The modern thinking Indian

It is always said that justice delayed is justice denied, the very fact that the criminal justice system in India takes decades to wind through and deliver justice. In that time, people either give up on justice, die, or implemented their own form of justice; conversely, it becomes easier to thwart justice by either witnesses being bought or scared away, their testimony becoming hazy, or witnesses simply not being present anymore. All these reduce the effectiveness of the judicial system as a way of delivering justice to society.
India has had a history of massive riots in the past, even starting from Partition where riots between Hindus and Muslims were horrendous in terms of casualties. After partition, there were cases of riots where the police and administration either were unable to control the riots, or played a partisan role. It is the cases where the administration played a partisan role that are a blot on society, and the inability to judicially address these crimes is actually criminal.
The 2 biggest such cases were the 1984 Sikh riots, and the 2002 Gujarat riots. In both cases, the administration let the riots happen (and it is accused with a lot of testimony and circumstantial evidence) that functionaries of the ruling party played a big role. In the 1984 riots, after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards (who were Sikh), there were mobs of people (primarily in the city of Delhi) hunting down Sikhs (on the streets, and in their homes) and killing them by burning them or by cutting them down. Congress leaders (primarily HKL Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, and Jagdish Tytler among the more well known) were accused of leading these mobs, and it was only after 2-3 days that the situation was brought under control.
By then, a community had been horrified, but this was not the only crime. The bigger crime was that this situation was never taken quickly through the criminal justice system, and the perpetrators of such a genocide were never brought to justice (even the Gujarat riots cases are having a tough time in being brought to justice, and it is many years now). It is only occasionally that you hear of a court decision in the 1984 cases, or you hear of the CBI deciding that there was no evidence against Jagdish Tytler, so that he could be rehabitilated.
Why all this ? Well, I read of a judgment where a sessions court sentenced 3 people to life imprisonment for their involvement in attempt to murder during the riots (link to article):

A Delhi court awarded life imprisonment to three people for attempting to murder members of a Sikh family here in 1984 anti-Sikh riots and came down heavily on ‘contrived inaction’ of the police and the Government of the day which led to loss of "priceless lives".
The court slammed the Delhi police and the Government for its inability to tackle the riots that followed the assassination of the then PM Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. "History would never forgive the police officials who were at the helm of affairs and the government of the day for their unprecedented slothful and quiescent role.

The court also criticized the role of the police, the administration, and the local Government of the day. However, the fact remains that these were all failures, but how can the court just not comment on the fact that this judgment is being delivered 25 years after the cases; where it is possible that family members of the victims may have died, where society is totally sensitized about the incidents that happened a quarter of a century back. I watched areas of Delhi burning from the top of a high rise, and can never forget the scene, but in the overall memory of society, I believe the 1984 riots are a forgotten incident.

Labels: 1984, Administration, Case, Congress, Delhi, India, Judgment, Justice, Police, Riots, Sikh Riots, Trial

Be careful what you wish for ! Delhi and North India were bereft of rain during the first month of the rainy season. A bit about why Delhi is special. This is a city that is supposed to become a world class city, a city that will host the Commonwealth Games. It is the city that is the capital of a hot emerging economy, the city where people from over the world get their first glimpse of Delhi.
On 27/7/2009, the first major rainfall (major means this was 4 hours of rainfall, not 12 hours or something like that) brought this city to its knees. The news channels are full of roads being flooded, all the major intersections suffering heavy jams (including many areas of the New Delhi area that normally do not suffer traffic jams). Gridlock was the word, with many cases where people did not move beyond 100 meters in 2 hours.
What are the major causes of such a situation:
1. The Delhi drains need to be de-silted and the storm water system needs to be active. However, every year, the MCD makes tall promises and falls flat on its face. Same this year, roads were flooded in the first major rain; and huge amounts of money were supposedly spent on this desilting work.
2. No traffic management. When rains start, either the power to traffic lights go off, or they cannot handle the rain; further, traffic policemen are no longer to be seen. With Delhi traffic already known to be aggressive (stupid is another word), me-first causes huge jams at any place where more than 2 roads are commented
3. When such jams happen, there is no quick action to make things better. This is when the worst of governance can be seen. It was only after news channels started doing heavy criticism of the municipal and police response that they started swinging into action
4. Places such as low lying roads or under-passes where water causes flooding are supposedly provided by pumps, but when you need them, they do not take action
There were people interviewed on TV, and a lot of them commented on how there was no action by the Government, and where were the leaders ? Well, the leaders are waiting for the day to be over, and the public to forget that something like this happened.

Labels: Delhi, Governance, Municipal Corporation, Rain, Responsibility, Traffic, Transport

In the fight with terrorism, there is a thin line between what is justified for national security and what is a violation of human rights. Sometimes, this gets muddled up. An example is when sometime back, the UP police were shown to be shooting down a dacoit when he was coming out with hands in the air. There was a lot of protests and condemnation over the way the police shot him in cold blood. It was only when a second video was released (which showed that the dacoit had earlier offered to give himself up, but had shot the policeman who went to accept the surrender) that the reputation of the police was restored. In many cases, the police and security agencies have been accused of detaining suspects without proper records, and subjecting them to torture to get information. A law and order approach is that the police should document their arrest, and file for detention in front of the court.
One case that caused a huge amount of controversy was the Batla House case. In this case, the national capital got the news, that in a locality in South East Delhi, the police had raided a house and killed some suspects in a shootout, and in the encounter, a celebrated cop had also got killed. This was in the aftermath of the Indian Mujhaideen cases where serial bomb blasts were happening in various cities, and the Government was under huge pressure to show some progress in the case. Almost immediately, there was suspicion that this was a cooked up encounter, with certain aspects of the case causing questions.
Politicians of different hues jumped on the case, given that it involved police vs. minority issues, with even ruling party politicians jumping in to get the case investigated by all manner of agencies. The Delhi and Central Governments however stood firm on the stand that this was a genuine encounter, and the people killed were actually terrorists. Finally, in a court case, the High Court ordered an investigation by the National Human Rights Commission (something that the police still opposed). In what marks almost an end to the case, the NHRC has declared that the encounter was genuine (link to article):

National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday gave clean chit to Delhi police in Batla House encounter case. "We are clearly of the opinion that having regard to the material placed before us, it cannot be said that there has been any violation of human rights by action of the police", the NHRC said in its 30 page report on the encounter in September last year.
Encounter specialist Delhi Police Inspector M C Sharma was killed during the police action against suspected terrorists on September 19, 2008 in the aftermath of serial blasts in Batla House locality in the national capital. The court had directed the enquiry on a plea of the NGO, Act Now For Harmony and Democracy, that questioned the police version of the encounter. Two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists who were killed were identified as Atif Amin and Mohd Sajid. Two other IM suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested from the Batla House area.

This is certainly not the end of the controversy, since there was a report that some politicians and family members of the accused did not accept this report, claiming it to be false. However, the general public, which anyhow forgets things easily enough, will not remember the Batla House encounter for much longer.

Labels: Delhi, Encounter, India, Inquiry, Investigation, Murder, Police, Politics, Security, Terrorism, Violence

When an accident happened in October 2008 in the Metro construction in East Delhi in which one of the sections of the under construction metro collapsed, killing 2 people, it seemed like a one-off thing. It was still a major shock for the Delhi Metro project, since the corporation believes that it is one of the safest and most reliable project executors in India. However, it was clear for the people living in areas where the metro was being constructed, that no matter how important the metro was to the overall transport situation in Delhi, there were some compromises being made so that the main projects can be ready in time for the Commonwealth Games. For example, on some of the ongoing metro line construction, the proud claim of the DMRC that they would ensure that roads would remain tip-top was no longer true. Roads that the Metro corporation built after removing their barricades were not level with the current roads, and had ditches and potholes; in a couple of cases it would seem that the DMRC put barricades long before work was being started. Now, for a huge majority of construction areas, DMRC was still much better than the other construction agencies such as PWD, CPWD, etc, but it was clear that their quality levels were starting to slip.
Today, the Delhi Metro construction zone had another accident. When the metal construction bridge was being loaded onto a pillar near Lady Shri Ram College, the whole setup collapsed, causing the death of 6 people, injuries to many more, and the loss of atleast Rs. 6 crore, along with a huge setback to the confidence of the Metro system. The problem is, there is a perception that in the rush to complete the various sections before the Commonwealth Games, quality is not being checked as much as is necessary, and this is demonstrated in the various other incidents that have happened when cranes have toppled, or barriers have fallen.
The DMRC has outsourced the construction to various private companies, and without knowing the level of supervision practices by the DMRC, it would seem that there are problems in ensuring that the quality levels need to be maintained. There are arguments that these are complex constructions, and a certain level of accidents are inevitable, but the building of overhead rail Metro links is a well established technology, and after that, it is all about ensuring proper project execution through strict compliance to quality norms and a detailed project management and execution process.
As of now, the news is that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation head, the respected E Sreedharan has resigned claiming moral responsibility. Now E Sreedharan is a very well respected engineering oriented project head, and so far, not a single political party has called for his head. He is respected for his honesty and integrity, and the Government needs him to ensure that the various projects are on process for the Commonwealth Games. Further, the completed sections of the Delhi Metro are used by a huge number of people daily, and are part of the pride of Delhi, so it would real hard for the Government to accept his resignation, that too owing moral responsibility, since that would also sharpen the demands to claim the head of some political figure in Delhi for more moral responsibility. At the same time, since Sreedharan runs the DMRC project, he needs to ensure that quality norms remain in place and such incidents are properly analysed so that they do not recur. That is his moral and official responsibility.

Labels: Accident, Construction, Death, Delhi, Infrastructure, Metro