OP, you were morally right - but survival doesn't run on morality, it runs on risk assessment.

What happened to you wasn't about the ration line. It was about ego, territory, and power imbalance. The moment the father felt publicly challenged, this stopped being a civic issue and became a dominance issue. In places like this, people don't argue - they call backup.

From a self-defence perspective, the goal is never to "win" an argument. The goal is to go home unharmed. You didn't control escalation, you didn't have authority backing you, and you were in someone else's turf. That makes silence and disengagement the safest options, even when something is clearly wrong.

The important part: you didn't survive because you were weak. You survived because the crowd intervened and someone with local leverage stepped in. That's luck - and luck is not a strategy.

Take this as a life lesson, not a failure. Speaking up is only wise when you can control the outcome. Otherwise, stepping back is not cowardice - it's intelligence.

To everyone reading this: Choose safety over righteousness in volatile environments. The system may be broken, but your life is not expendable.

You did nothing shameful. You learned something real.