The death on Tuesday of a policeman on duty to check anti-rape protesters in New Delhi should make us think. When young people throughout India were expressing shock and anger over the brutal sexual assault of a young woman in a moving Delhi bus, their voice of protest denoted that they had reached the end of their emotional tether with the utter disregard for the safety and security of women of all ages in society, and the failure of the law and order machinery to quickly book those who attack women, investigate such cases purposively and speedily secure convictions, which alone can act as deterrent.
The thousands who protested in New Delhi in the first few days of the recent mass agitation had no political aspirations. They were groups of peaceful citizens, mostly young women and men, who came to express their deepest anguish over what had happened. They posed no threat to law and order. Indeed, the police went too far in restraining them with water cannons and teargas, working on the imaginary fear that they might storm the chief minister’s house or Rashtrapati Bhavan. Seasoned officers should have known better. However, a distinct and ugly turn in events came after rent-a-crowd mobs began to infiltrate the ranks of the peaceful protesters.
News reports have cited peaceful protesters speaking of such infiltration by some student-youth outfits of the BJP and Baba Ramdev arriving in Delhi with his supporters, typically men in their 40s and 50s. The introduction of such elements coincided with the outbreak of violence, stone-pelting of policemen to instigate the latter to wantonly use lathis, burning of stands at India Gate and attacks on police vehicles. The policeman who died became a casualty in this process, although some controversy has arisen on the exact circumstances of his death.
Professional politicians had arrived on the scene to extract their pound of flesh, trying to open a new front against the government. Their voice was not that of ordinary Indians, those who had set the ball rolling to protest against the shaming gangrape incident. Their concern was party politics, pure and simple. Mr Ramdev made this plain, declaring that the present government wanted to “protect rapists”. What former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh was doing in such company remains a mystery. We must appreciate that only peaceful protests go with the temper of a democracy, and the death of a policeman as a result of violent protests is to be mourned. When we consider the totality of events, it is evident that the call for a special session of Parliament to discuss the recent developments and possible changes in the rape law is just a means to politicise the whole affair.