New Delhi: On April 14, a South Korean ferry carrying more than 470 passengers sank off that country's southwestern shore. Most of the more than 260 passengers still missing and presumed dead are school children. Kang was one of the few who was rescued.
The survivors were taken to a nearby island as a temporary measure. Kang was found hanging from a tree on the island on the night of April 17. Kang, whose full name is not yet known, was the vice-principal of the Danwon High School where the missing students were from.
While his fate runs the risk of being subsumed by the larger tragedy, several questions are raised about his extreme step.
It can't merely be survivor's guilt, or the extreme reactions that danger to little children creates in adults. The vice-principal clearly felt accountable for the lives of the children, and felt he had failed in his duty.
While taking one's life is an extreme step under any circumstance, the teacher's death will not only be inevitably subsumed in the larger tragedy, but also stands for a certain very personally held approach to public accountability and social responsibility.
In certain cultures, failure to carry out one's perceived responsibility, whether by accident or design, is considered grievious enough to result in suicide.
But in yet other cultures, this sense of public accountability is equally deeply felt. Consider Indian naval chief DK Joshi's immediate and unequivocal acceptance of personal and professional responsibility after the submarine fire and similar accidents, and his resignation in a manner that brooked no debate.
It is the sort of example that inspires not just the highly professional men of his command, but also civilians. Causes and reasons might not even be remotely man-made.
Consider the spate of resignations, and some suicides, after the Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 in Japan, a country where nuclear accidents have such a huge public impact.
The meltdown was caused by an earthquake and flooding, but administrators felt sufficiently accountable in any event.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the southern United States in 2005, and lapses were hinted at in the government's response to a disaster of that proportion, the then Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA) chief, New Orleans' top cop and other officials directly or indirectly involved in rescue efforts resigned almost simultaneously, citing professional and, more significant, personal responsibility.
The magnitude of these reactions might vary, but what doesn't is the clear signal that these officials, across countries and cultures, feel a personal sense of responsibility towards their charges and positions, and towards the larger society they seek to serve.
The other issue that is related to Kang's suicide is how, in the face of such a large loss of life, the individual stories of grief and loss also matter, even if they might not be mentioned in the limited media space afforded to them.
The MH-370 mystery is gradually easing out of the news cycle as other events take precedence. But human lives do not stop playing out their parts just because the media glare shifts from them.
Even as the fate of the missing passengers excites grief and speculation, their surviving relatives have to deal with the loss, marriages crumble and substance abuse takes its toll.
To our leaders and those who seek to represent us, Admiral Joshi and Vice-principal Kang should be, but are sadly not, the kind of conscientious administrators we ought to aspire towards.
And to the media which covers events great and small, it should be remembered that such tragedies are not merely news but larger, inter-connected social events.
They reveal the way our societies are structured and how much we care about one another, or don't. These too are stories worth pursuing, because they make us human.
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