Tags:
Journalism of Courage
It is entirely possible that the police who went on the rampage in Meerut8217;s Company Gardens on Monday, beating up couples and dragging them to police stations, believed that they were doing the right thing. Their rampage, which even had a codename, 8216;Operation Manju8217;, bore the characteristic stench of official sanctimoniousness. It is also entirely possible that had their exertions not played out before a horrified national primetime audience, it would have caused neither outrage nor invited corrective action.
Yet 8216;Operation Manju8217; emerges from the same mindset that orders the shutting down of dance bars in Mumbai, or rules that couples dancing in a Chennai hotel are guilty of gross moral impropriety. It comes from the same instinct that drives the Shiv Sena to tear down Valentine8217;s Day posters and the PMK to throw eggs at Kushboo for her plainspeaking. In fact, the actions of the Meerut8217;s police are just one remove away from the pre-modern barbarism that marks panchayat justice. Just two months ago, a panchayat in rural Meerut had ordered the tonsuring of a young couple for having the temerity to fall in love with each other 8212; they were then forced to beat each other. So should anybody really be surprised if police officers in their wisdom round up young men and women, pull them by the hair, slap them soundly and generally humiliate them? Of course not.
