Before Independence satyagrahis stood before a line of policemen with raised lathis. Nearly eight decades after Independence, that haunting image still asks uncomfortable questions of Indian democracy. The greatness of a democracy is measured not by the force it can command, but by the restraint it chooses to exercise. OSWALD PEREIRA reports
He stood alone. He was the leader.
He carried no weapon. His only shield was conviction. Before him stretched a line of policemen in khaki, bamboo lathis gripped firmly in their hands, waiting for the command to advance.
Behind him stood hundreds of unarmed Indians who had chosen to challenge power not with violence but with courage. They, like their leader, were satyagrahis.
Then came the order. And the lathis rose and rained down on them.
That scene was repeated countless times during India’s freedom struggle. It unfolded in cities and villages, outside courts and factories, on dusty roads and crowded squares. Every blow carried the same message from the colonial State: authority would be maintained, dissent would be crushed and obedience would be enforced.
History remembers the lathis of the British Raj. But it also remembers something else. That the Empire grew stronger with every lathi charge—but the lathi charges didn’t make the people any weaker.
They withstood the lathi blows even when their bodies were lacerated and bleeding. Eventually, the force of the lathis lost the battle. India won the battle—of freedom and Independence from the British Raj.
Seventy-nine years after Independence, that image refuses to fade from India’s democratic conscience. The flag has changed. The Constitution has changed. The source of political authority has changed.
Yet one uncomfortable question remains: has the philosophy of policing dissent changed as profoundly as the Republic itself?
The lathi is far older than the British Empire. Long before colonial rule, bamboo staffs were carried by village watchmen, guards and soldiers in kingdoms across the subcontinent, including during the Mughal period.
But it was the British Raj that gave the lathi its modern political meaning. Following the Revolt of 1857, the Police Act of 1861 created a force designed primarily to preserve imperial order rather than serve citizens.
The bamboo staff became the visible arm of colonial authority. The expression “lathi charge” entered India’s vocabulary as a synonym for the suppression of political protest. Independent India inherited that institution almost intact.
Its Constitution, however, demanded something entirely different. Subjects became citizens. Dissent became a constitutional right rather than an act of disloyalty. Peaceful assembly ceased to be a challenge to the ruler and became an essential feature of democratic life.
That constitutional transformation should have been matched by an equally profound transformation in policing.
The transformation has happened—but only in part.
The irony is striking.
Today, the traditional police lathi is largely confined to South Asia, especially countries shaped by British colonial policing, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
The colonial power that institutionalised it abandoned it decades ago. Police in the United Kingdom now carry short rigid or expandable batons. Their counterparts in the United States, France, Germany, Japan and most other democracies likewise rely on modern batons, protective shields, negotiation teams, mounted units, body-worn cameras and increasingly sophisticated crowd-management techniques.
Tear gas, water cannons and other less-lethal options remain available where necessary, but the emphasis has steadily shifted towards de-escalation, communication and accountability.
This is not to suggest that those democracies have perfected policing. They have not. Police brutality and excessive force continue to provoke public outrage, judicial intervention and independent inquiries in many countries. No democracy is immune from abuse of power.
Yet there is a difference worth reflecting upon.
Most mature democracies have consciously moved away from the visual language of colonial crowd control. India, paradoxically, continues to be identified by an instrument that the colonial ruler itself no longer carries.
That paradox should trouble us.
India proudly describes itself as one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations—the land of the Buddha, Mahavira and Gandhi, whose teachings elevated non-violence, compassion and dialogue into universal ideals.
India is also the world’s largest democracy. Yet when citizens assemble peacefully to express dissent, the most visible symbol of State authority often remains the same bamboo staff that once dispersed India’s own freedom fighters.
This is not merely a question of replacing bamboo with polycarbonate or steel. A baton can inflict injury no less than a lathi. The issue is not the material. It is the mindset.
Technology does not define democratic policing.
Philosophy does.
The Constitution does not deny the State the power to maintain public order. Indeed, preserving peace is among its foremost responsibilities. But constitutional government insists upon something equally important: force must remain lawful, necessary, proportionate and exceptional.
Police manuals, judicial pronouncements and internationally accepted principles of democratic policing converge on a simple doctrine. Dialogue should precede coercion. Warnings should precede force. Negotiation should precede confrontation. The objective is not to defeat citizens but to protect both liberty and order.
That distinction separates a Republic from an empire.
Nor is crowd control simply the decision of the constable holding the lathi. Such operations move through a defined chain of command. Senior police officers assess intelligence, formulate operational plans and supervise implementation.
Administrative authorities establish the legal framework within which those operations take place. Responsibility therefore cannot stop at the last person in the line. In any constitutional democracy, accountability must follow authority.
That is why every significant use of force against peaceful demonstrators deserves independent scrutiny. Body-worn cameras, mandatory video recording, after-action reviews, judicial scrutiny and transparent publication of findings should become routine democratic practice rather than extraordinary remedies.
Public confidence grows not when institutions escape scrutiny but when they willingly submit to it.
History repeatedly teaches an uncomfortable truth.
Governments often mistake silence for stability. It rarely is.
Peaceful protest is not democracy’s weakness; it is democracy’s safety valve. It allows grievances to be heard before they become crises. The citizen who carries a placard instead of a stone is not threatening the Republic. He is placing his faith in it.
That faith deserves an equal response from the State.
India’s police perform one of the most difficult duties in public life. They deserve better training, modern equipment, institutional independence and the full support of society. But above all, they deserve a policing philosophy worthy of the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.
The unfinished task of Indian democracy is therefore not merely police modernisation. It is police transformation—from colonial control to constitutional service; from command to consent; from coercion to communication.
And so we return to that lone leader on satyagraha.
He still stands there in the nation’s memory, facing a line of raised bamboo lathis.
Only the year has changed.
The Republic now has a choice that the Empire never did. It can continue to see the peaceful protester through the eyes of colonial authority, or it can see in him what the Constitution sees: not an adversary to be subdued, but a citizen to be heard.
When that transformation is complete, the lathi will cease to be remembered as the last shadow of colonial rule. It will become an artefact of history rather than a symbol of the present.
For the greatness of a democracy is measured not by the force it can command, but by the restraint it chooses to exercise.
Oswald Pereira, a senior journalist, has written ten books, including The Vijay Revolution: People Power & the Politics of Hope, Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi, The Newsroom Mafia, Chaddi Buddies, The Krishna-Christ Connexion, How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life and Crime Patrol: The Most Thrilling Stories. Oswald is a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and practises Kriya Yoga.
More Stories by Oswald Pereira
Some images are AI-generated