Rajen Hajra, a father living in the suburbs was taking his daughter, Sanchita (class six student) to school in Kolkata by local train. The train being overcrowded, Rajen as always stood near the gate with his daughter’s school bag while Sanchita went and stood a little inside. They would have been reunited after a few stations. But Friday (08 February, 2008) it did not happen. The school bag got entangled with a close standing electric post causing Rajen to lose balance and fall. Sanchita had no idea of this and she waited for her father to come.
Rajen, after falling down, made a few calls to his home and notably to the missionary school of his daughter, who was duly collected by her teachers. All this time a ‘Gherao’ and ‘Stop the Railways‘ campaign was started by the mob to protest. Rajen laid there uncared for. The event went on and by the time police was allowed to get Rajen’s body, he was long dead. (Rajen had time to make many phone calls)
The police gave the excuse that the mob did not allow them to come near the body.
Sanchita questions,”There were so many people and still no one took my Dad to the hospital. Everyone stopped the trains. They didn’t even allow the police to take my father to the hospital. My father had to die lying down at the side of the railway line”
Do we have an answer??
Thoughts by: Sreejit Basu (28044)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
the question asked by Sanchita is valid and justifies...the mob being a spontaneous, relatively unorganized irrationally driven collective action hampers people from behaving in a logical and dignified manner.
also, it highlights the incapability of the armed forces to take timely action.
it seems that the pathetic image of armed personnel as the tools of rich and famous shall continue for long!!
rajat chabba
28032
this is a typical example of a situation where collective action has no rationale behind it and is just a mean to show displaced agression. its tough to take a stand on part of the armed forces too. a contagious mob could generally lose its objective or might not have any objective from the first moment itself. thus rationality of such mobs would always have a question mark on it. but does that mean collective actions only have this face. we have many other examples where CA lead to desired solutions.
neelmani gupta
28021
Post a Comment