Sathya

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1. Neutral1sembiyanJun 19, 2022

   Regarding police and politicians and the state, you will find this paper from the 80s insightful: https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-abstract/23/4/484/21949/The-Police-and-Political-Order-in-India?redirectedFrom=fulltext

   Police in India serves the elected powers, always. The Indian state has always been authoritarian, more so in recent times. Given the nature of how power is shared and exercised at different levels in India, it’s easy to call Prime Minister a fool and get away with it - and many do. But you dare not publicly call your local municipal councilor that, or these days, the Chief Minister.

   A recent example from

   1. West Bengal: https://m.thewire.in/article/culture/pure-or-profane-roddur-roys-arrest-can-be-a-defining-moment-for-bengals-social-grammar/amp

   2. There’s no shortage of such vindictiveness from the UP government and its CM: https://m.thewire.in/article/government/up-police-arrests-19-year-old-for-social-media-post-against-adityanath/amp

   3. From Maharashtra: https://groundreport.in/who-is-actress-ketaki-chitale-arrested-for-insulting-sharad-pawar/amp/

   A great recent movie exploring this aspect of the police and the state in India is Nayattu, available on Netflix: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayattu_(2021_film) This movie was scripted by an ex-cop and makes a sympathetic case for the sort of daily negotiations the cops are involved in. The “hunted” from the title are literally other cops.

   Many Tamil movies have been exploring the police-politician nexus for a few decades now. Sathya (1989?) comes to my mind.

   This is an incomplete list, and doesn’t really explore the causes of the violence, but I think in many cases it can be linked to the parties in power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_police_brutality_in_India

   Another overview of why the police in India are particularly susceptible to political pressure: https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/javeed-ahmad-india-police-service-reform-political-corruption-news-15261/?amp

   > They should serve the state, which is a creation of and responsible to the people. Serving a political party is corrupt and not serving the people;

   Well, that’s Indian police for you. Designed to be corruptible even before we had a republic.