Is Delhi police being controlled and manipulated by the union minister of India to fetch political interests?
Delhi police and fairness have stood at odds from each other for a very long time now and the people can’t deny it. The so called protectors of justice have time and again been alleged of protecting the government’s interests rather than protecting the people of the country and incidents come running down in support of the statement.
While the Delhi police claims itself to be from the people, of the people and for the people, the people have a hard time believing it because we could rather paint them in saffron than to believe they’re for the people. Who is controlling the evils of the police? Well, I would say the political leaders. Yes, the same people we vote for and the same people who represent us in the legislature. Because believing that the police wants to do it, to its very own people, sounds really absurd. It is just some orders from top political officials that keep them going.. And it’s not like it’s something very recent.
Be it being spectators while violence is breaking out or itself being a part of it, it won’t be the first time Delhi Police has felt like a threat to a certain section of the society, and that section is usually the one that presents dissent or is at odds with the leading government at that particular point in time. So much for democracy!
And no matter how little we talk about it or how much we normalise it, the police’s brutality and unaccountable actions stand against human rights and thus, the spirit of democracy. It can’t be stressed enough that this, right here, is problematic and it keeps increasing, just as we see these days while every night the protesting farmers go to sleep thinking they might not wake up at all in the morning. And the link to this problem can be drawn to the jurisdiction of Delhi Police that takes us straight to the Home Minister i.e. the union government of India, to whom the capital’s police answers in an unagreeable manner. And if the Delhi government is answerable to the home ministry and the actions are astoundingly threatening to the spirit of democracy, the Home ministry should at least be answerable to the parliament. Oh, we wish.
The list is endless and so are the stories of the Delhi police being controlled by the government. I would still like to state how it’s the top officials that make them go against their very purpose- security of the people. A recent statement issued by 9 retired IPS officers expressing their concern over the current force’s actions would prove the point. It said, “We would like to say that it indeed is a sad day in the history of Indian police that investigations and challans submitted in the court by Delhi Police in connection with riots of this year are widely believed to be partisan and politically motivated. It pains all those police officers, serving as well as retired, who believe in upholding the rule of law and our Constitution. We were sad to note that one of your Special Commissioners had tried to influence investigations claiming resentment among Hindus over the arrest of some rioters belonging to their community. Such a majoritarian attitude in the police leadership leads to a travesty of justice for the victims of violence and their family members belonging to minority communities. This would further mean that real culprits of the violence belonging to majority community are likely to go scot-free.”
Police brutality in the face of democracy and human rights is not justified on so many grounds and if people still have a problem seeing it because of their unnerving faith in this government, it is high time they change their lens. Ignorance is a choice and so is tolerance. It is time you choose better because if it isn’t you today, it can surely be you, some day.
