In his novel “Dance Dance Dance” that I loved in the late 80s for its idio­syn­cratic prose, Haruki Mu­rakami says, “What we seek is some kind of com­pen­sa­tion for what we put up with.”

Let us be clear: this was not a deal with the farm­ers. No one told the farm­ers, “Look, we need to de­stroy your crops to cre­ate acres of park­ing space be­cause we have to mount a loud and colour­ful tamasha for an 18 minute for­mal cer­e­mony that could be done in­side a room, and, there­fore, we shall need your co­op­er­a­tion. Will you kindly con­sent to your al­most ripe crops be­ing de­stroyed? We will be highly obliged and shall pay you very hand­some amounts as com­pen­sa­tion. Shall we go ahead?”

That’s not how those crops were de­stroyed. The fact is that farm­ers’ con­sent is not even asked for. The regime sim­ply takes over the area and does what it wants, and then pays the farm­ers an amount that it de­cides. There is no mu­tual agree­ment; there is not even a pre­tense of any agree­ment. No farmer has the right to ob­ject. It’s not that one farmer in the en­tire lot can opt out. You are ex­pected to lump it.

Let us use the words to mean what they mean. “Com­pen­sa­tion” is in lieu of loss suf­fered. This was an amount in lieu of loss in­flicted. This is forced repa­ra­tion for a loss wreaked upon by a pow­er­ful side upon a hap­less one, and it is de­cided by the ag­gres­sor.

In his provoca­tive book, “The In­tel­li­gence of Evil: or, The Lu­cid­ity Pact,” post­mod­ernist thinker Jean Bau­drillard says: “Once the great and the good had the priv­i­lege of grant­ing par­don. To­day, they want to be par­doned in their turn. They take the view that, on the ba­sis of hu­man rights, they are en­ti­tled to the uni­ver­sal com­pas­sion that had un­til now been the pre­rog­a­tive of the poor and of vic­tims.”

Also, we should know what cel­e­bra­tions at a scale wit­nessed at Khatkar Kalan re­ally, re­ally mean. To me, it was a rather biz­zare scene, much like peo­ple at a wed­ding feast mov­ing about with plates loaded with choice cui­sine, loud mu­sic run­ning the back­ground muf­fling any thing you might say, and a dead body ly­ing in the mid­dle of it all, flies flit­ting about on it and no one look­ing seem­ingly wor­ried.

Let us use the words to mean what they mean. “Com­pen­sa­tion” is in lieu of loss suf­fered. This was an amount in lieu of loss in­flicted. This is forced repa­ra­tion for a loss wreaked upon by a pow­er­ful side upon a hap­less one, and it is de­cided by the ag­gres­sor.

Of course, no such in­ci­dent hap­pened at Khatkar Kalan. It hap­pened yes­ter­day (March 22) in Pat­toki in Ka­sur, an hour’s run from La­hore, mid­way to Okara. A pa­pad-seller hawk­ing his wares near a wed­ding venue was as­saulted by guests at the cer­e­mony, then dragged him in­side the venue where they lynched him to death. As his dead body lay there in a pool of blood, flies flit­ting around, the guests pro­ceeded to par­take the lav­ish spread with­out any­one pay­ing heed to the corpse ly­ing in the mid­dle of it all. When the video of scores of peo­ple en­joy­ing the feast with­out be­ing both­ered by a dead body ly­ing on one side went vi­ral, au­thor­i­ties im­me­di­ately swung into ac­tion and an­nounced that the dead man’s fam­ily will be com­pen­sated.

In a state where the regime claims that more than one-third of fam­i­lies get free atta-dal and the el­derly await mea­gre monthly amounts called ‘old-age pen­sion’ which can’t even buy a de­cent cup of cof­fee, we don’t seem much per­turbed by the tamasha at Khatkar Kalan. This was Pat­toki – our Pat­toki. We were ac­tu­ally en­joy­ing that sump­tu­ous feast as dead bod­ies lay all around. We have be­come used to liv­ing in Pat­toki. Our com­pen­sa­tion is the slo­gan of ‘bad­laav’.

Lest I ruin your break­fast, rest as­sured: the regime is com­pen­sat­ing the farm­ers.

The fact is that farm­ers’ con­sent is not even asked for. The regime sim­ply takes over the area and does what it wants, and then pays the farm­ers an amount that it de­cides.

This is the regime seek­ing your par­don for hav­ing first de­stroyed your homes and hearths by choice. We have be­come so used to it. In fact, with­out be­ing a party to it, we rush to be­come one. “X used to do the same; did Y not do ex­actly this?”

Yes, and you are also re­veal­ing a lit­tle bit of your­self — that you were not shocked by the sheer egre­gious­ness of it all!

John Stein­beck has ex­plained why we have be­come who we are. Read this rev­e­la­tory snip­pet from “East of Eden:”

“And as a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few re­buffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, grov­el­ing, a lit­tle boy may cover his shy­ness with non­cha­lance, with bravado, or with se­crecy. And once a boy has suf­fered re­jec­tion, he will find re­jec­tion even where it does not ex­ist—or, worse, will draw it forth from peo­ple sim­ply by ex­pect­ing it.”

We ex­pect it. We crave for it. On a rare oc­ca­sion when the regime does­n’t in­flict it, we al­most yearn for it. And then we ex­pect to be com­pen­sated for it. We, the puppy dogs!

(How did it feel? Should I com­pen­sate you for that feel­ing?)

(From a What­sApp group post by SP Singh)