In the middle of a pandemic and lockdown, tens of thousands of Americans have stormed the streets of cities to protest against the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minnesota. Discarding rules for social distancing and home quarantine, they have marched in solidarity – black, white, Asian and others – to register their anger and fury against police racism, no less endemic in the US than any disease.
In India, we all know about gratuitous police beatings and custodial deaths and the indifference of politicians to blatant state violence. In recent times, many instances of police violence against citizens have been filmed and circulated. They invoke outrage on social media. Instances similar to the manner in which George Floyd was treated are very familiar to us in India. Yet the reactions are vastly different here; vicious police brutality, often communal, is not enough to get us out on the streets.
Where thousands have come out in major cities in the US, a cop mindlessly beating up a hapless man provokes barely a ripple in India; no one ever stands in public protesting it. A good example is the video of policemen beating up four Muslim youths, one of whom, Faizan later died. It was a heart rending clip, but like many similar ones, it had its moment on Twitter and Facebook and then faded away, without any national outcry, much less protests of the kind we are witnessing in the US.
The policeman in India is a law unto himself and for him – constable or officer – beating up people without any fear of being held accountable is a routine matter. No superior is going to question him, no politician is going to call him for an explanation and citizens will also take it in their stride.
A policeman wields his baton to disperse protesting migrant workers, during the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Ahmedabad, Sunday,May 17, 2020. The migrants were demanding a means of transport to travel to their native places in Bihar. Photo: PTI
Popular culture too plays a role. Indian films have no compunctions in showing policemen torture suspects in custody, almost approvingly, despite the rules against it. This would not happen so easily in a Hollywood film, even though in real life it must be happening.
The middle classes, especially in the cities, have a difference experience of the police than the poor or the minorities. A citizen who looks as if they could be well connected would rarely face a hostile policeman, which is not the experience of someone from a lower economic rung.
THE REALITY 
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