Mahesh Vijapurkar says the indiscriminate use of force during police lathi-charges must stop.
I am haunted by images played out on the television news in the past one week. They have become so common that my anxieties only rise, not deaden my sensitivity.
One is the assault in a lathi-charge by police in Mumbai of the people agitating for adequate water supply by the civic body.
Another is the way police chased demonstrators in Hyderabad demanding statehood for Telangana. Even as men ran and stumbled, the police felled them with brutal use of the lathis
Blood curdling
The views on display on television were blood curdling. Police were using the lathi as a weapon to inflict punishment, not dispersing the crowds.
However, my pliant does not reach support for any violence by any demonstrators for any cause. It is abhorrent to democracy where persuasion, discussion, debate, demonstration alone have a place, not violence.
In the same breath, police violence is equally despicable. Under no circumstances can it be tolerated and it is surprising that Indian courts have not been involved in curbing this by the use of public interest litigations. Its time that happened to curb the menace.
Not irreducible minimum
By no means am I advocating that police hands should be tied so that crowds can run rampage. Only thing I would call for is re-indoctrination of the police force to judicious use of weapons and force. It has to be irreducible minimum, not going berserk with the stick.
It is as if the Indian police continue to carry the tradition of the use of the stick as a punitive instrument fashioned by the colonial British against Indians.
Though there have been several cases of police with lathis breaking bones and heads in the past with their brutal conduct -- as I said before, in their manifest use as weapons of punishment -- the death of 43-year-old Viral Dholakia following a lathi-charge outside the headquarters of the BMC is a rare for Mumbai.
Issue open
Police claim he did not die of a lathi charge but of a heart attack. Till such time an honest post-mortem would determine the cause of the death, the issue remains open.
However what is not open is the case of the lathi-charge itself. I was not there but have seen enough on television news and read in newspapers to conclude that there was excessive force.
Before we dilate on that, here is a quote ascribed to a Deputy Commissioner of Police Vishwas Nagre-Patil in a local newspaper: "None of my officers ordered a lathi-charge." On the other hand, an Inspector, Bhaurao Bhawale, subordinate to the DCP, said in the same newspaper: "We have taken action in accordance with the law."
The law
But, according to the law, lathi-charges are not meant to be punitive action. If you had seen that event on the television, you would be convinced that people who had fallen to the ground were beaten brutally.
According to standards and procedures for using lathi is strictly for crowd control in that the crowd has to be dispersed before a serious law and order develops. That is why when any dissent is organised, the police are there in a show of force, hoping that would itself be deterrent enough.
A code of conduct requires that the police persuade them to disperse by talking to the leaders, then warn the crowd and then use the lathis to chase them away. It does not mean beat up people. In a democracy, such use of violent force by law enforce is unacceptable. Even that force has to be minimal for the police wielding the stick are not judges to dispense punishment.
Model rules
A model set of rules adopted by the Inspectors General of Police Conference in 1964 had called for "Minimum necessary force should be used to achieve the desired object" and that the "object of such use of force is to disperse the assembly and no punitive or repressive considerations should be operative while such force is being used." Clearly, that was missing.
Lathis, one should remember, is an ancient Indian weapon but in modern India, it has become a handy tool for repression. During training, riot police are taught a coordinated drill in the use of the stick but it is used in a manner to cause maximum injury. It can cripple in the case of Dholakia, may be even kill.
The police have done nothing to improve on the skills of its personnel to enable them to disperse crowds quickly, with minimum use of force. Such actions as was visible last week only adds to the fear and loathing people have for the man in khakhi. No wonder, a police station is no more a place of protection for the citizens and a street not a place for democratic dissent or voicing of a grievance. If the police could act so brutally on the city's main square in the full view of television cameras, one can easily imagine as to levels of torture practiced by them inside the police lock ups away from the public eye.
It's time this changed.
Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane-based senior journalist and commentator
