Naach na jaane aangan tedha. One who cannot dance says the courtyard is crooked. The Rekhta dictionary explains it in Hindi as making excuses when one cannot do the work oneself. In English it gives “a bad workman quarrels with his tools.”
Honi kaun taal sakta hai. Who can avert what is to be? Rekhta explains in Hindi: no one can change what fate has written, and what is to happen, happens.
On October 30, 2022, the suspension bridge in Morbi, Gujarat, collapsed, and more than 130 people died. Two managers of Oreva, the company that ran the bridge, were among those arrested. In court, one of them called the collapse an act of God.
The prosecutor, H.S. Panchal, said: “One of the two managers of the Oreva company (who have been arrested) told the court that it was an act of God.” The Free Press Journal named the manager as Deepak Parekh.
In the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata, before the game of dice, King Dhritarashtra speaks to Vidura about the coming quarrel. “If Fate be not hostile, this quarrel will not certainly grieve me,” he says. “The whole universe moveth at the will of its Creator, under the controlling influence of Fate. It is not free.”
In August 1980, after riots in Moradabad, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said that the riots were likely the result of a “foreign hand.” The account is from a column in Business Standard, which gives her words in paraphrase. No verbatim record of the remark was found.
On July 20, 2021, the Ministry of Health answered a question in the Rajya Sabha about deaths in the second wave of Covid-19. Its written reply said that “no deaths due to Oxygen has been specifically reported by the states/UTs.”
The magazine Down To Earth headlined its report: “Passing the buck: No deaths due to lack of oxygen reported by states, Centre says.”
On September 29, 2017, a stampede at Elphinstone Road station in Mumbai killed at least 23 people. Western Railway’s chief spokesman, Ravinder Bhaker, gave its finding: “The incident was caused due to panic and confusion created on the bridge coupled with rains.” He added: “No one can be held responsible for the incident.”
On July 2, 2024, a crowd crush at a religious gathering near Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, killed more than 120 people. The gathering was held by the preacher Suraj Pal, known as Bhole Baba. His lawyer, A.P. Singh, said: “Some anti-social elements hatched a conspiracy.”
The police complaint named the organizers, not the preacher. Asked why, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that “the case has been filed against the people who sought permission to organise the event.”
On November 4, 2019, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra heard a case on air pollution in Delhi. “They are passing the buck to each other…whether the Centre should do or Delhi should do…it can’t go on like this,” the court said, according to Scroll.
On November 15, 2021, a bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana heard a case on Delhi’s air again. It told the government’s lawyers: “So you are passing the buck to municipal corporations.”
On September 7, 2019, ISRO lost contact with the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 during its descent to the Moon. A Failure Analysis Committee examined the loss. “Unlike ISRO’s previous record, the report of the Failure Analysis Committee has not been made public,” Wikipedia notes.
A request for the report under the Right to Information Act was refused: “this information cannot be divulged under Section 8(1) of the RTI Act.”
In the Hitopadesha, a flock of pigeons is caught in a hunter’s net. The flock first abuses the pigeon whose advice led them into it. Then their king, Speckle-neck, tells them to act “at one moment and with one will, rising under the net, let us fly off with it.”
“Having pondered this advice, the Pigeons adopted it; and flew away with the net.” This is Edwin Arnold’s translation.