A human chain emerges on the site where people are protesting. A few police officials unofficially thrust through a lane full of people. Suddenly, voices echo in the dampened air. A few policemen, who don’t even look like policemen, come onto the stage. The protesters demand the reason. The answer is given to them by pushing them off the stage. The stage doesn’t welcome the policemen, but they stamp on its face, suppress its voice, and push the boot further down till the stage chokes and dies.
Behind them, Gandhi sees it. He sees it, and he weeps. Ambedkar sees what they are doing to a man who hasn’t eaten a morsel of solid food for 21 days. The man wasn’t in shape to stop a bunch of people with bedsheets in their hands. The bedsheets are spread on the stage. One end of the bedsheet is in one man’s hand, another is in another’s. Nobody can see what is behind it. What is happening? Some say it is a man behind those bedsheets, a man on hunger strike. But that is not it. It isn’t just a man. There are other things behind them.
There is a green forest of democracy that is set on fire.
There is incompetence in the governing regime that has hidden itself.
There is an inexplicable arrogance of those who are sitting in the highest chair.
There is the dying face of the mother, proud of her democratic children, but is now highly disappointed in them.
There is nakedness of those who can’t take questions, can’t take accountability.
There is a government that is deaf.
There is a government that is blind.
And there are the spirits on the deathbed of students who died because the system failed them. And behind those white bedsheets, the system sees them, and when they try to speak, the system stamps on their faces, suppresses their voice, and pushes the boot further down till they choke and die again.
Gandhi looks at their dead bodies and mutters prayers.
Ambedkar looks at the printed picture of the Preamble of the Constitution, and he feels nothing but anger.