Nine years after the BMW hit-and-run case, the verdict has been pronounced and we all feel relieved that justice is done.All this hindsight really taught us about ourselves. Today we're using the BMW case to take a long hard look at ourselves, something we perhaps should have done a long time ago.It has become almost standard practice for the media to tape popular sentiment when the verdict in a case like the BMW hit-and-run case is out.The public is ready with answers, but as we dig a little deeper, a more complex reality unfolds.In the nine years it has taken for Sanjeev Nanda to be convicted for running over and killing six people, he has been out on bail, successfully running his posh hotel in Delhi where often the same faces that form part of the public condemnation when faced with a camera can also switch sides in the evening and party with him."The page 3 circle float knows when to float with whom. This is a step in climbing the social ladder," said fashion designer Narendra Kumar."It is regressive because we believe we've been part of a moral victory. We see it as the triumph of good over evil, not realising that many times, we've been part of that evil. So the desire to be holier than thou is a normal human trait but you also want to be on the right side of the debate," said Suhel Seth.The most honest admission of the doublespeak that happens is what we came across on the street quite by accident.There is, however, a distinction that can be even in the middle class reaction to a case like the BMW, between people from the glitterati, the social elite, and the rest of the middle class, truly relieved to see that justice in this instance could not be subverted."I think there is a universal element to it. Everyone wants to know famous people but what is interesting here is that we look at famous people as if they were patrons. In politics we don't vote for someone who represents our point of view, we vote for someone we feel can do something for you. So in the Nanda case, it is there. In the chattering classes, the noisy people, they are the ones who are exulting, but if you see the other class many are not happy because they feel if it could happen to him it could happen to us," said Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist.
