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Savage killing of Felani - A Letter to India

A Letter to India

January 25, 2011

Dear India,Recent killings of children in both the United States and Bangladesh have moved me. When I cant

wrap my mind around what can happen in this world, the order and structure imposed by verse canhelp clear my mind. Therefore, I have enclosed a poem at the bottom of the write-up.

We Americans have about one image that we can keep in our head about a country at a time. The

one many of us have of India is that of Gandhi, peacefully leading a march to the sea to make salt.We tend to think of India as a spiritual, non-violent land. Perhaps thats why so many people Ive

mentioned it to here are shocked by Indias border killings of innocent Bangladeshis, especially the

girl, Felani. It doesnt fit with the image we in America have of India.

How can any nation justify such abuses of basic human rights, especially a nation that, because ofits colonial history, should understand the sufferings of the oppressed? I suppose you can counter,Well, how can the United States, alleged proponent of liberty, ever support repressive regimes?

Granted, we are guilty of our own forms of hypocrisy. Our hands arent clean either. Still, we the

individual citizens of any nation have the right and the duty to stand up and say something whenwe hear of atrocities, wherever they occur. First and foremost, I am a father and a family man. I

have a 15-year-old daughter. That gives me an emotional bond with Felanis father that I cant

dismiss silently. I must respond, and perhaps keep responding, until this senseless slaughter is justan unfortunate chapter in the history of India. A father of one child is the father of all children. The

sons and daughters of Bangladesh are my sons and daughters as well.

I know India and Bangladesh are going to address these matters. India promises within the next

few months to resolve these matters. This is a positive step forward, but it does not bring back

the dead, or answer the question as to how a government steps over the line from a misplacedsense of superiority into a callous disregard for human life. No high-level talks should have to be

conducted for governments to prescribe to some very basic level of human decency, especially

among friends and neighbours. Those who perpetrated and ordered these acts are criminals, and

those who, to this point, condoned these acts should be brought to justice. Felani was not the firstinnocent child to die.

The Killing of 15-year-old Felani by Indian Border Guards An American Father Responds.

Mahatma, help me make some sense

Of slaughtered children on your fenceYour nation stained, your image scarred

By Sahib Death, the Border Guard.

On the wire, mournful criesOf parents rise into the skies

The bullets steal a nations youth

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While politics obscure the truth.

If madness and mistrust increaseIf we can slay our men of peace

Can killing children be that hard,

For Sahib Death, The Border Guard?

I hear a fathers cry of grief

Of agony beyond beliefAnd wonder what a monstrous thief

Could snuff a light so bright, so brief?

Our tears and rage wont make us blind

We cant be violent, kill in kind

For wed grow soulless, damned and hard

As Sahib Death, the Border Guard.

Back here, weve suffered tragic endsThe work of madmen, not of friends.My nation mourns the rare events

That happen daily on your fence.

At least we know each precious soul

Has eluded deaths patrol,

Has reached a land which cant be barred

By Sahib Death, the Border Guard.

Descendants of the dead who fell

Into a distant Martyrs wellBelay the murdrous disregard

Of Sahib Death, your border guard!

Beloved readers, I have said it before. Bangladesh, from this Martian perspective, to quote

aladins article of last week, is a nation of colour and energy. I could do a whole piece on how

people use colours to decorate that which is most important to them, our street signs are colourful,our advertisements are colourful, our cars are colourful. Even our gas stations are colourful. In

Bangladesh, looking at the photographs of the election queues, it seems that the people themselves

are the most colourful element on the landscape. Everyone is so brightly, so lavishly dressed. What

this means to me is that yours is a nation that subconsciously understands and celebrates its people

above all else. When any of this colourful number, especially children, has her life brutally cutshort, I feel it a world away.

This article originally stopped at the end of the poem. My editor emailed me to ask if this was

really all I had to say. As I did research on this issue, read the story about that 13-year-old boy shot

dead across the border during a shouting match with an Indian border guard a few years back, orthis girl who was shot and left to die on the fence, at the age of 15, I had no words. My youngest

daughter is 15, and my youngest son is 13. They are the elements of my life that I would dress in

bright colours. Every parent worries about their childrens futures. I know, only from an American

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perspective what it is to burrow through the couch to find change to buy milk, or use a newspaper

and some sphagnum moss as a diaper, and even how your ears burn when the nice person next to

you in church gives you money because they see, as a new and struggling parent, that you need themoney. And you face it all, you struggle and you fight, because you are a father and you do it for

the sake of your child. Of all the ways to identify yourself: nationality, religion, race, party, or

social class, above everything else, parenthood has the power to transform the way you live your

life. It is a universal identifier. We, the fathers of the world, belong to a common brotherhood.

I struggled in the early years of fatherhood because my wife and I were still students, and studentsare universally poor. Here in American want is often just a temporary condition for the soon to be

middle-class. This is a puddle that evaporates within a few years, and though my family walked the

tightrope all those years ago, we were never without the safety net of my own father, if we reallyneeded help. I never had to risk being shot by foreign soldiers, allies at that, to put bread on the

table.

But I imagine a Bangladeshi father on the day his daughter dressed to go with him and arrange theparticulars of a marriage with a husband in India. I imagine how a tear might have caught in the

fathers throat to see his girl dressed up, grown and engaged to be married, how it would pain himto part with her, especially since he would eventually be separated from her new family and fromhis grandchildren, by a national border. I imagine the memories Felanis dad would have of his

little girls childhood, the struggles, the dreams, the prayers that all fathers have for their cherished

daughters, who, no matter how old they get, we fathers permanently regard as loving, big-eyedseven year olds. I know the thought that sometimes goes through a fathers head. In my youth, I

dreamed big dreams that didnt come true, but I have this wonderful child. If this was the trade, my

dreams for in exchange for her life, I got the best of the bargain. I know the memory of the soft

hand of a ten year old girl, holding her fathers own rough, calloused hand, telegraphing throughher warm fingers her absolute faith and trust in her fathers protective strength. I know the secret

prayer of all fathers that God make them worthy of that trust. We see a horrible picture of a girl on

a fence, but I see the father, present for her 15 years, for every stroke of the hairbrush, for everywiggly baby tooth, worrying, dreaming of a safer, happier life for his daughter.

I dont know whether Felanis father was rich or poor, or what sort of safety net he had for hisdaughter. I only know that all of his earthly struggle, love, and concern were erased by a single

barbarous act. I only know that now, as this far-off brother of mine walks home from his labours

searching for blessings, the absence of his little girls hand will permanently remind him that hewas not strong enough to protect his own trusting little angel from the cruel indifference of this

world.

By: Frank Domenico Cipriani