Encounter with Soldiers (part-I)

Last summer I had a chance to question, to discuss with some Soldiers about what and how they feel about their life. While debate is there, about the morality and trustworthiness of Polices, Para-Military Forces in India, what is their opinion regarding such issues. Some facts and answers came from their side too, as reinforcement for their working methods justifications. Here is a gist of those discussions…..

A) A personnel asked me, “Sirji, how you will feel, if you are suppose to work against crimes n criminals, live along with them, 24x7 whole year, minimum touch of your family members, but yet your work is not appraised properly??? Don’t you think that it will affect your psyche….??? If yes, than it affects us too, as we are also a part of your society. The same weak man, who have the burden of his family on his shoulders. Yes, I know that it does not gives me the license to kill, to behave in rude manner, to become corrupt but what to do as I am a weak man and I also have fear of being killed by criminals, being behaved rudely by unruly peoples and die as a poor in this competitive world, as I am also a victim elsewhere today/tomorrow through corruption, bribery by other departments. The only difference is that, they can do it secretly but we have to do the same in public. We all know, how corrupted Health Organizations are, yet we treat them wisely, but why people treat us with hatred, though we work for their safety??? Because, we are prone and vulnerable to counter-attacked by Legal Machinery very easily with evidences.”

B) A Police prompted to my questions that day, he replied, “Sir, you see this public. They believe we have enormous power in our hands. We have the strength of weapons, legal system etc. But the fact is rather different from the scenario. We have weapon, but don’t have the power to use it till the reason exceeds it limits, in some cases till our death. We have to take written orders to do so. Tell me Sir, which criminal will wait till that point before he starts firing upon us. But yet we have to wait. You may say, if we would be given power to fire at will, we may misuse it. But don’t you feel Sir for each kind of power, there is uses and misuses also. People used to yell upon us, saying that you have firearm, why don’t you use it then? But in case we use it, they will be the very same people who start criticizing us. Saying that, we misused it !!! On the top of it, we have media, Departmental Inquiries to cross-check our innocence beyond reasonable doubt. Don’t you find it funny? We have vested authorities given by Law of the Land, but tell me how many people in our country know the Criminal Laws roughly, forget about vividly. Not even half. So, as you know our criminal laws are weak in many aspects for some heinous crimes, criminals used to get away with a very minimum penalty or imprisonment. But to common people, it seems that we are easy/ soft on criminals, we have taken bribes, or we are corrupted that’s why we released them/acquitted them just like that. But tell me Sir, can we use the Law as per our will??? But who will understand?? People just used to notice that, we are so weak to detain/arrest criminals and convict them, they just overlook that we are also making a foe in that same process, and when this foe slays us openly in public place, nobody comes to save/help us, and nobody wants to give testimony. They feel that, we are police so we should help ourselves. So, don’t you think it’s good to be good with criminals then, at least they won’t backbite? I still remember, a few cases when I had made strong cases for rape victims, arrested and forwarded the criminals in court for a fair trial. But astonishingly, I find that the accused is ready marry the victim, or the accused has given a small sum of money and the victim became a hostile witness or she was happy to withdraw her testimony. Though this is may be due to internal/external pressure on her, but I had ended up with a newly made enemy, and a laughing stock for all. Same for murder, robbery cases, nobody saw anything but everyone wants justice. If we are unable to prevent the occurrences of crimes, than we are a big failure. Whereas, there are some clear legal provisions for common public to act as a guardians of life & property until police reaches there. Police force does not come in time, is a popular national saying. But tell me, what is the ratio of common public to a single policeman, regardless the physical distances? Moreover the ratio won’t be correct for a single time, because many of us are always busy in doing VIP and other kind of special duty. Denial of which is another form of non-cooperation to public.”

Today, I am going to give a pause here. Many more chats are there in mind, but will write about it later. What I personally feel is that, we are so selfish that, often we love to put the responsibility of a bad incident on others shoulders, naming it differently. In that process Armed forces are the most soft targets, because they are our 1^st line of defence, and whose own sayings are often rarely heard. Take care. Wait for its part II.