The view from here:

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
                                              - Sir Walter Scott,
Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17. Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)

The home ministry of 'Planet Moon' is worried about the idleness, inefficiency and ineptitude of their police force. There is hardly any work for them to perform. Not many cases are registered; FIRs are not filed, hence, hardly any case to investigate and jails are lying empty. In the eye of home ministry, the police department is getting redundant. Then, one fine morning, highly placed home ministry official convene a meeting and decide to take the services of highly efficient Indian police force at ‘Planet Earth’ to train their incompetent police staff. A formal invitation is sent to Indian counterpart. The Indian police department selects the most competent, ablest and fearless police officer, 'Inspector Matadin' for the job. Before leaving for the Moon, Inspector Matadin pays a visit to 'Kaptan Sahib's' bungalow, offers a customary salute and enquires madam about her preferences and asks what would she like to have from the famous planet as souvenir!

Matadin is given a red carpet welcome on his arrival at Moon. On arriving at the police headquarter, the first thing Matadin enquires was the salary paid to the policeman. He simply got astounded to know the hefty sums paid as monthly emoluments to the average policeman there. "Why a policeman would work if he is not having any 'incentive' to perform?" He retorted. "Cut the salary to one-fourth of existing slab", orders Matadins. Next he enquires about the status of FIRs filed in the ‘Police Thanas’. "The planet is calm and peaceful, Sir! There is hardly any crime in the cities and very few people do come for filing the reports", explained one policeman. Matadin becomes enraged; he pulls his hair on the outdated functioning of the planet's police force. "Create opportunity for the action, dear friend! Put the person behind bars who first reports the incident and start prosecuting him!" came the stunner from Matadin. "But, whatabout witness" quizzed the amazed policemen. "No problem", Matadin continued, "lift anyone from the scene of crime, and coax him to give statement against the informant!"
The policemen of Moon are shell-shocked. They are overwhelmed by the brilliance of Matadin. They offered an impromptu salute to the great Indian cop and started following his diktats.
Needless to say, within a month the entire police force of Moon became galvanized, overactive and over busy. The cases for investigations started piling up, the FIR registers swollen, and jails became over packed. There was utter chaos and unrest everywhere. Stories of police excesses started getting front-page coverage in newspapers. Soon, the home ministry once again convenes an emergency meeting and passes a resolution to send the highly efficient Indian cop back to ‘Planet Earth’ with profuse thanks.
This is just an anecdote from a popular Hindi satire written by Hari Shankar Parsai. But, even after decades of publication, its relevance is still not lost. Events of past few months have acquainted me to many modern-day, real-life Matadins. Absolutely, there is no dearth of them in today's society. They are there in every sphere of life. Not only embodying and empowering corruption, fraudulence, chauvinism, opportunism, repression and sycophancy, but also facilitating them! Be it civic administration, judiciary, media, health department, politics, academic circles or bureaucracy, ample opportunity is there to do a Matadin, who is hell-bent to hijack truth with fraud and deceit. And to outmaneuver gravity with triviality, precision with vagueness, facts with fiction, sincerity with hypocrisy, integrity with deceit, excellence with mediocrity and honesty with treachery!

-Vipin M. Vashishtha

Bottom-line
"The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him."
-Claude Levi-Strauss.

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