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Journalism of Courage
Life in Uttar Pradesh is short and uncertain. That8217;s a quote, astoundingly enough, from a state government web document detailing UP8217;s abysmal human development indices. Quite apart from the fact that this is a candid 8212; if inadvertent 8212; admission of the state8217;s utter failure to shape up, it is also a simple explanation why the state is plagued by bizarre phenomena like the muhnochwa. The face-scratcher, as the 8216;creature8217; is called, has over the last month been variously described as a genetically modified insect introduced by the ISI and this one from the area8217;s top cop, a DIG, a terrorist with a laser and, really, anything the imaginations of eastern UP8217;s denizens will allow.
These are particularly strong imaginations. But it is difficult to blame the people for mass hysteria 8212; this happened before in 1996 when a strange man-creature that killed children turned out to be a pack of wolves 8212; and the occasional lynching death. This time around, most of the reports are springing from hearsay. Only a few people have actually had their faces scratched. It8217;s no coincidence, then and now, that eastern UP has led the packs of rumour mongers. A female child here, as the government website helpfully points out, is likely to live 20 years less than her sister in Kerala. The region8217;s Sub-Saharan hopelessness is now legend. Travel in the area and you will find a people whose lives are riddled with a hopelessness uncommon even by Indian standards 8212; and rivalled only by deepest Bihar.
