A couple of days back, I was returning from work and in a short stretch there were no lights and a police car was the only other car and that too without headlamps…. I was absolutely clear that I will not stop even if these were really policemen !
The other day, my cycling friends and Krishnan and I were going on a night ride, some 16 of us and while we were waiting for a couple of our friends to catch up with us, we had a really rowdy bunch of local Haryana special variety of men asking what we were trying to do and then a car swerving and then a lone policeman trying to ask us did we inform somebody that we were riding in the night !!
In both the above incidents not one of us individually or even collectively was willing to trust a policeman – it set me thinking. I still remember, Krishnan and I were new to Delhi and got lost in East Delhi once late at night. We stopped the bike to ask two policemen for directions and the entire duration that they gave directions, they only looked at me 🙁 sure am pretty, but that was no way to pay me a compliment.
In our country we are scared of the law keepers – and that is the sad story. In most parts of the world people are scared of the law breakers. Thats the civilised society – I don’t know what word to use for our type of society, its worse than uncivilised, because there is the jungle rule of the law breakers and the law keepers too join the fun.
There is another side to the story, the policeman’s view.
I feel terrible about the policemen – they are in a profession that is dangerous, there is no respect and they get paid a pittance. In a democracy, the government is responsible for law and order – ofcourse these discussions are valid when you have a “democratic govt” not a puppet regime, anyway, why doesn’t any Govt, political party pick up the plight of the policemen and bring some pay hike, some dignity and pride back to the profession.
Maybe our new poster boy for raking up issues should pick it up – Satyamev Jayate and Aamir, what say ?