Death: a publicity stunt?

Recently, a father in Multan, crushed by poverty, tried to bury his deceased son without a shroud. Others intervened and ensured a dignified burial. This isn't the news. Isn't it, you heartless? You all might question it. What is the news then? Is it the lawmaker's statement declaring the act a publicity stunt, stating that life for the people isn't that hellish yet in our country? It isn't the news, as the public usually finds itself trolled - not by words alone, but largely by actions. That is, how people, particularly the marginalised, are treated in policies and practices, and how they are viewed in the power corridors, isn't something new. Then what, if anything, is the news amidst all this? Of all that is loudly talked about and valiantly practised by those in positions of power, if anything here is novel or newsworthy, it is neither the death of the son nor the poverty of his father - it is the way the deceased was buried. The dead son questioned the system in a way he never could while alive.

Death from hunger, poverty and systematic oppression isn't something new, and therefore isn't newsworthy - not for a callous society and not for its cunning elite. Earlier, people used to dread death. For it defied all their dreams, relations and aspirations. Today, they dread life instead. Living - for a larger population - is no longer a luxury, nor does it inspire hope in our part of the world. Those who can't afford minimal survival solicit death. They see death as their only escape from the struggles of life. But hold on a while. Could death, amidst a life already in freefall, ever be easy or free of cost? Could it escape the burden of life? For the poor, it doesn't. It demands what their lives had demanded: a piece of cloth renamed as a shroud.

Therefore, highlighting the death of an otherwise inglorious life in social media is, for the oppressive system, unjustified - a scheme, a protest staged against it, a publicity stunt. How dare a lifeless life, an otherwise worthless being, question the incumbents through death - question the competence of its saviors - when it was restrained from dissent in every form while alive?

Therefore, the people must be condemned to live - for as long as the people's lives can still sustain this system through their sweat, tears, labour, blood and bone. Death to such publicity stunts lies in survival of the poor, however worse than death that survival could be. An oppressed voice speaking its oppression in life is treated as a plot against the oppressors. So, apparently, is their death. Because protest and publicity, in this order of things, are the patents of the powerful and elite, wielded against each other - not the birthright of the poor, the wretched of the Earth.

The architects, abettors and beneficiaries of this regime - the bureaucracy, dynastic despots, courtier clergy, the so-called media and champions of rights, the corporate and capitalist elite, the judiciary, tribal and feudal lords - own the exclusive patent to publicise their lives and deaths, a patent funded by the disgraces and humiliations of ordinary people. And tools like the democratic façade and the Constitution, patriotism and treason, and faith help define and seal the fate of the rulers and the ruled.

Now that the elite have been systematically criminalising the rights and lives of the wretched of the Earth, one shouldn't be surprised when the incumbent regime criminalises death as well. That is, after stealing everything the people could have, the only thing left to fuel their luxuries is a tax on dying. This way, both life and death would be made to serve their appetites.

Today, a hellish life of poverty is dearer than their death, for the former funds the system while the latter risks further exposing the badly exposed regime, its architects and abettors. Short on people's trust and FDI, this regime could survive a year or two by further squeezing lives and taxing livelihoods until the people are left with nothing to live for and on. However, should the incumbent regime continue beyond that, the poor will be denied even such dignity: the dignity of being noticed on their way out.

That is, the regime would tax the dying and buy itself another tenure - until there is no one left.