Dana Majhi’s story sounds so much like Dasrath Manjhi’s. While the latter flattened an entire mountain to create a road, the inaccessibility of which caused his wife’s death; the former carried his dead wife on his shoulders for ten long kilometers when he was denied a vehicle by the district hospital in Bhawanipatna town in Odisha.
Dana Majhi’s wife Amang, 42 years of age, died from T.B. in the district hospital in Bhawanipatna town in Odisha. As soon as Amang died, Hospital authorities started forcing Majhi to take the body away. Poor Majhi asked the hospital authorities for a vehicle but they denied. He couldn’t afford a private vehicle; hence he wrapped his dead wife in clothes and set off for a long and arduous journey.
Both the incidents are tragic and highlight the apathy of the state machinery.
Majhi’s version is now being challenged by the Hospital authorities who claim that Majhi was adamant on carrying the dead body himself. Whatever may be the truth, one cannot deny the horror and shame that every Indian felt after seeing the upsetting images of this heartbreaking episode in a small town in Odisha.
But the bigger question is – Does the Odisha Man episode symbolize what India is?
Is this the real India? What about the StartUp India, StandUp India, Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao India, JanDhan India and Mudra Bank India? Is Modi merely selling dreams while real India still suffers in poverty and ignominy?
It is quite natural to get disconcerted by a disconcerting image, but making sweeping statements and generalizing the whole country based on one incident is neither compulsory nor warranted.
India is currently in a reviving phase. Under the spirited leadership of PM Modi, India has achieved a lot in last two years and the most significant change among them would be the change in its global image.
The last 2 years of UPA-II made certain that India is perceived as a brazenly corrupt nation where things do not work unless officers at different levels of the system and the minister at the top of the system is lured with a fat stack of money and that sense of duty doesn’t come naturally to Indians. With Modi at the helm of affairs, this notion is fast changing. Modi’s frequent addresses to the Indian Diaspora in different countries is an attempt at rekindling the India-ness in the hearts of Indians who had given up on their country. And it’s working.
And this doesn’t go down well with a lot of people, both inside and outside India. This nation has deliberately been kept on dialysis ever since it won its independence. A free nation, a free thinking nation, a prosperous nation and a nation of 1.2 billion inquisitive souls is not the kind of voter base politicians aim at. They wish for a divided, a polarized society where it is easy to create unrest, where it is easy to spread seeds of despair and where simple fear psychosis parlour tricks rake in thousands of votes. Similarly, the global greats made sure India is never rid of its internal problems so that it doesn’t stand a chance at the global dais.
The morbid fascination of the world with India’s poverty and wretchedness is unparalleled.
Dadri was given an international color. The left-liberal cabal used every last spell of their witch grimoire to project India as an intolerant nation. When the dust settled, we realized how it was a bundle of lies.
BBC Reporter Leslie Udwin tried painting India as a nation of rapists, using Nirbhaya Gang Rape convict as a case study.
JNU, HCU and Jadhavpur Universities were blown out of proportion to project India as a totalitarian state.
Yes whatever happened in Odisha was unfortunate. Everyone, right from the Hospital Management to Town Administration to District Administration to the State Administration must be hauled over the coals for this blatant disregard to human life and dignity but NO I am not ready to accept the Odisha Man’s image as the image of India. This is the same country where the traffic police of two states had coordinated to form a green corridor for transplanting a heart between the two cities in 27 minutes and 56 seconds. One individual mistake cannot be used as an alibi to defame the entire nation.