MEGHNAD BOSE AND AAQIB RAZA KHAN, AT THE RECEIVING END OF POLICE HIGHHANDEDNESS

Yesterday's (1.5.2017) episode of manhandling and then slapping multiple times followed by temporary seizure of equipment and detention for a while in a police station of the two young journalists, Meghnad Bose and Aaqib Raza Khan of The Quint is one more instance of the declining standard of behaviour of the Delhi police force. This sort of highhandedness will only stiffen resistance to the current regime at the Centre by its ever increasing number of opponents, especially among the youth, and augurs not well for the health of the nation. Public memory is short, they say, but persists to oust oppressive regimes when limits of endurance are crossed. Public wrath then makes short work of parties that practise perfidy by allowing the beating up of innocent civilians doing their professional duties which are not in any way injurious to the interests of the nation but are rather essential elements of its proper functioning. The Press ought not to be gagged in any way if we are to abide by the principles of democracy as enshrined in the Constitution of India.

Yesterday's episode has added one more dimension to the shameful saga of the Delhi Police over the last couple of years when it has massively bungled in its dealing with even innocuous situations. The intolerance to dissent and the refusal to be rational about contentious issues bespeaks more of a dictatorial tendency than of democratic intent. The police ought to have better work to do than to beat up innocents, unprovoked and without reason. Such hasty harshness comes from a feudal mind-set which is symptomatic of the police force today, courtesy, I dare say, official backing from higher authorities. Otherwise, who would dare touch civilians doing national duty, remembering the Press to be the fourth wing of a democracy after the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary? And it is the duty of conscientious reporters to question citizens on ground about their opinion on national issues like the one that was pertinent yesterday, the offering of honorary doctorate to the Turkish President Erdogan by the Jamia Millia Islamia University.

A vibrant democracy thrives on such questioning journalism and not boisterous sycophancy masquerading as one. It is, thus, regrettable, to say the least, that the Ministry does not take adequate cognisance of such errant behaviour on the part of the upholders of law, now repeatedly raising its ugly head to the dismay of law-abiding citizens and the horror of the kith and kin of the affected and the afflicted ones. If authority turns autocratic, then we are fast forwarding to some semblance of an anarchic State and it is high time to put up stiff public resistance to it.

The decline of culture, however, is invariably associated with corresponding authoritarianism which is the antithesis of all that democracy and civility stand for. A way out of all this mess, therefore, on a permanent national basis and in prospective terms in the future, however remote, will be to raise the level of civic consciousness and the level of civility of citizens towards each other by the spread of humanistic education built on the basis of rational, moral and spiritual values without a tinge of parochialism in it as is the wont of today's corrupt culture. Jai Hind!