The other day, I was standing at a roadside eatery, asking what was available. Another person stood beside me when a third, approaching from behind, gently but firmly nudged me aside to reach for a bottle of water. No “excuse me”, no request, not even an acknowledgement. What stayed with me was the assumption that my space could simply be rearranged without consideration. Around the same time, I was talking to a friend on his motorcycle when I noticed a car approaching. I asked my friend to move so we would not obstruct it. The car passed. I then walked towards my own car, only to find that the same motorist had parked his car directly in front of mine. When I asked him to move, he politely explained that his wife was waiting and he needed just two minutes. His reason may have been genuine. What struck me was the asymmetry: I had considered his convenience; he had considered mine and decided his need took precedence.
We encounter variations of this every day. A driver takes the wrong side of the road and expects everyone else to make way. Someone parks in front of a shop, obstructing its customers. Another occupies the footpath, leaving pedestrians to negotiate their way around merchandise. Someone jumps a queue because their time is apparently more valuable. We dismiss these as a lack of civic sense. But perhaps there is something deeper at work. Why do we so readily assume that others must absorb the inconvenience created by our own choices? At what point does another human being become merely an obstacle to our convenience?
There is another dimension to this disregard for personal space that deserves attention, particularly when we consider the everyday experiences of women. A friend recently made me look at my roadside encounter from a different perspective. What might appear to be a minor physical intrusion to a man can carry an entirely different meaning for a woman who experiences unwanted touching in public spaces. It can be intimidating, humiliating and deeply violating. I cannot claim to know that experience, but I can recognise the importance of the boundary being crossed. At the same time, we must distinguish deliberate intrusion from the unavoidable physical proximity imposed by poverty and overcrowding. When twenty people share a ten-by-ten-foot room, physical contact may be an unfortunate consequence of their living conditions, not an expression of disrespect. The distinction lies in intention, consent and the recognition of another person’s autonomy. Dignity begins with acknowledging that another person’s body and personal space are not ours to claim.
That assumption of entitlement is also a small exercise of power. It requires neither wealth nor official authority; sometimes it is enough to believe that nobody will object. The scale changes as we move through society. The shopkeeper occupies public space, the employer delays wages, the official makes a citizen run from one desk to another, and an institution treats a legitimate grievance as an irritation. What begins as casual entitlement can, when backed by institutional authority, become a much more consequential denial of dignity. The relationship between the powerful and the powerless is often defined not just by what is denied, but by how the person seeking it is made to feel.
The recent protest by Delhi Police personnel against the treatment of their colleagues by lawyers offers another dimension. The confrontation at Shahdara police station and the subsequent mobilisation of personnel brought questions of institutional respect and grievance redressal into public view. The allegations require fair investigation, but the collective assertion itself is significant. A sense of indignity that might otherwise remain an individual grievance can become a demand for recognition when people come together.
This brings me back to Mohammad Irfan’s repeated insistence on “Garima” during the student protests. His words resonated because he reminded us that a full stomach alone is not life. Human beings want more than survival. They want respect, opportunity, agency and the assurance that their existence matters. An Indian citizen, without any conventional marker of authority, was articulating a constitutional aspiration with remarkable conviction. His insistence was not a demand for special treatment; it was a demand for what should never have been conditional.
Ambedkar’s idea of fraternity gives this argument its constitutional foundation. The Preamble promises the dignity of the individual. Fraternity asks us to recognise that dignity in people beyond our families, communities and social circles. Equality may be written into law, but fraternity must find expression in how we treat one another. We cannot demand respect for ourselves while treating another person’s dignity as negotiable.
There is, perhaps, a larger contradiction we must confront. We often speak of the arrogance of those in power as though it exists independently of the society we inhabit. Yet the concentration of power at the top does not exist in an entirely different moral universe from the small exercises of entitlement at the bottom. The attitudes we practise, tolerate and normalise collectively shape the social environment in which institutions and leaders operate. This does not make every citizen equally responsible for the actions of the state; those wielding public authority remain accountable for their decisions. But the pyramid of power is sustained not only at its summit. Its foundations are also formed by the everyday assumptions through which we recognise, or deny, another person’s worth.
Perhaps the collective consciousness of a civilisation is reflected in this pyramid, from its smallest everyday interactions to its highest institutions. The question raised by that small push is ultimately much larger than the space between two people. What kind of country are we creating if dignity remains something people must repeatedly assert, defend and fight for? Perhaps civilisation begins when nobody has to establish their importance, raise their voice or join a protest simply to be treated as a human being.
(Views expressed by the columnist are personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the news portal)
