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Face up to the goons!
Written By murali772 - 17 February, 2009
Bangalore law and order Citizen Reports Security Moral Policing
This shocking, yet at some level encouraging, tale is reported by a friend who knows Sugata Chatterjee the rapporteur of this shocker...Boohoo to ramsene and ... their ilk. Down with obscuranist politicians and moral police, 3 cheers to sugata Chatterjee for standing up.
Millionaire slumdogs and how things change.... Yes, everything changes.
The fantastic invisible sweep of time rushes and roars past us every dull and intense second that ticks relentlessly away every day, and all around us things constantly morph. Twin towers crumble, good people die, the good earth turns brown and bare, and old love fades.
And what precisely is your role in the incredible kaleidoscope of change?
A slack-jaw by-stander who barely registers the impact and implications? A commentator spectator who freely critiques but somehow rises above being affected by it all? A fatalist loser who bemoans everything and blames it all on circumstances and other people?
Look around you, you who reside in the so-called mind and knowledge capital of the shining new India. This is Bangalore.
Many of the quiet avenues that used to snake through the wooded shades and fragrant flower-scatters of a thousand gulmohars, flames of the forest, bougenvillias and silver oaks are now shorn of even a single blade of grass, their tar guts upturned by mammoth earth moving equipment, tortured sites full of grime, steel and concrete through which an endless procession of loud vehicles crawl back and forth, utterly indisciplined, frothing with impotent anger and frustration, from the early dusty dawns to the midnight hours, every single day.
We are the victims, you say? The civic governance of Bangalore is sub standard, you claim? Well, you may be right, but does that mean that even as an individual citizen whose real powers to influence matters is way less than what it theoretically should be, we have absolutely nothing to do?
I am re-thinking this premise, my friend. Unfortunately not a self realization case, but prompted by a black incident last Friday, 6th February, 2009. And this time it was not about aspects that affect your life and mine indirectly. It wasn't the death of yet another 100+ year old tree. It wasn't another instance of criminal neglect of any civic infrastructure. It wasn't road rage. It was a kick in the groin. Literally. And it woke me up all right.
So, in brief, this is how the drama unfolded:
A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming out of our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around.
Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding, hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one of their legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with the registration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire' s toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill.
Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest.
And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone – a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up.
Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood.
A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly.
The carnage continues for over 20 minutes.
Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital.
Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. The policeman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to be precise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!!
This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims.
One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit. That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken.
And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt.
We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector of police who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful.
Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one Ravi Mallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property off Brigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know what that means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava (22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross in Vyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then.
Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lock up for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory? ) bail. The car, purportedly belonging to an MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case".The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause.
The goons meanwhile, as an after thought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint: the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and not in the FIR? Questions.. questions..) .
Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, are lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps.
But here is the point.
We stood up.
We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be in the larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable.
It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt, nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try.
Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder.
If are up to it, start right now.
Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment.
It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time we turn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.
My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up. I refuse to let Bangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.
Any of us could be faced with these situations. The only way out is to bring on relentless presssure on the politicos to do their job of maintaining law & order.
Muralidhar Rao
COMMENTS
blrpraj - 7 March, 2009 - 02:12
@nijavadaa
//The EU is an european equivalent of India when it comes to linguistic diversity, and
//they are managing without English - which sets us an example, that we too CAN.
The similarity (or euivalency) begins and ends there between EU and India. They have in fact signed a joint declaration on this similarity (http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/362&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en) but in my opinion this similarity is meaningless to me as an ordinary citizen of India. I would trade anything for the superior quality of infrastructure, pollution free encironment, wonderful public transport, law enforcement, civic hyegiene and other civic facilities plus better overall quality of life available in most countries of the EU.
What is different is that the EU is striving towards integration with common standards & specifications in terms of -
1) integrating their rail network for higher interoperability thereby delivering higher reliability, safety & superior end user experience (http://ec.europa.eu/transport/rail/interoperability/ertms/ertms_en.htm)
2) integrating their road network by adopting EU wide standards for road infrastructure management; note that this includes road signage, road design & construction and a multitude of all other road infrastructure aspects (http://www.neurope.eu/articles/88093.php)
3) EU emission standards (http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/eu/)
4) integrated EU airspace (http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/single-european-sky-greener-air-travel/article-173593)
5)integrated currency & economies (http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_economic_situation/index_en.htm?cs_mid=410)
They are in the process of achieving the above and much more despite being different diverse countries coming together (and thinking of the big picture). THE ABOVE achievements are what we need to take as an example. That being said, all is not rosy in the EU and they have their share of regional politics but can anybody give a better example of different countries coming together under one umbrella to achieve progress in multiple spheres? Language issues and regionlism should be our last issue if we are to progress as a country, but if we put that foremost we are going to go nowhere. As I have pointed out before in other threads languages are best left to themselves to flourish rather than us meddling around to achieve our perspectives and agendas.
Contrast this (above EU achievements) with our country where we are actually a single country where in theory it should be easier to implement standards & specications and achieve better progress but -
- be it Bangalore or Mumbai or assam our own country people from other parts called "outsiders"and we are busy squabbling over language and having issues with "Hindi speaking"/"Kannada Speaking"/"Tamil Speaking" etc. people.
- we cannot agree on standards for road signage, safety standards nor road design&construction standards (this is obviously changing but we have a long way to go)
- we are squabbling over which language to use on our license plates rather than thinking what is the most practicle "big picture" approach (standards & specifications) applicable to the entire country and then making the population learn that language to read those number plates (undoubteldly English is default link language and by common sense it the most preferred nationally applicable standard)..but wait..knowing our history we would get into a north/south English vs Hindi vs local language squablle and which language should be more prominent thereby totally missing big picture.
- our railways has pathetic service and safety standards; policies are almost solely driven by vote bank politics and when the railway budget is out all we can do is end up with regionalism based squabbling saying look how Karnataka got a raw deal (like in one of the threads on praja which discussed the recent railway budget). BTW, in what language should KK express going from Bangalore to New Delhi have signs keeping in mind that it passes through half a dozen states? Should we be squabbling over that or improving Indian Railways?
I am quite amazed that this thread has turned into more of a Kannada issue rather than the real question of how to curb this deteriorating law & order situation, goondaism and intolerance. There have been similar outcomes in other threads be it discussing about crossing the road, vehicle number plates, roadside hoardings etc. I get it that some folks are passionate about Kannada but why convert threads into a linguistic issue and get into the line of discussion about Kannada being inferior or not, insulting Kannada or not? Believe me, no language on earth is superior or inferior. It is the people as a society who are superior or inferior based on how they live and conduct themselves. English has ascended to it's present status because of British and US dominance in the past few hunded years and due to economic reasons. A couple of hundred years from now it could be Chinese going by how they are progressing economically & militarily. If India had been the dominant and far reching globally influential power in the last few hunded years we might well have witnessed hindi being spoken on a wider scale globally today.
And lastly, Nijavada, about EU managing without english and taking their example I suggest we be fact based and not go overboard because of love for a language thereby unwittingly twisting fatcs to our advantage. In the European countries I have visited and those that my friends have visited, english license plates are widely used. Here are samples from major EU countries
Austria - http://www.olavsplates.com/austria.html
Belguim - http://www.olavsplates.com/belgium.html
Denmark - http://www.olavsplates.com/denmark.html
France - http://www.olavsplates.com/france.html
Germany - http://www.olavsplates.com/germany.html
Last but not the least, sorry for diverging from the initial topic of this thread but i could not restrain myself on seeing that yet another thread had taken a linguistic issue turn.
-blrpraj
Vinay - 9 March, 2009 - 05:23
Since this has been completely converted into a K-K-K thread, may I take the liberty of summarizing the 'problem' and my views, for whatever it is worth:
s_yajaman:
My personal thinking is similar to yours. I consider myself and all others human beings with their own individuality first. But we need to be practical and realize that most people in India do not think the way we do. The Indian public is divided, and there is no shortage of issues to divide them. Majority of the people in our country identify themselves as Kannadigas, Tamilians, Dalits/Brahmins, Hindus, Muslims and so on.
A growing proportion of the educated public in Karnataka identify with the 'save Kannada' cause. Many of them think that all the problems in Bangalore are solely because of outsiders and the 'negative influence' they bring with them. This is common human nature worldwide. In East Germany around a year back, a group of Indians were chased all over town and beaten up by a gang of hoodlums chanting "go back Indians, leave us our jobs".
Of course, I think it is hogwash to say that outsiders are responsible for all issues in Bangalore. People who make this claim forget the immense benefit that Kannadigas reap by this influx of 'outsiders', the number of employment opportunities that are created, and so on. Blaming that all-emcompassing 'outsider' for all our issues has become a fashion.
But one thing I need to concede - there is a small section of people ('outsiders') who have a superiority complex and consider everything South Indian or 'Madrasi' as inferior and ridicule anything related to the 'South'. Even someone like me, with my liberal views, would get irritated hearing such claims. For example, during the 'Rajkumar riots', a certain friend of mine said, "These people say that we need to speak in Kannada in Bangalore. But howcome, being in India, these people don't know Hindi??". This is an obnoxious and irritating comment, even to someone like me, who knows Hindi extremely well. I am sure you would agree.
But persons like this would poke fun at Biharis, Bengalis, Sardarjees, etc. Everyone pokes fun at everyone else and considers them inferior. Indians are among the most racist and xenophobic people on the planet, and this is the unfortunate truth.
Nijavaada:
Better stop thinking that there is a huge conspiracy all around against Kannada. There was absolutely nothing anti-Kannada in Saugata's writing as you seem to insinuate. What these goons, hoodlums, goondas, rowdies, thugs did was WRONG and there can be absolutely no justification or any kind of defence for them. In your comments here, you have taken the role of an apologist for these hooligans, and I have zero tolerance for views like these. Your view is that even Goondas can be forgiven as long as they are sons of the soil, whereas outsiders are always the culprits, all other factors be damned.
You need to realize that being part of this Indian Union, Karnataka does not live in isolation. We need to by power, vegetables, cars, etc. from other states, and also sell to them. As someone above mentioned, God help us if each state began enforcing number plates in only their respective languages. We NEED a link language. Whenever I have asked you in the past about how you intend to handle defence, intelligence, bureaucracy etc. in your scheme of things, you have not answered me.
You cannot, and should not, attempt to stop migration. It is like axing the branch that you're sitting on, and that supports you. You need to stop blaming outsiders for all our ills.
roshanrk - 20 February, 2009 - 06:48
No wonder our country is still struggling
Vinay - 20 February, 2009 - 10:19
Expect some brilliant comments on 'excessive liberalism' and how we need to 'guard against it', though 'violence is not supported'.
is our judicial system so imcompetent?
blrpraj - 7 March, 2009 - 18:54
So, fellow praja forumers, any ideas or clues how the persons involved in the Mangalore incident got off on bail when evidence of the heinousness of their crime was there for all to see on national prime time TV, and globally available on youtube etc.? Are we so spineless as a societynation/city/state to not protest the fact that these goons got off on bail? Is our judicial system so incompetent and toothless that thugs against whom there is ample evidence get away on bail due to money & polictical connections but an average law fearing middle class person can rot away and get harassed in the legal system? So many questions but so few answers.
I have decided to write to the PMO, President, Chief Justice of India & the media to demand an explanation for the lenient treatement of these criminals whereas on the other hand Renuka Choudhary was promptly slapped with a case for terming that Mangalore is getting talibanized (i really don't get the logic here since the police did not act against the goons till public pressure was applied but against a person like Renuka who is not really a threat to the police or anyone the police machinery promptly swung into action). I suggest all other praja member do the same of writing letters to the above mentioned persons/entities, at least that will get the ball rolling and make the goverment aware that people are indeed questioning what is happening. The goal would be to see all those goons involved in the mangalore incident back in jail for the maximum period possible without bail.
Here is an excerpt from a recent article (http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Pub-attack-Sri-Ram-Sene-chief-Muthalik-gets-bail/417507/) about those 28 goons getting bail, pay special attention to the bolded lines -
---------------------------------
The Mangalore police had booked the primary attackers in the case under charges of assault on women and tresspassing. However, with the girls attacked at the pub refusing to come forward to press the case and with the pub owners claiming that they could not identify the attackers, the case was already on a weak wicket.
---------------------------------
What beats me is, there is ample video evidence to identify at least some of them if not all 28 for the state of Karnatka to act and proceed on this case.
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