Brutality: Take one

More than ever I now accept that the land of my birth and citizenship is one of the most brutal countries I know. It employs a form of brutality which wears one down, no matter which government is in power---pushing the already poor and marginalized towards despair, thanks not merely to people referred to as Babus (petty officials). Proffer a lot, hand a little. This is something one cannot expect of India in this day after over 60 years since independence.

People believe that smiling politicians are like ones grandfathers and its okay to sit on their laps so to speak. They will not pimp you. India simply wears you out. It is a technique used by the brokers, power barons, those new to power. Its a galli (by lanes) mentality refined to suit and manipulate the constitution.

The idea is to exhaust and use everything to make sure one simply give up, or dies in the process--although fasting is something that could land you in jail and get beaten in the process too. Beating is something that the police only know too well--one form by which they certainly please their own masters as also assuage their own sense of administering justice. We talk from both sides if the mouth, all the time espousing this or that Upanishad--talking from above in lilting high floating tones.

We have a tendency to mete out our own justice. Perhpas cause its so hard to expect fairness and of course justice. So snuffing out entire families is something that those who mutter paap (sin) this and paap that, find uplifting--I presume.
1984. Riots in Pataudi. Not a whisper escapedhttp://tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=Ne120311EXCLUSIVE.asp
As the media focusses in Haryana's Hondh-Chillar massacre, Avalok Langer unearths evidence of another anit-Sikh carnage never reported before.

Gurjeet narrates the story of two sisters, Harmeet Kaur, 16, and Karamjeet Kaur, 19. “The mob dragged them out into the street, stripped them, abused them, beat them, urinated on their faces and burnt them alive,” he says. “There was no sense of human dignity, no sense of compassion. What role did these girls have in Mrs Gandhi’s assassination? Were we all responsible? Sardaron ke bachche hai, tho marao (They are children of sardars, so kill them).”

Patriotism is expected--a state of being that is used against those who argue, or have a mind that responds, helps others fight the system--business as usual policies. The biggest mistake we made was to accept and apply to our reality the ways of the Chicago School of Economics. It has helped no one but only those who know how to direct money flows. The fakir rope trick is alive and well--things just disappear into thin air while shayari (verse, couplets, poetry) is recited in ones ears, attar sprinkled, the aroma of starched saris, kurta-pajamas, lungis, sherwanis attacks ones nostrils, and smarmy grins disarm you in a bathetic akhada (wrestling pit).

Drawing: Congeries of Lust