When Pranab Mukherjee visited Nitish Kumar's Bihar in 2012, the then President ordered puris from Bihiya to fight the Bengali Babu's luchi pangs. But that was a different Nitish Kumar. His antaraatma had not yet entered the scheme of things. He was still just a chief minister with some honest gumption. Today, Bihiya has come under the global lens for another huge lapse in public security. For those who believe that this is just about the woman paraded naked and threatened to be lynched, think again.
Don't forget the 16-year-old boy whose body was found under mysterious circumstances and whose murder was allegedly responsible for the outrage. The Bihar chief minister has been repeatedly failing in delivering the basic social need of security, but the Bihiya incident is much more than that. I and many other like me have been forced to hang our heads in shame. As Ara's bahu, I feel like the land of the family I married into has been compromised.
The memories of lush green fields and smiling women is dissolved into the blurred image of the naked woman in Bihiya. It reflects shamefully poorly on our society if we blur the woman's face but refuse to figure out who the men around her are, even though their faces are shining with the sick pride of twisted minds.
There are those who are cheering the procession on and those whose stares are landing on different parts of the woman's nakedness. The naked wickedness of those men was more blinding than the Bihar sunshine. And what exactly has led to all this? Who is directly responsible for the tragedy? The police has "cracked the case". Their work is done, isn't it? But I am afraid the main guilty are still walking among us. They are not restricted to any one geographical area. They are not from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan. They are those who have brought about a validation for such acts with small but significant crimes of the kind.
The tragedy of a mob-lynching or an attack on a Dalit is never limited to that one crime. It spreads like the infesting head of a shapeless and boundless amoeba which reaches our doorsteps within the blink of an eye. From Rohith Vemula to Gauri Lankesh; from lynching of Dadri's Mohammad Ikhlaq to the burning of Bajjan Das's family in Katihar... all these have brought us one small step closer to becoming monsters. The more such incidents happen, the more used to we get to their routine occurrence. Then comes a point when the killings become mundane.
The only big news is when the Prime Minister mocks other party leaders... after all, the country thought he was just a politician and here, we got an actor par excellence! This becomes national news. We drown ourselves in videos and memes of those who are in power and have enough money to set up special cells to circulate news of the kind.
In the wake of all this, a big part of the society has become immune to pain and suffering. If you look closely at the faces of those who are walking behind the naked woman in the video, you'll find faces of zombies who have no identity. He and she have merged to form a dreadful "it": the faceless mob. "It" can only smile at its own face when seen on the screen of a smartphone to click a selfie, as ordered by the honourable Prime Minister! Selfie with daughter on the one hand and someone's daughter being paraded naked on the other.
This is the gift that we have been given in 2014. The gift of becoming heartless. The first step was becoming numb which has now led us to being completely deadened inside.
Had this not been the case, would we have just gone ahead with our lives in the insensate manner we do? Would we not have protested and demanded justice?
The Bihar CM is busy showering his condolences for Atal Bihari Vajpayee's death. Incidentally, he has written exactly six tweets about this while the Bihiya incident has featured in exactly zero tweets by him! Zero, coincidentally, is also the number of votes he will ever get from me for as long as he continues to stay in active politics.
The writer is lecturer, Delhi University, and author of Voter Mata Ki Jai
