What an irony! A two-year old baby girl, bruised and battered, dumped in Delhi’s AIIMS, is battling for a life that may end up as one of permanent disability, including a damaged brain: Her name is Falak, an evocative Urdu word that interchangeably means sky or heaven. Falak is usually used in a romantic context in place of the more mundane word aasmaan in Urdu/Hindi poetry, such as — “Falak se tod ke sitare le aaoonga tere liye” (I shall pick out stars from the sky, or heaven, as a gift for you), which is characteristic hyperbole in Oriental romanticism.
But as things stand, nobody should be blamed for thinking that baby Falak may be better off in a heavenly abode for that would not only relieve her of the unbearable pain that she is undergoing at present in a hospital, but perhaps also a bleak, ravaged future in an inhospitable world. God has already been very unkind to her, but the chances are that fellow humans will be worse if, by chance, expert doctors at one of India’s best medical institutions succeed in their efforts to ensure her survival.
Falak’s case has caught the public imagination not only because it is so horrendous but also because it is symptomatic of the cruel and inhuman treatment often meted out by unscrupulous merchants engaged in the flesh and adoption business. The fact is that many Falaks are brutally done to death if no customers are found. They find reference, if at all, in crime capsules in the inside pages of newspapers under stock headings like “Unidentified toddler’s body found in rubbish dump”. In other cases, infants stolen from hospital cribs find their way into childless couples’ homes in exchange for a hefty sum. Babies born out of wedlock or to unmarried mothers are similarly done to death or sold to traders in the adoption racket. Nobody hears a word about the large number of such abandoned girl children, in particular many of whom are mercilessly pushed into the flesh trade.
In terms of physical brutality, many such instances are regularly reported even from the developed West. Purvey the World Briefs columns of Indian newspapers and you are bound to come across many reports of toddlers being thrown out of balconies of multi-story apartment houses, or smothered to death by single parents under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Depravity in the West where family ties are often tenuous is undoubtedly greater than in India. To that extent, I think Falak was lucky (let’s keep our fingers crossed) to have been brought to a Government hospital. It is a matter of speculation as to what prompted the teenager, reportedly herself a victim of abuse, to bring Falak still alive to AIIMS. Suggestions that she may herself be the mother of the toddler, even though the baby was allegedly battered by her, could indicate that the girl had pangs of conscience, uncommon in the world that she evidently inhabited.
However, there may be an upside to this tragic and sordid tale. It has helped lift the curtain on India’s sleazy urban underbelly. Something like this would most certainly not happen in rural India where social bonds are still strong, everybody knows everybody else, and a close-knit caste society functions with authority more effective than law-enforcing mechanisms in cities. Falak’s case shows up the greedy, impersonal and ruthless norms that operate in ghettos peopled by the impoverished in urban India. Arguably, even posh colonies are not free of crimes such as bride-burning, wife-beating and brutal killings over property but the difference is that these are usually individual cases, not part of organised crime.
Significantly, the breakdown of morality happens fastest among people who migrate from rural areas in search of an economically sustainable existence in cities. The anonymity of their being in urban slums and uncertainty of incomes adds to the temptation of making a quick buck. There being no dearth of small-time criminals operating in such ghettos even those who are not habitual offenders easily fall prey to allurements.
Unfortunately, the police have failed spectacularly in unearthing the entire background of the case. It was first claimed that the Mumbai taxi driver Dilshad Mohammad aka Rajkumar was living with the teenager and the baby and wanted to adopt the child. His wife in Mumbai allegedly objected, since they already had a child. Dilshad returned to Delhi, dumped the baby on the teenager who battered Falak in a fit of frustration and rage. Since Dilshad is absconding, this theory is yet to be established. But there is little doubt that baby Falak was either born out of wedlock or was stolen from somebody with the intent to sell her to the adoption mafia. Falak could have been battered to near-death out of frustration at the mother’s failure to seal her own matrimony or failure to arrange adoption.
Irrespective of the precise background of this specific case, the larger point that needs to be emphatically made is that the flesh and adoption mafias operate under the benign oversight of the police. India’s urban underbelly flourishes under police protection, which is the biggest obstacle to clean up the sleaze.
It is well known that the flesh trade in big cities operates freely because the police are a beneficiary. Periodic disputes arising over pay-offs result in selective police raids on brothels or operators of call girl rackets. I find it outrageous that swarms of NGOs that thrive on largesse from the public exchequer blissfully ignore all such issues. While they will fall over one another to take care of baby Falak were she to survive, NGOs are as much to blame as the police for not even attempting to clean up the sleaze. Hence it is rare for the criminals involved in the flesh or adoption trades to be apprehended, leave alone punished.
Even if corruption were somehow to be excised from police functioning (a tall order indeed!), it would be impossible to eradicate the scourge of various social ills unless the public is motivated to act as the eyes and ears of law-enforcers. That in turn can only be achieved if responsible citizens, whether associated with NGOs or otherwise, take the initiative to undertake the task of integrating the urban underbelly with the rest of society.
Sex, sleaze and moral depravity exist in the urban underbelly throughout the world. But if we learn from the example of the world’s most crime-prone ghetto of yesteryear, Harlem in New York, cleaning-up is not a hopeless task. The answer lies in evolving a policy that combines effective and impartial policing along with providing a slew of opportunities to the underclass. It is the responsibility of the state to wean away occasional criminals, deprive crime gangs of new recruits by offering jobs and business opportunities. This way the mafia can be isolated and those who people the ghettos encouraged not to become prey to temptations.
While we pray for baby Falak, hoping she not only lives but also lives to be a happy and healthy woman, we must ensure her tragedy does not go in vain. Let us resolve not to allow yet another Falak to happen in our midst.
