I wonder sometimes at the definition of development which is paraded so vigorously by everyone including our esteemed politicians. Is Indian .Inc a reality? Those incredible India adverts floating on channels in between prime time programs seem to say yes!
And yet there are instances which remind us of the primitive state of the society we live in. You have people steeped in superstitions tossing their babies in the air from the second floor to help make them stronger, and serials of the “saas-bahu “ genre that are surely nothing but a intellectual paralysis and sari and jewellery parade getting prime spots on a country with one of the biggest population of youth.
Well that’s some thought for the media barons….have we actually done our segmentation properly or is it that the Indian population is intellectually incapable of handling more than a series of plastic surgeries and illegitimate affairs still going strong even when the protagonist has got great grandchildren. Says a lot for their sexual prowess if nothing else…..and all this of course happening in typical “sanskaari” parivaars.if it wasn’t so pathetic it would be almost laughable.
Another shocking incident the other day getting covered in the news made me think again about the development of our society. There was this stray case of an identification goof up in Noida.An old woman had died under mysterious circumstances and because of the disintegrated state of the body the police couldn’t identify her. a person claiming to be her son comes and claims her body as his mothers. Two days later…the person believed to be dead is seen trying to prove that she is alive via ration cards and photographic identification etc.another person believed to be the corpse’s real son comes and questions the police on its negligence. Apparently there was some jewellery and money on the dead body which understandably went missing.
Another ecerpt taken from India Today kind of hinted at the hopelessness of the state of law and order support services in India. In 2006,alone the GRP personnel found 1568 bodies,in 2007 a whopping 1696 deaths on the tracks…which hints at a grotesque rise of approximately 5 deaths per day on the tracks and all this only in Haryana.Even more startling is the number of unidentified bodies (10698 bodies recovered since 2001 and of these 3,298 were cremated without identification).while accidents and suicides are a common cause ,police officials have unearthed another dangerous trend of Murders being passed off as accidents.The rationale being that such bodies are generally not identified and the killer gets to go scot free.
However I’m still wondering about the method of identification or a person if she isn’t alive to tell the tale. Abroad we have dental records social security numbers. Over here if your body that is either burnt or mangled beyond recognition with finger prints missing, then there is no way to tell who it is.
Basic requirements like dental records are not there. Quite a few people have never even seen what a hospital looks like let alone availed of any medical service. Even worse many births go unregistered……assisted by phony untrained midwives. In such a situation how difficult would it be for a criminal…worse for a terrorist to die and then suddenly come alive again?
The more shocking recent unearthing of mass graves in Gujrat, a screaming testimony to callous treatment of the dead just goes to show that we cannot even afford to give basic dignity to our dead let alone the living.I hope that the outside world doesn't watch these bizzarre happenings in India as a picture of a "truly incredible India" with all the negative connotations...
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