More than 10,000 people, falsely declared dead in northern India by greedy relatives and corrupt officials in order to steal their land, are trying desperately to prove that they are really alive.
Fifty of the ‘dead’ staged a protest last week by shaving their heads in front of the state assembly building in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state. Lal Bihari Mritak, secretary of a pressure group, the Association of the Dead said:
The state refuses to accept that they are alive. If it did, it would mean altering the district revenue records and restoring to them their properties, which is something that dishonest officials oppose.
Mata Prasad, a petitioner explains how court cases can get bogged down for years in the over-burdened and corrupt judiciary.
I haven’t had a hearing of my case simply because I can’t afford to pay a bribe. My documents disappeared from court overnight and I now have to start from the beginning.
Lal Bihari fought for eight years to be declared alive again, and a Bombay producer now plans to make a film about his struggle.
I finally won the battle and was brought back to life in the revenue records.
It seems that the Indian state has achieved nirvana all states aspire to – the ability to literally decide about the life and death of their citizens.
It is sad that victory for these people consists of having their name listed correctly in the tax collector’s book, is it not?
Yes, I wish the Inland Revenue thought I was dead.
My grandad was dead for about 6 months in 2001, since nobody told him he was dead he just carried on as usual. We only found out he was dead when we noticed his pension hadn’t been payed for ages, it took us 2 days to get him reanimated again. He was declared dead because he was mistaken for someone else.
In South Asia the wheels of beureacracy run very slow, I read about a person recently in Bangladesh who had waited 27 years to get a phone line get put in, the beureacracy said in future people would have to wait no more than 10 years.
Now we just have to wait for The Onion to imitate real life, this is just too bizzare..!!!
There does seem to be a bright side to this. Suppose an aggrieved party decides to settle the score by murdering one of these corrupt officials. Who would be charged with the crime?
I note they are making a movie about this chap Mritak’s battle to be restored to life. Obviously it will be called Fight of the Living Dead.
next thing is a bollywood musical based on gogol’s “dead souls”