A woman in some remote corner of our country killed her two daughters and then committed suicide. She was poor, news reports claimed. I don’t believe them, because that is half the truth. The sad reality is she and her children were victims of, and murdered by, ‘state inflicted poverty.’
And since state constitutes all of us, no one can shirk away from the responsibility. So, who is responsible for the death of the lady and her children? Fear not for this is not a finger-pointing exercise. Just a bit of self-examination before another woman kills her children and takes her life.
I’ll start with myself to make sure that all of you feel a little comfortable. I am a writer/reporter and when I heard the news, I was immersed in research for some recent article I was working on. Deadlines keep me busy most of the times. But, what were YOU doing? You politicians. You civil servants. You NGO and INGO people. You businessmen. You rich people. You young people.
What were you doing?
Were you at each other’s throat for power? Were you bribing the sweat and blood out of the poor or fleecing the money out of state coffers? Were you churning money out of somebody’s misery? Were you devising new ways to evade taxes? Were you just farting your wealth away? Were you dancing in a pub? Watching a movie? Having coffee? Dating? What?
To begin with, accept my apology for not having enough power, not being in a position to bribe anybody or indulge in corruption, not being a part of a noble cause, not owning a business, not being rich enough and not being a hedonist. Forgive me, for being immersed so much in my work that I couldn’t care less.
I was not, however, doing something I was not supposed to when the lady was being pushed into abject poverty, when she was pained to see her children suffer from diseases, when she was struggling to feed her children, when she was considering death as the most viable alternative to all her problems and when she finally took the lives.
When it was all happening in that remote corner of our country, I was, probably, doing what I was supposed to. That at least provides me with a reason to get some weight off my conscience. Some weight, remember. I am not giving myself a clean chit. But you power mongers, you corrupt and callous, you frauds, you greedy, you unsympathetic and you ignorant, don’t you feel crushed by the pitiable end of the lady and her children?
“She was downright stupid,” you can say, “She should have sought somebody’s help.”
Let’s explore what choices she had. She could have begged for help from her neighbors or villagers. But the people in the village themselves are so poor that they can hardly be of any help. She could have sought help from the village administration. But can you imagine our callous, inefficient and insolent government officers to be sensitive enough to understand the plight of a poor female. She could have contacted a civil society organization (an INGO or NGO), but … well, you know the answers as well as I—not enough funds, out on conferences/seminars, lobbying, not our project area, so on and so forth.
You can still say a situation like this doesn’t warrant a foolish step like that because it is a common thing in a Third World country like ours. Such is the state of affairs or, to put it right, affairs of the state.
So under what duress did the lady make her decision? Let’s then consider the worst case scenarios, not uncommon, by the way, in a Third World country like ours. Maybe her husband, who left her to find employment in India, had taken loans from somebody who was now threatening the lady. Maybe she was threatened by her in-laws to leave the house. Maybe someone raped her. Maybe someone threatened to sell her daughters to a brothel where they would grow up to become whores. Or maybe all of them combined.
Anything less would not have triggered so drastic a step.
But let’s argue that she should have sought help from some quarter—although it is hard to believe she took the drastic step without trying. In that case, who would have helped her?
Would you have helped her: you politicians, you civil servants, you NGO and INGO people, you businessmen, you rich people, you young people?
“Yes,” I hear you shout.
Oh, but it is too late. I have, nonetheless, a crazy idea that, as a way of penance, might help soothe our wounded collective conscience.
Let’s declare the lady and her children martyrs and erect their statue in every village, in every town, in every city, in the capital and if we are so damned courageous right inside the parliament. I am sure the statue, right at the center of the hall, will scare the nonsense out of our leaders.
“Why martyrdom to someone who committed suicide?” I hear you ask. It is easy to rebuke the woman as being a weakling. Suicide is a cowardly act, you say. But to tell you the truth, if suicide was that easy, half of the world would be dead; assuming that half of the world lives in abject poverty, like the lady and her children. Who wants to live in this damned world anyway? Suicide, therefore, cannot be just termed as a cowardly act. At best one can say that suicide is an act of madness, a state in which one is so depressed and numb that one stops feeling anything physically or mentally. The emotional pain suffered by someone about to commit suicide has to be so great that the pain he or she suffers during the process of dying begins to seem bearable, even a relief.
I get goose bumps at the mere thought of it.
So she, and her children, must be declared martyrs, because they were forced to make a difficult choice because of the state’s negligence. Mine and your negligence.
So, friends and countrymen, let’s erect a statue of the lady and her children right in the middle of our villages, towns, cities, our capital and parliament so that, as they pass by it, our ministers are reminded of their crimes, our civil servants are reminded of their misdeeds, the NGOs and INGOs are reminded of their commitments, businessmen are reminded of their responsibilities, rich are reminded of their role and young … well, it might help them grow up. If not, an average Nepali child might just thank the lord for not making their mothers so poor.
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