yep. esp. the second point.. i wanted to raise it in this forum, but i was skeptical if people would start taking it as if i am anti-muslim.. police works by using patterns.. if most crimes are being committed by people from a single community, the police is very much justified in lookin at suspicious people from that community more seriously (and more suspiciously) that people from another community.. this is not just a community based things.. if people coming from a state X have been causing more problems in the form of say, terrorist attacks, then, people from that state are liable to be looked upon more suspiciously than people from other places..
police should work (or works) by means of evidence accumulation and by learning from past histories.. so, as many attacks have been engineered by muslims of late, the police attach a slightly higher suspicion score to a suspicious person who belongs to that community as compared to a person who belongs to the hindu community.. how else can the police work.. if they dont explore suspicious activity, would people here support them after something bad happens (by trying to justify their action of not exploring the suspicion before the happenin) for the policeman, he should not be concerned abt what the intelligentia think, but rather should try to maintain law and order in the locality where he works.. On 7/31/07, Murali K Warier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Let me try to summarize the points discussed in this thread (as per my > understanding) and give my response to each: > The questions to be considered: > > 1) Are the people and police justified in becoming suspicious of a > stranger (that too from another state) settling in a rural surrounding, and > getting visitors from abroad? Is it a natural response or an indication of a > deeper (cultural?) malaise? > 2) Does the 'Muslim' identity of the gentlemen play any part in fuelling > suspicion or rumour? > 3) Is the police's response justified - in other words, was it an over > reaction, was it prompted by anti-Muslim bias and whether the gentleman's > constitutional rights were violated? > > Here are my responses: > > 1) I think people are justified in becoming suspicious. Mainly because > people are by and large suspicious of strangers. There is nothing wrong in > that - of course, those at the receiving end may feel quite differently. I > personally do not enjoy being looked upon with suspicion, because I know > that I am, well, a law abiding citizen who can't think of harming a fly :) > But how do strangers know about my noble, Gandhi like character? At any > rate, I will not act much differently in similar situations - if anything, I > would be even more paranoid. So is it a natural reaction? Absolutely. Does > it 'look nice'? No, unambiguously. Should we do anything about it? Not on my > corpse - the consequences of criminalizing thought are too frightening even > to think of (didn't Communism teach us anything?) > > 2) It surely did. Is it good? Not really. Is it 'labeling' a whole > community? Not at all - in any village, you will see people not only not > suspicious of Muslims, but living in perfect harmony with them. The fact is > that, some Muslims, misguided and brainwashed no doubt, do indulge in acts > of terrorism, and some Muslims justify those acts based on Islamic > scriptures and aggressively use the Muslim identity to swell the ranks of > the terrorist outfits. The difficulty is that there are no other reliable > means to identify these bad apples - they come in all shapes: from > billionaire scions to doctors to financial analysts. The only identity > perhaps is that most of them are well educated and come from middle to upper > middle class background. The so called 'Islamophobia' is in a large measure > due to this. Is this prejudice? I am not sure - it looks more like > 'post-judice' to me. Now the question: do Tamil Brahmins settling in similar > surroundings invite suspicion to a similar degree - not at the moment, but > surely they will, if Tamil Brahmins start blowing up commuter trains, > justify those acts on some Brahministic scriptures and recruit Brahmin youth > using the Tamil Brahmin identity. By the way, Tamilians acting like the > gentleman in question in early 90's would have invited much more suspicion > then. Do you remember a time when Sikhs were looked upon with suspicion? > These are certainly not good things, but part of the natural scheme of > things. Again, the only way to suppress people's suspicious minds is to > institute thought policing. > > 3) I think this is the crux of the problem. Getting suspicious of somebody > doesn't mean barging into their dwellings at the dead of the night. Feeling > hatred for your neighbor doesn't mean you kidnap his son. But the police's > behavior is symptomatic of a larger problem with law enforcement. If you > become a suspect in some crime, the police's behavior to you would be very > similar - that is, this problem - that of crude and illegal methods of > investigation - is not limited to inquiries about possible terrorist > activities. There is a lot to write about police reforms. There are any > number of non-intrusive methods of investigation that could have been > employed. That they didn't do so, is not indicative of any bias, but of > incompetence, hegemony of authority and all that is wrong with our colonial > style of policing. > > Best regards, > Murali. > > On 7/31/07, Ranjit Ranjit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. > - Joseph Stalin > > To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. > These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a > revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing > machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy > of the paredon (The Wall)! > - Che Guevara > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > -- Deepak P http://deepakp7.googlepages.com/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
