When law and order situation of a region or district falls, the immediate reflection goes to the political environment of the region. Law and order is a state subject and the political leadership is the torchbearer and responsible for peace and tranquillity of society. The administration is run by the government servents but the leadership is given by the politician. Both are a subset of each other, complement each other to evolve, maintain a decent society.

A public leader is chosen by the people to run the system and not become a mute spectator. One public leader may not be able to provide everything people demand due to various constraints but there is ‘no excuse’ for a ‘leader’ not able to maintain peace, tranquillity and law-abiding society. Crime is something which makes a society degrading. And it is directly the responsibility of the public leaders to ensure that the civil administration is doing its part to maintain law and order. If there is a degree of fall in the monitoring, civil society starts collapsing. Politics and politician can not just escape responsibility.

One such degree of fall in law and order and increase in crime is been observed in the district HQ town of Silchar, in Assam. Snatching, loot, the kidnapping of children, robbery etc. have suddenly taken a hike in the town and adjoining areas. There seems to be a pattern. People withdrawing cash from the banks are systematically being targeted in broad daylight and looted in the streets, children are kidnapped, women are harassed and attacked, snatching by bike riders, armed robbery by a large group orchestrated by unknown but seem to be by the next guy. But the police is mute, has no answers and if someone complaints, the complainants are harassed indirectly by the investigating officers.

The Cachar Police seems to have decided not to do their job, is least bothered to perform their basic duty, i.e. to maintain law and order. The journalists are openly threatened if they are doing a reporting against the ‘syndicate raj’ prevailing in the region. Road accidents are killing people. The sleeping administration is in a different world altogether with no accountability, no one is asking the hard questions and our politicians are seen as the companions of the administrative babus.

This is what happens to a society when the corruption, financial agenda and syndicate system enters the lifeline of a public leader, they lose any authority over the babus. The ‘contractor’ in present-day politician makes him a pawn and not a political leader.

Barak Valley lacks leadership and has become a rudderless society. There is no guardian, there is no politician who can stand tall in their own right. The society will always lookout for a ‘tall leader’, who has the reputation as white as his dhoti, till then the police administration will have their free run and law and order will be a premium aspiration of the common man…