The Canary in the Coal Mine

Illustration by ChatGPT

There was a time when miners carried canaries into coal mines. The practice was simple though the science behind it was grim. Certain poisonous gases, particularly carbon monoxide, could accumulate underground without warning. A miner might breathe the deadly air without recognising the danger. The canary, being more sensitive, would show signs of distress sooner. Its suffering served as an alarm. If the bird became ill, the miners knew it was time to escape. The bird would die in all probability.

Male canaries generally escaped this tragic fate because they were valued more for their sweet songs. Female canaries were cheaper in the market, in other words. Society has always had its expendable creatures. Those who sing less beautifully, those who possess less power, those whose lives command a lower price in the marketplace of human dignity – they are the ones most readily sacrificed. That way, the canary in the coal mine was not merely a warning of poisonous gas. It was also a reminder of how readily we put the least valued among us on the sacrificial altar.

And what was the weakness of the canary? Its lungs were more sensitive to toxic air.

I sometimes wonder whether we have begun to live in a gigantic coal mine.

The mine is our society. The poisonous gas is the atmosphere of fear, hatred, manufactured outrage and institutionalised cruelty that a ruthless government can release into public life. The miners are the citizens, going about their ordinary business, earning livelihoods, raising children, paying their taxes and hoping that tomorrow will be reasonably like today (if not better).

And the canaries? They are the hapless people who begin to suffer when the air turns poisonous: the minorities who discover that their citizenship comes with an invisible asterisk; the journalist who learns the price of asking inconvenient questions; the students whose rebellious idealism demands answers; activists who are branded as traitors; and the poor who are crushed beneath policies designed by the (al)mighty.

The canaries are the first to gasp for breath. The rest of us watch them uneasily. Some feel sympathy. Others shrug. A few even accuse the birds of making inconvenient noise.

Some of us even go to the extent of saying they deserve what is happening to them. They are not sufficiently patriotic, or their religion happens to be a historical mistake, or they don’t worship the leader as an idol. Or they are not like us.

The government supplies the vocabulary, and we supply the excuses.

Meanwhile, the gas spreads.

This is how a society loses its moral sense. Not necessarily through a spectacular act of tyranny but through a succession of small permissions.

The canary cannot understand the mine, however. Human beings can understand their society at least to some extent. That’s why Jantar Mantar happens. That’s why Jantar Mantar spreads from Delhi to all over the country. The youth of India have recognised a pattern before it becomes a catastrophe. The youth are the potential redeemers of this country, the only hope that is still lingering when the light is dying beyond the horizon of the Central Vista.

Perhaps the tragedy is not that the canaries are dying. It is that the miners have learnt to work beside their cages without looking inside. How many birds must fall silent before we realise what we are breathing?