Tags:
Journalism of Courage
After much controversy over his handling of the violence at Azad Maidan,Mumbai police chief Arup Patnaik has been promoted into irrelevance. He will now head the Maharashtra Rajya Suraksha Mahamandal MRSM,a fledgling police department that will handle VIP security. In the Azad Maidan incident,Patnaik has been blamed for failing to act to stop the violence by a mob,and praised by those who saw restraint as the wiser course of action,given the context of communal tension in the city. Either way,he had become a polarising figure,and his transfer seems to have been an attempt to stanch the controversy.
But why stop here? If Mumbai Police has suffered a crisis of credibility,it certainly precedes the Azad Maidan episode,and much of the blame also attaches to the man who practically helms the force,Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil. He has personalised his interaction with the police,made it jump to his bidding. Any why would it not? After all,the home minister fully controls police transfers and postings,disregarding the choices of senior officers and not respecting their prerogative to manage their own force. This erodes their authority,and saps the morale and professionalism of the entire police force. Their capacity to respond to events is inevitably affected. Politics has seeped so deeply into the police that it seemed to be no big deal when a constable smilingly gave MNS chief Raj Thackeray a rose,after his defiant rally in Azad Maidan. R.R. Patil must bear some of the responsibility for this sorry state of affairs.
