IF ONLY OUR GOVERNMENT HAD A HEART

A funeral is a counter-culture phenomenon. According to Paul Giblin, a pastoral counselling professor, “In a culture that denies death, a funeral can make death a reality, normalize the grieving process and introduce the possibilities of hope, imagination and new life for survivors.” Tests have proven that the last goodbye helps the ones left back to heal their minds faster and mourn better.

You come to know the importance of a goodbye akin to this only when you are ripped off that chance. Such was the case with the survivors of the Hathras rape incident. Imagine going about your daily mundane jobs like working in the farms, and then being wiped off the face of the earth sans a last goodbye, sans a ritual. The 19-year-old’s family is still trying its best to come to terms with the loss. It isn't wrong to wish to see the perpetrators hanged. 

"My sister died at 6:55am [29 September] in Delhi's Safdarjung hospital. Around 9am, they asked us to sign some papers so the body could be taken for a post-mortem," says the victim's younger brother.

"That was the last time we saw her body," he adds when journalists after journalists come to ask her story, in a pretence of paying their respects.

 

To be so ruthlessly discarded, so shamelessly burnt, all because of the widespread disease of the caste system in the country is extremely pathetic and unfortunate. 

 

In another interview with the victim’s kin by The Wire, they say,” If you practice untouchability with our clothes and utensils and even the idea of us lower class individuals, then why not our daughter? Why did you touch her?”

 

What the government failed to understand was how human she was. We have a lot of questions to ask, like what did she do to deserve such brutality? Wasn’t she human? Isn’t untouchability a past in the secular India that we demand we live in? How many more citizens are to face such an end soon? What is this discrimination and why is it there?

 

In the powerful words of Politician Mahua Moitra, “The constitution is under threat today. You may disagree with me. You may say, acche din are here and the sun will never set on this Indian empire that this government is seeking to build. If only you would open your eyes, you would see that there are signs everywhere that this country is torn apart.”

 

Our country is dying. Will it get a funeral? Our government seems to lack not only economic skills but also compassion. If only it could empathise with us. If only the democracy lived up to its name. If only casteism did not take the upper hand here. If only the community did not blame the victim for no fault of hers. If only the government wouldn’t stoop down low enough to change the entire narrative to one that accuses the sufferers and claims it to be a case of honour killing. If only our boys were taught humanity. If only rape was a crime aptly punished. If only our government had a heart.