Police Treatment Differences in Protests

Dhruv attended protests in two places in India: one was Delhi, and the other was Bangalore. What differences did you notice between the two?

For me, there was a huge contrast between the day of October 8 and then the day of October 10. By chance, October 8 was my birthday, so everyone was celebrating at a five-star hotel. The Bangalore police were so cooperative. They said, “We’ve received orders from above. For your security,

we’ve stationed ten people here at the hotel.”

Outside my hotel room, two policemen sat for 2,400 hours in Bangalore. I told them, “Come on, what’s the need for this?

I don’t want all this. I feel a little weird, I mean, there’s no privacy if someone is sitting right outside the room door.

I said, “Please leave.” They said, “No, no, we have orders. We have to follow them.”

It was for your security. And then, when I came to Delhi, all of a sudden, I was treated like I was some kind of criminal, breaking into the house and roughing up my parents.

And you know what the biggest irony is? I realized that the only difference between these two police officers is the government in power here. The same Delhi police would treat me like the Bangalore police did if someone else were in power in Delhi,

and the Bangalore police would treat me just like the Delhi police did if someone else were in power there.

No, but two police officers were outside Harsh Yadav's hotel room too. The point was they were in a much bigger hurry to get inside.

It's shocking. I mean, realizing that the person who treats you like a VVIP is the same person who'll beat you with a baton tomorrow, if the government at the top…

If things turn around, the police have become slaves to this extent, puppets in the hands of politicians.

That's the difference, man. The government still has its own, right?

The police officer told me, “We'll serve you even more. You—you come into government, and then we'll do all these things for you that we're doing for them right now.” He said it openly when I was in detention.