Take Two

A History of Appeasement

Madhavankutty Pillai | 03 Dec, 2012

The suspension of policemen in the Thackeray Facebook post case is farcical

Last week, news channels showed footage of a policeman in Palghar promising a crowd of Shiv Sainiks that cases would be registered against the girls who had made the Facebook post after Bal Thackeray’s death. On the ticker, they called it an exposé on how the cops were appeasing Shiv Sainiks.

Two policemen have now been suspended for those arrests. It is fashionable to think that they got what they deserved, but it discounts the fear prevailing at that time. It also sets standards of courage on a few policemen in a mofussil area which no one from the Chief Minister to the Mumbai police commissioner displayed that day—or ever in the history of the state.

What the television footage doesn’t show is the crowd this policeman was addressing. But you can still infer that it is a big one from the ‘Hail Thackeray’ slogans in the background. The situation from the policeman’s point of view of this: he has instructions to prevent violence at any cost, the entire state government has bent over backwards to do so, the city has come to a standstill, there is not even water on sale, and, unfortunately for him, he is facing a crowd of hundreds of potential rioters. He has two choices: give the crowd what they want or hang on to the idea of justice.

An intelligent IPS officer would probably con the crowd. He would inform the family of the girls that they are being taken in for protection. He would have a quiet word with the media explaining the situation. A weak case would be made which wouldn’t be followed up. But he would still do what these policemen did—appease.

What the suspended policemen are guilty of is clumsiness and fear. All those who think such failings are rare should look at what everyone in Mumbai did to their Facebook posts on Thackeray once the news of the girls’ arrest became public. There was a race between armchair activists and journalists to delete their snide and sarcastic comments.

For four decades now, the Maharashtra government has made deals with the Sena because of fear of violence. Between law and order, they had no doubt that order was more important. What the policemen did was just an extension of it.