ss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Many educated Indians as well as people unfamiliar with India find it > difficult to believe how "law and order" in India (to the extent that it > exists) rests on an unwritten covenant among Indians that can be traced back > to what is considered as "dharma" or "rules for preserving society".
I don't find that very hard to belive at all -- I think almost every society runs that way. Even the written laws only function because everyone more or less agrees (implicitly) that it is in their interest to do so. What I find unusual is that the unwritten rules say that your first resort is to beat people up. > And, yes, one could call it tribal law. All real places run on "tribal" or "traditional" law I think. In New York, parking spaces on the street are very hard to get. If two people try to get a space at one time, the person who points out that they have a reasonable claim to having seen the spot first pretty much always gets it, with the other person leaving without much comment. This is, pretty much, local "tribal" law. When people violate it in some way, that will generally lead to trouble, but such violations are extremely rare -- I've been driving here (and parking almost daily) for almost 25 years and I've only had a problem once. Similarly, it is strictly illegal, according to the "official" laws, to jaywalk, and yet everyone does. If a police officer tried to arrest someone for jaywalking, they'd probably be made fun of in the newspapers. The real law is not the written law. I'm not surprised that the real law you describe is not the written law -- I'm just surprised about the nature of the unwritten law. -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
