Whither accountability? A death in Noida and the price of being alive in India

By Vikas Gupta 

Yuvraj Mehta—an ideal middle-class, upwardly mobile young man—died at the age of 27 in Noida, an archetypal North Indian town, in an equally upwardly mobile neighbourhood. He died in a deeply disturbing way—disturbing, that is, for the government and its constituents who control the system—causing immense agony and embarrassment to local authorities, the state government, the police, the fire department, and disaster relief forces.

Ideally, he should have died quietly on the foggy winter night of January 16, unnoticed in a deep trench filled with water until the morning of the 17th. Instead, he died in full public spectacle because he was capable of fighting for his life—calling his father, climbing out of his car through the sunroof, and spending 90 minutes on the roof with light emanating from his smartphone. All this while his life gradually sank into the water-filled pit, dug years ago for a commercial project and left abandoned.

The people responsible for saving him also diligently displayed their gross incompetence in full public view during those 90 minutes and long after Yuvraj was gone. We had no oxygen when millions were falling sick with COVID, and here we had no life-saving equipment when a single young life was at stake. A sufficiently long rope would probably have done the job. But what we saw, read, and learned is this: Indian lives do not matter. They are not just cheap—they are worthless. Yuvraj died for nothing.

The media coverage and accompanying accountability circus may offer token comfort to the family and friends of Yuvraj Mehta. But it has zero value for the average citizen struggling to live in Indian villages, towns, and cities. Yuvraj Mehta simply needed a rope or a hook to pull himself out of the pit. He did not want his life—or death—to become the subject of a public circus. Sadly, and remarkably, that rope or hook is continuously taken away from us, or simply isn’t there when we need it.

Sadly, because we are too many and a few can be dispensed with on a regular basis. Remarkably, because we—as citizens of India—remain convinced of the worth of our own lives: close to zero. We fight inconveniences, nuisances, and threats to our existence in only one way—by pretending they are part and parcel of life. Or God’s will. Or destiny. We—individually or collectively—do not fight, demand justice, insist on accountability, or exact a price. We have short memories for lives that are lost and for the reasons they are lost.

Once Yuvraj was lost to systemic apathy, people suddenly searched for the truck driver who had earlier been rescued by fellow citizens from the same ditch. He was projected as something of a hero, having survived without help from government agencies. Had the truck driver lost his life, it would have carried no value, and accountability would not have been demanded by the media. But his probable death might just have saved Yuvraj Mehta. Life in Yuvraj’s neighbourhood would have continued as normal. A truck driver’s death would have barely registered.

It was also striking that the media did not mention cases of tractor-trolleys overturning into ditches and causing multiple deaths on numerous occasions. In one such case, 26 people died in Kanpur in 2022. Nobody questioned those deaths or the absence of rescue mechanisms. Because the value of those lives was absolutely zero—for the media as well—especially when the victims were lower-middle class. They were held responsible for their own deaths because they were travelling in a tractor-trolley meant to carry agricultural produce.

Equally unsurprising was the public’s failure to draw an analogy with the deaths of 23 people in Indore due to contaminated water consumption. The incident occurred barely three weeks before Yuvraj’s death. But how could such an analogy be drawn? Indore’s victims were lower-middle class and consumed horrific water for weeks before dying slow deaths, while Yuvraj belonged to the aspirational class and died within hours, drowned in similarly horrific water.

Drinking polluted water is so integral to Indian life that resulting deaths rarely make the news. Indore—the cleanest city in India—entered a prolonged news cycle only because a reporter stood up to the bullying language of a powerful politician while questioning the incident. At the time this piece is being written—a week after Yuvraj’s death—one more death has been reported in the same Indore locality due to contaminated water.

The inference is deeply uncomfortable. We—the people of India—have little respect for the absoluteness of the right to life. For us, the value of life depends on the class a person belongs to. But there is one piece of good news: government agencies value our lives equally—a big zero.

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Vikas Gupta is a disabled entrepreneur representing himself in a landmark writ petition before the Delhi High Court. His case highlights serious abuse and neglect of disabled persons by multiple state agencies, including the Delhi Police, Tihar Jail, and key central ministries. One of India’s largest disability rights cases to date, the petition seeks accountability, compensation, and systemic reform to uphold human dignity in India’s law enforcement and justice systems