Just another day in India

BIKRAM VOHRA

arabnews

A normal day in India starts with the suspicious death of a 14-year-old Dalit for stealing a pigeon and the usual controversy over the police taking the kid away, allegedly asking for money to release him and then the boy being found hanging from the ceiling of a neighboring uncle’s house. The scenario stinks like five-day-old fish.
About the same time a young lad from this community in Faridabad is set on fire by a village head because of an old rivalry. Why the caste divide has to be perpetuated even by its denial is beyond comprehension but we seem to love the “them and us” concept. If the BJP really wants applause they should dissolve the caste system entirely.
But what we do have is author Huchangi Prasad, 23, threatened with having his fingers sawn off for writing “against Hinduism” because his book ‘Odala Kichhu’ is anti-caste.
As the day wears on, a famous singer is charged with molestation and so is a national cricketer. Abhijit Bhattacharya and Amit Misra, innocent till proven guilty (the latter having represented India in the fourth ODI even after the police had issued notice) are accused of engaging in the rising sport of girl-baiting, exactly what caused a teenager to kill herself after the cops refused to take cognizance of the complaint and deal with the three bullies making her life miserable. Another woman raped in Odisha commits suicide in shame and fear. All this against the backdrop of the BBC announcing that Indian women are fighting back against the rising wave of rapes.
The death toll for eating beef or being accused of eating beef or saying that it is OK to eat beef stays at three. Still in Mumbai, Bollywood takes on the Shiv Sena over the boycott of all Pakistanis.
While all this is going an elderly couple is stranded in an Air India aircraft for 70 minutes after it comes into Mumbai from Hyderabad because there are no wheelchairs. Their demand forms for assistance at disembarkation were correctly filled and the Airports Authority, which is responsible for this faux pas (not Air India since the crew had to stay on board till the last passenger left) seems indifferent to their plight. If you watch the video you do not know whether to laugh or cry. Seventy minutes in a plane with engines off.
The incident regarding a petrol bomb victim in Udhampur translates into a curfew in Srinagar where separatists have been on the rampage.
If all this isn’t enough the Congress offers its “daily dose” by accusing the BJP of protecting former IPL big boss Lalit Modi.
And in the capital the Delhi administration under Arvind Kejriwal passes a resolution against Lt. Gov. Jung for transferring VAT Commissioner Vijay Kumar ostensibly because he ordered raids on several companies... no good deed goes unpunished.
But for eight hours on Sunday the people will stop their antics and focus on the fifth one-day decider where tickets are being scaled at three times their face value.
And in the Indian city of Rajura, a parrot called “Hariyal” is arrested by the police after the owner complained that it was using fowl language toward his stepmother who is 85.
Maybe the parrot was just reading/watching the news. Why blame the bird.
Just another day...