The weirdest elections in Indian History

I am apolitical. In fact I think politics only when I read the newspapers or read news on the internet. But some of the events happening around us have involved almost everyone - including the aam aadmi (common man).
Let me give an anecdote that happened on a busy road in the middle of Bangalore a few days back.
I was returning back from the center of Bangalore city after some personal work on my Activa scooter when I was stopped by some traffic policemen who had set up an ambush along a curve of the road.
My first thought was that I was on a one way road. No. Had I inadvertently jumped a traffic signal? No, that was not the case too.
The policemen seemed to be checking expired vehicle insurances. They had already stopped a dozen motorists and were going through their papers. A brash young traffic policeman pointed out to me that my papers were all right - but my insurance would expire the next day. I nodded sheepishly, mumbling something about getting it done tomorrow.
Then he got interested in my registration plates. My vehicle was a Kerala registered vehicle bearing the tell-tale KL letters. "Aah! Out of state vehicle I see", he said delightedly in broken English for my benefit. "I need to see your Road Tax papers from Karnataka Road Transport Office or the No Objection Certificate from the Karanataka RTO!"
I said I did not since I was planning to be in Karnataka for just a few months, which was a perfectly valid reason. The RTO rules do not mandate an NOC or payment of road tax if the duration of stay is short. How else would one motor to Chennai to Goa on a holiday trip in that case?
When I was in Chennai for a short period of 6 months, I had paid the lifetime road tax for the same Activa to avoid being hounded by Tamilnadu traffic

policemen; but Bangalore is different; there are vehicle rolling on the roads from all over India - Delhi, UP, AP, HP, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the like. And the traffic policemen never bother. And Techies are literate - they usually know their rights.
What surprised me was that the brash traffic policeman suggested that I pay a bribe.
I protested saying that I had already paid Tamilnadu road tax, and I couldn't be expected to pay road tax in every state where I go for short stints.
He was unrelenting. "The only option we have is to confiscate your vehicle. And you will have to appear in court", he said with a smug smile.
"Or", he added, pointing to the elderly traffic inspector casually leaning against his bike."You can pay our respected Sir Rs. 300. Just a small nominal fee for you. Kindly request him".
I thought about the strange existing political situation in the country now. A maverick group called the Aam Aadmi Party was counting on its battle against corruption to win the general elections in just a few weeks and all major political parties were engaged in a debate against corruption. How the hell did these traffic policemen aspire to get away with a corrupt act in such times? The AAP was then actively campaigning against all sorts of corruption bottom up and such an action weeks later would have caused the traffic inspector's summary dismissal and probably a jail term too if the AAP came into power! However Karnataka State was then ruled by the Congress, which was expecting major losses in this general elections.
Was this traffic inspector's last attempt at a bribe before he retired or was he just thumbing his nose at the authorities in power or who planned to come in power? Was this his message to say that AAP or not, I am still the man in charge around here.
For me this was a crisis. I either pay the bribe or have my vehicle towed away. And court appearances was unthinkable.
So I handed over 300 rupees to the elderly traffic inspector, who looked at me carefully and handed 100 rupees back. I had bribed someone for the second time in my life!
Is this the beginning of a new era for corruption? Just as there are loopholes to escape the law so there are loopholes to get trapped. No person would prefer to get his vehicle impounded under some arcane law, than paying a couple of hundred rupees to get away scot-free, for example.
Is the Indian way of corruption only going to meta morph into the sophisticated corruption that exists in Gulf countries called "vaasta"? Or the criminal sophistication of the organized Mafia in countries such as Italy?

The Story of the Aimless Policeman

This is one anectode which did not make it to the last post, but should have. I was not a witness to this, but was recounted to me by someone who did.
I have seen policemen in uniform smoking in public and in public places, when they are actually supposed to nab people who do this, and fine them. But this story is about a more conscientious one of his lot.
I was returning home from office and hastily flagged an autorickshaw for the trip.
This auto driver was in a good mood and out of the blue came up with an experience he had recently.
Apparently one day he had been flagged down by a policeman.
"Where to?" asked the auto driver, apprehensive that he may have been on the wrong side of the law.
"Nowhere in particular", replied the policeman. "I just want to have a smoke. Just drive around till I finish it."
Saying this the policeman took out a cigarette, lit it and added, "Don't worry about the fare. I will pay you for this trip."
The auto driver recounted this to me and looking back at me, said with a knowing smile, "You know policemen aren't supposed to smoke in public. So I took this guy around in circles in my auto, till he had smoked his cigarette and dropped him at the very place where he boarded it."
"And he did pay me the fare," he added with a twinke in his eyes.
Talk about policemen on a wild goose chase!

Of Arson and Violence

In the wastelands of Western Vidharbha, in a small hamlet, in the eastern shadows of Maharashtra's vast geography, you will be surprised to come across a hillock on which are perched a dozen, tall futuristic buildings. This is the private Science and Technology college that would not have existed had it not been for the fact that this was the village that gave the state of Maharashtra two Chief Ministers. In the midst of parched farmlands and dry wasteland sprung up a miracle in architecture, equipped with one of the best scientific equipment in the country, well skilled lecturers from every part of India, and creme de la creme alumni of the local government college of engineering.
It was no wonder that the reputation of this college spread far and wide. The college had prospective candidates from as far flung states from Bengal to Gujarat and from Kerala to Kashmir.
All went well for a long time, though the college inmates segregated themselves state-wise and then caste-wise, thereby preserving their sometimes aggressive culture instead of assimilating the local. There was always someone from this elite colleage who topped the ranks in science and technology.
A cult of Muslims had made their home in this god forsaken place many centuries ago. They were mostly small time businessmen and consequently higher up the social pyramid. They differed in physique and you could say they belonged to some different race. While the locals were dark skinned and stunted, these muslim migrants were tall and of a very fair color. It was as if there had been an exodus many many years back from some Himalayan region to this wasteland which they had now decided to call home.
The females of this muslim clan were fair skinned, tall and had aristocratic features with grey blue eyes much like Persian women, though they did wear the burkah, some of them the hijab and some even the purdah in the intolerable heat.
It was for one beautiful damsel, the daughter of a wealthy muslim businessman, that a Kashmiri student(lets call him Vikki, son of a DSP in Kashmir) of the college fell for. He promsised to marry the girl and take her off to his native Kashmir once his studies were over. He consulted this young beauty's parents and they readily agreed, considering the fact that they were both muslim and shared a common culture in the vague sense.
But it was the girl's brother who did not take it that easy. He took umbrage to the fact that Vikki and his new girlfriend had take a vacation to Kashmir, with the girl's father's permission of course.
Vikki was stabbed twice in the back by his love's brother when he was out in town one evening. News, or it could be rumour reached the college that Vikki was hanging betweeen life and death in the local hospital.
The Kashmiri conglomerate at the college took serious note of the matter and held an impromptu meeting. They were soon joined by Delhiites, Punjabis... and everyone soon forgot their cultural differences and were out on the road in the mid of night, baying for local blood, calling out "Revenge!", deciding that the event was an insult to the college inmates. There was rioting and arson. Several shops, the very shops whose services they availed of, the local video parlors, cigarette vending shops went up in flames. The Head of Department, computer Science lit a cigarette as he coolly watched tea stalls, ramshackle eating joints, laundry shops going up in flames in a matter of hours just in front of the college gates.
Police arrived in the wee hours of the morning with arson continuing to the early hours. The policemen were small in number; they were local police not trained to handle something of this magnitude.
The unequipped police were pushed back by bricks and stones thrown by the college inmates. Some of the more enterprising and shady of the Gorakhpuris were ready with country made guns(katta) they had smuggled in, and others had cycle chains; and hacksaw blades sharpened at the edges in the mechanical department's workshop to serve as knives.
The police force that arrived that afternoon, however, were not the ordinary policemen these rampaging students had faced earlier. These were the State Reserved Police Force(SRPF) specially trained in handling riots. When the rioting students welcomed the SRPF with stones and cycle chains, they fired at the crowd. Some Kashmiri youth, who had been in riot situations in their native Kashmir before, spread the rumor that the firing was just a ruse, the rubber bullets would not harm anybody.
But what the SRPF fired that day were real bullets, and two Kashmiri students were fatally shot.
Seeing their fallen comrades, the rampaging college students fled in all directions.
As usually what happens in such situations, it was the innocent bystanders who were caught in the cross-fire. The real perpetrators of the riot locked themselves in their hostel rooms and it was 210 mostly innocent students who were simply witness to the goings-on, who were led to the Central Prison that bloody day.
After one month in the central prison treated as ordinary criminals, sleeping next to proclaimed offencers and sharing their meals with murderers, these poor young men were released on bail from judicial custody. The political guardian of the district being a high profile hot-shot hushed up the whole matter afraid of a political undertone. Not a single national newspaper reported it, except a miniscule local newspaper that published a small column that everybody soon forgot about.

Passport to Gaol

It was during my last month at my gig in Germany that I got an urgent mail from my brother saying that my father wanted to talk to me on an important issue.
A bit puzzled, I called India after work, from the office phone (the money for phone calls was deducted from my salary by the shrewd German overseer).
The first thing my father wanted to know was whether I had applied for my passport twice. I was bewildered. No, I replied. My father went on to inform me that the local police had come a-visting twice to my home in Kerala wanting to know whether I had committed the crime of applying twice for a passport.
I didn't take the matter too seriously at that moment. I was convinced it was a routine blunder by the police which they are so bound to make. I told my father I was sure this was some bureaucratic blunder and would sort itself out.
When I returned home to India, the police came visiting again. I was not at home. They informed my father that I had applied for a passport twice and they wanted to investigate. My father called me on my mobile and I talked to the police person who quizzed me on my passport number and other details. With a straight face I told him all I could. Then, a bit annoyed, I retorted, saying they were the people who had my passport details on their records and that I found it strange them asking me about it.
The policeperson was not impressed.
A few weeks later I got a letter from the regional passport office saying that they would have to confiscate my existing passport since I had committed the crime of applying for a passport twice. I made two trips all the way to the passport office at the State headquarters and met the passport officer in charge who said that the police had reported that two attempts were made to secure passports and the law would follow course. I even showed him a copy of the application letter that I had written out for the passport and tried to make him understand that I had no interest and no valid reason for filling out a second application. All this fell on deaf ears.
The next time the police came a hunting (again I was out) my Dad shelled out a couple of hundred rupees. The policeman realising that nothing more could be gained from this venerable looking gentleman quietly took the money and left.
There ended the mystery of the double passport applications.
The strange tale did not end there.
While waiting for my train home at Kochi railway station I found myself sitting next to a middle aged man. He was just on his way back from the regional passport office at Kochi. And he had a tale to tell similar to mine. He had been in the middle east for a good many years and when his passport was about to expire, applied for a fresh one. But he was now charged with illegally applying for a passport twice. And he faced the same punishment - confiscation of his passport.
But he said with determination - "I am ready to go to court on this matter, but I shall not bribe a policeman to get things sorted out." Brave words from an Indian, in a land where court cases are prolonged to no end and are a waste of both time energy and will power.
what other ways would these goons come up with, I wondered, to make a few extra bucks?

Set a thief to Catch a Thief!

Kumily is a picturesque stop before you cross the Kerala - Tamilnadu border. It also has a border check post where the police occasionally check passenger vehicles for contraband, read liquor, from neighboring states where the stuff is much cheaper, Kerala heavily taxing liquor sales.
I recently had the opportunity to pass through this route on my return from Bangalore.
As usual there was the routine police checking, but this time round, to my surprise, the guy who frisked our baggage was reeking of some cocktail he had imbibed a little while back.
Still he was steady on his feet and nimbly tiptoed to check the baggage stored on the overhead racks.
Next time you see liquor being confiscated, don't wonder where it disappears.
It probably is put to good use filling some ill-paid policeman's overfed belly.

The joy ride after the wild goose chase

Recently several media publications were bold enough to expose the sham that lies behind police interrogations involving narcoanalysis. Injecting suspects with a so-called truth serum, before they have been proved guilty, exposes one of the extremely crass and crude methods that the law condones (in India).
On the lighter side why don't these so-called preservers of the law take their suspects to the nearest bar and make them have their fill of the strongest liquors. Surely some of these "guilty" offenders might just spill the beans for all we know or maybe even "sing" for them. Or how about Cocaine or hashish, and if thats too costly for these guys in mufti, they could try good old marijuana.
The interrogators too could have a sniff at the substance on offer just to test whether it truly works. Once both the parties are "high", they could swap truth stories with each other and perhaps the "real" truth would spill out in the bonhomie.
These are the Dr Deaths' of today in the garb of forensic experts. The description of it being "scientific" just makes everything seem very sophisticated to the lay man.
The basic intention is the age old classic manoeuvre. When things go very wrong, and the law enforcers are clueless as to what went wrong they are under pressure to produce quick results - from the public, the politicians, the higher-ups and in order not to lose their credibility they have to produce results fast. What way other than a quick fix(pun intended) for this? In fact, the situation for them would work the other way round if they solved the entire mystery in a short spell- pats and kudos from everyone.
It's high time the law enforcers and others who condone it, recognize narcoanalysis for what it truly is.