Governance and democracy haven’t malfunctioned since Independence, they have been made to function poorly and unfairly. So, when generation after generation of poor Indians know there is little value to life as an Indian and death is so easy and close, why do they reproduce? Why do they do this knowing government after government at the Centre, state and municipality level have failed them? With what hope do perennially suicide-prone farmers bring more children into the world in some of India’s poorest, driest, hungriest parts, when they are treated like beasts or less?