By Edha Singh in collaboration with Sam Verma
The joke is, if 2020 were a sitcom character, their trademark would be “But wait! There's more.”
The city of Minneapolis is burning, as protestors and rioters flame the street with their pent up anger, in rage over the death of yet another unarmed black man. Their rage is pointed at the institutionalised discrimination that has clogged their system for too long and too many lives have been lost. 13 countries have shown their support towards the BLM movement, a lot of it coming from the youth of India. I was happy and proud to see our country support another, because as the prolific civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. said, “ Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
But it made me think. It made me wonder why I did not see so much support and so much anger from our people when our own country has so much to be angry about?
Over the last few months, while most of us lay comfortably in our homes, many necessity workers toiled through the day to keep us safe. Here’s a look-
We don't mean to demean and club the 3 million police force our country proudly bears, but police brutality is a predominant reality that has increased exponentially over the lockdown. Police Brutality has existed in our country from colonial times and the lathi is a proud continuation of it.
Throughout this lockdown, there have been a total of 742 deaths, 66 of those being unclassified which means the data cannot be categorised due to lack of details. Out of this large sum total, 12 have been due to police brutality. 46 have been due to exhaustion. 50 due to alcohol withdrawal. 132 due to starvation. 59 due to lack, or even denial of medical care. 209 due to road accidents. 25 deaths in Shramik trains. 126 suicides. 17 due to non-communal lockdown related crimes. These numbers were recorded at the 30th May mark. These numbers would have only increased.
The George Floyd case in the USA has brought this to light. I hope you can see the sadness of the situation to understand that we needed another extreme case to happen in the USA to take time to reflect over the situation in our own country. The videos and photos you saw above are victims of extreme abuse by the police. They have taken lathis and fists over calm disposal and requests. There are multiple cases where not just civilians, but emergency workers like doctors and ambulance drivers on duty have been beaten up.
Hima Bindu, a female doctor from Telangana, was stopped by a senior police officer on her way to the hospital. She showed him her pass and explained that she was on duty, but he verbally abused her, seized her card and even slapped her. She was dragged to the police station with no explanation and made to sit like a culprit on the floor. She also complained about the absence of a female officer and denial to call a lawyer.
In fact, in such cases, the Constitution also guarantees protection against detention, which includes the right to be informed about the grounds for detention and the right to consult and to be defended by a lawyer of choice. But these rights have been blatantly ignored.
Similarly, Ravi Reddy, a chief at The Hindu, was assaulted on March 25th while returning home. This happened despite the government declaring print and electronic media as an essential service and hence exempted from the lockdown. Thankfully in his case, the DGP M. Mahendra Reddy looked into the situation and the department apologised.
The cops of our country are indeed under tremendous stress, it is their responsibility to ensure that the citizens stay safe but are their actions justified? Is stress an excuse to overthrow innocent people’s food carts, attack healthcare workers, pass or not? Does action mean violence?
Was there really any need for them to raise their fists, their batons at people buying food for their families, or at people who simply do not understand the severity of the situation which could be for several reasons. Our country doesn’t exactly boast of a very high literacy rate, and it is the cops job to handle the situation carefully. People are now not only scared to leave their house due to a pandemic but also because of the fear instilled in them by those who should make them feel protected.
Our police officers have taken the liberty of tackling situations in whatever way they seem fit, which usually includes the use of lathis. A lathi thrashing was seen in Telangana when a bunch of journalists were barricaded, on the first day of lockdown itself. They were beaten and their vehicles vandalised. Officers also used filthy language and verbally abused them. Lathi charges seem to be the only response the system has. There needs to be a qualitative decision-making system that checks the gravity before reacting. All of this happened despite the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in March issued a set of guidelines for police prohibiting them from using force on persons violating the lockdown regulations.
This human rights violation is easy to understand once you realise that our police are trained to be abusive. Not only are they encouraged by their superiors who set examples by doing so, but they themselves are abused during training. The police are sensitised towards Human Rights and how to deal with difficult situations but the times they don't, it's very rare to find their superiors correcting them or even be present to rectify such situations. And the simple answer to this is that brutality is considered a part of getting the job done in the department and hence senior officers will overlook such cases as they consider them a prerequisite. The Human Rights Watch interviewed police and they all seemed to be well aware of the limits of the law but believed unlawful methods, including illegal detention and torture, as necessary tactics.
There is a famous experiment that comes to mind when we think about the clash between police and citizens. The experiment was called the Stanford Prison Experiment that explored the themes of deindividualization which is a concept wherein an individual loses their sense of self when they are put in certain situations. They had 2 groups of volunteers, divided into prisoners and guards. The experiment on itself is extremely interesting because the experiment reveals that a few guards started to harass the prisoners within the first couple of hours of the experiment and the experiment was conducted for 6 days, and not the 2 weeks it was intended to run for. It was only stopped when an outsider walked in and was shocked at the state of mistreatment and demanded that the experiment be stopped.
The findings of the experiment were a bit chilling because it revealed what a little power can do to a person. It revealed that people readily conform to the social roles they’re supposed to play, especially roles as stereotyped as the role of a guard. The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study).
Verbal abuse, though not to be taken lightly, is the best thing you can hope for in an encounter with the police. A local policeman fired at Shah’s foot, a delivery truck driver when he was ferrying potatoes in Patna. This happened after Shah's refusal to pay the bribe demanded.
A supreme court case in 2012 showed a video of a man getting caned by 4-5 officers and the Supreme Court unequivocally declared such practices as ‘impermissible under the prescribed procedures, rules or the standing orders. The court minced no words while stating that such actions on the part of the police “have an element of criminality”, and such errant officers/personnel, irrespective of the ranks they hold, would be liable accordingly.
(Source: The Wire)
Despite this precedent set, lathi charges and police brutality continues. The need of the hour is to take strict action and detail the penalties for police. Because the lockdown enforcement was necessary but the police could just not resist using the baton and destroyed essential services like street vegetable vendor’s produce. These are people whom the virus and recession has hit the hardest, the violation of their right to sell the only source of their livelihood is not tolerable.
Keep in mind that contrary to impressions of laziness, Indian police tend to be overworked. A national survey in 2014 found that 90% of officers worked longer than eight hours a day, and 73% got no more than one day off per week. There are large vacancies with there being a force of only 3 million to police 1.3 billion citizens. Many officers reported using ‘shortcuts’ to cope with the overwhelming workload and lack of resources. This definitely plays a role in their treatment towards the general public. Not only are they putting themselves in the line of fire to protect us, but are also not receiving ample salary and rest for it. But sympathy towards the downtrodden and empathy for their counterparts like doctors and ambulance drivers is not a lot to ask for.
“They say, ‘investigate within 24 hours,' but they never care about how I will do [that]; what are the resources. ... There is use of force in sensational cases because we are not equipped with scientific methods. What remains with us? A sense of panic surrounds our mind that if we don't come to a conclusion we will be suspended or face punishment. We are bound to fulfill the case, we must cover the facts in any way." A sub-inspector from Uttar Pradesh said.(Source: hrw.org)
According to the Common Cause-CSDS survey 1 in 2 police personnel feel that Muslims are more prone to committing crimes. Police personnel in four of the States surveyed, namely, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Bihar, had about two-third or more police personnel who held the opinion that the Muslim community is likely to resort to violence. 1 in 5 policemen believes that ST/SC complaints are false and have ulterior motivations. 63% of the police believe that migrants are more likely to commit crimes.
And it’s getting worse. Rather than trying to curb fake news starting with the media and news channels, Mumbai Police Commissionerate had issued another gag order on 23rd May 2020. The gag order not only controls social media usage but also called for a complete gag on anyone speaking against the government’s functioning. The gag order, signed by Pranaya Ashok, deputy commissioner of Mumbai Police, operations, has listed several issues faced by the state including dissemination of fake news, incorrect information and other objectionable content on various social media platforms. Along with the prohibitions on social media usage, the order, issued under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), has specifically directed legal action against those criticising the state and its functioning in the times of COVID-19. This has received sufficient backlash from people as noted as the Supreme Court lawyer Disha Wadekar, who has made representations in several cases pertaining to the recent anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in Delhi, termed the order “disproportionate”.
“Section 144 cannot be used as a legal tool to suppress the constitutional rights,” she added.
Though CAA is a touchy topic, what is worth mentioning is that the country saw abnormal violence from the police during those times. The general public understands that their duty is to break up violent protests, and that's not the issue. The police went truly unchecked and many Muslims were harassed and abused. According to interviews taken by NYT witnesses said that police officers opened fire on demonstrators with live ammunition, broke into houses and stole money, and threatened to rape women. The BBC aired footage showing police officers knocking down security cameras in a Muslim neighbourhood and shattering the windows of parked cars.
The Indian news media also reported that Uttar Pradesh police officers were encouraged by their superiors to kill protesters engaged in violence, and amongst all that innocent people were also targeted. In one case, officers smacked a 72-year-old Muslim man with a rifle butt, telling him, “Muslims have only two places: Pakistan or the graveyard.” The police outright destroyed property of protestors and homes were resembling wastelands. In fact, there were many Muslim minors who were thrashed for protesting and no actions were taken.
In 1985, guidelines for the code of conduct for the police were issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs and communicated to all chief secretaries of all states/union territories and heads of central police organisations. This requires the police to give any assistance to all without regard to wealth and social standing. According to the code, their general duty to provide security to all without fear or favour includes keeping the welfare of people in mind, being sympathetic and considerate toward them, being ready to offer individual service and friendship. This sounds like a joke once you hear the cases of the abused. The abusive system stands against the ideals of India as a nation that's expected to be secular and tolerant.
But that’s clearly not happening because right now the common public is outright afraid and wary of the very people who are supposed to protect them and are laws’ right-hand men. If the people who are to represent the law themselves are so unruly what sort of code of conduct can we expect from civilians? Instead of extra rights and leeways the only pedestal they should be provided is of a higher code of conduct.
We saved the worst few for the last. Did you know a 32-year-old man died in West Bengal, due to a lathi charge by police, when he had gone out to buy milk? Where is the justice for him?
On April 16, Mohammed Rizwan, 19, a resident of Chhajjapur village, Uttar Pradesh, ventured out of his home to buy biscuits. He was beaten with rifle butts and lathis by the police, while other residents purchased their groceries from the shop. In a battered condition, he managed to reach home. After some home remedies did not work, he was admitted to the local hospital where he died in the wee hours of April 18. (Source: The Hindu) Where is the justice for him?
Yesterday itself (5th June 2020) a video surfaced with a Rajasthan policeman kneeling on a man's neck. To note is that this man slapped the constable when questioned about his lack of mask, so there could have been an element of self-defence involved. Yet, kneeling on another man's neck is not justified in any case, because as it was in George Floyd’s case, its plain, simple murder. For those of you still shaken about his death, so are we. The video disturbed every single person, and we believe that Black Americans have faced enough racial injustice and the protests are much needed. Our aim with this article was not to cloud that issue but bring to light similar parallels.
Do understand, this is not a personal attack on anyone’s beliefs. Everyone is entitled to care about what matters to them most, and as long as the person is aware and is against any form of discrimination, they have done enough. It is literally impossible to care about everything because humans have a certain limit that varies from person to person. Scientists refer to the term as “compassion fatigue” a point after which a person feels burnt out, exhausted and numbed out. As an individual, you need to pick your fights but do not neglect the atrocities that go on in your country because you could fall victim to it too.
What really needs to be pointed out is that yes police brutality is terrible but as a society, it is also embarrassing that we remain quiet about it. We choose to stand up for injustices in a country across the world but stay silent for the lives lost in our own cities. Yes, Black Lives Matter, but so do Indian lives. We must unite against racial injustice faced in all communities. Our police force discriminates against Muslims, Dalits, northeastern community, dark-skinned Indians. As you continue fighting for lives abroad we encourage you to not turn a blind eye to the injustices around you. The liberalisation of the people cannot go hand in hand with human rights violation of the very same people. So add to your hashtags- #BlackLivesMatter #PoliceBrutality #JusticeForMohammadRizwan #IndianLivesMatter #JusticeAgainstLathiCharge #StopRacismAgainstMuslims #JusticeForMinorities and many more. This country requires it’s youth to stop and question injustices and ensure we fight to stop them. #DontTurnABlindEyeToIndianNews #ProtestforIndianLives
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