ARROGANCE

Being out of India truly does take an Indian away from the pulse of the nation. At least that is the excuse I keep telling myself for being so late with this post.

The past few days have been a judicial roller-coaster for an average Indian citizen. First we all balked about how inefficient and slow our courts are. After that we celebrated how money and fame doesn't let anyone off the hook anymore in India. Then we all looked like fools when the afore-mentioned money and fame secured a bail in 2 days, when more than 60% of the ‘under-trials’ spend an average of 3 months in prison before getting a bail hearing. It looks like the Indian media-scape has been taken over by Salman Khan again.

When you remove all the fluff and foam surrounding the Salman Khan Case, what it basically boils down to is, simply speaking, Arrogance. The Arrogance that having a silver-screen quotation somehow places you above the common citizen. The Arrogance that any crime is passable here, if you can mask its evil with subsequent charity works and long drawn out court procedures. The Arrogance that no matter what you do, there will be a bunch of deluded fans to chant your name and die for you. The Arrogance that money and muscle power rides above everything else. The Arrogance that a homeless man’s life or death is less consequential than a superstar’s.

I don’t mean to point a finger at the criminal alone. The reaction of the celebrity club to the verdict gave us unique glimpses of this Arrogance, insensitivity and human stupidity. While a brunette bimbo tried to blame the government for drunk driving, another celebrity had the audacity to compare the homeless to street dogs. Maybe they think being homeless is a choice. This is a wake-up call to the mindless worshipers of these so-called stars as to what they really think of their fans. While some of the more experienced thugs were reluctant to openly support the non-deliberate murderer, the young-lings of Bollywood were less cautious and came in open support of Salman. But the reaction of this crowd was as expected. After all, birds of a feather flock together. What surprised me was how some of the common citizens reacted to the verdict.

The crowds who sympathized with the victims (three of whom are still alive) were almost negligible when compared to the sympathy wave the criminal enjoyed. (I am sure some of you are squirming at the use of the word criminal. But as far as I am concerned, the judiciary has seen through the web of deceptions cast by the star’s high profile legal team and found him guilty of the crime). Many have also forgotten the young man, PC Ravindra Patil, who lost his job, his honor and ultimately his life for his pivotal statement that convicted the ‘star’. I can only imagine the amount of courage it took for him to stick to his statement in spite of the pressures and threats he would have been subjected to.  

Social media platforms were flooded with messages sympathizing with the criminal and how his charitable activities should somehow absolve him of the crime he committed. There was a reported case of attempted suicide outside the court by a Salman fan. This ‘bhai-tard’ probably should have just slept on a pavement near one of the clubs frequented by the B-town boys. That would have been a more fitting way for him to rid the world of his genes. How the educated ‘Bhai-tards’ can continue supporting an irresponsibly drunk, animal killing, woman-hurting, law-abusing, spoilt scion of a powerful family is something beyond my understanding.

It is also interesting to observe that the ‘star’ decided to start being-human only after 2002. A pattern of criminal and anti-social tendencies which the actor was infamous for till then was somehow forgiven and forgotten by his fans. While charity in any form is to be appreciated, the sanctity of his transformation is questionable. It is more likely that the ‘star’ felt that to avoid prison, it was necessary to improve his PR angle rather than there being any genuine change in his outlook.

If he was truly a changed man, Salman would have accepted the lenient punishment dictated by the court. After all, first step to being human is to take responsibility for ones actions, in this case, the murder of another human being. The argument that a man with a net worth of 200 million dollars spent around 7 million on charity over a period of 13 years is laughable for two reasons. First reason is that you cannot expect to buy your way out of murder. We do not live in a world where past misdemeanors are mitigated by present monetary penances.  Jack London sums up the second reason best “A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry.”