WHY ARE WE AFRAID OF POLICE?
In Delhi, the Police Department has a Senior Citizens Cell.
Seniors who are living alone can register with them. The beat constable of the
area is expected to visit them routinely and help them in case of need. We are
registered with the Cell. The beat constable visits us at once in a while but
certainly to deliver the Birthday Greeting Cards for both of us. The beat
constables are transferred quite frequently and that is the reason so far in
last two years we have been visited by different constables. They are young,
educated and smartly dressed. Mostly they are in a hurry as they have lot of
other work to do but once in a while they agree to share a cup of tea with us.
While the tea is getting ready in the kitchen by my wife I keep talking to them
about their families and life in general. We are happy when they leave with a
smiling face.
That brings me the topic ‘why we are afraid of police’? It
is said that ‘police kin a dosti achchi na dushmani’ (Neither friendship nor enmity
with a policeman is god). If you are friendly with them they may use you and if
have enmity with them they may harass you on flimsy grounds. We lived with this
saying through our life. Fortunately or so we had no one in the police
department from our family and therefore could not have a fair idea.
One thing was always certain. We were afraid of policemen.
Mostly rightly because we jumped the red lights at traffic points or did not
have driving license or vehicle papers in order or played cards during Diwali
or had booze in the parks or did many such things. We were not afraid of being
legally punished but of the amount we will have to take out from our wallets to
avoid legal punishment. We were afraid of them for no reason also. We always
saw a policeman as an essential evil that harassed innocent people and sided
with the influential people. We saw them as hand in gloves with the thieves or
robbers. We were told they had a share in the loot everywhere. Most of these
policemen were shabbily dressed, pot bellied and foul mouthed. In short they
did not incite confidence.
I think if more and more educated and people came in the
police department and they are trained properly, we may see a sea change in our
life itself. It is not that ail policemen are corrupt or uneducated or did not
come from good families but it is the training and work environment that has
not helped them to be a good citizen and such people were put on the roads to
teach the laws of good citizenry.