In India, this principle regulates the use of force for self-protection. Rutba is the capacity of a single individual to control many others. Under colonial rule, the police and Army worked in tandem.MPs, MLAs, rich landlords, top businessmen and senior government officers are ushered into an “inner office” where the atmosphere is more relaxed and tea/coffee may be served or at least offered. The Allahabad high court was entirely correct to order the eviction in Mathura. Clearly, rutba was lacking in Mathura last week when an armed mob of land-grabbers, operating in the guise of social do-gooders and political anarchists, killed two police officers and injured many others. The only Indian institutions that still demonstrate rutba are the Supreme Court and the Army. We have the right to private property but it can be taken away, quite casually, for “public purposes”. Under the British, the rule of law was primarily imposed to protect the interests of Europeans.
Whom to challan or ignore for a traffic offence; how forcefully to quell unruly behaviour on the streets — each petty incident requires the police officer guide pin suppliers to first think of the political consequences. But it derives salience from institutional prestige and power. In Kenya, another former British colony, till about 2006, a big landowner — usually European — could shoot to kill a trespasser without application of the “quantum of force used” rule. For the middle-class petty businessmen, small farmers and the poor who come thro-ugh intermediaries — lawyers, village and block-level politicians or non-state actors — a darshan is usually arranged by the peon in tacit recognition of their collective power. It is difficult to preserve rutba if a police force has to be on good neighbourly terms with criminals unauthorisedly camping on public land right under their nose as the squatters had the right political connections.
Captains of the British Indian Army who were compelled to leave the military were often appointed to the police, which was considered a “softer” job. In Indian sarkari parlance, however, it’s closer to the “shock and awe” tactics used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their only chance to get the big man’s attention is to hope that his car will stop, its window wound down so that a written petition can be stuffed in and heart-rending pleas babbled to the inhabitant of the car. It worked well to preserve property rights. Our laws are hopelessly idealistic and unenforceable. This impression continues even today. The cost of such hypocrisy is the death of at least two dozen people, many more injured and a nail in the coffin of the rule of law. Decisive, timely, preventive action often suffers. In Indian sarkari parlance, however, it’s closer to the “shock and awe” tactics used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. District magistrates and superintendents of police have to be adept at this game of privileging and stratifying people — just like their colonial predecessors. Neither image is really helpful.