The volume under review is neither a police manual on handling communal violence nor a mere policeman’s perception of the problem. Shri Rajagopal is a sensitive liberal who in his long and varied career never lost his sense of values, perspective and integrity when he donned the uniform of a police officer. While he was proud of his uniform and service, he never wavered in his belief that the means adopted by the police should stand the most rigorous scrutiny whatever be the ends. His faith and values get fully reflected in the book, which is the first part of a triology on violence in India. It is indeed a cry of anguish of one who had spent the best part of his life to maintain peace that ‘communalism, even as it prevails currently, be it of the Hindu or of the Muslim variety, has gone into the lethal stage, in terms of dosage.’
Sept-Oct 1987, volume 11, No 5