INDIAN POLICE AT THE CROSSROADS
Policing is a reaction of the society to its warped situations. The process of
policing is always in a state of flux to keep a la hauteur de rapidly evolving
nature of the social complexities. In this sense, the police is a reflection of the
face of the national life. Stability in the national life slows down the process of
policing; a volatile situation strings police to high tension and energises it.
Growth or retardation in social progress accordingly reflects the style of
policing. When the nation stands at the crossroads, the police also finds itself on
compita: at the intersection of a reneging past and a converging future. This is
where India and its police stand now after four decades of becoming a republic.
As with old generations which saw life, society and politics prior to the
independence give way to new generations in national life and old passions and
values atrophy before the gust of speed, smartness and a garish way of life, the
police too finds itself in a peregrine role with no past for continuity and no
future for creativity. The police finds itself rising from a claut to pave the new
path; it must blindly choose from alternatives, it thinks available to it. There is
no past experience to fall upon, no future guidelines to pursue. Yet, it must walk
with time to fulfil its raison d'etre. The Indian police finds itself in this blind-
spot today, at the crossroads from where it should build bridges to the future.
The immanent swither of the compita is like the new freedom of a caged animal.
It must acclimatise and warm up to the new situation, shed us mental fetters,
bring strength to its legs and learn to move au naturel. A slip at this stage would
be a sempiternal tragedy; a right move here would be a lucky rise forever. At this stage in its evolution, the possibilities are endless. The Indian police now
stands at this momentous juncture.
Importance of police in national life
The police and policing are larger than an individual and his self-interests.
The police is an institution which is constituted of man, machinery and ideas.
Man is just a minute constituent of the monolith that, is the police. An
institution of the police organisation's dimensions naturally has defacements at
places that in no way affect the overall view of the structure. Ergo, minor
casualties are common in such a mammoth edifice. Only when the defacements
have an impact on the overall mien of the structure and distort its face, do
corrective measures become comme il faut. The police should be continuously
watched for such vital distortions, for its health or otherwise has a serious
bearing on the national life. A minor shift in the style of policing in the country
can make a life-and-death difference to myriad people. It is in this perspective
that decisions regarding policing should be taken. The decisions become
sensitive when the police reaches crossroads and forces further decisions on the
course of its passage. A wrong turn? The police may inadvertently tear the
fabric of the national life to shreds and ruin the country. A right step? An era of
perfect security, order and peace. Only a selfless analysis of the needs of the
time and assessment of the avenir would give the insight necessary to make the
right choice about the course to be pursued. Such an analysis must be carried out
by highly competent persons at the highest level who can see things
dispassionately and take decisions. They must be people who have an overall
view of things and are capable of seeing them against the wider background of
the national interest. It is a very responsible job, requiring thorough knowledge
of the nuances of the police and policing. The people who do it must be capable
of taking hard decisions which may often go against their own interests and may
have far-reaching consequences. This book is an obvious effort in this
direction. The Indian police must give serious thought to what it wants to be in
future and take tough decisions.
Mishandling of police in independent India
There is an impression that the Indian police is not what it was before
Independence. The previous pride, toughness and ferocious commitment to
duties are no more patent. The Indian police has become soft, humble and easy-
going in post-independence days. Humility and pressures all round deprived it
of its vitality. The police has become a widely abused organisation by the virtue
of its conticent submission to the wishes of its masters under false notions of discipline. It is the popular scapegoat for anything and everything that goes
wrong in the public life. In the circumstances, a sense of insecurity has
developed in the police that comminates career-life. A natural outcome of this
fix is, taking things easy with eyes and ears shut, unless career interests warrant
otherwise. Commitment to policing is sacrificed in the process. These
developments have reduced the police to a toy that moves only when the spring
inside unwinds. New entrants to the police who begin to run left and right with
nascent entrainement in the first few months, soon realise the realities on the
ground when the wounds on the body of their career dehisce, looking fatal and
ready to gorge their esperance for the avenir. This is the triste spiel of the Indian
police now.
Outside interference in policing
A serious malady affecting the tough and no-nonsensical image of the police
is the interference of people of some standing in the society with the quotidian
policing at all levels. An organisation, looking for a serious image, cannot afford
this luxury. Policing must be insulated from public pressures except at the top,
to which all policing affairs must be responsible. People handling policing
should be responsible only to law and their heads in the police department and
to none else. The regulation of policing policies in all details must be controlled
and guided by the top. On the other hand, the line authority of the organisation
must be all-powerful to guide and regulate policing and police administration
and bear the responsibility for everything below the level. Such a setup sine
dubio presumes a pollent leadership. For an organisation with powers and
responsibilities like the police, such a strong leadership is sine qua non
otherwise as well.
A police organisation, open to public pressures can do no policing worth the
name. The very idea of being receptive to pressures and interferences
presupposes a lack of will for objectivity and justice. It is criminal elements
who cultivate sources for such straints on the police, that have put the policing
on the wrong rails. Pressure on policing often renders the police to commit
crimes under the veil of authority, either by protecting criminals or more
dangerously, by replacing them with innocent people as criminals. The
possibility of the police being open to the straints of the rich and powerful,
deprives it of its credibility. A police force that works at the behests of the rich
and powerful can guard their interests only. It would thus be the villain to the
hoi polloi. Does democratic India need such a police force to perpetuate the
tyranny of the poor and helpless by the rich and powerful? Democratic India
tolerated such a police in the last four decades. India and its people however,
must now abraid to the situation and spawn a police that behoves to the trust laid
on it.
Fall of professional standards
The aberration of professional objectivity is the kenspeckle sema of the
police in independent India. The problem was simple in British India where
ruler and ruled were distinctly bifurcated and ipso facto the loyalty of police was
perspicaciously defined unlike the Indian republic of democratic genre where
people rule themselves through elected representatives. Here, the loyalty of
police to the public and public law is the professional ethic; misplaced loyalty to
an individual, a family, a party or an ideology at the cost of the general public is
an apostasy from the inviolable professionalism of the police. The police, in a
democracy, is the guardian of public interests and public safety unlike in the raj
where the police protected the interests of the raj. This distinction is forgotten
in independent India where mental fetters are yet to be broken and legacies of
the British rule continue inveterated. How can a police that stays loyal to
personal, familial or party interests ever discharge its functions objectively to
law and general public? What can its locus standi be when a different person or
party comes to power? A sequacious police is an asset to any individual or
party and no sensible individual or party distances it in name of the professional
ethics. It is the paravant duty of the police not to breach the edifice of the police
organisation and its spirit by misprising its professional standards. This
infrangible obligation is thrown to the winds in the maelstrom of career
advancements by the self-seeking gendarmerie of the Indian republic.
A byproduct of this degenerate trend is the rise of opportunists and
sycophants to key posts and the fall of pollent caractere to insignificant and
humiliating slots. The trend creates a catena of reactions that slowly-cats up the
vitality of the police organisation and reduces it to a foul bunch of bloodhounds
of the rich and powerful few. The shoddy creatures sitting tout court above men
of probity is a dangerous situation in an organisation like the police where a stiff
hierarchical order and a command-obedience relationship exist between ranks.
This reverse order of merit is sure to bring frustration and the collapse of the
organisation someday ex consequentl. This is because, a few selfish elements
put ain interests before the professional and national interests. And this is in a
disciplined orgapisation. This is where commitment to organisational objects is
the life-fluid of the profession.
Police culture of free India
The British were the forefathers, of the unified Indian police. They created
the reticulation of the police force for India with their own designs and objects
in sight. It was a force that met the needs of the time. In an age of rapid
changes due to the opening up of new vistas and dimensions to life by inventions and discoveries in science and technology, nothing remains
quiescent. The scope, design and objects of the Indian police underwent a basic
metamorphosis with the transfer of government to native hands. The process
spawned a synod wherein undemanding aspects of both the worlds survived to
create a new police culture. The distinguishing traits of the Indian police of the
British vintage like objectivity, apoliticism, commitment, discipline, quality and
high standards were discarded as percgrine and irrelevant in the changed
circumstances; and traditional Indian values like simplicity, charity, wisdom,
mutual respect, encraty and human qualities were distanced as indign to the
police culture. The convenient factors of the old and new worlds were chosen to
warp a new world of police culture while demands on policing were at the
crucial stage in the creant years of national independence. The cabal was struck
by the Indian police officers who rapidly rose in their career overnight to fill the
void, created by the resignations of their senior British officers in the ancien
regime on the eve of independence. The demand for creating a new work-
relationship with native political leaders was a historical opportunity to carve a
new police culture in free India. The incompetence of the then police
impresarios, their greed, parochial approach and self-interests spawned the
wrong type of police culture. They laid mendacious praxis to those lower by
bending laws and conscience to aggrate men in power with the myopic object of
promoting ain career and personal interests. The police became a lithe tool in
the hands of the power-brokers of free India. How can the police be objective,
honest, apolitical, committed and disciplined in such an atrophy and how can it
uphold the rule of law and justice in line with its professional edit in such a
circumstance?
Police at the cross-section
Policing, being a specialised job wherein few people venture to have a keek
owing to its fearful image, still remains an enigma to outsiders including
administrators and the general public. Its locus standi somewhere in between
the armed forces and civil administration renders its structure, scope and style of
functioning undefined in the monolith of governance. This, compounded with
the prolate powers of the police to cover all aspects of living, has made the
police an awful company to live with. This is a situation of one-way traffic
wherein the police have a say on every aspect of the life of the people while the
general public is dumb and blindfold to everything about the police. The
situation has placed the police at the unusual advantage of dictating what should
be what, where and how in policing and police organisation. Sine dubio, it is a
godsent benison for the police while right man sits at the sconce. To the worst
mauvais moment of the police, sycophants ramp the ladder and reach the top to
hold reins and guide the destiny of the police in independent India and consequently the Indian police has got what it deserved, namely a spiritless
culture, composed of the weak and bad precedences of its incompetent leaders.
It has been a long time since independence. What peopie and those in the
police accepted as standards in the inchoate entrainement of the dawn of
independence, no more stir them. The atrophy of more than two generations of
independent India opened their eyes to what was happening around, in the name
of the supercherie of the self-rule. Enough is enough. Though late, they
realised for certain that self-rule does not mean fraud and tyranny by their own
people, that self-interests know no nationality, that the cabals of compatriots are
no less pernicious than that of the aliens. Forty-five years is a long enough
period to realise the need for breaking away from the corrupt innards of the
state-crafts of independent India. India and the Indian police stand at this
crossroads at this hour.
Police as social doctors
Policemen are social doctors and policing is a surgical operation of the
society to systematically remove cancerous growths from its body. What if the
band of doctors itself is infested with serious cancerous growths? This is the
position of the present-day Indian police. The police, as the enforcers of law
and protectors of the public interests, wield tremendous powers for the public
good. Such powers to interfere with the life of the citizens must be invested
only in people of high probity and conscience. Otherwise, the powers by
themselves ruin the social fabric of the country and bring anarchy. Powers to
search, seize, remove, detain, direct, arrest, hit and even kill may prove
pernicious in the wrong hands. Powers to decide who has done wrong and how
to prosecute them, when invested in dishonest hands, certainly ruin society and
the country. How these powers are exercised depends imprimis on the work
ethic of the organisation. Though it is the people of an organisation au fond
who build the job-culture of the organisation, it is this job-culture of the
organisation that creates a person in the organisation at a given point of time.
Even a degenerate caractere turns honest and efficient in an honest and efficient
environment. The work-culture builds and moulds vitality to meet the general
atmosphere around. Similarly, an honest and efficient person in a degenerate
culture is bound to atrophy sooner or later, unless his individual strength
superates the vitiating work-culture of the organisation. Ergo, building up a
proper job-culture is the bedrock of a perficient police organisation.
Unequal treatment
The problem of the Indian police lies in a lack of proper understanding of the scope and ground rules of the work. This results in the absence of a proper set
of standards to approach the call of duty. Consequently, each call of duty is
approached subjectively, depending upon the mood and understanding of the
police in charge of the situation. The subjective policing on the Indian scene is
unfortunately accepted by all strata of people sans prole. The Indian police
never recognises the equality of ail and the need for equal coverage of policing
facilities to all citizens of India. Whether it is in matters of protection,
maintenance of order, crime control or investigation of crimes committed, the
standards of policing available are kenspeckle in their disparity for a nameless
poor farmer in a remote village and an ex-Prime Minister, both of whom have
equal rights before the law and the Indian constitution to have crimes against
them investigated. The coverage is nonpareil for a landlord and an agricultural
labourer. The point is not that the principle of equality should balk the ground
realities, but that the policing must have a reasonable set of standards, within
which more important and less important aspects of the policing must operate.
It will not be so in the Indian police until people who place their personal
interests beyond everything including law, justice, fairness, objectivity,
righteousness, career pride, professional interests of policing and the nation hold
the reins at the highest levels of the police, courtesy of those whom they serve
better than the hoi polloi.
Policing approach
There are two types of approach to policing as distinguishable on the Indian
scene, namely,
a) The playful approach, where the police as players in a football
game, play the game within the scope of the ground rules to have the ball inside
the goal without committing a foul. Tout au contraire to the real football game,
here the game is played dispassionately and leisurely and played because they
are paid to play the game; and,
b) The passionate approach, wherein the police break all rules and
laws that come in the way with the sole approach of making their task a success.
They may even commit dangerous crimes in pursuance of their goals.
The Indian police oscillate between these two disparate approaches,
depending upon, for whose advantage they work and what would be their
personal grist ultimately. Only a few high-flying people with money and power
en arrier to back policing of the passionate genre deserve the 'Passionate
Approach'. Others must remain contented with the 'Playful Approach'. Both
approaches are indign to a dignified police organisation. The former, namely
the 'Playful Approach' is against the tenets of professionalism and a professional
commitment to work. The latter, namely the Passionate Approach in spite of
its commitment to its goals, is devoid of its professionalism by lack of
professional commitment to the objects of objectivity, fairness and justice.
Policing by criminal methods cannot be called professional policing. The right
approach to professional policing is a syndesis of both the approaches in which
the commitment to achieve goals follow the professionalism of rightful means in
respecting rules and laws of which the police as professionals are guardians.
Professional commitment implies achieving goals within the parameters of the
permitted methods. The professional end of the police is upholding the interests
of law and justice. Policing is not an end by itself. It is a tool to serve law and
justice. Policing by committing crimes against law and justice is committing
crimes against policing. The Indian police is yet to show its maturity of
professional commitment in policing, which as a standard policing approach
would be equally available to all the needy, irrespective of their status, wealth
and position in the society.
Criminal tendencies in police
A serious subculture of the Indian police in Indian hands is committing
crimes to prevent and detect crimes and breaking laws to catch law-breakers:
indeed in the name of showing results. The misplaced stress on results sans a
concern for organisational and national objects of law and justice in committing
grave malfeasances only reflects a shallow intellectual commitment to policing
by Indian police leaders and a bankruptcy of ingine to delve to the roots of
policing problems. Third-degree methods in crime detection is the point. Even
senior officers tacitly supporting inhuman crimes of the third-degree methods on
suspects, who may turn out to be innocent at the end, is not uncommon. Crimes
are crimes whether they are committed by the police or by the public. What
right has the police to inflict sufferings on others albeit on suspicion? After all,
it is not the agency to pass judgement on crimes. None placed the police ayont
the scope of the Indian Penal Code. What justification can the police have to
commit crimes to collect evidences of other crimes? The Indian Penal Code
never conceived two sets of laws for the crimes committed by the police and
others. Crimes committed by the police in the name of detecting other crimes
are not less harmful to the well-being of society. The sadism and criminal
tendencies of the police are not more justifiable than those of the general public.
On the other hand, society has to be avizefull and deracinate criminal tendencies
from the police, for, criminals from the police with the state plenipotence and
laws behind it can be a real death-knell to the society. The difference between
crimes for official and crimes for personal ends is wafer thin. Those who have
tasted the blood of crime, takes to that more easily than others, because of their
special accesses to the field and special privileges. A good police force requires
an inveterate cause against crime and criminality. In absence of such a cause,
the police may metamorphose into a demonic organisation that throws the
country into a mux of atrophy.
In an atmosphere of the maintenance of law and order in the hands of
unprincipled police, queer things may take place. Long ago, a dacoity was
reported in the house of a person of doubtful character at Betgeri in Dharwar
district. People who had knowledge of the coup defond opined that the act was
committed by his illegitimate son, after a serious quarrel, the preceding night.
He had bad relations with and court cases pending against the illegitimate son.
The investigation of the case by the local police also obsigned the matter. The
person who had cultivated some standing in Betgeri thought it imperative after
he settled his feuds with the illegitimate son, to have the case of dacoity
substantiated as a professional offence to save his family name. Soon, he
patched up relations with the young man, settled his court cases with him and
arranged for the case to be chargesheeted, with an ex-convict of Stuartpuram
being picked up and shown as accused. A mangalasutra recast from the gold
recovered in some other case was shown as property seized from the criminal
out of the property worth of about 300 gms of gold being reportedly snatched
away. Arrest, recovery, detection and chargesheet followed after a decade of
the reported commission of the dacoity. Such developments make criminal
administration a mockery. What a serious breach of the public trust and what a
serious crime is it by the police officials in consciously involving a person,
albeit an ex-convict, in a crime in which they knew, he did not commit and
fabricating evidence to a crime which never took place to help to settle the
family affairs of a bad character? Such paradigms reflect to what levels of
criminality the Indian police has sunk to. Percase, the weather is stormiest
before the return to stillness. The boundless pravity of the police, perchance, is
the sema of the advent of a new age of honest and committed policing in India.
In another instance that dates back to 1981, a police official holding the
charge of Koppal police subdivision in Karnataka picked up a poor goldsmith
from a small town of a neighbouring district for interrogation about receiving
stolen properties. He subjected him to inhuman torture in a tourist bungalow of
the same town for two nights to make the innocent goldsmith confess to an act
which he did not do. The wife and children of the goldsmith, who spotted him
in the tourist bungalow after endless running from pillar to post, were
mercilessly scared away from the place even while they could hear his agonised
shrieks. The goldsmith succumbed and died on the second night of torture. The
Koppal official who had worked as Circle Police Inspector in the town until a
few months before, carried out this illicit, nefarious activity without the
knowledge of the senior police officers of the town. The news of the lockup
death, as such deaths are popularly known, broke out in local and other
newspapers. The wife of the goldsmith filed a private complaint before the
local court about the killing of her husband. The district Superintendent of
Police and the Range Deputy Inspector General of Police, in whose good books the Koppal official was as the Circle Inspector of the small town, due to his
liberal give-and-take approach, rose to the occasion to save their protege from
any harm. They visited the town and entrusted the investigation of the case to a
complaisant Deputy Superintendent of Police of a neighbouring subdivision
with perspicuous oral directions to finalise the case as not proved, before the
magistrate who received the wife's private complaint took cognisance of the
plaint. The officious Deputy Superintendent of Police duly complied with the
directions and sent his investigation report to the court for action u/s 2l0 of the
Cr.P.C. Thus ended the case of cold-blooded torture and culpable homicide of
an innocent goldsmith. The person who committed the crime stealthily in a
place outside his jurisdiction now lives a retired life, unaffected by the crime in
anyway and the two officers who saved him from the wheel of justice are
continuing in service at higher ranks. It is such success stories of cruelty and
criminality that make the police appear like a criminal demon. What right has
the police to investigate and prosecute criminals while it protects killer criminals
from its ain field to the disservice of law and justice?
In another incident, a police official who got posted as police chief of a state
of India in 1986 on the support of his community, wanted to favour a fingerprint
Sub-InspeCtor, who had been under suspension for a long time after being
arrested in a criminal case involving community interests, en revanche to the
support of his community for his elevation as police chief, by releasing the latter
from suspension even while the criminal case was at the trial stage in court. He
summoned the Superintendent of Police in charge of the Sub-Inspector and
examined the file about the suspension after assuming the charge as police chief.
The Superintendent of Police, who was a greenhorn in such matters, failed to
understand that the action was an indication that he was to release the Sub-
Inspector from the suspension coute que coute. Even if he understood the tacit
meaning of the act, he could not act selon les regles for two reasons; a) that the
Sub- Inspector was suspended by an officer of the rank of Deputy Inspector
General of Police and ipso facto no officer below that rank was empowered to
release the official from the suspension as per civil service rules, and b) that as
the official was under suspension for being arrested in a criminal case and the
case was then pending trial in court of law, release from suspension was not en
regle. After a fortnight, the police chief secured the fingerprint Sub-Inspector's
release from suspension. However, he nourished esoteric spite for the young
Superintendent of Police for not understanding what he wanted him to do; he
manipulated the records and ensured that the latter lost his selection for the
Indian Police Service during the selection committee meeting, held after three
years. The career of the bright officer is in shambles now. Such cases of
avenging the noncooperation in criminal activities of those at higher ranks are
common in the Indian police these days. This egregious trend adversely affects
the policing outfit by weakening its cause for fairness, law and justice.
How subordinates are brought to requisite shapes is a different story tout
ensemble. A young subdivisional police officer in a small town that was known
for speculative business activities, conducted a raid on a library, run by a
powerful local community as a common gambling house where prominent
people of the town were patrons. He apprehended more than fifty prominent
people including the richest business men, senior government officials and local
politicians with huge stake monies. Though the library had been a blue-chip
gambling den for many years, none dared to raid it in spite of repeated public
petitions. As law requires that the place must first be proved as a common
gambling house, the subdivisional police officer entered the names of all those
who were gambling at the place on the Station House Diary of the town police
station and let them out with written warning that cases would be booked if they
continued to gamble there. The officer learnt too late that the gambling den was
patronised by the Superintendent of Police of the district and the Deputy
Inspector General of the range and the men whose names were brought on the
police Station records were their friends. He was transferred out to a sinecure
post tout de suite of the incident, with his annual confidential report stating that
the public might revolt against the officer if he had continued in the police
department. The library continues to be a gambling den even now.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police at the place of the new posting of
the officer wanted the maledict young Deputy Superintendent of Police to marry
a girl from his circle. The parents of the young officer fearing chantage got
their son married in hurry to a girl of their choice. This antagonised the Deputy
Inspector General. His next annual confidential report showed the junior as a
liability to the police department. He also prevailed year after year upon other
officers who wrote confidential reports of the officer to incorpse adverse
remarks. Most of them obliged and this bright junior officer ended up with a
series of unsubstantiated adverse remarks in his annual confidential reports.
All his appeals were never allowed to reach the government. It is to his credit
that he is yet unbroken and continues in police service while his far less
competent colleagues have superated him on the career ladder and he is
successively denied important postings though there is not a single thing in his
career to justify such a treatment. Undeterred by the man-made dies mali
heaped on him by the departmental heads by refusing him selection to the all
India service in preference to his less qualified and less competent juniors, he
later addressed the chief secretary of the government not to consider him any
more for the service. He took this unprecedented autophagous demarche in
utter contemn to the corrupt departmental heads who sit above him to decide his
career avenir.
These garish paradigms are just a croquis of the coup defend of the criminal
clinamen of the people in today's Indian police. In no way are they more
committed to law and justice than the criminal elements of the society. Does not the police need people in its fold with deeper passion for law and justice?
Is it by design or accident that independent India raised a criminal outfit to catch
criminals? It is in the interest of the Indian police to accept the reality in its
naked form so as to inspire remedial measures.
Policing by false publicity
Sadly, the police of independent India learnt to rely on poor public memory
to obliterate its poor performance. Incompetent and directionless reporting by
the Indian media helps them in this image-salvaging task. It is a fashion in
police circles to issue press notes about detection of major dacoity cases after
small-time thieves are apprehended. Only if somebody from the press or public
pursues the information of the press-notes, will they come to know that no
dacoity case has been really detected and that the loud claims of successful
policing are only meant to hoodwink the public, press and political masters. It
is interesting to note that most claims of detection of dacoity cases coincide with
legislative assembly sessions. This is true at least in Bangalore City where
during 1989-91, such press notes abundantly appeared in newspapers during
legislative assembly sessions. Of late, the public has leamt to take such claims
cum grain sails and consequently the credibility of the police is waning in its
eyes. The tough no-nonsense image of the Indian police of the British vintage
has given way to a nonsensical, comical image in free India. What better thing
can come from hoc genus omne hype?
Unitary police administration
In the current system of policing in India, police stations and district police
units form basic units of the administration. Some of the functions discharged
at these levels have concurrent jurisdiction with some special units at state and
national levels. Crime investigation in special circumstances can be taken over
from the district police administration by the state CID or the CBI at the
national level. So, it is with the intelligence collection, security operations, the
raising of armed police forces, maintenance of crime records etc. The police in
the states is devised as an independent unit. In a vast country like India,
policing being shared between scores of independent units with no
perspicaciously defined mechanism of cooperation, the problem occurs of
coordination and unity of purpose in tackling challenges that cover more then
one of these units. There are too many challenges such as these in the
increasingly complex society of India. Except for the sense of national unity,
there is nothing common among these units to approach the gauntlets with a
common cause. Even the common Indian Police Service is unable to bring
about a unity of purpose to policing throughout India. This gives an impression
of fragmentation in the Indian police. A fragmented police cannot turn out work
in full stream, owing to the waste by leakage in the process of co-ordination
between the fragmented pans. India must consider devising a pollent unitary
police administration at the centre with full control over subordinate state and
union territory police setups. This would avoid coordination problems and help
policing to be more purposeful in tackling challenges from the national
perspective. It also makes available larger resources from the national level for
policing apart from strengthening the sense of belonging to one police. This is
necessary in the interests of the country and its policing in the future.
Study and research in policing
Policing is a field of specialised study. There is the need of in-depth study
of policing as a discipline, apart from research to improve policing functions.
Police administration is a distinct field with sui generis characteristics. The
police organisation with its hierarchical order, stiff discipline, nonesuch policing
characteristics, unique operational difficulties and functional modalities poses
its own challenges. These challenges must be met and superated more suo.
This requires the development of the subjects of police and policing as a distinct
field of intense study and research. Whatever was done in this field till now has
not sufficed and has contributed nothing to policing methods arid style. A
myriad problems in the field of practical policing stare planners in the face, be
these problems of operational strategies, timing of the operations, procedural
hurdles, organisational planning, control techniques, information and feedback
systems, communication networks, effective supervision, leadership qualities,
work distribution, work measurement, job analysis or human relationships.
Useful study on and research into these subjects would make a momentous
impact on the style and effectiveness of policing in India. Such studies and
research impart respectability to police and policing by creating an intellectual
dimension. The academic interests work as stepping stones in remodelling the
police organisation and redefining policing functions to create an effective
police force.
Measurement of policing
A major handicap in police administration is the difficulty posed in
measurement of policing. No tangible tool to measure police performance has
as yet been devised. The problem is peculiar to the fields of crime control and
security operations. The object of the organisation is preventing crimes from
being committed and success of the policing can be measured only in relation to the extent of the efforts being made to commit crimes, which are prevented. As
the factors of such an effort being unknown after the crimes are prevented,
effectiveness of the policing can never be measured. The results that meet the
eye, namely the successful protection of a sensitive target or the complete crime
prevention during a particular period can be the outcome for two different
reasons: either that none have attempted such malicho, in which case even the
least effective police could also have produced the same results or that an all-out
major attempt to commit crime has been prevented, which could not have been
achieved by anything less than the first-rate policing. Here, the same results
meet the eye for two different dimensions of the policing, ipso facto rendering
outcome a factor not related to the quality of the policing. Measurement of the
quality of crime investigation and maintenance of order are also equally
complex for different reasons. Policing in these fields largely depends upon
intangible factors like luck, surroundings and the willing cooperation of the
public. To superate these problems of measurement of policing qualities, a
police organisation depends upon comparing developments in the same periods
in preceding years. This is an unscientific method and gives unsatisfactory
results for various reasons. The crime rate or other policing challenges do not
remain static over time. These depend upon population, complexity of the
society, economic conditions, moral values, quality of leadership, political
conditions, prices, climate etc, none of which develop from any predictable
formula. The police perforce needs a tool to measure policing quality as a
control device. Until such a device is invented, police administrators have to
rely upon their subjective fancies to measure and control policing and assess the
work of their subordinates. Until a scientific device is formulated, the
heartburns and frustrations caused by erratic measurement of work and policing
qualities, wherein a few mealy-mouthed smarties always comer accolades at the
cost of efficient silent workers, will continue to precipitate. A sufficiently
efficient tool to measure policing qualities is the first priority in the task of
creating a new shape for the Indian police. The success achieved in this field
will decide the degree to which the Indian police can shed its old shoddy image.
Management in policing
For police administrators, knowledge of modern management principles
makes policing and police operations cheaper, effective and less demanding in
terms of time, place, manpower, equipments and other resources. A clinamen to
study and plan operations in terms of layout charts, time flow, span of control,
methods of programming of operations, motivational aspects, human
relationships, information flow, control methods, work analysis and
contingencies for emergencies must be ingenerate in policing whether it pertains
to raids, maintenance of order, crime control, crime investigation, intelligence collection, security exercises or even quotidian police administration. Only the
pernickety exercise of management techniques will make police administration
meaningful, purposeful and useful in giving policing a direction and content.
The police cannot afford to sit back while tout le monde reaps the behoofs of the
latest tidings in the field of management techniques.
Housing and other facilities
Policing is a risky profession that draws antagonism and hatred by its very
nature. It involves round-the-clock duUes, often at odd hours, at odd places in
odd circumstances. Retaliation by criminals is a constant risk under which
policemen live. Their work constantly expose them to danger. The very nature
of their duties necessitates their being treated on a different footing to others in
the government. The security of housing and other facilities being generously
available to them is de rigueur. Indeed the spirit of the ancien regime remains
undisturbed in matters of housing facilities for the police. However, a much
more liberal attitude in providing housing and other facilities to the police is
necessary to strengthen the Indian police and make policing more effective.
Reorganisation of police
The last three decades saw a tremendous expansion in the Indian police. For
lack of an organisational plan and the foresight to assess the future demands of
policing, an erratic growth has resulted. Organisational sensibilities like work-
load, unity of control, accountability, functional conveniences, span of control,
and information flow are never given the attention they need in building an
organisation. As a result, while a few posts in the police organisation are
overburdened with work, there are many which are sinecures without work or
accountability. The lopsided growth of the organisation generated acute likes
and dislikes for various police jobs. This made postings in the police
department, a matter of haute politique and high business. Naturally, probity
and objectivity are sacrificed to give precedence to survival and protection of
career interests. Corruption flourished. This may not be the sole reason for the
glissade of the standards of policing. Yet, it is a major cause. Rationalisation of
the police structure to bring a balance among various posts at the same rank
would certainly help to ameliorate the situation considerably. It would also help
to eliminate the wastage of government funds on unnecessary posts. The
justification for the creation of such de trop posts, that they fill slots to post
unwanted elements, does not hold ground in a no-nonsense and serious
department like the police. A systematic growth plan for balanced expansion is sine qua non if the police department is to be of any relevance to the difficile
tasks ahead.
Professional knowledge
Policing is a field where professional knowledge is perforce in use. What is
at issue is not only the knowledge of law and procedures but a deeper insight
into their applications, necessary in diverse circumstances. A mind, alert to its
surroundings with an inexhaustible curiosity to know what is afoot and what is
the coup de fond of each development and its likely impacts on policing in
general and the work at hand in particular, is sine qua non for perficient
policing. This need entails special efforts to update professional and general
knowledge at all levels. Though there are training programmes, including in-
service training, in the Indian police, these are lacking in substance and quality.
They fail to impart the right knowledge to trainees and induce attitudinal
changes in them. The poor mental makeup is a common failing at all police
ranks in India. A lack of commitment to work, either in actual performance or
in supervision is the primary cause of this failing. A healthy police setup must
possess sound professional and general knowledge at all levels, from the
constabulary to the ranks of the Director General: this is the number one
priority.
Training in martial art
The Indian police is not paying sufficient attention to the need for physical
prowess, sturdiness and skill in martial art. The need for attention to these
factors during recruitment, basic training and in-service challenges is tout a fait
ignored. A healthy and sturdy police requires healthy and sturdy men and
officers, capable of taking up gauntlets and defending themselves when exposed
to comminations. The need can be sidelined only at the risk of weakening the
organisation. The police is often required to defend itself in circumstances
when unarmed and undefended. Policing involves performance of tough and
physically trying jobs that can only be performed when policemen and police
officers are physically and mentally fit. The police, aspiring to a bright future,
must attend to this need for its own good health with genuine seriousness.
Policing through people
The performance of the Indian police in utilising the services of the public is
far from desirable. Most parts of the country are yet to avail of the services of
the people as special police officers, as is provided by police regulations to assist in policing. Wherever the services are availed, the potential is not made
use of to the full. The system of village police officers also is yet to fledge to
take off. The use of people as traffic wardens to assist traffic police is limited to
major cities of India. No police can be tout a fait self-contained. Involving the
public and obtaining its cooperation in policing is a necessary art which needs to
be carefully cultivated for making policing a success story in India. There is no
shortage of people among me public who would volunteer their services. Only,
the police must open its doors to such services and organise a system to make
such services really effective and useful.
Lack of planning in modernisation:
It is indubitable that neoteric communication, transport, weaponry, office
and other scientific systems arc musts for a feracious turnout of work in the
police. Only modernisation can equip the police for perficient action. The fact
is well realised in police circles sans an insight as to the what, wheres, hows and
whys. The passion for modernisation is not met with intellectual analysis of the
needs for modernisation. The result is a spasmodic modernisation without the
logical support to sustain modernisation systems. This has resulted in
enormous, wasteful expenditures on mal a propos gadgetry. India is yet to
develop to machinery to assess the needs of modernisation in the police and to
devise techniques to speed up the process. India is yet to make full use of
advanced computer facilities for the policing work; computerisation of
fingerprints is yet to reach a satisfactory phase. Use of helicopters for policing
is as yet a distant dream in India. Distant hearing and night watching devices
are similarly unknown.
Response time:
The response time of Indian police to a crisis call is unduly long when
compared to international standards. Efforts to shorten it in Delhi and a few
other places where terrorist strikes made shocking impacts, brought some
improvements. These are only exceptions. Otherwise, no serious thought is
given to the need for quick response time. The modernisation programmes
which should pave the path for improving the response time, seldom attend to
this salient need. The Bangalore city police spent liberally in 1991 on modem
communication gadgets; but it did not better its response time even by the
fraction of a second. Instances of such wasteful expenditure on modernisation
are available in other parts of the country also.
Need of sound human relationship
The current state of human relationships in Indian police does not bring
credit to the organisation. Relationships are brittle and mechanical without the
edge of human feelings. The relationship between different ranks turns out to
be soft or hard depending upon the contractual relationship established for
mutual advantage from time to time: it is rather a donor and recipient
relationship while soft and master and servant relationship while hard. There is
no genuine human concern and no sense of recognition of the other man as
another human being with more suo approach. The other's human qualities, sui
generis attributes and rare gifts are balked as inconsequential trash. Rank
differences superate other factors in moulding the brittle pattern of these
relationships. This is equally true among officers of the same rank. The model
of bad human relationship within the police bred an atmosphere of mutual
suspicion in spite of an outward show of belonging to the single family that the
police is.
Indian police leaders must think hard to decide whether the current model of
human relationship in the police is conducive to healthy policing or not. A
sound police organisation sprouts only on the terra firma of sound human
relationships between and within ranks, founded on genuine concern, mutual
respect, recognition, sympathy and understanding. Such relationship does not
perforce go against the police discipline and official command-obedience
functions. A sense of belonging and unity of purpose are spawned in the mind;
not in a stiff hierarchical order. The hierarchical order only defines the
relationship which is created in the minds of the people. Good relationship
strengthens the hierarchical order by making the order willingly acceptable to all
and thus lubricating its working. A subtle mental bond that links all men in an
organisation is its greatest asset. A sense of recognition from others and the
pride of belonging create a happy atmosphere in the organisation and improve
efficiency and output by bringing-in the elements of co-operation and unity of
purpose. Sadly, this is just the reverse in the maledict Indian police. Here,
human relationships are vitiated. Mutual suspicion and antagonism are the rule.
Men at higher ranks revel in hurling the pride of subordinates while
subordinates in turn wait for the right time to wreak of their revenge. In this
atmosphere of antagonism and undercuttings, the organisation and its objects
suffer, all its people suffer and the country suffers. This is where India stands at
present.
Warming-up of police recruits
The period of initiation is the most important and impressionable period in
the career-life of fresh recruits to the police department. The process of
warming-up is based on the psychological needs of human nature. New entrants
must be handled with utmost care to give them confidence and a feeling of
belonging at the incipient stage itself. A sense of confidence and belonging to
the organisation and an ingenerate love and respect for the higher-ups are the
substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate discipline in a void
is like waiting for rain from the autumn sky. Indian police impresarios failed to
understand such finer nuances of administration when they copied the system of
the British Indian police. And so we now have a police system where discipline
is insisted on subordinates sans the conditions requisite for the discipline. The
recruits who enter the fold with open sensibilities and high expectations, anon
wither after braving for a while the brusque and insensitive conduct of their
higher ranks. These recruits continue thereafter to be constant enemies of the
higher ranks and the department for which they must continue to work for the
next three to four decades. A police department constituted of such members,
thanks to the shabby approach of the insensitive higher ranks in this most
impressionable period of the former's career-life, cannot turn out eximious
work. It is a tragedy that India neither spawned a police force of its ain superior
values nor copied the police force of the British vintage in its entirety with its
finer points, but cultivated instead a burlesque of the rough and mediocre
aspects of both.
Recognition as a motivating tool
The success of a police organisation depends upon to what extent it creates a
sense of pride and dignity in its members including the constabulary, so that
they realise and recognise themselves as useful and responsible members of the
police outfit and endeavour to live up to the image. The goal can be achieved
by proper modulation of perks, reward-and-punishment policy and rank-to-rank
relationship. The approach must create an impression that whatever a police
official gets as perks, rewards, praise, good treatment, respect, censure or
punishment, has been earned by his swink and potential. This makes the
proceedings a part of his service and seity and thus helps him to identify with
his work and conduct and ultimately with the organisation. This brings him a
sort of recognition and makes him more responsible to his work and
organisation. This is a far cry from the simulacrum of what is actually
happening in Indian police. Recognition of good work as a rule is shied away
from. Every behoof is bestowed as a personal favour. Even a reward en regle
in recognition of eximious work is made to look like a favour. Meritorious and
distinguished medals too are divested of their distinction by being linked to
seniority and not actual merit. This is the reason why these medals carry no
meaning within the police organisation.
Remodelling the use of welfare funds
Police forces administer welfare funds for the benefit of their members. The
current approach of disbursing money from these funds to needy applicants
needs to be revised in line with the need to arouse a sense of pride and dignity
even in receiving help from the establishment. Much thought has to go into this
aspect to make the welfare funds useful to them without giving the impression
of charity. If the funds go to them as their rightful share, they would be put to
better use than as a charitable contribution. A newly structured police for the
new age certainly requires a fresh approach to the utilisation of police welfare
funds.
Needs for right people at the top
A job culture involutes basic beliefs and objects of the organisation,
professional ethics and degree of commitment to the aspirations of the
organisation, as laid down by precedence and practice. To what results
precedence and practice mould the job culture decide the success or otherwise
of the organisation. The decisions and conduct of those at the helm as the point
d'appui of police circles substruct the life lines of the organisation. It is
important that only right people reach the top. A headless organisation is better
than one headed by a degenerate weakling. This is why the policy of selection
and promotion at high levels plays a vital role in the growth of the organisation.
In a democratic age of self-seeking, short-term political leadership, where
sycophancy is the sole criterion for ascending the career ladder, the policy of
selection and promotion is misdight at best and motivatedly in the reverse gear
at worst, to the detriment of the growth and functioning of the organisation. All
those committed to the cause of police and effective policing must break the
trend and endeavour to provide a fresh lease of life for effective policing.
Bad models at high levels
There are myriad instances of unhealthy practices at the highest levels on the
current Indian police scene. A recent instance is a notorious police chief of one
of the states of India with his polio-struck wife, being taken to court on the eve
of his retirement from service by a prominent social worker for allegedly
defrauding the public and a spastic society by defalcation of huge amounts of
money, collected by sale of charity entertainment tickets in the name of the
spastic society. It is a different story that the alleged escroc succeeded in
silencing the social worker through police pressure and ensured that the case fell
through for lack of evidence. The point is to what sad levels men reaching high ranks in maledict independent India can stoop to make a few dirty bucks.
Fortunately, the nithing, malgre lui dance afore men who count in politics, could
not get an extension of service ayont his superannuation in 1990. Such
instances of mauvaise sujet at high ranks abound in Indian police scene.
Discipline is a potential syndetic force of the police organisation. It defines
all parameters of the force and makes its hierarchical order meaningful and
purposeful, the command-obedience relationship sharp-edged and functional
conduct pernickety. This pollent instrument devised as an esemplastic factor for
the police force during the British era has now become a demonic evil in the
Indian situation and gorges its vitality. It is used as a cover by the people in
higher ranks to indulge in wrongdoing and to silence the conscientious few in
the lower ranks from protesting. It is also a gleg cover to promote the interests
of juniors who support their evil deeds by sycophancy and personal loyalty; and
to suppress those juniors of inner strength, individual pride, independent mind
and argute conscience. A subtle hatred for superior qualities of the subordinates
is patent in the Indian police force of the post-independent vintage. The juniors
who are perspicaciously inferior in intellectual qualities and other superior
attributes are valued and helped to superate others on the career ladder.
Perchance, an innate inferiority complex in police leadership and a
consectaneous fear of weaknesses being excoriated before those lower in their
ranks bother them au fond. Another farce carried out behind the facade of
discipline is that of an officer forcing a subordinate to meet personal ends
ranging from getting a regular supply of vegetables to even forcing to marry his
daughter or wife's sister. Here, police ranks display exceptional unity of
purpose in helping a colleague to corner the subordinate who shows the
hardihood to go against his senior's desire. In the process, four-square
youngsters in the organisation drop out or are cornered and those impair to
higher tasks scale the ladder of the organisation, thus weakening the
organisation ab intra. There are myraid paradigms of such fearless officers who
acted upon their consciences and lost their seniority through catenated false
annual reports.
A Commissioner of Police of the capital of a certain state in India who came
back to police work after languishing in a sinecure on deputation for nearly a
decade is an interesting instance of self-promotion by false methods. In spite of
his poor record, he succeeded by pulling political strings to get posted as Police
Commissioner of the state capital. Despite his utter incompetence, lack of
administrative acumen and an enfested relationship with all of his Deputy
Commissioners, he succeeded in continuing in the job for more than two years
and even manipulated undue promotions for himself without disturbing his
plump posting. He is known to bend backward at the cost of all values, pride
and police interests to aggrace men in power and to brazenly gasconade, that
none can superate him in the game. He did ascend the ladder of career ayont his scope otherwise and bragged about the possibility of becoming the state police
chief in the early part of 1990 itself. He will certainly supercede many
competent heads to head the state police force someday if not in 1990 in the
existing triste police culture. Such a trend frustrates competent and principled
officers and makes way for a gradual glissade of the value system in the setup.
If police officers at the helm do not vindicate their organisation from the
unscrupled onslaughts of such selfish interests ab intra, none would come
forward to do the job for them and the police would die a slow death.
Public image of police
What me Indian police inspires in the public is fear and hatred, not trust,
respect and love. This is the greatest single failing of the Indian police. A
police force thus feared and hated is irrelevant in a democracy. The argument
that fear is a necessary constituent in policing is not based on the right
understanding of human psychology and the basic tenets of policing work. The
police does stand on a different footing from the general public while exercising
policing powers. The different footing, perforce is based on trust, respect, love
and consectaneous healthy awe, not on fear and hatred. The image incorpsed
with healthy awe is more lasting and pollent than that based on hateful fear.
While the former inspires genuine cooperation and willing subjection to police
authority, the latter only forces such subjection till the fear lasts. An argument
advanced in favour of fear in policing is that the strains of fear are deep in the
very nature of policing. This again is based on a mendacious notion, about
policing and belike on the preposterous practices of the present police'outfit.
The police is not synonymous with fear. A smiling and- helpful police is the
model of democratic policing. The police is not the enemy of the people,
especially in a democracy. Policing involves enforcement of order for the good
of many which may sometimes involve inconvenience to a perverted few. The
job if performed rightly must win trust, love and respect of the hoi polloi for the
police. Only the misuse of power and a supercilious approach to the exercise of
the powers would antagonise the plebeian and earn his implacable haired. The
exercise of police powers with absolute humility is quite possible. An approach
of service to the general public renders the exercise of police powers, a sensible
and circumspect task and avoids harshness. The performance inspires trust, love
and respect and not fear and hatred. Only if people learn that police really care
for their well-being, percase, no other government agency would be as loved
and respected as the police. Only the police should show its good intentions and
convince the public about its trustworthiness. Nothing the Indian police does
now helps to create this image. It is high time that serious efforts are made in
this direction.
What is basically required for the Indian police is a tough, mature and no-nonsense image in place of the present fear. The police organisation must create
an impression of strength of character and infrangible probity. Only from this
height, can the police discharge its sacred duties of protecting and maintaining
order in national life. This is now a far cry from the invious misdight of the
Indian police. The leap from the current glidder field to what should be is not
an impossible feat. Each step ahead must be carefully laid to make steady,
albeit slow progress towards the difficile goal. It is an attempt worth making. It
is an opuscule worth doing.
Need of sound mind at higher levels
A factor that seriously affects the morale of a disciplined force like the
police is that of men affected by psychological disorders of inferiority complex,
holding posts from where they can affect the career of the subordinates. This is
a very serious situation where distorted minds hold reigns of the career of
thousands of subordinates with many at very senior levels. The mental disorder
brings a psychological imbalance by which the people in high ranks learn to
interpret subordinates' normal conduct perversely as surquedry; normal
reporting or explanation appears like an intrigue and lough posture appears like
insubordination. The extra modum fear of insecurity, inspired by the feeling of
inferiority is so pollent that it does not permit cunctation in striking back at the
source of the comminalion with all strength at disposal. This makes retaliation
an ever pensile threat to the career of the subordinates. And the threat, sine
prole, is true in the police. This makes people of sound mind, a must in
responsible positions. For an organisation like the police, the need of a sound
mind is more basic than any other faculty.
The'inferiority complex seriously manifests when the pusillanimous person
troubled with the disorder is newly posted to a responsible position after
marcescere in a sinecure post for a long time. The metabasis from the void to
the strains and straints of responsibilities breaches his inner confidence and the
disorder of neltlcsome suspicion on everything around raises its ugly head.
There are any number of such examples in the Indian police.
The police Commissioner referred to somewhere in this article is a
kenspeckle paradigm for the havoc created by such a disorder. Police
administrators at the sconce must keep constant pernoctation on such disorders
in the interests of the police administration.
Salvaging operation
The situation can be salvaged by clearing the cobwebs from the entrails of
the Indian police. There is a catena of self-motivated officers in key positions in the police who unknowingly brought about the degringolade of the Indian
police in the post-democratic era. They corrupted the police atmosphere, set
wrong precedences, encouraged self-indulgence, pulled down its no-nonsense
tough image and reduced it to its present cadaverous existence. These elements
should be sidelined to absorb men of probity to refurbish and rebuild the police
setup. Only really capable impresarios can pull the Indian police out from its
present fix.
The future of India as a country depends upon the strengths and weaknesses
of its police. Defence forces are relevant to the existence of India insomuch as
defending its borders and protecting Us system of government. But the
relevance of the police is more meaningful, for, here, the very existence of India
as a nation is an issue. The significance of the police in the survival of the
nation is often forgotten somewhere between the width of the civil
administration and the depth of the defence forces. A highly competent and
disciplined police force, percase, is the greatest asset of any country. Every
patriotic Indian must aspire to that. The police must be powerful. En attendant,
it must be a disciplined and committed force, a no-nonsense, tough outfit. It
saves the country from all disasters; it supports the administration in civil rule
and works as its watch dog. It works as a subsidiary force in support of the
military during war. If need be, it can run the administration when civil rule
breaks down and function as an armed force when the military fails the country.
The importance of this great tool of governance is yet to be duly recognised. It
is high time that it is done now and. the Indian police is exemed from its
nauseating subculture and gets a fresh life of vitality and strength. It is really
heartrending to see the swinging police in its present mauvais ton, especially for
an insider who is a part of this great institution, entrusted with the high objects
of protecting public life. Yes, something should be done to save the police. The
question is who should begin the process, and where, when and how? Who will
bell the demonic cat to bring it to its senses?
posted by praveen # 8:04 PM 
