This is about a social hierarchy that teaches people that authority is not derived from law or ethics, but from age and traditional conventions. The assumption that the victim will not retaliate, will not talk back – the joint family politics methodology
The ₹62-lakh civil lawsuit by a north Indian female flat owner in Bengaluru is not the issue. It is a manifestation of the attitude of patriarchal axx-holes that prevails in every city in India. There is a video on social media of a bus conductor slapping a boy student hard enough to injure him in a Karnataka city bus. Why does a bus conductor with a lowly salary feel authoritative enough to slap a male student residing in his study pursuing education? Is it the joint family concept of age being superior? How did retired men in that Bengaluru apartment society, who doddle around their d**ks all day commenting on other people’s lives, feel it is okay to barge into a female resident’s flat and harass her when she was entertaining guests. There is another video of a person harassing a young executive trying to buy petrol for his bike at a Bengaluru petrol station. Kannadigas may be violent. Let me tell you from my experience. Other communities (except Andhraites, Punjabis, Baloch, Garhwalis and Rajasthanis) have their own coercion technique. Bengalis look hurt and cheated until you follow their prescribed lifestyle. Tamilians are manipulative and calculating. Malayalis will keep smiling until they have hoodwinked you into doing what they want you to do. North Eastern people will either ignore you and pretend you do not exist until you start following their body language. Then they start their demands with unncessary grinning 24X7. Kumaonis will keep piling on for freebies. Nepalis, Biharis, Purvanchalis and Bangladeshis are passive aggressive. They will keep politely pressurizing you to do their bidding. Before you realise it, you will become unintended slave for everything. Then there is the arm-twisting of the Indian matriarch. A boy trying to lose body fat and a girl trying to become more fit will always be accosted with time honoured piles of carbohydrates killing all fitness for all parties. Someone following a fitness regime or intermittent fasting will be offered heavily sugared tea with deep fried maida flatbread after he or she completes 50 to 100 Hindu pushups. Any attempt to kick these anti-social elements or blotchy representatives of joint family politics is going to backfire on a social level.
The ₹62-lakh civil lawsuit filed by a north Indian woman flat owner in Bengaluru is not, by itself, a sensational legal dispute. It is a mirror held up to the everyday authoritarianism that quietly structures urban life in India. The number attached to the lawsuit only provides scale; the real story lies in the social behaviour that made such a confrontation almost inevitable. Across cities, neighbourhoods, buses, offices, and petrol stations, ordinary people routinely assume power over others they perceive as weaker, younger, poorer, female, or socially vulnerable. This behaviour cuts across language, region, and class, and it thrives because it is normalised, excused, and rarely punished in proportion to the harm it causes.
Consider the now-viral video of a bus conductor in a Karnataka city slapping a schoolboy hard enough to injure him. The incident raises a deeper question than the immediate outrage suggests. Why does a public transport employee, modestly paid and bound by service rules, feel entitled to physically assault a student whose only “crime” is to exist within a system he cannot control? The answer is not about the individual conductor alone. It is about a social hierarchy that teaches people that authority is not derived from law or ethics, but from momentary positional power. The uniform, the age gap, the public setting, and the assumption that the victim will not retaliate combine to create a sense of impunity. This is not discipline; it is humiliation as governance.
The same impulse surfaces in residential spaces that are supposed to be private and safe. In the Bengaluru apartment society case, retired men allegedly entered a woman’s flat uninvited and harassed her while she was entertaining guests. These were not law enforcement officers or emergency responders. They were residents who believed that age, gender norms, and informal social standing gave them the right to police another adult’s personal life. This behaviour reveals a deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset: women’s autonomy is conditional, their privacy negotiable, and their homes open to scrutiny if they are perceived to be stepping outside an unwritten moral code.
This is about a social hierarchy that teaches people that authority is not derived from law or ethics, but from age and traditional conventions. The assumption that the victim will not retaliate, will not talk back – the joint family politics methodology.
What makes such incidents especially disturbing is how ordinary they are. They are not extraordinary crimes committed by fringe actors; they are everyday transgressions by people who see themselves as respectable members of society. The retired men likely believe they were “protecting society” or “maintaining culture.” The bus conductor may justify his action as enforcing discipline. These justifications are dangerous precisely because they sound reasonable within a culture that prizes obedience over rights and conformity over freedom.
Another video from Bengaluru shows a man harassing a young executive at a petrol station for no legitimate reason. The aggressor appears emboldened by the public setting, assuming that social pressure will silence the victim. Such confrontations are performances of dominance. They rely on the expectation that the target will avoid escalation to protect their job, reputation, or safety. The aggressor counts on the crowd’s indifference or tacit support, and often gets it.
These episodes are often framed as regional or linguistic problems, especially when they occur in cities with strong local identities. Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai—each city is periodically accused of harbouring uniquely aggressive or intolerant populations. This framing is misleading. While local contexts shape how power is expressed, the underlying behaviour is national. Authoritarian impulses are learned early, reinforced by families, schools, workplaces, and political rhetoric that equates strength with domination.
At this point, conversations often slide into stereotyping entire communities, attributing specific coercive behaviours to linguistic or regional groups. This is where the analysis must slow down and become more honest. Generalisations about “Kannadigas,” “Bengalis,” “Tamilians,” “Malayalis,” “North Eastern people,” “Kumaonis,” “Nepalis,” “Biharis,” or any other group may reflect individual experiences, but they risk replicating the same logic of reduction and dehumanisation that fuels everyday harassment. The logic on the Western Indian border is similar. The Baloch are good and peaceful, law-abiding people unless the law is draconian and is dictated by Islamabad; not when the law is their own local, tribal law. Pakistani Punbabis are always looking down during a conversation to sneak in and circumcise other men and force themselves into any women of any religion. They still act like the uneducated hordes of Turkic invaders their mothers were exploited by. Pakistani Sindhis are still not sure what happened to them. When we turn lived frustration into ethnic caricature, we stop examining power and start blaming identity.
What people often describe as regional “traits” are better understood as socially learned negotiation styles shaped by history, economy, and local hierarchies. In some contexts, power is expressed through overt aggression; in others, through moral pressure, emotional withdrawal, passive resistance, or bureaucratic delay. None of these methods are inherent to a people. They are adaptive behaviours developed in response to scarcity, insecurity, and rigid social structures. When individuals from these backgrounds move into shared urban spaces, their styles clash, and without strong civic norms, conflict becomes personal.
Urban India is particularly vulnerable to these frictions because it combines density with weak enforcement of civic rights. Millions live cheek by jowl without a shared understanding of boundaries. The law exists on paper, but enforcement is inconsistent, slow, and often biased. In this vacuum, informal authority flourishes. Resident welfare associations act like mini-states. Conductors, guards, clerks, and petty officials wield disproportionate power over citizens who fear delay, harassment, or retaliation more than injustice itself.
Gender magnifies this imbalance. Women are policed more aggressively, judged more harshly, and offered less benefit of doubt. A woman entertaining guests becomes a subject of suspicion; a man doing the same is invisible. A woman asserting her rights is labelled aggressive; a man is called firm. Patriarchy does not always shout; it often whispers through unsolicited advice, moral concern, and “friendly” warnings that quickly turn threatening when ignored.
Class also plays a decisive role. Students, migrants, service workers, and young professionals are frequent targets because they lack local networks and political backing. They are told, implicitly and explicitly, to “adjust.” Adjustment has become a euphemism for surrendering rights to maintain peace. Over time, this culture teaches aggressors that intimidation works and teaches victims that resistance is costly.
The tragedy is that many of the same people who suffer such treatment reproduce it when they gain even a little power. A harassed tenant becomes an overbearing society member. A bullied student becomes a bullying supervisor. Without conscious effort to break the cycle, oppression simply changes hands. This is why focusing solely on individual incidents misses the point. The problem is systemic, not episodic.
Social media videos have made these dynamics visible, but visibility alone does not guarantee change. Outrage is often fleeting, selective, and politicised. One incident becomes a symbol of regional intolerance; another is dismissed as an aberration. Rarely do we ask why citizens feel so little faith in formal grievance mechanisms that they resort to public shaming as their primary defence.
True reform requires rebuilding the idea of civic behaviour. Cities must move beyond informal moral policing to formal rights-based governance. Resident associations need clear legal limits. Public service workers must be trained and held accountable for misconduct. Schools must teach conflict resolution, consent, and boundaries as seriously as they teach obedience. Most importantly, citizens must stop excusing everyday cruelty as cultural quirk or personal temper.
Equally important is resisting the temptation to rank communities by perceived aggressiveness or manipulation. Such comparisons may feel cathartic, but they obscure the shared responsibility to dismantle oppressive norms. Every region in India contains kindness and cruelty, generosity and control. What differs is not the moral capacity of people, but the social permission structures around them.
The woman who filed the ₹62-lakh lawsuit is asserting something radical by Indian standards: that her dignity has measurable value, and that harassment has consequences. Whether she wins or loses in court, the act itself challenges a culture that expects women to endure quietly. Similarly, every student who speaks up against abuse, every commuter who records misconduct, and every resident who refuses to “adjust” chips away at the assumption that power flows downward without resistance.
India’s cities will only become more diverse, more crowded, and more stressful. Without a conscious shift from domination to coexistence, incidents like those in Bengaluru will multiply, not diminish. The choice is not between regional pride and personal freedom, or between social order and individual rights. The real choice is between a society that normalises everyday violence and one that insists, patiently and persistently, on mutual respect.
Ultimately, the issue is not who behaves badly, but why bad behaviour is tolerated, rationalised, and reproduced. Until that question is addressed honestly, lawsuits, viral videos, and public outrage will remain symptoms, not solutions.
