Have stick, will beat

Sir ? I am an Indian living in Toronto. On July 25, a Canadian friend visited me while I was watching the news on an Indian satellite channel. I insisted on finishing watching it before we sat down to talk. Now I think it was a bad decision. For we first saw a policeman being left alone by his colleagues to face the mob fury in Gurgaon, Haryana. Next came horrifying scenes of confounded empty-handed people being beaten by policemen with their lathis.

The display of sadism was difficult to watch. I wanted to switch off the television set, knowing that my Canadian friend would want to know what was happening and why. But he insisted we watch the ?once-in-a-lifetime show? of medieval torture. My wife fled the family-room in shame, disgust and anger. Our friend noticed that while the people were beating the cornered policeman, a few in the mob tried to protect him, and even used their sticks to shield him. But when the police beat the people, none of the men in uniform showed any mercy. Shame on a police who try to cover their incompetence and corruptness with sadism. Is their machismo satisfied now that they have spilled the blood of unarmed men?

Yours faithfully,
J. Chatterjee, Toronto

Sir ? One can only feel sorry for the hapless workers of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (?State muscle mows down Honda hands?, July 26). They are stooges in the hands of politicians. To vent their ire against their employers in a private company, they blocked highways, burnt police vehicles and damaged public property, and started beating up the police. Still, they expected the police to practice non-violence. In contemporary India, we use the terms ?leader? and ?politician? interchangeably. But a leader leads, while a politician only manipulates. A leader is not interested in giving sound bites to the electronic media. Gandhi was a leader; so, after Chauri Chaura, he withdrew his call for disobedience because he perceived that civil disobedience at that point would only lead to the loss of precious lives. The Gurgaon incident is no Jallianwalabagh, simply because the agitating workers had their own interests in mind, while those in Jallianwalabagh subordinated their own interests to that of the country.

Yours sincerely,
Chameli Pal, Batanagar

Sir ? In liberalized economies such as India, industrial workers and employees of the private sector and multinational companies are the worst off. Multinational and private-sector companies pay short shrift to our labour laws like the Industrial Disputes Act, Standing Order Act, Factories Act, Provident Fund Act, Minimum Wages Act and so on. In shamelessly appeasing private and foreign investors, both Central and state governments turn a blind eye to this. This is most brazen in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh, where unscrupulous industrialists and politicians exploit the huge migrant workforce.

What happened in the Honda factory at Gurgaon is a reflection of the evil nexus between the management and the police administration. Even if one accepts that there was some provocation, the mind boggles at the brutality of the police. The police reaction was entirely unwarranted in what was essentially a labour department problem.

Some have observed that the Gurgaon incident will discourage foreign investors from coming to India. But what about the fact that multinational companies resort to mass retrenchment without giving an explanation? Where do these sacked workers go?

Yours faithfully,
Tapan Das Gupta, Calcutta

Sir ? The Gurgaon incident is an eye-opener. Apart from highlighting the barbarism of our police, it reveals the serious lack of dispute-settlement mechanisms within private companies. Management committees ignore workers? interests at will, and force them to work on exploitative terms. Sensitizing the police will not be the end of the problem. Decision-making bodies within companies must be made to provide a fair hearing to grievances of the workers.

Yours faithfully,
Arvind K. Pandey, Allahabad

Sir ? The left is furious about the indiscriminate lathicharge by the Haryana police on the workers of Honda Motors in Gurgaon. Left leaders in both Delhi and Calcutta have planned counter-agitations to protest against it. But where were these leaders when their own police in West Bengal descended at midnight on a peaceful hunger-strike by the students of Jadavpur University barely a month ago? The left is shedding crocodile tears. It behaves exactly as the Haryana government has done wherever it is in power.

Yours faithfully,
Abhijit Datta, Howrah

Sir ? Demonstrations and agitations by workers are common in India. All police forces are trained to disperse mobs, causing minimum physical harm to protesters. The Gurgaon police had unlearned all their training before taking the field on July 25. Why didn?t they use teargas or some other humane weapon? Why, even after the mob was dispersed, did the lathicharge continue? Why did the police beat the workers on the head? Even when some workers became unconscious or fell down bleeding, why did the police continue to beat them? Shouldn?t the entire police force be charged with attempt to murder? We can sit in our drawing rooms and talk about labour reforms and impact on FDI. But the more fundamental question is: should we allow criminals in uniform to rule over us in our country?

Yours faithfully,
Pranav Sachdeva, New Delhi

Sir ? A police force which can only beat unarmed men but cannot prevent the daily rapes is a mockery of itself.

Yours faithfully,
Sushmita Sarkar, New Delhi