Rohini boy Arvinder Singh’s life hasn’t been the same since November 24, 2011, the morning he slapped Sharad Pawar. “I don’t know what came over me. I felt Pawar was responsible for the high prices and I just did it,” he says. Arvinder was jailed overnight, bailed on his family’s plea the next day in court saying he was mentally unfit. He was moved to IBHAS, Shahdara, and over 10 days (“machines were strapped to my head and doctors did every test possible”) it was confirmed that a breakdown had occurred on the day of the attack.
As a mentally unfit person cannot be imprisoned, Arvinder was a free man. Sort of: he still had uses. Since that November day, says the 27-year-old, he’s been besieged by small-time businessmen, politicos, musclemen, an array of disgruntled citizens, who ring him with requests to slap their enemies, business rivals or political competitors. Some even want former lovers whacked.
Arvinder and his friends say he has spurned all these requests. “What I did, slap a politician, was in the interests of justice for all. Everybody else has a personal agenda,” he says. But the rejections have not gone down well—angry ‘clients’ have descended on him, thrashed him black and blue. It’s happened four times since November, Arvinder says. One group kidnapped him and later left him beaten up, half-conscious, near a hospital. He confesses that one beating was after he slapped a senior SGPC official in April. (In November 2011, a week before the Pawar incident, Arvinder had attacked the 86-year-old former telecom minister Sukh Ram.)
The past six months have been instructive in other ways too. His family now has to fob off calls from the media too. Meanwhile, municipal elections, gang rivalry, industrial disputes—all lead to Arvinder being offered money for slaps, “Rs 10,000, Rs 50,000, Rs 2 lakh, you name it”, says a person close to him.
Arvinder says he’s not out to wreak vengeance on those opposed to his views. “Because I’m against corruption, I am being labelled crazy,” he claims. But wasn’t that his own plea in court, and didn’t the medical tests confirm it? He agrees to meet us, rescheduling the venue thrice. Finally, we catch up at Delhi’s INA market. It turns out Arvinder wasn’t playing hard-to-get: he makes a living driving the family cab, and has been criss-crossing the city since morning with passengers.
He has a question: “I got a call from the media. They say Kapil Sibal will be at a function next week. What shall I do?” Arvinder speaks constantly of possible victims; a newspaper editor, a minister, any minister, politicians. “Mediawallahs,” he says, keep him informed about public appearances of mantris. “Should I stop, or go do it again?” he wonders. Ironically, Arvinder is a symbol of the very rot he thinks he is fighting.
