The end of an error
To put a time frame in perspective, one of the falsely accused in the Mumbai train blasts case was arrested when his daughter was six months old. He's been released when she's in college. Meanwhile, the actual perpetrators of this terrorist act roam free. The families of the victims must endure the frustration of being denied closure, yet again. This was a high-profile case with intense media scrutiny and public pressure. One naively believes the authorities would leave nothing to chance while zeroing in on the culprits. Which is what makes it so much more frightening that despite all that focussed attention, the wrong people were incarcerated. It sends shivers down one's spine to think how justice is arrived at in less important matters in India — and how many people may be languishing in jails for crimes they didn't commit.
Some situations are too tragic to fully comprehend, but it's clear these men have been through a surreal, never-ending nightmare that's harder to process, because it's the state that's inflicted the damage. Their free-falling ordeal is eerily reminiscent of Franz Kafka's 1925 masterpiece The Trial, where a man stands accused of a crime he can't recollect and whose nature is never revealed to him. Unlike Kafka's ill-fated protagonist who's executed in an abandoned quarry, these men have survived, but it's not like life is going to be all peaches and cream going forward. Much like the terrorising bureaucracy in The Trial that wields absolute power over the condemned individual, these exonerated men have been dehumanised. Being marked in public memory means they'll be tested, over and over again. Labels like 'terrorist' are tough to shake off. Resurrecting an identity and career, catching up on the changes in the world in two decades, presents considerable challenges.
Criminal justice failures capture our imaginations because they speak so profoundly to the human condition, to fundamental questions about punishment, ambition and ethics. Throughout history, in mythology and in reality, there have been people who couldn't get a fair trial. Think of Joseph in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New. Believers make sense of a bad hand by dividing the Universe into halves of heaven and hell. Contemplating karmic retribution and ancient Biblical proverbs, that declare a day of Judgment when an all-knowing God will prevail, is one way of finding solace in a confusingly unjust world. Then there are those who imagine the Universe has a third layer, earth, that contains elements of both, beauty and terror.
Injustice is a recurring theme in philosophical inquiry and art-form. The beautifully executed The Shawshank Redemption (1994) explores what it takes to keep hope alive when faced with a murder rap. The iconic line, Get busy living or get busy dying reflects stoicism; when life is spiralling out of control, all we can do is control our reaction to it. There are no satisfying answers to why so many innocent people are tossed around by twists in destiny. It's a sobering thought that everybody's more vulnerable when a morally bankrupt government is in charge.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
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