When There Is No Getting Over That Rainbow

Day after day I must face a world of strangers
where I don't belong, I am not that strong
Its nice to know that there is someone I can turn to
who will always care, you are always there
when there is no getting over that rainbow
when my smallest of dreams won't come true
I can take all the madness the world has to give
but I won't last a day without you
So many times when the city seems to be without a friendly face
a lonely place
Its nice to know that you will be there, if I need you
and you will always smile, its all worthwhile..........
This 1970s Carpenters number captures the bewildering urban life and its emotional ups and downs which so many of us(both young and not so young) lead. It is in this context that the Ruchika case and its aftermath sends shivers down our spines.Molestation of a young student and an aspiring tennis player, misuse of power,harassment of family and friends and the eventual suicide of Ruchika have been highlighted by the press and the media.So also the hounding which continued for 19 long years.Ms.Brinda Karat,the Rajya Sabha MP, described this aptly as the 'sickness of the system'. Not only was the young girl traumatised and isolated by the incident but the operations of the 'political state' further reinforced her feelings of debasement and isolation. How else do we look at the political and state machinery nexus which as the media points out swung in to operation for these many years? India inherited the structures of its state system from the British colonial times. As an eminent writer and thinker of the 19th century, Frederick Engels,has pointed out that the British system had drawn up its legal institutions 'almost exactly in the the same terms as in the (absoloutist) Prussia'. Framing of cases against Ruchika's brother,his torture and then concomitant harassment of her friends and their isolation reflects methods of operation reminiscent of these practices under British imperialism. The British political state, as Engels points out had perfected the methods of 'debasement through isolation' and 'debasement through association'(which he also found in reports on Australia) both designed to'ruin systematically and consistently the victims of the state and law physically, intellectually and morally and to reduce them to below the level of beasts.' Today this works through what the Slovenian thinker Zizek calls the technological totalitarianism of 'emotional democracy' Witness how Chautala in a media interview almost labelled Ruchika's family cowards-'dubak ke baith gaye'( they are cowering like weak animals in a corner) thus appealing to the macho emotionalism which he presumed would isolate her 'cowering' family and friends. They have infact taken up the cudgels with the help of a fledgling but determined civil society movement. We in the IGNOU SFC and PG have taken up the issues of our study processes and life processes getting caught up in the machinations of the political state both here as well as in supporting Indian students in Australia. We need to concomitantly exercise this vigil. Otherwise there will be 'no getting over that rainbow.' (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)