Rahul Pandita
In 1755, a major earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon, killing thousands of its inhabitants. It created a theological crisis of sorts in Europe, with ordinary people and philosophers alike questioning how a “kind God” would allow such suffering.
Since then, humans have brought so much destruction upon themselves that the only question one needs to ask of God is why men could turn so evil. As the philosopher Susan Neiman writes in ‘Evil in Modern Thought’, “The more responsibility for evil was left to the human, the less worthy the species seemed to take it on.”
Nowhere has this been more evident recently than in the Kathua case. We are not supposed to take her name, but how does one stop thinking about the girl who lies buried in an alien patch of land, away even from her temporary home in Kathua, where she played football by herself? Her parents have left, following the old tradition of their forefathers, negotiating one hill after another, setting up camp wherever they can, along with their livestock. The girl who cannot be named, the girl who had big eyes, the girl who the autopsy report said was 110 centimetres long, cannot accompany them any longer.
Immanuel Kant believed stupidity is caused by a wicked heart. To this the philosopher Hannah Arendt added that wickedness may be caused by absence of thought. In the case of the people who are in absolute denial about the circumstances that could have led to the girl’s death, perhaps both of these are true. Otherwise how can one explain their diabolical proclivity to spread lies or believe in lies about her murder? This is tantamount to mutilating the girl several times over.
In the past week, I have become sick with random news items landing in my email and other inboxes from such people or from others who get severely confused after reading them. “What do you have to say about this?” asked one, after he sent me a Facebook post on how the girl’s biological parents were dead and how her murder was a result of a property dispute. This is after her real parents had already been interviewed several times by journalists. Then another item was sent on how the “in charge” of the crime branch team was involved in the custodial death of a man and the rape of his sister in 2007 in Jammu’s Doda region. This pertained to one of the members of the team — not the in charge — who was accused but later exonerated of all charges and reinstated in the force with full benefits.
And then, I was flooded with screenshots of a report in a national Hindi daily that claimed that there had been no rape. I cringed at it. I had seen the autopsy report on January 17 itself, conducted on the day the girl was found dead, when the crime branch was not even involved in the case. The investigation officer at that time was the policeman who is now one of the accused in the case. But such facts do not matter to those who keep on brandishing their ignorance the way they waved the national flag earlier in favour of the accused.
There is no doubt that Jammu has some genuine concerns about the Rohingya influx. Last year, the state home department said in the assembly that there were 5,743 Rohingya in Jammu who had “entered the state on their own”. The number is believed to be much higher. India has provided sanctuary to refugees for centuries, but in this case one wonders how the Rohingya ended up so far in a state that has already seen polarisation and violence for decades. While the civil society in Jammu was well within its rights to raise this issue, it committed the mistake of conflating it with the girl’s brutal murder. And then, on April 9, a few lawyers in Kathua thought that shouting Jai Shri Ram would let them prevail over India’s Constitution.
Now we know one thing. The court will decide whether the accusations made in the chargesheet are true or not. But, so far, whatever has been produced as ‘evidence’ in favour of the accused has turned out to be false.
Till the court decides, it is time for everyone to quieten down. Let the judiciary do its job. In the meantime, listen to a song or something. I have personally taken solace in ‘Ek Lau’ from the movie, Aamir, sung beautifully by my friend Shilpa Rao. Also, if you can, take Yale historian Timothy Snyder’s advice and stay away from the internet as much as possible. Also, if you can, lock yourself in a room and read Hannah Arendt on the “banality of evil.”
(Pandita is the author of ‘Our Moon Has Blood Clots: A memoir of a lost home in Kashmir’ )
The Article Was First Published On Times Of India