WHERE DOES IT END?
PM Modi was stopped in Punjab, the noises have not stopped since.
As is generally the case in our country, the discussion is all over the place. Security lapse, inexperienced CM, secret hand of Sidhu, Election stunt by the PM and so on.
Politicians of each hue as is their respective master’s calling are busy making their own rule book on VIP security. No one has of-course, as is also always the case read the blue book, the Security bible which defines the role of each and every wing of the security apparatus-IB, SPG, State Police etc.
The written and also time-honored word is clear, It is the State police which has to sterilize and secure the route and in case of meetings, the outer perimeter while the SPG is what in Police parlance is called is to provide Close Proximate Security.
What then is so difficult to understand? If the State fails, responsibility has to be fixed and it has to be surgically fixed. What are we waiting for? Issues of Security do not allow playing game of chances. If such a luxury is afforded, the results are Police firing if the crowd goes out of hand or worse still assassination if the security cordons become weak. The country has seen this in case of two Prime Ministers.
When are we going to wake up?You may like the PM or not. The fact remains he is an elected PM and the first among equals. It is the Institution whose aura, well-being and security has the deepest implications for us as a nation. What does it say of us as people and as a country that we can not keep our PM’s movement safe? Instead of fixing it, we are politicking and quibbling. Importantly, where does it end? If Channi comes to UP for electioneering, do Yogi’s cadres “Gherao” him now? Say over poor treatment to the migrant labour in Punjab.
Does it become OK? If say Mr Rajnath Singh goes to Rajasthan Border, does it become OK for Congressmen to block the road protesting against say lack of army recruitment from that District of Rajastan.
If Mamta comes to Delhi, Should Delhi BJP stop her on account of atrocities by her cadres and her police on BJP worker in Bengal. Afterall there is no dearth of issues-real, made-up or in between in our country. We are after all a country of talkers, aggrieved and the excited. Doers are hard to find and are in any case busy going about their business. If all political discourse is to be settled on roads, let us declare it so and be prepared to become a mobocracy.
Too many forces with in and outside would love to take advantage of such chinks in the Indian Polity to reduce it to an anarchy. As a citizen it is a legitimate question to ask, if PM of the country can not move about in the country freely and can be blackmailed by a handful, what chance do we the common citizens have? Importantly, if stopping the PM does not constitute a complete breakdown of Law and order machinery, what does?
Where will the criterion of breakdown of Law and order begin? Irrespective where we stand in our personal politics, Institutional sanctity has to be above every partisan pre-disposition. The Societies which do not recognize this basic fact weaken and Start to wither from within.
Writer is Sachin Shridhar is an Ex IPS officer and post taking voluntary retirement. He is a technology entrepreneur.
