These days Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, cannot walk more than a few steps without getting slapped or having objects thrown at him. In Haryana on March 28, someone flung eggs at him. On Friday, a young man in Dakshinpuri in Delhi slapped him. Then on Tuesday, Laali, an auto rickshaw driver in Delhi approached Kejriwal’s jeep with a huge garland, festooned the leader with one hand and whacked him across the face with the other.
Kejriwal was swift to claim this assault was the latest in a corporate conspiracy to undermine his campaign, but that did not prevent him from seizing the higher moral ground to meet with and forgive Laali the next day.
The slap, it seems, has a unique place in Indian life. A person might punch to enforce a point, but the sting of a slap lies in the accompanying humiliation and not in the force with which it is delivered.
In Hindi films, wronged heroines regularly deliver a few tight ones when the men around them violate boundaries, while playful slaps, cued by the background score or a shrill trilling laugh, are signals to lead the said men on. With no background score to aid interpretations in regular life, slaps tend to be viewed in the negative, which is why academic papers such as this one by Rakha Ray about the potent idiom of the slap are able to break it down into an act that either reinforces or temporarily reverses a position of power.
Politicians are not the only people getting slapped all the time across the country. Here are a few slaps threatened or administered in the last year by people of all classes and in all walks of life.
1. Tea seller slaps CM
The more high profile the individual humiliated, the more likely the perpetrator will not leave unscathed. A tea-seller who slapped Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on February 2 disappeared along with his mother days later, ostensibly because Hooda did not want him to speak to the media.
2. Uttarakhand CM slaps supporter
February 1 was Harish Rawat's first day in office in Uttarakhand. Hours before he was sworn in, Rawat turned the tables on the tradition of chief ministers being slapped. He rounded on one of his supporters for the strange reason that the said supporter was shouting “Harish Rawat” too loudly. With patrons like these, who needs enemies?
3. Yuvraj Singh’s father threatens to slap his son
When Sri Lanka thrashed India in the Twenty20 finals last week, outraged supporters pelted Yuvraj Singh’s house with stones. While others expressed concern at the outbreak of violence, the Indian cricketer's father said on national television on April 7 that he would like to slap his son as well for such a poor performance.
4. Govinda slaps an upcoming actor
Bollywood is no stranger to slaps in front of a camera. Govinda once again displayed his inability to distinguish screen life from the real when he slapped with no real provocation Santosh Rai, an aspiring film star back in 2008. This is one case where the underdog might triumph: the Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear the latest round of the case Rai filed against Govinda for humiliating him in public.
5. Police slap men on Delhi metro
When men kept crossing the boundaries between their coaches and the ladies section last November, the police decided to give them a little surprise. The train was halted and the men dragged out one by one, hit around the head a few times and then made to do squats – that other grand Indian tradition of humiliation.
6. Special mention: How can she slap?
This video is so far beyond the pale of safe for work that it might well incapacitate any profanity filters set by a company. In 2008, one of the hosts on Bindass Dadagiri, a violent reality television show, told a contestant Ravi Bhatia to do unspeakable things to himself. With an insolent grin, Bhatia said, “You go,” upon which Esha, the Goddess, slapped him, and he returned the favour. What follows is a most enlightening vocabulary lesson in the finest tradition of Bambaiyya swearing as crew members rushed to the stage and beat him up as he wailed, “But how can she slap? How can she slap?”
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Kejriwal was swift to claim this assault was the latest in a corporate conspiracy to undermine his campaign, but that did not prevent him from seizing the higher moral ground to meet with and forgive Laali the next day.
The slap, it seems, has a unique place in Indian life. A person might punch to enforce a point, but the sting of a slap lies in the accompanying humiliation and not in the force with which it is delivered.
In Hindi films, wronged heroines regularly deliver a few tight ones when the men around them violate boundaries, while playful slaps, cued by the background score or a shrill trilling laugh, are signals to lead the said men on. With no background score to aid interpretations in regular life, slaps tend to be viewed in the negative, which is why academic papers such as this one by Rakha Ray about the potent idiom of the slap are able to break it down into an act that either reinforces or temporarily reverses a position of power.
Politicians are not the only people getting slapped all the time across the country. Here are a few slaps threatened or administered in the last year by people of all classes and in all walks of life.
1. Tea seller slaps CM
The more high profile the individual humiliated, the more likely the perpetrator will not leave unscathed. A tea-seller who slapped Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on February 2 disappeared along with his mother days later, ostensibly because Hooda did not want him to speak to the media.
2. Uttarakhand CM slaps supporter
February 1 was Harish Rawat's first day in office in Uttarakhand. Hours before he was sworn in, Rawat turned the tables on the tradition of chief ministers being slapped. He rounded on one of his supporters for the strange reason that the said supporter was shouting “Harish Rawat” too loudly. With patrons like these, who needs enemies?
3. Yuvraj Singh’s father threatens to slap his son
When Sri Lanka thrashed India in the Twenty20 finals last week, outraged supporters pelted Yuvraj Singh’s house with stones. While others expressed concern at the outbreak of violence, the Indian cricketer's father said on national television on April 7 that he would like to slap his son as well for such a poor performance.
4. Govinda slaps an upcoming actor
Bollywood is no stranger to slaps in front of a camera. Govinda once again displayed his inability to distinguish screen life from the real when he slapped with no real provocation Santosh Rai, an aspiring film star back in 2008. This is one case where the underdog might triumph: the Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear the latest round of the case Rai filed against Govinda for humiliating him in public.
5. Police slap men on Delhi metro
When men kept crossing the boundaries between their coaches and the ladies section last November, the police decided to give them a little surprise. The train was halted and the men dragged out one by one, hit around the head a few times and then made to do squats – that other grand Indian tradition of humiliation.
6. Special mention: How can she slap?
This video is so far beyond the pale of safe for work that it might well incapacitate any profanity filters set by a company. In 2008, one of the hosts on Bindass Dadagiri, a violent reality television show, told a contestant Ravi Bhatia to do unspeakable things to himself. With an insolent grin, Bhatia said, “You go,” upon which Esha, the Goddess, slapped him, and he returned the favour. What follows is a most enlightening vocabulary lesson in the finest tradition of Bambaiyya swearing as crew members rushed to the stage and beat him up as he wailed, “But how can she slap? How can she slap?”
