There have been worldwide references to the punishment meted out to former Punjab police chief K,P.S. Gill by a Chandigarh court in connection with the case arising out of sexual harassment of Rupan Deol Bajaj, a senior Punjab government woman officer. The episode cannot be divorced from the Indian polity as a whole. It is certainly not an individual’s isolated case with which the Indian state has had no concern. Gill was projected by the Indian state and it’s not so free media as a “‘super cop” and “hero” for his role in quelling Sikh unrest in Punjab. Most newspapers and Hindu leaders made him some kind of a “demi god.” On the other hand, Sikhs thought Gill to be a butcher of Punjab largely responsible for the genocide of the Sikh community. The Indian Supreme Court itself called some of the police actions as “‘worse than genocide.”
If Gill had the audacity to publicly harass Rupan Deol Bajaj on sexual grounds, he did so on the strength of blind powers given to him by the Indian state for several years. These powers had indeed gone to Gill’s head and he did not care who was watching his crooked actions. He violated human rights in Punjab with a vengeance. Even Hindu officers dared not indulge in the kind of misdeeds Vis a Vis Sikhs as this arrogant man did. The Bajaj episode was a culmination of Gill’s brazenness. The Indian state must hang its head in shame for its sordid relationship with Gill and his criminal mafia in Punjab.
If any proof of Indian polity’s criminalization was required, it was given by Gill’s actions, amply proved by the Chandigarh court. The super cop’s misdeeds cannot be compartmentalized as his individual and institutional, it was all a one deal. The Indian state gave blind support and sweeping powers to Gill and his comrades in arms for years, and he was free to extend them to whatever he surveyed. The results are the direct product of these powers: whether the results pertain to the Rupan episode or the genocide of Sikhs. The Indian state cannot shrink from its responsibility. Whatever Gill is found to be either by a Chandigarh court or by the Supreme Court is due to the courtesy of the Indian state. The Chandigarh court, as such, has imprisoned Gill for three months only but the Indian state forever.
Is the Indian democracy potent enough to self-correct its distortions and aberrations? No. Gill’s bigger crimes relate to murders and the Indian Supreme Court observers on the strength of enquiries conducted by the state’s topmost enquiry agency remarked that something “worse than genocide” had happened and yet no heads have rolled and the prime culprit the main hero goes about scot free. The day the Indian democracy is able to account for the men responsible for the genocide will be regarded as the day of redemption for that democracy. Otherwise, the so-called self-correction will be found to be merely a tip of the iceberg.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 14, 1996
