Kanoon Ke Kitne Roop

Filmistaan in India taught me that the law has 'long hands'; in USA it maybe 'claws'; in UK no Hollywood no Bollywood only 'Clause'.

I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good...

Pearl Jam, Yield

Today the harmless London suburban yobs reminded me of Altrincham - an extension of Manchester where I used to live a few months back. Every Wednesday (or probably Thursday, in case I am wrong) the town’s local newspaper used to find its way through my door’s brassy letterbox groove. At one such instance, the full front page of this newpaper was dedicated to the passport sized pictures of some eleven or fifteen young men. Relatively new to the town, I was intrigued. Here we go - the new local football team! Looks like a young one this time. But then! After a sustained look I find that all these faces have a slightly different expression. And then I read the large roman fonts, which I had clumsily missed earlier, explaining that the people shown is a list of law offenders who were failing to turn up in the local court. Chiefly, for petty crimes, therefore, ‘at large’.
Disappointed I was now - not with the boys (yes, literally boys) in the photographs, but with this sensation intended front-page scoop. How could, how could, in a small community like this the ever-righteous judges, these ever-critical journalists and the ever-responsible police could easily go ahead with publishing something like this? Isn’t this a little harsh and a lot insensitive? I thought that the whole aim of the law here was to reform a young individual than to blatantly demean him. No one is perfect, right?

Grains and Martyrs

I recently came across a statistic that more than surprising me shook me. “17,060 farm suicides in one year” said Sainath’s article: - http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/31/stories/2008013150240100.htm . According to his article - since 2002, every 30 minutes an Indian farmer chooses to kill himself.

I can easily conjure that, somewhere on this planet, natural disasters kill thousands every year. I have also come across figures telling that approximately thousands in big cities are killed on road accidents every year. But what strikes me here is that these seventeen kilo suicides aren’t any fortuitous deaths. This is a choice that these men made, or probably, have been forced to make. We all know in India a farmer is synonymous to a simple man. But this shameful event continues. Shameful, not for one who aren’t there anymore, but for the appointed vigilantes who are supposed to protect them.

I have always been made to believe that India is a place about communities and sharing. India, an agricultural economy we should be proud of. A new wave of India rising. India, an upcoming superpower. So, are we really trying to define the India’s 70’s motto in fullest sense? Jai Jawan (aka. Long live the Soldier), so, Jai Kisan (aka. Long live the Farmer). Prove it to me that all this isn’t any hype.

UPDATE
Farmers have nowhere to go? ...Some more blogs...Click Here