Mnemonical Violence

Sociologist Shiv Visvanathan explains the hold of such cases on the public psyche. "Each deals with the violation of the body and in doing so threatens the state of normalcy," he says. "You can have genocide and riots but they will not bring a tear that an individualized story at the core of the great Indian family would bring. Statistical violence does not threaten, it belongs to a graph. But a violation of a norm represented in the violation of a body creates a threat, an anxiety and a disturbance which needs public rituals to restore a sense of the norm. They become almost a calendar of mnemonical violence."

- Atul Sethi, 'Our Chamber of Horrors.'

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