Azam Khan’s buffaloes are VIP, people are dirt
It should not be said anymore that Uttar Pradesh Police is useless and ineffective. In a matter of hours, it managed to locate seven missing buffaloes that belonged to the State's senior Minister and Samajwadi Party heavyweight Mohammed Azam Khan. These precious animals had disappeared, along with the chords that had chained them, from the Minister's farmhouse in Rampur, which he runs as his fiefdom. If the police's prompt investigation and success are not enough, we have the icing on the cake: A few of the police personnel were taken to task for demonstrating laxity, as a result of which the buffaloes were stolen. Now, this is what one calls fixing accountability in governance. A beaming Mr Khan, flush with the happiness of being reunited with his herd, has boasted that his buffaloes are even more famous than Queen Victoria. It is unlikely that the British will get to hear of the comparison unless some local paper there carries the Minister's statement, or will be amused by this monumental revelation. But then, who cares for the monarchyIJ Not only is Queen Victoria no longer around but the Victorian values that she embodied and etched into the books of history and social conduct too are on their way out. Mr Khan is perhaps one such illustration of those fading values. He is said to have a fierce temper and is prone to using language against critics that could turn the most profane of persons in their graves. But we are perhaps being too unfair to him. Mr Khan is, after all, engaged in the dirty business of politics, and that too in a State where work gets done either by the fear of the rod or by a volley of cuss words. He is not the only one; we have had cases of senior Ministers in the State Cabinet who have excelled in inanities. They have brazenly justified corruption, arm-twisted bureaucrats who refused to follow their illegal diktats and generally made a mess of things with their degenerative remarks on social issues. Nevertheless, they have a heart of gold, and Mr Khan's deep affection towards his buffaloes — never mind his callous attitude towards the hundreds of victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots who have spent months in the open in relief camps, without adequate blankets, medicines and food, and of little children who died of cold there — is ample evidence of that.
Now, if only Uttar Pradesh Police could show similar concern towards the grievances of the common man, the people would be as grateful to the force as the seven close-to-being-orphaned buffaloes doubtless are today. If the police personnel could stop mercilessly beating up women on the streets, locking up rape victims and doing endless other things that their duty forbids them from, perhaps the lives of citizens would become as pleasant as that of the buffaloes that belong to Mr Khan. Meanwhile, whoever said that life like that of an animal is not worth living, didn’t have the Minister’s herd in mind.