K shaped growth of the soul

Illustration/Uday Mohite

As we headed for the hottest February in eight years, 35 year-old Ratan Navgire, two sisters and their two children began to walk from Pune to Mumbai with Rs 70 rupees and one goal: to meet the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and ask for the justice that leaders in a democracy are elected to ensure.

The family from Thergaon belong to the Matang caste, a caste historically discriminated against. Two years ago, their 14-year old son Karan was attacked by upper caste men in their village, when he reacted to caste-related insults. Constant caste-based harassment followed - abuses, physical assaults and threats. After several months of complaining, the municipality and the police finally did something. They cut off the family's water connection without notice. When they tried to fetch water from the public tank, locals threw dead rats in their pots.

The list of persecutions they faced is long and harrowing. Their efforts to secure justice even more. Their 10-year old child, Nutan, was beaten up. Their phone snatched to erase evidence. When they tried to meet the commissioner they were detained at the police station until midnight and made to scrub floors.

Finally, on February 6, when the Commisioner did not respond to their written complaint, they decided to walk to Mumbai.

They walked from sunrise to sunset, holding placards, sleeping where they could. On February 13, they reached Azad Maidan and waited for the Chief Minister to meet them.

Fat chance, is what most who hear this will say. It's sad and horrible of course, but we all know nothing's going to happen. Cynicism, it costs money. And the system has ensured that some of us have enough to afford cynicism.

A new report by the venture capital firm Blume says that a billion out of India's 1.4 billion population have no spending money. The top 10 per cent of Indians now hold 57.7 per cent of national income, up from 34 per cent in 1990. The bottom half hold 15 per cent of national income, down from 22.2 per cent in 1990. Yaniki, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer (school ka naam K shaped growth). Data and its interpretations are always debatable but at least some truths are immutable in great civilisations whose lost glory is about to return any minute now.

In the sudden lockdown of the pandemic, our society's reality rose to the surface, like that lost anglerfish who swam up from the deep last month, and died. The long walk of migrant workers encased in the burning heat of an indifferent system. But the spectacle of things like beating thalis somehow could obscure this specter of suffering. Even to mention it was to be accused of being anti-hope. That cynical hope is like a political rave, constantly over-fed on spectacles keeping callous power in place, demanding no compassion from it.

Sated by the spectacle of the Kumbh, it might be hard to tune in to a small voice of a small family like the Navgires, making their long walk longer. The Navgires plan to walk to the capital if they are unheard and petition the Prime Minister. They have more hope in the system being its best self than those who paid a lot to learn how to spell structural injustice and pronounce intersectionality. Talk about K shaped growth of the soul.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com