When the supreme bosses are showing the way, the
followers are bound to follow them dutifully.
After Manmohan’s insensitive brief on
what he thinks about the Delhi gangrape and the subsequent public outrage and
after Mr. Shinde comparing young protesters with Maoists, it was turn of their
yet another ardent follower (in delivering verbal volleys - and they are
plentiful), Delhi’s police commissioner, Mr. Neeraj Kumar. Please
excuse me if I am exaggerating.
In the aftermath of
the Delhi gangrape protests, one thing is crystal clear that had it
not been the huge public outcry on the streets, we would never have seen
whatever developments have been so far in the case given the kind of blind
leads the case had thrown initially.
And the fact that the crime itself
owes its origin to some glaring lapses by the
police slaps Delhi Police squarely in
the face. These lapses are always there but whenever the criminal elements
exploit them to perpetrate some inhuman crime like
the Delhi gangrape, the issue comes to the forefront.
Some years ago, a female journalist
driving back to her home from work post-midnight was shot dead by some rogues
for apparently no reason. That was a South Delhi area. There
was much hue and cry. Some measures were taken only to go slack once the cry
was over. Last year, a girl was shot dead in broad daylight by a jilted lover
in Southwest Delhi. The blind case was solved after much public and media
outrage and some tough remedy was ‘proposed’.
The police have lost its character of
being the people’s saviour first. Cracking these blind cases tells us police
can solve most of the cases and prevent crime much more efficiently. But the
increasing crime graph tells us they are not willing (of course, for variety of
reasons!).
So when there is outcry and outrage,
it does as much so as to save its skin.
The way the Delhi police
commissioner has handled the issue since the very beginning only confirms the
insensitive and inhuman character of the police.
It also represents (once again) the
colonial mindset with which the high-ranked administrative officers work. There
have been debates and commissions to overhaul the selection and training
process of the Indian Administrative Services but nothing on the ground has
been done.
These officers, in collaboration with
their bosses, run the country. So much depends on them. Mr. Neeraj Kumar is
just one among many of them we saw it in
this case, and we are still observing the ugly blame game, be the
law and order maintenance or the death of the injured Delhi Police constable.
He could have been right in his ‘sense’ when he said
it was not feasible to check every bus in Delhi but he probably didn’t do his homework. The bus was
chartered with a school, was plying on a school holiday, had circled the same
area twice and the accused had attacked others before picking up the young
couple. Also, the police had ignored the complainants about these
‘other attacks’. Also, it was just the 8-10 PM time-slot when it all happened.
When these lapses were the major
reasons behind the brutal attack and gangrape, Mr. Kumar should have accepted
the shortcomings with grace cracking down on the errant and careless cops. But,
he, instead, chose to play insensitive, like the character of the Indian police
has become. Action on errant cops after a week of the incident only bolstered
the claim that the police was acting indifferent and the sacking
was result of the mounting public protest.
And then, he, in his profound wisdom, came up with yet another
remark that can comfortably put him in the league of people with dictatorially
insensitive mindset.
He equated injured protesters by his Force’s barbaric act
as collateral damage. (Mr.
Shinde, do you see in him the next home minister of the country?) His statement
came midst increasing protests and increasingly barbaric police acts to
suppress the voices.
The CNN-IBN report said him quoting: ('If sacking the police
commissioner improves safety for women, do it every day – December 24, 2012)
“Pointing that "in a crackdown, there is always collateral
damage", Neeraj Kumar hit out at the media, accusing it of fuelling the
violence on Sunday, adding that the police had "not mishandled the
situation". If an innocent person has come to harm, I apologise. I feel
sorry for that. But I do not apologise for what the police did there, he
further said.”*
Mr. Kumar, you are an IPS officer and I might be wrong in
writing here owing to my
poor knowledge of affairs, but it again puts your
whole persona in negative light. No one is going for your intent here. That
cannot be the case in the highly charged atmosphere of protests. What matters
first is how sensitive you sound. And you have sounded totally insensitive in
managing this affair. What sort of sincere effort can we expect from you and your police force in
the long run then?
This unrest and the public outcry is a
direct result of insensitivity of the police administration and the political
machinery. The protests were ignored first. No one of the governing machinery
took it seriously thinking it would die down. When it grew, they were not
prepared. And since, they have been a most insensitive, elitist lot, they, in
their arrogance, chose to crush it down, not learning any lessons from the
self-erupted massive public protests of 2011.
‘Humans as collateral damage’ has
been mostly used in the context of wars and civil wars and terrorism, and
certainly there wasn’t any remote possibility of that happening during
the Delhi protests. It is not just the lumpen and mob elements that
are to be blamed for the violence that injured many and took life of one Delhi
Police constable, but, you, your police force and your political bosses, too,
are equally responsible.
Also, please, stop making death of the
police constable an issue to settle scores with the Delhi government and Sheila
Dikshit.
Mr. Commissioner of Police, your concept of ‘humans as collateral damage’ is
misplaced and against the spirit of democracy. And people like you and your
political bosses are given charge to ensure that it doesn’t happen.
Indian democracy is still half-baked; it still has many mob
traits. But that doesn’t allow anyone to treat the Indian public (and the
voters) as collateral damage. On the contrary, it is
true that the political bosses and the administrative machinery have been doing
that regularly.
The wrong notion might well be on the way of the
forced-correction mode, growing public protests on issues of public concern is
a testimony to it.
Mr. Kumar, you, your police force, and your political bosses -
do you realize that?
* (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/if-sacking-police-commissioner-improves-safety-of-women-do-it-every-day-neeraj-kumar/312117-3-244.html)