A recent incident in Jiangyou, a small city in Sichuan, created such a furore that special police were called in from outside and State censorship was put into overdrive. As in India, here too social media was the trigger for the outpouring of anger on the streets. Two videos went viral: the first showed a 14-year-old being bullied by her classmates, slapped, made to strip and kneel, kicked from the back, and beaten with a rod for hours. The second showed her parents kowtowing at the feet of an official who didn’t even bother to glance at them.
What shocked those who watched these videos was not just the brutality of the bullies, but their cocky reply when the victim warned them that her father would complain to the police: “We’ve been there before, do you think we’re afraid? We came out in less than 20 minutes.” The same arrogance was reflected in the way an official carried on shouting instructions on a loudspeaker as the victim’s parents crawled towards him and then, distraught at his indifference, fell back on the floor.
What added to the anger was the vulnerability of the victim’s family: her father was a labourer and her mother was deaf and mute. It also became known that the girl had been bullied earlier in school.
The day after the second video went viral, residents spontaneously began gathering outside the government headquarters. They were let into the conference room, where the police gave their version of what action they had taken. They justified the two-week delay in their response by saying that’s how long it had taken to get a medical report of the victim’s injuries. When these were certified as minor, they had proceeded with punitive action against the bullies: two were to be sent to correctional institutes, and the third, just 13, had been reprimanded and her parents warned.
Expectedly, the police’s lame explanation satisfied nobody. They made their disapproval known, demanding that, at the very least, the bullies’ parents should apologise. However, while this was going on, outside, the crowd was swelling. People were giving speeches, gathering in groups. As the police moved in to disperse them, people argued with them. That’s when the police began pouncing on individuals, dragging away protesters, beating them and herding them in vans used to ferry pigs. It took till 1 am to clear the crowd.
But the next morning, they turned up again. The violent response from the police to their peaceful gathering had shocked them. Media reports quoted them as shouting at the police from behind the barricades: “You have children too, and you’ll encounter similar situations. We don’t want the government to be so high and mighty... The people’s police serve the people, and I believe they have a conscience... We want an explanation from the government, not an attack on it….We are all parents. Our children are in school and school is about to start. We need justice for the people.” It was no use. The police simply overpowered these vocal protesters, took them away, dispersed the crowd and fanned out across the city.
The incident has left a disturbing impact on people. One netizen wrote an essay titled: “How do those who serve the people accept the people’s kneeling?” Another wrote: “Her mother is deaf-mute, her father is disabled. They can’t speak, so we speak!” A poem on the mother ends thus: “A fire burning fiercely in my throat/Jiangyou mother can’t vomit/A Jiangyou mother can’t spit it out/ One hundred thousand Jiangyou mothers vomited together for her/Spit out a sea of fire.’’
