WAY back in the early 20th century, the late Irish playwright Brendan Behan once remarked, "I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn’t make it worse". You could say that about our police force today. An average Indian policeman is looked upon as a predator in uniform – ever ready to exploit the vulnerable, either on his own or in collaboration with the land’s rich and powerful. You get the glimpses of this in Ashok Kumar’s book, too. The very first "story" highlights the plight of a poor village woman, who is gang-raped by the Thakurs and the local police protect the perpetrators. Only the IPS officer Kumar’s intervention helps bring the culprits to book. There are other chapters that tell us of Kumar’s journey from the hinterland to the IIT-Delhi and subsequently to the IPS. Readers would be impressed with his idealism and his propensity for taking up cudgels on behalf of the underdog. How one wishes the tribe of such officers was larger!The Sunday Tribune
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ReplyDelete" ... How one wishes the tribe of such officers was larger! " A very natural wish for so many people in India for so many reasons. But it's not taking off in a big way. Not because the tribe of good individuals is getting thinner day by day. It's mainly because the policemen are now trying to serve a society that's now confused about it's value-system, and are trying to enforce law in a polity that has an obvious stake in making and keeping this vital tool of governance vulnerable. The khaki is under tremendous pressure today, and the men in khaki are, therefore, wilting. Unfortunately, at a time when they should be roaring as lions.
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