Of questionnaires, questioners and respondents

Here’s a piece of ‘news’: Malu Ranjith, a notorious underworld figure, mentioned in all manner of crime imaginable as master-mind, apologist and/or executor, has sent a questionnaire to the Senior Superintendent of Police detailed to bust underworld crime.

Well, to be honest, I don’t know if there’s a person called Malu Ranjith or even if any underworld figure would have the gumption to query the officer appointed to combat crime. But let’s just say it happened.

Let’s say, for example, that a man who never once found fault with the LTTE, who championed its cause, took instructions from its leadership and even shared the same stage with some of the big names in the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit sends a questionnaire to a man tasked with eliminating the terrorist threat, a soldier that the aforementioned questioner vilified at every turn and spared no sweat to haul up to international courts for alleged war crimes. How should the officer, if he was a gentleman and not a two-bit politician, respond?

Would he summarily dismiss the questionnaire by tossing it into the waste paper basket? Would he engage in political-speak, like the questioner, dodging the issue, squirm in the matter of shy-making, and offer some kind of justification such as, ‘we are just talking; there’s nothing wrong in that, right?’

What would the above mentioned SSP say and do if Malu Ranjith’s trusted comrade-at-arms, Pichchichcha Piyadasa, were to embrace him in public, call him ‘hero’, ‘saviour’, ‘comrade’ and ‘brother’? And if that other notorious thug, Ice Ifthikar, who once said that the SSP can’t even catch a pickpocket, leave alone a seasoned contract killed, were to say ‘the big man is with us now, so there!’? Would he cringe? Will the SSP remember, also, that Kudu Noordeen once said that he (the SSP) didn’t know the difference between Wanathamulla and Jambugahamulla, that he would go to Ravathawatte thinking it’s Wellawatte?

Let us assume that regardless of the jeering from these criminals, the man actually managed to take out all the key figures of organized crime. Let us assume that emboldened by this success, he decided he wants to be Mayor, convinced he would do a better job than the incumbent, who he believes has been stingy in acknowledging his heroics.

Our SSP has a problem. He can’t expect the police officers he once commanded to campaign on his behalf. He has to look elsewhere for support. What does he find? The only people organized in any way, are the cheer boys of the underworld.

What are his options then?

Does he say, ‘I will bed with the devil to become Mayor!’? What would that do to the medals he acquired for exceptional service, bravery beyond the call of duty and so on? What kind of clean-up could he do as Mayor when all kinds of shady creatures would have all kinds of cheques to cash, should he win?

Let’s add another dimension. There’s a foreign expert who has a long track record in crippling anti-crime operations. Let us assume that this foreign expert as his predecessor has been given to wild partying with the likes of Malu Ranjith, Ice Ifthikar, Kudu Noordeen etc.

Let us assume that this foreign expert hates the face of the incumbent Mayor and, like his predecessor, has approved of all moves to stump the SSP when he was fighting crime and is hell-bent on bringing charges and sanctions on the Mayor and by association the city for the use of ‘inappropriate’ methods.

Let us assume that this foreign expert has oodles of money which he offers the SSP, now retired, so he can carry out an effective campaign. What would the much-decorated police officer do, I wonder?

Let us assume also, that it is rumoured that the SSP, though a tough officer and astute commander of his men, also had an inflated ego of gigantic proportion, that he was endowed in addition with a colossal arrogance in that he fancied himself a combination of Hannibal, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Rommel and that he believed he was the city’s greatest treasure, and that all achievements of the Police Department was due to him and him alone; that he was, in short, all about ‘I, me and myself’.

Never mind what the SSP thinks. I am just wondering what the citizenry would make out of all this. A hero is rightfully applauded. A hero can fall; this is history’s most telling lesson.

Yesterday’s hero can be today’s demagogue. Yesterday he may have stood with the best officers in the force and delivered what was thought undeliverable; but today he could wine and dine with some of the most despicable creatures of the city. He will remain a hero for his heroism will be locked in its relative time-frame. But that’s yesterday’s top story, written with admiring flourish.

Today, it’s another day. The assessment criteria are different. I think, it would be folly to offer him a blank cheque, however, especially since he is surrounded by crooks of all hues that as we know are not averse to robbing banks and killing people on contract.

It would be child’s play for them to throw sand in the eyes of a now wide-eyed officer and pinch a cheque. What do you think?

malinsene@gmail.com.