Desecration Aftermath

Two trains have been burnt in Maharashtra by Dalits protesting the vandalisation of an Ambedkar statue. Protestors also burnt 77 buses and damaged private vehicles. "We will do anything to defend our Babasaheb," claimed a protestor. "We are trying to be as peaceful as possible," added another. (source: NDTV)

Dear protesters,
I understand that you aspire to be an angry mob, and like all reputable angry mobs from good families, you can't be too bothered about rational logic. But surely, you ought to put a little more thought into your acts of vandalism.

To start off with, how does randomly burning trains and buses vindicate the desecration of a statue? If someone desecrates a statue of your leader, you must retaliate by desecrating statues of their leaders (or better still, desecrating their leaders), not by burning trains and buses. Statistically speaking, the rich, upper caste types you are protesting against are far more likely to be traveling by air, while the oppressed class, such as yourself, gets to travel in trains and buses. By burning these means of transport, you are causing a greater disservice to yourself and your brethren. Know who your audience is, as any successful manager will tell you. Next time, try and burn airplanes and luxury cars instead.

Secondly, while it is commendable that you are prepared to do anything to defend your leader, I would like to point to the fact that your leader is, to put it bluntly, quite dead. Realistically, you have as much chance of protecting Babasaheb as protecting an ichthyosaur (keen readers of this blog might point out that there are several degrees of deadness between Babasaheb and an ichthyosaur, but I shall safely ignore that for the sake of the current argument). I must therefore urge you not to aim for the impossible, and channel your mob fury towards more practical protestations, like moral decrepitude or the new Slayer album.

Lastly, if you do decide to have a go at it, give it your best shot. There's no point in burning just a couple of trains and stopping there because you are trying to be as peaceful as possible. It is just this sort of half-hearted attitude that inculcates self-defeatism. Many a riot has been reduced to a mere protest because someone decided they should be as peaceful as possible. This sort of misguided pacificism must not be tolerated. Every time you march in protest, try to convert it to a full-fledged riot. And every time you riot, strive for an uprising. You can only succeed by aiming high. But please, and I cannot stress this enough, please choose your battles wisely.