From: prasad@seas.smu.edu (Nageswara G. Prasad)
Subject: Re: Responsibility for communal violence
Organization: SMU School Of Engineering and Applied Science
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 16:01:56 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.141259.22066@crd.ge.com> srinivas@vision.crd.ge.com (Chukka Srinivas) writes:
>In article <1992Apr15.053944.25050@seas.smu.edu> prasad@seas.smu.edu (Nageswara G. Prasad) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr14.141116.3155@crd.ge.com> srinivas@vision.crd.ge.com (Chukka Srinivas) writes:
>>>In article <92104.201641DXA4@psuvm.psu.edu> DXA4@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>>>voked, and, of course, they did not discard their rifles in favor of stones.
>>>>Ultimately it was the Muslims who suffered the most disastrous of consequences.
>>>>AND ALL BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN UNGOVERNABLE TEMPERS.
>>>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> The author is trying to 'understand' the victimizer. 
>>>Police is our trained to be 'mad dog', fed on people money.
>>>It is OK for this dog to bite people whenever and wherever it wants.
>>>And our author advises us that --
>>>as people, we better 'understand and sympathize with' our dog and
>>>'behave ourselves'.
>>>IF our author is ignorant,
>>>   THEN he needs some education about 
>>>	human life and dignity, & police in a democractic setup
>>>ELSE if the author believes in what he says, 
>>>     THEN this mad-dog should be protecting his agenda
>>>			 and
>>>          he is much more dangerous than our trained 'mad-dog'. 
>>>srinivas.
>>   The article was not regarding the police role in the democratic
>>setup. You took off at a tangent.
>I do not think so. All I am saying is that the logic used by the
>author is NOT valid in a democratic setup.
>>-Prasad
>srinivas.
           Let us assume a democratic setup( I mean an ideal one),
what would the police do(according to you)when the crowd(no matter what
affiliation) throws stones at them( the police)? Remember that the 
police has come there to protect the crowd (noble intention).
The crowd goes mad at the police for reasons unknown( past grievances- I 
give away). According to me the police should lathi charge them(the law
agrees to this, do you? still a democratic setup) Now tell me.. who is to
be blamed for this mess? I say that whatever the past grievances may be
or whoever the opressor or victimizer, the crowd is to be blamed for
attacking the police which came to help them. You see the crowd is
to be blamed.
         The original article written by the author is addressing the
issue of the crowd's(if I may call it the crowd any longer) ethics or
sensitiveness or reaction or any other related characteristic. While
addressing this issue the author had not assumed that the police would
act in an ideal way. He made a good assumption, he assumed the way
the police usually acts in such circumstances(and again irrespective of
the crowd's affiliation. Here we become sensitive since the crowd the
author was reffering to is Muslim).
         I would like to point out that I am not a spokesman of the
police( if at all anybody gets that impression. On the contrary,I have
always critized and protested their ways.And hence agree with what 
Srinivas says.). But from the begginning I was indicating that the 
issue the author was dealing about is different. To make such a small
point would infact have not taken me such an elobarate discourse.
It is quite difficult to draw lines between issues, issues of such
tremendous importance and issues of mammoth proportions. These issues 
should be discussed. We have to face them head-on. It is not when
when you are directly/personally involved in the problem that you
take concern. It is the disinterest of the people to relate to the
issues that make these issues horrible. Especially in a democratic
setup when people's opinion make or break things, their disinterest
really shows.

-Prasad