When I first read about the Stanford Prison Experiment, many of my deeply held beliefs were uncomfortably poked and unsettled. The experiment exposed the extent to which we, as a species, are vulnerable to being changed by situations and contexts that surround us. The experiment held in 1971, and led by Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford professor of Psychology, brought together a bunch of normal students, pre-screened for mental illness and criminal history, and assigned them roles – that of prisoners or prison guards.
While he laid down that no prisoner could be physically harmed, Zimbardo asked the guards to think of themselves as real guards in a real prison and to create an atmosphere in which the prisoners felt powerless. The experiment that was initially planned for two weeks but halted in the sixth day because of unexpected cruelty and “dehumanizing abuse” acted out by the participants of the study. Here´s what Zimbardo, in his own words, took away from what unfolded in those six days of the experiment:
“The study makes a very profound point about the power of situations — that situations affect us much more than we think, that human behaviour is much more under the control of subtle situational forces, sometimes very trivial ones, like rules and roles and symbols and uniforms, and much less under the control of things like character and personality traits than we ordinarily think as determining behavior.”
So why am I harping on a 41-year-old experiment that took place thousands of miles away from the current mess we are in, in our beloved country that’s befuddled with a democracy that it hasn’t handled well? Because I strongly notice the parallels between us and the prisoners in that experiment. Because we might be the only country in recent times that has accepted bandhs as a way of life for more than two decades. Because our status as citizens of Nepal is increasingly being eroded and rendered meaningless. The more the politicians do that for us, the more we incline to a sense of resignation that there is nothing progressive. The tragedy lies not in how much the ab of power start believing in their impunity, but really in how much those of us subjected to this abuse believe that we can’t do anything about it.
Surely, this is not the first instance of injustice. History is replete with examples. Among those examples, the stories passed through generations are the ones in which those who suffer call back what is rightfully due to them. After years of apparent hopelessness, they rise up to seize what is lost. They reclaim the basic right to live with dignity; visionary about one’s life and to work towards it, and a system of governance that supports that vision, or at least doesn’t work against it.
These stories have followed their own trajectories of coming to shape and fruition. But there is a common thread of evolution in all. They were all marked by a relentless form of citizen activism which tips at a certain point. There hasn´t been a single nation that led itself towards an inclusive path of prosperity without some revolt against a corrupt government. History has shown us that often, it is not about a single person’s or a single organization’s effort, but a cumulative force of several bursts of activism that at some point tip into a grand mass movement. Attaining a “critical mass” is the key here.
There has been some notable effort by sections of well-meaning Nepalese those without agendas to protest visibly against the ongoing atrocities of self-serving politicians and their plentiful sidekicks who are well-trained in the act of bullying the rest of us. Perhaps the only thing lacking in these efforts at this point is the critical mass that is vital to do a task of such size.
Difficult as it invariably is, it is important not to lose hope. It is important not to give up and resign. It is important to remember the past other than our own. Even the United States, a country that stands for exemplary nation building, had to battle with corrupt political machines for much of the 19th to early 20th century. Then there was the civil rights movement that had its own long struggle, taking formal shape as the Montgomery bus boycott snowballed from community to cities to the entire nation, leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – a historic moment for black Americans. Closer to home, we all know about the mass movement in India to seek independence from British rule. None of these struggles bore overnight results. Each story is about a sustained struggle. And each story tells us that no matter how disenfranchised we feel, we should not stop expressing dissatisfaction. Let our disenchantment find each other along these dark and muted corridors of citizen abuse, and let them coalesce into that critical mass that will someday topple the hegemony of bandhs, and all things related.
Bibhusha Kunwar belongs to the closet writers who write about things that bother them. But she has carried with herself a lifelong love for words, and hope to some day channel this love towards something more tangible than mere ramblings. She grew up in Nepal, lives in the US, working with data and surrounding herself with words. Email: bibhusha@gmail.com.
