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Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

Everybody on this thread is focusing (possibly rightly) on the issue of how badly drafted the law is and how broad it is. What people in the forum might not appreciate is how completely the Police in India is under the thumb of of the politically connected and the Rich. Having stayed in India for the last 5 years, the modern version of the Police force is a very scary to behold.

Imagine that this is the result of an EMAIL from the son of the Union minister. In India even in very serious cases involving common people such as Murder, Arson, Rape etc the police always make a show of waiting for a WRITTEN compliant before they can even start investigation. The politicians cynically abuse the Police force to openly stifle dissent and hassle the common man - India is descending into a Banana republic at an alarming speed - very sad.

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India is descending into a Banana republic at an alarming speed - very sad.

To be fair, India is rising up from it; used to be a lot worse.

India is already a banana republic.

The problem is that out of the 3 main bodies in any country - politicians, bureaucrats, and the armed forces - India has always had a nexus amongst the first two. Although this is much better than politicians+armed forces, it still is a problem. I won't go so far to say that we are descending into a Banana republic as yet; but if the alarming rate at which income inequality is growing right now is not checked, then yes that day wont be far.

India's Police system and the laws such as Criminal Procedure Laws were formulated by British. The objective was to keep citizens completely depended on goodwill of police and politicians to be free and safe. The exact same laws have continued.

I for one think that if the law was drafted "properly", there is very little police can do about it even if the ministers (who supposedly use them) are pissed off and want the police to do something about it.

Such cases happen even in USA, where certain people are charged for misdemeanor's which are not uniformly enforced across the population. An example I can think of is the Eliot Spitzer-Call Girl in DC scandal.

...if the law was drafted "properly", there is very little police can do about it even if the ministers (who supposedly use them) are pissed off and want the police to do something about it.

That doesn't fit in with the nature of gov't corruption or politics.

These actions usually have hidden agendas that are instigated and planned at the party level. At the risk of oversimplifying, while one member sees the law made, another one acts on it.

Just to clarify, Spitzer escaped prosecution for hiring prostitutes. However, he personally prosecuted many people for prostitution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.htm...

(I read your wording as implying Spitzer was subjected to harsher treatment than normal, so thought the clarification was helpful.)

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