Saturday, May 06, 2006

Talking truth to power


Many of you probably have read this first post by Swaroop Srinath. If you haven't, I suggest that you just drop everything, and go read it now.

In the post, Swaroop recounts his brave encounter with a reasonably high-ranking police officer (an Assistant Commissioner of Police!) sitting in a traffic patrol car that blew a red light. He actually chased the vehicle down, caught up with him, took his his name and the vehicle number, and posted on his blog all that information, together with his version of the events.

Even if Swaroop had not specifically requested that his post be given publicity (through blogs, e-mail forwards, etc), I would still have done it anyway. It's the least one can do for a gutsy person, who chose to talk truth to power. May his tribe grow!

Having said this, I have to add that the rate at which his post is making its way into the world is just too slow; in the last couple of days since the post was up, it has been read by just over 2000 people. While this kind of traffic is great for run of the mill blogs and blogposts (like here!), it's just too slow. I just hope some mainstream media outlets pick up this story.

2 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    I'm sure lot of journos hv read it by now (it has already been featured on DP as well). It is just a question of whether they want to write about it or not.

  2. Abi said...

    Kaps: I agree. I hope some credentialed pressperson gets a chance to interview the ACP about this incident, and gives us the officer's version as well.

    Swaroop has written in a follow-up post that he is likely to file a formal complaint. The aftermath is something that is worth being vigilant about. Swaroop will need all the support he can get.