• Latest Dear Assamese people, for the sake of your hatred for Miyas, don’t forget to hate Buaries
• Dr Abhijit Ray - Aug 1, 2025

Few months back a series of horrific incidents happened in Assam. In one such incident, a ten-year-old boy was allegedly killed by his mother’s lover, and it appears that the mother was also part of the crime. In another incident, a television actor (Beharbari Outpost fame) was killed by the ex-lover of a married woman with whom the actor had reportedly begun an affair. The victim was brutally wounded and asked for help; no one from the crowd came forward to offer even the slightest assistance. These series of incidents were horrifying. It indicates a dysfunctional and dystopian society. Out of frustration and fear, people were expressing their anger and helplessness through the media.

However, in these expressions of anger and frustration through the media, it becomes evident that we are all observing these issues from a distance and through a narrow lens, often ignoring the larger picture. On media platforms, we tend to distance ourselves from the perpetrators by treating them as remote, disconnected entities. We are creating bubbles around ourselves by portraying them as the ‘evil other’- a move that gives us a false sense of safety and moral superiority.

We can observe a certain uniformity in the ‘mass expression’ of anger through the media in response to any such events. Firstly, multiple adjectives are often used for addressing the criminals who commits the crimes. These adjectives help us to feel morally superior by emphasizing how different we are from ‘them’. Secondly, we talk about the loss of moral standards in our society in a nostalgic tone—like, ‘What is happening in our society these days!’ Thirdly, we express our fear regarding sexual liberty—particularly for women. We specifically blamed married women (Buari in Assamese, a term that the media oversexualizes much like 'Bhabhi' in Northern Indian imagination) for their infidelity, while ignoring their psychological experiences and perspectives. Fourthly, we also point out particular communities as responsible for these crimes to distance ourselves from the criminals. Finally, we emphasize short-term solutions by demanding instant and extreme punishments, offering superficial moral lessons, and invoking fear of God and religion. But what if we viewed this series of incidents and the public outburst from a different perspective?

We don’t distance ourselves from someone in the community who does something good. In fact, if someone from the community brings achievement or fame, it makes us ‘proud,’ and we try to claim a small share of that individual achievement. However, when someone from our society, group, or community brings ‘shame’ upon us, we immediately distance ourselves from the share of responsibility we carry as part of a collective societal entity. We do this by using multiple adjectives to define the identity of the criminal or by affiliating the criminal with a particular group identity, so that we can satisfy our ego—that ‘we are good’ or ‘I am good,’ but the ‘other’ is evil. The immediate solution to the problem is to kill or destroy the ‘other’—the evil. This ‘other,’ which is synonymous with evil, could be an individual, a community associated with the criminal, a group, a gender, or anything ‘new’ that we are unfamiliar with.

One issue that has been particularly prominent on social media during the time of these series of incidents is the severe disgust expressed by people regarding the ‘outburst’ of women’s sexual desire or sexuality, which is quite ‘new’ in the public discourse of our society. Social media is providing a new platform for both men and women—for expression, validation, narcissistic fulfilment, and a virtual escape from harsh realities. From a cynical perspective, social media is becoming a space for cheap, commodified sexuality, superficial vanity, and an endless craving for validation. Particularly, a section of women is becoming a victim of it without even knowing it. This entire phenomenon appears pathetic and melancholic when seen from a bird’s-eye view, as if reflecting a collective existential emptiness. It reminds me of the mother’s character in the film Requiem for a Dream—perhaps the American society has already endured this pain of middle-aged boredom, addiction, and collective meaninglessness.

Different men are dealing with this new reality in various ways. Some men are becoming sexually adventurous (Assamese media has popularized the term ‘Buari lover’), some are desperately clinging to and imposing the patriarchal tradition of the past, while the majority timidly watch the entire ‘theatre.’ This timid group occasionally expresses disgust, anger, and frustration on social media or with their drinking buddies over any ‘visible outcome’ of the phenomenon; yet, they ‘maintain peace’ in their private spheres—either by compromising the male ego or by being an authoritarian in the family matters.

The private sphere is in conflict with the public sphere. Suddenly, with the advent of visual content-based media empires, sex has become a ‘scarce’ commodity to consume. The more you consume, the more you crave it. The omnipresence of virtual sexual stimulation content is reducing the intimate experience of sex. We are all still learning to cope with this new reality of our sexuality, but some people are doing so in harsh and tragic ways.

One scary aspect of these series of incidents was the video footage when the wounded man came out covered in blood, and no one offered even the minimum help. However, this is not the only incident in the state—similar incidents have happened before. It indicates an extreme form of a ‘low-trust society’. People don’t trust the judicial system, they don’t trust the government, they don’t trust the police, they don’t trust the media, they don’t trust their neighbouring country, they don’t trust institutions, they don’t trust women, they don’t trust men, they don’t trust Assamese, they don’t trust Miyas, they don’t trust tribal, they don’t trust each other, they don’t even trust a wounded man asking for help or a 10-year-old kid asking to live. A low-trust society at this level indicates the total failure of the political, economic, and social systems of this country. The scariest part is that we are living in a dystopian society—but like zombies, we are not even aware of it!

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