Aashish Mishra

Imagine that you are sitting alone in a park. Suddenly, a person calls you and throws a ball in your direction. It hits you in the face. Hurt and angry, you ask why he did that. He replies, “Oh, you looked lonely and sad and I thought I’d cheer you up.”
“By hitting me with a ball?” you question.

“Well, I did not mean to hit you. I intended for you to catch it. I wanted to play,” he answers.
To you, it does not matter what his intention was. To you, what matters is you got a bloody nose from the actions of a total stranger. Despite someone else’s noblest meanings, you ended up getting hurt.

And the worst part, the person does not even apologise and instead lectures: “You know, if you get angry at every person trying to cheer you up, no one will dare approach you in the future.” And he goes around telling other people in the park that you got mad at him for wanting to make you happy.

Does this sound absurd? Does this sound infuriating? Well, this is the exact thing that happens to marginalised groups every day on the internet.
Earlier this week, Rukshana Kapali was denied her constitutional right to education on account of her gender. Her university did not provide her the admit card for her board exams.
While they formally claimed that it was because one of her documents was insufficient, Rukshana and many others online believed that it was because she was a transgender woman.

She later received her card but the whole incident was a harrowing ordeal that brought to light the institutional exclusions she and other transgender students face in their entire life.
But then an online portal saw it fit to use Rukshana’s name and compare her experience to review a Bollywood movie which itself has been criticised for propagating sympathy instead of empathy and perpetuating the saviour complex. I cannot question the content of the review as I have not watched the movie and even if I had, I have not lived the experiences it portrays to adequately grasp and critique it. But what does need to be discussed is the argument raised in defence of that review – that it was meant to raise awareness about the plight of transgender people and condemn the discriminations they face.

Sure, this may have been the intent but the impact it had was that it trivialised Rukshana’s pain. By equating her agony to a fictional film, it lessened the gravity of the situation. The portal did not educate people on the issue, it used to issue to sell its review – regardless of whether they meant to or not.
For many of us, it is indeed hard to separate intent from impact for our privilege shields us from understanding that there is a difference between the two.

As a cisgender, heterosexual, Brahmin man, I can never fully comprehend the ways in which things as simple as words or gestures further discrimination against the people around me. So, I should try to sincerely listen and understand. It is not the thought that counts, it is the action.
Focusing on intent gives more space to the privileged rather than the oppressed. It ensures that you and your perspective, and not the experiences of those you claim to focus on, shape the conversation.

To understand, let us take the example of the movie review again. By using Rukshana’s identity, it got more views for the portal that published it, not support for the issue it was supposedly raising – which is the outright definition of appropriation.
Intent makes everything about you, when quite frankly, it isn’t.