Who is to blame for humiliating the police?
The Website YouTube carried a video clip of that famous incident outside the UN Headquarters in Colombo; go see it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC5EOEs6b6A
Make sure you watch the last one minute carefully and then checkout the reader’s comments that follow. A few may still be there but the YouTube hosts have deleted most, no doubt mortified at the foulmouthed vulgarity of the abuse hurled by Sinhala chauvinists at Virakesari, one of whose cameramen captured the incident on video. Manhandling of the DIG, but interestingly not the details of the telephone conversation with Gothabaya, can also be seen on the local Daily
Mirror site at:
http://video.dailymirror.lk/videos/550/un-under-siege
But my topic today is not really the incident or even the police farce, but rather to use these events to ask some questions about a widespread genre of happenings typified by the episode. Nevertheless I have to use the event as my opening gambit.
Three comments
A retired senior police officer and relative who I spoke to was so ashamed of the depths his former colleagues had sunk to, that he was unpardoning: “Senior Police Officers are to be blamed” was his harsh judgement. Next I reproduce two e-mail comments from two thoughtful, intelligent and politically mature commentators.
“Kumar, I had earlier read the transcript of the conversation between Gotha and the ranking police officer at the UN. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it was a DIG at the receiving end. Over the years I have been the one who has dismissed the state and the regimes in power as beyond redemption. But I have still not got over the shock of seeing that it was a Senior DIG who was abused by Gothabaya. Nor would I have believed that a crowd would attack a DIG and senior police officers, in Colombo and in the presence of a posse of policemen. To me this video clip screams the unimaginable reality at us”.
The other was a shorter comment that placed the incident in the context of the quality of the persons who have risen to the top of our administration and services.
“I never thought it was a DIG who was at the receiving end of Gotha’s tirade. To imagine that Sydney de Soyza, Jungle and Jingle were this poor bloke’s predecessors! Not to mention the predecessors of the Def Secy - Sir Kanthia Vaithi, Arthur Ratnavale, Pots (GVP) Samarasinghe!!”
The obvious question that this begs is who is responsible for this collapse of the Sri Lanka police force into disorder and dysfunction. Is it the regime, not just the current one though it is historically the most egregious, or the force itself and its senior 
personnel, including IGP’s present and recent past, who are the culprits for the shambles? A more general question then surfaces; this is not just the sorry mess in the police, the whole public service is no different - there is much to decry about Sri Lanka but surely the morbidity of the public service is the bottom of the pit. So is it the politicians or the senior and junior levels of the public service that is at the root of the rot in the body of the state? And in this soup of deceit how much confidence can we repose in the highest levels of our judiciary? Is it too on a short leash held at Temple Trees? In today’s depressing scenario it is hard to trust anyone.
Everybody hates the truth
The superficial, but not at all incorrect judgement is to lay the blame at the door of the political rotters who have gotten hold of state power. For decades most Sri Lankan politicians have been degenerate.
Many are not only financially corrupt but also abuse their positions to bark out unethical and unlawful instructions, and bombard public servants with improper directives. This is so widespread that even as a topic of social conversation it has become boring. Dismantling the Public Service Commission and the 1972 Constitution’s provisions giving parliament supremacy over the public service is where it started. Step by step, as the ethical, educational and behavioural standards of MPs and Ministers plummeted, and a cacique of hangers-on multiplied . . . well everyone knows this story; you don’t need to hear it from me one more time.
However, the senior echelons of the public service and the police force are no less to blame. I am sure many of you share a “poor bloke” feeling for this DIG; he must have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. Who would have lifted a finger to save him, if he was fired or transferred to some godforsaken hole for rebuffing Gotha’s unlawful orders and telling him to bugger-off and come via the IGP? (It is an unlawful order, improperly transmitted, no doubt about that). And you would rightly add, it would have made no difference; the IGP would have grovelled and enforced the order anyway.
Nevertheless, is this officer’s career secure any longer? What must the rank and file be saying about him? Is he already being called Mr Honthami-Honthamai, and how long can he take the humiliation before just quitting? Yes he is a poor bloke; whatever he did he was going to get into trouble; that’s what happens when you work for a rotten boss.
But the fact remains that senior public servants and officers must neither grovel at the feet of politicos nor carryout improper, unlawful or harmful instructions. If a body of 25 or 50 top public officers takes a stand today, the government will cower, shrink and get back to its proper place. The effect on the whole public service will be electric, it will transform attitudes down to the smallest messenger boy. It is not to late to start, incompetent political appointees will not participate, but surely there must be 50 honourable men who are willing to stand up and say “No Sir”, when it needs to be done.
Everybody hates the truth I said a moment ago, and that includes you and me dear reader. If scum get elected, who elects them? If standards of public life have degenerated, then you and I are accomplices and a party to it, aren’t we? How often have we taken a stand against injustice? This incident teaches us a lot of things, let us show more fight and determination in the months and years to come.