I assume most of you would have seen the chennai law college riots being shown on TV. Particularly, the heart-breaking scenes of defenseless injured students being heavily beaten, almost to death! It was very disturbing and agonizing to see a human being being so severely attacked. More painful to see was that so many policemen were standing in front of all that, doing nothing. They just waited for the barbarians to leave voluntarily and then helped take the injured to hospitals.
I really wonder what those policemen were having in their minds at that time, standing there without acting!
Any ideas?
When goons rule and goons don the uniform, this is how bad it gets.
ReplyDeleteThat's the same question I also had Siva. What were they doing? Standing witness? But then my father said, they must have been waiting for permission to intervene as it was inside the (law) college premises. Permission for what? To stop killing? They could have at least stopped it from a humanitarian point of view. Now the ACP and the college principal are suspended. What point? What about those khakhi clad men watching the violence?
ReplyDeleteThis violence has its roots in caste animosity. Few days back Thevar caste men seems to have pasted posters denigrating Ambedkar, while celebrating Thevar Jayanthi. Now Dalit students have replied back with violence. Good to see how future law keepers are taking law into their hands.
My father told me the news, and wanted me to see the visuals. I didn't want to.
ReplyDeleteBut I couldn't resist it, something tickles when violence happens, right? (For instance, I am sure when we see some kind of accident happen, we feel, "Ah! I saw it happen!).
There definitely is some gratification in violence. At least for me.
The action, sorry, inaction of the police shows the state of governance. Sometimes back I saw in a news channel shots of a man who stole something, being beaten and dragged around tied to a bike. There was a policeman there, I think.
As for the question of Siva,
"I really wonder what those policemen were having in their minds at that time, standing there without acting!
Any ideas?"
I am sure the policemen were thinking, "God! I should not be here. What will become of me after all this?"
That is the point of service, always look out for the number one.
Actually, these policemen would have served well in the British Raj, when our Satyagrahis went one by one to get hit by lathis and go down in blood. The police were just obeying orders.
There is a famous and celebrated study by Milgram, I think, about what people will do when you ask them to obey orders.
People like you and me will kill without thinking twice. The right conditions are waiting for us, that is all.
Please someone look up the Milgram experiments. They are simple, brilliant.