For a country known for its seamless acceptance and tolerance (in these stressful times) of its multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-dimensional societal fabric, the burning of Deccan Queen by Dalit `protestors' bodes ill.
The systematic protests all over Maharashtra over the Khairlanji episode (in which Dalit women belonging to one family were allegedly gangraped by some casteist villagers) are a big mystery. Intelligence agencies are trying to figure out the whodunit but have no answers yet. They point out wisely that no Dalit leader commands that kind of a following which will wreak havoc on notice.. and adequate notice was clearly given. The incidents spelt the antithesis of spontaneity and of course, came a bit late in the day.
The bigger surprise, to me, was the media. I am told the local media in Nagpur played up images of the dead women's naked bodies (yes, actually!) for days on end, playing on public sentiment and effectively stoking the fire of casteist resentment. The English media, forever haughty, lost little time in tut-tuting and condemning the incident but refused to probe any further. For God's sake, the incident was in a back-of-the-beyond place which no Mumbaikar could possibly care about, could they? Why waste too much newsprint and newsgathering effort on such matters?

There cannot be two opinions about the fact that the crime was gross beyond words but I have a different worry. The media has been less than accurate on some aspects of its reporting. And that makes it guilty of having fuelled a partly non-existent fire.
I'm trying to get documentary evidence of how we could have been misled about one brutal part of the Khairlanji incident. If I don't get the evidence, I promise to hint about it here. If do, I'll write about it here too but only after my paper publishes it. So, watch this space..