Jennifer Cheng
May 26, 2007
Draft 3
Who to Blame?
Walking into a park, sitting on grass, enjoying the sunshine around you in a warm spring afternoon is so enjoyable that everyone will love. However, when you realize that someone is fed on the grass you are sitting on, will you be as happy as others? “The Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma is an example of the miserable life of the poor in India. The main character, Ajit Babu, doesn’t have a stable shelter and lives in a pipe, a wagon and even on a roof. Babu and his family don’t have enough food and clothes and only one of his sons survives. Although the miserable life might be caused by many reasons, the Indian Government should be blamed at least partly, if not totally, for the suffering of the poor.
What should a government provide for his people and what should a government do? In my point of view, safety, basic medical care, promoting the economy of the country and stabilizing the price. Nevertheless, the Indian Government failed in all the above aspects.
It is common that various religions exist in one country. And it also goes without saying that the government should enable the different religions to stay in harmony. That is why China has departments like Religious Affair Committee in Chinese government to stabilize the different religions in China. However, as the story tells us, it is not the case in India. The fact that the “Hindus and Muslims were killing each other”(56) in East Bengal has revealed the bedlam of the Indian society. The Government failed to alleviate the religious conflicts between the Hindu and Islam and they ended up with violence, which caused suffering to the innocent citizens: they had to drift from place to place. As a matter of fact, the behaviour of the Indian government at that time was quite disappointing. The government did not remain neutural when dealing with the religion conflict and the worse thing was that the government would arise the religious contradictory on purpose as long as it would bring benefit to it (Website of Encyclopedia of China Public House).
As the story tells us, Ajit Swapna, Ajit Babu’s wife, gives birth to four children. But only the fourth child, Prodeep, survives. Diphtheria and fatigue makes the other three children die young (57). It is quite unbelievable that a child died of diphtheria, especially in such a large city like Calcutta. As we all know, vaccine for diphtheria has already been invented since 1940 and many countries, including China, which is a developing country as well, consider providing free vaccine for diphtheria as one of the government’s duties. Thus, it seemed that the Indian Government was responsible for one of Babu’s sons’ death. If the government had done good enough to provide free vaccine, the child would have survived and the Ajits would not have to endure the pain of losing their loving kid.
Economy is one of, if not the only one, the ways to show the power of a certain country. Also, one of the most important duties of a country’s government is to promote its economy to ensure its people live a satisfactory life. Education is financially supported by government and the money the government invests in education comes from taxes. Babu teaches in a “municipal primary school” (57), but he gets little payment. It is assumed that people whose income comes from taxes do not have worries about money if working in a country with good econmy. But it is not the case for Babu. As a civil-servant, his income is given by the government. His not getting enough money implies that the government did not get enough taxes, which could be supported by some data. From 1950 to 1985, the Indian Government had gathered about 1453 billion rupees (about 55.9 billion US dollars) as taxes, which is far from sufficient(Website eshui). That was why India had owed about 60 billion US dollars’ foreign loans from 1949 to 1988. And why didn’t the government get enough taxes? The answer was simple: the bad economy at that time in India. The financial situtation was very tight during the whole 1980’s (Website eshui), which was the main cause of inflation and financial deficits in the early 1990’s. If the India government had been able to promote the economy and get more taxes, the Ajits would not have lived so miserably.
Stabilizing the price of the market should also be considered one of the government’s duties. As we can see, the Ajits’ eating grass “when the price of rice started soaring”(58) shows the government’s incapacity to stabilize the price of daily necessities. The government could have used some administrative method to control the price so that the Ajits would not have to suffer eating grass instead of rice as their staple food. How sad it is for human beings to live on grass! If the government had been more effective, there might be no “grass-eaters”. If the government had governed the country well, the Ajits could have lived on some ordinary food.
Babu experiences so much suffering which is beyond our imagination. However, at the end of the story, the narrator tells us that Babu loses one leg from a fall from the roof of a tram. The tram accidents seem to be very common, as the story tells us:
If he tries to, the passengers beat him up, set fire to the tram and any other vehicles parked in the vicinity, loot nearby shops, break street lamps, take out a procession, hold a protest meeting, denounce British imperialism, American neo-colonialism, the central government, capitalism and socialism, and set off crackers (58-59).
How could a government let such things happen! The police are supposed to maintain the public security and to protect the safety of the citizen’s life and possession. However,they did not function. The society had totally been turned into a mess. There was no possibility for its citizen to stay free from damage. That was why Babu loses his leg. If the government had had effective police, Babu might not lose his leg and not have to endure the physical and mental pain of losing a leg.
Looking back to the article, every one would be sympathetic for Babu. He has too many sufferings: money shortage, the pain of losing loving children, living on grass, being forced to shift from place to place and the physical disability. Sadder, none of the above was his fault. It was the incapable government that made all the suffering possible. Krishnan helps us to discover the truth and the government should learn a lesson after reading it.
Work Cited
Krishnan, Varma. “The Grass-Eaters.” 1985. Rpt in the International Story: Anthology of Short Stories. Ruth Spack. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994. 56-59
Fu Yongsheng, “Encyclopedia of China Public House Homepage”, 15 March, 2002, <http://www.ecph.com.cn> (26 May, 2007)
Beijing Ruize Tax Firm, “Homepage”, 26 August, 1999, <http://www.eshui.net> (26 May, 2007)
