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The wages of sin

Salman is the most infinitely boring person I have ever met. He is boring because he is so obsessed with himself. He is obsessed with his mindless movies, his muscles, his mumbling molls. But, above all, Salman is boring because he understands nothing beyond himself. He is a solipsistic, brain dead adolescent who leaves all decision making to a bunch of half wits who hang around him, pretending to be his friends.

No wonder his life is always in such a mess.

But the problem is that Salman is not just stupid. He is cocky and insufferable as well. Also, he has this wanton, cruel streak. Which his spastic friends like Saif and Satish Shah encouraged, just to see how far he would go. The stupid shikar which has got him into so much trouble is a typical example.

As anyone will tell you, no one needs courage, machismo or fancy guns to kill black bucks and chinkara. They are not dangerous animals. They are weak, fragile creatures who die of fright the moment you start chasing them. Only a pint-sized moron would imagine himself to be a great shikari shooting down such helpless creatures.

Yet Salman did not stop at shooting. He got down from the screeching Gypsy and took a knife to the throats of these animals and, as they gurgled blood and cried out in pain, he carved them up with a bloody knife and sent their dismembered carcasses to a nearby hotel to be cooked. While this sordid, bloody tableaux was being enacted, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre stood around and clapped with glee. When it was all over, Salman wiped his bloodstained hands on the sand, smiled and stood up. To all round applause.

Later, they sat around and dined on venison.

No, there is no defence to a crime like this. There cannot be. It is heinous, ugly, reprehensible and must be punished severely. Salman must go to jail, to atone for the killings. To atone for murdering these helpless animals on Bishnoi land, hurting the sensitivities of a community which for 526 years has fought to preserve nature against the predatory onslaughts of rich, arrogant, gun-slinging brats like him.

But the sad part of this story is not what will happen to Salman.

It is what is happening to Salim.

Salim shares little in common with Salman. Except, I guess, love. He is a supremely gifted writer, a lover of animals, a committed environmentalist. That is why, some years back, he bought this wonderful farm near Panvel and moved out of Bombay to live there.

It is a picturesque farm and Salim made it even more prettier by planting hundreds of trees and offering sanctuary to all stray animals that limped in or lost their way in there. It was like a shelter. The kind that we all dream of creating but can never afford to.

Everything was fine till, out of the blue, came this forest officer one day who decided that all farm lands in that area were actually forest land illegally sold to developers, who (in turn) had illegally sold them to rich farm owners. So, with the typical arrogance of all law enforcers, he swooped down on the farm houses and started confiscating them. Within hours, he was exactly what he had set out to be. A media hero. Simply because his target was the rich and the powerful.

It was a very cunning, very savvy strategy and the media fell for it. No one checked out the facts. But that's another story and I will return to it later. Currently it is sub judice.

What is not sub judice, however, is what has happened during the past fortnight. Seeing the huge media attention Salman's crime had attracted and hoping once again, to ride another headline to instant stardom, this forest officer took his posse back to the farm he had confiscated from Salim. Where Salim and his family are allowed to only go for a few hours once a week to maintain the property and ensure that, among other things, the stray animals who have sought refuge there are properly fed and looked after.

This time, he brought in a bunch of local newsmen to break the story that he and his storm troopers had found a black buck, a couple of spotted deer and a pea hen in illegal captivity. The next morning, it was all over the newspapers.

That Salim was going to be arrested and kept in police custody because, like Salman, he had violated the law. That he had kept wild life in illegal captivity. Of course, no one mentioned the fact that the farm had been, for over a year, in the custody of the very officers who are accusing Salim of breaking the law. In other words, if indeed the animals were illegally held there, it was by the forest officers themselves. Not Salim.

But, frankly, that is nit picking. The real issue is: Can you arrest a man for sheltering stray animals and looking after them? Next question: Must we waste state resources to fight such stupid, meaningless court cases where the obvious intent is to buy publicity for a government officer who wants to hijack stardom by harassing a wellknown citizen?

Three: If wild life protection is the issue, why was the attack on Salim timed to grab headlines exactly when Salman was in trouble? Were the forest officers who had harassed Salim and taken possession of his farm a year back unaware of the fact that these animals were there? Were they unaware of the fact that Salim had left behind people on the farm to take care of the animals? Were they unaware that Salim and his family were going back once a week to look after the welfare of the animals left behind?

Let us ask an even simpler question: If the forest officers were so keen on rescuing the animals from Salim Khan's clutches, why did they treat them so cruelly that the black buck died in their custody? Every photograph, every shred of evidence shows that the animal died because it was so savagely trussed up for hours that terror and asphyxiation took their toll. And, as everyone knows by now, an overdose of tranquilisers.

Yes, the truth is Salim may have broken the law just as we do for the sake of our conscience. We break the law to give money to beggars. We break the law to allow children at traffic lights to clean our windshields. We break the law when we pick up a hit and run victim and take him to a hospital for treatment without registering a police case first. We break the law because our heart tells us to. Because we know that the law is often stupid and unfeeling and we, as human beings, must rise above it.

Salim broke the law by giving shelter to stray animals who came seeking food, sanctuary, help. Is that such a big crime simply because these animals are listed under the wild life act? You and I do it every day when we give food and shelter to stray dogs and cats, when we pick up a wounded kite or a hurt pigeon and take it to hospital. Do we check the wild life act to see if they are listed? Maneka Gandhi does it when she picks up sick and stray cattle from the streets. Mother Teresa did it with people. Did she check their antecedents? Did she tell her workers that they must avoid sick and dying pickpockets or refuse a bed to a murderer?

If Salman is guilty and must be punished, the same argument must apply in the case of the errant forest officers. Led by this man called R K Das. Each of them must be arrested, held in police custody, interrogated, and most severely punished for the killing of the black buck. For inflicting such unbearable cruelty on a helpless, endangered species that it died. That it died in their custody, in such agony and pain.

The law of the land cannot, must not distinguish between an errant movie star and an errant forest officer. They must be treated in exactly the same way. For exactly the same crime. A murder is a murder is a murder. Just as Salman's brain dead sex appeal is no defence against his crime, the fact that the law enforcer is a powerful man must not protect him against the crime he has committed.

Both must pay for their sins.

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Pritish Nandy