A General Category Suicide

The whole city gaped in astonishment as Manish Agarwal, 38, a resident of ‪Varanasi, immolated himself in the crowded premises of the Divisional Commissioner’s office on December 27, 2015, and succumbed to his burn injuries on January 5, 2016 after a 9-day battle for life. But before that, he had recorded his statement, which later attained the legal status of dying declaration, before a magistrate that he took such extreme step because he was fed up of the ruthless extortion by the corrupt Varanasi Development Authority officials whose lust for bribes never satiated. He held them entirely responsible for his attempt to suicide, while his family demanded action against the officials named. His house fell within the controversial two hundred meter range of river Ganga’s maximum flooding level, and hence was declared as one of the innumerable such illegal constructions to be demolished following the order of the High Court. Notwithstanding the case of his house being sub-judice in the High Court, the VDA officials would repeatedly extort bribes threatening him with pulling down the sole shelter for his family. And he could pay them no more.

Yet, even after his attempt to suicide, Agarwal struggled with death very bravely, but finally he gave up. Meanwhile no aid came to his family, whether government or non-state, and the district administration kept on blaming no one other than the victim for his act. Manish, the only son of his parents, is survived by this wife and geriatric parents who were inconsolable after the death of the sole breadwinner of the family. They have lost their everything and can do but to meekly continue their demand of action against the culprits. His death went unreported by the national and international level media, as do most such cases. And no senior politician or activist bothered to resent over the issue, not to mention or visiting his orphaned kin. But no FIR u/s 306 IPC for abetment of suicide was lodged against anyone in spite of the victim’s dying declaration, although his immolation bid was enough to prompt the Cantt ‪police ‬to register a IPC 309 case against Manish for attempting suicide. Perhaps UP police are not as bold as their ‪Hyderabad ‬counterpart who hastened to book a Union Minister and the VC of a Central University in the tragic Rohith Vemula suicide case in spite of his holding no one responsible in his suicide note.
If poor Manish Agarwal committed a crime liable for this punishment, it was merely that he was not born from the womb of a ‪dalit mother. And his case could not be portrayed as Hindu atrocities over the lesser Hindus – dalits. The issue called corruption, of which every neo-elitist of India is a beneficiary, is negligibly diminutive before the gargantuan propaganda generator known as casteism. The reason behind this is too obvious to mention here, but it shall be forewarned that this fast emerging, vested interest motivated practice of discrimination against the ‘general category’ will be extremely dangerous in the long term if not eradicated in time. For the monstrous devilry of casteism will return in its reversed form, swapping the position of the oppressor and the oppressed castes, to grasp the throat of the democratic India.
This devilry has certainly not uttered its departing Jai Bheem yet.