Early on August 14, we fed, bathed, clothed and walked a man to his death. This man that we killed ritually, was he an island by himself? No. But yes, the world he hailed from in distant Bankura is aeons away from ours — the urban upper middle class’s marble-foyered milieu. Dhananjay Chatterjee’s neighbours recognized this gulf (and its tragic consequences) when they said, “We offered an innocent boy to Calcutta…”

Each month, thousands of young men, women and children come to the cities from remote rural areas, driven out by poverty, hunger, unemployment and so on. They end up as domestic helps, ayahs in hospitals, apprentices in workshops or guards in housing societies. Some, like the young guards recruited by agencies, are paid much below the national minimum wage and less than what they require to maintain themselves in the city while saving for home. There is also the “cut” to be paid to the agency.

All of them work for long hours, or several shifts per day. They go without proper food, accommodation and even proper toilets. Yet this labour force is hardly ever identified for what it is — indispensable to the modern household. Nothing can flower in this exploitative framework, least of all loyalty and trust.

Lonely lives

The problem is compounded if the subaltern in the city holds a dominant position in his own village. Dhananjay was a Brahmin and aware of the fact. He was, moreover, the eldest son of the family. In the city, like most of his kind, he was cut off from this structure. The leap from the cohesive village community and family breeds intolerable psychological pressures. And the city provides no succour. Detached from his own value system, the migrant is disoriented, often helpless.

For entertainment these men turn to Hindi cinema. Here the hero kills with impunity and assaults the police for fun. Here rich ladies can be successfully pursued and won by the subaltern staff. The influence of this entertainment can hardly be underestimated for the migrants.

Dhananjay must have undergone similar experiences. His acute sense of disorientation comes through in the way he committed his crime. He seems to have planned his attack against the woman he resented for having jeopardized his job, yet he made no effort to hide his culpability. Since this crime he showed no further violence, nor did he let slip, even inadvertently in the 14 long years, any incriminating information. His inability to admit to his crime, even at the point of death, is truly frightening and indicative of the deep schism in his mind.

Some pointers

But the modern state and the civil society did not bother to provide him with psychiatric help. It kept him confined and then sent him unrepentant to his death, matching extreme cruelty with more mindless cruelty. Dhananjay learnt nothing, and we achieved nothing.

Yet the crime has its lessons. It points an accusing finger at placement agencies that do not fulfil their minimum responsibility either to the job- seeker or the employer. They neither screen the men they recruit, provide them training, nor give them the much-needed counselling they need to adjust to the new circumstances. There is also no law to make the agencies do so.

Why have we failed to provide the unorganized migrant labour force a framework within which they can survive and work with dignity? Our lawkeepers merely advise householders to “register” their “servants”. Doesn’t the terminology give away a deep-set bias? It is imperative that the matter is debated, trade unions recognize the needs of this sector and rules set for agencies. Meanwhile, the police could promote counselling centres in association with NGOs for these hapless people.