Casualties

Great sadness today. Three marchers were killed in a traffic accident this morning before the march started.

The accident happened just a few minutes before our car dropped us off at the start point for the day. News quickly spread about a transport truck backing into sleeping marchers on the road. Apparently, the truck driver was drunk. He ran into a bus and veered to the left. To avoid falling into a ditch, he backed up and ran over the median into sleeping marchers.

We waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Some people gestured about 100 feet away to where a crowd was gathered. They said the bodies were still on the ground. I did not have the stomach to go see.

After waiting a while, I noticed Lisa was sitting on the ground. She had her prayer beads in her hand. I joined her and folded my hands to say a prayer for the dead. But if you are not Indian, it's hard to do anything in India without drawing a crowd around you. After about 15 minutes, I got up to look for the Buddhist priests. I hoped they were in prayer and I wanted to join them.

But walking through the crowd, I noticed the marchers were all seated on the ground. This is what we've been instructed to do prior to the march. If there is trouble of any kind, we need to sit on the ground as a non-violent practice. Since I came to march with these people, I decided to sit with them.

Soon, one of the march organizers came around to give me an update. It was confirmed that three people died, four people hurt seriously including a child, 13 others had minor injuries. As soon as the accident took place, local villagers dragged the driver out of his truck and beat him up. Apparently, this is a common practice. The driver is now hospitalized.

But the amazing thing was, none of the marchers raised a fist. So committed are they to the non-violent principle, they sat on the ground when faced with anger and death. Later, I found a woman sitting with her group. She was crying. The organizer told me three of her sons were hurt in the accident. Here was a mother whose sons were hurt. Yet, she would not betray her non-violence training.

I saw another organizer, a man, weeping, as he was helped to sit on the curb. I went up and asked, "Do you have family in the accident?"

He said, "Yes, all 25,000 of these people are my family, and three of them just died."

I don't know what happened, but the next thing I knew, we were both weeping. After a while, I said, "I am glad I am sitting here with you."

He honoured me with a bow.

Then a young man jumped through the barricades into the sitting crowd. The seated marchers raised their sticks. The man beside me jumped up and ran to the people with the sticks to prevent them from reacting with violence.

As I watched from the curb, Lisa called me from behind. She was nestled with some women marchers and hold up a blanket with them for shade. They gestured me over and made room for me. As we struggled to keep the shade up, another woman came and built a tripod behind us so we could put the blanket over it to shade us.

It was a very emotional day for all. One of the march organizers told me they had negotiated with the government and the families of the dead and injured will receive some compensation: 4 lakhs for each person who died, 2 lakhs for the seriously injured. That's about $10,000 Cad for each death, and $5,000 for each seriously injured, who could be crippled for life. Where our loved ones are concerned, how often have we said, I wouldn't exchange you for a million dollars?

That was one of the cautions I received from someone since arriving in India: be careful, because human life has little value in India.

When the march started in the afternoon, it was a sombre one. There was no tribal dance to lead off. Jill and Raja stayed closer together than I have ever seen them through out the march.

In the late afternoon, our car came. We had arranged to return to Delhi for a break and to sort out some personal affairs. So I am back in Delhi for the next two nights.