The kick-ass rifle

I read this article in Strategypage some time back about afghans rediscovering The Lee-Enfield rifle. It really amused me, since in India it has been in constant use since it was invented in 1885. More then 17 million have been made since then and the Ishapore factory in India still makes it. This rifle has seen a lot of history and I have seen this rifle at very close quarters. In fact, hind quarters is the right term since I got hit in the butt by the Lee-Enfield rifle stock. I wince every time I hear the term rifle-butt.

It was for a noble cause and very long time back (no pun-too painful). As mentioned in my post "Definition of Excessive force" it was 1991 and I was protesting with a lot of students against reservations in educational institutions based on a persons caste. I was waving a black flag and right on the front lines. We were moving towards the parliament when the Indian Gestapo (police) started shooting tear-gas at the crowd. I used the flag to pick up the tear-gas shells and threw it right back and suddenly everybody started doing that. I was single-handedly responsible for demise of that metal canister tear-gas (or so I would like to believe) since the next time they started using the ones which burst on contact.

So to make the long story short I was in the front, waving the flag when the police on horses charged. I stood my ground for a while and when I looked back the others were long gone. I said," bloody cowards " and ran like a gazelle. Too late, one of the policemen on side-lines ran swinging his rifle with full force and hit me hard on my rear-end. I thankfully didn't fall and kept running. I managed to crawl into a building and avoided going to the jail. I couldn't walk for a few days and needless to say standing was preferable to sitting. So the moral of the story is that never be at the rear-end (pun intented-pain fades with time) of a retreating protesting crowd when the police charge.

I had a friend with me that day. He had promised his family that he would not join the protest. We lost contact when the chaos started. The next day his father called him and asked him how was yesterday. He started with his story which was cut short when his father showed him the newspaper. It had a big picture of him running with a big Sikh policeman on a big horse chasing him with a raised baton. We had a good laugh over the whole episode.

After a week my local magazine vendor showed me the cover of the a magazine and guess what? I was there in full color with a bunch of other people. It was an interesting picture because it had something else; one of the guys caught in a naughty act (to put it mildly). I have that magazine with me somewhere so I will try to upload the cover soon.

Definition of "Excessive force"

There has been a lot of hue and cry over the attacks on Indian students in Australia. There are over 90000 Indian students in Australia and there have been half a dozen attacks recently of varying degrees ranging from beatings to a stabbing. There has been a lot of noise over the racial nature of violence.

What I would like to know is whether the brutal beating of the non-racial nature is any less painful or acceptable? A lot of the acts were robberies gone wrong. In any case racism of all variety is deplorable but to condemn the whole country as racist because of a few nuts is ridiculous. A lot of my relatives have been and some still are in Australia and they can't stop singing it's praises.

The role of media in whipping up of hysteria is verging on unethical. There have been no figures given on the comparisons in attacks on Indian students and other students, number of attacks in past and the current year. The TV channels in their enthusiasm now are going hysterical on the alleged excessive force used by the Melbourne police in removing protesters forcibly who refused to move from one of the busiest streets of Melbourne. Excessive force? You've got to be kidding me? I saw the footage and I saw nothing of that sort. Besides, what were they supposed to do? Let them sit there and inconvenience everybody else?

The students by their mass protest and blocking of the streets have done their cause no good. I'll quote Ayn Rand who said the following:

The forcible occupation of another man’s property or the obstruction of a public thoroughfare is so blatant a violation of rights that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality. An individual has no right to do a “sit-in” in the home or office of a person he disagrees with—and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers—and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion,’” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 256.

In India a protest like this would not be handled by Indian police with such civility. There are far more worse things police here do then bodily lift protesters. These include tear gassing, cane charge, hitting with rifle-butts (I was beaten-up during anti-reservation protest in 91, couldn't walk for three days), molestation of women (the whole country saw the groping of doctors on TV), shooting- frequently resulting in seriously wounding and killing of protesters (retaliation against stone throwing).

The hypocrisy of the Indian media is unbelievable. I have not seen such massive collective cry of outrage by the media in recent past over the far more serious violations by the police in India. If the conduct of Aussie police is labeled "excessive force", I wonder if we can ever find the right words to suitably describe the barbaric behavior of the Indian police.