30 December 2012, 07:09 AM IST
The question is intriguing. Did Gandhi insist on non-violence in 1919, when he launched his freedom movement, because Indians are inherently peaceful or because they remain prone to violence? Why should you impose restrictions on people who do not need restrictions?
Gandhi did not expect the British heart to melt at defenceless protestors: General Dyer had just massacred Indians at Jallianwala Bagh, and won applause across Britain for saving the Empire. There was nothing in the moral narrative of either Hinduism or Islam to persuade Gandhi that the struggle against evil could be conducted peacefully. “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” are war epics. The iconic portrait of Lord Rama shows him with bow and arrow. Islam sanctions jihad in valid circumstances.
Gandhi himself was no pacifist. He served on British frontlines during the Boer and Zulu conflicts. When World War 1 broke out in 1914 Gandhi wanted to repeat such misplaced heroism on the battlefields of France. We must thank the Lord who denied him permission; it is unlikely Gandhi would have survived. In 1918 Gandhi almost died of exhaustion while recruiting for the British Indian Army, urging villagers in remote places like Nadiad to prove by enlisting they were not “effeminate”.
Gandhi understood that the Raj was not a solely British enterprise. It was stocked with Indians in the army, police and bureaucracy. Gandhi did not want Indians to fight Indians, which is why he never permitted the freedom movement to extend into princely states. British policy, in contrast, relied heavily on civil conflict between Indians. Gandhi ended the non-cooperation movement abruptly because Indians killed 22 Indian constables at Chauri Chaura.
Indians have, by and large, adopted the Gandhi commitment to non-violence against the state. Even Maoist Naxalism is not as virulent as it might have been given our poverty levels. The Indian police do not protect the British anymore; but they serve a venal system as co-beneficiaries of a corrupt ruling class. The most effective alliance in government is between police and lumpen elements. This transaction is sealed by cash.
Was there just one set of criminals, rapists, on that ghastly night of December 16, or a second, their abettors. How did the driver of that fated bus get a licence from police despite being 94% maimed in his right hand? Why was his vehicle never stopped? Was his vehicle number on a bribery list? Why did police try to doctor Nirbhaya's statement to an SDM? Could there be anything more heinous? Police explained, feebly, that they thought this would be the victim’s last statement: so? Would the police prefer Nirbhaya to die so that there cannot be further statements? Why did police fudge facts about constable Subhash Tomar’s death? Was this an unexpected bonus in the mob-violence narrative? One could fill the page with questions, but you appreciate why Delhi Police’s credibility is zero. The government has reluctantly ordered an enquiry into police “lapses”. At least they have been forced to admit that something stinks.
Most people believe that those arrested for violence are scapegoats. The real culprits have been caught — on media cameras, footage shown relentlessly on TV. Police can blow up each face and search. This is far simpler than the identikit images they construct after terrorist attacks. Could it be that police do not want to catch the actual villains? When Hosni Mubarak was in despair over Tahrir Square demonstrations , his police sent Bedouin camel drivers around Egypt’s pyramids to inject violence. This was an insurance policy, and it worked for about a couple of days.
Delhi was embarrassed, but not ashamed by December 16. It got frightened only when public rage shifted from campus and home to street. The initial response , evasion interrupted by the occasional drop of a crocodile’s tear, underestimated the volcano. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi were silent during the Parliament debate on rape; Rahul Gandhi was not even visible. The police chief smirked: one more day, one more rape... Lt Governor of Delhi Tejinder Khanna had to be summoned from a vacation in America; neither duty nor conscience troubled him. The PM took seven days to say a few, and as it so happened, poorly chosen words.
When people sensed that government was protecting police in exchange for police protecting ministers from their own set of crimes, every young woman became truly Nirbhaya. Government heard a scream from people betrayed across the line.
Rape is the worst form of violence. Men can sympathise, but never fully understand the traumatic abuse of dignity, as Jaya Bachchan so eloquently noted in the Rajya Sabha. The feminist movement gathered steam in the 1970s with a slogan that was clear, concise, and went to the essence: ‘Whatever I wear, whatever I do, Yes means yes, no means no!’ The decision lies with women, not men.
Governments were forced to submit. Excuses disappeared. Laws changed.
A government that shrugs off rape is raping the nation.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/TheSiegeWithin/entry/should-we-call-the-police