Kerala’s citizens were deeply saddened by the tragic death of a sanitation worker employed by a private agency. He was swept off by rain water while cleaning the Aamayizhanchan canal, near Trivandrum Central Railway station, recently.

The canal was choked by waste, causing a vicious cycle. The canal failed to drain water from Kerala’s Capital city at the height of Southwest monsoon. It was chocked by waste, plastic making up its chunk. Fire force, naval Scuba divers and disaster management workers toiled round the clock for two days to rescue the unfortunate man from the 140-meter canal who worked unheralded in dire and unhygienic inhuman circumstances, as his ilk are wont to. Today’s society sold on the ‘highly-placed’ hardly recognizes the ‘lowly’ role played by the lowly. Nobody cares about them. They are not even recognized.

 Rescuers working in difficult conditions could only fish out his partly decomposed body.

After the incident, politicians of different political fronts in Kerala indulged, in right earnest what they are best at- blame game, unmindful of the sentiments of the bereaved family, who wept inconsolably over Joy’s dead body, when it was brought home.

The CPM-led LDF governing Kerala was clearly pushed to the back foot by the Incident. The sanitation worker’s death showcased its abject failure in cleaning canals chocked by waste, much before the onset of Monsoon. The government fished for excuses.

The Congress-led UDF in opposition, which has made blaming the government at the drop of a hat its habit, lived up to their ways, and much beyond. Instead of blaming the government that had unmistakably failed, the UDF could easily have sent its able-bodied youth ‘workers’ (as they love to be addressed) to clean the canal before another Joy lost his life in it.

The BJP-led NDA had nothing much to say, as death of a lowly sanitation worker, and reacting against it had extremely poor political dividends, as issues like women entering temples to worship, and idols of Hindu deities found beneath mosques do.

Authorities of the Railways and Thiruvananthapuram Corporation too joined the madness the state that had seemingly lost its soul and conscience was engulfed in. They took to arguing over who was responsible for cleaning the canal.

It is unfair to blame political parties and officials serving the Railways and the Corporation for Joy’s death. Every citizen of the capital city who mindlessly and thoughtlessly dumped waste into the canal had blood on his or her hand.

Joy, the lowly sanitation worker was murdered collectively by(1) politicians who failed in their duty to govern in the manner expected of them,(2) Railway authorities, who ought to have initiated steps to clean the canal, that flowed through their premises, and(3) officials employed in the Corporation who’s enthusiasm to collect taxes do not match earnestness to give back the taxpayers, what they are entitled to receive from the government, and(4) and irresponsible fellow citizens who break rules by dumping waste most selfishly in public places.