Policemen or hooligans

Dated: 25th & 26th July 2005.
I wrote these feelings about four & half years back on 25/26.07.2005 when, my pain and revolt against the system was at its peak. Yesterday while searching some of my old documents, I found this paper and decided to put it on the blog so that I can consolidate my previous writings at one place.

“A few months back, an MNC had suspended its four workers and relieved nearly forty workers from their job. The so called negotiation took place between workers and the company in the presence of state government. But as we know, any negotiation between the powerful and under privileged had to be in the favour of powerful.
After this failure of negotiation, nobody had expected that any demonstration of this scale would take place and would take a violent turn.
Now, what happened at the demonstration site is strongly condemnable and unjustified as there is no place for violence in a peaceful demonstration. So, I totally condemn the act of workers when they beat up some policemen and DSP who, at that point in time were on duty. But this also shows a sheer lack of proper planning and anticipation about the scale of demonstration. At the first place, police could have used water cannon or tear gas or any other appropriate medium to disperse the workers gathering when they started getting violent. On the contrary what they did is the most brutal act of police on common men, showing Live on television.
This incident reminded me the brutality and inhuman approach of British police in Jalianwala Bagh. I can establish a simple analogy between the incidents which took place 86 years ago and on 25.07.2005. Police of the so called ‘largest democracy’ of the world acted in the most brutal and barbaric way on such a gathering of people. But what happened on next day i.e. 26th July is just stunning. I have never seen such kind of irresponsible statement in Loksabha. Mr. Home Minister described the damage of Police but did not mention about the condition of workers who are lying in various hospitals and relative of some workers searching for their family members in nearby hospitals. I think prior to making the statement in Loksabha he should have watched the media clips of the incident, because the clips are showing hundreds of workers were beaten up by the police.
One more point which is to be noted over here is that in a state like Haryana, where police barely get the freedom/ option to use its force excessively, so when they got it they did not want to waste it. Let this platoon / battalion of HP be stationed anywhere in J&K, NE or Naxalite affected areas so that the policemen can know the real meaning of policing. Otherwise also, our CPFs are finding it very difficult to cope with terrains of insurgent areas so why not these policemen of HP be posted there because they seems to be very aggressive and active in their duty. Then we’ll see their activeness and aggression.
This incident clearly shows how the capitalist, through the political establishment have captured the power and how our machinery act on the hands of capitalists. Although we are making economic development but the social and political development are no where in the scene. Unless and until we achieve the latter, India, which our freedom fighters have dreamt about, shall remain a dream.”