Perhaps we are all sitting with our fingers crossed thinking aloud as to who may be the next victim to be martyred by the government machinery! Surely there is no dearth of victims, who could be sacrificed for “greater good” to paraphrase the Bombay High Court’s observation to Stan Swamy’s bail appeal a few days before he was forced to pass off from this world unceremoniously.

While we are still in the moaning period, those who are systematically decimating the voices of dissent may be going through the endless lists of ‘traitors’ and ‘enemies of the nation’ (we have a beautiful word for it in the Indian languages, deshdrohi). It is becoming clearer day by day that the state machinery is involved in illegal and unethical hacking and indulging in such nefarious activities, in order to bring innocent activists under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. If anyone had to be accused of inciting communal violence in connection with Bhima-Koregaon, then it is the state machinery, and big names with their petty and pernicious agenda.

They had long ticked off the name of Stan, as he was condemned to languish in the prison at Taloja, the gateway to hell, and maybe contemplating who could be silently suffocated to death, and the whole world would know that it was a natural death, as they claim loudly through the External Affairs ministry to the United Nation’s observation on the callous way Stan Swamy’s case was handled by the Indian government. The ardent lovers of the nation (again we have a wonderful word for it in our lexicon, deshbhakt) know too well that the infirmed and the senile are the best victims whose death may not raise an eye brow, but unfortunately their calculations regarding the custodial death of Stan went awry, and now they might be eating their words in order to save their face before the international community.

Thankfully the number of cases collecting dust in our courts may not get over before the world comes to an end, and that is the great excuse the Legislative and the Judiciary have in order to postpone trials endlessly, that the innocent spend most of their productive years behind bars. Neither the legislative or the judiciary has come with concrete proposals to clear the cases, so that no one is forced to stay in custody beyond the justifiable period.

Human mind is too quick to respond, and quicker to forget. When our clear consciences are hit hard by reality which we can only imagine, we jump off the bed in dream, sweating profusely but realizing that it was merely a nightmare. But think of those for whom our nightmares of everyday events, are a daily saga of neglect, indifference, callousness. The ‘urban naxals’ which the state machinery is frightened of and wants to dismantle, a figment of their imagination, may never find justice, so long those who were responsible for injecting such poisonous and nefarious ideas into the minds of the common men and women realize that there is no such a thing as ‘urban naxals’.

We may recall to mind the frightening, spine-chilling, gruesome gang rape of a woman in Delhi back in 2012, whom we had conveniently glorified as Nirbhaya, and how the whole nation took to streets to express its violent protest. Some of the culprits have since been hanged to death, but has it reduced the violence against women in the nation’s capital or elsewhere in the country? If Nirbhaya case is an isolated incident, which has no bearing on our response to what is happening around us, then we are condemned to see history repeating itself umpteen times.

It is the survival instinct in us which is responsible for alerting us on the face of impending danger and take steps to avoid any frontal collision. It is also this survival mechanism which may force us to put to back burner all those issues and instances which may bring us face to face with mighty powers. 
The sudden shortage of oxygen cylinders in our hospitals, nursing homes and health centres, was merely a microcosm of the perennial shortage of justice, honesty, transparency, service, and political will to stand by the voiceless and the less privileged. But who really cares about reaching out to those who are gasping for justice in our prison cells? Does our judicial system care for the persons who languish behind bars, because the judges do not want to displease those who are in power, giving a verdict contrary to the dictated terms? 

Political power today is Aladdin’s magic lamp which can make the owners do whatever they want, with the suppliant genie repeating ad nauseum ‘Your will is my command’. It is the creative power that can empower the voiceless within days, and take the interests of the nation to its zenith with a single hour of address to the nation, inject new blood in the young with consoling words as they languish under locked doors due to the ongoing lockdown and pandemic outside. But if we have to rely on those who govern us to help us build our lives and our society, then we may be ‘waiting for Godot’ to borrow a phrase from Samuel Beckett!

It is time that we wake up to look around, because those who wish to clear the nation of all those who stood up against the elected leaders and their coterie, are just checking who they could lay their hands on next. It is not only those others who had been condemned to Taloja jail in relation to the Bhima-Koregaon communal violence, those who truly care for the nation and her unfortunate children, the voiceless, the faceless, the nameless, the landless people who live outside the domain of development, it could as well be you or me, or you and me.

Before we even wake up tomorrow morning, there may be news of a champion for the causes of the voiceless people having been quietly gotten rid of, in order to pave way for the triumph of justice and truth (satyameva jayate). With thousands of crony television channels and social media teams working round the clock in order to colour every news with an over dose of fabricated unethical, inhuman figures, in return for premium returns either in cash or in kind, we cannot be silent spectators. If we do, then it may be too late, when it is our turn to take forceful asylum in Taloja or its counterparts in the remotest corners of the subcontinent.

We may have to pay heavily then for our self-protective, pseudo-peaceful silence now!