Who will hear their plea?

Who will hear their plea?

(Published in "Free Press" Indore, Weekend special issue on 27 Dec., 2009.)

We are free citizens of free India. We all have equal rights and duties carved out for us by our forefathers in the form of constitution of our country. There are also laws that are created to protect the rights of each one of us and laws to remind us of our duties. It’s all very easy to say, and very pleasant to hear that ‘we all are equal,’ but is there somebody to tell this, to all, that we have equal rights? “What is there to tell to all, it’s all there in our constitution,” one would say. Nevertheless, here question arises, do all citizens of India have a copy of the constitution and are able to understand it? Majority of India dwells in villages, with which also dwell the poverty, illiteracy and many other evils that should have been disappeared by now, had we worked all together to eradicate them.

The situation is like that of a vulnerable person having a machine gun for his protection, but nobody has taught him to operate it. Will it do any good to him? Will it really protect him from the dangers for which it is meant? Today, millions of our brothers and sisters, in the form of poor, dalits, tribals, illiterate, down trodden, marginalized and minorities hold this weapon of their rights, but there is nobody who knows to operate it and willingly ready to impart his knowledge to them.

Poor tribals, whose land gets snatched by the powerful, don’t have anyone to speak for them. Poor slums, dwelling in the outskirts of the cities, give altogether a different picture of our country – the golden bird. It is not that our governments sit with closed eyes towards them; there are hundreds of schemes to bring them up, but who is there to tell them about these schemes? There are innumerable poor and weak people who are thoroughly exploited by the stronger sections of the society, but there is nobody to tell them that our forefathers never wanted this all, that’s why they gave us sure protection in the form of our constitution, but who will strengthen them to fight for justice? Government is doing a lot for them but we should never forget that even the government consists also of the people who have their own pockets too.

The media will readily cover the news of a celebrity having headache, or buying a new car or a Netaji attending a marriage party, but it won’t cover the news of the people in far interiors being exploited, people being deprived of education, only because they are far from cities. The media cannot reach there because there are no proper roads, the ministers cannot reach for the same reason. A lawyer, who is well versed in the law, will not prefer to fight for the cause of the poor and downtrodden, because they do not have enough to pay him. He needs his fees and ‘legal charges.’ If the government turns a deaf ear towards the millions of tribals, dalits and weaker sections of the society, if media closes its eyes to their pain and exploitation, if people who know the law and rights but do not impart the knowledge to the ones who need it most, then who will hear their plea and who will fight for them, or enable them to fight for justice?

- B. Johnson Maria