IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 132- PROMULGATION PARADE Brig PS Gothra (Retd)

“Get me out of here.” That was the first thing my cousin said with tears in his eyes, when I visited him inside Tihar Jail. It was his seventh day there. I had avoided going for all those days. Not out of indifference… but discomfort. A strange mix of hesitation, shame, and helplessness. But family pressure finally got the better of me.

    My cousin had lived in the United States illegally for over ten years.

      Then one day, something changed within him. Perhaps guilt or fatigue or a longing for home. He walked into the Indian Embassy and requested to be deported back. The family was relieved. We went to the airport to receive him.

But he was arrested at the airport.

     Only later did the truth emerge. The agent who had sent him abroad had used stolen visa stickers from the U.S. Embassy in Delhi. When the agent was caught, he revealed the names of everyone who benefited.

     Like many others my cousin had handed over his passport with a fat sum to the agent to reach his Utopian land called America. On landing the passport was torn and thrown. So my cousin had no idea of the fraud that had facilitated his journey.

     But ignorance, as the law says, is no defence. 

     Five days after I met him, he was granted bail. That evening, I stood outside Tihar Jail again. This time waiting to bring him home.

      The release was scheduled for six. But it began at nine. Those three hours were some of the longest of my life.I wasn’t thinking about him alone. I was thinking about myself. I kept looking around,

hoping no one I knew would see me standing outside a jail.

    Strange, isn’t it? We fear association more than we feel empathy.

    When he finally walked out, I barely recognised him. Dirty clothes. Shoes without laces. Removed as a precaution. Eyes that had seen something they could not explain. He didn’t speak a word on the way home.

    After he bathed, I offered him a drink. I have offered drinks to people for many reasons. To make naukri, to please someone and to make friends etc. But that night… offering him a drink felt like the most honest thing I had ever done.

    Two pegs later, he began to speak. He told me about the people inside.

   Doctors. Educated, respected, almost worshipped in society. And yet…involved in organ trafficking, illegal practices, exploitation.

    Then there were many men convicted of rapes. Listening to him, something inside me shifted.

     That night, he slept. I didn’t. I kept asking myself—What has gone wrong?  The law exists. Punishments are given. The system functions. Then why do people still commit such crime like rape?

     A few days later, the answer came to me. Not from a book, but from memory.

     One of my  senior officers in the Army had once said, “awarding punishment is only half the job. The other half is making it visible.”

     In the Army, punishment is not silent. There is something called a Promulgation Parade.

       All soldiers are assembled. The Adjutant reads out the punishment publicly. The convict is brought in front of everyone in uniform. The rank and insignia of the convict are stripped off… in front of everyone.

      And then he is taken away in a vehicle waiting for him to the jail. It acts as a deterrent. The soldiers narrate the procedure to their kith and kin. The convict becomes a sort of outcast in his village among the society. He is called _berang pattar_(term used for those who couldn't earn their pension and terminal benefits.

      A moment not just of punishment—but of collective memory. A message. A warning.        

      And suddenly, it made sense. In society, we hear endlessly about crime. But we rarely hear about the punishment. Not clearly.Not visibly. Not in a way that leaves an imprint.

       Maybe because justice takes time. Maybe because attention fades. Or maybe because punishment… doesn’t sell like outrage does and our media avoids giving it the required limelight.

    And that is where the gap lies.

    Justice that is delayed…and punishment that is unseen…fail to deter.

     Because fear does not come from laws written in books—it comes from consequences seen with the eyes.

     If wrongdoing is visible, but consequences are not, then society unknowingly teaches the wrong lesson. *Sometimes, the problem is not the absence of justice.....but the absence of its presence.*

Jai Hind.

Note :- Critique most welcome