Public and Police, when written in English have only a few
letters' difference - which indirectly (which in fact is direct and is very
clear for people with common sense) shows that police and public are 'almost'
the same.
Being an ordinary citizen of this country, when I hear about
police or if I need to go to a police station for something, I panic - and this
very same feeling is the one that I'd love to avoid. I'd love to feel safe
inside a police station or I need to feel happy and relaxed after seeing a
police man. But unfortunately from what I understand - it's the other way
around; people would love to handle their issues on their own instead of taking
the extra 'burden' of the police.
We all have an opinion or say an impression about the 'word'
police - it brings out different pictures in your mind. Unfortunately (or
fortunately) most of these pics that come to your mind are not from the real
life, instead they're from some random movies we have watched in the past.
So in my life if I have watched 100 movies with 75 of them
showing bad cops and 25 showing good cops - it's almost certain that I'd tend
to believe that most of the police men are bad. Likewise if the majority of the
movies I've watched are of good cops, this opinion would be different. My point
is, public's opinion about Police is directly related to the movies they watch,
because most of us have never been to a police station or 'interacted' with a
police man.
HOWEVER, I'm not trying to tell you that you're completely
wrong. Sadly, the only few police men we have seen in real life, including the
traffic police, weren't acting much differently from the characters we have
seen in the movies. Most of the cops I had seen in my life are traffic police
and unfortunately all of them are corrupted - looting the common man in the
name of a few law violations when they themselves commit bigger ones (who said
looting isn't a crime?)
The characters in the movies act/behave as per the director
of that movie. If the director wants to portray someone good, he can easily do
that. Same is the case if he wants to portray someone bad too. So in a movie,
if the hero is a cop (even if he is little corrupted), the audience, which in
larger terms, the public would enjoy it, because he is the hero of the show.
However, in another movie, let's say, of the same director and hero, if the
villain is a cop (acting exactly as the hero's character in the previous
movie), people would hate him because the director wants them to hate him. Hope
you get what I mean!
However in real life, there are no directors. I'm the
actor/director/everyone in my life. So the people and their characters I see in
my life will be from my view point and it is not influenced by any director. If
I see a police man taking bribe from someone, I know that he is the bad cop
(even if he is the hero in his life). This is exactly where our police
department should behave themselves and keep their names clean. Again, when I
say they should behave properly, I say that based on what I read from different
articles on new papers or what I have seen in TV (which I assume are true).
As we mentioned about movies, we have to talk about the
other side too. I've (we all have) watched quite a few Hollywood movies and how
do you feel about a US cop? Is it the same feeling you get when you think of an
Indian cop? I assume no, because they've portrayed their police in a much
better way in their movies (We don't have to deal with them in real life
anyways though). From what we have seen from their movies (I mean most of the
movies), police is the angel that comes to the rescue of public when they are
in trouble.
Just to quote a video I watched the other day - 2 men were
trying to rob a stationary store somewhere in Middle East. They had a gun in
their hand and was threatening the shopkeeper and the other customers. However,
when I was expecting them to run away with the money, they were shot dead by
the police who came from I-don't-know-where at the right time. FYI - that
seemed to a real life footage from a CCTV - not a reel life video.
We have had numerous reel-life police officers who would go
to any extend to protect and safeguard the public. But does it matter? Even
after watching 100s of such brave reel-life heroes, if you're to face ONE corrupted
cop in your real life, I'd tend to believe my real life is more real than the
reel life.
Of course, we do hear a lot of stories about real-life heroes
too. The latest ones we heard with moist eyes, were the brave souls who fought
with the terrorists without caring much about their own lives at Gurdaspur.
They fought bravely (way better than those imaginary reel life heroes) without
much safety precautions, because for them, their duty and the nation stood
first - not heroism, not their own lives. Salute you brave men, and sorry for
the ones spoiling the name of the entire police force - I pity them!
