The Young Martyr
A martyr is someone who dies fighting for a cause. Sometimes one man’s martyr is another man’s terrorist. But Sudipta Gupta, the 22-year-old college student, was no terrorist by any standard or stretch of imagination. He didn’t carry arms or ammunition. He didn’t blow up bridges or bomb buildings. Sudipta Gupta was only protesting the Bengal government's decision to withhold college elections for six months and demanding that student polls be restarted. That’s all. But Sudipta Gupta died. He set out from home in the morning and was supposed to return at night. Maybe late at night, but return he would. “Student politics sucked him up and after college he always went to meetings. But he knew that my father was waiting up for him. I often told him to come home earlier,” his sister said. They had lost their mother a year ago. His neighbours remember him fondly. “He was the boy with gentle, intelligent eyes,” one of them said. No, Sudipta Gupta was no one’s terrorist. But yes, he is a martyr. Indeed, ultimately it is the idea of a just society which drives young people like Sudipta Gupta, sometimes even to their deaths.