How Cheap Is Human Dignity In This Country?

           I was waiting for the bus when a policeman came and started inspecting the platform 5 feet away from me. Only then I realized there was a man lying there motionless. I am not sure whether he spotted him on his usual rounds or someone called for the police. Initially I thought it was yet another drunkard scenario, which we are quite used to in Chennai, but, in Bangalore, I have never seen such scenes mostly. Thanks to their more liberal and streamlined ways of selling liquor. It turned out that the man could not waken up even after sprinkling water on his face. The police used the local boys and seized a small packet of something (possibly condom) from his pockets. The boys giggled and threw it. Meanwhile, he called someone and a police van reached there within minutes. All the people passing by stopped their vehicles and observed the scene, jamming the traffic in their own ways. I enquired a lady next to me and she said that the man was declared dead. I found it very disturbing that there were totally 5-6 policemen in the vicinity not doing anything about a dead man. Is there no procedure to at least shift him to a nearest hospital or mortuary? All they did was just drag more time. They brought a blanket and put it over him. There the dead man was just lying with a blanket over him.

           Suddenly there was so much commotion and the entire road was cleared, stopping all the vehicles from entering the road. Turned out that the chief minister’s patrol was arriving. The C.M passed by and the police returned to their usual job of ignoring the dead man and buying more time. I don’t know how long that man was kept lying there as I left after some time. Nearly 45 minutes I was watching them doing nothing but slacking around the dead body. It is strange that everyone in the entire road except the dead man can be cleared within minutes by the police.

            It is not just that dead man whose dignity is at stake. Either you are dead or living, you have no dignity in this country, if you are a NOBODY. If you don’t belong to any privileged caste, you will be tossed around being denied crematory; if you are a woman survivor of sexual harassment, you will be harassed in more ways by the court and society; you could be killed by illegal hoardings for no mistake of yours and still denied justice; you could be lynched in public with people video shooting it and still the mob shall walk scot-free. You could be a permanent resident of this country for years and yet denied citizenship for your religion; your entire state could be caged for months and denied access to anywhere else because nationalism is as blind as that.

            There is no system or protocol to retain the dignity of a common man. How cheap are we in this country?