On Friday 16 May 2008 8:34:36 am Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: > Have you, by any chance, considered the effect that a lack of faith in the > general quality, honesty etc of local law enforcement has on mob violence > or the lack of it?
I am currently reading a book by a Sankaran Nair who once headed the Intelligence Bureau and RAW (the CIA equivalent of India) The book is entitled "Inside IB and RAW". The book itself says very very little about what the IB or RAW might do, but the title is merely an excuse for writing a personal autobiography of a high-caste Mallu who received a "propah British" education in an era when "colonials" in India got "proper education" in a British system. What is fascinating is the stories he tells of police action in the pre-independence era (1940s I guess) The seniormost officers were always British. The junior officers were increasingly Indian - and Nair was one of them. The police were under pressure to prove that they were good at their job. Nair relates what he says is a typical story in rural/small town India A local wealthy and influential man gets murdered. If the police begin investigation in the usual way, they get blamed for inefficiency and the British have a law and order problem on their hands. So a simple solution is to catch a few people from the local "criminal tribes" (sic) and extract a confession from them. In fact this elegant solution would please the British senior officer more because he then would not have to be answerable to his superiors for not "solving a crime" and creating a law and order problem sparked by supporters of the murdered wealthy, influential man. The officer would then reward this "performing junior" in some way. What we retain in India is exactly this system. And just like in the British days you and I, because of our wealth, education and station in society, fall on the same side as the British and the brown sahibs. To those who face the brunt of this justice - dharma is the only solution. While we curse the Indian police we must recall that our social class benefits most from this corrupt system, but our safety and security in day to day life is often related to the dharmic rules that operate in society and not the police. By passing the blame on to the police we are in a sense washing our own sins off. along with any sense of responsibility for setting the system right. shiv
