After finishing Jairam Ramesh’s book on Krishna Menon, another book “Journey Through Turbulent Times." An Autobiography Of HJ DORA, a former Head of the police force of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.was readily available with me, which I could finish it in 2-3 days. This 272 pages book deals with how piquant situations were tackled and averted by HJ Dora. This I picked up because Dora (not be mistaken with of the kid cartoon character) was a close acquaintance of my father (I can’t say he was a friend, like many of his contemporaries).
The autobiography titled above gives a fairly accurate account of several developments in the recent history of undivided Andhra Pradesh. The narrative technique employed by Dora effortlessly transports the reader into those days.
As a customary, the initial chapters deal with the writers' childhood, college, and University days. Later he went to talk about his determination to join All India Services. He recalls vividly his training period and subsequent postings etc. Needless to say, the personal experiences of an officer of the caliber of Dora would be of immense value to any police department as every development explained in the book, has a valuable lesson in it.
He worked in various capacities as CP Vijayawada, CP Hyderabad, CMD APSRTC, CID Head later DGP. When he took over the reins as DGP, his biggest contribution to the state was the control of Left-wing Extremism. Any reader of this book expects that he would give a more detailed account of his experience as he took on the most powerful People’s War Group. For the reasons best known to him, he merely narrated some of the sensational Naxalite attacks and how the police force which was at the receiving end turned the corner and hit back. Ultimately it was during his tenure that PW leadership had rolled back all its squads from AP and moved to Chhattisgarh.
I was prompted to read this book as my father always expressed to me that Dora was a very upright officer. I must admit that I was a little disappointed as I was hoping to read about secretive details of the strategies and tactics employed in fighting LWE in the Telangana Region. There are many instances which still are like mysteries wrapped in enigma on how the police managed to track Naxal teams or how they infiltrated, or how the police managed to win the hearts and minds of people. Or maybe he deliberately left out details of those counter-insurgency strategies he devised in this book so that he could deal with them in another book? This is the third book, so let us wait for another book for more details.
The autobiography titled above gives a fairly accurate account of several developments in the recent history of undivided Andhra Pradesh. The narrative technique employed by Dora effortlessly transports the reader into those days.
As a customary, the initial chapters deal with the writers' childhood, college, and University days. Later he went to talk about his determination to join All India Services. He recalls vividly his training period and subsequent postings etc. Needless to say, the personal experiences of an officer of the caliber of Dora would be of immense value to any police department as every development explained in the book, has a valuable lesson in it.
He worked in various capacities as CP Vijayawada, CP Hyderabad, CMD APSRTC, CID Head later DGP. When he took over the reins as DGP, his biggest contribution to the state was the control of Left-wing Extremism. Any reader of this book expects that he would give a more detailed account of his experience as he took on the most powerful People’s War Group. For the reasons best known to him, he merely narrated some of the sensational Naxalite attacks and how the police force which was at the receiving end turned the corner and hit back. Ultimately it was during his tenure that PW leadership had rolled back all its squads from AP and moved to Chhattisgarh.
I was prompted to read this book as my father always expressed to me that Dora was a very upright officer. I must admit that I was a little disappointed as I was hoping to read about secretive details of the strategies and tactics employed in fighting LWE in the Telangana Region. There are many instances which still are like mysteries wrapped in enigma on how the police managed to track Naxal teams or how they infiltrated, or how the police managed to win the hearts and minds of people. Or maybe he deliberately left out details of those counter-insurgency strategies he devised in this book so that he could deal with them in another book? This is the third book, so let us wait for another book for more details.
