Copping Out

The other night, I was watching Laloo Prasad Yadav, chief minister of Bihar, no less, and upholder of the rule of law in that benighted state. He was being interviewed on TV.

Will you resign if the courts find you guilty, he was asked.

Yes, of course I will, replied Laloo.

Will you resign if the governor allows you to be prosecuted, the questioner persisted. Of course not, said Laloo.

Why, he was asked.

Because, explained this paragon of modern statecraft, the courts are one thing, the police another. How can you expect me to resign on the basis of what the police say?

 

Old fashioned people, who believe that a mere threat of a police enquiry is enough, will be appalled by this. But they are in a minority.

A very large majority now believes that the police is incapable of telling the truth. They see it as a convenient tool of the politicians, as an instrument of private extortion, as an oppressor of the weak and, most important of all, as an untrained gang of bandits which accidentally has the backing of the State.

So however terrible what Laloo said may sound, the fact remains: even a chief minister, the first public official of Indias second tier of government, thinks that the police can no longer be trusted. This is indeed, as they say, cause for the deepest concern.

Whos to blame? A few weeks earlier, while waiting for one of the innumerable cricket matches to begin, I saw the redoubtable Kiran Bedi defending the police. They are given conflicting orders; when they carry out one set of orders, they are punished by the next government; their hours of duty are brutally long; they arent paid enough; etc.

All this is absolutely true. Yet, one cannot help wondering if it gives the police the liberty or the excuse to do pretty much as it pleases. What, after all, are the officers doing while the lower ranks run amok?

I recall 1987 when I was working for the Indian Express and the paper was fighting its marathon battle against the Rajiv Gandhi government.

One morning, the CBI suddenly descended on the premises and began a search. They searched and searched and eventually went off with reams of teleprinter printouts. And the next day, some papers friendly to the government printed the news that according to the CBI incriminating documents had been found! I wonder what would have happened if chargesheets had been framed on the basis of that evidence.

The alarming thing is that this slide in the police is not a sudden development. It began in the early 1970s under the first proper Indira Gandhi government, and has continued unchecked since then. In state after state, not to mention the Centres own police, the decline has been so precipitous that many senior police officials genuinely believe that it cannot be reversed.

Poor training, poor motivation, wrong values set by seniors and, above all, a cultural trait that encourages deviant behaviour by officials of the State have all combined to produce todays denouement.

Laloo is only the most distinguished one to recognise it. He wont be the last.

There is a whole host of politicians waiting to say that they regard the police as an instrument of political intrigue.

A fitting tribute to law and order on Indias 50th anniversary.