The Nature of Things

  “If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean that the government is also a terrorist?” This sentence is at the center of the plot of Megha Majumdar's first novel. It is a Facebook post that is written by Jivan, a young Muslim woman who lives in a Kolkata slum. Jivan had witnessed a horrible, unbearable act. A group of men had set fire to a stalled train and the fire burned alive almost 100 people. Perhaps the most unbearable part of the scene was that the police had looked on while it was done and did nothing to stop it. Jivan shared her outrage in the Facebook post and hoped that she would get a lot of "likes." The unintended consequence of the post was that it brought her to the attention of the police. Appallingly, she herself is arrested for the crime and her post is part of the evidence - in fact, the only evidence - against her.  Majumbar's story is set in modern-day India and it sounds only too ...