YOU ARE BORN ILLEGAL
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
PART ONE: THE ESSAY
How India Criminalizes Natural Life from the Moment of Birth
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1. BIRTH ITSELF IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT REGISTRATION
If a baby is born at home, with no hospital involved, that baby is not recognized as a legal citizen until a certificate is issued by a municipal body.
No matter how healthy the child is.
No matter how naturally and safely the birth was conducted.
Without a government-issued paper, your existence is invalid.
In many rural parts of India, traditional midwives were once the norm.
Today, they are seen as “untrained,” “risky,” and “unregistered.”
Thousands of tribal births go unrecognized — and the babies become invisible to the law.
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2. YOUR HOUSE IS ILLEGAL UNLESS SANCTIONED
You built a mud hut with your hands?
Grew bamboo on your land and thatched a roof?
Without a sanctioned building plan, without a completion certificate, your home is technically illegal.
Even if it causes no harm. Even if it is safer than cement homes during heatwaves.
Panchayats, corporations, and municipalities reserve the right to demolish it.
Incredible, isn't it? You can be jailed for sheltering yourself without their permission.
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3. YOUR FOOD IS ILLEGAL IF NOT CERTIFIED
You grow vegetables in your backyard, sell some surplus without a license?
You make pickles at home, sell them in jars?
That’s illegal trade.
The FSSAI Act of India criminalizes food production without registration, labeling, and testing — even if your product is completely safe.
Meanwhile, large companies adulterate oils, flours, spices — and are fined only when caught.
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4. YOUR BODY IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT DOCUMENTS
Try booking a train ticket without an ID.
Try admitting your child to school without an Aadhaar card.
Try opening a bank account without a PAN.
You need to prove who you are at every step.
You are not a person — you are a number.
The uneducated laborer without paperwork is not just poor — he is stateless in his own land.
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5. YOUR MOVEMENT IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT LICENSES
In India, a tribal person moving cattle through ancestral paths can be stopped by Forest Officials.
A fisherman without GPS can be arrested for “entering protected zones.”
A weaver selling saris door to door can be fined for not having a trade license.
Mobility — once a natural human trait — is now a regulated transaction.
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6. YOUR PARENTING IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT SCHOOLING
If you choose to not enroll your child in any school — even for valid philosophical or ecological reasons — the government marks it as violation of the Right to Education.
Even if the child is happy, learning well, and deeply connected to nature.
You will be accused of “denying education” — even if what you’re giving is far superior.
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7. YOUR SELF-HEALING IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT APPROVAL
You can’t give turmeric paste or neem extract as medicine if you’re not a licensed practitioner.
You can’t teach yoga publicly without a certificate.
Healing — once a shared community art — is now a gated industry.
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8. YOUR DEATH IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT A CERTIFICATE
Even your final departure needs paperwork.
Without a registered doctor pronouncing your death, your family can’t claim property, pensions, or even perform rituals.
Imagine that: You can’t even die naturally unless approved.
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CONCLUSION
You are not illegal because you’re bad.
You’re illegal because you dared to live outside their machinery.
The system does not recognize nature.
It only recognizes submission.
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PART TWO: THE DIALOGUE
“Your Child Is Not Recognized Until They Say So”
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SCENE: Under a neem tree near Madhukar’s hut. A young couple — Meena and Harish — arrives with their newborn.
The baby was born at home with the help of Meena’s mother. They have been denied a birth certificate because there was no hospital delivery.
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HARISH: They said we need hospital proof to register our child.
MEENA: The Anganwadi worker called us “backward.”
MADHUKAR: Not backward, dear ones. Unauthorised. You gave birth without their machine. So your child doesn’t exist for them.\n\nHARISH: But he’s here. He cries, drinks, laughs…
MADHUKAR: That’s not enough. Unless a paper confirms it, he is a ghost in the legal system.\n\nMEENA: What about his school, ration card, everything?\nMADHUKAR: Everything now depends on paper. Not presence. Not proof through life, but through barcode.\n\nHARISH: We didn’t do anything wrong.\nMADHUKAR: Of course not. But the system treats natural as criminal. If you build, heal, grow, birth — without license — you are illegal.\n\nMEENA: We just wanted a simple, safe life.
MADHUKAR: That is your crime. Simplicity is rebellion.
HARISH: Then what should we do?
MADHUKAR (softly): Keep your simplicity. But also learn their games. Create a legal presence. But never mistake it for your child’s identity.
MEENA: So we live with two names — one on paper, one in spirit?
MADHUKAR: No. You live with one truth:
“The paper name is for survival. The soul name is for life.”
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PART THREE: THE BUKOWSKI-STYLE POEM
“BORN GUILTY”
they said
he was born at home —
not in a sanitized room
with plastic gloves
and fluorescent lights.
no paper.
no print.
no stamp.
so they said:
“this child does not exist.”
they said
you built a hut?
without blueprint?
without cement,
without corruption?
illegal.
they said
you sell pickles?
from your own kitchen?
without barcodes and batch numbers?
criminal.
they said
you taught your child numbers
under a tree?
without a certificate?
you are denying education.
they said
you healed someone
with tulsi and ash?
you’re not authorized.
they said
you died
but no doctor signed it?
you are not dead enough.
they want you filed,
tagged,
tracked,
taxed,
typed.
but never truly born.
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