On Wed September 6 2006 11:14 am, Ramakrishnan Sundaram wrote: > I hope you are > not suggesting that an "unfettered" environment for these agencies > means that they are not subject to executive and political supervision > for, among other things, preventing human rights violations
I hope you are joking. Security force excesses in India have everything to do with executive and political interference in the name of "supervision". But I sense a curious (and misplaced) optimism in your statement suggesting that "executive and politcal supervision" might somehow prevent police excesses. In fact I have access to studies that show that police excesses are directly linked to the political bosses and political color of the state - with the police coming under the state government. In short - the politicians and bureaucrats are screwed up, with the police and judges perhaps second to that. None of these groups is going to correct themselves or each other. The police generally occupy the bottom tier in this heirarchy and take orders fom the rot above. Thankfully all these groups have some good eggs along with the bad ones. I am tempted to bleat that it is up to us the public to address the problem. But long before "we the public" can help correct the problem we have to recognise what the problem is and where it lies and not clutch at straws or take down strawmen. That realisation means sharing of accurate information about what is going on, and the removal of popular myths that are doing the rounds in social amd media circles. Ram for two years I have been getting ever more deeply involved with issues of public participation in governance and a lot of my views have moved from where you may believe they lay. shiv
