Of crimes Crimes CRIMES

Of crimes and Crimes and CRIMES …These are tough times for a writer of crime fiction  --- true-life  threateningly  impinges on the fictional, and  imagination reels under the onslaught of newspaper reports.  It would appear we are surrounded by crime --- and crime graded on scales of Czerniesque variations ---  crimes of social nuisance and traffic offences to Crimes of kidnap and theft and murder to CRIMES, the organized crimes of terror and mayhem, crimes against the State, crimes planned and directed by the nether-world.  The boundaries in between are getting increasingly blurred.  There’s an upward mobility from crime to Crime to CRIME!   The Police by and large remain the Police ---  only sometimes, the Politicians  take over.  But that’s not upward mobility, that could be an overlap of jurisdiction, leading sometimes to ultimate usurpation.  Can we then, any longer,  afford the apathy of the uninvolved?  Can any of us survive in an Ivory Tower of Olympian uninvolvement, without being ultimately engulfed?  Not only do we suffer regular assault on our senses and sensibilities, but  we perforce have to walk the tightrope between different kinds of Terrorism unleashed by divergent entities.  To counter the terrorism of the underworld, the State unleashes Terrorism of its own,  almost welcomed by the average citizen suffering a surfeit of crimes of all descriptions, till one gets caught in the pincer movement.  Draconian laws enacted to contain one evil can become instruments of coercion in unscrupulous hands.  To the general unease of a populace rendered vulnerable there’s the added danger of unrest deliberately created by the agents provocateur, trained, infiltrated and controlled by that nebulous but pervasive Foreign Hand.  This infiltration  is perhaps more invasive than we are wont to credit. Identity of skin-colour, physical characteristics, language, culture, food habits, etc., between these hostile agents and the general populace make detection virtually impossible, and the spread of inflammatory propaganda and incendiary action through innocent but gullible tools so much easier!  A whisper becomes a rumour resulting in rowdiness culminating in riots.So stretched are the limits of credulity that nothing appears incredulous any more.  And therein lies the danger that the Innocent may pay for Crimes or CRIMES  they have not committed,  that the victims may be portrayed as the perpetrators, the unwary associates as the active accomplices.  Courts take too long, cases drag on for years, so whatever is fed to and by a multi-pronged media assumes the veneer of authenticity, even for the discerning viewer. The role of the information-givers  gets confused with the role of the investigators.  A query becomes a fact, a thought becomes a quote.  By the time one’s Innocence is proclaimed, after prolonged proceedings, public imagination is seized with other sensations of that moment;  what price, then, the liberty and reputation of the Innocent?  Does that really matter, unless it happens to Us?  That it can, does not occur to us until it does!Just as the commission of crime tends to have  a spiralling effect, so could containment of crime have a diminishing effect.  We have today a scenario where nearly every Citizen indulges  in some crime or the other --- be it traffic offenses, municipal offenses, social crimes --- and then resorts to corrupting officials to overlook that offense;  leading from   corruption to Corruption to CORRUPTION!    If  crime and corruption could be contained by Citizens themselves, there would be that much less burden on our overburdened Police and Courts.  Let us not think that if we can `get away’ with it, we should!  In the long run, we all suffer the consequences of what some of us may have contributed to.Bombay has always preened itself on being the Melting Pot --- of diverse people, cultures,  talents . . . the melting pot has unfortunately become a simmering cauldron, with faggots of fire being continually thrown from all directions.  It’s time to bank down those fires before they conflagrate.  For this, the People need to pull together as much as the Police and the Politicians and refrain from committing or tolerating crimes, as much as Crimes or CRIMES. Sigh!  I know!  We’ve all said it, ad infinitum.  Now how about really, truly, getting down to it?  We all CAN, you know!