Two real incidents had the nation glued to the TV these last few weeks. The story of two sons of the soil - one, a Union Minister’s son, who was arrested at sloth speed for being involved in a gruesome incident in which peacefully protesting farmers were mowed down but the politician-son needn’t seem to need to lose hope as he will be innocent until proven guilty and he, from accounts that are unfolding, might just be proven non-guilty and let off, evidently for want of evidence. Evidence not withstanding.
Almost simultaneously, another son of the soil, this time a Bollywood actor’s son was arrested at break neck speed for carrying and supplying drugs for which there was no evidence from most accounts, but for which the star son it seemed, needed to be worried as he began to be pronounced guilty even before being proven guilty, as the highest investigative authorities in the country ran helter skelter to gather evidence, evidence which seemed so suspect.
If these were incidents from a silly mindless Bollywood movie, one would have laughed out loud and cursed the story writer for not having credited the movie goer with enough intelligence, however these were real stories being reported on prime time TV and which had the nations glued to those screens. The stories were capturing the imagination of the people in the country.
It wouldn’t be far from truth to state that there is a strange feeling of fear - one that tightens it’s grip especially as a strange understanding begins to dawn: the union ministers sons incident seems to remind one of the days of oppression by rulers including the last of the rulers, the British where any voice of protest was brutally silenced like the Jallianwala incident that had happened a 100 years ago,. And the star sons incident didn’t seem much different from the those regimes where one hears of people being picked up arbitrarily and subjected to untold miseries.
These are incidents may even look like soap operas. Like some mafia-don stories of fiction. However, these are real incidents happening in a very much democratic country, which prides in the intelligence of its people, including those in the vigilance departments.
Since writing this article, the star son has been let out on bail. Even as the star son is let out, and one is happy for him, there are thoughts that go out for the many in jail who are languishing for reasons that too could be debatable.
Hope lives. Because democracy lives.
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