Security sans safety

Given the goings on around the country, as is being faithfully reported by the land’s print media, including the dailies of the State, the copy-writing fraternity at the editorial desk have reached a point of preparing the matter to be printed a day in advance, thanks to various recurring features of the declining quality of people’s public conduct. The country’s politicos disdainfully playing their daily game of squabbling among themselves and making public statements that all is well with the economy are an unfailing source of daily grist to the journos even as the masses are unperturbed on reading whatever appears in print day after day. Personnel guarding the borders of the nation ending as martyrs is so routine that nobody’s heart goes out for their families. The ongoing incidents of thefts at ATM (Automated Teller Machine) kiosks, heists in banks, highway robbery, trespass into hostels of ladies, burglary in premises of defence staff despite presence of security staff and so on prompts one to remark that the name of the game people of the nation are playing is briefly security sans safety.

Global rating of countries by various parameters by recognised agencies being an exercise of recent origin has earned for India a place that is none-too-complimentary. One such rating published in the media a few days ago has reflected that the country’s womenfolk are facing threat of assault like no other country in the world.

Schools, spiritual institutions, hospitals, hostels and homes in residential areas of cities, including Mysuru, are witnessing criminal acts by gangs who dare the law-keepers like never before. Instances of robbing and even murdering lone occupants of their homes, both elderly and middle-aged women, such as they are happening in Mysuru like never before, is a disappointing commentary on the steadily deteriorating quality of public life. Maybe, what is reported in the dailies featuring various untoward happenings such as persons disappearing, deaths under suspicious circumstances, kidnapping for ransom and so on doesn’t give a total picture of the health of society.

Episodes of security breach at many strategic spots such as dams across rivers, defence establishments, power-generating plants, residences of VVIPs and so on are reported with the none-too-flattering tail-piece saying: Security is beefed up. The gates of the stable are always closed after the horses are gone.