There is something deeply disturbing about the way society reacts when a young girl cries for help.
Sometimes people intervene. Sometimes the police act. Sometimes the media reports the incident. But increasingly, another phenomenon has become visible: people stand around, record videos, watch, comment, circulate and move on.
The question is not merely why a particular crime happened.
The larger question is: What has happened to the psychology of the society that watches it happen? Answering it honestly is the starting point for the psychological revolution India needs on relationships, consent and human dignity.
The recent incident reported from Jamui, Bihar, involving a schoolgirl and a male classmate who were stopped and harassed while returning from coaching, has once again brought this uncomfortable question before society. Videos of the incident circulated on social media and police action followed, with three minors apprehended (ThePrint).
But an incident should not become merely another viral video.
It should become an opportunity for society to examine itself.
Key Takeaways
- A psychological revolution on relationships and consent means replacing silence and surveillance with honest, age-appropriate conversation — not loosening standards of behaviour.
- Attraction is natural; harassment, coercion and assault are violations of consent and dignity. Conflating the two — or blaming the victim — is part of the problem.
- Real change needs four things moving together: family conversation, school-level life-skills education, media and platform responsibility, and swift, certain legal consequences for offenders.
Table of Contents
- 1. We Have Created a Strange Silence Around Human Relationships
- 2. Attraction and Abuse Must Never Be Placed in the Same Category
- 3. The Danger of Treating Relationships as a Taboo
- 4. The Entertainment Industry Also Has a Responsibility
- 5. The Most Disturbing Transformation: The Spectator
- 6. Why Young People Need Conversation, Not Only Surveillance
- 7. Schools and Colleges Cannot Remain Outside the Conversation
- 8. Parents Need a New Language
- 9. Boys Also Need Education — Not Merely Warnings
- 10. The Digital World Has Changed the Psychology of Spectatorship
- 11. From “Don’t Talk About It” to “Talk Responsibly”
- 12. What a Psychological Revolution Could Look Like
- 13. Vision 2047 Needs More Than Economic Development
- 14. A Responsibility Shared by Everyone
- 15. Law Must Create Consequences That Cannot Be Ignored
- The Real Revolution Begins Inside the Mind
1. We Have Created a Strange Silence Around Human Relationships
Human beings experience attraction, affection, curiosity, friendship and emotional attachment. These are not inventions of modern society. They are part of human development.
Yet many families find it extremely difficult to discuss these subjects with their children.
Parents can comfortably discuss examination marks, career, money, marriage and property. But when a son or daughter wants to discuss attraction, friendship, emotional attachment or relationships with the opposite sex, the conversation often suddenly becomes uncomfortable.
The child is told:
“Don’t talk about these things.”
But nature does not disappear because adults stop talking about it.
Silence does not eliminate curiosity.
It merely pushes curiosity towards other sources.
And today those sources include social media, pornography, films, influencers, anonymous internet forums and peers—many of which may provide incomplete, distorted or commercialised representations of relationships.
The result is a dangerous information vacuum.
2. Attraction and Abuse Must Never Be Placed in the Same Category
This distinction is fundamental.
A young person developing an attraction towards another person is not, by itself, a social crime.
A friendship between a boy and a girl is not automatically immoral.
Two consenting adults developing a relationship is not the same thing as coercion.
But harassment, intimidation, unwanted touching, sexual assault and rape are violations of another person’s dignity, bodily autonomy and consent.
A psychologically mature society must therefore teach two things simultaneously:
“Your feelings are not something to be ashamed of.”
And:
“Another person’s consent and boundaries are not yours to violate.”
That combination is much more powerful than either extreme—complete suppression on one side or irresponsible permissiveness on the other.
3. The Danger of Treating Relationships as a Taboo
When a subject is never discussed openly, young people often learn about it indirectly.
WHO’s current guidance on comprehensive sexuality education emphasises age-appropriate, scientifically accurate education about bodies, relationships, consent, safety, rights and communication. Importantly, WHO reports that well-designed programmes do not increase sexual activity; evidence indicates that they can improve knowledge, promote safer decision-making and reduce risky behaviour.
This is an important lesson for Indian society.
Sex education should not be understood simply as teaching children about sexual activity.
At different ages, it can mean teaching:
respect for one’s own body;
respect for another person’s body;
personal boundaries;
good touch and bad touch;
emotional development;
friendship;
gender equality;
consent;
responsible digital behaviour;
pornography literacy;
how to respond to pressure;
how to seek help;
and how to build respectful relationships.
WHO’s guidance specifically places relationships, respect, consent, bodily autonomy, gender equality, communication and help-seeking within this broader educational framework.
This is not about making children sexually aware prematurely.
It is about making them socially and emotionally responsible.
4. The Entertainment Industry Also Has a Responsibility
Cinema and popular culture have enormous influence over how society imagines relationships.
Romance, attraction, desire and sexuality are legitimate subjects for art. There is nothing inherently wrong with portraying them.
The problem begins when entertainment repeatedly blurs the distinction between romance and harassment, persistence and consent, domination and attraction, or voyeurism and entertainment.
A society repeatedly exposed to certain images can gradually become accustomed to them.
But this does not mean that films or Bollywood alone cause sexual violence. Human behaviour is far more complicated. Family environment, social norms, peer influence, education, inequality, alcohol and drug use, pornography, criminal opportunity, enforcement, individual behaviour and many other factors can interact.
Therefore, blaming one industry for the entire problem would be an oversimplification.
The real responsibility belongs to the entire ecosystem of society — another reminder that a psychological revolution cannot be outsourced to any single industry.
5. The Most Disturbing Transformation: The Spectator
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is not always about the perpetrator.
It is about the spectator.
Imagine a girl screaming for help while several people stand nearby.
One person records.
Another laughs.
Another watches silently.
Another comments.
Another forwards the video.
And someone perhaps says:
“Why was she there?”
This is how victimisation can acquire a second layer.
The person who is already frightened may discover that society is more interested in the spectacle than in her dignity.
The widespread availability of smartphones has created a new social phenomenon: the camera can become more important than the conscience.
A person sees an incident and instinctively reaches for the phone instead of helping.
This requires a cultural correction.
Technology should help create evidence for law enforcement when appropriate—but the dignity and safety of the victim must come first. Recording for entertainment, circulating identifiable videos or turning another person’s humiliation into social-media content can deepen the harm.
6. Why Young People Need Conversation, Not Only Surveillance
Indian society often tries to protect young people through restrictions.
Where are you going?
Who are you meeting?
Why are you talking to him?
Why are you talking to her?
Why are you travelling together?
Why are you wearing this?
Why are you using your phone?
Some parental supervision is obviously necessary, particularly for minors.
But surveillance alone cannot produce maturity.
A young person who has never been taught how to make responsible decisions may simply learn how to hide those decisions.
The objective should therefore be guidance rather than fear.
Parents should create an environment where a child can say:
“I like someone.”
“Someone is pressuring me.”
“I received an inappropriate message.”
“I am confused about a relationship.”
“Someone touched me in a way I did not like.”
without immediately fearing humiliation, punishment or moral condemnation.
The ability to speak before a problem becomes a crisis can itself become a form of protection.
7. Schools and Colleges Cannot Remain Outside the Conversation
Educational institutions cannot limit their responsibility to mathematics, science, commerce, history and examinations.
Young people are developing human beings.
They are learning how to communicate, disagree, fall in love, experience rejection, manage jealousy, understand boundaries and make decisions.
These are also life skills, and teaching them well is part of the psychological revolution this article is arguing for.
WHO recommends that sexuality education be age-appropriate and cover relationships, consent, rights, safety, communication and help-seeking. It also emphasises collaboration among parents, teachers, health professionals and communities.
Indian institutions can adapt such principles to Indian cultural and social realities.
The objective need not be to encourage relationships.
The objective should be to ensure that whatever relationship young people encounter, they understand dignity, responsibility, consent and consequences.
8. Parents Need a New Language
Perhaps the biggest change has to begin at home.
Instead of:
“Don’t get involved with girls.”
A parent could say:
“Friendship is normal. But respect her boundaries.”
Instead of:
“Boys are dangerous.”
A parent could say:
“Learn to recognise respectful and disrespectful behaviour.”
Instead of:
“Never talk about these things.”
A parent could say:
“You can ask me anything. I may not have every answer, but we can discuss it.”
This does not weaken parental authority.
It can actually strengthen it.
A child who trusts parents is more likely to approach them before making a dangerous decision or when facing exploitation.
9. Boys Also Need Education — Not Merely Warnings
Much social discussion about sexual violence understandably focuses on protecting girls.
But boys must also be educated.
They need to understand that:
Attraction does not create entitlement — a lesson that belongs at the centre of this psychological revolution as much for boys as for institutions.
Rejection is not humiliation.
Jealousy is not ownership.
Persistence is not automatically romance.
Silence is not consent.
A relationship does not remove another person’s right to say no.
This is not anti-male education.
It is education for responsible manhood.
A healthy society should produce young men who understand that strength is not the ability to control another person; strength is the ability to control oneself. That single shift in self-understanding is itself a small act of psychological revolution.
10. The Digital World Has Changed the Psychology of Spectatorship
Earlier, an incident might have been witnessed by ten people.
Today, ten people can become ten thousand viewers within hours.
A disturbing incident can become a piece of digital entertainment.
This creates an ethical question that schools, parents, social-media companies and law-enforcement agencies must address:
When does witnessing become voyeurism?
The answer should be clear.
Recording evidence for legitimate reporting and preserving someone’s humiliation for entertainment are not the same thing.
The first can serve justice.
The second can become another form of exploitation.
Digital literacy therefore needs to include not only how to use technology but when not to use it.
11. From “Don’t Talk About It” to “Talk Responsibly”
There are two extremes society should avoid.
The first is repression:
“We will never discuss relationships, sexuality or attraction.”
The second is irresponsible normalisation:
“Everything is acceptable because it is natural.”
Neither is sufficient.
Human attraction may be natural.
Human behaviour still requires ethics.
Civilisation exists precisely because humans have learned to regulate natural impulses through values, consent, law and responsibility.
Therefore, the objective of social education should not be to suppress human nature.
It should be to civilise human behaviour.
12. What a Psychological Revolution Could Look Like
A psychological revolution does not require changing Indian culture overnight.
It requires changing the questions we ask.
Instead of asking:
“Why was the girl with the boy?”
ask:
“Why did somebody think they had the right to harass them?”
Instead of:
“What was she wearing?”
ask:
“Why was her consent ignored?”
Instead of:
“Why didn’t anybody stop them?”
ask:
“Why did witnesses become spectators?”
Instead of:
“Why do young people have relationships?”
ask:
“How can young people be educated to build respectful relationships?”
Instead of hiding the subject, society should create safe spaces for responsible discussion — the quiet, everyday work a psychological revolution actually requires.
That is the beginning of psychological change.
13. Vision 2047 Needs More Than Economic Development
India’s Vision 2047 cannot be measured only through GDP, highways, airports, digital payments, semiconductor factories and artificial intelligence.
A developed civilisation is also one in which an ordinary person sees another human being in distress and responds with humanity.
Development must therefore include social maturity — without it, no economic milestone amounts to the psychological revolution a truly developed India needs.
A technologically advanced society with smartphones in every hand but conscience in very few hearts cannot call itself completely developed.
The real test of civilisation may sometimes be extraordinarily simple:
When someone cries for help, what does the person standing next to them do?
14. A Responsibility Shared by Everyone
The solution cannot belong to one institution. A psychological revolution succeeds only when every institution below moves together.
Parents
Create open, age-appropriate conversations about friendship, attraction, boundaries, consent and safety.
Schools and colleges
Introduce scientifically accurate, culturally appropriate relationship and life-skills education.
Government
Strengthen prevention, reporting mechanisms, policing, victim support and timely investigation.
Police
Respond to complaints with sensitivity while maintaining due process and protecting victims from further harm.
Media
Report incidents without turning victims into spectacles.
Social-media platforms
Act against circulation of exploitative or humiliating material and promote responsible reporting mechanisms.
Entertainment industry
Recognise its influence over social attitudes and distinguish romance from coercion and harassment.
Young people
Learn that freedom and responsibility must travel together.
Ordinary citizens
Become helpers rather than spectators.
15. Law Must Create Consequences That Cannot Be Ignored
A psychological revolution in attitudes cannot substitute for the rule of law. Education may change attitudes over time, but society also needs strong, swift and certain legal action against molestation, sexual assault, intimidation and other forms of harassment. The objective should not be revenge; it should be credible deterrence. When an individual knows that such conduct will be promptly reported, professionally investigated and followed by proportionate legal consequences, the calculation before committing an offence changes. The fear should not be of an angry crowd, social-media outrage or private retaliation; it should be the certainty of the law. A person contemplating such an act should be compelled by his own understanding of the consequences to stop and think not once, but a hundred times: What will happen to me if I cross this boundary? A civilised society needs both—education that builds conscience and a justice system that makes the consequences of violating another person’s dignity unmistakably clear.
The Real Revolution Begins Inside the Mind
The greatest change required may not be another law.
It may be a change in the collective subconscious.
We need to move:
from shame to education,
from silence to responsible conversation,
from suspicion to guidance,
from voyeurism to intervention,
from victim-blaming to accountability,
from suppression to responsible understanding,
and
from instinctive reaction to informed human behaviour.
A society does not become morally mature by pretending that attraction, relationships and sexuality do not exist.
Nor does it become mature by treating everything as entertainment.
It becomes mature when it can discuss these subjects openly without losing dignity, responsibility, cultural sensitivity or respect for consent.
The cry of a girl for help should never become content.
It should become a call to conscience.
And perhaps the real meaning of a developed India is not merely that India reaches the front rank of the world’s economies by 2047.
It is that by then, when a young person is frightened and asks for help, the people around them instinctively choose humanity over curiosity, protection over entertainment and justice over silence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a “psychological revolution” on relationships and consent actually mean?
It means replacing silence, shame and blanket surveillance with honest, age-appropriate conversation about attraction, boundaries and consent — while making clear that harassment, coercion and assault are never acceptable. It is not about loosening moral standards; it is about building the judgement to act responsibly.
Does teaching children about consent and relationships encourage early sexual activity?
No. The World Health Organization’s guidance on comprehensive sexuality education states that well-designed, age-appropriate programmes do not increase sexual activity — evidence shows they improve knowledge, support safer decision-making and reduce risky behaviour.
What happened in the Jamui, Bihar incident referenced in this article?
A schoolgirl and a male classmate were harassed while returning from coaching in Jamui, Bihar; a video of the incident went viral, and police apprehended three minors in connection with the case, according to news reports.
How can parents start talking to their children about relationships without making it awkward?
Replace blanket warnings (“don’t talk to boys/girls”) with open-ended reassurance — for example, telling a child they can ask about anything and that the family will discuss it together. This builds trust so a child is more likely to come forward before a problem becomes a crisis.
Why do bystanders film incidents instead of helping?
Widespread smartphone access has changed the psychology of witnessing — recording can feel like “doing something” even when it isn’t. The article argues that recording for evidence to support law enforcement is different from recording for entertainment or circulation, and that the second can deepen a victim’s harm.
Related Reading
- Understanding Gen Z: A Generation of Extraordinary Potential at a Crossroads
- The Fire Inside Gen Z: How Decades of Change Created an Impatient Generation
- CAUTION: Your Digital Footprint Knows You Better Than You Think
- The Invisible Hand of Social Media Algorithms: Are We Losing Control of Human Thought?
- WHO: Comprehensive Sexuality Education (fact sheet)
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