The Hindu Business Line : If a Gates Jr. incident had occurred in India…

First, let me briefly narrate the incident, news of which has reverberated round the US and kept it agog for the last two weeks. On July 20, Dr Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, one of the most eminent personalities of the country, and a long-time friend of the US President, Mr Barack Obama, returned from an overseas trip and foun d he could not unlock the door of his home since it had got jammed.

Someone who did not know their identity saw him and his driver struggling with it, and suspecting it to be a case house breaking for committing burglary, phoned the police. By the time police sergeant James Crowley arrived, the professor had managed to let himself in and was in the kitchen. Sgt. Crowley asked the professor to come out saying that he had come to investigate a break-in.

The professor, as per the police report, allegedly yelled at him, told him “he had no idea whom he was messing with” and he was being hounded because “I’m a black man in America”

The sergeant promptly booked him for disorderly conduct and for “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behaviour,” and even though the professor showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, he was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours.

A nationwide furore erupted, and Mr Obama in a televised media conference, criticised the police for “acting stupidly”. Following the vigorous protest of the police association, he was soon thereafter constrained to withdraw his words. However, considering the ugly racist complexion the matter was taking, he invited both the professor and the police sergeant for a ‘beer summit’ at the White House on July 29 to make them shake hands and let bygones be bygones.

Designer clothes

Sgt. Crowley, even in the presence of the most powerful top person of the country, refused to apologise for what he did, giving out at the end of the ‘summit’ that the professor and himself had only “agreed to disagree.” However, the Massachusetts State administration later dropped the charges against the professor.

What would be the scenario in a similar situation in India? Our big shots too, like the professor, would have taken an abusive posture towards the policeman, but there the similarity would end. The police in India would not have dared to proceed further, let alone handcuff the person concerned. (In the US, suspects, however high they may be, whether a CEO or a former Attorney General, are routinely handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, unlike in India where a street dada enjoys mobile, DVD and designer clothes and struts about with a V sign even in custody!)

Even if the police in India did make an arrest, they would have immediately let the person go, abjectly apologizing to him and to whoever was the political boss in that area. Regardless, the police officer would have been instantly transferred to a far away place, and subjected to other kinds of victimisation.

The question of the President or the Prime Minister deigning to come down to the level of the aggrieved citizen and aggressive policeman and find time for a peace making session over tea is absolutely unthinkable. Indeed, an Inspector (the rough equivalent of a sergeant in the US), invited to meet the President or the Prime Minister for tea (forget the beer part!), will simply swoon out of shock.

That is the contrast between a hard and a soft state.

B. S. RAGHAVAN