The big ‘lathi’ sticks Indian police use to beat protesters are a legacy of British colonial rule
- The British left India in 1947, but the lathi stayed in use to help police ‘regulate crowds’
- The bamboo batons have been used with brutal effect in the ongoing protests
As Indian protests against a new citizenship law have intensified, so has police use of “lathis”, sturdy sticks used to whack, thwack and quell dissent since British colonial times – to sometimes deadly effect.
At least 27 people have died in the past two weeks of protests, mostly from bullets, but hundreds more have been injured in clashes between demonstrators and riot police wielding the bamboo canes.
Images shot by media of officers hitting people with them, in some cases apparently indiscriminately lashing out at passers-by and even minors, has only fuelled public anger.
One video of a group of Muslim women in New Delhi protecting a cowering male fellow student from a police lathi barrage spread like wildfire on social media in India.
Those who have experienced a blow from a lathi, measuring up to 1.8 metres and made of stout bamboo or plastic, say it leaves a numbing sensation that lasts for days.