ELECTIONS '98
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An evil empire grows

Are we a police state? If not, then why do we have such ugly, repressive systems in place that no self respecting society would ever allow? But what worries me much more than these ugly, repressive systems is the way you and I -- otherwise proud, self respecting citizens -- allow ourselves to be bullied by the state. What is worse, we watch others being bullied by the state and keep quiet simply because we think it is not our business to get entangled in things that do not directly concern us.

It is exactly the way we behave when we see a hit and run case. Most of us quietly walk away from the scene of the crime because we think it is not our business to get involved. Whereas statistics show that more than 70 per cent of the people knocked down by speeding cars or trucks could have easily lived if they were picked up in time and taken to a hospital. Most of them, believe me, actually die bleeding on the streets because no one wants to tangle with the cops, because no one believes it is their responsibility to do what is simply the most humane thing to do. Which is: pick up the victim and take him or her to the casualty ward of the nearest hospital.

The reason? The same. For hours, you will have to hang around the hospital because no doctor will attend to the injured person, however serious the case may be, till a police case is first filed. To file the police case could take you anything between a couple of hours to a full day -- depending on how influential you are -- by which time the victim could easily die, making a mockery of the whole effort. Even if he or she survives, for weeks and months thereafter you can be harassed by the cops.

You will be called to remote police stations, week after week. You will be dragged to the court after that. And, what is most upsetting, everyone will be working overtime to try and find out why you picked up an unknown, injured person from the street. Could there have been an ulterior motive?

At the end of the whole thing, you will be so harassed, so sick of the ugly, repressive system that you will never again make the same mistake of doing what any normal person anywhere else in the world would have so easily done. Without thinking twice about it.

Or take another example. Airport security.

I catch, on an average, 150 flights a year. But I never cease to marvel at the crude power play of the cops in the airport. There are at least three near the front gate who, even if they not exactly literate, insist on seeing your ticket. Then, after you take your boarding pass, near the security check you will find another six or seven waiting to swoop down on you and (this time) check your boarding pass. If there are three gates for security, you will find all of them hanging around one and keeping the others shut. So that passengers are deliberately put to inconvenience. While your hand bag goes through the X-ray machine, you have to put yourself through a demeaning physical check where your genitals are squeezed and your wallets are sometimes picked.

But that is not enough. Not in Delhi airport at least. There, cops reeking of country liquor insist on going through your X-rayed hand bags all over again. This time, physically. Item by item. Just to harass you. I have seen this happen again and again and security people, who are barely in a condition to stand straight on their own legs, rifle through the hand bags of men and women passengers, insisting on checking out every personal item. From tampons to tape recorders.

That is not all. After your tape recorder batteries are confiscated, your tampons are queried and your papers are in a mess, and you are about to leave the terminal to catch a bus that will take you to the plane, you are once again stopped at the last gate by another cop who wants to see your boarding pass all over again. He is not the last one. In most airports, there are cops who check your baggage just before you enter the plane. Even Israel or America, nations more vulnerable than we are to terrorist threats, have simpler ways to thwart hijackers if that is indeed what you and I are being protected against.

But why airports alone? The ugly, repressive system exists everywhere. Openly, in fact. Laws have been deliberately put in place to harass, say, owners of pubs and bars and night clubs so that they are forced to pay hafta to the local police station. Otherwise, they have to down their shutters by 11.30 at night, which is just about the time most self respecting citizens in Bombay step out of home to let their hair down after a long day's work at office.

The cops know this. They know that the pubs and bars and discotheques have no option. If they want to stay in business, if they want to retain their regular customers, they have no choice but to pay that protection money. Which means: You, the citizen, you are paying the bribe. It is added to your glass of beer or your plate of paneer tikka. Just to keep the wicked, bullying system going.

If you do not pay the bribe, the pub will be shut down. Young people will be out on the streets. Open to any threat. Muggers, rapists, thugs. Simply because some corrupt cop somewhere has shut down the places where people go to eat, drink, dance or chat. Whore houses never shut down. Soliciting never stops at 11.30. Drug pushers do not pull down their shutters. The reason is simple: The ugliest crimes are committed in connivance with the system.

But no one worries about that. The State is too busy tilting at rock concerts, speakeasies, pubs, discotheques, lotteries, casinos, movie halls, entertainment centres, restaurants. For some reason, these are the soft targets. That is why they invite punishing taxes, censorship, hafta. Which is why extortionists migrate there as well. In the hope of making a killing. Metaphorically. And, when that fails, literally.

In other words, the law enforcers and the law breakers are actually on the same side. In fact, in the same business. Extortion and bribery. Which is why the thin dividing line between the two is so swiftly vanishing and the evil empire of crime is becoming bigger and bigger. It is the same system that bullies beggars, extorts hawkers, kills stray dogs, beats up homosexuals, collects hafta from sex workers. This is the system that will not allow you to take a single step unless you grease it.

You cannot repair your house, you cannot register a police complaint, you cannot seek justice, you cannot defend yourself against the local hood, you cannot even put your child to school unless you pay your way. This is the new rule. The rule foisted on you and I by the ugly, repressive system which is also infinitely wanton and corrupt. To perpetuate their stranglehold, they have foisted one wicked law after another on us. FERA, COFEPOSA, MISA, TADA. Laws under which trade unionists have been held; innocent women and children jailed for years without trial; political activists incarcerated for no reason.

If you want India to survive, this is the first Gordian knot we must cut. We can no longer afford to look away and pretend it will go away. It cannot. It will not. You and I must take a sword to it. Before this evil, repressive system ends up destroying us.

Pritish Nandy