Hi,
I know this will sound extremely elitist and self centered. But none the less I want to understand this issue.
I also know far more terrible atrocities are committed by the police and what I describe is irrelevant. But it feels as an indication of increasing state control.
I relate this to a news article about Vinod Khosla stopping the public from accessing 65 acres of beach in front of his property. How can beaches be made private? That too such large spaces. One can understand small secluded, cordoned off areas, but to actually prevent entire public.
A recent incident happen in Mumbai where a lady got pulled by the waters at Marine Drive. Even at Juhu Beach one can now find police pushing people away. Personally I find this an infringement. I have my own senses to help me, put up signs, put a lifeguard, but wasting police to control people like this. It increases fear, slowly slowly people give up their liberties, then there is more infringement. All the name of your safety. I know how to take care of myself.
I find this especially in India. There is this effort by the powers to keep people away from nature. You go to a waterfall, from somewhere someone will come and say this is not allowed. The moment some accident happens the place is cordoned off.
Accidents happen on the road, do they stop people from coming on the road. In many parts of the world seas are rougher. Yet you find adventure sports everywhere. So for me it is disturbing the way police works.
If the police cordon's off access to the beach from the public access, what about accesses from the private buildings. This I feel is an infringement on few remaining public spaces. Not enabling people to connect with nature will lead to disfunctions which we see all around us.
I want to know if this is the polices work? I believe there are more important things to do. Also how does one find out more about the deployment of police force. How many are allocated to high end security of individual citizens. It is a gross waste of public money. How to file an RTI to get this information?
Could someone help.
Warm Regards
Kapil Aggarwal
