Send an SMS for
Surekha Bhotmange. Bhotwho? But before that, this leader must bow in
shame and apologise for the time it has taken to be written. This leader
should have been written a month ago. Surekha Bhotmange, 45, was raped
and killed by a village mob in Maharashtra a month ago. Her daughter
Priyanka, 17, was raped and killed a month ago. Her sons Roshan, 23,
and Sudhir, 21, were murdered the same day. A dalit family asserting
rights, pushing the system to give what’s only due. A feudal pantheon
in rage over such temerity, seeking a ruse to ravage. An Indian atrocity.
Dalits.
Justice is a common
cause, it has no meaning if it embraces one and forsakes another |
Their men are bodies
that work, their women are bodies that please. Smother when they act
out of defined purpose. But if there is a more terrible thing than the
savagery done to the Bhotmanges, it is that for weeks nobody got to
know, or cared to. Cellphones, satphones, mobile uplinks, zealous dragoons
of citizen journalists forever wired up to broadcast, telecast, podcast,
blog and vlog. A hundred, probably more, 24-hour television channels
voraciously seeking news. A media high on a newfound sense of purpose
and empowerment. A nation heady on a fresh dose of justice — Mattoo,
Katara, Jessica, get the culprits. And yet, in all the exploding fury
of fairness, nobody heeded the horror of the Bhotmanges of Kherlanji
in Vidarbha. The roused conscience of the nation should ask itself why.
Because Kherlanji is a remote location? But it’s only a mobile
call away from everywhere on earth. Because the Bhotmanges were dalits?
Because this was not a People-Like-Us crime? That roused conscience
of the nation should ask itself those questions. Does it operate beyond
city limits? Is its cry for justice a cry for justice for all? And purpose-driven
media should ask itself those questions too. The Bhotmanges did not
become a screaming box on the frontpages, they did not even become a
paragraph. Primetime television never got the story, it didn’t
even make a late-night filler. Just like the story of Bant Singh, another
beyond-the-metros atrocity. Justice is a common cause, it has no meaning
if it embraces one and forsakes another. Send out an SMS for Surekha
Bhotmange, there’s time yet.
