s just that we’ve all just watched ‘Above the Rim’, so were all fired up.”

Above the Rim is a gangster/basketball movie, and although it probably doesn’t intend to, it makes “acting hard” and being indiscriminately violent seem like a cool desirable thing to do. Like so many other movies, and an entire genre of music which has grown very popular over the years. Under the influence of this kind of culture, even middle class kids who live in nice houses and go to private schools gradually start yearning to act tough and to convince themselves that they are the “real deal” often begin carrying weapons around with them.