Note

Forget Italian Marines
Garga Chatterjee writes

Two Italian sailors killed two fishermen off the Kerala coast, got apprehended and in a few months, left for Italy. Nothing better than some good-old Italian bashing ‘Indian pride’ branded batteries. The Italian government agreed to send them back, cutting short the tournament of competitive patriotism.

But for these Italians, how else could the homegrown saffron Goths, constantly plotting the fall of an imagined Roman regime in New Delhi, rehearse another episode—'Indian and proud' drama? How else could certain khadi-clad centurions grab an opportunity to show off intense love for peninsular fishermen?

As the khadi and the saffron match each other's love for fishermen, decibel for decibel, they also compete in actively plotting the destruction of life and livelihood of fishermen at Kudankulam, beating for beating, 144 for 144, arrest for arrest, tear for tear. Irony is not a very effective genre of public performance in the subcontinent—there is just too much of it, making it plain and non-newsworthy.

Italy has not been alone among European states in irking the government at Delhi. In a less publicised series of events, Denmark did it too. One of the prime accused of the almost-forgotten Purulia arms drop case of 1995 is a Danish citizen Niels Davy. Indian authorities wanted him extradited.

A Danish court said the conditions in jails run by the Indian government are inhuman. Between 2001 and 2010, 14,231 people died in police and prison custody in India. Sadly, this is no foreign data but statistics from the National Human Rights Commission.

Actually, this is the 'India' whose power was transferred during the Partition. Denmark did not want to risk a rediscovery of this 'India'. Incessantly claiming to be the democracy did not help. The Danish court did not want Kim Davy to suddenly jump off from some height, hang himself unnoticed, meticulously commit suicide or die of 'unexplained' internal-bleeding. One would love to call this 'racism', that is, us minus some fourteen thousand.

Most of these 14,231 deaths were due to torture, typically occurring within two days of being taken into custody. You will probably never know the details. Unfortunately, the dead do speak—if not in words, then in numbers. The Government of India has no anti-torture law satisfying the United Nations Torture guidelines. Denmark and Italy have such laws.

The honourable and reasonable Government of India also promised that Kim Davy would be housed in a 'special jail' so that Danish fears are laid to rest. No saffronwala will accuse any khadiwala preferential treatment. Third degree treatment is reserved for its own ‘nationality’. This predictable closing of ranks around this 'India' is deeply revealing about patriotism.

Sometime ago, an opposite spectacle with much tear-shedding, pride-hurting and fire-eating took place. The daughter of a junior-level Indian embassy staff in Nederland police custody for less than 48 hours with others in the cell, due to a faulty investigation. The familiar parade of saffronwalas and khadiwalas came again, spouting blood and concern. P Chidambaram (then home minister), S M Krishna (then foreign minister) and diplomats became vocal.

A lawyer was hired and it was declared that compensation was sought for distress in custody. This is rather rich coming from the nation of four custodial deaths per hundreds of millions of days of torture, hopelessness, broken families, lost aspirations and insanity. Will the khadi and saffron patriots ask for such compensation that the girl's complaint has merit then the whole exchequer of the Indian Union has to be emptied many times over to compensate those who have been victims of police and criminal justice system.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 41, Apr 21- -27, 2013

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