Look at your daughter’s face !

Kajal Chatterjee
Perhaps I was then in Class II or III. As I was having tiffin during recess, suddenly 8-10 of my class mates gheraoed me and ordered to accompany them to one Mrs.Nandi. Mrs.Nandi was simultaneously a teacher in Bengali(though didn't teach in our class) and an official in administrative department of the school. Though basically she was good in heart, but used to keep a very tough external appearance and a strict disciplinarian. So all students of the school used to always remain wary of her.
Now my aggressive class mates are ordering me to proceed to Mrs.Nandi out of the blue! But what have I done! I didn't have any quarrel with any one of them! I understood that actually they were in mischievous mood and desired to take fun at the expense of my miseries! I envisaged that it is meaningless to resist them due to their numerical dominance. So without making any scene, let's proceed specially when I know that I am not in wrong!
They took me to the staff room and enquired of Mrs.Nandi. She came out and then thanks to my class mates I came to know at last that "I threw slang words at them"! As I vehemently protested my innocence, Mrs.Nandi was in no mood to listen to me! Instead she rebuked me for my "slang language" and warned of strict action if it gets repeated! After returning to class room, my mates were in a festive mood that their plan has succeeded to the full!
In the very next day exactly the same scene got repeated during recess. Now Mrs.Nandi got more agitated without hearing my side of the story and issued the second and last warning transmitting ripples of joy among my class mates!
Now I understood that situation will further worsen next day and I have to search for remedial measures.
So returning home I conveyed my predicament of two consecutive days to my parents.
As a matter of fact, Mrs.Nandi happened to be the wife of my father's office colleague and so he  personally knew her very well(Mrs.Nandi also used to know me in that basis, but fathers of some of my complaining class mates were also colleagues of her husband!). My father assured that he would meet her next morning before tiffin period.
Since I was confident that Mrs Nandi would believe my father and my owes would come to an end, I simply accepted the challenge of my class mates very smilingly when they again started threatening me to drag me to her during recess. Perhaps seeing my confidence, they sensed something and so refrained from repeating the episode!
A week later the paths of myself and Mrs.Nandi crossed at school corridor. She spoke me with extreme kindness and assured me that if those "mischievous" boys again dare to create any nuisance, she would punish them adequately!
Though the matter had ended well; still it not only provided me with immense painful amusement, but the experience also imparted a hard lesson of life at such a tender age of 7 or 8!
That truth or falsehood does not stand or fall on its own merit or demerit, rather it depends on sheer vulgar numerical strength! Just because all of my gathered class mates were speaking against me, my "slang languages" became the "ultimate truth"! And just because I was in a hopeless minority of literally 1, my pleads of innocence hold absolutely no chance! Rather my side of the case was not awarded a decent hearing also!
Also I came to realise the extreme strength of "right connections" to get justice! Suddenly the much rebuked myself became a "good boy" in her eyes with my mates now turning "mischievous"!  The personal acquaintance of my father with Mrs Nandi saved the day for me. But it could have been another story also!
Supposedly I indeed delivered "slang languages" and my class mates had been "right"! Still I could have extricated myself from that situation through my father's acquaintance with her!
My mind instantly went back to this episode of four decades ago when I heard of encounters and devilish joy in the nation revolving it. In India everything sells in the name of "majority"! So if "everyone/majority is supporting demonetisation, NRC, Kashmir saga, Ram Temple" then it is "definitely right" and this is the reason why sponsors of it religiously raise this "verdict of majority/all" to provide moral sanction to their decisions.
So in such an environment where "majority is truth", it is very easy to brand a person a "rapist" "thieve" "trafficker" "child lifter" on the sheer might of numbers! Often they fall victim to mobocracy or thrown in prisons for decades without bail! The lucky ones still hold a chance to survive the ordeal and come out free thanks to an institution named Judiciary where their lawyers advocate their innocence. Just like my father advocating for me! If my father didn't get a proper hearing from her, he could have approached the Headmistress next!
But if all things are decided by mob or institutions other than judiciary, any person can be accused of any crime out of conspiracy doubt or to save one's skin and thereafter brutally lynched or shot to death!
No father will be there to advocate somebody's innocence and no Mrs.Nandi to give the matter a second thought, even no higher ups still to be approached if unfairness continue!
While discussing his book titled "Blood on My Hands: Confessions of Staged Encounters", Kishalay Bhattacharjee spoke of an anecdote whereby an unnamed Army officer was privately discussing with the author about series of  killings of absolute innocents through encounters!
When the author asked why he is making such holy confessions by taking great personal risks, the Army officer remarked --- "When I go back home and I look at my daughter's face ... it doesn't feel good"!
The writer is based in Kolkata