Mae'r gwaith. Well, hello everyone. I'm Neil Gerram and I'm going to talk about networking Calico. So networking Calico comes from the open source project Calico, which is sponsored by my employer MetaSwitch Networks, but has quite a large community already beyond MetaSwitch Networks and hopefully that will continue to grow. So networking Calico is a networking back-end for Neutron, which is based on just IP and IP routing. It's a Neutron stadium project, and it has, which means it's part of OpenStack.org. It's an official part of Neutron. You can find the docs and the Git repository on OpenStack.org. And it's an example implementation of a new kind of network for which a spec has just been merged in Neutron, the Rooted Network spec. So this is a spec that's been worked on for a long time since Vancouver or I think even before then, and it's been owned and shepherded wonderfully by Carl Baldwin and much QDOS is due to him for pushing that through. Through at least three major forms that spec's been in, and it's finally landed now. It was approved and merged about a week ago. In a very good form.  And the thing about Project Calico and therefore about networking Calico is that it's basic premise is that there is a vast vast number of data center workloads out there perhaps the vast majority that only need IP level connectivity between themselves. So they don't necessarily need the emulation of being on a single layer two segment, a layer two broadcast domain, which is the emulation that's traditional Neutron networking implementations provide. And the theory is born out I think by practice now that if you accept that premise, if you've got workloads which only require IP level connectivity, then there are various simpler things that you can do to try to connect them together. And networking Calico is one of the ways of doing that. And I'll be describing in some detail in a moment exactly how we do that. So this concept applies to any kind of virtualization plus platform, maesos, Kubernetes, as well as OpenStack. So the project Calico thing is that concept in general. Networking Calico is the integration of that idea into OpenStack and specifically into Neutron. So networking Calico is suitable for connecting VNs that are going to talk to each other at layer three or above, so in other words, using IP-based protocols. And for those workloads, we think that IP routing is a simpler and potentially better performing way of connecting them as I'm going to show than the layer two emulation approaches which require bridging and some form of tunneling between compute hosts. If you, I will admit, if you do have workloads that require on layer two broadcast or layer two multicast or something like VRRP, which builds on those, then those are not going to work out of the box of Calico. So hold on my hands there. This is for IP-based workloads and basically the premise of the project is we think there were a lot of those. So I just want to look a bit more at that rooted network spec that I referred to a moment ago which has recently been approved. So one of the things that that spec does is allow a neutron plug-in or driver to advertise that its networks do not provide layer two adjacency between VMs. So this is new because until now, the implicit assumption has been that on a network, if you connect two VMs or any number of VMs to a network, there is a layer two adjacency between them. So there's going to be a new read-only layer two adjacency property on the network object. And for all traditional neutron networks, that will, if you read that property, you'll get the value true. But a rooted networking implementation like networking Calico can arrange that when that property is read, you'll get false. And in general, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's never any layer two adjacency. It just means you can't rely on it. But in a networking Calico specific implementation, there actually is never any layer two adjacency between any pair of VMs. So you can imagine that that probably is useful because it means that neutron now formally recognises the possibility of networks that provide layer three only connectivity. And you can imagine that someone might provision a data centre so as to have both traditional rooted networks available in it. And then a user of that data centre, someone launching a batch of VMs would be able to look at the neutron IPI. They'd be able to see that this network says layer two adjacency true. This one says layer two adjacency false. And then they would use, they would attach their VMs to the network which was correct for their workloads. So how does Calico connectivity work? What is its data path? And I'm going to go through that here. So, yeah, that's a bit small on my screen, but I'm pleased to see it's nice and big on the monitor. Key ingredients that they are here are that the tap interfaces, so you've got a tap interface coming from each VM. It's E0 on the virtual machine side. It's a tap interface on the host side. So we leave that unbridged. Again, I keep parking on about most existing neutron implementations. So, but most of them plug it into some form of bridge, Linux bridge or OVS. We don't do that, we just leave it dangling. And we enable proxy ARP on that tap interface. That means that if an ARP request comes through on that tap interface, then the compute host will reply to that ARP request regardless of what the IP address being requested is with its own MAC address. And other ingredients that basically there are routes in a routing table on the compute hosts to all of the possible VM destinations. So imagine you've got, I've got two VMs in this picture, one with a dot two address and the one on the right with the dot three address. And imagine one of those is sending data to the other. So the source VM, oh, click something there. The source VM has a routing table like just a sub, just a traditional subnet routing entry. So 10.65.0 slash 24 through dev at zero. Which means that it thinks it's directly connected to anything else in that subnet. It actually isn't, but we maintain that illusion here. So because of that, it's trying to get to <IP_ADDRESS>. It will send an ARP request to discover the destination MAC because of the proxy ARP, the local compute host will reply with its own MAC address. So then there's a single hop, a layer two to the local compute host. But it's not IP address to that compute host. And so what happens is that it pops out of layer two, it goes up to the next routing. And then in the next routing table on that local host, sorry, the source host, I should say. There's a routing, there's a route like, I couldn't point it, but I haven't got one, sorry. So there's a route, basically saying that <IP_ADDRESS> is via the address of the destination compute host. So this is an indirect route. And so the packet gets routed onto that next host, which is the destination compute host. And then on the destination compute host, there is a route like the one on the right, the one, the direct route down that tap interface. And obviously that means that if you want to get to that address, go down the tap interface and the packet goes down that tap interface and it's delivered to the VM that it was intended to be delivered to. So pretty simple. How did all of those routes get there? So the route on the source vn is there by perfectly normal DHCP. That's absolutely standard, that DHCP tells that your address is <IP_ADDRESS>, tells you the size of the subnet and Linux will respond to that by programming a directly connected route like that one. The tap route on the destination compute host gets there because we have an agent running on every compute host. The Calico agent is the thing that we call Felix and Felix programs that route. So what happens is that the networking Calico ML2 driver handles the port creation. It then basically passes information about that port including its IP address and the tap device name to the Felix agent which is running on that compute host and the Felix agent responds to that by programming a route like that one that you see there. And the final route gets there through BGP. So as well as running this Calico agent called Felix on every compute host, we also run a BGP speaker on every compute host, specifically bird. So those birds pair with each other and propagate routes around the compute host network. And that's what generates the indirect route for <IP_ADDRESS> on the source compute host. So basically when the direct route, the tap route that you see on the right hand side there is BGP exported by a compute host that has that .44 IP address. On all of the other compute host it causes that indirect route, <IP_ADDRESS> via the .44 address to appear to be programmed. That's just standard BGP operation. It's exactly the same as how routing in the internet works. So there you have it. That's the Calico data path, three simple IP hops. There are no overlays, bridges, or tunneling here. And also note that we're not using any namespaces. So everything I've shown you here is in the default namespace. So I should say a few words about use cases, provisioning and a bit about isolation and IP addressing because you might be wondering based on what I've said how it could work for different tenants to use overlapping IP ranges, for example, or about how we provide isolation between tenant networks. And we do have some slightly different answers to those questions. So Calico is primarily intended for provider networks, which means so in other words for networks that the cloud admin provisions ahead of time and then makes available to the cloud's users. It is also possible for a tenant to create a Calico network if your neutral server is configured with Calico there. But semantically, that network basically behaves the same as if a cloud admin had provisioned it ahead of time. So it's only tenant-related aspect is that if the tenant doesn't create it as a shared network then only that tenant will be able to see it and so only that tenant will be able to use IPs from the SIDAs which are associated with that network. And specifically, it's not possible for a Calico tenant network to have its own address space or address scope and hence not possible for different tenants to use overlapping IP ranges. So as we stand at the moment, all Calico networks are in the same address space. We do have a design for that if we need it for overlapping IPs. But so far none of the partners and customers and interested parties that we've talked to about using Calico have had a firm need for that and so it's unimplemented at this point. When it comes to isolation, Calico doesn't implement any automatic isolation between its networks. In general, OpenStack doesn't really specify whether isolation exists. I hope I'm correct on this. Whether isolation exists between provider networks. It does for tenant networks clearly, but for provider networks not. And in Calico we take the view that we want all Calico provider networks to be reachable to each other and that whatever isolation you need, you achieve using security groups. And that's actually very simple. So to take an example, suppose you had a Calico provider network with massive 10 slash 8 IP range and you got two tenants using this, but the typical case would be that each of those tenants wants their VMs to be isolated from the VMs of the other tenants. Absolutely standard use case. And they each have a security group called default and typically that security group only allows inbound access from other VMs in the default group. And as long as they launch their own VMs in that default security group, they will get the isolation that they want. Slightly confusing because they both have a security group called default. So even though the names are confusing the same, these are actually scopes to the tenant. So they're actually different security groups. They have different UIDs, so you really do get isolation through that mechanism. Another networking Calico feature is efficient handling of both public and private VIX IPs. And we still do allow floating IPs as well where that's useful. So in a typical Calico deployment, the cloud admin would provision two Calico provider networks, one with a range, probably a small range, of just because of scarcity, of public by which I mean internet-routable IP addresses, and one with a much larger range of private, so RFC 1918 addresses. And when a VM is launched that needs to be contactable inbound from the internet, it can be attached to the first of those networks, and so it gets a public fixed IP. Otherwise it gets attached to the second of those networks and it gets a private fixed IP. By the way, obviously, as per normal, it's still possible for a VM with a private IP to access the internet. You just need to have NAT somewhere, ideally on the border between the data centres I've shown here and the outside world, so it's not to do unnecessary NATs when you're just doing traffic internal within the data centre. If you're communicating between the internet and a VM that has a public IP, you don't have to have NAT anywhere. If you're communicating within a data centre between a VM with a private IP and a VM with a public IP, or more generally between any two VMs on different calico networks, then that works. We've decided the same data path as I showed earlier, so routing obviously still works when the source and destination addresses are not in the same sublets, obviously. And that's also related to the fact that we haven't implemented any isolation by default between these calico networks. I promise a bit more about how we make DHCP work, which I think is not obvious, because normally DHCP requires the server and all potential clients to be on our layer to broadcast domain, and that's very much what we're not doing in calico, so I said before that we leave all these tap interfaces which come from the VMs, we leave them dangling. We don't bridge them. So how does DHCP work in that scenario? And happily, DNS mask helps us here because DNS mask has neat features that allow it to basically the interface that DNS mask regards as its master DHCP interface, where there has to be an address in the sub that it's going to allocate, defined. That's the one on the left there, so that's DNS mask's primary interface. And DNS mask has features that allow it to listen on many other interfaces as well as that one, so specifically on all of those tap interfaces. And to treat all of those tap interfaces as aliases of the primary interface, in the sense that if a DHCP request comes in on one of those aliased interfaces, it will satisfy it using the DHCP information that it has for the primary interface. So we had to upstream some very minor deltas there, too, to DNS mask. In fact, that was implemented for IPv4, but not yet for IPv6, so we contributed the change there for IPv6. Generally, by the way, even though I'm putting IPv4 addresses on all of these slides for brevity, everything you see here works for IPv6 as well, with only very minor technical changes, such as changing ARP to NDP in the IPv6 case. So, yeah, using these DNS mask options, listen, bind dynamic. Listen means listen to all of the tap interfaces. Bind dynamic tells it to kind of to watch for any new tap interfaces that may appear at any time and to listen to all of the tap interfaces. Bridge interface is the option which tells it to basically behave as though the interfaces were bridged, even though they are in fact not. And so, basically, we just have to modify the DHCP agent a bit in order to drive DNS mask in that way, and then DHCP works for us. So just a note about releases. We've been working on this for a while. When we first developed this, we've been working on this for a while. We've been working on this for a while. We've been working on this for a while. When we first developed Calico, there were a couple of key ingredients missing from the vanilla open stack, which we needed to demonstrate the Calico connectivity approach. Firstly, in both Nova and Neutron, there was no concept of having this unbridge tap interface. So that's something that we had to add. It's called now in the code base is VIF type tap. So this is a tap interface on the compute host side into any kind of bridge. And secondly, in Neutron, we needed to add some enhancements to the DHCP agent code to allow it to drive DNS mask in the way that I've just described. And because of that, for a few releases, the first few releases that we supported, Icehouse, Juno and Kilo, we actually had our own forks of Nova and Neutron with those patches in, but by the time that Liberty had come along, we had managed to get those upstream. We were actually working with Vanilla OpenStack. Formerly speaking, even with Liberty and Metaca, there was still something missing, which is something explicit on the Neutron API to say, I've gone wrong there, sorry, to say that this network only provides layer-free connectivity. But that's the thing I was talking about earlier. That's the L2 adjacency property by this rooted network spec. So the spec is now there. The implementation of that will land in Neutron. And it was always possible to demonstrate Calico in those prior releases as well. It's just that you needed to kind of have an understanding that the Calico network was going to give you slightly different semantics, whereas from Neutron onwards, that will be absolutely explicit. I'd like to talk about a couple of developments that we've added more recently to Networking Calico. The first of these is support for floating IPs, for which I'm indebted to Nick Bartos of Piston, ex Piston and Cisco. So floating IP requires a one-to-one DINAT on the inbound path because the VM itself is not aware of its floating IPs. In mainstream in reference Neutron, this is done by the L3 agents, but in the Calico implementation we pass the information for the mapping from the floating to the fixed IP to the Felix agent that I mentioned before. And because Felix is already doing a load of other programming of IP tables for things like security and metadata, it handles that as well. Because that's running on every compute host, it's a bit like what DVR does. We have a slight modelling issue here, which is that I said earlier that Calico networks are really provider networks, but the representation of floating IPs, the modelling of floating IPs as it stands in Neutron in a moment, requires basically a mapping from a floating IP pool which is defined on an external network through a virtual router to a tenor network. So this is perhaps one reason to use tenor networks with Calico, so that you can do that. But in the medium term, I think we hope that there's no fundamental reason why floating IPs have to be like that. So hopefully then we can get the model generalised to allow floating IPs to target IPs in provider networks as well as in tenor networks. The second development is using a Calico-specific DHCP agent instead of the reference Neutron DHCP agent. We found that when we ran the Neutron DHCP agents on every compute host so a consequence of the DHCP thing I was talking about earlier is that we have to run DHCP agents everywhere on every compute host, rather than say just on a network node. We found that the RPC communications put too much load on the Neutron server and cause requests to the other requests to the Neutron server to time out. And we think that's to do with things like the agent state reporting and the finding out of port information from the server to the DHCP agents. So Calico's Felix agent gets the information from the ML2 mechanism driver through a distributed database which is, we use XCD. And actually that XCD database already included almost all of the information that we needed for the DHCP provisioning. And so we thought it would be interesting to make a Calico DHCP agent which was driven not by the Neutron RPC mechanisms but by the information that we had in that XCD database. And we found that with the Neutron DHCP agent we were struggling beyond about 250 nodes with the Calico DHCP agent our current scale target is 500 nodes and we're reaching so that seems to help us. And I think there's a broader conversation going on about that within Neutron about the scalability of these RPC communications. And I should say that although the kind of the top level of that DHCP agent is now different from the reference Neutron one still benefiting from a lot of the internal classes which are used from the reference implementation such as all the logic for generating DNS mass config and for driving DNS mass. So actually we're still getting a lot of value out of the reference implementation there. So I'll skip over this quite quickly because I think we should be getting on to questions soon. But we have addressed that plug-in. I'm going to show a video very shortly which shows that being being used. It works with Liberty We have packages for packages for various operating systems trustysenial Red Hat, we have 2D charms, we have fuel plugins While at this summit I've made an integration, I've submitted a change which hopefully makes Calico work with Korea and I've had people approach me about integration for Ansible and Source. So hopefully those will learn LAN before much longer. And what next? So Neutron networking Calico and the wider Calico project is already completely open source. But I'd like us to do more in the sense of operating fully in the open stack spirit to do a few more of our design discussions in public, get a bit more community input. And so I do want to set up an IRC meeting for networking Calico. I plan to do that soon. And I'd really appreciate your input on all of these things. So step one has been this talk which is the first opportunity I've had to really introduce this project in detail to the community. Step two will be that meeting. We do have a list of things that could be coming next for networking Calico. So one of those is IPAN for example, to help the clustering of the routes that we generate. But I think that more generally we want to keep an open mind and take community input on what other things we could be added to. So that's it. We think it's networking Calico. We think it's a simple and scalable way to network IP workloads. Security is on there too. I haven't talked about security in this presentation very much. But basically in an open stack context it just renders neutron security groups using IP tables. It does actually allow various richer more expressive kinds of security policy as well such as for example allowing the cloud admin to provision policies that are applied before any tenant specified security groups and so can't be overridden by tenants. But that's not currently through the open stack API. So I'd like to thank you all for coming to listen to this presentation today and encourage you to participate in the IRC meeting when I set that up. Thank you very much.


Chapter 3 of Concerning Virgins, Book III. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Concerning Virgins by St. Ambrose. Book III, Chapter III. Virgins are exhorted to avoid visits, to observe modesty, to be silent during the celebration of the mysteries after the example of Mary. Then after narrating the story of a heathen youth and saying of a poet, St. Ambrose relates a miracle wrought by Holy Priest. I will too, that visits amongst the younger, except such as maybe due to parents and those of like age, be few. For modesty is worn away by intercourse, and boldness breaks forth, laughter creeps in, and bashfulness is lessened, whilst politeness is studied. Not to answer one who asks a question is childishness, to answer is nonsense. I should prefer therefore, that conversation should rather be wanting to a virgin than a bound. For if women are bidden to keep silence in churches, even about divine things, and to ask their husbands at home, what do we think should be the caution of virgins, in whom modesty adorns their age, and silence commands their modesty? Was it a small sign of modesty that when Rebecca came to wed Isaac, and saw her bridegroom, she took a veil that she might not be seen before they were united? Certainly the fair virgin feared not for her beauty, but for her modesty. What of Rachel? How she, when Jacob's kiss had been taken, wept and groaned, and would not have ceased weeping, had she not known him to be a kinsman? So she both observed what was due to modesty, and admitted not kindly affection. But if it is said to a man, gay is not on a maid, lest she cause thee to fall, what is to be said to a consecrated virgin who, if she loves, sins in mind, if she is loved, enact also? The virtue of silence, especially in church, is very great. But no sentence of the divine lessons escape you, if we give ear, restrain your voice, at a no word with your lips, which you would wish to recall, but let your boldness to speak despairing. For in truth, in much speaking, there is abundance of sin. To the murderer it was said, Thou hast sinned, be silent, that he might not sin more, but to the virgin it must be said, be silent, lest Thou sinned. For Mary, as we read, kept in heart all things that were said concerning her son, and do you, when any passages read where Christ is announced as about to come, or is shown to have come, not make a noise by talking, but attend? Is anything more unbecoming than the divine words should be so drowned by talking, as not to be heard, believed, or made known, that the sacraments should be indistinctly heard through the sound of voices, that prayer should be hindered when offered for the salvation of all? The Gentiles pay respect to their idols by silence, of which this instance is given. As Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, was sacrificing the sleeve of a barbarian lad, who was lighting the lamp for him, caught fire, and burned his body. Yet he remained without moving, and neither betrayed the pain by a groan, nor showed his suffering by silent tears. Such was the discipline of reverence in a barbarian lad, that nature was subdued. Yet he feared not the gods, who were no gods, but the king. For why should he fear those who, if the same fire had caught them, would have burned? How much better still is it, where a youth at his father's banquet is bidden not to betray by coarse gestures his unchaste loves? And do you, holy virgin, abstain from groans, cries, coughing, and laughter at the mystery? Can you not at the mystery do what he did at a banquet? Let virginity be first marked by the voice, let modesty close the mouth, let religion remove weakness and habit instruct nature, let her gravity first announce a virgin to me, a modest approach, a sober gate, a bashful countenance, and let the march of virtue be preceded by the evidence of integrity. That virgin is not sufficiently worthy of approval, who has to be inquired about when she is seen. There is common story now, when the excessive croaking of frogs was resounding in the ears of the faithful people, the priest of God bade them to be silent, and show reverence to the sacred words, and then at once the noise was stilled. Shall then the marshes keep silence and not the frogs? And shall irrational animals re-acknowledge by reverence what they know not by nature? While the shamelessness of many such, that many care not to pay that respect to the religious feelings of their minds, which they do to the pleasure of their ears. End of Chapter 3, Book III. Chapter 4 of Concerning Virgins. Book III. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Concerning Virgins by Saint Ambrose. Book III. Chapter 4. Having summed up the address of Liberius, Saint Ambrose passes on to the virtues of his sister, especially her fasts, which however he advises her to moderate to some extent, and to exercise herself in other matters after the example which he adduces. Especially he recommends the Lord's prayer, and the repetition of psalms by night, and the recitation of the creed before daylight. After such a fashion did Liberius of holy memory address you in words beyond the reality of practice in most cases, but coming short of your performance, who have not only attained to the whole of discipline by your virtue, but have surpassed it in your zeal. For we are bidden to practice fasting, but only for single days. But you, multiplying nights and days, pass untold periods without food, and if ever requested to partake of some, and to lay aside your book a little while, you at once answer, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Your very meals consisted, but of what food came to hand, so that fasting used to be preferred to eating what was repugnant. Your drink is from the spring, your weeping and prayer combine, your sleep is on your book. These kings were suited to younger years, whilst he was ripening with the gray hairs of age. But when a virgin has gained the triumph over her subdued body, she should lessen her toil, that she may be preserved as teacher for a younger age. The vine laden with the fruitful branches of full growth soon breaks, unless it be from time to time kept back. But whilst it is young, let it grow rank, and as it grows older be pruned, so as not to grow into a forest of twigs, or die deprived of life by its acceptive produce. A good husband man, by tending the soil, keeps the vine in excellent order, protects it from cold, and guards it from being parched by the midday sun. And he works his land by turns, or if he will not let it lie fallow, he alternates his crops, so that the fields may rest through change of produce. Do you too, a veteran in virginity, at least sow the fields of your breast with different seeds, at one time with moderate sustenance, at another with sparing fasts, with reading, work, and prayer, that change of toil may be as a truce for rest. The whole land does not produce the same harvest. On one side vines grow on the hills, on another you can see the purple olives, elsewhere the scented roses. And after leaving the plow, the strong husband man with his fingers scrapes the soil to plant the roots of flowers. And with the rough hands wherewith he turns the bullocks driving amongst the vines, he gently presses the udders of the sheep. The land is the better, the more numerous are its fruits. So do you, following the example of a good husband man, avoid cleaving your soil with perpetual fastings, as if with deep plowings. Let the rows of modesty bloom in your garden and the lily of the mind, and let the violet beds drink from the source of sacred blood. There is a common saying, what you wish to perform abundantly sometimes do not do at all. There ought to be something to add to the days of Lent, but so that nothing be done for the sake of ostentation but of religion. Frequent prayer also commands us to God, for if the Prophet says, seven times a day have I praised thee. Though he was busy with the affairs of a kingdom, what ought we to do who read, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation? Certainly our customary prayers ought to be said with giving of thanks, when we rise from sleep, when we go forth, when we prepare to receive food, after receiving it, and at the hour of incense, when at last we are going to rest. And again, in your bedchamber itself, I would have ye join psalms infrequent into change with the Lord's prayer, either when you wake up, or before sleep beduse your body, so that at the very commencement of rest sleep may find you free from the care of worldly matters, meditating upon the things of God. And indeed, he who first found out the name of philosophy itself, every day before he went to rest, had the flute player play softer melodies to soothe his mind disturbed by worldly cares. But he, like a man washing tiles, fruitlessly decided to drive away worldly things by worldly means. For he was indeed rather besmearing himself with fresh mud in seeking a reward from pleasure. But let us, having wiped off the filth of earth devices, purify our utmost souls from every defilement of the flesh. We ought also, specially to repeat the creed, as a seal upon our hearts, daily before light, and to recur to it in thought whenever we are in fear of anything. For when is the soldier in his tent, or the warrior in battle without his military oath? End of chapter 4, Book III. Chapter 5 of Concerning Virgins. Book III. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Concerning Virgins by St. Ambrose. Book III, Chapter 5. St. Ambrose, speaking of tears, explains David saying, Every night wash I my couch with my tears, and goes on to speak of Christ bearing our griefs and infirmities. Everything should be referred to his honor, and we ought to rejoice with spiritual joy, but not after a worldly fashion. And who can now fail to understand that the Holy Prophet said for our instruction, Every night will I wash my couch and water my bed with my tears. For if we take it literally for his bed, he shows that such abundance of tears should be shed as to wash the bed and water it with tears. The couch of him who is praying for weeping has to be done with the present, rewards with the future, since it is said, Blessed are ye that weep, for ye shall laugh. Or if we take the word of the Prophet as applied to our bodies, we must wash away the offenses of the body with tears of penitence. For Solomon made himself a bed of wood from Lebanon, its pillars were of silver, its bottom of gold, its back strewn with gems. What is that bed but the fashion of our body? For by gem is set forth the splendor of the brightness of the air, fire is set forth by the gold, water by silver, and earth by wood. Of which four elements the human body consists, in which our soul rests. If it do not exist deprived of rest by the roughness of hills, or the damp ground, but raised on high, above vices, supported by the wood. For which reason David also says, The Lord will send him help upon his bed of pain. For how can that be a bed of pain which cannot feel pain, and which has no feeling? But the body of pain is like the body of that death, of which it is said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. And since I have inserted a clause in which mention is made of the Lord's body, lest any one should be troubled at reading that the Lord took a body of pain, let him remember that the Lord grieved and wept over the death of Lazarus, and was wounded in his passion, and that from the wound there went forth blood and water, and that he gave up his spirit. Water for washing, blood for drink, the spirit for his rising again. For Christ alone is to us hope, faith and love, hope in his resurrection, faith in the lava, and love in the sacrament. And as he took a body of pain, so too he turned his bed in his weakness, for he converted it to the benefit of human flesh. For by his passion weakness was ended, and death by his resurrection. And yet he ought to mourn for the world but to rejoice in the Lord, to be sad for penitence, but joyful for grace. Though too, the teacher of the Gentiles by wholesome precept has bidden to weep with them that weep, and to rejoice with them that do rejoice. But let him who desires to solve the whole difficulty of this question have recourse to the same apostle. Whatsoever you do, says he, in word or deed, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father by him. Let us then refer all our words and deeds to Christ, who brought life out of death, and created light out of darkness. For as the sick body is at one time cherished by warmth, at another sooth by cool applications, and the variation of remedies, if carried out according to the direction of the physician, is healthful. But if done in opposition to his orders increases the sickness. So whatever is paid to Christ is a remedy. Whatever is done by our own will is harmful. There ought then to be the joy of the mind, conscious of right, not excited by unrestrained feasts, or natural concerts, for in such modesty is not safe, and temptation may be suspected, where excessive dancing accompanies festivities. I desire that the vergence of God should be far from this. For as a certain teacher of this world has said, no one dances when sober unless he is mad. Now, if according to the wisdom of this world, either drunkenness, or madness is the cause of dancing, what a warning is given to us amongst the instances mentioned in the Divine Scriptures, where John, the forerunner of Christ, being beheaded at the wish of a dancer, is an instance that the allurements of dancing did more harm than the madness of sacrilegious anger. End of chapter 5 Book III Chapter 6 of Concerning Virgins Book III This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Concerning Virgins by Saint Ambrose Book III Chapter 6 Having mentioned the Baptist, Saint Ambrose enters into a description of the events concerning his death and speaks against dancing and the festivities of the wicked. And since we must not cursorily pass by the mention of so great a man, let us consider who he was, by whom, on what account, how, and at what time he was slain. A just man, he is put to death by adulterers, and the penalty of a capital crime is turned off by the guilty on to the judge. Again the reward of the dancer is the death of the prophet. Lastly, a matter of honour even to all barbarians. The cruel sentence is given in the midst of banketing and festivities, and the news of the deadly crime is carried from the banket to the prison, and then from the prison to the banket. How many crimes are there in one wicked act? A banket of death is set out with royal luxury, and when a larger concourse than usual had come together, the daughter of the queen, sent for from within the private apartments, is brought forth to dance in the sight of men. What could she have learnt from an adulterous but loss of modesty? Is anything so conductive to lust as within seemly movements best to expose in nakedness those parts of the body which either nature has hidden or custom has veiled, to sport with the looks, to turn the neck, to loosen the hair? Fittly was the next step an offence against God. For what modesty can there be where there is dancing and noise and clapping of hands? The king said the king being pleased said unto the damsel that she should ask of the king whatsoever she would. Then he swore that if she asked he would give her even half of his kingdom. See how worldly men themselves judge of their worldly power so as to give even kingdoms for dancing. But the damsel being taught by her mother demanded that the head of John that which is said that the king was sorry is not repentance on the part of the king but a confession of guilt which is according to the wound of the divine rule that they who have done evil condemn themselves by their own confession. But for their sakes which sat with him it is said what is more base than that a murder should be committed in order not to displease those who sat at mid and followed for his oath's sake what a new religion he had better have foresworn himself the lord therefore in the gospel bids us not to swear at all that there be no cause for perjury and no need of offending and so an innocent man is slain that an oath be not violated I know which to have in the greatest horror perjury is more than are the oath's of tyrants who would not think when he saw someone running from the bank it to the prison that orders had been given to set the prophet free who I say having heard that it was Herod's birthday and of the state bank it and the choice given to the damsel of choosing whatever she wished would not think that the man was sent to set John free what has cruelty in common with delicacies what have death and pleasure in common the prophet is hurried to suffer at the festival time by a festival order by which he would even wish to be set free he is slain by the sword and his head is brought on a platter this dish was well suited to their cruelty in order that their insatiate savageness might be feasted look most savage king at the sides worthy of thy feast stretch forth thy right hand that nothing be wanting to thy cruelty that streams of holy blood may pour down between thy fingers and since the hunger for such an herd of cruelty could not be satisfied by bankets nor the thirst by goblets drink the blood pouring from the still flowing veins of the cut off head behold those eyes even in death the witnesses of thy crime turning away from the sight of the delicacies the eyes are closing not so much owing to death as to horror of luxury that bloodless golden mouth whose sentence thou couldst not endure is silent and yet thou fairest yet the tongue which even after death is born to observe its duty as when living condemned though with trembling motion the incest this head is born to herodias she rejoices she exalts as though she had escaped from the crime because she has slain her judge what say you holy women do you see what you ought to teach and ought also to untie your daughters she dances but she is the daughter of an adulteress but she who is modest she who is chaste let her teach her daughter religion not dancing and do you graven prudent men learn to avoid the bangits of hateful men if such are the bangits what will be the judgment of the impious end of chapter 6 book the third chapter 7 of concerning virgins book the third this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org concerning virgins by Saint Ambrose book the third chapter 7 in reply to Marcelina who had asked what should be thought of these who to escape violence kill themselves Saint Ambrose replies by narrating the history of Pelagia a virgin with her mother and sister and goes on to speak of the martyrdom of the blessed Soteris one of their own ancestors as I am drawing near the close of my address you make a good suggestion holy sister that I should teach upon what we ought to think of the merits of those who have cast themselves down from a height or have drowned themselves in a river lest they should fall into the hands of persecutors seeing that holy scripture forbids a Christian to lay hands on himself and indeed as regards virgins in the necessity of preserving their purity we have a plain answer seeing that there exists an instance of martyrdom Saint Pelagia lived formally at Antioch being about 15 years old a sister of virgins and a virgin herself she shut herself up at home at the first sound of persecution seeing herself surrounded by those who would drop her of her faith and purity in the absence of her mother and sisters without any defense but all the more filled with God what are we to do unless says she to herself thou a captive of virginity take his thought in both wish and fear to die for I meet not death but seek it let us die if we are allowed or if they will not allow it still let us die God is not offended by a remedy instable and faith permits the act in truth if we think of the real meaning of the word how can what is voluntary be violence it is rather violence to wish to die and not to be able and we do not fear any difficulty for who is there who wishes to die and is not able to do so when there are so many easy ways to death for I can now rush upon the sacrilegious authors and overthrow them to quench with my blood the kindled fires I am not afraid that my right hand may fail to deliver the blow or that my breast may shrink from the pain I shall leave no sin to my flesh I fear not that a sword will be wanting I can die by my own weapons I can die without the help of an executioner in my mother's bosom she is said to have adorned her head and to have put on a bridal dress so that one would say that she was going to a bridegroom not to death but when the hateful persecutors saw that they had lost the prey of her chastity they began to seek her mother and sisters but they by a spiritual flight already held the field of chastity when as on the one side persecutors suddenly threatened them and on the other escape was shut off by an impetuous river they said what do we fear see the water what hinders us from being baptized and this is the baptism whereby sins are forgiven and kingdoms are sought this is a baptism after which no one sins let the water receive us which is wont to regenerate let the water receive us which makes virgins let the water receive us which opens heaven protects the weak hides death, makes martyrs we pray thee creator of all things let not the water scatter our bodies deprived of the breath of life let not death separate our obsequies whose life's affection has always conjoined but let our constancy be one our death one and our burial also be one having said these words and having slightly girded up the bosom of their dress to veil their modesty without impeding their steps joining hands as though to lead a dance they went forward to the middle of the river bed directing their steps to where the stream was more violent and the depth more abrupt no one drew back no one ceased to go on no one tried where to place her steps they were anxious only when they felt the ground grieved when the water was shallow and glad when it was deep one could see the pious mother tightening her grasp rejoicing in her pledges afraid of a fall lest even the stream should carry off her daughters from her these victims, or Christ said she, do I offer as leaders of chastity guides on my journey and companions of my sufferings but who would have cause to wonder that they had such constancy whilst alive seeing that even when dead they preserved the position of their bodies and moved not lay bare their corpses nor did the rapid cause of the river roll them along moreover the holy mother though without sensation still maintained her loving grasp and held the sacred knot which she had tied and loosed not her holding death that she who had paid her debt to religion might die leaving her piety as her heir for those whom she had joined together with herself or martyrdom even to the tomb but why use instances of people of another race to you my sister whom the inspiration of her editor chastity has taught by descent from a martyred ancestor for whence have you learned who had no one from within to learn living in the country with no virgin companion instructed by no teacher you have played the part then not of a disciple for this cannot be done without teaching virtue for how could it come to pass that holy soteres should not have been the originator of your purpose who is an ancestor of your race who in an age of persecution born to the heights of suffering by the insults of slaves gave to the executioner even her face which is usually free from injury when the whole body is tortured and rather beholds than sufferer's torments and patience that when she offered her tender cheeks to punishment the executioner failed in striking before the martyr yielded under the injuries she moved not her face she turned not away her countenance she uttered not a groan or a tear lastly when she had overcome other kinds of punishment she found the sword which she desired end of chapter 7 end of book III of Concerning Virgins by St. Ambrose of Milan


Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and dear friends. I, Dr. Aniruddha Babar, your host for today's webinar. We're going to be organizing my webinar series. Welcome to all. Today is a special day for us because we have a special guest with us and that is Julia Francis Ribeiro, fondly known as Ribeiro Sahib in the Police Circle of Maharashtra. Julia Francis Ribeiro born on May 5, 1929 in Mumbai and graduated in Commerce and Law from Bombay University. He joined the Indian Police Service in 1953 and rose to be the Commissioner of Police in Mumbai from February 1982 to May 1985. Later he served in quick succession as Director General, Center Reserve Police, Director General of Police, Gujarat, Special Secretary to the Government of India's Home Ministry, Director General of Police, Punjab and finally advisor to the Governor of Punjab. Besides other awards, he is the recipient of the Padma Bhushan in 1987. Post retirement, Sir was appointed Ambassador to Romania where he served for four years from 1989 to 1993. Sir also runs two NGOs, the Mohalla Committee Movement Trust that is MCMT for communal harmony in the city of Mumbai and the Public Concern of Governance Trust, PCGT for good governance to fight corruption also in Mumbai city. We are really privileged to have Sir to speak on the very interesting topic and that is depoliticizing the police. Considering the today's scenario and the political context, this topic is very important. Not only for the democratic fabric of this country but also its future. Sir, on behalf of Tetsuo College and Tetsuo.gov's webinar committee, I welcome you and request you to take a charge of this virtual stage and please begin with your presentation. Thank you Sir. Over to you Sir. Thank you Dr. Babar. It's a very important topic I agree and I'm very happy that people seem to be getting interested in it now. I've been trying to get the public interested in this topic, writing about it but nobody seems to bother. They don't understand what police reforms mean for instance. They think it means that the police should become more amenable to the public that they should be polite and they should talk. Well, all that is true but that depends upon the leadership of the police. The leader can always ensure that that is done but when we talk about police reforms, it means depoliticizing the police because if the police act according to what the party in power wants and not according to the law of the country then the police is not doing the job that it had been set up to do. The police is a very important arm of the government. It is its most visible arm and people more or less understand that this is government. This is the representative of government. There are two big government agencies in the city of Mumbai for instance. The big city, the metropolis which is one of them is the police and the other is the municipality headed by municipal commissioner who usually is from the IAS. So you have these two who really matter to the ordinary person. Now what is politicization? How is the police politicized? It is politicized by the misuse of the power of appointments and transfers. This is the one line answer to the question of how the police gets politicized. Now this power of appointments and transfers as you know even in Nagaland, vests with the state government and when you talk about the state government there are two ministers who are involved. What is of course the chief minister to whom every important decision goes and then there is the home minister who is in charge of the department. Now if these two gentlemen get together or if there is one person, for example in Bihar today, Nitish Kumar has in charge of the home department also. This used to happen even in Maharashtra. Usually the chief minister used to take charge of the ministry of home and that is how it is not there today in Maharashtra because another party it's a three party government and the NCP holds the portfolio of home. So normally you have two but very often just one that is the chief minister. Whoever is in charge of home is the person who decides whom to post and these are the postings at the higher level. You see at the level of the DGP, the level of commissioner of police, the letter of superintendent of police, IPS officers, even an ASP, if it's ASP then he is posted by the government. But anything below that all the SDPOs in charge of the subdivisions they are mostly deputy superintendents of police and inspectors they are posted by the department like the DGP or the commissioner or the SPs. Now these are the cutting level jobs, the jobs which are in the police station, the man in charge of the police station, the SHO, he is more important to the ordinary politician on the ground because he is at the cutting edge. He takes all the decisions at the police station level and he can do a lot of harm or he can do a lot of good to the political party. But he is supposed to actually go after the criminal who commits an offence that we will all understand and not involve somebody who is not committed an offence. This is what he is supposed to do. The other day I wrote a letter to the police commissioner of Delhi telling him that his investigation of his officers into the northeast, Delhi northeast riots is flawed and that he should ensure that he is wrote to the constitution and to the law is upheld. That they should see who are the people really who are responsible for the riots. But he spoke to me immediately on the phone. He also wrote to me later. But I was not in really interest, moved by what he told me because I know there are certain things he cannot do. Why can't he do it? He cannot do it because the government in power puts a lot of pressure. And this is not one government. Any party government that is in power puts this pressure. That because they want to continue in power and they also want to give favors to people who support them. And the people who support them say we want this man as the SHO. Then they say yes, he should be the SHO. But the power is with the DGP or with the SP in fact. So then they write to the DGP or the SP and they bring pressure on him to appoint that person. Now how much can the DGP and the SP stop this? I mean to prevent this from happening. How much can they oppose this kind of pressure? And if they can ward off that pressure, I think that is the test of there being good police officers. Now I joined this police force in 1953 straight from college and I went to Mount Abu for my training. Then I was posted in different districts, Maharashtra and Gujarat because that time we were one state. And then later on I rose up in the ranks and went up to commissioner of police and I've got a lot of experience of this. And my experience showed me that in 1953 when I joined there were not the people who were in power. That is there were freedom fighters like Mr. Muraji Desai who was the chief minister at that time. They never interfered in postings. They allowed you to be the head of the department. That is the men under you would report to you and would respect you and look up to you. And you had to be straight and honest and also you had to be a good leader. And if you were a good leader you delivered the goods. Now if there were some in sub inspector in charge of a police station or inspector who was not doing his job as per law and as per his conscience and he was just doing something wrong. I mean making the limits of good behavior. It is the politician who was elected by the people who would bring this to the notice of the SP and even to the DGP's attention or to the DIG's attention and then a whole system of putting that right or transferring that man or disciplining him would rest with the police officer. Now this is not happening today. I'll tell you the other day I got a lot. I've retired long ago. I'm now 91 years old. Before that when I was and I was in service till I was 60 and then I got a complaint from people because I belong to Bombay. I'm born here and I know a lot of my classmates and others. People who have worked with me, people who have studied with me. So they came and told me about a certain inspector in charge of a police station. So and there is what they told me and many of them told me, many of them separately told me that he was really playing havoc. So I phoned the police commissioner who was a very good man incidentally and I told him this is what I learned and he said you are right. So I said you are saying that I'm right but why do you allow this man to continue to play havoc? So then he told me I have written to the government. I said what? Police commissioner cannot take action against a man who is playing havoc. You cannot even shift him from there and he said no, I have to go to the government and because some rule that the government has made saying that I have the government will decide these complaints.  That means you are making the police force into a non-existent body without any teeth. Just imagine if there is war and if the government the defence minister or somebody down the line decides which which journal should command which battalion. I mean we will lose all, we will lose battles, we will lose the war. Brigadier Rajparovit will tell you that. Okay, it's got to be commanded by his own hierarchy. But here we have now total confusion and the police force which should look up to their own bosses look up to the person in Mantrala, to the minister or even to the small babus who are working in there. So even policemen, ordinary constables who should come in orderly room and plead their cases, they go to the Mantrala, you will find so many of them hanging around in uniform. Now this is not good governance. This is what is going to cause all the trouble and is causing all the trouble. The people must understand that. People must understand that unless operational independence is given to the police officers then they can be held accountable. But if the people in Mantrala and the babus and the bureaucracy decide this posting because of all this kind of aberrations in the system then you are going to have complete confusion and it is not good for administration or for governance. So this is, now when I joined service the government used to appoint all IPS officers even ASP though I was an ASP at holding charge of a subdivision the government used to tell me where to be, where I should work. Whereas otherwise the device to hold charge of the subdivision would be appointed by the DGP and the government never interfered and for postings of commissioners and SPs and other ranks DIGs etc., it is the DG, at that time there were no DG the IG would make his recommendation to the home department home secretary would put it up to the minister and the minister normally just passed everything. Once in a while they would make a change when they knew that that person was not behaving properly that is all that they did otherwise they just went by what the DGP is. But today the government just changes almost all the recommendations of the DG. The DG becomes almost a non-entity everybody down the line knows it so you have really weakened the post of the DGA and the man who should be looking up, you should be looking up too the whole department should look up to him and if he is a good man honest man, if he is a efficient man and a man with a conscience I think that things will improve considerably. Then how do you appoint such people? Now because one person that is the home minister or the chief minister whoever is in charge of home if he decides who should be the DG and who should be the commissioner of police of Mumbai a very important position then they do it in their whims and they do it looking at their own their own interests that is who will listen to us who will do what we want and the whole problem is the reason because even senior IPS officers now senior IPS officers are blobbing for their position they want this position, they want that important position for different reasons some for corrupt motives some because they want to feel important some because of their children's education there are different reasons but they go and plead with the politicians once you plead and get the posting after the blessings of the politicians in power then you have lost your soul you will have to return the favor, you will have to do what they want and I have seen this happening many times and you one young officer who lobbied, lobbied, he even sent and he became the commissioner of police and very soon he used to get the letters from the mantrala to appoint so and so, appoint so and so to the police station that is where they are interested the political class is interested in the in the cutting edge and they wanted, they want cases to be to be decided according to their whims or according to their interest and this is what is happening today so there is no rule of law as such because the police is supposed to investigate cases according to the truth, according to what the facts according to the law, according to the constitution but do they do it, they do it in ordinary cases and then they also play havoc with the poor people who are the perpetrators of the crime, they remain in prison for long and sometimes for no reason for just for wrong periods which is a very big injustice but the people who should be there they often get out you know that, now they just go according to who is a favorite or who is very close to the person in power, now you have seen this case that happened recently about Sushant Singh Rajput, it was just an actor who was a good actor he was well received by the by the receptive public but he was probably bipolar and then he committed suicide, now he had a girlfriend and that happens with many people and she tried to regulate his drug use and things like that but finally what happened was that there was a rumor that a gentleman in the minister in the government, a young minister was friendly with him or he went for his parties whether it was true or not, was not established finally but probably the government at the center felt that look, here is an opportunity to bring down that government, now because of that to make a whole case of this and whether it had any effect on the Bihar, going to have effect on the Bihar election nobody could say but certainly did not finally nobody bothered about it, no even the Rajputs did not bother about it and yet that poor girl was hounded by the TV channel, I have seen it myself, the way they went after her, it was very very unfair and it really hurt you, hurt your conscience to see what was happening, now when finally that they tried to get even with the gentleman and arrested him, I don't think that it was a correct arrest, it was not because there was no offence made out, he had not paid his bills not paying his bills is not something which you will say will cause somebody to take his own life but they made it out that way and I don't think even if somebody does that, that takes his own life because he has not been paid, it doesn't amount to abetment to suicide, so it was a wrong case, though I think the person was put behind bars where he legitimately belonged but for a wrong case, so that, but that, but he managed to get an early hearing in the Supreme Court, whether people like Father Stan Swami just who probably does not have anything to do with Bima Koregaon which is in Pune district of Maharashtra, he is there trying to get the government to allow him to use some help to have his, to drink water because he's got Parkinson's disease, so these are all injustices that happen because the authorities are so overwhelmed by the people in power that they're doing whatever they want and that is what is called politicization and this politicization is playing drugs and drinks with the system and governance is going through the dogs, we don't have real good governance because of this and I think I don't say that it is only with this particular government other parties also had done it in the past but they were little careful I think, I have gone through that and I have seen that they would listen if they, if you were very firm about it but now nobody wants to be firm because they say it's a very strong leader and we don't want to cross it, so this is what is happening, so these are some of the problems that the police faces and the public must know that, the public always blames the police for saying that they are very corrupt, they are very unfair, they are unjust and that they don't talk to us properly, they behave like masters whereas actually they are servants of the people but then they must understand how the system works and how these policemen behave in this manner because they have been asked to do things which they are not supposed to do, they are not supposed to bring innocent people and put them in jail and they are not supposed to allow offenders to get off but that is what they have been doing and that is they are doing it because of the politicization that has set in, so this must be understood by the public, now the, the Supreme Court had in Prakash Singh's judgement in that case they had said that there should be a, a different method of selecting the top officers that that, only one home minister should not do that the home minister should have the leader of the opposition also on the, in the committee and one judge of the serving judge and that is the three of them sitting down should, should decide as to who should be in that particular position and that person should be not only honest I mean financially honest but also he should be competent to carry out those duties and he should, he should be in place for two years and no transfer so that he doesn't have to look over his shoulders and decide whether he should do the job that he being asked to do by the minister, he won't do it if he knows that he cannot be shifted, the problem is he knows that he will be shifted if he doesn't do it and that is why he does it, so this is how the system works and the supreme court has understood that and had ordered but it has not been implemented because no political party of, no party at all, not a single party wants this done, you know I was, I was appointed as chairman of a small committee to see why it was not implemented, this was Mr. Adwani of the first BJP government of Mr. Vajpayee he had appointed me and I went to all the states and I met all the chief ministers and all the chief ministers were very reluctant to hand over this power to a committee where the opposition leader and the judge would also be there, they wanted to decide that themselves because they want to use that office to get the police which is their main interest to do these kind of things which are not right, so we were not able to convince them but if we also talk to the opposition leaders and suppose there's an opposition leader say from the congress party in West Bengal, I go and meet Mr. Jyoti Basu and then his opposition leader, some congress leader and he says yes yes we must do it but the congress party in some other state when I go to Maharashtra and the congress party is there in power, they say no no no we can't do that, we can't give a power in this way and they don't want to do what the supreme court has ordered, so the supreme court when it was brought to their notice there is a clear rejection of your judgment then it appoints one judge, a retired judge called Thomas, he goes around and he also finds that this is what is happening but still nothing has happened and the same thing goes on, so it's a very difficult proposition so my own view is there's no point asking for these reforms when no government wants to do it, what has to be done is that you educate the public and we are doing it in Mumbai, my own NGO is doing it by going to the colleges, at least the young people should know and if the governments know the parties in power they are only interested in votes, if they find that they are going to lose all these votes because they are not depoliticizing the police, it's only then that this reforms will come, now you know if you see the history of the US, New York police for instance, there was what they called Tammany Hall where the Democratic Party headquarters in New York used to be closed and all police, even the constables would go and to Tammany Hall and get the votes that was in the 19th century, after three years now, the public has become so conscious and say things in England, you know in England recently I read when Riza May was, before she became Prime Minister I think she was in charge of home, there was a lady in charge of home and she thought that she had the power and she want and there was some emergency, so she issued an order telling all the police men who are on leave to return to duty immediately and do you know the chief of police, they have a committee that immediately protested, they told her this is a minister, this is not your prerogative power, you can't do it, it's an hour we can do that, not you and who will do that and who will tell such a thing to the politicians here in India, nobody dares to do it because they know they will be transferred out, so this is how the politicization of the police continues and unless the public is totally aware of how the police politicize, why they do things which are wrong they will not understand that this is what should be corrected and that correction can only come if they put enough pressure on the political class to ensure that politicization of the police is stopped, it is very important to depoliticize because the operational independence must be there with the leaders of the police, if the leader of the police fails there should be a method by which he can be removed if he is incompetent or if he has become corrupt because there is a way which has been prescribed in the police reforms of the police and even Solisaurabji in his model police act, he has also mentioned that and that these people should go to the same committee to have the person removed, otherwise he remains there for two years, he doesn't have to bother about what will happen to him because he has reached that position and the other person cannot transfer him out like he does today. Today I had a very unfortunate this in Maharashtra, my own state I keep a very close, sharp look at how the police force operates and functions and we had a very good DGP, Mr. Jaishwal excellent man, he was police commissioner also before it became DGP and he was one of the persons who followed the law and he was very honest and everything a good person to be appointed and suddenly he says I don't want to work here anymore so I make inquiries why does he want to go, he is going to be a big loss to us and then we learn that the amount of pressure on him from the government to do this, do that, it's not a BJP government today, it's some kind of Mahagadi that is all big gathering of three parties and they put a lot of pressure to say arrest Mr, for example this Anab Goswami was arrested for something which they should not have arrested him for because there was no offence in that case you can't call it a badment to suicide if a fellow does not pay bill obviously Anab Goswami does not like to pay for whatever he orders and he the other person because the amount was large decided to commit suicide but that doesn't amount to abetment to suicide many of these abetment to suicide it's a very very unfortunate law that is being misused it was the abetment to suicide law was made because of the number of dowry demands and deaths following those dowry demands in the state of Gujarat for all states and the number of girls who commit suicide and that is how they thought of making this law and now it is being used for any love affair it's being used suppose somebody had a love affair and then after that love affair goes sour and one party exits from there the opposite party commits suicide the other band is arrested I was really shocked about this kind of misuse of this power of this law that requires a whole discussion which I am about to carry out there in my own way but this is by the way that the police do whatever the government in power wants them to do whereas what they should do is do according to the law and this is the law and if the law has to be implemented you know I remember that when I was commissioner of police in Thaned I had a visit by one of the MLA's the MLA was very close to the chief minister and I knew that so he came to see me and he said and he tells me now how long are you going to put this pressure on these bootleggers why don't you loosen your pressure I said but you have made the law I have not made the law so he said no but the law I know that we have made the law and we can't change it but you can certainly relax I said no I am not going to relax and I suggest that you go back and change the law if you want us to relax but this is the kind of pressure they put and if you can withstand that pressure then it's without getting transferred out now they ask me you know I had given a lecture after that to some IAS officers in Rajasthan in that Mathur they have got a whole college with an institution for in-service training and they were there for in-service training and they had asked me to talk to them and I said that this is how I managed to carry out my work without having these people on my back and they said how I said look I had the police force on my side the police force was on my side because I did them justice I never did any injustice to anyone give them proper hearing and did whatever I thought was right and explain to them and if I was wrong then I would agree that I was wrong so they were on my side and the people were on my side because we were on their side we were with the people so if you have got the police force and the people on your side the government will think 100 times before shifting you out but this thing this is a fact of life but this is happening not everybody gets a chance to get the police force and the public on its side so they should have the whole system in such a way that the police force is depoliticized the greatest example of the evils of politicization you will see in say in Delhi in 1984 after Mrs Gandhi was assassinated then there were widespread anti-seek riots now why did the police not act very swiftly they felt that the party in power is the congress party the mother of the prime minister has been assassinated so we will not be very diligent in our job of stopping it so this is what happened and then later on in 2002 after the Godra train matter there was a program of the Muslims poor people were killed so many of them I personally have gone and seen in Ahmedabad and it was because of the politicization of the police because the police are told to go slow whereas they should not go slow they should be very vigilant to see that people are not killed in fact in Gujarat there were three or four districts where the SPs young fellows they were very firm and there the number of killings was certainly much less but they were all transferred out within 15 days they were shifted because they had not cooperated with the pogrom so you see these are things that clearly show you that politicization of the force is the worst kind of thing that can happen and why are the other countries in the west so forward I mean so we look up to them and say that they are doing things much better than us but why because if they have a police force is not politicized there you know during my time I had occasion to meet the commissioner of police London metropolitan police what you call Scotland yard so Peter Inbert was the person at that time and I went and met him to discuss mutual problems and I said what do you do about these corruption and we had a long talk about how we would tackle corruption particularly in the special forces and then I then asked him about the transfers and how do you tackle the interference in transfers that he said what is that so I said that when they ask you to shift post somebody in this police station and that they said no this never happened I never heard about it so you see this is the way politicization happens that you interfere with postings and transfers now whenever you post people like that you get corruption going through the roof you can't even and the police commissioner can't even shift the man out as I show I gave you one example of that when I talked to the commissioner he said I have written to the government and the government decided that corrupt color should be out or not and if the corrupt man is also sharing his whatever he gets illegally then you will have him there for the rest of your service so this is these are the things that happen and it is only the people who can really put it right they have to be they have to be constantly told about it and they have to take up this matter and if the government knows that will lose votes only then they will stop politicizing the police so this is what I wanted to talk to you about about politicization and how it is affecting the quality of life and how the rule of law is not respected here because of the politicization of the police thank you so much for hearing me out and I would be happy to answer any questions you would like to put I am quite sure that many young people would like to know thank you thank you thank you so much sir now I put it open for the questions if there are any questions you would be happy to take them thank you if one person asks then others will start you see otherwise nobody wants to be the first that I have always seen so let's see who will ask the first question I think the students can give the lead give them the lead I will open up the session sir thank you very much for a very open and experienced exposure on the subject the subject has always been actually double sided for majority of us on one side is the rule of law which legally ethically morally the police must follow on the other side there are practical realistic pressures of modern day society the political and so on and therefore to find a fine balance between the two and support the society in correct policing maintaining the internal law and order which is the prime responsibility becomes essentially important sir therefore what my question to you is how do you maintain this fine balance between the legality and ethics of moral policing sir you see it's not easy to do it today because it's a you know I will tell you I worked in at a different times is very unfair on my part to say that the police force has become this and become that because I worked under different people and I remember that you I'll tell you about my own experience and you'll be able to understand it was in Mumbai in 1985 when they were communal riots now in communal riots if you want to stop them it's not difficult at all you have to find out who are the instigators of the riots the people who kill and get killed are the poor people believing in the slums etc but the instigators don't kill they don't get killed also they are sitting in their offices or in their mosques or in their temples or whatever so who are the people who are instigating and in I found that in my city of Mumbai at that time the instigators belonged to a party called the Shiva Sena and that they were basically you know they were organized in a certain manner they had what they call the Shaka Pramukhs Shaka Pramukhs means in each locality there was one fellow who is in charge he was like a capo you know in the underworld and he his order his without him the top leadership would not be able to function now the top leaders don't go down and killing and they don't know how to do it even they don't know how to even get people they can speak they can talk they can but they cannot really organize them and I said that we should not touch the big leader but that time Bal Thakre and his and his number two people there were about 20 of them they should not be touched with their ministers and things like that get hold of all the top couples you know those 51 of 52 each they were in each police station one and let us put them back they won't then that whole ability to operate would be flattered and we did that immediately immediately there was absolute quiet the next day and then I said that perhaps the opposite side which the Muslim side which usually builds up the defense they might get a little out of hand so let us take their their leaders who are the ones who give them the arms and things to defend themselves and they are the underworld dawns you know in Bombay they have all those dawns and these dawns are usually many of them are Muslim dawns so we got them all locked up in next day so the whole thing was now the repercussions were very interesting there was peace total peace but the pressure of the chief minister to release these people was so great that not only the Shiv Sena chief went every day to the mantra or to the house of the chief minister to please release them and I promise that I will do that I will be very quiet and the Muslims their congress MPs from UP they flew to Bombay to get and put pressure on the congress chief minister to release all those dawns you see because they were the ones who were probably financing their their political activity so this is how those pressures came and that pressure naturally the chief minister put on me so do they are so do they you know in Marathi he said please leave them leave them so I kept on and then fortunately the chief secretary was a was a good person he was he became the union home secretary later Mr. R. D. Pradhan he recently died he supported me in a big way so the two of us really put a bulwark but we put a stop to this and we said at least for 15 days let them remain so we made a target of 15 days we managed 12 after that the chief minister himself said no I am going to if y'all are not doing it we will do it and release them but this kind of pressure from the political class which goes against the good sense of security of the of the public that has to be balanced and I know I use the same tactic when there were riots but there were communal riots in Ahmedabad in 1985 85 years and the riots in Bombay were 84 85 there were riots in Ahmedabad I was not I was not involved because I'm from Maharashtra Gujarat had already been bifurcated and we we had the the Prime Minister called me I was then the DG of the CRPF and he said please go to Ahmedabad and take charge as DG and stop it so I said that I require only a few days but nobody should interfere he gave me that total this I said I'm doing no transfers nothing you tell them that I'm going to rough rough shot over them and I put the all the VHP people who were writing all scurrilous messages on the walls and on the Muslim side again the same gang lords and and that is how we put them within seven days it all over so it is you can put it but then you have to have the political side political people on your side if the political people don't want to cooperate then there will be a problem but in those days they were supposed to they were they were themselves desperate so fortunately I was in that era this era does not exist now it's very difficult I agree because when the 2002 riots took place in Gujarat when I went and asked the the DG and other senior officers why did you allow one minister to sit in your control room and DG's control room one in CP's control room minister was sitting and directing operations I said how can you do that how did you allow I would never allow so they said sir it is quite a different regime you can't you have to be you have to be ready for any kind of of repercussion if you don't know these kind of orders so you see it's a different I agree that I have not worked in under such circumstances I have no person I have no right to to criticize but here I have tell you what I have done and it was a much better time and we could definitely have our have our say yeah thank you very much sir yeah thank you thank you sir for your elaborate answer and thank you Sir my observation is that after the service many people are inclined to join politics right and this is all actually a very debatable issue also right so my question is especially in the context of the senior IPS officer joining the politics right immediately after you know their retirement or superannuation so don't you think that whether a procedure needs to be installed there has to be some procedure for a police officer to not allow to join politics at least at least for two or three years post retirement what is your take on it you see this has been happening for some time but we find that people who feel you know the person to join politics perhaps are those who feel left out of all the excitement that you know when they are in service they are in they are in the public eye and they like that adulation perhaps they didn't get it when they are out of service so they want to continue to be in the public eye through this method of joining politics but now it is becoming much more and that is very worrisome and I agree that there should be some kind of method by which you cannot at the moment by law stop anyone from joining politics you can't but you can certainly put in place certain you know a wall a certain wall fire wall whatever you call it to see that they do not take undue advantage of their being at the end of their service to do harm to the body politic to do harm to the rule of law because if there was their intention then of course there is always I can tell you one case in Mumbai which I know about where the commissioner of police after he he went and joined a political party here in Mumbai itself and he sat on the on the days with the with Mr. Baal Thakri and he was there but the people the followers of the ship Sena themselves said we don't why should we lose our chance and this has just come just been the commissioner and he was on the other side suddenly he comes here and they they put so much pressure on their own boss that the man's you know attempt to join politics itself was was totally erased so this is what happened I've seen myself but these are things that each case is different but perhaps people are thinking about giving it a what is that a break you said two three years I thought they said one year then after a year but if you say two three years that would be better still but by that time then people will forget about this man you know this man of the BG of Bihar he had decided to join but I don't think he got the ticket so with the result that he wasted all his time so I think these people should be given a chance to to to hang themselves thank you thank you sir so another question from my side would be it's regarding the practical challenges that you know that police officers on the ground they fit because of the unnecessary interference in the investigations right because I was also practicing in the Bombay High Court and you know off the table off the record many discussions happens there also so considering the factual reality of not only Bombay Police but all over India and unnecessary interference of the the political masters into the investigation so how can we how can the we call it loyal policing or as a modern policing would survive in all the chaos like a young boy wants to join a police service right he always look for ideals he always look for you know the people to look up right but do you think that such environment still exists today for the young generation do you think that the investigation can really be free from political influences sir what is your take on it as a police officer as well as as a person who runs an NGO and who fights for the rights of the people I think that look much depends on the leadership of the police if the police leadership is quite clear that they know what they have to do that they have given they have taken an oath and that they will follow that oath and that they will not get in influenced by the political class so the political class has its own interests and their interest mainly is to remain in power or to get power so they want this done and that done but if it is not the right thing and it is not according to the facts of the case I don't think that you should do it or agree to do it and I know many officers who don't do it I mean they say that look we can't do that they do try to show that they are willing to come to a certain position half way or quarter the way but just that is just to remain their troops safeguard their own position but they have a conscience and with their conscience they say that look we cannot do this this we cannot do and if you want to get this done then perhaps the best thing is to not have me here in position because I will not be able to do it but it's difficult for many I don't see many officers taking up these stands these days they are more interested in their own in their own that's unfortunate we have to build up a young youth which is more you know I mean with strong character with the sense of values that does not just rely on becoming rich quickly overnight without doing any work this is what many people want to do these days it's unfortunate but true yeah thank you so much sir one more question again from my side see there was a news few days back regarding granting zipper security to the most industrialist in India so there was a news before two days back regarding granting a zipper security to the top most industrialist in India so my question is that I was actually wondering right I mean it has never happened before but under what law can such security be granted or whether granting such security is actually you know within the legal parameters laid down by CRPF or what is your take on it what is the what is the law says about it granting security to the industrialist people you see I was I worked in the CRP for six years as a junior officer I was the DIG in Hyderabad and later on I was in the headquarters also as DD administration and finally I became DG of the CRPF for seven weeks before I was sent to Gujarat but so I know that the CRPF does not have this role of going and giving personal protection to industrialist and but I also agree that certain in the like Mr Mukesh Ambani for instance he has got in this protection I think that if any harm comes to him then this nation would be in a bad way because he's he contributes quite a substantial part of the GDP and we are always in the problem about that so we we also have to look through the nation's interests also so I think that giving him protection but whether it should be given from CRPF or just the Bombay police I don't know the Bombay police should have some some kind of branch or arm I had I had recommended which has not policemen because policemen are required for street duties but for duties like this which are often they are often called upon to do and then they can become particularly you know there was an army officer retired colonel who used to was very good at training these people and I thought that he could be given that job of training force that would provide these services and those people won't mind being paying for it I'm sure Mukesh is paying for all that whatever he's being provided it doesn't matter to him at all money is not a problem so but for the police force it is a big problem because they are they have been sanctioned on the basis of certain roles and if they are not performing those roles but doing another role then that that particular role should have another organization to provide that role because it should be a government organization that gives that then it gives that much more security private security may not be able to really perform the security role so there are certain industrialists who are certainly in a bracket where we may where the state may have to see that they are not in any way harmed but it's a difficult I agree with you that's a difficult choice because sometimes as you know now they do all sorts of funny thing that a big industrialist sitting abroad also now waiting to be repatriated and if they had asked for security what did you do what do you do about that so there are lots of answers this is a very tricky question and may have to be discussed and and a solution found because there is that it is not that we just say that we cannot give you security at all because if the person is eliminated then you are going to face a very major crisis so that also you have to take into consideration yeah thank you sir is there any any other question from the participants please maybe you can ask any question about not only just police administration or reforms maybe if you are interested in knowing maybe on terrorism also or maybe any other question okay so if there are no more questions and almost it's a time now so sir let me let me let me thank you for your time and thank you for really joining us and enlightening us you know the scenario that the country is actually experiencing not only in terms of you know the policing because I believe somewhere that the political influence is everywhere not only in the police administration but also you know in other departments also as well as in the private sector as well so actually the problem is very grave and very complicated as well but yes the solution has to be there and solution I believe lies in the hands of the people of India we are the people of India the constitution of India is with us so I feel that we all need to understand our constitutional rights our constitutional liberty and with that we can collectively you know I believe find the solution oh there is one question there is one question coming sure sure will you George please please you can you can ask your question there is one question coming Mr. George Mr. George can you hear I think there is some technical problem we are not able to hear anything Mr. George you can write your question here in the chat box if possible I'll read it out okay so I think we are not able to sir well then we have to conclude this program and so thank you so much and have a good day sir thank you thank you so much