User:	saravade
Date:	2009-12-20 08:56
Subject:	Our Attitude to Violence
Security:	Public

Ajay Shah writes about the consequences of exposure to violence. This is an interesting post. While there has been no violence caused by external aggression, there is no dearth of internal violence in India. Domestic violence seems rampant. So is the tendency to be lawless (just watch the traffic behaviour in all metros/cities/towns, with or without traffic lights and the traffic cop) and Left Wing Extremism has only grown, accounting for half the country's districts now. This latent violence feeds upon itself. The wherewithal of the law enforcement to extend and maintain the writ of law (which includes the ability to enforce traffic rules uniformly and consistently, investigate cases against the high and mighty fearlessly and deter the marginalised and the desperate from articulating their grievances through the barrel of the gun) has consistently dwindled due to increasing politicisation and shrinking resources. Unfortunately, this is not a topic which catches attention of the intelligentsia, the media or the ruling class. The other day, there was a new report about the large losses caused by the 26/11 attack. On reading the news article, one senior police officer bitterly recounted to me how his proposal for equipping the Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra involving an outlay of Rs 20 crore was laughed away a couple of years ago by the mandarins of Home Department as a fanciful plan.