First Published on Youth Ki Awaaz on January 12, 2012
An epidemic has hit the town and has hit it hard. This epidemic is reported to have affected mainly the adolescents and adults of not more than the age of 30. So widespread is this infectious illness that its repercussions and side effects are felt by all the ordinary men and women who ply their way to their homes, offices and other places through road, either by walking or by driving. The cause of concern is made even greater by the anomaly that unlike other epidemics, which start from poor and filthy slums housing the penurious and the destitute and thus giving the political class some ammunition for their next electoral campaign, this ailment has erupted from the households of the rich and the wealthy, especially those occupying public offices having considerable power and clout. Thus, for the first time in independent India’s history, the common man is forced to sympathize at the plight of the elite who have contracted such a disease whose cure is not only rare, but also very costly. So much so, that only by relinquishing all power and wealth can this sickness be sufficiently brought under control – the traces of which, however, would still remain.
But unlike all the other epidemics, this one takes far lesser
number of lives. So much so, that if thee death toll of various epidemics were
to be compared, this one would turn out to be the fingernail of the little
finger of the shortest man on earth! Its death toll is almost negligible as compared
to all the other major epidemics.
Still, it
cannot be neglected. So widespread is its impact that almost all the elite
class is desperately trying to find its cure by trying all the remedies
possible – medicinal, spiritual, other-worldly and what not. Hence, this plague
has achieved what all the other epidemics together could not – that to bring
the elite down to their knees, with their arms flailing, tongues rolling and
eyes widespread in agony, desperately seeking a remedy. These stellar
accomplishments have been made possible because the epidemic is not biological,
but sociological in nature. For our convenience, let us name it the ‘tu-janta-nahi-mera-baap-kaun-hai’ syndrome.
As an
ardent viewer of one of the top entertainment channels of the country, India
TV, I was alarmed when I saw a news item that had somehow slipped through the
prying gaze of its editors and had made its way to the screen for full 10
stunning seconds. However, it was not the unintended gaffe of the editors who
let a genuine news item play on their channel for some time, but the content of
that news that alarmed me. It reported an incident in Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar
area where a constable had brushed his motorcycle against the Santro of a
passerby, following which the driver came out of his car with a hammer and
attacked the constable with it thus fracturing his left leg and right arm in
the process. He also whipped out a pistol and shot a man who tried to intervene
in his cheek.
Surely it
was a trivial incident and could have been forgiven following a genuine
apology. Following this I pulled out the statistics of road rage cases in Delhi
and was alarmed to find out that around 1200 people had been killed and 3300
injured in road rage cases in the national capital in 2010 alone. The figure is
only expected to rise for this year.
I myself
recalled a recent event when I had the opportunity to see an altercation
between two people on the road following a trivial accident. One of the most
commonly repeated refrain in their figure of speech which also involved many
phrases which cannot be produced here for the want of public decency, was ‘tu janta
nahi mera baap kaun hai?’
Such
arrogance of power and privilege! I consulted some of my otherwise intelligent
friends and they concurred that their ears too had been subjected to this
figure of speech by someone or the other during the time which they spent on
road. This confirmed my suspicions that this was a rampant sociological
epidemic. While I cannot of course prescribe a cure for such rampant disease, I
can obviously try to dissect the phenomenon and point out certain reasons for
the spread of this disease.
The first
reason, I think, is the rampant prevalence of nepotism in our country. A policy
that is supported at the very top echelons of the political, economic and
social class, it is not surprising then, that this has resulted in the
sprouting up of seeds of arrogance in the main beneficiaries of these nepotist
policies. Bereft of any worthwhile qualification or achievements, the only cannon
in their otherwise empty armory remains ‘tu janta nahi mera baap kaun hai?’
The second
reason is the conviction to thwart any significant interest by the use of
money, power or clout. The nepotism fueled arrogance is given a further push by
this conviction, which has proved to be true in recent times, that anybody
having money, power or clout can use that inappropriately to influence other
instruments of the state so as to thwart any interest of someone who dares to
invite their wrath.
The third
and the last reason is the preference of matter over mind, of wealth over
education, of power over post. The son of a petty politician can threaten an
executive of a multinational with this refrain and can expect not only to get
away, but also to heap rich rewards from it. This obviously shows the low
levels of education and high levels of nepotism that we have scaled and the
direction in which the country is headed.
So, the next time you hear a man who asks you ‘tu janta nahi mera baap kaun hai?’ do not entertain him for long and forgive him for being mentally ill.
