When I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin during the 1970s, a fellow American student from another department invited me to a class he was teaching. The topic was India and he wanted me present in his class as an example of a real Indian who could answer questions from students about India and Indians. I readily agreed. I do not remember most of the questions or how I answered them but one question has remained with me.

I will paraphrase the question as follows, “Do you think there is less value attached to life in India because the population is so huge?” I was put on the spot and did not want to present a negative image of my country. I managed to give a somewhat evasive answer – something to the effect that population density in India is probably no different from what one sees in cities like New York and peoples’ lives are probably viewed in the same way. However, I knew that I did not give an honest answer.

I believe that the truth is that human life in India does not indeed carry as much worth as it does in a country like US and the overwhelming population is one of the contributing factors. I have thought about this question many times in life.  I believe that there is, at least, a loose correlation between quality of life in a country and its population. If one looks at the list of the “happiest countries” in the world, the top ten entries seem to always include the four Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Austria and Iceland, all with population in the 5 to 10 million range.

China and India remain as the most populous countries with populations of 1.5 and 1.4 billion respectively and they are also not so desirable places to live, in spite of recent developments and technological advancements.  Perhaps population has to remain below a critical mass in order for life of every citizen to be addressed seriously and effectively. It makes sense. When there are less people there are fewer issues and conflicts between them and people can care more about each other.

Value of life is automatically higher because any loss of life has an impact on some aspect of society. When there are a billion plus people, nothing stops if some people die because there are plenty of people available to replace them. There is apathy towards the misery or misfortune of other people.  Everyone has a mindset that with all the people available someone else would help and therefore “I need not get involved”.

The USA seems to be undergoing a transition. When I first came to the US, it seemed that every life mattered. Every killing and every accident drew attention and investigations followed by fair trial, if appropriate, ensued. There was even daily reporting of lives of soldiers lost in the Vietnam war and every effort was made to bring the bodies back to their homeland.  Even as recently as 2001, Americans responded vigorously to the loss of 3,000 plus lives in the 9/11 disaster by going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq and spending billions of dollars.

However, in recent decades, mass shootings, homelessness, illegal immigration across the southern border, use of excessive force by police and other such developments have diluted the intensity of that concern for human life.  At the same time, population of the country has been increasing and has perhaps crossed that critical mass. The good news is that people still seem to come together to help others in difficulty, both financially as well as emotionally.

Two incidents made an impression upon me about the validity of my belief.  When I was attending Science College in Kolkata, I often used to take a train from Dhakuria (where I lived) to Sealdah station and then walk to Science College. During the rush hour, it was preferable to get even tiny standing room near the door of the compartment so that one could get some breeze. One day, as I was at my usual spot, a small rock hurled by a kid came flying and hit me between my left eyebrow and eye. I felt pain, covered my left eye and simply sat down on the floor.

The train soon entered the platform of Sealdah (South) station and every passenger – and I mean everyone – disembarked in a hurry without paying any attention to me or offering any help. Fortunately, my eye was not damaged and I managed to get to the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital nearby. The second incident took place during my India visit in 2013. One day, while going from Sodepur to Kolkata with a cousin in her car, I saw a middle-aged bearded man in shaggy clothes lying flat on the side of a busy street.

Everyone passed by him completely oblivious to his condition. Was he ill? Was he drunk and passed out? Was he asleep or unconscious? Was he dead? I did not know. My cousin did not care either and I guess my Indian genes prevented me from saying “Stop the car; let us find out what is wrong with this man”. It is not just these two isolated incidents; I can confess that I lived my life in India largely oblivious to the plight of “poor” people – the servants and maids, the factory labourers, the farmers, not to mention the beggars and homeless refugees.

I almost accepted the socio-economic caste system as being the norm. When I visited Kolkata in 2013 after almost 30 years, I realised that, in spite of all the progress and improvements that had brought the Indian economy to the world stage, lives of poor people have not changed much from the time I lived there. The horrific images of people in India during the recent surge in Covid, both their suffering while desperately looking for treatment as well as their mass funerals and the apparent lack of preparedness of the country to deal with the problem made me ask the same question, “Is value of life less in India?” In a highly litigious society like America, lawyers can put a value on life.

It seems that when a person dies from non-natural causes in the USA someone comes out of the woodwork and sues the party alleged to be responsible for the death. I assume that there are standard formulas and precedents that guide the lawyers in their determination of the amount needed to compensate for the loss of life. I doubt that a similar mindset exists in India. One of my Christian friends pointed out another interesting aspect of this difference in how we see value of life.

Indians who are mostly Hindu believe in reincarnation. The present life is just one in a series of thousands of reincarnations that every person must go through in order to achieve that ultimate destiny – “Nirvana” and what happens in this life is largely predetermined by our “karma” in previous lives.  The Christians, on the other hand, value their present life because they think that it is “the one life to live”; they will go to heaven or hell after that.  As a result, there might be a greater emphasis on not only in living one’s life on the right path but also to regard everyone else’s life on an equal footing. In any event, I strongly believe that until a country views worth of life of every citizen the same way, it has not raised itself to the next level of improvement in order to become a great country.

(The writer, a physicist who worked in academia and industry, is a Bengali settled in America)