We must hang our heads in shame over reports of widespread support for Bhagalpur policemen allegedly responsible for the blinding of a number of under-trial prisoners. This is a frightening commentary on the depths to which we as a people can sink without much provocation. But only those of us who are not acquainted with the social reality on the ground can be surprised by the reports. Indeed, it is self evident that the terrible crime just could not have taken plate in the absence of social sanction. The people in Bhagalpur did not, of course, go to police officials and demand that the eye of “ habitual criminals” be gouged out. In fact it is difficult to say right now who thought of this form of “ punishment” and why. This is an important gap in the information available to us.
Blinding was a departure from the usual well-tried police practice. Normally the police catch hold of criminals it wishes to eliminate but cannot successfully prosecute for want of witnesses, shoots them and then makes it out that they have been killed in an encounter or series of encounters. From the police point of view this method has much to commend itself, for it does not leave inconvenient evidence which can lead to the detection of such gross violations of the law. We cannot say why in Bhagalpur the police chose a method which was bound to leave so much incriminating evidence against it. Surely it could not have believed that the blinded men would never talk or that no one would ever listen to them. The more pertinent point in the present context, however, is that once someone in authority had settled for this form of “ punishment” and enforced it in one or two cases, it was assured of a measure of popular support. Otherwise the Bhagalpur police would not have felt free to continue the operation. We have also little doubt that the facts were known to police officials in other places and that they did not find the blinding of under-trial prisoners sufficiently revolting to wish to stop it. It follows that the guilty policemen are assured of considerable sympathy among the force as well.
But however much we may deplore it, it will be disingenuous for anyone to suggest that the people in Bhagalpur are behaving very differently from what people anywhere else in the country would do in similar circumstances. We can do without this form of hypocrisy. Most people in India are so obsessed by the problem of security of life and property and so dependent on the machinery of the state to ensure it, that they are prepared to sanction any kind of misdeed on the part of the police. This is a fact of Indian social psychology which it would be dishonest to ignore. It is also pertinent to add that the way the machinery of justice has operated has done little to help the people overcome the feeling of insecurity and the desire for cruel punishments that springs from it. The people themselves do not do their duty in that they invariably refuse to give evidence in courts even if they have witnessed a crime. But it would be too much to expect them to recognise this weakness in themselves and to be willing to accept the consequences. For them the pertinent issue is that many crimes go undetected and of the criminals who are put on trial, a fairly large percentage are acquitted for want of evidence.
Educated men and women with conscience have repeatedly focused light on the manner in which the police fabricates evidence and hires witnesses, usually the same individuals in a locality in case after case. This exposure has been justified despite the fact that the police is often helpless because the genuine witnesses to even broad-day crimes do not come forth. But there is another aspect of the social reality that is equally relevant, if not more relevant. It is that the common people do not give a damn how the police get a criminal so long as it gets him. And they want the severest penalty to be imposed. A referendum on capital punishment would be revealing.
It is a Hobson’s choice the state government, and the Centre, face. They cannot let the guilty policemen, provided, of course, they are guilty, escape unpunished and retain any measure of self-respect. It will be a sad day for the country if the men guilty of so heinous a crime go scot-free just because they have popular support. We shall in that case have said goodbye to civilized concepts like the rule of law, justice, fair play and, indeed, humanity. And what guarantee can there be that a police force so brutalized by its own brutalities will limit its barbarous acts to “ habitual offenders” ? Police excesses were possible during the emergency at least partly because the rest of us had turned our gaze away from the unlawful manner in which the force had dealt with Naxalites. But action against the offenders also contains risks which a prudent leadership would not wish to ignore.
The Bihar chief secretary is justified in saying that it would be wrong to describe the defiance by the police as a mutiny because the bulk of the force is still disciplined. But can he or anyone else be sure that it will remain so? We witnessed mass demonstrations by the police in several states and mutinies by units of the CRP and CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) during the Janata rule. The government had then to call in the army which managed to bring the situation under control. There was perhaps no choice then and there may be none now if things threaten to go out of hand in Bihar. But it must be the government’s effort to try and prevent such a collapse of the normal machinery. The problem is complicated and must be seen to be such.