<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

Can poverty reduce people to such a state of despair that they may prefer to end the lives of their children? I don’t have an answer to this haunting question.

Vicky Veerahsawmy is reported to have said, in his first police statement, that he had had enough of seeing his kids live in such poor conditions. I do not propose to get into the debate of whether he was forced to confess to a crime he didn’t commit or not. If he was, it will come out at some point in the inquiry. But, if the reasons he allegedly gave for doing the unspeakable, the unimaginable are true, then we are collectively responsible for his act.

No, I haven’t lost my bearings. But I keep wondering; can poverty drive a father to commit infanticide? Deliberately, cold- bloodedly if heartbreakingly? Does extreme poverty drive people to their wits’ end to that extent? Maybe it’s about time we stopped and reflected on this. To save and redeem ourselves, if not to save others.

I don’t know if poverty dehumanises people in this way. I guess you have to live it to know. And most of us clearly couldn’t be bothered about the plight of those “other” citizens of this country, born with the same rights and allowed the same protection of the law under the Constitution, but who live a life that inexorably brings them to their demise. But what if we started to care?

How many of us have been quick to condemn what we self-righteously call this pathetic excuse for a father, for what he did? Far from me the thought of trying to justify or condone murder -if ever that’s what it was - but we cannot keep saying we want to combat crime, if we systematically refuse to understand the causes of crime.

This man, Vicky has lost his job. His wife, in an attempt to feed her children, has managed to secure a job but clearly the miserly salary wouldn’t have been enough to feed seven mouths.

Then why have five children, would you ask and rightly so. Why indeed? How about maybe those people aren’t even aware that there exists such a thing as contraception? Far-fetched, you would say. I don’t know but I can tell you I have personally - and only recently - met people who didn’t know the name of the prime minister. Hard to fathom, huh? If you feel this way, that’s how out of touch you also are. And maybe if abortion was legalised in this hypocritical country, there could be fewer victims of poverty.

But what am I on about? Decision makers in this country are so ironically out of touch; it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. We cannot, however, keep pointing the finger at them. We need to take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror. If we don’t care for our own, if we refuse to have a sense of solidarity towards our fellow countrymen, how dare we expect criminality to go down, how dare we demand the right to live in peace in our mansions surrounded by huge walls meant to keep stray dogs and poor people out?

If the haves do not share with the have-nots, if they continue to turn a blind eye to the tragedies that are unfolding daily, how can they ever come to understand what makes a man deliberately set his children alight?

Unless they feel poverty is none of their business. And we’re right back to where we began; what drives a man to set fire to his children?