Their eyes are hungry. Surly. Predatory. They are the yobs. The expression ‘yob’ is ‘boy’ spelt in reverse and represents uncouth, loutish and aggressive youth. They hang around in the streets, robbing people, threatening them and most times simply scaring the daylights out of anyone who is cowed down easily.

In his book Yob Nation, Francis Gilbert takes the reader on a horrifying journey through Britain’s yob culture. This is based on his and others’ real encounters with yobs. Kids as young as eight walk away with the most repugnant of attacks on the innocent victim. They take pictures on mobiles of distressed people being abused, just for kicks.

“It was funny to watch suited businessman scuttling like frightened mice as we approached. We felt so powerful, like magicians clicking our fingers and making people move!” said one yob to Gilbert.

Yobs may still be largely a problem for the UK, not in India. But what is pertinent is that some of the issues raised in the book are eerily global. One can easily identify with errant behaviour of youth, here in ‘spiritual’ India. That is why the book is important. It sounds the warning bell.

Based on his interactions with yobs and their victims, Gilbert is able to pinpoint the problem to some core issues: parental authority, media excess and cultural attitude. The last two are closely related.

Parents are not setting any boundaries for children, because they are scared of them or just not concerned, having their preoccupations. Instances of parents losing control of children are plenty, in our country too. With no parental authority, the gang becomes family, Gilbert realises.

With increasing isolation from each other, there are no common rules in society. Parents will defend their wards inspite of knowing he/she is wrong. It is only they, the parents, who have the right to tick the child. Nobody else. Equally damaging are the parents who bring up children in a state of fear. When finally they are let loose, they cause havoc. As also the parent who sets no limits and lets the child decide on everything.
In the hectic city lives most of us spend, with both parents out of home for long hours and children left to while away their time, what is lost is the learning that used to happen at home. Of values and rules that bind society. Parents have become mere providers of facilities.

The child is left to pick up rules from his own juvenile groups. Or the school, which having its own burdens of syllabus completion, cannot be bothered with ‘bringing up’ the children.

No wonder most of the children have no drive or ambition to do anything other than make money. After all, that is what their parents are immersed in!

The role of media cannot be dismissed. The images are provided by them. Whether it is that it is ‘cool to have girlfriends’ or that ‘sex is a physical need’ never mind whether you are 9 or 90! Television, advertisements and the print media are more obsessed with ‘selling’ products. Promoting materialism by appealing to the pleasure seeking side of its audience, and taking a free market tone, media tells the young readers that success is all about wearing the right clothes and buying the latest car!

In a show of being young and with the times, media heralds the new brave world where one boasts of exploits and encourages outrageousness. As Gilbert observes, it is ‘no longer enough to sleep with one person but with three of them and their dog!’

There can be no denying the brazen manner in which some members of the media have promoted the go-get-it culture. ‘I, me and myself’ is worshiped and sensitivity dismissed as being for ninnies.

To say it in the language of the media as Gilbert employs, “the public is to be head-butted by the headlines, whacked across the forehead with sensational stories and kicked in the crotch by their titillating images”.
Witness the campaign run by media in Bangalore against closing time of dance bars. The debates and editorials went on for some time, as though this was a life-shattering issue for the public. Well, drinking into the wee hours is the birthright of every citizen, right?

The worst fallout is the way public at large has become insensitive to crime. Bombarded with news of rapes and murders depicted in all their lurid details, the reader has no feelings left. These are mere titillating stories. Not someone’s tragedy. This culture of acceptance of crime poses serious consequences to the fabric of civilisation.
But what can we do? While Gilbert suggests that it is time to instill standards of behaviour among youth by forcing ‘civility and decency down their throats’ (taking a cue from the yobs!), this will have to start on a three-pronged footing. Parents need to wake up to what their responsibilities are. Education must go beyond ramming irrelevant information. And media must behave more responsibly.

If that is not done, we better brace ourselves to the arrival of the yobs on our streets, soon. The ingredients are all there.