The Telegraph
Today's Edition
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
HEROIC WARNING
It may be inadequate to simply see it as a heroic death. Heroic it truly is, but what is more important about the death of Anil Kumar Singh is its poignant irony. Many people before him had fallen to criminals’ bullets on trains running through Bihar. Singh’s death, however, has a different story to tell. He had retired as a deputy inspector-general of police in a state where policemen are known to look the other way when criminals strike. Worse, Bihar’s lawlessness has largely been the result of dark links among policemen, politicians and criminals. This backdrop makes Singh’s death particularly ironic. He died fighting a gang of train robbers who had attacked the passengers. Sad as it is, the incident shows that there still are policemen, even in Bihar, who are inspired by a sense of duty. What is more, they live — and are prepared to die — for the sake of their duty. In Singh’s case, the call of duty stayed with him years after retirement from his job. If his death smacks of the violence that pervades life in Bihar, it also inspires a hope.
For the chief minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, this comes as a warning. He may have inherited the state’s lawlessness from his predecessors. But it has been more than six months since he assumed office. It may not be a long enough time to clean up the mess, but Mr Kumar should have used it to start the process. Singh’s death suggests that the chief minister has not really made much of a difference to the state’s administration. This cannot be a good omen for a new regime. After all, Mr Kumar won the elections last October more because of the division in his opponents’ ranks than the strength of the coalition that he leads. The failure to check crimes will further expose the government’s weaknesses. The new rulers of Bihar hope to lure investors to the state by projecting an image of change. But many painstaking attempts at image-building may be undone by a single incident as the one that claimed Singh’s life