A death, pain and pangs of new individuals

A death, pain and pangs of new individuals

By Abir Chattopadhyay
abmo2020@yahoo.co.in
Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication
S.A. Jaipuria College
Kolkata

Abstract: This paper puts forward a profound cultural critique on lynching fatalities and uproar for justice as a common favoured aftermath, as referent to the detailed signification of the painful death of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman. In this course the paper introduces its readership barely with all the socio-cultural factors or parameters involved reaching the core of the truth. While moving into the content this paper rejects even a slightest presence of self-proclaimed narrative that may dominate the text and also refuses obviously arrive at a grand-narrative in favour of a sponsored myth. The death of an individual is no match to have a dominant and authoritarian social tag-line with it. So this paper moves into factorizing all likely socio-cultural facets with a secular outlook thus theorizing socio-cultural outcomes like pangs of such deaths occurred in the Indian subcontinent. Alongside, this paper is sharply directed to the premature growth of neo-liberal individuality as a deterrent to any form of state initiative that affects social and individual elites. However this paper briefly deals with some unsolved fatalities in West Bengal and India occurred in the last one or two years, offers a definitive indeterminacy and a compulsive puzzle that common people confront along with an array of metaphors as dominant narratives like ‘sustainable development’, ‘2nd generation economic reforms’, ‘nuclear powered nation’, ‘9% economic growth rate’, ‘twenty thousand SENSEX’ etc. whereas the statistical figures tell us nearly 40% of the population live in very close to the poverty line [below or above]. So this paper gives a detailed account of the situation rather than a mythic resolution.

Introduction: Our rights and lives
Be it not with the grand narrative of deaths caused by the dominant authority or even be it not with a research toward the statistical figuration of the lynching deaths caused by the authority or the state power, a painful death of a young man has set a massive uproar in West Bengal, toward ‘against’ an undifferentiable outcome of a power structure that is reported to have gained its momentum in the contemporary period of time than from its immediate past [history]. The whole narrative of the death tells us a single dimensional story of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman has been put to death after being forcibly accused by the Police officials for marrying a Hindu affluent girl Priyanka Todi. His body was found at a railway track, on 21st September, 2007, at 10-30AM(1) that prima facie puts up the issue as a case of suicide and at this moment a subjudice matter though the hue and cry certainly is not. In accordance with the culturation trade off process of postmodernity the narrative is gradually taken care of and sprung up by the media. As soon after the painful death as possible, Rizwan was first identified as the victim of state power by some individualists, like human-rights activists and journalists and of course by the political opposition. As the days are moving on, a phenomenal and very sensitive cultural segmentation of urban Bengal society is coming up visible. This segmentation is visible into distinct five categories; the government and its officials [specially Police], press & media, individualists [a handful portion of intelligentsia], mercantile people [includes the prospective investors coming in this region], and finally inevitably the common mass [an eternal absorbent of all possible signifieds of mediated message, who lit candles of protest, pray for justice and organize movements]. Though the above categories can also be put into two main structures of signification; i.e. mediator and the mass, but like undifferentiated conceptualization of power, a simple massification of people may lead to generate a false consciousness toward getting a radical signification of the text. So the whole narrative, as we the common mass is getting, needs to be analyzed in profound detail. This paper would en-route the ‘death’ toward a definite cultural loss incurred that has resurfaced the underlying cultural fragmentation terminating the spontaneous conception and manifestation of heterogeneity or individuality in a social format where individual human being might act as a social being if that is not an utopian ideation.
The death of Rizwanur has put forward many questions targeting multifaceted authoritarianism in the society. Most pertinent among them are, the question of both ethnic & religious regimentation and the question of exerting armed power [allegedly done by the police officials threatening Rizwan and Priyanka](2). At this moment in the whole country [India] number of cases are coming up that assure a massive acculturation toward concentration of administrative power that protects some, may be somewhere, upper caste, or upper class, or aberrant political decoding etc. Moreover against the national agenda of industrialization process in states rather among competing state governments the common feature of opposition becomes very prone to life-taking exercises where ethnic, religious decodings are predominantly used to oppose the authoritarian narrative that “India needs to be industrially grown to generate employment opportunities!!”. But in every case of movement against the state power the most subversive outcome is the rallying of deaths of common innocent people. Though this paper is nowhere directed to depoliticize every social outcome [both developmental and subversive] but determined also to identify the axiomatic presence of shallow provincial political outlook which is steadily coming up regulate the future of this country.
However meanwhile this painful and unnatural death of Rizwanur occurred and as not being at all a political murder a newer cultural signification is ruling all the coming up narratives which emit lots of mythic syntagms around us; say about the fundamental individual rights, constitutional provision toward legal social bondage, even the right to lead a secular life etc. as if, Rizwanur should have got that opportunity to enjoy those rights as others do!!!
But what if the death would have occurred in a political framing like thousands in the last forty years? Why I am asking this question backgrounds both political consciousness and growing socio-political criminalization in India specially the eastern region that have been contributed with so many deaths in the last forty years but very few voices asking for human rights were seen if it was not none. Huge number of cases was filed up though justice was hardly achieved. Even alongside the death of Rizwanur within last 5-6 months more than thirty deaths tolled particularly in West Bengal in such reining political situational context(3). Way back in 2002 thousands of religious minority people were killed in Gujarat and still the whole judgment is yet to get completed. In such earlier cases individualists along with different political sects have been protesting within the constitutional provision available, but in this particular situation public probing initiatives were denounced drastically and both central and state govts. were failed to establish control over this issue.

Failure of public initiatives?
However in this complex situation, where state govt’s effort investigating the death of Rizwanur were denounced and alongside the deliberate withdrawal of govt. following the mediated public demand [as announced by the state Chief Minister accordingly], the signification of the whole case seems to be at the custody of people’s own forum, as it is being mediated without a pause by all the media houses. All of them claim to remain alert and assure its publics accordingly. Some media assurances are even to fight till the last drop of blood. So the whole case along with the investigation by the top autonomous investigating agency of India [i.e. Central Bureau of Investigation- CBI(4)] is nowadays coming up at the day’s prime commercial slots. Though earlier the state govt. announced CID [Criminal Investigation department- a department under state home administration] enquiry and judicial enquiry simultaneously that wouldn’t be unbiased as signified by the family members of the deceased. Actually the signification was fumigated by incessant mediation of a prime mythic statement that if the police perpetrated the separation of Riz and Priyanka and is suspected to put Riz into death, then how a departmental [Home Affairs] enquiry would be unbiased. So the responsibility of investigation was thus given to CBI- the autonomous investigating agency [though is governed directly by the Prime Minister’s Office].

Clash of mythologies not civilizations:
Now the question is if CID enquiry is not unbiased what about CBI investigation? Does CID perpetrate its job efficiently? Or CBI does? These two mythic statements are both well supported by some second order myths and some amount of past records of both organizations. Basically if any one tries out sociological significations in Indian context, he or she has to confront such multilayered clash between mythic statements which is often justified as paradigms of debate, though everyone is confirmed about the indeterminacy of such issues. If CID is not unbiased, then CBI also has failed to conclude the theft of Nobel memento of Rabindranath Tagore [the first Nobel Laureate literateur in Asia] from Viswabharati University Archive, the killing of Tapasi Malik, the innocent village girl brutally killed and burnt in Singur [the cite where TATA group of industries is now setting up biggest automobile factory in Eastern India], on 18th December, 2006(5), but the CBI investigation is more looking highly motivated to malign state administration than unveiling the truth and thus failed to prove anything till date. Even in Tapasi Malik case CBI has failed so far to constitute appropriate charge against their proclaimed suspect and detained that person for over last five months. They failed to constitute charge against the prime accused of Nithari killing case in Noida [a psycho serial killer alleged to kill more than 50 children](6). But does this comparative study prove anything substantial? However this debate is probably a never-ending story and doubtlessly a mediated indeterminate format which claims indeed deconstruction of a dominated structured culture but ends up with a limited agency-ship where participatory value of an individual is culturally too ephemeral. The death of Rizwan has nowadays replaced that of Tapasi Malik in terms of ‘public opinion,’ howsoever both are equally painful.

Who are the publics and the individuals?
Now the question is if the public opinion is finally to be taken into ace consideration then who are these publics. Are they powerful to change the dominant ideation? When we are talking about public opinion, are we taking ‘public’ as an undifferentiable living object at least largest portion of them is living with a consensus? If it is so, how then largest portion of them vote for a political wing for last thirty (!!) years without a pause? [It is to be noted carefully that in West Bengal a particular political wing (left front) has recently observed their consecutive 30th anniversary of ruling the state from 1977 winning consecutive seven state assembly elections by absolute majority, thus setting up a new world record and of course a paradox in terms of the massive hue and cry for the death of Rizwan]. On the other hand when CEO, Time Warner Dick Persons and US Finance Secretary Henry Polson have been visiting the state capital Kolkata, two general strikes on 29th and 30th of October, 2007(7) on this particular issue and some other killing incidents are there probably receiving these two celebrities. In this juncture can the politics of individuality ensure the expression ‘public opinion’ so unique to be identified as consensus or even deviant? Answer is needless to be secret. Even if the public opinion, rather it does, call for an unbiased investigation, would it be reflecting such temporal agony against the govt. or specifically roar against the involved personnel? But in the myth of public expression a newer form individual politics comes out leaning on a very sophisticated cultural or market base to outrage the bit older form of political identity of an individual [which in global north countries is conditionalized as modernity]. So the politics of new individuality basically, of course in India, squeeze out the individuality from it older social base and conforms alternatively with only the bare symbols like ‘candles’ and ‘signatures of the passers by’ and forgets hundreds victims of lynching deaths like, Tapasi Malik, the poor village girl, Sadhu Chattopadhyay, the low grade police officer(8), and other more than fifty deceased poor identities who are invested to death this year in West Bengal. [Anecdote-1: Anyone may think beyond his / her imagination level the Indian situation in terms of death toll in political decoding, underworld decoding, social decoding [hunger, poverty (Table-1), and malnutrition], religious fundamentalist decoding, insurgency decoding and finally atrocities as perpetrated by the police]. A tree of general statistics (Table-2) on various deaths occurred in India in last few years is given below signifying the exact situation and flood of fatalities in India.

Table-1: Deaths in India 2006
2,765 people died in terrorism-related violence in India during year 2006.
Nearly 41 per cent of all such fatalities occurred in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) alone as a result of the Pakistan-backed separatist proxy war in that State.
27 per cent resulted from Left Wing Extremism (Maoism/Naxalism) across parts of 14 States, prominently including Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Karnataka.
23 per cent of the total fatalities in 2006 occurred in the multiple insurgencies of India’s Northeast.
Source: Institute for Conflict Management database

Why this individual politics is looking aberrant though shouting for justice?
Notwithstanding the candles reflect a firm and true symbol of homage and also protest against such painful death of a fellow, the opinion of public is still a much more mediated signification than what it should have been naturally. But before that we must question our individual selves that what if I am asked for spending some of my valuable time and space with this case in front of CBI enquiry in exchange of a signature? The most surprising turn would have been that last SMS-message of Rizwan “Mere jane ke bad awaz uthana” [After I depart raise your voice — 21st September, 2007, at around 10 in the morning, nearly half an hour before his body was found](9) to his student Mrs Alpana Joli [a part time teacher of ‘Arena Multimedia’ where Rizwan has been working as a teacher], but she has reiterated already that the SMS content was only ‘Awaz Uthana’ [Raise Voice] which adds hardly any value to this case in terms of investigation. If anyone is still apprehensive about the justification of the above implosive question to be asked to any individual, the clarification would then be, the degree of participation in both social practices or social structuration process otherwise as a free agent [if anyone considers social being is a cliché symbol for a human being to be identified properly] is totally an undecided or undefined syntax in terms of gross socialization process in India. Apart from extremely multifaceted ethnic concentration and langue-differentiation, the prime impeding factor for small civil [intellectual or high cultural] groups moving into an issue to set a trendy verdict for all, is virtually the array of distinguishable cultural gaps between urban and rural population, high and low cultural population, and above all higher and lower economic classes, which is sufficient to dislocate any form of social movement toward a deserted end and may dry it up ultimately. Therefore if anyone proclaims about ‘public opinion’, he / she either must pay prime attention into these factors or would definitely disseminate a mythic statement and try to overrule every step taken by the establishment and may even claim for some unexplored metaphors like public verdict, public court etc. and many other aberrant decodings.

Why so aberrant in India?
Does this interpretant have same structural composition at all in European context or in American context? Certainly no, because in India, people inhabit still in a very low grade capitalist socio-economic format where the state power, even after 60 years of independence from colonial repression [1947], could not propagate and hardly bother people to be conscious about the fundamental rights [forget about conscious effort] available for them. Moreover after the completion of 10th 5-year economic and social plan near about 25% of the total population live still in below the poverty line and even more than that live just in above the poverty line. Most interestingly if you try to eliminate this whole population as not required in any opinion formation programme, still knowledge gap is highly vicious in between high and low cultural categories of population. [Anecdote-2: therefore why global media find suddenly India as the future destination of neo-liberal capital and culture is not the percentage but the real number of people in this second most populace region in the world. Basically India is practicing neo-liberal globalization in economic and cultural sectors not as resultant of saturation of state-based [country] capitalistic practice, rather, on an incomplete capitalist base where the state only holds the power to mould its people and is also supposedly the prime initiator of all developmental activities]. Thus indigenous opinion-leadership decoding is not a very tiring job or something responsible one, compared to other global north nations or countries. But the final question at this juncture is that, are Indian people really unconscious? No, but they certainly need an open space to have a continuous interaction with all the surfaces on an equitably determinate cultural plane. This is the main reason why left front rule West Bengal for last 30 years without break. Though nowadays the situation is changing, still it remains determinant why individual politics looks so aberrant in Indian social format where general people hardly get a space to interact with each other. And above all, these individuals despite looking for justice belong to some hidden discursive political formats [chiefly different ultra-left political wings] which ultimately establish the ‘signified’ of pseudo-individuality. So in spite of the public or audience or the general people being conscious but don’t find enough collective exposure except the older decaying or degenerating political space [both left and right] that still available for them to form public opinion. So trying to set a narrative on any issue in Indian context is just equivalent to de-knot consecutive social tangles or imperatives.

New paradigm of media culture?
The globalization initiatives developed so far in this country does not scale a post-industrial cultural approach, so all efforts toward development taken by the federal governments [both centre and state] target its people for least amount of cultural reorientation of people of course in its favour [building new flyovers, better civic amenities, better housing development, better trafficking etc. all jointly with private investors nowadays], e.g. struggling hard for reorienting its people with a message signifying ‘industries are needed for employment generation’. Naturally all these efforts leave out some compulsive cultural gaps [knowingly or unknowingly hardly matters] while communicating this message-signifier. This is where media find its operating space and target the same unsaturated audience-psyche projecting arbitrary and conative signification of a text. So quite obviously they need some individuals neither financially or socially downtrodden [because they depend on establishments to organize livelihood] nor associated with any organized social struggle. These people are our newly found oriental critical individuals rather mediated leaders and gatekeepers of the society who are not at all a marked political figure and hardly ‘prefer’ [as they propagate in media] to be so, but all are surprisingly engaged leading mass movements [quite unlike the voices incessantly roaring against Israeli occupation over Palestine, or US constructive terrorism]. How can it be possible? This is where media and these individuals play a mutually complementary role to dominate the society. In this course they extensively use the ‘screen-space and paper space’ to fill temporarily such knowledge and cultural gaps which of course a determinate and doubtless creation of inefficient contemporary political initiatives and consciousness. These people [media persons and individuals] thus organize mass movements from the hot seat of the screen. Though social and cultural inequalities are augmenting like anything in this neo-liberal economic and cultural domination era, media is having the fastest growth toward its global conglomeration. Even regional media like Ananda Bazar Patrika [largest single edition Bengali newspaper in India] is financially tied up with Time Warner Group to launch Indian edition of Fortune Magazine(10). So in this yuppified spectacular concentration of media and its model individuals, all the issues even death of common people becomes a product to be culturally judged in terms of its glossy social attachment. If it is so, media coverage and analysis would continue to a certain period, what is not happened in the case of Tapasi Malik or brutal killing of the police officer Sadhu Chattopadhyay, or leaders of downtrodden [mostly tribal people] people Rabi Kar, or Bhagirath Karmakar and number of people have lost their lives within last two or three months in West Bengal.
Thus a new paradigm of media culture as a determinant of global media conglomeration is going to overlap the existing social culture and dominates aspiration[al] elements of common people. So interestingly and quite naturally governments are disseminating strategic developmental elements and appear to be failing to motivate its people whereas media attract many of them propagating newer cultural elements along with glossy advertisement texts. Now the question is ‘what do media do with its audience?’ Do they need general people? No certainly no, they only look for their audience who are to be necessarily prospective consumers and of course information-elites otherwise there is no alternative left for them to operate. So the death of Tapasi Mallick is now a sold commodity and the death of Rizwan dominates the market. Other fatalities like killing of Bhagirath Karmakar or Rabi Kar or Sadhu Chattopadhyay and many others leave no impression on the market because these are marked at a very low selling point category.
Therefore what they signify in the name of social movement in this particular case is proved nothing but to be a dominant myth which works in the spiral of people’s silence and of course in the free space where information elites do not meet common mass. It is a doubtless fact that many people have participated in the movement for nothing but a definite solution of Rizwan’s death and others also would definitely support silently. But what going on in the space between the investigation and the people’s desire, is a subversive ‘solely mediated politics of pseudo individuality’ denouncing polity and establishment without giving any alternative. Everyone should recognize the main factor that impedes the formation of civil society [that may feed information to others and control] and information consumers in such a ‘big’, ‘older’, and ‘developing’ country is the ‘incomplete sense of development of individual’ that chiefly differentiates the dominant narratives like ‘rural’—‘urban’, ‘elite’—‘common’, ‘intellectuals’—‘pedestrians’, ‘ethnic’—‘progressive’ etc. But who then will be taking responsibility to feed those ‘second categories’? or who will represent these toiling people? Individualists? or the political sects [though having very narrow mundane cultural signifiers to unite people]? What they demand is “state should properly investigate the uneventful deaths [even killing] of rural people though have to face their criticism and state should not have right to investigate such newsy death [which provides lots of followed-up news including profiles] so that the myth of social movements and civil society can be established in audience psyche”. But what if CBI takes equally more time to solve out this case? Would the media house continue parallel investigation and ‘sleepless night’ what they promise now? Would the advertisers continue giving advertisements against this news? Let us hope for the best otherwise for any delay media and individualists are not going to spend sleepless night doing parallel investigation only. They say, ‘we have many other issues to deal with’ but we the common people know Rizwanur won’t come back [though some turns of Rizwanur’s death may still possibly come out as investigation proceeds] nevertheless such atrocities against common people would again be perpetrated. Someone has to make news which people collectively can’t whatever history tells us about the story of movements!!!

References:

(1) Taken from the reports published in The Telegraph, 23rd September, 2007
(2) Taken from the reports of Ananda Bazar Patrika, 17th October, 2007.
(3) Ibid. March and September, 2007.
(4) Ibid. Wednesday, 17th October, 2007.
(5) Ibid. 19th , 20th December, 2006.
(6) Taken from PTI documents and Sinha, Varun. "'We first fished out remains from drain'", Indian Express, 2006-12-29, December, 2006.
(7) Taken from The Telegraph, 30th and 31st October, 2007.
(8) Taken from Aajkal [a regional Bengali Daily], 17th March, 2007.
(9) Reports from PTI, 29th October, 2007.
(10) Reports from PTI, 30th October, 2007.