Today, I was photographing the I.G’s Office building to add to my walk collection. one of the women constables (or inspectors, I don’t know her rank) came up behind me as I continued my walk, and kept insisting that I should not take photographs of the building.

I found this utterly ridiculous. The building is in an open space, and there are literally thousands of people going past in their cars who can take photographs. Any of the pedestrians with a mobile camera can take pictures too. But since I had an identifiable camera, I was targetted.

Worse, when I said that I was taking photographs for myself, the lady said nothing more and let me go. In case I had been a terrorist, I would have said exactly the same thing, and would have got away with whatever it was that the authorities are scared of.

So what on earth is this stupid policy of always going around telling the public that they can’t do something, which the authority in question has NO way of enforcing? Why do we seem to live in the British Raj still, in so many ways, where it’s always an authority vs. general public attitude? Why do we still have obsolete, futile rules which it takes the lower orders all their time and energy to try and (unsuccessfully) enforce? It seems to be harassment for harassment’s sake.

I also fail to understand in what way my photograph would have posed a danger to the building or the people within, that an image from Google Earth would not.

“You can’t do X, you can’t do Y” is the anthem song of our bureaucracy,government, culture, and police….when are we ever going to get rid of this mindset?