1/Reactions to #HyderabadEncounter including my own got me thinking. Movies like Singham, Gangajal, Simbha, Shootout at Lokhandwala are hugely poplar and do well at box office. The rogue but good cop who fights the system including his own dept to deliver vigilante justice to...
2/.. those oppressed by the neta-criminal-cop nexus. Somewhere this theme touches a chord deep within us, as have the Hyderabad killings. The common person's belief in the system to deliver justice quickly is very low, and that's founded on the track record. Police reforms.......
3/.. Judicial reforms, electoral reforms - these have remained mere slogans and our justice delivery system has fallen into complete utter disarray. It starts from the legislature, where money & muscle power has become vital ingredient to election. Legislators are commodities...
4/...that are herded, paraded & traded as a matter of norm. Each of them have a small fiefdom where they get elected based on muscle & demographics backed by money. They have a portable votebank they carry and hence if denied ticket by own party, they abandon it & other parties..
5/... grab them. Once elected they need to quickly replenish their coffers depleted in elections, and an unstable govt is always a bonanza for them. To maintain their vote banks they dole out patronage to influencers within it - which are usually criminals, unsavory elements...
6/... Next is the police- at lower levels they are often at the receiving end of these minor potentates, having to turn a blind eye to misdemeanor of those under his patronage. Underpaid, ill equipped and under staffed, they have very little to motivate, including their own....
7/... senior officers, who're from IPS and consider that their own interests are distinct from those of the force they command. However, they suffer political inference just like their subordinates, albeit for higher stakes. Last but not the least is the judiciary. Corruption....
8/... and complacency define the lower and upper ends of judiciary respectively, with a complete lack of accountability across. So, caught between all of this, we common people keep praying we never have to get face to face with this so called justice system. Woe befall the....
9/... unfortunates who did - Neelam Katara, families of Uphaar fire survivors, parents of Nirbhaya to name a few from a long list, 99% of whom never even made it to headlines. We think of ourselves in their shoes, running from pillar to post seeking justice and shudder....
10/And hence, when we see Singham or Simbha delivering instant justice on screen, we clap, cheer and whistle. And we do the same when it happens in real life as well. Right or wrong, moral or immoral - that's the way it is.
