The recently elected Delhi government, the AamAadmi Party (AAP) has come under severe criticism from the media, opposition as well as certain supporters. The incident that led to this wide spread beleaguering of the party was the suicide of a farmer, named Gajendra Singh, in one of the AAP’s rallies against the land bill. Neither the police nor the party volunteers could do enough to save the farmer and then, as is so well familiar with Indian politics, the blame game began.
The First Information Report (F.I.R.) was filed in the case by the Delhi policewherein they accused the AAP and its leader for obstructing the efforts to save the farmer. The F.I.R. charged the party u/s 306of the I.P.C. for abetment to suicide as the party workers continued to clap and ‘incite’ the farmer as he tried to hang himself and also under sections of the I.P.C. relating to obstructing the public servant in discharge of their duty as the party workers did not allow the emergency vehicles or the fire brigades to pass even after requests from the police. The police also in its preliminary report to Home Minister, Rajnath Singh had alleged that the party had tried to delay the post mortem (the preliminary medical report based on the autopsy later stated that the death of the farmer was due to the hanging.)
However Under s.174 of the Cr.P.C. it has been provided that it is not necessary for the police to carry out post mortem report with the government’s permission therefore the post mortem could have been done even without the AAP’s permission and therefore the claim of the police that the government delayed the post mortem intentionally is mere untenable excuse.
However on the defence to AAP there has been a video showing that the party’s member Kumar Vishwas asking the farmer to come down and talk to the party chief, ArvindKejriwal, about his problems. The video further went on to show that Kumar Vishwas even asked the Delhi police personnels to bring the farmer down.
Further the question arises as to whether the incident could be brought under the definition of Criminal Negligence as claimed by M.A.Naqvi, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs as clearly there was negligence on the part of the party as it is almost close to impossible to believe that with so many party volunteers on the spot they could not have prevented the incident.
What is more hair raising and perhaps nothing short of enraging is the fact that the death might just have been a political drama which went wrong.
As claimed by Megha, Gajendra Singh’ daughter that the handwriting on the suicide note is not of her father and she further alleged that her father was never ready to take such an extreme step hence an investigation team has been sent to Gajendra Singh’s native place, NangalJhamarwada village in Dausa District of Rajasthan and a handwriting check will also be conducted to verify if the handwriting is indeed of Gajendra Singh. Furthermore the so called suicide note had no mention of any plans to commit suicide. Digging deeper into the life of Gajendra Singh it was found out that he was a trader of a turban and a “part-time farmer” and a pretty affluent one. He had a spacious six-room concrete building, his family too was financially sound owning 50bigha land, his brothers were all fully employed and his uncle a sarpanch of the village. All these clearly negate the fact that he might have been having financial problem and that this season’s crop damage might have been the reason for is suicide.
The police have also sent notice to the AAP organisers and the party leaders will be questioned on the suicide incident. This notice comes after the farmer’s brother made a shocking allegation that Gajendra Singh was in touch with Manish Sisodia, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister.
The questions which subsequently arises are that was this a political stunt byGajendra Singh, to come into notice of the AAP leaders and become a larger leader, which went wrong as Gajendra Singh is known to have previous political affiliation and has even participated in the elections twice but failed, Or was he used merely as political pawn by another party as a part of a bigger conspiracy? Furthermore why did the party continue with the speeches even after the incident?
While the nation would want answers to these questions the problem of delay doesn’t seem to end here. While the AAP had ordered a magisterial probe into the incident the Delhi Police seems to have other plans and Mr. B.S. Bassi, Delhi Police Chief has clearly told that the District Magistrate has no jurisdiction in the incident and the police would be conducting its own probe and that the case has been handed over to the crime branch for further investigation.
While the government might have paid the due compensation and offered jobs to Gajendra Singh’s family but what has been brought out in the open is the tussle between the government and the police. Then again suicide by farmers has become so rampant that they are not even sensational enough to be on the cover page anymore (save this incident).
The real party to be blamed for this incident is non-other than the Indian political system itself. How effectively and vehemently the death of farmers and their plight have been politicised in the country is worthy of mentioning for all the wrong reasons. None of the leaders or party has been bold enough to take the blame for the poor state of the farmers, no one seems to bat an eye to the fact that agriculture is still the field where the maximum percentage of our workforce is employed, that agriculture is the backbone of the nation’s economy and needs to be much more developed than it is at present or atleast developed enough not to force farmers into committing suicide. Instead of providing any real alternative to the problem at hand the only thing our so called leaders, elected leaders to be precise, has done effectively has to point how each of the party is to be blamed for the incident. Clearly the nation has enough reasons to blame all the parties and the political system in the nation as a whole while wondering will any government ever wake up to such serious issues and actively part take in solving it or will the trend of picking up vital issues continue only for the purpose maligning the party in power.
