Dead People, Supporting Each Other

If you’re struggling with an issue, chances are you’re not alone. And that’s good news because, for many such issues, there are formal and informal support groups where people help each other through those problems. Alcoholics Anonymous is there for anyone who is struggling with a drinking problem, Gamblers Anonymous is the same for people who are compelled to place bets, and the list goes on. Typically, membership is pretty open — you have to have that particular problem, sure, but beyond that, you just need to be alive.

But there’s one exception to that latter rule: a support group for deceased people — kind of. It’s the Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People.

Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India. (Here’s a map.) It is home to 240 million people and if it were a nation unto itself, Uttar Pradesh would be the world’s sixth most populous after China, the rest of India, the United States, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Lal Bihari, a farmer from the Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, is one of those people — but only from his birth in 1955 until 1975, and then again from 1994 to present. Between those two time periods? Bihari was, technically, dead.

And it turned out, that wasn’t unique.

In many parts of Uttar Pradesh, farmland is at a premium. As Time Magazine explained in 1999, “The eastern fringes of India’s Uttar Pradesh state are known as the badlands, a place where hired killers can be bought for as little as $10 and peasant farmers eke out a living on plots as small as a basketball court. Combine these two ingredients–crime and a shortage of agricultural land–throw in a large chunk of greed, mix in some family rivalry and you come up with an ingenious scam. Just head for the nearest Land Registry Office, bribe an official, declare the owner dead and transfer the land to your name.” And in 1975, at the age of 19, Bihari became a victim of such a scam. His uncle had paid someone to declare Bihari dead, and then “inherited” the land of his officially deceased nephew.

Bihari, though, was far from dead — not that proving it was so easy. He held a funeral for himself, hoping his presence as a still-living person would convince officials that he was alive. (It didn’t.) His wife applied for benefits as a widow. He tried to get arrested; per Time, he allegedly “kidnapped the son of the uncle who had stolen his property, threatened murder, insulted judges, threw leaflets listing his complaints at legislators in the state assembly” — all in an effort to get the state to acknowledge he was alive (you can’t arrest a dead person), but to no avail. He even ran for parliament in hopes that would make a difference, but he lost the election and no one seemed to care that a “dead” man didn’t win. Ultimately, the wheels of justice turned slowly and in his favor; in 1994, the courts established that the man before them was, in fact, alive.

Once his life was — legally speaking — restored, Bihari decided to help others in the same situation find their renaissance. In the mid-1990s, he founded the Association of Dead People, a group for people, who, like him, were legally dead but otherwise very much alive. The “Association” didn’t draw any members or funding, as far as Bihari was aware — it was a means to draw attention to the plight of those like him, not truly an organization in its own rite. (Oh well.) But it was, ultimately, effective. The Association drew the attention of the press and the courts alike. As the New York Times reported, “In July [2000], a High Court judge became aghast after learning that there were dozens — and perhaps hundreds — of such cases of bogus mortality. He ordered the government of Uttar Pradesh to publish ads, seeking out the living dead, and then to revive them in the state’s public records. The National Human Rights Commission has also convened hearings on the matter.” Over the years, according to Open magazine, “dead men who can afford it turn up [to Birhari’s office] from far-off villages,” looking for help.

With Bihari’s help, many of these dead find themselves reinstated among the living.

Bonus fact: In 1896, an English serial killer named Amelia Dyer was tried and convicted of multiple murders. (The details are gruesome; you can read her Wikipedia entry if you’re so inclined.) She was sentenced to death three weeks after her conviction, but that posed a problem for prosecutors. They had also levied charges against her daughter, Polly, and needed Dyer’s testimony to secure Polly’s conviction. But Polly’s trial was scheduled for after Dyer’s execution, and dead people don’t make for great witnesses. The prosecutors tried to delay Dyer’s execution, but the court said it wouldn’t matter; per that above-linked Wikipedia entry, “it was ruled that Dyer was already legally dead once sentenced and that therefore her evidence would be inadmissible.” Her execution wasn’t delayed and the charges against Polly were dropped.

From the Archives: The Dead Man Who Sued to Make Himself Alive and The Man Who Was Buried in Paperwork: Two more legally dead people who sued to prove otherwise.