Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
What caused the youthful Rajasthan farmer Gajendra Singh to hang himself from the branch of a neem tree, a leftover of the several thousand such trees planted by our former British rulers to give the capital city the look of a green tree-lined oasis, surrounded by an otherwise dusty neighbourhood, prone to climatic onslaughts, none as cruel as the hot sand-laden dust storms blowing in from the desert land of Rajasthan.
But how about the forty-one-year-old Rajasthan farmer, Gajendra Singh? Why the fuss over is alleged suicide, hanging himself from a tree on the fringes of Jantar Mantar. Silly, what else, but hunger or the fear of it. There was no mystery, no suspense about the man dressed virtually like a groom, with a fancy Rajasthani pugree rested on his rich black hair. There was no catch to his story. He simply feared the prospect of starvation for his three kids and wife. Or, that is what we are asked to believe in spite of the family’s allegation that Gajendra was not the suicide type and that he allegedly knew the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
Like, in many other parts of the country, Rajasthan too had fallen foul of the weather gods, the worsening aftermath of global warming. His standing crops were destroyed and Gajendra, a young man sharing home with his parents, wife and their three children, didn’t know how to confront the doom and gloom that reportedly enveloped his life when his papa told him that he better fend for himself and his family. In other words : with the crops gone and no money in the till ,the father said, the extended family couldn’t make it.
Gajendra obviously was a sensitive, even ambitious, young man having tried his hand at least twice at carving out a space of his own by unsuccessfully contesting the State Assembly elections. His father’s dare, capping yet another failed crop, ultimately drove him to the wall. So the story goes.
He decided to march down to Delhi, to be there the day AAP the ruling party in Delhi, was staging a pro-kissan rally at new Delhi’s Jantar Mantar Road. And there indeed he was for his date with destiny. He parked himself initially on the branch of a nearby tree, AAP’s symbol, jaddu, held high in his hand, an object of minor curiosity to began with.
The crowd of some three thousand below him and in the neighbourhood was busy shouting zindabads and hai hais, the first for AAP and its ambitious, self-opinionated leader, Arvind Kejriwal and the hai hais for Modi, Rahul Gandhi and anyone who dared challenge their beloved, wispy leader, a self-appointed messiah.
Gajendra had by now started raising his voice from his perch, drawing attention to his plight, waving the jaddu briskly and dropping clear hints about what he was up to. Not much obviously to cause concern to Kejriwal, his AAP volunteers; nor even the 2,000 policemen on security duty. His cries went unheard for the most parts – that’s until he finally put the noose around his neck.
Kejriwal and his cronies meanwhile chose not to let up on their rhetoric , screaming invective at Modi, accusing him, perhaps rightly, for his lack of concern for farmers’ interests , with an occasional advisory for the man atop the tree, to desist ; “kya kar rahain hain aap’ neeche aaiye” a Kejri men shouted. Most people below meanwhile had continued to cheer him on. The media men, from the electronic media in particular, had a different take on the tale.
Cameras at the ready, the TV crews goaded Gajendra, as if he was a performing animal, some even issuing directions; some others produced a very large sheet, a safety net of sorts, to prevent the impact of the fall should it occur.
Oblivious of the clamour down below or from Kejri’s platform, Gajendra finally took the plunge, with thousands of eyes fixed on the hanging form, waiting for it to fall on the stretched sheet below. That’s before the man, his body now limp and lifeless, made contact with the earth he loved and from there on to the hospital to be pronounced ‘brought dead’.
Am giving this detailed eye-witness account to illustrate how cruel we Indians indeed must be. Not one among the several thousand around at the time, made an attempt to reach out to the man, the police included. Kejriwal and co. Were obviously on a high of their own and as one of his top cronies said “you don’t expect us to climb trees to persuade someone to come down”.
How about the several thousand onlookers and the cops ? The cops obviously were under orders not to move in because Kejri has made an issue of the fact that Delhi police does not fall within his government’s area of responsibility. The Union Home Ministry controls the police in the City State.
But how about the laity ? The average Delhi man and woman, many of them present before, during and after one of the most publicized suicides, lasting about one hour, waiting only to witness the final denouement. Not one trying to intervene – apart from watching what they probably came to accept as a harsh reality of our lives, a show at a neighbourhood circus. The truth is that it will take Delhi and the Kejriwals and the local police a life time to live down the memory of having allowed such a heartless tragedy to occur before our eyes (yes, suicide, we are told, is a crime)
Equally, and applying the same yard-stick ,the AAP leadership, the Delhi police personnel and those who failed to ask the latter to intervene, are all abettors to a heinous crime.
I am sure Home Minister Raj Nath Singh and Kejriwal will have a thousand and one reasons to offer to explain away their inaction. And I hate to think of the allegation that one of Kejri’s most senior colleagues had known Gajendra previously. Even the very suggestion, coming from the dead man’s younger brother, seems preposterous to say the least.
Gajendra Singh could have been saved. If the police force chose not to intervene over matters of jurisdiction, how come Kejriwal chose not to stop his long peroration to ask Gajendra to get off his tree-top perch, opting instead to show up after Gajendra was taken to hospital and pronounced dead. Surely, we will soon have any number of explanations from all sides, from Kejriwal up to the Home Ministry, but no answer to the question why Gajendra was allowed to die. You can trust the Delhi Chief Minister to come up with some novel explanations. That’s in fact part of the mythology that he has woven around his persona these past four or five years. He will need all his skills and more to make out a convincing case. The allegation against his Deputy does give an interesting twist to the tale. Altogether a very dark tale.
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