Break Down of Social Contract – Rousseau
By Rajindar Sachar
It appears to me that in India we are rushing on that route envisaged by Rousseau. This foreboding I am getting because of the latest situation in Delhi where well intentioned non political young generation (who still retain faith and idealism) were brutally dealt with by police when protesting against the manner in which horrible inhuman gang rape of a young woman has been casually dealt with by Delhi and Central governments.
One sees the horrible and chilling scenes of the police water cannoning, brutal lathi-charge on young boys and girls, even ignoring that these incidents are being televised live and millions of people all over are seeing this savage brutalization of the state, I had thought that after the first day of televising of these events, the police will be cashiered and Central Ministers and leaders, both of Central government and state government will take proper steps to defuse the situation – I was rudely mistaken. What is most disturbing is the response of the Delhi and Central Government. Here were mass of young boys and girls, students massed together spontaneously to show their anger at what has happened and demanding action. In a democratic country one would expect the Chief Minister of Delhi and the Central Home Minister or Congress party leaders Sonia and Rahul to go to the spot and interact with them. Nothing of the sort has happened. Disappointment to the youth was natural.
Though the mass gathering was peaceful, they were met with brutal beating by police as if we were back in the imperialist British régime blowing out freedom fighters’ heads. This insensitivity was further intensified by the closing down of 9 Metro Stations – as if a civil war had broken out.
The death of a constable on duty is extremely tragic. All sympathies to his family, the government’s announcement providing jobs to his family and compensation to his family are unexceptional. But is the government not acting in an extraneous manner by spreading the canard that he died at the hand of protestors. This story has turned out to be concocted. Hospital authorities denied that the constable had any external injury – rather their prima facie conclusion is that he had a heart failure and though he was put on heart machine immediately, he could not survive.
And yet the whole administration was persuaded to attend the funeral ceremony to project the constable as a victim of protestors. Of course all respect to the dead and provisioning for his family are acceptable and correct. Only one would like to know whether any other constable had received such respect as the presence of Central Minister of Home, Chief Minister of Delhi, and the emotion carrying of hearse of the constable by the Commissioner of Police. There are any number of constables who have died in their duty to arrest dacoits, terrorists, but without being honoured in such a manner. Does the administration think that the public is so infantile that they will not see through this game, which has the sole motive to malign the protesting youth?
The Home Minister in a very unseemly manner says that he is willing to meet any deputation who wants to see him. But he forgets that in a democracy, in such a situation, Ministers who are in fact the servants of the people must go to their masters and explain their conduct. Had any of the leaders of the government or the party gone to meet the crowd, the matter could have been eased and the unfortunate death of the constable would perhaps not have happened.
The functioning of the State has broken down when we find the Police Commissioner of Delhi complaining to the Home Minister Shinde about “Interference” by the Chief Minister of Delhi in the recording of the statement by the sub-divisional magistrate.
The cause of death need not await the result of the trial or the Justice Verma Commission report. The Doctors’ version and the inquest report should be immediately made public because already even the President, while saying that the “anger of the youth was justified”, but added that violence was not the answer. Now if Doctors’ version is correct, have not the Home Minister, and the police misled the President and embarrassed him in public.
Political parties wisely kept away from the protest meet so as not to permit the government to politicize the movement.
The police have become so emboldened because of the silence of the authorities that the complaint of the teenage girl protestors, that they were detained in the Parliament Street police station and beaten because they wanted to march peacefully from Jantar Manter to Parliament Street, is proudly confirmed by admitting that they were allowed to go after their details were noted down under the Police Act and they had given an undertaking. Are we in a police state or a democracy?
The press reports say that the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi “have advised the security forces to exercise restraint. How I wish this advice had been given the very first day of the protest.
The youths need to be congratulated rather than demeaned (as is the effort of the Central and the Delhi govt.) in bringing out this vital human right issue of rape victims to the fore.
I must point out the breach of certain well-established conventions. It appears that the date of the trial was announced by the Home Minister after a personal meeting with the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. This was a judicial matter – a proper application by a government lawyer before the Chief Justice and heard in chamber would have been the conventionally correct course.
The Central government seems comfortable with the open spat between its own Congress Chief Minister of Delhi and the Commissioner of Police under the control of the Central government. It is as if we have reached a stage where each agency is working on its own without being under any Central control or single authority. It would appear that the pro-corporate reform oriented and foreign Direct Investment (Retail) lobby has succeeded in creating a situation where Karl Marx would have been happy to see that at last his prophecy that one day “the State will wither away” has at least become a reality in India. No self-respecting Indian, however, can live at peace with this picture.