Currently no one is paying me for anything. I am not doing anything for money. And I am finding it increasingly difficult to avoid that unavoidable question that strangers ask you every time you meet some – ‘so, what do you do?’ Or the slightly different original version from the ones who are no strangers to you – ‘what are you doing these days?’
My definitive answers like – ‘um..uh…actually I am writing’ (a lie that has been told for so long that now its almost a truth. At least no one can challenge it) or – ‘err.. eh.. I do not know’ or even the one that I deliver with dead-sure confidence – ‘aaa.. I think I am thinking of planning to do something’ - get some of the world’s best really-unbelieving, very-insulting and supremely-mocking expressions. Some of our Bollywood actors could learn from my questioners.
Anyway, before I digress, the story I am trying to tell is that, to avoid these questions and more to avoid giving my questioners more opportunity to practice their disbelieving, bewildered expressions, I have decided to look for a job. (Of course my depleting bank balance has got nothing to do with it. It’s all, their fault). And guess what I am having to do these days? Answer more questions!!
There are two kinds of organisations in this world. The kind that pays you nuts and the kind that ask you so many irrelevant questions before giving you the job that you go nuts. It’s the second kind that is making me stay up burning my midnight fuel etc and write this thing. What I found is that not only most of these questions are irrelevant - What’s your middle name? Did you ever change your name? Do you have dependents? Have you lived in another country recently? Why do you think you should be hired? - some of them are downright personal and insulting – What is your age? What is your gender? What is your religion? Are you married or single? Do you wish to take citizenship in another country? What was your last salary?!!! The guys who devised these forms/questionnaires are lucky they do not have to ask me these things in person. The answers they would get, if they ever do, will surely be more personal and more insulting.
Anyway, the one that floored me totally is – HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL? or HAVE YOU BEEN IMPLICATED IN A POLICE CASE BEFORE? Why on earth does an organisation that is supposed to remove poverty and HIV/AIDS from this world want to know if you have been to jail? What would they do with the answer? Is your chance of getting the job related to the answer to this question? How is it related? Are you sure to get the job if you have been to jail? No?
I have not been to jail. (Yet and touchwood). I have been to worse. But the question made me think about all the people I know who have been.
My brother went to jail when he was 17 or 18. (I am including being locked up in a police cell when I say jail). He went to jail because he was a rock star, irreverent, drove a red scooter and had long hair. My police father rescued him the next morning and there was no case registered. My brother is a musician and although a pest to the family, is a generally harmless guy.
A friend (a couple actually) went to jail because she and her boyfriend were sitting in a restaurant. The local women nearby complained there was prostitution going on in that restaurant. So my friends were arrested along with other people in that restaurant although probably the only thing they knew about prostitution is that it’s bad. The boy friend got into trouble in his company and had to change his job because of this. These two friends have a happy family with two kids now.
One more friend went to jail because he was involved in an accident and the other person died in that accident. There was a police case. But he was acquitted. He is also doing well in life.
Another group of friends had to go to jail along with a baby because they were caught with some marijuana while coming back from the mountain. They were released on bail. They had a party going back to the mountains every month during their one year trail. The state has freed them with their honour intact (ba-izzat bari) and they are partying still.
Yet another friend in South Africa was in jail because he and his brothers were coming back from a party and they were little drunk. They were released later. Although given the option from the beginning, they refused to pay bribe and chose going to jail instead. One of them is a highly placed government employee and others equally well known figures there.
Apart from these friends I know fellow activists who have been to jail for promoting homosexuality (as if it needs promoting), writing sexually explicit material in HIV/AIDS educational booklet (how do you talk HIV without talking sex?), being revolutionary and hundreds for being sex workers and for fighting apartheid in South Africa. I smoke marijuana, keep funny hair, very often take implicit economic favours in return of sexual ones, a few times I have even taken sexual favours in return of economic ones. I also very often bump people around while driving and am involved in a lot of drunken driving although indirectly. I write sexually explicit materials and not always for educational purposes, am a radical at heart and believe in destroying all authority including the state. Twice I was nearly in jail. Once in South Africa getting busted for smoking marijuana in a cricket match and the other time in Mozambique for not getting our passports properly stamped before entering the country. Both the times I was detained for a long time although I refused to enter the physical prison/cell/jail. And it scares the shit out of me to think how easy it is to go to jail, how easy to get arrested and how easy never to get a job in decent place later on because you are a criminal now!!!
So what is it with our almost vulgar fascination with crime and punishment? And more with vice and punishment? In this world where most people do not have food to eat, it is not criminal for Mukesh Ambani to build a 2 billion dollar personal house in congested Mumbai where there is no place to stand in the footpaths. Nor is it criminal for politicians to use state resources and power positions for nefarious nepotismic business deals. It is not a vice to take or give bribe, to jump queue, to flash money that is obviously not hard earned, to crack bad sexual jokes about women or to crack bad jokes in general (sorry about the frivolocity, could not let the opportunity pass). In a country like India why is it not criminal to spend so much money on defence and keep a white-eplephantal military force at poor people’s expense? Why is it not criminal to privatise natural resources? Why is it not criminal to be publicly anti-Muslim? The list is endless, but what I want to go back to is that piquing question, what is this dirty titillating thing that keeps us occupied with vice as crime while actual crime continue as norms and normal?
Crime, as definitions go, is an act that is injurious to another person or a group of persons. On The Theory of Punishment (see URL below) an author defines crime - “It is a crime only when the offense is of such a grave character that its occurrence would likely cause, in the "average citizen," a horror or an extreme repugnance or disgust. But; more than that, I suggest – a crime is an act, which, while it might be injurious to a particular person (though not necessarily), is injurious to the body politic…” If this is the definition of crime then none of the offenses under which my friends went to jail is a crime. Being a rock star, smoking marijuana, drinking, doing prostitution are not acts that are injurious to others or injurious to the body politic. But all these offenses do have punishments. And once you are punished you are an established criminal. Why do we have punishment? What is it that the state and the system want to achieve through punishment?
Deference, retribution, rehabilitation and removement (as in removing a criminal from opportunities to commit crime) are some of the reasons why punishment is considered to be necessary in criminal justice system. Going into criminal justice theories now is going to take a long time. If these are the reasons punishment is necessary then a sentenced term of punishment that one criminal serves is enough to defer, retribute, rehabilitate or remove them. Those who believe in the legal system should also believe that the law knows how much punishment is needed to achieve its goals. And the organisations that are asking this question that is making me write this thing are entities that believe in the legal system. Why are they then asking these question post one has been convicted, sentenced and punished? (We assume one has been convicted). What purpose do they then want to serve by life long persecution of criminals? If their intention behind this question is not persecution then I am sorry that I am a paranoid junkie. But I have a gut suspicion things are not so simple. Why then did my friend get into trouble in his company? Why then will you not get a visa to go to America or Europe although the reason they give you might be something else?
In criminal justice theories there are many explanations as to why we use punishment and how much punishment is to be used. From public torture to rehabilitation centres, the legal system has evolved much along with civilisation. We no longer need grotesque public displays of punishment to make people realise there is a law watching us.
There are also many theories about drug use, drinking and prostitution. They all try to understand the complexities of these situations. Many fascinating theories about our fascination with vice say that vice threatens to disrupt the constant illusive homogeneity societies want to maintain. I am not going to discuss them here. This already feels like boring discussion paper.
But what I am worried about is that unless the people, who design those questionnaires, the human resource experts who think they are doing a rummy good job of knowing and selecting people to do a job and above all, the above-it-all authorities and police forces who think nothing of using redundant laws to show their power and to momentarily spite people, learn these explanations, a whole lot of us will be in constant danger. At least I will be. I am not so worried about being to jail for a few days. (I hear it will be uncomfortable but I guess I will manage. 33 years with my mother has turned me into a tough chicken). But what I fear is, having to answer that dreadful question – HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL? To apply for a new job. To go to grad school. To pay my taxes. Even worse, to get a visa to Brazil!!!! Somebody stop them….
And for the questionnaire designers’ attention a small quote that might make us think some more about crime and punishment …
“It is an inherent difficulty in the administration of punitive justice that criminal law has a much closer connection with politics than has the law of civil relations. There is no great danger of oppression through civil litigation. There is constant fear of oppression through the criminal law. Not only is one class suspicious of attempts by another to force its ideas upon the community under penalty of prosecution, but the power of a majority to visit with punishment practices which a strong minority consider in no way objectionable is liable to abuse…” - Roscoe Pound
URL: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/BluePete/PunishmentTheory.htm)
P.S. Written a while ago
My definitive answers like – ‘um..uh…actually I am writing’ (a lie that has been told for so long that now its almost a truth. At least no one can challenge it) or – ‘err.. eh.. I do not know’ or even the one that I deliver with dead-sure confidence – ‘aaa.. I think I am thinking of planning to do something’ - get some of the world’s best really-unbelieving, very-insulting and supremely-mocking expressions. Some of our Bollywood actors could learn from my questioners.
Anyway, before I digress, the story I am trying to tell is that, to avoid these questions and more to avoid giving my questioners more opportunity to practice their disbelieving, bewildered expressions, I have decided to look for a job. (Of course my depleting bank balance has got nothing to do with it. It’s all, their fault). And guess what I am having to do these days? Answer more questions!!
There are two kinds of organisations in this world. The kind that pays you nuts and the kind that ask you so many irrelevant questions before giving you the job that you go nuts. It’s the second kind that is making me stay up burning my midnight fuel etc and write this thing. What I found is that not only most of these questions are irrelevant - What’s your middle name? Did you ever change your name? Do you have dependents? Have you lived in another country recently? Why do you think you should be hired? - some of them are downright personal and insulting – What is your age? What is your gender? What is your religion? Are you married or single? Do you wish to take citizenship in another country? What was your last salary?!!! The guys who devised these forms/questionnaires are lucky they do not have to ask me these things in person. The answers they would get, if they ever do, will surely be more personal and more insulting.
Anyway, the one that floored me totally is – HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL? or HAVE YOU BEEN IMPLICATED IN A POLICE CASE BEFORE? Why on earth does an organisation that is supposed to remove poverty and HIV/AIDS from this world want to know if you have been to jail? What would they do with the answer? Is your chance of getting the job related to the answer to this question? How is it related? Are you sure to get the job if you have been to jail? No?
I have not been to jail. (Yet and touchwood). I have been to worse. But the question made me think about all the people I know who have been.
My brother went to jail when he was 17 or 18. (I am including being locked up in a police cell when I say jail). He went to jail because he was a rock star, irreverent, drove a red scooter and had long hair. My police father rescued him the next morning and there was no case registered. My brother is a musician and although a pest to the family, is a generally harmless guy.
A friend (a couple actually) went to jail because she and her boyfriend were sitting in a restaurant. The local women nearby complained there was prostitution going on in that restaurant. So my friends were arrested along with other people in that restaurant although probably the only thing they knew about prostitution is that it’s bad. The boy friend got into trouble in his company and had to change his job because of this. These two friends have a happy family with two kids now.
One more friend went to jail because he was involved in an accident and the other person died in that accident. There was a police case. But he was acquitted. He is also doing well in life.
Another group of friends had to go to jail along with a baby because they were caught with some marijuana while coming back from the mountain. They were released on bail. They had a party going back to the mountains every month during their one year trail. The state has freed them with their honour intact (ba-izzat bari) and they are partying still.
Yet another friend in South Africa was in jail because he and his brothers were coming back from a party and they were little drunk. They were released later. Although given the option from the beginning, they refused to pay bribe and chose going to jail instead. One of them is a highly placed government employee and others equally well known figures there.
Apart from these friends I know fellow activists who have been to jail for promoting homosexuality (as if it needs promoting), writing sexually explicit material in HIV/AIDS educational booklet (how do you talk HIV without talking sex?), being revolutionary and hundreds for being sex workers and for fighting apartheid in South Africa. I smoke marijuana, keep funny hair, very often take implicit economic favours in return of sexual ones, a few times I have even taken sexual favours in return of economic ones. I also very often bump people around while driving and am involved in a lot of drunken driving although indirectly. I write sexually explicit materials and not always for educational purposes, am a radical at heart and believe in destroying all authority including the state. Twice I was nearly in jail. Once in South Africa getting busted for smoking marijuana in a cricket match and the other time in Mozambique for not getting our passports properly stamped before entering the country. Both the times I was detained for a long time although I refused to enter the physical prison/cell/jail. And it scares the shit out of me to think how easy it is to go to jail, how easy to get arrested and how easy never to get a job in decent place later on because you are a criminal now!!!
So what is it with our almost vulgar fascination with crime and punishment? And more with vice and punishment? In this world where most people do not have food to eat, it is not criminal for Mukesh Ambani to build a 2 billion dollar personal house in congested Mumbai where there is no place to stand in the footpaths. Nor is it criminal for politicians to use state resources and power positions for nefarious nepotismic business deals. It is not a vice to take or give bribe, to jump queue, to flash money that is obviously not hard earned, to crack bad sexual jokes about women or to crack bad jokes in general (sorry about the frivolocity, could not let the opportunity pass). In a country like India why is it not criminal to spend so much money on defence and keep a white-eplephantal military force at poor people’s expense? Why is it not criminal to privatise natural resources? Why is it not criminal to be publicly anti-Muslim? The list is endless, but what I want to go back to is that piquing question, what is this dirty titillating thing that keeps us occupied with vice as crime while actual crime continue as norms and normal?
Crime, as definitions go, is an act that is injurious to another person or a group of persons. On The Theory of Punishment (see URL below) an author defines crime - “It is a crime only when the offense is of such a grave character that its occurrence would likely cause, in the "average citizen," a horror or an extreme repugnance or disgust. But; more than that, I suggest – a crime is an act, which, while it might be injurious to a particular person (though not necessarily), is injurious to the body politic…” If this is the definition of crime then none of the offenses under which my friends went to jail is a crime. Being a rock star, smoking marijuana, drinking, doing prostitution are not acts that are injurious to others or injurious to the body politic. But all these offenses do have punishments. And once you are punished you are an established criminal. Why do we have punishment? What is it that the state and the system want to achieve through punishment?
Deference, retribution, rehabilitation and removement (as in removing a criminal from opportunities to commit crime) are some of the reasons why punishment is considered to be necessary in criminal justice system. Going into criminal justice theories now is going to take a long time. If these are the reasons punishment is necessary then a sentenced term of punishment that one criminal serves is enough to defer, retribute, rehabilitate or remove them. Those who believe in the legal system should also believe that the law knows how much punishment is needed to achieve its goals. And the organisations that are asking this question that is making me write this thing are entities that believe in the legal system. Why are they then asking these question post one has been convicted, sentenced and punished? (We assume one has been convicted). What purpose do they then want to serve by life long persecution of criminals? If their intention behind this question is not persecution then I am sorry that I am a paranoid junkie. But I have a gut suspicion things are not so simple. Why then did my friend get into trouble in his company? Why then will you not get a visa to go to America or Europe although the reason they give you might be something else?
In criminal justice theories there are many explanations as to why we use punishment and how much punishment is to be used. From public torture to rehabilitation centres, the legal system has evolved much along with civilisation. We no longer need grotesque public displays of punishment to make people realise there is a law watching us.
There are also many theories about drug use, drinking and prostitution. They all try to understand the complexities of these situations. Many fascinating theories about our fascination with vice say that vice threatens to disrupt the constant illusive homogeneity societies want to maintain. I am not going to discuss them here. This already feels like boring discussion paper.
But what I am worried about is that unless the people, who design those questionnaires, the human resource experts who think they are doing a rummy good job of knowing and selecting people to do a job and above all, the above-it-all authorities and police forces who think nothing of using redundant laws to show their power and to momentarily spite people, learn these explanations, a whole lot of us will be in constant danger. At least I will be. I am not so worried about being to jail for a few days. (I hear it will be uncomfortable but I guess I will manage. 33 years with my mother has turned me into a tough chicken). But what I fear is, having to answer that dreadful question – HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL? To apply for a new job. To go to grad school. To pay my taxes. Even worse, to get a visa to Brazil!!!! Somebody stop them….
And for the questionnaire designers’ attention a small quote that might make us think some more about crime and punishment …
“It is an inherent difficulty in the administration of punitive justice that criminal law has a much closer connection with politics than has the law of civil relations. There is no great danger of oppression through civil litigation. There is constant fear of oppression through the criminal law. Not only is one class suspicious of attempts by another to force its ideas upon the community under penalty of prosecution, but the power of a majority to visit with punishment practices which a strong minority consider in no way objectionable is liable to abuse…” - Roscoe Pound
URL: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/BluePete/PunishmentTheory.htm)
P.S. Written a while ago
Really enjoyed this piece a lot.This is a very very well written and transparent piece. I really like the way it has been written, the questions that it has raised and the ease and honesty of the piece. Looking forward to more political write up. And how about some 'Personal that is political':)
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