For too long our political culture has embraced abuse and torture as legitimate mechanisms for social control

Nov 06, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I found it prudent to preface my contribution on the child torture case currently engaging our attention with an excerpt from Mr. B. Raman Esq., an esteemed member of the Indian security fraternity, taken from his article Internal Security: Changing Environment.
He states:
Amongst the factors, which contribute to threats to internal security of a nation are: * Bad governance marked by incompetence, inefficiency, economic mismanagement, lack of adequate attention to economic and social development, feelings of economic and social injustice in large sections of the people, corruption and the insensitivity of the administration to the legitimate grievances of the people and the consequent absence of a well-functioning mechanism to address the grievances of the people.
* The feeling amongst large sections of the people that one is governed by a leadership or administration that does not care, sows the seeds of alienation leading to challenges, which may be peaceful initially, but tend to degenerate to violence, to law and order and the authority of the State.
* A failure on the part of the aggrieved sections of the people to understand and accept that there are limits to what a leadership or administration can do to meet the grievances of the people, that even in the best governed State there would always be unfulfilled expectations and that while it would be legitimate to continue to articulate such unfulfilled expectations, a resort to agitational methods, particularly involving violence, could weaken the fabric of the State and the administration.
* A failure of the political leadership, the State and the administration to be sensitive to the grievances of the minorities, whether ethnic or religious, and to protect their lives, interests and property and the consequent emergence of feelings of alienation.
* A lack of moral integrity in the political leadership and administration marked by corruption, nepotism, abuse of authority, tolerance of wrong-doings, criminalisation of politics and the failure to enforce the law, either due to timidity or due to a nexus with the law-breakers, which weakens the credibility of the State and the administration in the eyes of large sections of the people. A State or administration, which does not enjoy the respect of the governed, cannot enforce the rule of law effectively.
* The absence of statesmanship, the ascendency of partisan political interests over national interests and unprincipled and opportunistic politics, with the political parties ever willing and on the look-out for opportunities and grievances amongst the people, even illegitimate, which they can exploit without consideration of the impact that such exploitation may have on the rule of law. The political landscape is consequently marked by a plethora of politicians, but hardly a statesman.
* The exploitation of the grievances and the feelings of alienation of sections of the people by external powers for achieving their strategic objectives.
* The absence of effective national security management, whether internal or external, characterised by an unsatisfactory intelligence and physical security apparatus and a political leadership, whether in the ruling circles or in the opposition, so engrossed with the politics of the politicians and not of statesmen, that it has neither the time nor the inclination to attend to removing the systemic deficiencies.
Like Mr. Raman, it is this author’s view that for too long our political culture has embraced, and as a consequence, accepted abuse and torture as a legitimate mechanism for social control. Notwithstanding, I shall provide definitive consideration on this issue in a subsequent letter.
Clairmont Featherstone

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For too long our political culture has embraced abuse and torture as legitimate mechanisms for social control

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