Our first PM, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, while delivering his famous speech after independence, claimed that he was now in a position to ‘redeem our pledge’, though not fully, but ‘very substantially’. In the same speech, he eloquently added.
‘The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.’
The nation believed him for his credentials were impeccable and his dedicated team of ministers too evoked trust of the masses. In spite of the macabre incidents that preceded and succeeded partition, people looked at future with hope – hope of a new India in which common men will have their say, their aspirations will be met and injustice will be gradually extinguished.
What followed, however, would have covered hateful Churchill in unabashed glee for it was he who believed Indians as a race were incapable of governing themselves. As if following his script, one after another our dreams were ruthlessly crushed and while a segment of our population continued to be benefitted by the institutions of democracy, a significant majority not only were deprived of the benefits but started to look at these very institutions with suspicion and fear.
There has been many laudable literary works which focused on our failure to address the major concerns of a large section of our population – two of the notable ones being(that I came across), ‘Everybody Loves a Good Draught’ by P. Sainath and ‘An Uncertain Glory: India’ by Dr. Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze. The emphasis of these two seminal works are different and beyond the scope of this review but I was looking for a work which looked at the lives of our deprived citizen more closely and also examined how our institutions effected their lives.
Then I came across ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ by Katherine Boo and it seemed my search had reached its destination. In poignant prose she held our hand and guided us gently through an insignificant slum in Mumbai, Annawadi. Reluctantly we followed for we were not sure what we would face but slowly we made friends – Abdul, Manju, Kalu – to name a few. As expected they had many challenges for it started with their existence itself but they certainly did not overwhelm them. They fought on multiple fronts(poverty, disease, police, policy, violence, natural calamities, politicians) and often lost almost all of their meager possession but phoenix like they again rose to live another day and fight another battle. Often small victories were celebrated and catastrophic losses were brushed aside.
It is heartbreaking to witness the way our coveted democratic institutions like police, court, school, hospitals and the like performed the very opposite of their intended purpose. We, the so called middle class, too have our distrust on them but thankfully our survival is not at their mercy as we are having other options for securing our health, education and security. I often wondered how it felt not to have these alternatives and Katherine must receive my gratitude for enlightening me on this.
But most of all I am thankful to her for breathing lives into the characters without colouring them with her prejudice. There is no sympathy in her tone and this is welcome for this is how truth should be told and understood. The fact that she is a foreigner too has worked to her advantage. Her vision is never blurred by the unwanted baggage of caste, religion, language or region which an Indian author would have struggled with.
Finally, the work is an act of love. It is hard to believe that the book is not a fiction for so intimately the incidents and thoughts have been described that one cannot help but suspect that author’s fertile imagination has played a major role. It is not so and the author herself has taken the pain to elaborate on her research methodology(from endless hours of observation to rounds of police station and hospital to taking the benefit of RTI Act) at the end in a beautifully crafted ‘Epilogue’. She also has the courage to proclaim that the names and incidents narrated in the book are real(thus no resemblance is coincidental) and one suspect that she must have had some tough time with the authorities for her audacity. Our rulers and administrators should read such books for development of our country should be measured more in terms of the improvement we have brought in the lives of lowliest of low and not in terms of number of billionaires we have added. We too should read such works in order to appreciate the things we have. And perhaps few amongst us will also draw the motivation to walk the extra mile to make the lives of the people living at the other side of glitter more livable.
For as we read this, some Abduls are being punished for crimes they have not committed and some Sonus are contemplating drinking rat poison to escape a life not worth living ………………………