In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, I thought I would post this article from
the New York Times.
Amy
***************************************************************************
The following is an actual article from the New York Times, October 24, 2000.
Back to Life in India, Without Reincarnation
By BARRY BEARAK
AZAMGARH, India, Oct. 20 - Lal Bihari, founder of the Association of Dead People,
first learned he was deceased when he applied for a bank loan in1975.
Proof of identity was required for the transaction. But when Mr. Bihari came here
to Azamgarh, the district capital, he was told quite peremptorily that he could no
longer be who he said he was. Official records now listed him as dead, something
that had allowed his uncle to inherit Mr. Bihari's share of the family's ancestral
farmland.
"Take a look for yourself," insisted the lekhpal, the low-level bureaucrat who
kept the appropriate books, Mr. Bihari recalled. "It is all written here in the
registry."
Death was a disconcerting change of circumstance, and Mr. Bihari was especially
annoyed to hear of it from the lekhpal, a man he knew well and with whom he had
recently had tea.
Indian bureaucrats often work in strange ways, when they work at all. If they had
certified his demise, Mr. Bihari might need a lifetime to prove he was not dead.
Fortunately, his story has not turned out to be so dreary. His legal resurrection
was accomplished in a mere 19 years, and in the process, Mr. Bihari, a poorly
educated merchant, found his mission in life: championing the cause of the
similarly expunged.
In July, a High Court judge became aghast after learning that there were dozens -
and perhaps hundreds - of such cases of bogus mortality. He ordered the government
of Uttar Pradesh to publish ads, seeking out the living dead, and then to revive
them in the state's public records. The National Human Rights Commission has also
convened hearings on the matter.
"As the bureaucrats once feared the devil, they now fear the Association of Dead
People," said Mr. Bihari, 45, who clearly enjoys the stir caused by his tireless
agitation.
It is still too early to make an accurate estimate of how many of the legally dead
are biologically alive, but the known cases most often involve intra-family fraud,
and the reason for the infighting is a severe shortage of land.
India's population now tops one billion, and as property has gotten subdivided
repeatedly among ever more heirs, some farmers are now left to eke out a living
with plots no bigger than a tennis court. Declaring someone dead to inherit his
land may seem a preposterous ruse, especially if the dearly departed is decidedly
evident. But slippery deeds often require nothing more than a greased palm.
Corruption is rampant in India, and while crooked politicians get most of the
attention, the dishonesty at the top is built on a solid foundation of dishonesty
at
the bottom. Bribes are required to conduct almost any public business, whether
it is getting electricity turned on or filing a court case.
Mr. Bihari said he later learned that his phony demise had cost his uncle about
$25, not an inconsiderable sum. A hit man could have been hired for half that. "I
contacted lawyers, and they told me that that what had happened was nothing
unusual, but that to fight it in court would take
a long, long time," he said.
Mr. Bihari faced his predicament with a potent combination of outrage and humor.
He no longer lived in Khalilabad, his ancestral village, and his income did not
depend on the contested plot of land, which was less than an acre. He added the
Hindi word "mritak," or dead, to his name. He began his "association" and printed
up stationery.
But mostly, he schemed. Mr. Bihari believed that artifice could force the
government to acknowledge his continuing existence. He tried to get arrested; he
ran for office; he sued people - anything to get his real name on the public
record. In a bit of reverse psychology, he had his wife
apply for widow's benefits, but the same officials who insisted he was dead
refused to allow him to profit from his passing.
Finally, the preservation of his death simply became too much of a nuisance for
the powerful to maintain. Mr. Bihari was a prolific pamphleteer. He and his
loosely affiliated group even held a mock funeral for themselves in Lucknow, the
state capital. By 1994 officialdom took steps to end this ankle-biting. The land
revenue records were corrected, and Mr. Bihari's good name was fetched from
oblivion.
"In pursuing my battle, I had developed quite an identity," he recalls proudly. "I
became the leader of a movement. I knew I had other dead people to save."
Mr. Bihari now lives in the village of Amilon, which like his native Khalilabad is
in the grassy flatlands of southeastern Uttar Pradesh. These days, he can be quite
an unusual tour guide, introducing visitors to the spuriously dead throughout the
area.
In Mubarakpur there is Bhagwan Prashad Mishra, a spry man at 80, who has been
officially deceased since 1979. Mr. Mishra said he had lost his land to conniving
nephews.
"In my case, I own five pieces of property, but I am only considered dead on the
records for one," he said testily. "After so much time, how can this continue to
be?"
Ansar Ahmed, 48, lives with his widowed mother in Madhnapar. He was recorded as
dead in 1982, when his brother took control of the family's small rice paddy.
Madhnapar, home to 90 families, is a place of mud-brick dwellings surrounded by
open fields and scum- laden ponds. Villagers have been split by this matter of
life or death in their midst, with those favoring the former position giving
shelter to Mr. Ahmed and his mother and those supporting the
latter treating him as an invisible specter.
Recently, because of pressure from the High Court, a magistrate went to Madhnapar
and, after a quick inquiry, brought Mr. Ahmed back to life. Criminal charges have
been filed against his brother, Nabi Sarwar Khan, who is quite grouchy about this
change of fortune.
"These are only allegations," Mr. Khan said gruffly in his own defense.
As various cases are investigated, several treacherous relatives and the venal
officials who abetted them have likewise been charged. The conspiratorial kinfolk
of Mr. Bihari, though, have escaped prosecution. His uncle is now dead, on paper
and otherwise. And his uncle's sons,
who have been farming the disputed land, have been allowed to keep it by Mr.
Bihari, who says making them feel guilty provides him with enough satisfaction.
One recent morning, Mr. Bihari returned to Khalilabad, where many of those who
long pretended he was dead now treat him with demonstrative respect. The ancestral
village is a long walk from the road through pathways of brilliant green. His
family's house is made of mud and straw, with a sloping roof laid across branches
of bamboo.
Pati Ram, Mr. Bihari's cousin, warmly greeted the man whose death was once part of
his family's mythology. "We have done him a great injustice," he said meekly.
The two cousins sat on a cot under the shade of a tree. The sky above was
blue, the air sweet, the breezes serene. It was good to be alive.
-- __________________________________ Amy Hale Janeke (619)531-4437 Reference Librarian (619)238-7716 (fax) San Diego County Public Law Library ahale@sdcll.org http://www.sdcll.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:38:43 PST