Jail Yog: How Far Can People Go For Superstitious Beliefs?

Some superstitious commoners willingly spend a night or two in jail. And why would they do it? To counter the Jail Yog in their horoscopes. According to a report in The Times Of India, people in UP have found a way to neutralise the threat of jail yog in their kundalis. They spend some time in jail in advance, hoping that this would make up for the dosha and avoid giving them any more trouble in future.

The Lucknow district administration receives some 24 such requests every year. Applicants plead to be put into lock-ups for short time on religious grounds.

While there are no legal provisions in our country for such a practice, the lawmakers and commoners have reached a happy arrangement where the already burdened rehabilitation system of India is forced to accommodate more people (innocent and willing) and feed them and give them space to sleep. This practice makes you question the extent to which people are willing to go to cater to their superstitious beliefs.

Criminals on street and innocents in jail

Nothing can portray the sheer madness that runs in our veins than the fact that while criminals move heaven and hell here to stay out of jail, innocents are doing otherwise

They are willing to spend a night or two on cold floors, eat jail food and seek pardoning for crimes they haven’t committed, all to ward off prophesied troubles in future. Thank heavens their ordeal doesn’t require them to suffer some “special treatment” from police. Imagine a police officer’s dilemma when an innocent man comes with a written request to him, to give him some roughing up to ward off legal problems he may face in future.

SOME TAKEAWAYS-

• Innocent commoners in UP are willingly spending a night in lock up, to neutralise jail yog in their kundali.
• The extent to which can people go for their superstitious beliefs in our country is amusing. They will marry a tree or a cow and even go to jail.
• Do such people have no belief in their own morality and our law?

But this is what superstition does to us. Living in India, it is hard to escape the Bermuda triangle of horoscopes, possibilities of troubles in future and imaginative solutions for these alleged problems. What gets lost in this triangle is logic. People lose the will to take life head on without fretting over what shall always remain unknown (at least this is the case in 2018) and practicality. It has consumed all aspects of our lives, from birth to marriage to business to even health. But this is also a commentary on how common man perceives workings of law and order in this country.

Only in India can a law-abiding citizen get so scared of a jail yog prophecy that he loses all hope in his own morality and our law’s ability to separate criminals from innocents, and chooses to go to jail willingly to counter it

For generations now, we have tried to counter the evil cast on our bright future with rituals like marrying trees and cows, wearing stones and what not. But what we have forgotten is the basic concept of karma. Karma holds its ground through time and space. What you sow is what you reap. If not today, then tomorrow. Or in that very unseen future we are trying to tame, one way or the other.

If all of us begin to abide by this simple rule taught to us by our ancestors, we wouldn’t have to feel so threatened by prophesies which feel real because of the society we have created for ourselves. Alas, most of us have want the blanket comfort of upay like this. Who will commit to lifelong good and moral conduct from fear of an unseen threat in future when you can bypass it with just two days in lock-up? Think about it.

Picture Credits: Canadian forum

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Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own.