How Do They Cause Bloodshed in Democratic Protest Marches ? An Eye Witness Account From India !

Though Mahatma Gandhi is considered as the father of modern India who won her independence by adopting non-violent peoples' protests against the rulers, his so called Indian followers who inherited the chance to rule the country apparently do not allow their fellow citizens to adopt to such foolish methods of protest any more.

The second or third generation Indian rulers and administrators of independent India might be laughing in their heart of hearts at the foolishness of their predecessors for succumbing to the peaceful and harmless protests of Gandhiji and leaving their controls on the subcontinent.

Had they been in the place of those British rulers and administrators, Gandhiji would have miserably failed in his mission or would have transformed himself from an Ahimsawadi [ believer of non-violence] to a Himsawadi [proponent of violence].

The modern day Indian rulers and their all Indian administrative machinery seem restless and impatient in handling non-violent democratic protests that they seem to be using all efforts that they can to make a peaceful protest into something where blood is shed and transforming the peace loving poor Indians' hearts and brains to burn with hatred to them- their own lucky brothers and sisters whom they have elected to serve as ministers or governors or administrators of their beloved land for a certain period.

Otherwise what is the logic in those police actions against the peaceful protestors following Anna Hazare and his team in Delhi in the recent past ? Did the protestors resort to violence to call for such actions ?

I do not know. I have so far never been to any such sites of protests by fellow Indians for various demands or issues. What I knew was from the news media. But that was till yesterday. Yesterday, I became an eye witness to a peaceful protest march in one part of this nation and the manner in which the law enforcers handled it causing bloodshed on either sides.

My office is in this state capital city and my residence is just a kilometer away in a secured small township owned by our company, which is a 'Maharatna PSU' . All officers like me who stay in this township normally go home during the one hour lunch break.

To save on petrol and to reduce the traffic on road, we have recently adopted a car-pool for our  lunch errand.

Between the office and the residence, there is a stretch of about 300 metres of road that comes under the city corporation where the road has also to cross a busy trunk rail route. To enter our township we have to cross the National Highway 75. Our township has a guarded gate which is common to a famous public school too through which thousands of school children also enter and exit every day. [see the map of the area here !]

This national high way is the main link to all people who want to reach the city's airport and one of the main railway stations. Unfortunately for the law abiding citizens, this part of the road also connects the state's secretariate complex housing the legislative assembly building and the residences of many VIPs including the Chief Minister and the Governor. So this part of the NH is also called the VIP road.

In India, if you are an ordinary citizen living accidentally near to the movement zone of the so-called VIPs, even God may not be in a position to save you from your misfortune ! Because, it is now a routine for the brilliant police administrators to ignore the sentiments of the public for the sake of what they now passionately call 'security'. They routinely stop all vehicular movements in the wide roads for such time as they please for the VIP [ Very Important Person which now means a person in India who holds a position in the government or administration who uses a beacon light on his vehicle as a mark of his status!]   and his/her motorcade to pass. Unfortunately, Gandhiji's successors in modern India who started tasting the glories of democratic power want to become like the British Queen in pomp and show ! Why should we spend our money and time if there is no glamour of the power ? They seem to be asking ! The well decorated kings and queens of the past appeal to them much more than the simple fakir figure of Gandhiji !

So the roads in India are stopped at the sweet will of the administrators small or big at any time for any reason. So please do not consider Google's estimated time of travel if you are on Indian roads !

The modern day administrators of India seem to be pretty arrogant when they deal with the rest of the public citizenry in such situations. They do not bother about the incoveniences caused to the public when all roads are closed for their so called security reasons ! They do not even bother for other kind of responsible citizens for whom time is as important as their own VIP masters !

Me and my colleagues too are public servants, but we are not beacon light VIPs. We used to be like them a few decades ago when no one ever used the beacon lights on their official vehicles. Our vehichles perhaps had a small identification on the number plates showing the organization to which the vehicle belonged. The majority PSU officers now drive their own vehicles for going to office, a transformation that had taken place. On the other hand, those public servants who are directly connected with the central, state or local government departments use a beacon light vehicle. The type of the vehicle and the color of the beacon light are the mark of their position and status. Unlike the past, these kind of government vehicles displaying their authority to the public are a normal sight in modern India. Somehow this rampant display of authority by all Dick and Harry from the government service causes an immediate repulsion in the minds of the rest of the citizens against the ruling party. Often the VIP motorcade consists of all kinds of beacon lighted vehicles of this kind belonging to the lower rung government officers. Though some wise men in the government understand the damage that they create to them by this display of power on the roads, they have some how utterly failed to stop this status mania that has affected the government servants of this era.

Though the PSU officers by definition are public servants, they are no longer government officers who  enjoy any status better than the normal public. Our company may be called a Maharatna, but the meaning of that is not of any worth to the officers and staff of the company. We too are stopped and herded out by ordinary policemen when the beacon light vehicles of the government staff cris-cross the the roads. So we are in a position to understand the heartbeats of the public much better than the beacon lighted government servants who have opted to get themselves isolated from all public who do not have any thing to gain from them.

Now coming back to yesterday's story.

While leaving the office for lunch, we find the road leading to our township packed with vehichles due to a big traffic jam. We knew another route and tried that instead only to be entangled there too in a big traffic jam just on the four lane NH 75. We had initially no idea about the cause, but soon we found that a small procession of people shouting slowly moving ahead. Obviously they are peaceful protestors from the villages, amply led by some party leadership now in the opposition.

The administration knowing fully well about this peace march in advance had decided to stop the protesters from reaching the state assembly building where they perhaps wanted to show off their protest. So, they had constructed road blocks on the high way that is the only way for us to reach our homes and for many others to reach the airport and the railway station.

The police could have easily allowed the traffic of non protestors to move ahead to their destinations. But for reasons known only to them, they did not allow that to happen. They prevented the public movement on the road. At least when our car reached the place it was not the protesters who were blocking the road. It were the police pickets and the police vehicles of all kinds.

There were scores of vehicles of my colleagues who just wanted to reach our homes a few meters away for lunch. But we were stopped and forced to move into an open field by the side of the road between the rail way line.

We took the vehicles as far as we could from the possible melee that could happen on the high way.

The protestors wanted to move ahead to their destination which was some 2 km ahead, but the police would not allow. They would not allow not only the protesters but also all others like us who wanted to elsewhere.

Time was running out and we were on the hot sun on this muddy ground with our cars, hungry and thirsty. The police have started to use their riot control vehichles' water canons though there was no riots by the protesters. Then there was a huge exodus of the villagers towards the place we were standing with our vehicles with no way to go anywhere.

Apparently there was a lathicharge [caning] by the police that the peaceful village folk comprising of men and women made a retreat to our side, the only way they could also move. Then they stood there among us behind our stranded vehicles as they too had no way to move out.

For a moment I remembered Jalianwala Bagh Massacre about which I had studied in my schools. What if the police tried the  other weaponry that they had in their possession now ? They could very well do that if their commanding officer so commanded.

Here we are trapped between the armed police whose numbers matched the number of the poor villagers, armless ofcourse. We saw their political leaders calling them to come back to the road instead of running away to the field where they stood now. But they were reluctant. Life was dear to them just as it was to us !

With me there was my colleague who personally knew the second in command of the state police who thought it fit to call this officer for helping us to get out of this possible one way battle field. Though he could talk to him over phone he communicated his inability to help as he was out of the state. Then there was my boss who held the position of an executive director of our Navaratna PSU who thought of talking to the police officers on the road to help us out. He was not allowed to meet them.

Then all of a sudden we saw a vehicle fitted with loud speakers moving slowly towards the police picket on the highway calling out the people to gather. A few of the villagers began to move towards their leaders from the field. Then all of a sudden the police began to fire tear gas shells towards the place we were standing with our vehicles parked on the raw field, about 150 meters away from the high way. The shells began to explode over our heads, one just a few meters away from me. And there was no place for us to run from there at this age of ours when we are just a couple of years from retirement!

The police fired 16 shells on us and it is only God's grace that none of us got injured or dead so ungracefully ! We just did not understand what prompted the police to act in this manner and do such a thing ! We had to be on this battle field created by the police for nearly 3 hours before we were finally allowed to move out.

Fortunately for us, nothing happened to us and escaped unhurt. But that was not so for a poor villager. He lost his life. He was apparently run over by the riot control vehicle of the police !

The political and the administrative leadership in this country is slowly losing their wisdom and patience. It appears that those qualities are getting replaced  with arrogancy, pride and contempt to fellow citizens.

Forgetting what Gandhiji had taught and demonstrated may not be good for modern India in the long run !

People who do not believe in democratic processes and those helping failure of democracy directly or indirectly by causing alienation of people from the administrative machinery should be doing a good thing if they spend some time to think about the power of non-violence in achieving the best in a society and for their nation !

May God give them the wisdom for that !

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ] 

Which One Came First - the Egg or the Hen ?

Which one originated first, the egg or the hen?

Even I do not know for sure. It could be either. Such a situation in the Hindi speaking belt of India is commonly called the 'Anda Pahle-Murgi Pahle' situation.

Since this puzzle has been troubling the minds of the Indians for centuries, it has become very difficult for an Indian to accept something as original.

No Indian authority accepts any thing declared by an Indian citizen as such. It has to be certified by a great super personality who is above the citizen himself, however great the latter may be.

Now let me come to the specifics.

For example, let me cite an example of my friend whose predicament I witnessed today some time earlier. He is a top level officer in a large India government company and a civil servant by the definitions given in the constitution of India. But that civil servant definition now only applies for the purpose of punishing him for some misdeeds and not for any other purpose whatsoever.

This CPSU officer and those like him cannot be of any small help to the common public in any way even to the extent of certifying or attesting some very common documents that some other authorities of the government keep demanding from the common public even for very mundane things.

Because he is not a gazetted officer of the government ! By definition as per the legacy of the British administrative system, a gazetted officer is an officer of the government whose authority and position is published in the government gazette. Neither me nor my friend nor many like us have not even seen a gazette in our life time. It is such a rare kind of a document which is privy to some privileged people only. We might be doing many things for the country but those are not that important to be gazetted !

In the days when I was a student in the schools, I remember my plight to locate this 'super authority' of an officer called the 'gazetted officer' who is the government's agent to certify or attest copies of my mark lists and such other documents for submitting my applications to various institutions for higher studies.

Fortunately in the villages, the people knew the gazetted agents and representatives of the government authority, though they were a rare breed. Through that experience, I came to know that any government servant who drew a basic pay over Rs. 550/- per month ($ 11)  at that time was a gazetted officer ! Even with at this low pay standards, they were not very common and approachable ! The ones I learnt as approachable to some extent for me at that time were the doctor in a government health centre near our village and the head master of a government high school. You needed some high recommendation and approach to get your documents attested by these officers, but in the village that was easier than in the cities. That is what I learnt later.

These officers used to charge a fee for the attestation. It is believed that this amount is a legitimate one for them, though I am not sure about it even now.

Facing such difficulties in my life, I was thinking that I would never be a problem to the common people and instead I would help them out in such situations. But alas ! I could not. Though I became an officer of a central government company, drawing much more basic pay than many such gazetted officers, I later learnt that my position is not 'gazetted' and I am not empowered to 'help' the common man! In fact I am also a common helpless man like them !

Now imagine the situation when we were living in a city of population near a million where most of the officers connected with government are employees of our government owned company known otherwise as a central public sector undertaking or CPSU and none are 'gazetted'.

Imagine our predicament when we were running from pillar to post to locate a small time gazetted officer any where to 'attest' the documents of our own children ! I remember our children's pitiful looks on us as they learnt that we were such 'useless' officers !

With the times, the government bureaucrats slowly consolidated their powers in the hands of a few as more and more government services getting abolished or re-established or privatized.

When the governments, both the at the states and at the federal level, make laws and rules they seemed to make it with many loop holes, making the system prone to further litigation and interventions by the courts making the democratic system of India a complex one with no one in command and many in command all at the same time!

The good for nothing gimmick of attestation exercise also stands in a confused situation in India. Many authorities ask for attestation and equal number do not ask for it. Those who ask for it do not seem to understand the reason for which they demand it. They just framed the rules, copying the rules from some old rules from where the clause of 'attestation by a gazetted officer' also 'inadvertantly' got in. If you ask them, perhaps they would not be in a position to identify the 'gazetted officers' in any locality.

My good friend's son is an engineer working in a good company in Bangalore. He thought of studying further and taking a post graduate degree or diploma in management. For that he has to write a management aptitude test (MAT) conducted by a body 'authorized' to conduct it. Now this body has perhaps done every thing online and at the last minute demanded the poor chap to come to the test centre with his admission card duly filled in and pasted with his photograph and attested by a 'gazetted officer'. In Bangalore, he failed to locate a man or woman with that label who can perhaps help him and who possesses a rubber stamp and ink pad ready to 'attest'.

So he sent an SOS to his top officer dad sitting 4000 km away ! Fortunately there are so many 'gazetted' officers who move around too frequently flashing red beacon lights on their vehicles in the city we live which is capital of a state of India.

But who can dare to stop them to attest ?

Even if they are stopped will they do it ?

If some one dares to meet them in their offices will they be there ?

Now why at all the poor boy and the thousands like him need their photographs to be attested by someone who does not even know him or them?

The boy is original or the photograph?

Can you not devise a simpler method of making a foolproof system of conducting an aptitude test ?

Or for that matter any such things ?

But then please don't ask these questions in India.

Perhaps these things are devised for testing the ability of the candidates in locating rare and difficult persons of India. Who knows ?

If there is a will, there is a way.  

That is what they say!