No, the system is not broken. For most Indians there never existed a system except one that took the subjugation and acquiescence of millions of Indians for granted. From one generation to the next, the obligation to obey has been transmitted without words as if genetically coded. The instructions were and are in the air. On paper there’s evidence to the contrary. In reality there’s a thick firewall between localities, streets, a well from which to draw water, toilets – the list is long. Risk must be avoided at all cost. Only the self-righteous are allowed to take risks and that too a calculated one. Nothing in political India moves without a caste card verificar aquí. Nothing. Everyone talks caste and class in India. The caste issue is at the centre of desperation of one people and jubilatory diversions for another. Logic has long left the stage pushed out by an unhinged media whose first job it was to calm and not fan flames. I read reports saying they even managed to litter and break kitchen utensil in the victim’s house.

The only certainty in Hathras is the macabre image of a post midnight cremation of the victim – her parents and family had been kept away from performing her last rites. The police, we are told by the police, didn’t want a communal flare-up so a cremation after midnight was their only option. These are small mercies of naked and systemic murder and ambition masquerading as safety and empathy. The brutality of calibrated thought and action – whichever version you want to believe in this tragedy – is revolting. It’s a pandemic.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

So much has been written about the 14th September 2020 tragedy in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, where a 19 – year old Dalit (previously schedule caste) woman was allegedly gang-raped by upper caste men. Yet nothing has. Think about it. When the keepers of a nation’s conscience – the media – and the preservers of a nation’s laws – politicians – bicker on prime time television over a dead woman’s vagina and a man’s penis for days on end without an iota of shame or concern for a murdered lady you begin to understand how deep the rot is.

She died in a Delhi hospital two weeks later fighting for her life. The brutality of the assault has not prevented ‘experts’ from weighing in on what they believe (what else?) to be the real version. We will have to hear the final verdict from the court, the very courts which are not available to millions of women, children and men in India either because they are too poor or belong to the ‘wrong’ caste or both. Rare is the family in India, and this includes the wealthy, talkative and informed, that goes to court with a rape allegation especially if it takes place between people they know. But we ask the Hathra’s victim’s family about honour killings and vaginal swabs. The law, as we hear ad nauseam, will take its own course. What law? Lawlessness is par for the course in UP and Bihar, two states that send 120 lawmakers to our parliament. Caste wars are a daily occurrence in these two states where doors and windows are shut or opened at the very hint of friendly or fierce footsteps miles away. That’s how closely the system is wired. Wear a mask.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

Earlier, journalists had to deal with politicians and their gangs to planting stories from dusk to dawn. Today we are dealing with media planting stories on itself as having heard it from other media networks. Politicians who routinely run to wash their hands in blood wherever they can find it now have a fairly routine cash-a-crime method that kicks in with news cycles with the active participation of journalists. Sources pop in and out as if on command complete with background music on tape and hushed tones to signal imagined fear. We are told how one type of phone messaging is wrong while another one is right. In the Hathras tragedy, we are within touching distance of classification of rape depending on who is telling the story. It’s called spot a narrative. The more you spot a narrative, the deeper you sink into your own.

The more ridiculous we get, the better – who cares. The more ignorant we are, the larger the audience. Education, domain expertise and above all empathy or just basic decency for the family – nothing matters. Reporters who don’t know the difference between vice-versa and viscera are let loose on an unsuspecting family so stories must be made up far away from the reality of Indian women. Was she raped, did she bite her lip asks one reporter. What is your message to India, asks another. Violence is very likely the first time millions of Indian women encounter their own bodies complicated with feelings of fear, shame and horror. So we ask village women deeply private questions in full glare of light and sound – questions we’d never dare pose to one of us even in a private party at home. In the Hathras tragedy nothing, just nothing has stopped the givers of morals and breakers of laws from pontificating about India to Indians. All that matters is pretence masquerading as concern for the family. Everyone is doing it. So it must be okay. Maintain physical distance.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

We know but we don’t know if the girl was raped, gang-raped or murdered. Her brothers don’t want a polygraph test. One of them said if his sister could be cremated in the middle of the night, how could the family trust a polygraph? Something is fishy. He has a point and that is a problem – he’s not supposed to have an independent mind. He is risking his station in life. The ‘enlightened’ ones can talk about gaps in all versions beginning with the kind of medical assistance the victim received in the first hospital she was taken to. Those affected by the tragedy must remain silent and eat the remains of chips and biscuits left behind by marauding visitors. Broken legs, hips, tongue cut – every piece of evidence has a counter piece on paper and a parvenu on television. The idiot box has emerged as the main feeder of malice and machinations, an unfortunate parody of an angry country dealing with a pandemic, poverty and unemployment. It is virtually impossible to construct a logical chain of events. The bigger the story grows, the more time that elapses between the tragedy and justice, the more vicious the propaganda will be as if to signal to the troops that they are being watched and those going astray will be punished. Fear, naked fear and accompanying threats were being spewed on twitter even as life left the victim’s body. Why expect anything better when she’s gone. Wash your hands.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

The victim’s dying declaration where she called out those who raped her is available on social media. Her mother stands by her daughter. Others deny it. What, one wonders is the interest of the deniers? Is it because due process was not followed or is it because what was followed is now due process? In other words, must we now wait for sanitised evidence to fit the official line of a murder and alleged rape before it? A Dalit woman is dead. Her family lives in a village that has a majority of upper caste people. Caste is a major factor in India. Vote casting is caste voting in India. Every parliamentary seat in the country is distributed along caste lines. Nothing is said. Everything is understood. It’s that pernicious. Anyone who denies this simple fact is a liar. Don’t touch your face.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

Remember Nirbhaya? Her name was Jyoti Singh. We changed her name to mean “the fearless.” By that projection, we were addressing our fears. The December 2012 rape of Singh was brutal and we gorged on it pretending to be shocked by something that is unfortunately known in India’s villages. What made the Nirbhaya story scary to us was that it happened in our neighbourhood. Where we go shopping and near restaurants we frequent. Near the mall, yes, that mall where we go. What next? We didn’t know what to do so we bought candles and sang songs in front of television cameras to show solidarity with Ms. Singh’s family. We fought off water canons in Delhi’s stylish avenues as if we were fighting guns and cannons in Syria or Bosnia. From the safety of our gated communities we called for more security for ourselves. You never know about ‘these’ people we said as we encouraged ourselves to keep ‘them’ away. Nirbhaya was the reference and an excuse to turn feigned confusion into acceptably understood in-our-locality cruelty. There are no vaccines, yet.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt.

The UP tragedy is a reference and an excuse for journalists and politicians to build political careers. They are failing. Give-away statements are a dime a dozen. “Let the law take its own course,’ ‘ we have full faith in the Constitution of this country,’ ‘the guilty cannot get away’ – you know the drift. Whose law? It is as if one set of Indians is allowing another set of Indians special favours. If I had a say in anything, the first thing I’d do is to get the country’s best lawyers for the victim’s family. That is their right. India is a democracy. No one knows if the vaccine will work but the bazaar is open.

Under the watch of the police a lone funeral pyre burnt

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