POLICING THE POLICE
A CRITIQUE ON THE POST-INDEPENDENT INDIAN POLICE. An analytical study of the philosophy and field dynamics of the policing in practice with live instances from the field penned by a Police Officer from India. The hypocrisy and the sad state of affairs in the profession in India and the UPSC as its appointing agent are effectively brought out by the author. His poems are a holistic portrayal of the life situations with the sensibilities and emotions of a poet.Saturday, August 17, 2002
Name of the Author: PRAVEEN KUMAR
Address: B-3, SENIOR POLICE OFFICERS’
RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX,
SHOOLAY CIRCLE, HOSUR ROAD,
BANGALORE-560 025 (Karnataka, INDIA)
Click Here For E-Mail
Year of Publication: 2000
Subject: INDIAN POLICE AFTER INDEPENDENCE
Loving Dedication To Pratheek Praveen Kumar, My Son
A POLICE officer and a prolific writer, Praveen Kumar, has published
another anthology ……….in the form of this book.……… "Policing the police"
acquires more relevance today in the context of the criminalisation of
not just politics, but of the services as well……….Coming as a sequel to
his earlier book Policing for the New Age, the author chooses to
describe policemen as "social doctors" and policing as a "surgical
operation to systematically remove cancerous growths from the body of
society”.
THE HINDU
Praveen Kumar is not only an upright police officer but also a poet and
a prolific writer.……..Policing the Police—an analytical Study of the
philosophy and field dynamics of the policing in practice highlight
various problem areas including defective selection and
recruitment,unsound training and unhealthy job culture and identifies
likely solutions for its redemption.
DECCAN HERALD
Praveen Kumar gives an insight into the Indian police set-up and
analyses the problems of the department, with interesting illustrations
from the field. Mr Kumar's book is a departure from the routine, where
he not only analyses the problems, but also suggests solutions.
THE ASIAN AGE
The author expresses concern over sycophants climbing the ladder and
reaching the top to hold the reins and guide the destiny of the police.
The result — a spiritless culture created by incompetent
leaders…….Policing the police involves self-policing. Through the book,
the author has made an honest effort to throw some light on the state of
affairs of Indian police.
THE TIMES OF INDIA
A police officer unravels his profession.
INDIA TODAY
Policing with a cause. Policing The Police by Praveen Kumar.…….delves
deeply on this core aspect of policing and lays bare the Indian Police
setup, sheath by sheath………He interprets police and policing through the
prism of a poet’s sensibilities.
THE HINDUSTAN TIMES
Praveen Kumar is a senior Police Officer
with the Kamataka Police. Apart from Policing
The Police, he has also authored and published
five volumes of verse – Portraits Of Passion,
Unknown Horizons and Portraits Of Passion in English,
Divya Belaku and Bhavana in Kannada, and Policing
For TheNew Age, a treatise on the Police and Policing.
Born in Mangalore, Praveen Kumar
graduated in Science from St. Aloysius College,
Mangalore, going on to obtain a
post-graduate degree in Literature from Mysore
University. He also holds post-graduate
diplomas in Business Management and
Cooperation. In his student days he was also a
prize-winning orator and writer and shares an
active interest in interior decoration with his
wife, Smt. Jayashree. He has also appeared on
literary programmes on Doordarshan - Kavi
Sammelana and Sanchaya and interviewed several
times by different TV channels as a Poet and Police
Officer.
Stemming from his varied academic
background, are the lively far-ranging Interests
that have impelled him to write on subjects as
diverse as police procedure and poetry, striking
the perfect balance between the pursuance of
vocation and avocation.
BHAVANA
(Poems In Kannada)
THE WORK IS A BUNCH OF LILTING POEMS IN EASY, INTIMATE
AND COSY KANNADA. THEY ARE THE REVERIES OF A TRAINED
AND CRITICAL MIND OF A MATURE POET WITH AN OBSERVING
AND PENETRATING EYE AND SHARP SENSITIVITY TO THE
WORLD AROUND.......THE CANVAS FOR HIS 62 SHORT PIECES
/OF POETRY IS THE WHOLE GAMUT OF HUMAN LIFE, ITS
CHARMS AND BEAUTY..... AND IS HIGHLY ENJOYABLE.....
THERE IS ALSO A BOUQUET OF THE ECSTATIC WORLD OF
LOVERS AND ROMANCE.
THE HINDU
DIVYA BELAKU
(Poems In Kannada)
METAPHORS AND WORLD IMAGERIES, REPLETE WITH RHYME
AND RHYTHMIC FELICITY HERE FILL AND SPILL IN ALL
DIRECTIONS; THEY FLY, FLOAT AND DANCE AND ULTIMATELY
GO STILL TO ECHO WITHIN TIME AND AGAIN (Translated from
Kannada).
DR. SHIVARAMA KARANTHA
PORTRAITS OF PASSION
(Poems In English)
PRAVEEN KUMAR IS A POET, A PROLIFIC WRITER
AND A SENIOR POLICE OFFICER IN ONE.THE GENTLE
PASSIONS OF A POET, INTELLECTUAL ATTRIBUTES
OF A CREATIVE WRITER AND HARDIHOOD OF A
POLICE ADMINISTRATOR HAVE SPLICED TOGETHER
IN HIS LITERARY CREATIONS.
UNKNOWN HORIZONS
(Poems In English)
THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF DELIGHT AND SURPRISE
THROUGHOUT. THE POET IS AWARE OF THE WONDERFUL
WORLD OF NATURE AND OF MAN. SO HE IS ABLE TO EMPLOY
TELLING IMAGES TO PORTRAY HIS INNER FEELINGS OF
BEAUTY AND LOVE.
DR. M. GOPALAKRISHNA ADIGA
POLICING FOR THE NEW AGE
(Essays on Police)
THE LANGUAGE IS FLOWERY.....THERE IS A NEED TO
APPRECIATE HIS RUTHLESS EXPOSURE OF THE
CRIMINALISATION OF POLITICS AND THE POLITICISATION OF
THE POLICE... HIS TREATISES ON DOWRY DEATHS AND
THEIR INVESTIGATION AND ON POLICE DOGS ARE
CHARACTERISTICALLY THOROUGH AND SOUND MERITING
UNIVERSAL ATTENTION.....THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THE
AUTHOR WHO HAS ALREADY ACQUIRED A REPUTATION AS
A POET IS A HIGHLY SENSITIVE AND CULTURED PERSON.
THE HINDU
PUBLISHED WORKS OF PRAVEEN KUMAR
Books
a) English writings 1) POLICING FOR THE NEW AGE (MAY 1992)
2) POLICING THE POLICE (JANUARY 2000)
b) English poems 1) UNKNOWN HORIZONS (JULY 1991)
2) PORTRAITS OF PASSION (MARCH 1997)
3) LOVE AND PRIDE (2002 IN WEB)
c) Kannada poems 1) DIVYA BELAKU (JULY 1991)
2) BHAVANA (DECEMBER 1993)
Articles
a) The Hindu (Open Page)
1) INDIAN POLICE AT A CROSSROADS (6-6-1995)
2) INTERNAL SECURITY- CHALLENGES AND APPROACH (8-8-1995)
3) INDIAN POLICE: TIME TO TAKE TOUGH DECISIONS (19-9-1995)
4) WHAT AILS PROFESSIONAL POLICING IN INDIA? (2-1-1996)
5) NEED TO LIBERATE LAW ENFORCERS FROM UNHOLY ALLIANCES (2-4- 1996)
6) ROLE OF POLICE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA (18-6-1996)
7) WHERE THEIR LOYALTIES LIE… (27-8-1996)
8) CAUGHT IN THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CORRUPTION (15-10-1996)
9) POLICE STRUCTURE NEEDS THE MANAGEMENT TOUCH (31-12-1996)
10) POLICE & HUMAN RIGHTS – DOES END JUSTIFY MEANS? (18-3-1997)
11) RESTORING CREDIBILITY TO CRIME INVESTIGATION (24-6-1997)
12) WHAT AILS THE INDIAN SECRET POLICE (9-9-1997)
13) POLICE UNPROFESSIONAL (20-1-1998)
14) LAW AND JUSTICE (23-6-1998)
15) POLICE MORALE ERODED BY POOR ADMINISTRATION (8-9-1998)
16) TIME TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF CIVIL SERVICE (2-3-1999)
QUALITY OF CIVIL SERVICE (19-3-1999) : letter to the Editor
as answer to UPSC response in THE HINDU dated 16-3-1999.
b) The Indian Express (Editorial Page)
1) QUOTA SYSTEM CAN WEAKEN CIVIL SERVICE (6-6-1995)
2) EMPOWERING THE CBI (10-7-1997)
c) Deccan Herald (Sunday Supplementary)
1) TOWARDS SANE SERVICE (2-7-1995)
2) LACKING VIGOUR (6-7-1997)
3) PROFESSIONAL PRIDE OF THE POLICE (28-9-1997)
4) NEED TO REVITALISE THE POLICE (23-11-1997)
5) FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE (11-11-2001)
d) The Times Of India
1) THE GUN STILL SPEAKS (21-10-1995)
e) Alive (Focus)
1) CRIME, POLITICS AND POLICE (FEBRUARY 1996)
2) CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE (JANUARY 1997)
3) THE INDIAN POLICE : MALADIES AND REMEDIES (SEPTEMBER 1998)
4) THE CRUMBLING STEELFRAME OF INDIA (NOVEMBER 1998)
5) KASHMIR: THE CORE ISSUE OF NATIONHOOD (FEBRUARY 2002)
f) IJCC
1) INVESTIGATION OF DOWRY DEATH CASES (1996 – 3)
2) INDIAN INTERNAL SECURITY BUILDUP (1998 – 4)
TV appearances
a) Interviewed
1) Sanchaya (Bangalore DD) on 8-6-1992
2) Sanchaya (Bangalore DD) on 22-8-1994
3) Parichaya (Udaya TV) on 16-3-2000
b) Presenting Poems
1) Sanchaya (Bangalore DD) on 12-9-1989
2) Kavi Sammelana (Bangalore DD) on 17-10-1990
National Events
a) National Seminar
1) Political Reforms in India (centre for Policy Research & BU) on
20-3-2002
Police police the people. Who police the police? How? The answer lies in 'Policing the Police'. As the author says in an article in thi work, "Policing the police involves self-policing".This work delves deeply on this core aspect of policing and lays bare the extant Indian Police setup, sheath by sheath, with the precision of a master surgeon, only to rebuild it from the scratches with the right essence of professionalism, commitment and zeal. It is an abundantly readable magnum opus of the author and a valuable reference for understanding the pathology and the epinosic dynamics with which the present Indian Police suffer and
identifies likely solutions for its redemption. I am sure that this scholarly work serves as a ready-reckoner for both polic professionals and common readers.
This book stands out for the highest regard it holds for policing as
a profession and the paracute critique it makes of its practices in India. The UPSC also comes under its critical gaze for its dull – witted performance.
This book has another dimension. It, in certain aspects, interprets
police and policing through the prism of a poet's sensibilities with idealistic interpretations.The author's close association with events in police and his close observations in the police world for nearly a quarter of a century brings authenticity to whatever he says or analyses. The sensibilities of the author as a poet with nearly half a dozen books of poems from him in Kannada and English render his observations and analyses of police and policing highly refreshing and interesting.
Bangalore, Pratheek Praveen Kumar
September 18, 1999
"Policing the Police" is a sequel to my earlier book/Policing for the
new age'. Most of the articles of the present book were already published in various newspapers including The Hindu, The Indian Express, TheTimes of India and Deccan Herald and various periodicals and journals like Alive and The Indian Journal of Criminology and Criminalistics. All those articles are reproduced in this book as in the original publications with the names of the respective newspapers, periodicals and journals indicated. Some of the responses from the readers to the original publications are also reproduced at the end of the respective articles. I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the
editors of each of these newspapers, periodicals and journals, especially The Hindu, The Indian Express and Alive, in producing this work. And also those readers who responded to the articles through the columns of the newspapers and periodicals.
Care is taken to emphasise certain core aspects of the discussion
and analyses, by figuring them in more than one article, depending on the importance, to convey across ideas with right emphasis. It is hoped that this exercise adds to the value and usefulness of the book. I would be failing in my duty if I fail to express my gratitude to Shree A.R.Sridharan, IPS (rtd.), former Director General of Police and former Hon'ble member of the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal for his unstinted support and encouragement to my intellectual exercises. He is a rare oasis of pristine values and dignified restraint in the desert of police and bureaucracy, inhabited by immoral hawks.
I acknowledge with deep humility, the contribution of my father, Shree R.D.Suvarna in instilling in me the value and sense of delving deep into and doing my best with total commitment, whatever I take up in my life. Without that value and commitment to achieve higher in face of all odds, I would have been nowhere and certainly nowhere this work.
October 29, 1999 - P.K.
For the gargantuam size of the police
organisation in India and the key-role of
policing in governing the country, the
number of books written on this subject is
absolutely exiguous.
Most of the available books are
commonplaces, hardly laying claim on
originality, creativity, imagination or insight
to the problems in the field. They are
mostly repetitions of the obvious, rendering
reading a boredom. In this sense, "Policing
The Police" marks a departure from the lot
and can be called as a rare work.
“Policing The Police" is a departure
from the worn path and tries to delve deep
into every problem by analytical
deductions interspersed with interesting
illustrations from the field. Its bold
approach is refreshing.
This book is different and outstanding as
is its author. This is a book with a
difference; a rare genre of its kind. Makes
compelling reading.
Policing The Police
Problem areas
• Very few people are privileged to have
a keek to the complexities of the police as
an organisation and the policing as a
process. Lack of transparency insulates
police and policing from the public. Left to
its own fate, complacency is eating up the
vitals of the police. Police will die a slow
death unless somebody comes out ab intra
and identifies the cancerous growth for
surgery.
• The core - problem areas include
defective selection and recruitment,
unsound training and unhealthy job
culture. Other maladies like corruption,
misplaced loyalties and lack of
professionalism flow out of these core
problems. On the final analysis, the
problem areas boil down to one specific
morbidity, that is, utterly incompetent
selection and recruitment process at higher
levels by the UPSC. Other problems flow
from this single mishandling.
. Blaming the system or the values is an
exercise in futility for the simple reason that
system and values are the creation of the
people at the top. Equally hollow is the
claim that no right persons of
unimpeachable character are available for
selection to key slots in the one billion
population of the country after
independence. Why this atrophy after
Independence? What is the
panpharmacon for the malady?
. The book addresses such problems
with clarity and vision.
What is Policing The Police?
• Police police the people. Who police
the police? How? The answer lies in
POLICING THE POLICE.
• Policing the police involves self
policing. This work delves deeply on
this core aspect of policing and lays
bare the extant Indian Police setup,
sheath by sheath, with the precision of
a master surgeon, only to rebuild it
from the scratches with the right
essence of professionalism,
commitment and zeal.
• A valuable reference for
understanding the pathology and the
epinosic dynamics with which the
present Indian Police suffer and
identifies likely solutions for its
redemption.
• The book stands out for the highest
regard it holds for policing as a
profession and the paracute critique it
makes of its practices in India. The
UPSC also comes under its critical
gaze for the dull-writted peformance.
• The author's close association with
events in police and his close
observations in the police world for
nearly a quarter of a century bring
authenticity to whatever he says or
analyses.
Praveen Kumar is a police
officer and a prolific writer on
police and policing subjects.
His articles on this and other
subjects were published in
prominent national dailies like
The Hindu. The Indian Express,
The Times of India and
Deccan Herald and English
periodicals like Alive and The
Indian Journal of Criminology
And Criminalistics of MHA,
GOI, Delhi. Some of his
articles on the sad state of
affairs in and the need of
restructuring of The Union
| Public Service Commission
I and the civil services have
I become national sensations
|and helped awakening from the
deep slumber of complacency.
Policing The Police is his
second work on the subject
postliminary to Policing For
The New Age, published in 1992.
He has five books of verse to
his credit, three in English and
two in Kannada. He has given
several programmes as poet
in dooradarshan. Born in the
port city of Mangalore as the
eldest son of Shree R.D. Suvarna
and Smt. B. Sarojini, he presently
lives in Bangalore with wife
Smt. Jayashree Praveenkumar,
and son. Pratheek Praveenkumar.
About the author
Other books of the author
Press comments on Policing The Police
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Why this book
INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES IN POLICING
THE CORE OF POLICE PROBLEMS
INDIAN POLICE : TIME TO TAKE TOUGH DECISIONS
POLICE AND THE UNDERWORLD
THE CRUMBLING STEELFRAME OF INDIA
CAUGHT IN THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CORRUPTION
NEED TO LIBERATE LAW ENFORCERS FROM UNHOLY ALLIANCES
POLICE UNPROFESSIONAL
WHAT AILS THE INDIAN SECRET POLICE
RAT-RACE AT TOP AFFECTS POLICING
POLICE AS SOCIAL SURGEONS
PROFESSIONAL PRIDE OF THE POLICE
WHAT AILS PROFESSIONAL POLICING IN INDIA
POLICE MORALE ERODED BY POOR ADMINISTRATION
PRECEPTS OF POLICE ADMINISTRATION
POLICING UNDER POLITICAL PATRONAGE
CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE
HOW CRIME AFFECTS NATIONAL LIFE
RESTORING CREDIBILITY TO CRIME INVESTIGATION
CORRUPTION : INDIAN POLICE SCENARIO
NEED OF COMPETENT BRASS IN POLICE
CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION IN INDIAN POLICE
INVESTIGATION OF DOWRY DEATH CASES
INVESTIGATION OF ECONOMIC CRIMES
INDIAN POLICE AT A CROSSROADS: WHICH WAY TO TAKE?
CRIME, POLITICS AND THE POLICE
EMPOWERING THE CBI
TIME TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF CIVIL SERVICE
POLICE AND ADMINISTRATION
NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN POLICE
INDIAN POLICE: WHAT COURSE TO PURSUE IN THE 21ST CENTURY?
INDIAN POLICE AND FIFTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE
INDIAN INTERNAL SECURITY BUILDUP
TOWARDS SANE SERVICE
NEED TO REVITALISE THE POLICE
ROLE OF POLICE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA
CHALLENGES OF THE POLICE SETUP
POLICING THE POLICE
MAN MANAGEMENT IN POLICE
POLICE STRUCTURE NEEDS THE MANAGEMETN TOUCH
WHERE THEIR LOYALTIES LIE.....
THE INDIAN POLICE: MALADIES AND REMEDIES
WHERE PROACTIVE JUDICIARY LEADS INDIA?
INTERNAL SECURITY- CHALLENGES AND APPROACH
INDIAN POLICE NEEDS HEALTHY JOB CULTURE
HUMANIZING THE POLICE
THE ROLE OF POLICE IN A DEMOCRACY
THE GUN STILL SPEAKS
POLICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS–DOES END JUSTIFY MEANS?
IN DEFENCE OF JUDICIARY
HOME GUARDS TRAINING
LAW AND JUSTICE
LAW AND ORDER POLICING IN INDIA
LACKING VIGOUR
KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM
POLICE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
QUOTA SYSTEM CAN WEAKEN CIVIL SERVICE
RIGHT ORIENTATION IN GOVERNMENT SERVICE
POLITICAL CRIMES AND SECURITY
ENFORCEMENT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
DEMOCRACY FOR WHOM?
CORE ISSUE AND THE CORE OF INDIA’S NATIONHOOD
STATUS OF WOMEN IN EMERGING INDIA
SOCIAL JUSTICE
WHERE INDIAN POLICE IS HEADING?
VALUE SYSTEM IN INDIAN BUREAUCRACY
ROLE OF POLICE IN THE CAUSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
REQUISITES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE
RECENT TRENDS IN ECONOMIC CRIMES
COORDINATED APPROACH TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEN
Indian Police of the post-independent vintage is deeply mired in the
maelstrom of inaptitude and unprofessional indulgences non obstinate
rare exceptions. It is impaled in the skein of self-seeking objectives
and amblyopia. Motivation is the first disaster in the process.
Excellence suffers in the ambience. Those in police in India are
familiar with this mephitis. But, sadly as unenlightened as they are,
they think that they are doing a service to the police by denying the
reality. Such people have not realized the fact that a sound
reconstruction presupposes demolition. Unfortunately, these people are
perpetuating the glissade of the Indian police.
Talks of innovative techniques presupposes a sound foundation. In the
situation of a crumbling foundation as in India Police, talks of
innovative techniques appear rather cosmetic. The singular panpharmacon
convenance for the malady of the India Police is packed in just two
words: MOTIVATION and PROFESSIONALISM. Bring it, all other matters
including organizational restructuring, administrative skills, control
mechanisms, long term perspectives, accountability, efficiency,
innovative techniques, cost effectiveness, creative input, response time
etc inter se fall in line. Anything done sans the two attributes as the
backbones of the gestalt is an operose labour of carrying to a
bottomless avernus. As motivation and professionalism constitute
independent subjects for exhaustive deliberations inter se and beyond
the scope of the extant paper, I attempt a brachypterous propaedeutic on
what innovative techniques are en regle for the India Police within the
given limitations.
1) CREATION OF A DISTINCT DETECTIVE CADRE :
Policing of the ancien regime was basically identified with crime
investigations. Even now, popular perception of the Police is associated
with CRIME INVESTIGATION. The image of the Police is largely dependent
on the standard of the performance of its investigators. The pandemic
tragedy of the present Indian Police is that the investigation
ingredient of the policing is accrescently palliated by apparently more
important policing pressures. The prevarication is a major factor in the
degringolade of the police and policing standards in India postliminary
to independence.
Indian police can cover the achilles’ heel by carrying out a separate
detective cadre upto the rank of Inspectors with recruitment and
training processes more suo conforming to the needs of the detective
cadre. The cadre should be treated as a distinct entity for the purpose
of seniority and promotions. Inspectors from the detective and general
streams have to be absorbed to higher ranks on the basis of seniority
cum merit with a clear advantage of one or two years to the detective
cadre so that the best brains are illaqueated to the fold. Periodical
in-service training and tests in investigation skills have to be an
essential ingredient of the cadre management and conditional to gain
eligibility for promotion at every level. The demarche may revert Indian
police to its pristine gloria in the vital expanse of the crime
investigation.
Creation of the distinct detective cadre ncessiates perforce the
creation of investigation centres parallel to the police stations in the
process of the division of policing responsibilities at the grassroot
levels.
2) POLICE STATIONS AS GRASSROOT POLICE SYSTEM:
A system is a functionally independent unit of mutually dependent
entities that constitute the whole with or without an amblical chord
connecting to the materfamilias for sustenance. Extant police stations
can hardly be a system as per this definition. Police stations as of now
are dependent on ectogenous factors for its functions leading to
dilation of effectiveness and professionalism. On the other hand, police
stations as an ideal system must infuse credibility and compel public
co-operation.
The police Inspector in charge of a police station in the new system
must have a legal Inspector trained in law and a panel of local
representatives as statutory aides. For this, the police department must
create a new cadre of legal officers trained in law to staff the police
stations and senior police offices. On the other hand, the district
police superintendents must prepare a panel of two or three law-abiding
and distinguished nonpolitical locals of his choice for each police
station under him as democratic representatives. All major decisions and
actions of a police station must originate only after formal discussion
between the police inspector, the legal Inspector and any one from the
statutory panel of the locals and on majority decision among the three
in writing as a statutory requirement. The process helps the
democratisation of the policing at the grassroot level consectary to the
zeitgeist sans the negative aspects of the democratic process. The opus
musivum brings the advantage of a collective decision and a touch of
legal expertise and local-sense to the policing decisions and actions.
The systemic change may take away the apollyon of corruption immanent in
the ancien regime and also oppilate it too. Indeed, much depends upon
the avizefull selection of the locals by the district police
superintendent. After all, he is responsible au fond for the perficient
policing in his district.
Two techniques that constitute the bedrock for transforming Indian
police to an efficient outfit in the absence of motivation and
professionalism at higher levels are touched upon here. The Indian
police must learn to live with the cul de sac of such an absence and
consectaneous maelstrom and adapt as it is well-nigh impossibel to
breach complacency. Ergo, if anything, it must be at lower levels. And
the grassroot level is the most ideal candidate to take something pro
bono publico. Hence, a couple of isagogic techniques that I think
innovative to restructure policing and police administration at the
grassroot level are dealt in brachys here. If the new fangled techniques
are imprimis incorpsed assez bien in Indian police system, I obsign that
that contabescent Indian police is bound to experience considerable
face-lift.
A Country begets the Police it deserves. The Police is the creation of
the society it polices. It inherits its values, culture, practices and
aspirations from the society to which it belongs. The ambience defines
the nature of the Police, the country begets. In this sense, India got a
Police system it deserves with all its perversions like corruption,
brutality, criminality, inefficiency, and indeed mediocrity. Nothing
more can be expected from the fall of value system India suffered after
independence. The prime attributes of the Indian Police system of the
post-independent vintage are lack of motivation, lack of professional
commitment, devastating job culture and the ineffective training system.
With the lure of money and the abuse of power as the center of the
Indian psyche and appointments and promotions even at highest levels
turning to be arbitrary after independence, both talent and government
institutions withered in the heath. Indian Police system is one of the
major casualties of the apollyon. Right people are crucial for police
and policing. Character constitutes the spine of a Police setup. Police
is the real power in the field and constitutes the strength of both the
executive and the political system. As an instrument of power, it can be
a double-edged weapon; a cornucopia of safety, security and peace while
good, and absolutely demoniac while bad. This festinated the aggravation
of the situation. All problems of the extant Police system in India flow
from this single fact; all talks other than these basic causes like
inadequate resources, unscrupulous politicians, legal and political
constraints, growing crime rate, inadequate manpower, fractured
organisation etc are either sheer misrepresentations to evade
responsibility or just manifestations of the basic causes projected
above.
The lever de rideau here is the issue why and who. It is easy to blame
unscrupulous politicians, the hors la lai, powerful and rich criminals,
the lure of money , the constraints of democracy, legal hurdles, fragile
system, fractured organisation, professional constraints, accrescently
complex and violent society, rise in crime rate, increasing work
pressure and hi-tech crimes. These factors represent the circumstances
in which Police is called to work on and show results. They constitute
the raison d’etre of the Police and do not constitute execuses for
inefficiency, nonperformance and failures. The challenge is to accept
the reality and show results. The burden is on those at the top-wrung of
the Police. It is their failures to adequately plan, organise, execute
and control that toppled the Indian Police of the democratic vintage
from its high pedastal. Their lack of foresight and vision, lack of
brilliance and foremost of all, the love of the UPSC of the mediocrity
and its certain degringolade from seventies as a responsible public
institution committed to merit and character, combined with the
unsavoury rat-race among officials to reach the top-wrung, and
consequent race to double-bend before the politcal bosses and the rich
and the powerful who count, tore the fabric of the Indian Police to
shreds after independence.
It is a rebours for the political bosses and the rich and the powerful
to turn blind eye to the willing devotion and race of the Police
top-brass to please and gratify. After-all, Gandhis and Buddhas are not
born everyday. They perforce take the advantage of the situation and
help their acolytes out of turn as a quid pro quo. The blame for this
sorry state of affair squarely lies on the Police and those who select
and recruit such less than sound character to the Police. The nexus
extends even to the rich and powerful and the hors la lai who count. How
the criminals as el patron can be policed by these weaklings and law and
order maintained?
It is preposterous to lay the blame on lack of resources or neglect of
the Police by the executive or the paucity of manpower. The truth is
that the Police is over-indulged in India by the Law-and-Order-sensitive
political and bureaucratic machinery as far as sparse resources of this
poor country is concerned. Our Police leaders conduct like spoilt
children. Most of the resources made available are squandered and
siphoned away to non-operational and non-professional extravaganza or
just wasted on unrealistic and foolhardy programmes a grands frais,
resulting in no or miniscule returns.
Another mendacity of the stock is the clamour about shortage of manpower
en face ascensive crime rate and policing responsibilities. Again, it is
an attitudinal problem. Effective policing never depends on numbers,
more so in extant hi-tech age. It is quality, planning, secrecy and
surprise that really constitute the bedrock of effective policing. Show
of strength is never a forte of good and perficient policing. The truth
is that the wastage of human resources and man-power is phenomenal in
Indian Police and criminal in proportion.
Police leadership is meant to face the reality, assess it, plan with
foresight and vision and accordingly remould the system and the
organisation. It must set the lead by right job culture. It is here that
Police leadership failed. No political boss or executive head from
outside can do the job for him for the simple reason that policing is an
extremely specialised job and no outsider can have a keek to the
intricacies of the Police and policing job.
Problems and challenges are natural in any setup. It is left to the
Police leadership to address them. The problems au fond in Police are
lack of motivation, wrong job culture, absence of professional
commitment and poor training en arriere of every other problem and
issue. While this achilles’ heel is prevalent in Indian Police
cap-a-pie, naturally the issue to be addressed is who to bell the cat.
Only public opinion and public pressures can bring about the apotropaic
change. But, Police is too a thick-skinned beast to respond to such
opinions and pressures. This is the crux of the problem. Right
recruitment and sound training alone can save Indian Police from its
avernus by fine turning a healthy job culture.
The extant police ensemble is marked by lack of human concerns and
empathy for the fellow men. This has deprived the elements of heart and
compassion from the body of the bureaucracy. Initiatives, novel ideas
and creative pursuits are seen as the antithesis of the police. This has
deprived the elements of brain and intellect from the corpus of the
police system. The result is a deadweight-police weighing down on the
live India and sucking it dry with evils and misuse of the powers
invested on it for governing and steering the country ahead.
India is an egregious forerunner in the world among countries most
corrupt in public life. The root cause of this grave malady is India’s
corrupt governance pregnant with inefficiency, indifference and gross
temulence of power devoid of human elements. Police measures have become
synonymous in popular parlance and perception in India with foolhardy
decisions and actions far removed from reality. Lack of accountability
is the leitmotiv of governance in India. This is a malengine consciously
evolved ab intra to safeguard self-interests. Power sans accountability
rendered police in India an evil per se.
The evils of policing need not always be directed only against
outsiders. Inscience knows no boundaries. Even those within may become
cruel victims of its grossly unrealistic and farcical decisions as in
the case of a highly talented and multifaceted genius who joined service
in a Southern Indian state in 1978. He was soon recognized for sheer
brilliance and purity of character as a diamond that can fit anywhere
and as a peacock among the fowls. Soon the recognition itself turned a
noose on his neck. It was assessed by the inscient bureaucracy that his
outstanding attributes might prevent him from becoming popular among the
seniors and prevent him from reaching higher levels. A two-pronged
strategy was devised. He was to be roughed-up and denied promotions to
rub-off his superior qualities and the intimidating aura till the
detrition by the sufferings forces him down to the ordinary level. Once
the job is accomplished, his lost seniority was to be restored a few
years before retirement.
He was denied promotions with the connivance of the UPSC following the
meretricious career plan year after year till his junior colleagues
became senior to him by two ranks. He was posted to most humiliating
posts and harassed endlessly. However, the process got caught in a skein
as the infaust officer refused to come down from his immanent and really
superior qualities even after two decades of immanity and sufferings
while the bureaucracy refused to yield and give up its illegal and
unconstitutional stance until the officer condescends to the mediocre
levels. The refusal of the officer to approach judiciary against the ill
treatment for redressal and his resolve to depend solely on his talents
and character helped the establishment to persist with the preposterous
process. His morale remained high throughout non obstante serious
humiliations and endless grief. He sought refuge in other fields and won
nonpareil accolades from everybody by sheer talents. His tormentors
followed him there too. The head of the State Intelligence who himself a
small-time writer and published a few books in a regional language used
esoteric threats in 2000 on the publishers of the accurst officer to
discourage them from publishing his books. The publishers who already
had published half a score books of the officer returned two manuscripts
of the officer in sheer desperation expressing helplessness en face the
police interferences. The release of one of his books of academic
interests by the State Governor in 2000 was ensured stalled in the last
minute.
Fanciful premises bordering madness tout court leading to irresponsible
and eristic career plans of that dimensions are possible only in
governance utterly lacking in accountability and only a sacred country
like India can produce such gross grief, sufferings and humiliations eo
nomine noble intensions. Lack of transparency makes such atrocities
possible and permits its practice for decades as in the case study.
The annual assessment of men and officers in the police has become a
travesty of what it used to be or meant to be. In no way, under the
present circumstances, does an ACR reflect an officer’s qualities or
capabilities. It is believed that the department would be far better off
without this pernicious evaluation process that breeds corruption and
bias. What characterises the ACR today is a distinct lack of
objectivity; it has become a means to personal ends, a medium for the
advancement of individual interests and even settlement of personal
scores. Servility is its inevitable consequence and it would not be
immoderate to say that eliminating the ACR altogether would be certainly
a step forward.
If policing is to be effective in the years ahead, specialisation is
crucial. I suggest three distinct police services with separate
recruitment and training: (1) Regulatory police or uniformed police in
charge of law and order and other regulatory duties; (2) Mainstay police
in charge of crime investigation and prevention and security and
intelligence operation; (3) Social police in charge of prevention and
investigation of all social offences and implementation of social
legislation. All three wings should have their own individual
organisations up to the district level with independent Superintendents
and staff as required, functioning in tandem in much the same way as the
Army, Navy and Air Force. At the apex, could be a specially constituted
body called the State Police Authority with the chiefs of all three
wings as members and the Chief Secretary as chairman.
All the present maladies emanate from the politicians who are only
concerned with winning the next elections. Until the organisation is
extricated from the grip of politicians, it cannot hope to rise above
the mediocre level, either in proficiency or in character. Such
mediocrity is wont to percolate downwards in a democratic setup.
An All India Police Authority accountable only to the President of India
at the national level with the regional Police Boards in States as
independent bodies should be created. The Authority must be headed by a
Supreme Court Judge with the Union Home Secretary and the Cabinet
Secretary as members and the senior most police officer of the country
as the member-secretary. The regional Police Boards must have a High
Court Judge at the helm with the Home Secretary and the Chief Secretary
as members and the State Police Chief as member-secretary. The
arrangement will bring to an end interference of any kind in police
affairs, thus enabling the personnel to function in an independent
atmosphere. These measures complete with the overhaul of the UPSC to
bring back all the former gloria of commitment to merit and character
may dawn a new era in Indian public life.
It is India”s good fortune that its fabric of law and order has
withstood the effects of growing complexity of the Indian society for so
fragile is its policing. The fact that the police systems in a few
neighbouring countries of Asia and Africa are worse cannot be a solace
as the political, social and economical structures of those countries
have different backgrounds and value systems from ours. India is a
crucible wherein the dynamics and relevance of democracy in the third
world are being experimented with. The Indian police system must
necessarily meet the aspirations of democracy in fulfilling its
objective of maintaining internal order and security. This dimension has
added to the problems of policing in India. The Indian polity confronts
its police with ever greater challenges while giving it an increasingly
limited wherewithal to face them.
. A minor shift in the style of policing in the country can make a
life-and-death difference to myriad people. A wrong turn and the police
could inadvertently tear the fabric of the national life to shreds and
ruin the country. A right step and an era of perfect security, order and
peace may be created. Only an objective analysis of the needs of the
time and assessment of the situation would give the insight necessary to
make the right choice for police 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 national interest. It is a
responsible job, requiring through knowledge of the nuances of 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. The Indian police must give serious thought
to what it wants to be in the future and may have to take some tough
decisions.
There is an impression that the Indian police is not what it was before
Independence. The pride, toughness and commitment to duty are no more
visible. On the contrary, the Indian police has become soft humble and
easy going. Pressure from all directions has deprived it of its
vitality. The police has become a widely abused organisation by the
virtue of its submission on 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 among the police men.
A natural outcome of this development is taking things easy, with the
eyes and ears shut, unless career interests warrant otherwise Commitment
to policing is sacrificed in the process. These developments have
reduced the police to the level of a toy that moves only when the spring
inside unwinds. New entrants who begin eagerly soon after the training
period, begin to realise the realities.
A serious malady affecting the tough and nonsense image of the police is
the interference of people of some standing in society at all levels. An
organisation, looking for a serious image, cannot afford this intrusion.
Policing must be insulated from public pressures except at the top to
which all policing affairs must be accountable. People handling policing
should be responsible only to law and their superiors in the department
and to none else. The regulation of 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.
A police organisation, open to public pressures can do no policing worth
the name. The very idea of being receptive to pressures and interference
indicates a lack of will for objectivity and justice. It is criminal
elements which cultivate sources that have put the policing on the wrong
rails. Pressure often forces of 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 influence of the rich and powerful,
deprives it of its credibility. A police force that works at the behest
of the rich and powerful can guard their interests only. Does democratic
India need such a police force that allows tyranny of the poor and the
helpless by the rich and powerful? The country has tolerated such a
police in the last four decades. The people, however, must now act the
demand a police that lives up to the trust placed in it.
The lack of professional objectivity is the bane of the police in
independent India. The problem was simple in British India where the
ruler and the ruled were distinctly identified and the loyalty of the
police was defined. Now, the police should do their duty by the public
and law. Misplaced loyalty with an individual, a family, a party or an
ideology amounts to violation of professional ethics. 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 pliable police force is an asset to any individual or
party and no sensible individual or party distances it in the name of
professional ethics. It is the duty of the police not to breach the
edifice of the organisation and its spirit.
A byproduct of this degenerate trend is the rise of opportunists and
sycophants to key posts and the fall of honest persons of great calibre.
The trend creates a catena of reactions that slowly eats 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 court above
men of probity is a dangerous situations. This reverse order of merit is
sure to bring frustration and the collapse of the organisation someday.
The British were the forefathers of the unified Indian Police. It was a
force that met the needs of the time. In an age of rapid changes, the
opening up of new vistas and dimensions to life through inventions and
discoveries in science and technology, nothing remains constant. The
scope, design and objects of the Indian police underwent a metamorphosis
with the transfer of government to native hands. The process spawned a
phenomenon in which undemanding aspects of both the worlds survived to
create a new police culture. The distinguishing traits of the Indian
police of the British period such as objectivity, apoliticism,
commitment, discipline, quality and high standards were discarded.
Traditional Indian values such as a simplicity, charity, wisdom, mutual,
respect, and human qualities were given up too. The convenient factors
of the old and new worlds were chosen to create a new police culture
while demands on policing were at the crucial stage in the recent years
of independence.
The Indian police officers overnight rose to high positions made vacant
by the resignations of their senior British officers. The need for
creating a new work –relationship with native political leaders was an
opportunity to usher in a new police culture in free India. Soon the
police became a tool in the hands of the power-brokers of free India.
How can the police be objective, honest, apolitical, committed and
disciplined in such circumstances and how can it uphold the rule of law
and justice in line with its professional ethics in such a situation?
A job culture involves basic beliefs and principles of the organisation,
professional ethics and degree of commitment to the aspirations of the
organisation. To what extent precedence and practice mould the job
culture decides the success or otherwise of the organisation. It is
important that only the 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
recruitment and promotion is far from direct. 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.
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 without a concern for organisational and national goals of
law and justice only reflects a shallow intellectual commitment to duty
on the part of the top brass and the lack of desire to probe the root of
the problem.
Now, on to third-degree methods in crime detection. Even senior officers
tacitly supporting the third-degree methods applied 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 suffering on others, merely
on suspicion? After all, it is not the agency to pass judgement on
crimes. None placed the police beyond the scope of the Indian Penal
code. What justification can the police have to commit crimes to collect
evidences of other crimes? The sadistic and criminal tendencies of the
police are not more justifiable than those of the general public.
Discipline is inseparable from police. It governs all parameters of the
foce and makes its hierarchical order meaningful and purposeful, the
command-obedience relationship, sharp-edged and functional conduct,
meticulous. But these days, 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. It is also a cover to promote the interests of
juniors who support their evil deeds by sycophancy and personal loyalty;
and to suppress those juniors who are strong, proud, independent and ask
questions.
A subtle hatred for superior qualities of the subordinates in inherent
in the Indian police force of today. Another act carried out behind the
façade of discipline is an officer forcing a subordinate to achieve
personal ends. Here, the police ranks display exceptional unity in
helping a colleague to suppress the subordinate who shows the tendency
to go against his senior’s orders. Youngsters in the organisation who
drop out weaken the organisation. There are any number of examples of
fearless officers who have acted upon their conscience at the cost of
promotions and elevations.
The Indian police finds itself in a blind-spot today, at a crossroads
from where it should build bridges to the future. It must shed its
mental fetters, rise to its feet and learn to be natural. A slip at this
stage would be a tragedy while a right move would be a major turning
point.
It is indeed a crucial juncture for the Indian police.
Behind every great fortune, there is a crime, said Balzac; behind every
great crime, there is underworld indulged in making unlimited profits.
Might is right there and only the fittest survive. Animal side of man is
at its best in this business of organised crimes. Gangs operate in
violation of accepted social norms to make fast buck. They are
antisocials and threats to the peace and security of the law-abiding
society.
POWERFUL CONNECTIONS
Pollent organisation is both a strength and weakness of crime
syndicates. Organisation provides these gangs the benefits of a
well-oiled management machinery: objectives, targets, data collection,
through planning, right recruitments, motivation, coordination,
communication system, competent direction, infrastructure, efficient
execution, leadership and accountability, and with it, the all important
ruthless efficiency. Added to this are the ruthlessness and the enormous
wealth of the crime world. The combination is deadly and the result is
powerful connections at right places doing right things at right times
in their interests. Silence and secrecy are the keys here. Powerful and
the underworld complement each other for mutual benefits and the
arrangements usually cover politicians in power, top bureaucrats, those
high-up in judiciary and enforcement agencies including the police.
Enormous ill-gotten wealth amassed by criminal methods bring powerful
connections within the reach of crime syndicates to twist the arms of
law. Thus develops an axis between underworld and the powerful to the
detriment of the country.
HAND IN GLOVE
Underworld is an independent world per se. It is a world of crimes,
secrecy, silence, fear, loyalties, dangers, wealth, outlaws, sui generis
professional norms, efficiency and wide-ranging infrastructures. Here
various gangs coexist with deadly rivalry or alliance and partnership.
There is no road in between. Choice in the netherland is between success
and imminent death. Though underworld and open world coexist on the
surface of the Earth, their objectives, values and norms of action
render them worlds apart. It is only the police from the open world keep
avizefull eyes on the underworld. They are the bridge between the open
world and the underworld and form a protective sheath between the two.
This position places them in a pivotal role vis a vis crime syndicate
survives without the active backing of the police. The support boosts
their confidence and gives strength to their criminal activities. The
police get a farthing share in the res gestae as the quid pro quo many
times over their salary. Police being hand in glove with the underworld,
is a secret known to all.
UNDERWORLD DYNAMICS
Underworld indulges in extortions, protection money rackets, running
vice-dens of gambling, prostitution, cabret, bars, massage parlours etc,
indulging in crimes like smuggling, drug peddling, adulteration of
petroleum products, land grabbing, arms shipments, hawala transactions,
forgeries in securities, extra-judicial settlement of disputes under
threats, production and sale of apocryphal products, kidnappings for
ransom and other tricks of making quick money in violation of the rules
of the country. Three facts that keep underworld operations distinct are
their secrecy, their antinational and antisocial nature and their
ability to generate huge money in a short duration. These operations are
large scale illegal enterprises run as a teamwork in secrecy and ergo
the need to keep a band of loyal and committed followers. The operations
involve risks at every step. Law enforcing agencies and rival
organisations are heels to undermine their goals. As a result, members
of the underworld are liberally rewarded for their work and loyalty and
their families are protected and looked after for life in case of the
bread-winner being killed or jailed. Similarly, disloyalty is met with
immediate lynching.
UNDESIRABLE AXIS
Though silence and secrecy are cardinal in underworld operations to help
evade proofs and the arms of law, the activities at that scale can
hardly go unnoticed by professionals like police. Underworld knows it.
It has the option of taking on the fighting the might of the state
represented by the police or keeping it contented and in good humour.
Being clever and astute businessmen as they are and huge profits at
stake, the underworld opts for cooperation in sharing a farthing
fraction of its res gestae with enforcing agencies like the police.
Police conducts prearranged raids under publicity blitz to straighten
records once in a way. Here also cases fall through in silence as a rule
in courts. In cases of genuine raids by greenhorns, underworld fautors
are alerted in advance ab intra. The backing underworld receives from
the police constitutes its spine in pursuing more and more daring and
dangerous schemes.
LUCRI CAUSA
More often than not, who is who in the underworld and who is behind what
is a public knowledge. The underworld operates on the knowledge that
mere knowledge does not constitute evidence in court of law. All cares
are taken to cover anything that constitutes valid evidence to crimes
committed. Cut-outs is the technique. Silence and secrecy is the method.
Heads of crime syndicates operate with remote control. Contract killers
are made use. Hi-tech communication systems come to them before it
reaches police. Dons guide operations from foreign countries inimical
and having no extradition treaty with the host country a la Dawood
Ibrahim holed up in Karachi with his many lieutenants operating from
Gulf and Far-East countries. An epinosic outcome of mafioso operating
from inimical foreign countries and joining hands with its governments
is the misuse of the former’s criminal networks for subversive
activities in the host country. The ISI of Pakistan used Dawood Ibrahim
in the serial bomb blasts of 1993 in Bombay. The don continues to be at
large. His various factions continue to operate in Bombay and other
cities of India sans souce. This is while their subversive activities
like the serial bomb blasts in Bombay resemble an undeclared war and
seriously sabotaged the security and peace of the country! The factions
continue to operate with great abandon in their traditional strongholds
like Bombay and spread to other major cities like Bangalore sans a trace
of remorse. Reason lies in the enormous money the underworld generates
and spends. It is public knowledge that top politicians of the country
from different political parties including a former central minister
were investigated and tried for harbouring associates of Dawood Ibrahim.
This is only iceberg. India has chief ministers having close links with
the underworld. Many rose to powerful positions with the money and
muscle of the underworld. Quid pro quo naturally follows. Underworld has
become a highly lucrative business in India.
GLAMOUR
Plush money and wealth make underworld a fastuous world. Members of the
underworld are seen in finest dresses, driving costliest cars,
frequenting best five star hotels and living in beautiful bungalows in
best localities of the town. Their ostentatious and comfortable
life-style, indulgences in sex and scandals, outrageous adventures etc.
tend to fool the hoi polloi to remanticise the underworld. The
underworld itself uses masterly propaganda to boost its image in the
public eyes. Series of popular films extolling the virtues and lives of
mafia dons as heroes being churned out from Bollywood is a common
knowledge. Indian filmworld in the taut prise of the easy funds from the
underworld help the latter to manipulate the filmworld to its advantage.
In the ensuing publicity blitz, guillible public forget that the
underworld is a pack of hors la loi indulging in antinational and
antisocial activities. The underworld knows the utility of the
sympathies of the public. It uses every trick in the book to win over an
own following.The Arun Gawli phenomenon in Bombay as an instant
political leader and the ascendancy of his Akhila Bharatiya Sena is an
extreme manifestation of such a process.
EXPANSION
Underworld tries to gain a foot –hold wherever there is enormous and
instant easy money. It does everything to grow, spread and ultimately
take over that. It be hotel business, land deals, film production of
construction business, underworld steals a share either as protection
money or returns of direct investment. When construction business dried
of plush money, underworld turned to the film world in a big way with
its easy funds at disposal for investments in the field. Recent series
of murders in the filmworld in Bombay and Bangalore are results of the
involvement of mafia in film business.
DANGEROUS GROWTH
The most dangerous trend of recent underworld phenomenon in India is the
rise of a supreme don and his unlimited powers posing threat to the
peace and security of the country. More so, while he is holed up in an
inimical foreign country and guiding operations in India by remote
control. Various factions of Dawood Ibrahim are creating havoc in
Bombay. They are now looking outside to grow. Bangalore saw myriad
gangwars and murders in recent past as a consequence . Police knew
everything and noticed every move. Underworld takes care to keep key
figures in police on the right side before forcing into a new region.
Bangalore underworld resisted Bombay underworld invading Bangalore. The
result was gangwars and murders. Police was vertically split ab intra
between the two gangs. Plans of attacks on rivals were plotted in posh
hotels and bars and murders were committed in daylight. In spite of the
knowledge of the plots and plans, police come to picture after the
commission of the crimes. In a recent instance, a key mafioso arrested
was taken to a district headquarters for further investigation. The
gangster disappeared from the toilet of a restaurant while police
officers having his custody were sipping tea in the restaurant. Such a
fredaine is not possible without the active backing and cooperation of
the police. In another instant in the same city, a police team sent from
the state capital to apprehend a budding mafia don, entered the place
where the gangster was hiding. The gangster was waitiing for his friend
in a car outside while the team arrived. A senior member of the police
team came directly to the car and informed the ganster to leave the
place immediately as they had come to arrest him. The ganster
immediately drove away from the place. The police team formally
conducted search of the place and reported back that the gangster was
not traced there. This is species of what happens in most actions
against mafioso and the underworld. In most gangwars and murders,
friendly police officers from the spot of crime are taken into
confidence and informed in advance about the impending plans by the
underworld to keep ground ready in their favour. This is the scenario of
the axis between the police and the underworld.
Underworld can be brought on knees only by breaking the axis between
them and the police. While gangsers are the visible body of the
underworld, police is its spine. Underworld cannot stand up without the
backing of the police. The axis between the two is based on the money
and muscle power of the underworld generated by massive illegalities.
Underworld is flanked by the laws operating against it on one side and
enormous money and muscle power working in its favour on the other.
Though police has the responsibility to side with the law, it finds the
money on the other side more attractive and desirable. Ergo, the vicious
axis between the police and the underworld. This is the crux of the
problem of policing the underworld. The problem needs committed police
doing professional policing that is nonexistent in extant India. The
country is caught in a 22-catch situation. Any attempt to handle the
problem of the underworld must begin with the police. Until it is done,
underworld is bound to grow from strength to strength to eat up the
vitals of the country and render it hollow democratically.
The malleability of the Civil Services has been a cause for concern.
Once considered the backbone of administration, the steel frame
today is a pale shadow of its former self, needing urgent reorganisation
The All India Service were once called the Steel Frame that held India,
a country which consisted of diverse political systems, comprising
British Indian and many other big and small princely States, together.
If India is one today- though in truncated form-the efficiency of its
vintage. All India Services is as much responsible for this as the might
of the British Empire.
The credit for India having made impressive progress, both in the
domestic and international fields and having survived the uncertain,
initial years of democracy, under leaders who had no experience of
ruling a country of India’s size and diversity, also goes to the
original All India Services- to its traditions and efficiency, that
continued to survive for some years even after Independence.
The sterling performances of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel in the
unification of India and the brilliant achievements of Jawaharalal Nehru
in the international field are as much the success stories of their
civil servant secretaries and advisers as of the leaders themselves.
The fall in standards of the All India Services, in the values of their
officers and in their efficiency and performance, is symbolic of the
fall India itself has experienced.
The All India Services experienced a setback after Independence. This
deterioration was in depth of ideas, quality of performance and honesty
of convictions of their officers. With this deterioration, to All India
Service are no longer in a class of their own. Its members can no longer
claim a distinguished standing in society as the All India Services have
been reduced to merely good careers.
The Civil Services had inherited, as a result of their exclusive place
in the higher levels of administration, high pay packets and good
perquisites, attractive service conditions and an awe-inspiring
tradition. But since this was not accompanied by superior performance,
the consequence is that the reins of democratic India are now in the
hands of people who are in no way superior in terms of intellectual
worth, administrative skill or human qualities. This is a tragedy for a
democracy struggling to progress.
The British created to All India Services to handle the administration
of the country. They recruited talented people, imparted the best
possible training to them and invested them with the trust, powers and
opportunities to carry out their responsibilities.
They took care of all their personal needs, provided them with many
opportunities for growth and surrounded them with a halo of exclusivity
by endowing them with high social status and providing them with
generous creature comforts.
Independent India needed brilliant people to handle its complex
administrative problems and to implement its developmental schemes. It
is tragic that India after independence not only failed to realise the
importance of maintaining its Steel Frame and improving upon it, but
positively contributed to its collapse in a very short span of time.
Indian leaders wanted the All India Service of independent India to
break away from the British model they had originally been based on and
they gave expression to this desire by altering the name of the
Services. It is ironical that the change in name also initiated a steep
fall in the quality of the Civil Services.
At present, the Indian Administrative Services is not even a pale shadow
of the old Indian Civil Services. The Indian Foreign Service stands
nowhere near the brilliant Indian Political Service and the present
Indian Police Service lacks the backbone and professionalism of the good
old Indian Police.
A major cause for the disappearance of excellence from the All India
Services of independent India was the secret tendency of the new leaders
to look at the All India Services as their rivals in running the
country, rather than as the backbone of the State. A subtle fear of the
All India Services inherited from British India days accompanied by a
sense of awe that the services inspired because of the halo worn by its
predecessor, stirred the new leaders who made every effort to cut the
Civil Services to size and show them their proper place.
SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS
This occurred together with a fall in the standards of management of the
Civil Services because of the failure to recognise the importance of the
Civil Services in administering the nation. This fall succeeded in
bringing the All India Services of the post Independence era to its
present state.
This brought the Services closer to the people of India in a way, while
stripping it of all its brilliance, excellence and efficiency to give
India a mediocre All India Services to handle its administration. And
the result of this is the present state of the country.
The poor state of the Civil Services attracted people of poor calibre.
This led to all kinds of evils including corruption, opportunism and
lack of moral strength to stand by one’s values and convictions.
This situation led to loss of face and subordinated the All India
Services to the ambitions of the political leadership. Its has been a
long journey from the bold and awe-inspiring All India Services that
existed at the dawn of Independence to the present meek and servile All
India Services without any backbone to stand erect and hold its head
high.
The reasons for the fall and the mechanism that brought about the
change, are not far to seek. Everything that made the All India Services
of the British days a powerful adminicle for the administration was just
swept away while its new avatar in independent India was brought into
existence.
The glory of the old All India Services was built on the 3 basic
strengths of faultless recruitment, perfect training and the maintenance
of the highest standards of professionalism and character t sustain it
throughout. These strengths held the Steel Frame of India together for
nearly a century. But independent India just failed to give these
factors the importance they deserved while constituting its version of
the All Indian Services.
The primacy British India gave to the process of selection of people of
high calibre to the All India Services is perhaps the single major
factor that made the Civil Services among the best in the world.
Promising people with maturity and intellectual superiority were
selected young through a vigorous and efficient filtering process of a
carefully devised elaborate public civil examination process under the
guidance, supervision and control of highly qualified professionals in
the field.
Rarely was anything other than exceptional merit considered in the
process of selection and human weakness like nepotism, corruption and
parochial considerations rarely interfered in the process, as Britain
was not prepared to compromise and accept anyone less than the best in
the higher levels of administration. These people were, after all, to
sit on equal terms with them and help in administering the country!
These high standards in the process of selection and recruitment, made
the All India Services of British days, a really superior cadre.
REASONS FOR DETERIORATION
The grand structure of British rule was to be mercilessly demolished
later by independent India. Unimaginative and messy selection and
recruitment procedures, which were poorly conceived and unskilfully
executed became the order of the day. Corruption, nepotism, narrow
considerations and caste and economic reservations corroded the
foundations of the newly-constituted All India Services as time passed.
The reasons for this deterioration in the Civil Services are many. The
first is the general lack of passion for quality and excellence in the
Indian psyche. The agency in charge of the process of such selections,
namely, the Union Public Service Commission, unlike in the British
period, is unfortunately increasingly being manned by people unequal to
the task either in terms of their professionalism, efficiency and
passion for brilliance or in their basic character itself.
As the selection of members of the UPSC became politicised, mediocre
people came to fill the slots and in the process, selections to the All
India Services suffered. Since members owed their memberships or
chairmanship to their political leaders, they could not avoid the
obligatory quid pro quo. This continues to be the state of affairs
today.
The Indian Civil Service, which once produced giants like K.P.S. Menon,
now produces in its new avatar of the IAS and Allied Services only
pigmies without voice or strength of conviction. In this matter, they
are like those in the crippled institution of the union Public Service
Commission who select them. The Steel Frame of the IAS has nor become a
gilded plastic frame with its steel conscience crumbling into a plastic
conscience in the present uncertain political atmosphere. A Steel Frame
Civil Service would never have permitted such a degeneration.
The degeneration is manifeast at all ranks in all services, whether it
is the administrative service, the foreign service, the police service,
the forest service, the central services or the specialised services,
whether at the sub-divisional or provincial level or at the highest
levels of Central Government. The degeneration is uniform everywhere.
Whether it be in creative genius, intellectual heights, strength of
character, moral values, width of human interests or noble qualities,
the Civil Service of the post-Independence era are third rate. It does
not have its own voice or any originality. Its members either as Chief
Secretaries of State Governments or as Secretaries of various ministries
of departments, are at best paper-pushers and mindless approvers of
reports incompetently prepared by subordinates down the line.
Imagine people of such calibre presiding over the entire Civil Services.
Thus develops a vicious circle that promotes the degeneration of the
Civil Services.
Sturdy and sterling All Indian Services are indispensable for the
survival of democratic and united India. Whether it is a cadre of
generalists as the Indian Administrative Service is, or cadres of
specialists in the fields of judiciary, health care, engineering,
economics, foreign service, police etc the existence of All Indian
Services functions as the basis of governance of India and adds to the
emotional bonds binding the country together.
Also, as a pool of the cream of the people, it is supposed to bring
distinguished and brilliant people to the job of administration of the
country and thereby ensure good government to the country.
THE REMEDY
Any dilution of the high standards of these services is certain to throw
the country to the wolves. British India knew this and perhaps,
independent India also knows it. But it does nothing to arrest the
dangerous fall in the standards of its All India Services.
India is preoccupied with myriad issues relating to economic and social
development and perhaps the rapid deterioration of its All India
Services does not appear to be important in comparison with these
burning issues. But such a feeling is wrong. All India Services are a
precondition for the survival of India. India must realise this fact and
act fast.
This brings us to the quintessential question as to how the Civil
Services can be brought back to their original standards and glory. How
can we get back the original ideas, quality and performances and honesty
of convictions that existed earlier?
The first and foremost task in this regard is pruning the Civil Services
to a small brains trust of brilliance and commitment which will steer
the country in the right direction by giving competent advice on
statecraft and actually running the administration to political leaders.
A TINY SELECT GROUP:
Merciless pruning of the extant services to create this tiny, efficient
and highly responsible core is a priority task. Only brilliance and the
highest potential should be the criteria for membership in this
nerve-centre.
This brains trust must be kept beyond the purview of extraneous
constraints like reservation of any kind and even age restrictions. The
guiding principle here is bringing together the best talents without
restraints of any kind, for ensuring best results. The services should
not be treated as an employment opportunity for the elite, but as the
foundation of the Government.
INTELLECTUAL CALIBRE:
The training programmes for the services have to be made relevant today.
Matter taught has to be updated every year by experts and made changing
evento the brightest among the new recruits, unlike present training
programmes which are intellectually impoverished, irrelevant to the
times and which in no way help ensuring the right attitudes at the
higher levels.
Another need is to make the passing of a promotional test, of a very
standard, held by the UPSC or a similar Central agency, mandatory for
promotion at every level. Only such tough measures will keep the Civil
Services fit and productive as is required for the sound health of the
administration of the country.
TONING UP THE UPSC:
Overhauling the present mediocre Union Public Service Commission to
create an efficient and responsible set-up capable of handling the
enormous responsibilities under Article 320 of the Indian Constitution,
is essential in order to arrest the degeneration that has set in, in the
set-up. This has led to blunders in identifying talent and in managing
the Civil Services.
CREDIBILITY OF THE UPSC:
In a recent case, 3 promising officers from the State cadre of a
southern State of India, were denied selection by the UPSC to an All
India Service for no obvious reason for 10 years from 1990, while their
juniors were elevated. The acute frustration and demoralisation caused
by this led to the break-up of the family of one of the promising trio.
Violent behaviour by him repeatedly in public led to very embarrassing
public humiliations, and ultimately involvement in a murder case led to
his conviction. This is how a reckless and irresponsible UPSC ruined a
promising life for no reason at all.
However, another of the trio was an officer of enormous inner strength
as well as a poet and an intellectual of the highest calibre. He
weathered the frustration of the 9 years to rise to a very high level in
individual achievement and public esteem to the shame of the
irresponsible UPSC.
The incident created much resentment in the State against the
recklessness of the UPSC and considerably lowered its credibility. Such
transgressions are common these days with the present state of affairs
in the UPSC and the overhauling of the organisation should be aimed at
preventing such irresponsible actions that can have such tragic
consequences.
REORGANISATION OF THE UPSC:
The way to prevent such unprofessionalism on the part of the UPSC lies
in transforming it to a highly efficient outfit managed by people of
unimpeachable character and efficiency. This objective can be achieved
by suitable amendment to Articles 316 and 317 of the Indian Constitution
to ensure that only suitable people become Members and Chairman of the
organisation and remain in the saddle only as long as they retain their
moral and professional calibre.
This can be made possible by constituting a committee comprising the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chief Commissioner of the
Central Vigilance Commission and the Speaker of Parliament as members.
The Vice-President of India should be the Chairman and clear the names
for appointment as Members and as the Chairman of the UPSC for a fixed
tenure. These people should also be empowered to initiate actions for
their removal by an appropriate procedure in fit cases.
Appropriate changes to this effect in Articles 316 and 317 of the Indian
Constitution are likely to plug the existing loopholes that allow too
much political interferences in the process of the selection of Members
and Chairman of the UPSC and thereby in its fair functioning.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr.M.Karunanidhi, in a scathing attack on
the Tamil Nadu police after he assumed charge of the State Government in
1996, said “ Three fourths of the police force, which, to the State, is
like liver to human body, has become rotten.” The remark coming from an
experienced chief executive of a State distinguished for its efficient
police force until a few decades ago indicates the atrophy that has set
in, in the Indian police. The department cannot stay untouched while
there is marked fall in the standards of diligence and integrity in
other walks of life. Indian police adopted and adapted itself to corrupt
surroundings.
The basic ingredients of corruption in India are money and power. As
Government service, even at the higher rungs, has lost its charm in
terms of remuneration and status, it has been attracting only the second
best among youth who otherwise would be left in the lurch. Professional
dignity and integrity have been brushed aside leading to corruption.
Priorities in service have been shuffled, the sole objective being money
and power. Organisational objectives have been completely lost sight of.
Shift in diligence helped to build money-power while shift in loyalties
facilitated proximity to power-brokers. The degeneration spread rapidly
with the passage of time as organisational commitments became outdated
demode and pragmatism taught that immediate personal interests are for
leading a good life. This was the beginning of corruption of Indian
police.
A major contributing factor has been the gross fall in professional
pride among the personnel. Grass and insensitive handing of the
policemen and police matters by political leaders has eroded the morale
and the sense of belonging to the police force. Attempts to suppress and
gain complete hold over the bureaucracy and the police in democratic
India have affected the police adversely causing a sense of inadequacy.
The lack of motivation to achieve organisational goals and show results
is a clear manifestation of the fall in professional pride. The police,
which once was proud to enforce law, to maintain order and to ensure
peace and security, have lost all the enthusiasm as these factors became
political and lost their importance otherwise. Crimes, criminals and law
and order problems were all subject to political convenience. The
development shattered the professional pride of the police and struck a
blow to their motivation towards organisational ends. No organisation
can exist without a driving force to sustain it. When there is a vacuum
of a drive to carry it onward, it is filled by corruption.
Policing is more a profession than a job. While job involves performing
a task entrusted, profession entails dedication and commitment to a
cause; in the case of the police upholding the rule of law and
safeguarding the security of the country. How dedicated are the police
to this cause in India? Simple observation of criminal activities around
and police responses to them give clues to the situation.
Let us take an obvious example- open sale of smuggled articles in
exclusive markets maintained for the purpose in major cities of India.
The common justification of the police for allowing such markets to do
business is that no hard evidences to prove offence are available. This
is unbelievable. If the police, with the resources at its disposals
cannot collect evidence against the illegal activities conducted openly
on such a large scale, it is not worth being in existence. There is not
even a single case anywhere in India of such exclusive markets dealing
with smuggled articles being shut down and the illegal activities being
brought to a halt by prosecuting the sharks of the smuggling world.
The same is true of stolen articles. The footpath vendors in specified
market areas trade in consumer goods, running to crores of rupees each
day, without paying legal dues to the Government in the form of sales
and income taxes and in violation of various rules and laws. The illegal
business contributes to the growth of parallel economy of black money in
the country. These markets thrive before the eyes of the local police
force.
Either the police do not have the professional resolve to bring the
illegal activities to halt or the offenders who indulge in them have the
police backing in running the business. In other words, the police are
hand in glove with them.
The leeway involved in the exercise of power, coupled with the
sensitivity of the job, renders the force vulnerable to corruption.
Letting gambling dens flourish, backing the manufacture and sale of
illicit liquor, overlooking prostitution, black-marketing and drug
trafficking, changing the course of investigation to save certain
criminals or deciding the process of arrests and seizures to favour
certain individuals or parties, make life different for the people
involved. On the one hand, illicit business carried out with police
patronage or tacit support make huge grists in which the police
naturally have a huge share. On the other hand, the culprits are
prepared to pay any price in order to divert the attention of the
police. Huge sums of money change hands either to avoid arrest, search
and seizure or to change the very course of investigation. The police
can be part of such dirty deals without leaving a clue.
A fall-out of corruption is, the dishonest thrive at the cost of honest
professional. Flexible elements are useful assets to people in key
positions to save their kith and kin as the when they get involved in
criminal proceedings. Such characters in police are always cultivated
and posted to key positions so that compromises can be easily mached
Honest police officers are sidelined.
The need for police is limited to the need to have an obedient force at
the disposal of the rulers for use wherever they feel like. The
existence of such a force gives the common man a feeling of security.
The force also helps to absorb the blames heaped on the rulers while
things go wrong. While these cardinal goals are met by the mere
existence of the police, anything in addition, say professionalism,
integrity and honesty become achronisms. The general perception is that
an upright police force is always an inconvenience to the people and
therefore is not always tolerated and encouraged.
Corrupt police is the product of a corrupt society and corrupt police in
turn perpetuate corruption in society. This forms a vicious circle. As
corruption takes control and spreads to all strata of the force, upright
elements in the force become a minority and also forfeit the coveted
position in the organisation as inconvenient candidates. They are
scorned, detested and avoided as moles in the mainstream. Taking
recourse to unfair and illegal means to crush upright officers in also
not uncommon. Though courts of law can theoretically protect officers
against such harassment, expenses, time and uncertainties involved and
the history of court judgements render the protection meaningless and
force the upright officer to silently bear all humiliations and losses
or yield to the pressures. It is to the credit of Indian police that it
has great officers who have withstood all slights without yielding to
pressure.
In the olden days, corruption was confined to the lower strata of
officials. The situation has changed now; it originates from the above
and percolates downwards. An intelligence chief may drive his unwilling
subordinates to adopt all sorts of illegal methods including telephone
tapping, political espionage and other dirty tricks in his attempts to
win over his political masters and may even succeed at the cost of more
senior aspirants. Now, what about the subordinates once his business is
done. His worry is how to use his new position to further his prospects
before he retires in a few months. As the date of retirement approaches,
his perception of right and wrong blurs in the lust to make the most of
the position. This is the crux of the problem of corruption.
Freeing the police from the grip of corruption is a priority for
rebuilding India. A non-corrupt police is the beacon of a healthy
society. The police can usher in a healthy social life in the country
only by first getting itself rid of the cobwebs of corruption and then
infusing professionalism in its work. It must elevate itself to the
heights expected of it as the guardian of the rule of law, justice and
fairness in the social structure of the country.
Crime, politics and the police are the three sides of the vicious
triangle within which the future of democratic Indian and its free
people are trapped. Although wealthy industrial and commercial houses
form a fourth dimension, their techniques are as yet limited to
manipulative strategies to gain a strangle hold over political power by
remote control. It is their wealth that fills the coffers of the troika
and helps reduce the normal life of free citizens to a welter of
uncertainties and endless misery.
Politicians protect criminals from the law while criminals reciprocate
by acting as their henchmen. Policemen go to politicians for job
protection and strike an understanding with the criminals to make money.
Thus works this nexus of vile power-brokers, preying on innocent people,
bloating itself on the blood of the hapless masses. The trio of
manipulators is a dangerous force in the Indian democratic situation.
Combined as a tight-knit power-block, they have touched all the facets
of public life with the sole intention of garnering all the benefits.
The tragedy here is that the vice is perpetrated by those whom the
public trust as their benefactors and protectors. The amoral side of
this operation does not seem to have affected either the police or the
politicians in any way and the abuse against the Indian public goes on
unabated. It seems that all actors in this tragic drama think that
Indian democracy is a free-for-all field to grab to the maximum in a
world where all look for themselves and only those who grab the most
survive. This approach is certain to undermine not only the democratic
setup of the nation, but its very social fabric.
When the maintenance of law and order is in the hands of unscrupulous
police, queer things may take place. Long ago, a dacoity was reported in
the house of a person of dubious reputation in a particular district .
People who knew the background said the act was committed by his
illegitimate son after a serious quarrel. Court cases were pending
against the son. A case was registered with the local police. The
complainant however thought it was best to patch up with the suspect in
order to protect his family honour. This was done and the case was
pursued with an ex-convict being picked up and shown as the accused.
Arrest,” recovery” and chargesheet followed a decade after the dacoity.
Such developments make criminal administration a mockery. What a serious
breach of public trust it was and what a serious crime was committed by
the police who involved a person whom they knew did not commit the
offence!
In another incident that dates back to 1981, a police official in charge
of a subdivision in Karnataka picked up a poor goldsmith from a small
town for interrogation about receiving stolen properties. He subjected
him to torture in a tourist bungalow of the same town for two nights to
make the innocent goldsmith confess to something he had not done.
The goldsmith died on the second night of torture. The official who has
worked as Circle Inspector in the town until a few months before, had
indulged in this activity without the knowledge of the senior police
officers of the town. The news of the lockup death, as such deaths are
popularly known, was published in local and other newspapers.
The wife of the goldsmith filed a complaint before the local court. The
District Superintendent of Police and the Range Deputy Inspector General
of Police, who had benefited from the flexible ways of the official when
he was the Circle Inspector, rose to the occasion to save their protégé.
They visited the town and entrusted the investigation to a Deputy
Superintendent of Police of neighbouring subdivision with oral orders to
certify the case as not proved. The Deputy Superintendent complied and
sent his repot to the court and that was the end of the case. A police
official who with the support of his community, got posted as the police
chief of a State in 1986, wanted to favour a fingerprint sub-Inspector,
who has been under suspension for long after being arrested in a
criminal case of community interests. He summoned the Superintendent of
Police in charge of the case and examined the file about the suspension.
The Superintendent of Police failed to understand that the action was an
indication that he was to end the Sub-Inspector’s punishment. Even of he
had understood, he could not have acted for, the Sub-Inspector had been
suspended by an officer of the rank of the Deputy Inspector General of
Police, Moreover the case was pending trial in a court. After a
fortnight, the police chief secured the Sub-Inspector’s release, but
nurtured a grudge against the young Superintendent. He manipulated the
records and made sure that the latter was not selected for the Indian
Police Service. The career of a bright officer suffered a severe
setback. Such cases of avenging non-cooperation are common these days.
The trend is adversely affecting the organisation by weakening its cause
for fairness, law and justice.
How subordinates are brought around is another story. A young sub
divisional police officer in a small town known for its speculative
business activities conducted a raid on a library, run by a powerful
local community. It was actually a gambling house patronised by
prominent people of the town. The officer rounded up more than 50
prominent people including rich businessmen, senior government officials
and local politicians, with huge stake monies. Though the library had
been a gambling den for years, none had dared to raid it in spite of
repeated public petitions.
As the law requires that the place must first be proved to be a common
gambling house, the officer recorded in the station house diary the
names of all those who were gambling at the place and let them of with a
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 were their friends. He was transferred
to a remote place, with the annual confidential report stating that the
public might revolt against the officer if he continued . The library
continues to be a gambling den. The DIG at the place of the new posting
of the officer wanted him to marry a girl from his circle. His parents
however, got him married to a girl of their choice. This antagonised the
DIG who, in his next annual confidential report, showed his junior as a
liability to the police department. Also he prevailed upon other
officers who wrote confidential reports to give adverse remarks. Most of
them obliged and the appeals of the junior officer were never allowed to
reach the government.
It is to his credit that the officer did not break down and continues in
service while his far less competent colleagues have overtaken him on
the career ladder. Denied selection to the all-India service, he later
appealed to the Chief Secretary not to consider him any more for the
service. He took this drastic step in utter contempt for the corrupt
department heads who sat above him and decided his career advances.
Is it by design or accident that independent India has raised a criminal
outfit to catch criminals? It is in the interest of the police to accept
the reality so that remedy could be thought of.
Unhealthy practices of myriad variety are found at the highest levels. A
recent instance is that of a police chief who, along with his wife, was
taken to court on the eve of his retirement to face trial for defrauding
the public and a spastic society in whose name he sold(charity)
entertainment tickets. It is a different story that the officer managed
to silence the social worker who brought up the charges and made sure
the case fell through for lack of evidence. To what sad levels could men
in high ranks stoop to make a few dirty bucks!
The Indian Police Service continues to be an intellectually poor
unattractive realm with only the mediocre opting for it. The
constabulary which forms the bulk of the service is largely constituted
by people from the lower strata of society who are diffident and hence
do not exercise their powers against the more enlightened people. The
tendency to foul-up superior intellect and excellence is another factor
that has adversely affected the police setup. The general reluctance to
adopt modern techniques of policing and management, the dogmatic
approach to man-to-man and public relations and the lack of
understanding of human nature are other factors responsible for the
unfortunate state of affairs. These problems can be overcome only by
efficient police leadership at all levels and only if a semblance of
objectivity reasonableness and good judgement touches the core of the
police administration.
At present, growth is not much more than a spasmodic reaction to stimuli
and lacks the benefit of an integrated approach. A permanent cell of
organisation experts under the direct control of the police chief to
redefine the police organisation is required to make it more meaningful
and need-based. This could help in streamlining the hierarchy by
eliminating redundant posts, rationalising workloads, preventing
duplication and redefining duties and procedures and thus the rights and
responsibilities at each level. Result: police functioning would be made
more cost-effective and efficient.
The annual assessment of men and officers in the police has become a
travesty of what it used to be or meant to be. In no way, under the
present circumstances, does an ACR reflect an officer’s qualities or
capabilities. It is believed that the department would be far better off
without this pernicious evaluation process that breeds corruption and
bias. What characterises the ACR today is a distinct lack of
objectivity; it has become a means to personal ends, a medium for the
advancement of individual interests and even settlement of personal
scores. Servility is its inevitable consequence and it would not be
immoderate to say that eliminating the ACR altogether would be certainly
a step forward. If policing is to be effective in the years ahead,
specialisation is crucial. I suggest three distinct police services with
separate recruitment and training: (1) Regulatory police or uniformed
police in charge of law and order and other regulatory duties; (2)
Mainstay police in charge of crime investigation and prevention and
security and intelligence operation; (3) Social police in charge of
prevention and investigation of all social offences and implementation
of social legislation. All three wings should have their own individual
organisations up to the district level with independent Superintendents
and staff as required, functioning in tandem in much the same way as the
Army, Navy and Air Force. At the apex could be a specially constituted
body called the State Police Authority with the chiefs of all three
wings as members and the Chief Secretary as chairman.
All the present maladies emanate from the politicians who are only
concerned with winning the next elections. Until the organisation is
extricated from the grip of politicians, it cannot hope to rise above
the mediocre level, either in proficiency or in character. Such
mediocrity is wont to percolate downwards in a democratic setup.
An All India Police Authority accountable only to th President of India
at the national level with the regional Police Boards in States as
independent bodies should be created. The Authority must be headed by a
Supreme Court judge with the Union Home Secretary and the Cabinet
Secretary as members and the senior most police officer of the country
as the member-secretary. The regional Police Boards must have a High
Court Judge at the helm with the Home secretary and the Chief Secretary
as members and the State Police chief as member-secretary. The
arrangement will bring to an end interference of any kind in police
affairs, thus enabling the personnel to function in an independent
atmosphere.
Policemen are executives of law and executors of the rule of law. As
professionals, their only interests are the laws of the country and its
enforcement at all costs including personal safety and self-interests.
This, however, is only an ideal situation. The job culture and peer
pressure play a major role in setting the standards in an organisation.
This situation is not quite happy regarding the Indian police now. The
reason is the general collapse of the professional instinct, caused by
the degeneration of values. Society gets the police it deserves. A
country of self-seekers naturally has a self-seeking police force and
the consequence is lawlessness. This is the malady India suffers from.
The symptoms are crime, disorder and insecurity that have kept the
country and its people in a stranglehold.
An incident that took place 16 years ago in Chitradurga district of
Karnataka will illustrate the kind of professional commitment Indian
police pursue. A gambling den was raided by the police and the owner
spoke lowly of the DIGP whom he said was taking “ mamools” from him
every month. The matter was reported by a local newspaper. This
infuriated the DIG and the police turned its ire on the newspaper. The
Deputy Superintendent of Police of the sub-division in which the range
headquarters was situated joined the fight and a gang ransacked the
office and the press of the news paper a week later. Though a case was
registered with the local police station and the owner of the newspaper
moved heaven and earth to bring the culprits to book, nothing came out
of it and the case went undetected. But the people knew who were behind
it all.
Such episodes shatter the trust of the public who cannot look upon the
police as the guardian of their rights and interests. Basically, lapses
lie more in the concepts than in individuals. The police as a collective
force operated to wreak vengeance on the newspaper for factual
reporting, though somewhat indiscreet. But going on a rampage, however
highly placed the officer in question could be, in nothing but, making a
mockery of professional objectives. The most disturbing aspect of the
present Indian police is the slow and steady process of replacement of
the passion for law, justice and fairness by a single-pointed indulgence
of self-seeking tendencies as the drive of the police system. Much more
disquieting is the attitude of the public about the development and
their complete dependence on the police as the protector of their legal
rights, provider of security ad dispenser of justice. What is actually
happening is a great betrayal. Indeed, the tool, namely the police, is
there to enforce law and provide security. But it has become the
handmaid of the rich and influential and serves the interests of the
people in that stratum of the population.
Self-seeking tendencies express themselves at all levels of policing and
management of organisational matters. As far as policing is concerned,
be it crime-prevention or investigation, collection of intelligence or
management of internal security or maintaining law and order,
self-interest has role to play. It’s expression in crime management is
too obvious a matter.
While intelligence collection is becoming a politically oriented
function, internal security operations are no more than providing cover
to political bigwigs and other influential people at the cost of more
pressing problems of national magnitude.]
Law and order has become a tool in the hands of the politicians and the
policemen make themselves available for such games. In the process,
honest policemen suffer and the morale of the system receives a serious
setback. The result is lawlessness spawned by the absence of effective
policing and wrong models as the protectors of law.
The parochial instinct of the police expresses itself in the management
and organisational matters. Under the cover of discipline and the need
of tacit obedience, the game of favouritism is wilfully played on the
one hand and any resistance is ruthlessly crushed on the other.
Organisational processes such as promotions and transfers are widely
used to achieve personal ends. Posts with no job content are created in
various ranks primarily to accommodate officers who refuse to fall in
line with the higherups for reasons of conscience and professional
integrity. It an upright officer takes a sinecure posting in his stride
and refuses to part with his principles, he is harassed through other
means. Recently the commandant of a training college pressed his
higherups and the state Home Secretary for the removal of a functionary
of the college from his important postion. The latter was accused of
involvement in a fraudulent act involving several lakhs of rupees. The
Home Secretary and the chief of the unit ( in the rank of DGP) made sure
that the commandant of the college faced the consequences for
recommending action on their favourite official. His vehicle was
withdrawn, telephones were disconnected, his personal staff was harassed
and his subordinates were encouraged to disobey. This continued until
the officer who found functioning impossible went on leave. He reported
back to duty only after he was transferred out. More surprising is that
such incidents take place in the open without any attempt to keep it
secret or discreet.
Professional pride is the panacea for the malady of self-interest in
professionals. Greating an ambience of professional pride is a sure way
of nurturing and promoting high professional standards and efficiency.
It is immaterial whether high professional pride creates high standards.
The fact is both are important to create a conducive environment of
professionalism.
India definitely needs such a professional environment in its police
force to strengthen its democratic traditions and the roots of the rule
of law. An organised effort is on in the Indian police to force its
members to fall in line at the cost of individual brilliance and
creative abilities. The policemen are starved of innovative steps. The
organisation follows the principle of nipping talent in the bud
insisting on unquestioning servitude. The talk of the top brass on
public platforms about the need to nurture excellence and the
outstanding qualities is a farce. Most leaders prefer status quo at the
peril of the growth of the organisation so that their interests remain
undisturbed.
For administering the medication, first, topmost police leaders of the
country need to be convinced that the police of present India are really
ailing with serious problems and the system really needs treatment.
India’s approach to national security is always piecemeal
Incoherent and casual. Threats are countered with short-
Term responses which never fulfil the vital needs of the
country. Espionage performance is below the international
standard. The reasons are many but the important ones are
lack of commitment and an approach that is far from
professional.
It is significant that the history of the police of sovereign India
begins soon after the turbulent years of the second World War. The shift
saw an expansion in the vista of policing worldwide, the most important
being clandestine operations for national security. Covert operation
blossomed as a full-fledged institution and was recognised as a tool of
statecraft only during and after the second World War (Germany, the
Soviet Union and Britain before and during the war and the U.S. and
Israel after it perfected the techniques.
The establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early
Fifties from the remnants of the office of Special Services( OSS), with
an exclusive division to handle clandestine operations abroad (sometimes
domestic operations also) marked a milestone in the history of
intelligence.
Free India , in spite of its moral values and abiding faith in the
Gandhian philosophy of truth and honesty, found covert operations
indispensable for survival. Though attempts were scratchy in the
beginning India made significant breakthroughs in penetrating, moulding
and controlling the affairs of neighbours after setting up the Research
and Analysis Wing (RAW) to handle covert operations in foreign
countries. Its operations and performance in Bangladesh, Sri. Lanka and
Pakistan and to a somewhat lesser extent in Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan,
Burma and some of the Gulf countries are equal to the best in the world.
Its role in the creation of Bangladesh, containing the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam, checkmating Pakistan in Kashmir and controlling the
terrorist misadventures of international Sikh communities against Indian
targets have earned it worldwide accolades. This in spite of the fact
that the Indian secret police is a lightweight performer in the arena of
international clandestine wars and its overall performance is
unimpressive for the size and resources of the country. The reasons are
many.
The first is the lack of commitment to the national cause and ideologies
such as integration, democracy, secularism, nonaligned movement and
mixed economy. Another reason is the moral atrophy experienced by the
police after independence leading to a setback in the professional
approach. Postings to the RAW with opportunities for foreign assignments
have become an obsession depriving the job of all its substance and
spirit.
The other reason is political interference in postings and transfers of
the RAW officials. It is in fact political connections rather than
security screening and clearance and aptitude for clandestine operations
which decide the issue. Huge unbudgeted and unaccounted funds at the
RAWs disposal make the appointments highly lucrative. This is an
extremely dangerous trend in a security apparatus where commitment,
trust and absolute secrecy are vital and draw the line between life and
death.
LACK OF PERSPECTIVE
Clandestine operations require highly specialised skills, Ignoring this
need means compromising and betraying the organisation’s operational
efficiency and exposing the country to dangerous security threats.
Another important reason for the retarded growth of the Indian secret
police is the general lack of security consciousness in the country and
the inability to see and place the imperatives of a national security
policy in the right perspective. These glitches end up in security
breaches. India’s approach to national security is always piecemeal,
incoherent and casual.
It does not have a sound and well-conceived national policy. Security
threats are always treated with short-term face-saving responses which
never contribute to the real long-term security needs of the country.
The people who fought a mighty power to liberate this country from the
yoke of foreign rule just half a century ago have not bothered to start
a public debate on the subject. Indian security now is left at the mercy
of time and it is sheer luck that democracy has escaped the hungry
wolves waiting to prey on it.
Security policy is the essence and unifying factor behind all the
policies of most developed as well as developing countries. Whether in
foreign, defence or economic policy, industry, trade and commerce,
science and technology or human resource development, the policies are
all oriented to national security. Most developed countries have
exclusive super agencies reporting directly to the head of government to
advise it on, oversee and mastermind national security policies and its
operations.
The U.S. has the National Security Agency (NSA) doing yeoman service as
the national security advisor to the President and enjoys more powers
than the CIA. Israel and Russia have efficient outfits at the political
level to formulate their national security interests. Most developed
countries have created their own systems to mastermind matters touching
national security with the power to override the decision of other
departments. India is yet to learn its lessons from these developments.
The excessive concern for national security has led to the creation of
parallel governments and power centres in some countries. There are
instances of black acts being committed against the legitimate policies
of countries in the garb of national security. Pakistan is an example of
a constitutionally-elected government living in the shadow of fear of
its secret police. The Inter-Services Intelligence )ISI) has indeed
taken upon itself the responsibilities of national security.
LOYALTY, A POSITIVE ASPECT
In the context, a positive aspect of India’s poor concern for secret
interests is its clean slate regarding the existence of secret parallel
governments and clandestine power centres. It is creditworthy that the
Indian secret police has remained subordinate and loyal to its
legitimate authorities.
The field of operation for the security agencies continues to be
confined to traditional methods which ignore the needs of a modern
integrated approach in consonance with the national policies and
programmes. India cannot afford to treat its security concerns according
to the whims and fancies of the people who come to head the Ministries
and their political and personal ideologies.
India lacks a regimen of long range security programmes to make its
security operations meaningful and purposeful. It is lagging far behind
the world standards in hi-tech ultra-secret espionage operations. Its
secret police are yet to make proficient use of the country’s impressive
strides in satellite launches and other space innovations. Except
perhaps in the case of Pakistan, India is yet to fully utilise the
service of world-class mercenaries. In short, security is not high on
the priority list.
The state of affairs is even worse in the special branches or
intelligence units of the States and Union Territories. The former have
become tools of the ruling parties which spy over their political
opponents and the field situations. Law and order is pushed to the
background.
As far as internal security is concerned, they are rather ill-equipped
for the task in, manpower resources, hi-tech equipment, expertise,
organisational efficiency and motivation factors, save some routine VIP
security exercises which do not call for expertise. These exercises are
meant just to oblige and gratify political masters.
Their contacts with the news media, a vital link in intelligence
operations, are few and are mostly confined to local newspapers for the
purpose of disinformation and to keep track of news dissemination.
Occasionally, these contacts are misused to promote favourite
subordinates. The role of these special branches in providing skilled
recruits to security agencies at the national level has remained a
dream.
The institution of an apolitical agency with a permanent core group of
experts whose integrity is proven alone can change the situation. This
nucleus will act as the guide, advising the head of government in
national security matters. Efforts made in this direction are rather
sketchy, ill- conceived and half-hearted. It is high time work was done
in earnest to form this comprehensive agency.
VIP PROTECTION
In India, national security, for all practical purposes, is synonymous
with VIP security and the police refuse to look beyond protecting
individuals. This is because of the lopsided loyalties and aberrations
in understanding professional objectives and responsibilities and a
tendency to trade off professional responsibilities and services for
promotions. This explains the existence of the Black Cats, National
Security Guards, Special Protection Group and so on. While the safety of
national leaders is important, it is not the plank on which national
security stands.
The VIP security has become a public farce with all kinds of people
demanding and obtaining security classifications depending on the money
and power they have. They get the cover of highly trained police
personnel as a mark of their prestige and social standing.
All matters concerned with national security are highly sensitive and
should be treated as such. It should not be degraded into a mean
exercise for the benefit of a few persons, however influential and
important they may be.
Each VIP visit to a region ends up with the entire law and order wing of
the police force drawn out for protection duties, throwing normal work
out of gear. With the VIPs busy trotting around the country, it has
become a serious threat to routine police work.
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 peregrine and irrelevant in the
changed circumstances; and traditional Indian values like simplicity,
charity, wisdom, mutual respect, encraty and human qualities were
distanced as Indian 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 edict in such a circumstance?.
A fixation towards political masters at the cost of professional
uprightness is the most obvious manifestation of this organisational
character of the police setup. The symptoms are deeper at higher ranks
and reach their saturation at the rank of the chiefs where political
selections are crucial in appointments to the levels. Except in rarest
of the rare cases, every police officer ascensively obtempers and goes
sequacious to political masters as he comes nearer to the coveted
selection post. Two distinct types can be marked in this approach. In
one, officers take to subordination to political leaders as a convenient
policy from the very beginning of their career, and as a policy, make
themselves subject to the dictates of all political leaders. The very
concept of politics is sacrosanct to them and anybody in it deserves
their absolute obeisance. They find the germ of professional rectitude
in meeting needs of political masters and other political leaders. Any
talk of professionalism in the police ectogenesis to political relevance
does not make sense to them. Every state in India has a set of such
police officers who are generally meek and very popular with politicians
of any colour and succeed in getting favourable postings which ever
party comes to power. It is not an accident that these officers often
become intelligence chiefs and in most cases succeed to retire as the
chiefs of the concerned police organisations because of their easy
proximity to politicians and willing readiness to stoop to any level at
the behests of their political masters. Politicians in power need such
officers in jobs where lawless operations like tapping of telephones and
illegal operations are part of the game.
There is another set of officers who turn soft to politicians as they
reach the stage of being subjected to political scrutiny for being
selected to coveted posts like the chief of the concerned police set up.
These officers are generally known as strict officers and hailed for
their professional uprightness and competence from the beginning of
their career, which is marked with erratic rises and falls on political
whims. The public mark them as ideal professionals. But changes appear
in them as they approach the D-day of their career and they become the
best friends of political heads to corner selection posts with the zeal
of a new convert.
In an annual conference of police officers in a state police chief
lambasted his Chief Minister and Home Minister in his speech en face for
denying him free hand in posting of officers in professional interests.
The officer next in seniority to the chief, whose selection as the next
police chief was to be decided soon rose to the occasion and against the
decorum of a professional meet, contradicted his chief to state that it
was the prerogative of the ministers to post officers at their will.
This shocked the assembled officers as he did that while he was known as
a through professional and strict adherent to professional values and
ethics. His apostasy astounded the police officers attending the
conference who trusted him to up hold the values of his profession till
the end.
It is a common practice in some states of India to change key officers
of the police department when a new dispensation takes over the rule.
Changes in key position of the police department following changes in
political rule are a common feature in most states. This reflects how
the political leadership of the country sees the professional loyalties
of its police. This credibility of the professional loyalty of the
present Indian police is incredulously low even among the public.
Political leadership believes that all those in police are venal
commodities, who can be win over by throwing loaves and fishes. It is
convinced that most in the police are loyal to one or the other
political groups of the country and its leaders and these factious
loyalties within the police setup do make substantial differences to its
political fortunes. Ergo, the mad rush to place favourite police
officers at key positions tout de suite of taking over the
administration. Fractured loyalties of those in the police setup are
responsible for this triste affaire. It is natural for any to respond to
the state of affair and make hay while the sun shines. While political
leaders play some police officers in deliciis and not others, they are
only exploiting the Achilles’ heel of the organisation offered to them
on a platter and sharing the res gestae. The culprit here is the
perverted loyalties of the police. When the police play their priorities
well by perspicuously defining their loyalties in favour of professional
objectives of the police rather than myopically prevaricating to the
mire of personal loyalties against professional dignity, no more the
political leadership finds it feasible to keep its avizefull
pernoctation over the police to play one against the other. While the
police en semble are committed to their professional objectives, there
is nothing to the political leadership to choose from. What is termed as
political interferences in placements of police department is patently
the making of the police by their gratuitous personal loyalties and any
blame on the political leadership on this count is assez bien uncalled
and due to parablepsis.
DEVALUATION OF PROFESSIONAL QUALITIES:
The intelligence unit is the most abused section and its chief is the
most willing loyal subservient policeman available to political masters
in most of the police forces of India. Intelligence officers have a
responsibility to their organisational objectives and they ought to be
loyal to it and work towards meeting the objectives. But, misplaced
loyalties overturn the scope of intelligence units everywhere in present
Indian police. Intelligence units as a consuetude are seen as the
political handmaid of the ruling parties and their leaders. The
usefulness of the intelligence units as political tools is so pronounced
in India that the units are ascensively brought under the direct control
of the chief executive of the government from its traditional field of
the Home Department and as a consectary, intelligence chiefs are
accrescently becoming the prime advisers of the chief executive head and
shoulder above even the chief secretaries in states and the cabinet
secretary in the centre. The out-of-turn importance is a quid pro quo to
the lengths to which these officers go and risk their personal and
career safety and honour in indulging in all types of illegalities to
oblige the political masters, lllegalities and unethical practices like
telephone tapping and shadowing political rivals of the ruling party
leaders are only minor prevarications these loyal police officers
indulge in to keep themselves on the right side of their political
masters. Assessment of political trends and suitability of various
candidates in different constituents during elections and reporting of
political and other activities of politicians within and outside and
ruling party are now wrongly seen as legitimate functions of
intelligence units in Indian police. The zeal of police officers to
prove personal loyalty to the ruling political party and its leaders
often lead them even further. Though the loyalty of these police
officers to their political masters foot the bill for any encomium, it
sadly goes against all professional tenets of any police organisation
worth the name. But this is inconsequential to these police officers.
Professional interests lose all significance to them vis a vis loyalty
to powerful per procurationem self-promotions. Where loyalty to right
ideals is a basic tenet of the policing, loyalty becomes a venal
commodity to these police officers. The intelligence chief of a
particular state who was a favourite of the chief minister of the state
and retained his position as the chief of the intelligence in additional
charge even after promotion and posting to a higher slot, led a huge
contingent of intelligent officer and camped in Delhi for several days
to help his political masters manoeuvre for the Prime Ministership
during the turbulent weeks of unstability after the general election of
1996. The tragedy of such a perverted loyalty is the devaluation of the
professional qualities of the policing apart from financial implications
of such operations and the block they create in legitimate government
works. This is a fine example of sacrificing public interests at the
altar of self-promotion of few individuals.
Political leaders make best use of this Achilles’ heel in the police
setup. How low police officials at higher ranks stoop to be in good
books of political masters can be seen in some states by the concours
among the two important pillers of the state police setup namely the
state intelligence chief and the Police Commissioner of the State
Headquarters in front of the state Chief Minister’s residence early
every morning to have the first private audience of the Chief Minister
to themselves. This was a laughing matter in official circles some years
back. Though the hard work of these high profile police officers to rise
everyday early in the morning to pay their obeisance and report to the
chief executive of the state and their sedulity to their work in hand
have to be respected and appreciated, the issue is cannot they discharge
these duties sans breaching the pride and dignity of their ranks and
posts and without so obviously expressing their sequacious tendencies?
After all, they have a responsibility towards keeping the pride and
dignity of their ranks and profession, if not of their individuality.
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 side-lined
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.
Police deal with social ills as physicians and surgeons deal with
physical ills. A surgeon incises parts of the body to set right wrongs
and remove dangerous growths from the system to save a person while a
police do the same for the society. Police job like the works of a
surgeon involves administration of bitter potions, prescription of
restrictions and incisions to lay foundation for a sturdy system. Like
medical profession, policing is a highly responsible function and ergo
needs to be bound by moral ethos lex non scripta to avoid misuse of
special rights involved in discharge of duties. Both professions involve
independent decisions in handling each case and exercise of infrangible
conscience in doing justice to it. The difference lies in the medical
profession mostly maintaining its pristine purity as a profession while
police as a splinter of bureaucracy being illaqueated by formalities and
procedures inherent in government functions at the cost of forthright
involvement and commitment immanent to a profession. The ineluctable
hierarchical order as the spine of policing and the concomitant
interferences from above bring a measure of incertitude and render
honest and professional policing nonpossumus by depriving field officers
their freedom in handling cases on dictates of the conscience. This
perforce adversely affects the effectiveness of policing and ipso facto,
the health of the society. It is the reason why in spite of sound
presence of the social surgeons, Indian society witness the
deterioration of its health de mal en pis each passing year.
TRUST OF THE PEOPLE
Physicians and surgeons have as much potentiality and opportunity to
damage as to save health. Because of their expertise and credibility,
surgeons have umpteen opportunities to use their tools and instruments
on people on the claim of restoring health. The whole process is based
on trust on the surgeons and their honesty. Imagine the situation when
the lot of surgeons is greedy and sans scruples, while the people have
no alternative to offering themselves for surgery to their hands in
times of need. None can be sure what would happen to an unconscious
patient on the operation table in the hands of such surgeons behind the
closed doors of the operation theatre. The whole situation becomes
hopeless when the whole setup is run by similarly profligate surgeons
and the precept that birds of the same feather flock together operates
to hold them in syndesis at the expense of any relief by appeals or
complaints. The harm done to the patient to meet the greed of the
surgeons would be pro rata to the latter’s immoral propensities. Synergy
among them may lead even to venal deals in human organs at the expense
of the health of the ignorant people. Their contempt for professional
skills and negligent work may tremendously harm the safety of the
patients. The situation in the field is certain to wreck the trust of
the people on the surgeons. The predicament forces them to rely on the
contabescent setup foute de mieux. The hapless position spawns a sense
of disillusion in people and they even resign to the situation as
helpless subjects. This exactly is the situation of the social surgery
by the police in India. The society has to depend for surgery upon an
epinosic organisation, which is inefficient, enrivon with quandaries,
mismanaged, enfested with scandals and above all, undependable. The
society, for its well-being, has to fall on an organisation with which
it tends to keep distance and thinks it indignity to associate, its
womenfolk consider as an insult on their womanhood to approach and its
children see it as an image of fear and silenced by invoking its name to
gallow. It is the predicament of the Indian society. On the one hand,
the popular image of the police in Indian psyche is that of a devil, of
an evil. But, it has to fall on the police for all of its social evils.
Though part of the bad image of the police is sheer myth, part in
quiddity is the result of wrong people and wrong concepts coming to the
centrestage in Indian police from a long time.
RELEVANCE OF CRUELTY
The similarly of surgeons and police basically is their hard means to
achieve the desired end- surgical methods involving incisive tools to
cut and remove unwanted growths. It is en regle as far as surgeries and
concerned. The tragedy of the police lies in de trop extension of the
hard means unlike surgeons to other aspects of life. The difference
between a surgeon and a police is that while a surgeon outside the
operation theatre is a gentleman every farden, unaffected by the
ambience, the hard approach renders a police apocryphal at the cost of
civil living and basic human nature. This is why the image of the police
is very low. The hard methods in police extend even to its policy of
human resources management at the cost of neoteric principles of man
management. The rule of thumb continues to be the bedrock of handling
human resources. Ruthlessness and cruelty are its principal weapons in
bringing subordinates and the public to submission. Human dignity is an
unknown concept in the police. The result sees motivation becoming a
casualty in the bedlamish system.
SADISTIC PLEASURE
The endless affairs with legal matters perhaps insensitise the police to
the problems of legality. This is evident in their hors la loi approach
to various issues. The police seem to think that end justifies the
means. The problems of malfeasance are common in the police. The mode of
approach of the police to man management proves this. No scruple is
shown in measures meant to bring a subordinate to knees or an accused to
confess to the offence, he had not committed. Third degree methods in
interrogations is a too familiar issue to discuss here. Though third
degree methods are universal in application in police investigations,
there are vital differences in their use in advanced and countries like
India. While utmost care and discreetness are employed in englightened
police forces of advanced countries in deciding whether a particular
individual has to be subjected to serve interrogations, where imminence
of the concerned person being an offender is a prime criterion and the
methods are used as the dernier ressort, Indian police like their
counterparts in backward countries adopt third degree methods in
investigation as their staple right over innocent citizens and fall to
it in the first available instant like wolves on their preys. It cannot
be gainsaid that there is a streak of sadistic pleasure in Indian
police. They think that third degree methods are de rigueur in crime
investigation. The sadistic pleasure finds expression in severity down
the hierarchical ladder at the cost of dignity and self- respect of
others down the ladder. It is a free-for-all field . Basic values like
mutual respect and courtesies are rare in Indian police. Ruthlessness
and cruelty are the ropes Indian police find commodious with. This
invidious stria is hardly the desirable attribute to which any decent
society wants to submit itself for any treatment.
LACK OF COMMITMENT
A ken of the extent to which the Indian social surgeons are committed to
their work and goals can be had from the fact that in a small department
headed by a Director General of Police, deputed from the police
department in a southern state of India, a criminal case of fraud and
forgery involving a huge amount was launched against some staff members
of the department in a police station after the misdeeds were unearthed
during an audit. The circumstances of the case normally warrant
departmental actions like suspension of the officials, departmental
enquiries and measures to recover the loss to follow the launching of
the criminal case. In this case, the department washed off its hands
after launching the criminal case as if it had nothing to do about the
fraud and forgery in its own organisation. No suspensions, no
departmental enquiries, no recovery processes. Even the criminal case
was just a front to save the skin of the people at the helm of the was
just a front to save the skin of the people at the helm of the
organisation. Advice from well-meaning officers in the department to the
DGP in 1996 to take the affairs to their logical ends by initiating
essential departmental actions as an apotropaic measure fell on dunny
ears. In addition, the police who were investigating the case were
surreptitiously advised by the DGP to go slow with the case till the
people involved in the case easily retire. This much about the zeal of
Indian police as social surgeons in tackling evils.
“Surgeon” is an abracadabra; the concept of social surgeon is pregnant
with highest ideals human mind can conceive. The application of this
concept to recognise the duties of the police is the highest honour the
society has invested the police with, and ipso facto lays sublime
responsibilities on the rough and tough little shoulders of the police.
Unfortunately, police suffer from alexia and fail to read the elevated
position in which they are held while recognised as social surgeons. It
is position in which they are held while recognised as social surgeons.
It is sad to see how the sacred responsibilities are not only frittered
away, but abused at will to the chagrin of the hoi polloi. The
consequence is that while the police is yet seen and called as social
surgeons foute de mieux, they are no more loved and respected as social
surgeons should be. On the other hand, they are misprised and distanced
for the apostasy, they suffer from their avowed path. Indeed the fear of
police is there because of the weapons and the muscle of power they
weild. In some parts of the country, even the rear is glidder after the
pelbeian has learnt the lesson that money can do any tricks with the
police. The cause of the degringolade certainly lies in the police
itself, in the type of people enter the service, their calibre, their
values and convictions and the professional atmosphere created by the
service. If the organisation and the people in it cannot rise to the
high levels expected of it and prove their raison d’etre, the reason
lies in its ephemeral self-interests ectogenous to the professional
values and ideals. Police as social surgeons perforce require
single-minded commitment to the cause of well-being of the society. It
is seld or never found in present Indian police. The society whose
well-being is the responsibility of the police, know it. The police know
it. The society is left to itself to mend its problems. Police work only
when there is gratification and while people with muscles of money and
power need help. This certainly is not characteristic of a social
surgeon, but of a social-wrecker. Sadly Indian police is becoming that
in oodles, the protector of and tool in the hands of rich and powerful.
The preposterous trend has to stop in the interests of the police as an
organisation and a profession, the society, the country and the
humanity. The key for this change lies in creation of right professional
ambience in the police system. The secret of creating right atmosphere
lies in right leadership and the burden of right leadership lies on
right convictions about the importance of police and policing as a
profession. The malaise of Indian police lies in lack of right
convictions about the importance of policing as a profession. The result
is that all types of wolves ab intra et ab extra falling on the system
to tear it from all sides and eating it. The wolves within are more
dangerous than outside. The ensure that no upright resistance breed ab
intra to the detriment of their esurient appetite and no professional
pride raises its head to topple their schemes of self-promotion The only
response of their greed is wrecking uprightness and professional pride
wherever they are traced. Such hawks in higher echelons of the
career-ladder succeeded in their schemes and the result is the Indian
police in its present wretched state. The salvation of Indian police
lies in breaking the vice prise of these arriviste and laying it in the
safe hands of the professionals steeped in the foundations of
professional pride and uprightness, to make the system acceptable to the
society as its protector and ‘ social surgeons’ true to the abracadabra.
Better handling of the police administration will do away
with the ills of the police force writes PRAVEEN KUMAR.
The basic needs of police and policing are professional pride and a good
image. The police force capable of doing its duties are carrying out its
responsibilities with devotion and self- sacrifice. But it needs its
sacrifices and devotion to work to be appreciated. A good image entails
public cooperation and enhances the social recognition of the police
personnel. Pride and a high morale are necessary in manpower oriented
organisations like the police, particularly those which have to deal
with the public from a position of strength. Police personnel shamed and
humiliated in their career can never face the public and do good
policing.
The tragedy lies in police administration. Its vanity belittles the
police, breaches its pride, shatters its self-image and destroys its
good public image by unscrupulous and selfish interferences in police
affairs. Suspensions and disciplinary action are a common phenomenon in
the Indian Police. When no grounds are available for disciplinary
proceedings, they resort to unfair and indecent measures like
withdrawing vehicles, telephones and other facilities, denying
promotions, transfer to humiliating jobs created for meeting such
eventualities, keeping on prolonged compulsory waiting without a job
etc. These humiliations weaken their position before the public as well
as subordinates whom they are supposed to control and guide with the
strength of their leadership qualities.
ARROGANCE OF POWER
A factor responsible for maladministration becoming the abracadabra of
police administration is arrogance of power. The police is the real
power, the crux of the state
power. The police administrators weild power on the enforcers of the
state power. Power breeds arrogance, ultimate power, ultimate arrogance.
The sweep of arrogance is so strong that it has no patience for rules,
laws, codes of conduct, moral values, natural courtesies and human
dignities. The only goal of the police administration in the ambience of
arrogance is proving its invincibility as tout prix.
A serious lapse of police administration in India is its presumed virtue
of indifference to other’s predicaments. The compulsions of being led
deprive government officials the great human gifts like freedom of
thought, originality and creativity and drain off feelings and
sensibilities. The humble situation is spawned for government officials
by themselves by their zeal to conform.
This is the position in which the police administration finds itself.
The need of making virtue out of irresponsiveness leads to mendacity and
dishonesty. Normal human courtesies are unknown there. Evasion is the
stock reply for queries. Vanity is the hallmark. Approach to all except
higher-ups is always brusque and stroppy. Normal man-to-man interaction
is impossible unless one is capable of gratifying. Public relations is
an unknown concept, McGregor’s need hierarchy and such management,
concepts are nonexistent in their vocabulary and thoughts.
A CUSHY JOB
The police administration provides a good cover to meet long cherished
desires and is therefore considered a cushy job. A police administrator
like the Home Secretary of a state can avail for himself from the police
organisation all benefits inherent to the police job like the best
available transport and communication facilities and orderly services at
will. The police network throughout the country would be at his personal
service wherever and in whatever way he desired it. This is an
invaluable asset, for him and his kith and kin. In the name of various
studies concerning the police, he can visit foreign countries at his
will and convenience at government expenditure.
The prevarications of the police administration from the right path in
most cases is not even to achieve right professional ends. They mostly
are pure and simple means to self-grandiosity and personal gains. Show
them elements of personal grists. Files move fast. Discussions and
meetings are held day and night. Decisions are taken overnight.
Procedures are cut-short to ease the process. Ordinary situation turns
to an emergence. Administration becomes a hub of incessant activity.
Lots of energy and thought go to the process of administration. The
result is that work is done irrespective of the relevance and importance
of the work while more pressing and vital, but less remunerative works
rot in files for years.
Selection and recruitment of men in the age of unemployment and purchase
of heavy vehicles in the ambience of commissions play a pivotal role in
the administration of police and related safety-oriented organisations
like the fire force. Recruiting men in thousands and purchase of scores
of heavy vehicles at a single go in the name of expansion of an
organisation involves subterranean change of hands of crores of rupees
in a short span of time. It is a dizzy amount to be pocketed.
Decisions were taken by the administration for expansion of the
organisation with fresh recruitment of thousands of men and sub-officers
and purchase of scores of heavy vehicles. A police officer in a
sensitive juncture of his career who could be compromised was put in
charge of the organisation and the selection and purchase processes. The
setup worked out by the Home Secretary worked to his satisfaction. The
result was that the police officer in charge was rewarded by quick and
easy promotions. The organisation concerned saw rapid expansion.
Thousands of unemployed youths got jobs. Manufactures of heavy vehicles
got business. And the Home Secretary got what he wanted. Thus all are
happy and contented. This is how administration works in India.
Most ills of the present Indian police emerge from the malaise of the
morbid handling of the police administration at different levels. Be is
in handling of the body and shape of the organisation and its functions
of managing the spirit and the soul of the force, the police
administration can play a major role either in building or marring the
prospects of raising a healthy police outfit for the country. As of
today, police administration failed the country and its police by
indifference on the one hand and crass handling of the organisation and
its affairs on the other. The only solution to this serious malady lies
in rebuilding the police administration with people of character,
integrity, devotion, efficiency, ability and above all, deep insight to
human nature and its problems.
Discipline, in the case of the police force, is both an advantage and a
disadvantage. It is an advantage because, if discreetly employed, it can
prevent undue interaction of the police with unwanted elements. It is a
disadvantage because the police, with its trained response, may find it
difficult to isolate itself from the behests of its political masters.
The first and foremost job in this background is to free the police from
the unhealthy influence of politicians of all hues by making it
accountable to an independent authority with absolute power to take
decisions. The authority should be a professional body with men of
proven calibre and quality who have reached a stage where they need not
sacrifice their convictions to appease those in power. It shall be
directly responsible to the legislature and function as an independent
authority like the judiciary, the Comptroller and Auditor General or the
Election Commission.
The recruitment procedure should be overhauled to ensure that really the
best from the job-seekers are roped in. Any interference in matters of
recruitment should be promptly and decisively resisted. Only highly
qualified officers of proven probity should be entrusted with the task,
the ugly head of bribery ruthlessly crushed and the unhealthy trend of
making recruitment a business checked. The infusion of good blood even
at this late hour is certain to repair the damage.
The jobs should be made attractive with good salaries and satisfactory
working conditions that will give the resolve to resist the bait thrown
by the criminals. Social scientists say that bribery is inversely
proportional to the financial strength of a social group. Therefore,
better salaries and congenial working conditions will definitely make
the police less sensitive to these lures. It has to be ensured that the
right man comes to the right job and that honesty is rewarded. An
unbiased assessment of the work and character of the personnel will take
the organisation in the right direction.
Those who are empowered to assess subordinates and their work must be
made answerable to prevent misuse of this responsibility. The creation
of a high-power core group of people adept at assessing men and
character may help to create a feeling of confidence and security and
inspire the police personnel to discharge their duties fearlessly. This
group should be made ultimately responsible for all career decisions,
for the development of the police, work assessment, job analysis,
recruitment and management of human resources.
It is unfortunate that there is no relation between an officer’s
efficiency and performance and his standing in the organisation. The
officers are so indifferent to the performance of their subordinates
that they are absolutely in the dark about the standard of work turned
out under their supervision. Another reason for this sad affair may be
that they are not qualified to assess. This situation leads to random
assessment and, in the process, talents wither and opportunities
overtake high-calibre workers on the hierarchical ladder. This can be
rectified by arranging motivation courses for police officers who must
be taught about the work they are required to perform, its importance
and how to discharge their duties. Policemen generally distance
themselves from all mental activities. Training must endeavour to break
this trait and coax candidates to open up their minds and reflect on all
matters before making decisions. In this context, it must be mentioned
that often the habit of reading becomes a casualty once a person enters
the service.
This negative approach to reading and thinking has resulted in poor
professional knowledge, particularly at the higher ranks. Work knowledge
is generally limited to what is remembered from experience and bits of
what has been learnt from books during training decades earlier. The
style of supervision in the police should be seen to be believed. All
order to subordinates emanate from a perfect void. The best that is done
is to hold a meeting of subordinates wherein the latter are allowed to
arrive at a course of action to meet a situation and the decision is
returned to them as an order to perform. The style of ineffective
supervision must stop if the aim is to achieve quality. The system of
overlapping supervision because of multiple ranks, where none really
discharges his role must be scrapped. A thorough overhauling of training
and the application of modern techniques would go a long way in mending
the situation.
The organisation has become top-heavy. In States where there were only
two officers of the rank of Inspector General for say 40,000 men and
officers about ten years ago, there are now nearly 20 officers of and
above that rank for say, a force of 50,000. What are these people at the
top policing apart from being a drain on the state revenue and a
nuisance to officers down the ladder by issuing conflicting
instructions?
Promotion to a higher rank serves no purpose unless it means a more
challenging job and a suitable man is, therefore, selected to meet the
challenges. But this is not the case. Posts are created to satisfy
vested interests. Most of these jobs often serve as places to forget the
pressures of family life. However, the same luxury does not extend to
the more unfortunate ranks at the lower levels, including the
constabulary. While vacancies at the topmost level are filled up by
promotions effected overnight, promotions at the intermediary levels
take weeks and even months, depending on the rank. It is years in the
case of the constabulary. There are cases where vacancies of head
constables and assistant sub-inspectors or sub-inspectors are not filled
up for several years. Many have retired without a promotion. Policing is
a job performed mostly at the lower levels with involvement stopping at
the level of the Superintendent. Beyond that, it is a supervisory task
and in a police force with no supervision to speak of, higher ranks are
simply redundant. Any move to expand these ranks cannot be called an
honest effort to serve the public. But that is what is happening.
The process of recruitment is even worse. Selection has become a
misnomer. It is random at best and high business at its worst. This
approach may leave governance and public life in jeopardy. Policing is a
highly sensitive profession and requires only specially equipped people
to handle it. It demands certain specific traits in officers which
cannot be learnt by any amount of training. The most evident symbol of
authority and power people trust is the policemen. In the circumstances,
the wrong selection can be fatal for the nation. India is deeply caught
in a mire. There is a price fixed for each rank of the police. How can a
recruit who enters service by paying a bribe be expected not to reap
returns? What can be his picture of the service that the enters? It is
absurd to expect professional policing from such a recruit.
The common aim in recruitment now is to complete the job without
inviting legal hurdles. Sometimes even rules are overstepped to cut
short procedures and do away with cumbersome work. Posts at the lowest
level but nevertheless sensitive, like drivers, are filled up
arbitrarily. Quality suffers as a result. This is equally so in
transfers.
Honesty, integrity and hard work have yielded place to personal loyalty
and usefulness for personal work. Those who do not come up to the
expectations of personal loyalty fall out of favour and are eliminated
from the line of command. This is one of the main factors for the slow
degeneration of the police.
The police is a sacred confluence of those who choose policing as their
profession and work together transcending their caste, creed, social
standing and rank in order to control crime and maintain law and order.
But this objective cannot be achieved when there is no common cause and
everybody works for personal progress.
The general reluctance of the Indian police force to adopt new ideas and
the ungainly handling of modernisation projects have resulted in its
losing the race with organised crime and syndicates. Modern equipment
are bought, but the personnel are not trained to use them. Thus the
gadgets gather dust and break down.
No government with weak police system can survive, whatever its other
assets. The police should be extricated from the clutches of criminals
and politicians to make it a professional outfit with objectivity and
commitment to its task. There is no point in beginning the cleansing
operation from the side of the criminals or politicians. It has to begin
from the side of the police by insulating it from the vile influences of
criminal wealth and political power. Once this is done everything else
will fall into place.
The police is used as a tool to check the interference of the law.
The administrators wield power which breeds arrogance. They
do little to boost the morale of the personnel or motivate them.
The basic ingredients of good policing are professional pride and good
image. A good image boosts professional pride. Good image brings in its
wake public cooperation and enhances the social recognition of the
police personnel.
True policing is impossible in the absence of the strength of pride,
responsibilities to society can be discharged only from a position of
strength. A weak police cannot do a good job. Pride is linked to morale.
Police personnel humiliated in career can never face the people from a
position of strength and do good policing. The tragedy lies in police
administration. Its vanity belittles the police, breaches its pride and
shatters its image.
The police administrators in this country refuse to realise the basic
psychological imperative of good policing; they crush professional pride
whenever and wherever it is seen raising its head. Sadly to meet
personal ends. Perhaps staff in no other government department suffer
humiliations as in police. This is true at all levels including the
highest ranks.
Suspensions and disciplinary actions are common; when disciplinary
action would include such indecent measures as withdrawal of vehicles,
telephone and other facilities, denial of promotions, transfer to
humiliating jobs created just for the purpose and keeping the person
waiting without a job. This attitude produces a weak and confused police
force with a low self-esteem.
The police force is a tactical tool that can be of immense help to check
the interference of the law. The police are aware of this aspect. They
know that nothing works as fear does. They now that the advantages of a
policeman out-weigh the risks of breaking the spine by whatever means
and that policemen so reined-in can be made to perform any job even at
risks to his own life and honour. This is why the administrators spare
no effort and lose no opportunities to beat, terrify and bully policeman
of whatever rank, status, and enlightenment, even at the cost of
professional pride.
SCAPE GOAT
An upright officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police
of a State and a scholar in diverse fields was known to refuse to bend
against his conscience and this fact made him unpopular among his
superiors. While he was the Chief of State prisons in 1995, he addressed
his government about the tragic security lapses in a major prison in the
State headquarters and sent proposals to improve the situation. No
action was initiated on the report by the government.
In the closing months of 1995, a mafia gangwar that ensued in the State
capital led to the murder of a gang leader by a prison inmate. The
Government ordered an enquiry by the Home Secretary. The latter who
found the ADGP a thorn in his flesh found a golden opportunity in the
enquiry. The officer was removed from his position and was not given an
alternative posting for atleast three months. If anybody was to be held
responsible for the lapses in the prison, it was the government for not
acting on the report of the ADGP.
In this case, not only did the ADGP become a scapegoat for the lapses of
the government, but also an easy target for police officers who found
his integrity inconvenient.
Police administrators wield power over the state authorities. Power
breeds arrogance. The sweep of arrogance is so strong that it has not
patience for rules, laws, codes of conduct, moral values, natural
courtesies and human diginity.
An illustration of how low the police administrators of independent
India can stoop is provided by this instance, the likes of which can be
found anywhere in India.
A police chief of a State between 1986 and 1990, who had obtained
several sites from the government through false claims in the names of
his wife and himself and a spacious house in a posh area of the State
capital refused to occupy the police house allotted to him and continued
to stay in his own bungalow for the first three years of his tenure till
the end of 1989. He shifted to the police house and took up the
renovation of his own bungalow just a few months prior to his
retirement.
Rules required that the full guard provided to his at his own bungalow
be shifted to the Police House.
SELECTION DENIED
The Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the armed police force
committed the serious error of shifting one head constable and four
constables from the bungalow to the Police House instead of assigning a
new team to the Police House and keeping the old guard in the chief’s
house under renovation to keep vigil over the construction material.
This infuriated the police chief so much so that the Deputy Commissioner
was not selected for the vital All-India Service, not only that hear,
but also in the next ten years while his juniors superseded him. The
indifference, incompetence and corruption within the Union Public
Service Commission (UPSC) helped the process.
The UPSC in its perverted competence has created a new breed of
administrators in the police and other administrative classes. This new
breed is interested in nothing beyond meretricious schemes for promoting
its career interests. They only think of more perks, creating new posts
to improve avenues of promotion and fighting for parity with other
services. Thoughts about how the schemes would affect the police
structure in the long run never bother these people.
Newspapers carry report of how promptly and actively regional and
central IPS associations respond to all the decisions touching their
career. We never hear these associations taking up any cause in matters
purely professional- law and order, security or crime investigation. The
matters are left to the care of those down the line.
Administration is a highly specialised field requiring extra-ordinary
skills but the state of affairs in the police field is archaic.
Actually, there is no administration worth the name. There are no
long-term plans. No organisational initiatives. No growth and
coordination studies. The organisation takes care of itself depending
upon the need factors. As far as morale, motivation and mental
well-being of the manpower are concerned, the contribution of the Indian
police administration is absolutely nil.
Threats and suppression form the essence of manpower management . Waste
of human resources and mandays is the general rule. Quality, efficiency
and character are inconsequential. Assessments are unheard of.
Accommodating the desires of the higher-ups in official and political
circles and powerful people on a quid pro quo basis is the accepted
norm.
There is leadership crisis at the administrative level. Reasons for this
deterioration are many. The agency in charge of selection, namely the
UPSC is now manned by people unequal to the task. Restructuring the UPSC
with professionals of competence and integrity can tone up public
administration.
Administration as a service in spirit and governance deals with men,
money, materials and machinery through laws, rules, decisions and
directions. Administration, for the most part, is human resources
management.
The distinct culture and service conditions of the police, the stress
and strain of policing and the psychological factors throw up problems
unique to the organisation. This renders police administration a
specialised field to be handled by experts having insight into the
working conditions and the psychological pressures of policemen.
The responsibilities of any administration are two –fold providing the
body and shape required to fulfil the objectives of the organisation
within the limits of the extant laws and providing the right ambience to
boost the morale, motivation and above all the mental well-being of the
personnel.
The extra-ordinary nature of the police setup and its working conditions
render the latter responsibility a sensitive field warranting
specialised study and application.
The complex psychological factors involving policing in diverse social
conditions and social imperatives of a policeman’s life require
dexterous handling of affairs to promote morale and right motivation in
place of the rule-of-thumb approach adopted now. Unfortunately, the
present chiefs of the civil service are unequal to the task.
What is required is highly intricate organisational policy imbued with
specialised skills and insight of the highest order to inspire, motivate
and get the most out of the manpower at disposal. The involves balancing
many contradictions inherent in the human psyche. On the one hand, the
police force has to preserve its professional pride; on the other, it
has to be taught to accommodate in its character the instinct to obey.
It has to be tuned to be faithful to authority while its ultimate
loyalty must rest with its professional objectives and the rule of law.
The police have to be tough and fearsome to criminals and law-breakers,
and gentle and friendly with the public. They have to be the model
law-abiding citizens even while dealing with hardened criminals.
While they are accustomed to the interplay of ranks and status in the
rigid hierarchical order of the force, they should learn to treat all as
equals and exercise authority over people at the top level in society.
In short, the task of balancing these contradictions is the real
challenge for the police administration.
The word ‘ administration’ originates from the Latin administrare and
administratum which would mean ‘ to serve’ or to be an aid to.
Administration in its pristine form denotes service or aidance though in
modern parlance it stands for management or governance of affairs. Non
obstante the metachrosis of the word, administration even in its modern
avatar is service and aidance in essence though from managerial level.
Administration even now is serving and aiding an objective or commitment
through suitable planning, organisation, supervision and control
mechanisms. It normally is a distinct field of activity while being a
part of the organisation en attendant and stands above the latter by
holding overall charge of the affairs. Administration manifests at
diverse levels with its lower strata rooted in higher levels of the
organisation. In government organisations, higher functions of
administration are invested in government at stratified levels while
lower functions are burdened on higher levels of the organisations. The
heads of the organisations join hands with the secretaries of the
departments and higher authorities in the government to run the
organisations. It is also in the police. While the police organisation
en semble is responsible for policing, the levers of police
administration at lower levels are handled by the police chief and his
staff while the home secretary in charge of police in tandem with higher
echelons of the government handles it at higher levels.
POLICE ADMINISTRATION
Administration, be it service or management, is immanent in
organisational operations of all levels. In police, elements of
administration are inherent at all supervisory levels beginning from
head constables upwards. Police stations as grassroot policing units go
away with a large slice of the police administration. So are district
police offices in districts and police commissionerate in big cities
with the unit headquarters as the apex body of police administration
within the organisation. The interim levels bridge the gaps in between.
The springboard of police administration within the organisation is the
state police headquarters in a state with all important decisions of
policing and police administration emanating from there under the
control, supervision and guidance of the government in the form of home
department and higher levels. The police chief ab intra and home
secretary and chief secretary in states ab extra form vital links of
police administration. The ethos and character of a police force are
shaped by these key figures of the police administration. Though
political leadership is there as policy makers and executive heads of
both the organisation and the government, it is these three
configurations as innards of the setup, control and guide the police by
administrative controls, head and shoulder above political heads.
A SPECIALISED FIELD
Administration as a service in spirit and governance in manifestation
deals with men, money, materials and machinery through the means of
laws, rules, decisions and directions. Of these, men form the most vital
ingredient of management and governance. This is especially so in
organisations entirely dependent on human resources to meet objectives
and goals. Administration for most part is human resources management in
a manpower oriented force like the police. The special problems of the
police setup, its distinct culture and service conditions, the stress
and strain of policing and the non a such psychological factors unique
for the organisation crop up issues unseen otherwhere. This renders
police administration a specialised field to be handled by experts
having insight to and realisation of the special nature of policing
conditions and the psychological pressures on policemen on the off duty
in the organisation.
ISSUES IN POLICE ADMINISTRATION
The problems of police and policing are inveterate in the contradictions
immanent to the organisation, its status in society and the nature of
job it performs. The organisation is primly stratified with a serve
hierarchical order and stern discipline to the boot, preposterous to a
free human nature. Police, perform the unpleasant task of disciplining
and using force against fellow citizens. The unpopular job does not bode
well to the psychological well-being and for leading common life in a
society that exoterically fear and esoterically hate them. The police
live in society in the ambience of sempiternal fear, suspicion and
hatred against them. There is no love lost between the two and no real
mutual respect. Such a living is not conducive to healthy mental fettle
of human beings what policemen are. Sine dubio, the status enjoyed by
the police as enforcers of the rule of law and the fear they inspire
among the hoi polloi are some compensations and solace for the malaise.
The tragedy is that these apparent benedictions themselves create
problems of complex social adaptations to make up for the imbalance
caused by their real social status nowhere coming near the importance
they enjoy in society as law-enforcers vi et armis. The embarrassment is
common to all ranks of the police. As constables of limited education,
social position and enlightenment, they are required in streets and
police stations to handle people of far higher social status and
standing from a position of strength. As senior-most police officers of
premier investigation agency of the country, they are required to
investigate, arrest and chargesheet men of the standing of the Prime
Minister of the country and similarly placed high dignitaries. The
position is not as easy and joyous as it appears ab extra. The strains
of such responsibilities preposterous to human nature and natural human
tendencies of respect to social stations cause can only be imagined to
be believed. Added to it, the feeling of insecurity bred by the
potentiality of wrath and revanche of highly placed people pregnant in
upright police actions further flummoxes the matter for the mental peace
of the police. It is easily said that policemen ought to perform their
duties en regle on merit. Images of policeman as a father shooting to
kill his fleeing criminal son, as a son arresting his erring father or
as a brother in pursuit of his criminal brother etc are mere fairy tales
invented for films. The fact is that a policeman cannot be a creature
abstracted from his surroundings and shut to natural human passions,
emotions, feelings and familial attachments. If did, he cannot be a
human being, but a mere robot, a lifeless machine performing police job.
A policeman is a human being imprimis and the human nature makes him a
good policeman. He sans human nature and its sweet failings cannot be a
real police stuff. He is not a mere robot to unwind in the blinkers of
professional duties and responsibilities. The police in field perforce
perform as robots against their natural human sensibilities and
sensitivities on orders from above to show results. This ingredient of
policing has great impact on the psychological makeup of the police.
Added to this, the unending oppression and fear of disciplinary actions
from higher-ups for a wink of an eye common in police makes the police
life suffocating. It is said that policemen at all levels live with a
sword of danger algate dangling over their heads. Ruthlessness is a fact
of man management in police administration. Human relations here are
slender and easily snap under the weight of job-related surquedry. The
biggest tragedy of police life is the absence of human concerns around
it. Endless interaction with ruffians inside and outside the
organisation deprives policemen their natural sweetness and gentleness.
There is no scope for inteneration of their mental makeup. Police
administration needs to take these special features of police life and
psyche into consideration in running the organisation. The need renders
police administration a specialised field.
A BALANCING ACT
Responsibilities of any administration are two fold-providing the body
and shapes required to fulfil the objectives of the organisation within
the limits of the extant laws and providing right ambience to boost the
morale, motivation and above all, the mental well-being of the manpower
of the organisation. The extra-ordinary nature of the organisation of
the police and its working conditions render the latter responsibility a
sensitive field warranting specialised study and application. The
complex psychological factors involving policing in diverse social
conditions and social imperatives of a policeman’s life perforce require
dextrous handling of affairs to promote high morale and right motivation
in the place of present crass rule- of –thumb approach common to Indian
police. What is required is a highly intricate organisational policy
imbued with specialised skills and insight of the highest order to human
nature to inspire, motivate and get most out of the manpower at
disposal. This involves balancing in police many contradictions inherent
to human psyche. In one hand, the police force has to be steeped in
professional pride, while on the other hand, taught to accommodate in
its character, the need of perfect obedience to the verge of servilitude
in a stiff hierarchical order. It has to be tuned to be loyal to
authority while its ultimate loyalty must go to its professional
objectives and the rule of law. The police have to be tough and fearsome
to criminals and law-breakers while it has to be gentle and friendly to
the plebeian. They have to be led to be law-abiding model citizens while
day and night deal with hardened criminals requires to break the latter
to submission. While they are attuned to the interplay of ranks and
status in the stiff hierarchical order of the force, they have to be
compelled to treat all as equals and exercise authority even on the
people at highest levels in society while performing duties. The list
goes on endlessly. The cardinal task of balancing these contradictions
in police is the real challenge of the police administration.
FIELD SITUATION
While police administration is a highly specialised field requiring
extra-ordinary skills the present police administration in India is
archaic at best and maladministration at worst. Actually there is no
administration worth the name save some mechanical motions and
unintelligent convulsions to provide body and shape to the organisation
as time to time responses to day to day challenges. No long term plans.
No organisational initiatives. No growth and coordination studies. The
organisation takes care of itself depending upon need factors. The
maximum, police administration in India does is controlling initiatives
and works o of the police by throwing hurdles to prove existence. As far
as morale, motivation and mental well-being of the manpower are
concerned, the contribution of Indian police administration is
absolutely nil. Police administrators believe that they have no role to
play in the morale and motivation of the police organisation. Threats
and suppression are the staple of manpower management in police. Wastage
of human resources and man-days is the general rule. Quality, efficiency
and character are inconsequential. Assessments are misnomers. Personal
behoofs are the centres of all decisions. Accommodating the desires of
higher–ups in official and political circles and the powerful people in
consideration for quid pro quo is the accepted norm of Indian police
administration.
A CUSHY JOB
Police administration provides good covers to meet long cherished
desires and therefore considered as a cushy job. A police administrator
can avail for himself from the police organisation all behoofs inherent
to police job like best available transport and communication facilities
and orderly services at will. The police network throughout the country
would be at his personal service wherever and in whatever way he desires
it. This is an invaluable asset for him and his kith and kin. In the
name of various studies concerning police, he can visit foreign
countries at his will and convenience at government expenditure.
Recently, a regional edition of a leading national English newspaper
raised a hue and cry on its front page for several days followed by a
flood of letters to the editor against a visit of the home secretary of
the state with a huge contingent of inconsequential police officials to
a few western countries, supposedly to study crime and traffic problems.
The newspaper called the intentions of the study apocryphal, the study
gratuitous and the foreign tour during the holiday season of those
countries without first obtaining the assurance of cooperation of the
host countries in the study venture as outrageous and cried for stopping
what is called a pleasure trip. Its hullabaloo proved infructuous and
the contingent completed the tour malgre tout. When the home secretary
visited foreign countries again after six weeks for the same purpose,
the national newspaper did not dare to make an issue encore.
WRECKER OF PRIDE AND GOOD IMAGE
The basic needs of police and policing are professional pride and a good
image. These are the breath of policing and oxygen for the lungs of the
police organisation. They refresh the organisation, its system and
personnel after back-breaking and dangerous policing above the
oppressive life-style in the police ambience. They infuse entrain to the
organisation, its system and the men to take on gauntlets in wait and
attend to with commitment and efficiency. Pride is the fuel of policing.
Good image is the air that sustains the fire or the zeal of the
policing. Who are not aggraced by appreciation? Police force is capable
of doing its duties and carrying out its responsibilities with devotion
and self-sacrifice; It only wants sacrifices and devotion to work
natural to it are appreciated. A good image boosts its professional
pride and adds to its sense of belonging. What else the society can pay
to the police for its self-sacrificing devotion to the well-being of the
society? The professional pride and the sense of belonging to an
organisation widely respected and appreciated by the public spur the
police to do better and better every time. The pride adds to its high
morale which is sine qua non for good policing and healthy discipline in
any police organisation. Good image entails public cooperation and
enhances the social recognition of the police personnel. True policing
is nonpossumus in the absence of the strength of pride about work while
discharging responsibilities to the society from a position of strength.
A weakened police organistion and its personnel put to aidos can do no
good policing . Pride is the root of morale. Commercial enterprises know
the fact and use the knowledge best to derive maximum out of their human
resources. Pride and high morale play decisive role in deciding the
quality and efficiency of work and discipline in the organisation. Its
importance naturally is very high in manpower oriented organisations
like the police, particularly those which have to deal with the public
from a position of strength. Police personnel shamed and humiliated in
their career can never face the public from strength and do good
policing. The tragedy lies in police administration. Its vanity
belittles the police, breaches its pride, shatters its self-image and
destroys its good public image by scrupleless and selfish interferences
in police affairs. Indian police administrators are too unenlightened to
realise this basic psychological imperative of good policing. The irony
lies in that, that they crassly indulge in exactly the opposite, that is
crushing the professional pride wherever it is traced raising its
majestic head in the police. Sadly to meet personal ends. Perhaps men in
no other government departments suffer humiliations for humiliations’s
sake as in police. This is true of all levels including the higher ranks
in police. Suspensions and disciplinary actions are a common phenomenon
in Indian police. When no grounds selon les regles are available for
disciplinary proceedings, resorting to unfair and indecent measures like
withdrawing vehicles, telephones and other facilities, denying
promotions, transfer to humiliating jobs created for meeting such
eventualities, keeping on prolonged compulsory waiting without a job etc
are the common scenario to face even by very senior level officers in
Indian police. These humiliations weaken their position before the
public as well as subordinates whom they are supposed to control and
guide with the strength of their leadership qualities. What leadership
one can have while he himself is wronged and humiliated from above for
no apparent reason? This is the atmosphere in which Indian police,
police the crime world. The consequence is a weak and confused police
force with low self-image, low morale, low motivation and servile
complexes sans confidence and public approbation.
ARROGANCE OF POWER
A factor responsible for maladministration becoming the abracadabra of
police administration is arrogance of power. The police is the real
power; the crux of the state power; the enforcer vi et armis on the
field, not on papers as most other government agencies are. Police
administrators wield power on the enforcers of the state power. Ergo,
police administrators enjoy the temulence of holding the ultimate power.
Power breeds arrogance; ultimate power, ultimate arrogance. This is the
source of the unamated arrogance of the police administration. The sweep
of a arrogance is so strong that it has no patience to rules, laws,
codes of conduct, moral values, natural courtesies and human dignities.
The only goal of the police administration in the ambience of arrogance
is proving its invincibility a tout prix. Neither the well-being of the
police administration nor the upkeep of laws of the country have any say
in choosing the means to achieve this end. Police administrators going
hors la loi for this vain goal is the rule in the country. A recent
example is a senior police officer in a state who insisted for
suspension or transfer of a subordinate after a criminal case of
forgery, cheating, falsification of records, breach of trust etc
involving misappropriation of about Rs.36 lakhs during discharge of
official duties was registered against the subordinate in the police
station by his department. The latter’s good connections in the higher
rungs of administration prevented any further disciplinary actions
imperative in such circumstances. The insistence of the senior officer
in writing for departmental procedures against the subordinate
inconvenienced the administration. The insistence of the senior officer
in writing for departmental procedures against the subordinate
inconvenienced the administration. The thinking of the administration
was that, that how a police officer at whatever rank can insist
disciplinary action when it has decided against it for whatever reasons.
It decided that the recalcitrant senior police officer had to be brought
around and taught to conform with its decisions, by legal or illegal
means. The machinery of administration ground is so hard that the senior
police officer found continuing in his position practically unbearable
and impossible. He went on indefinite leave, rather forced to do so. His
harassment was so acute that at one juncture, he addressed the head of
the government, doubting the mental well-being of the perpetrators of
the harassment and requested to save the department from the prise of
psychopathic tendencies of the concerned. The Chief Secretary of the
government after hearing him in August 1996, issued instructions for
providing the senior officer an alternative posting forthwith. The
police administration in a show of rare defiance, resisted the
instructions of the Chief Secretary till the latter’s retirement later.
It was only after the principal secretary of the chief minister took
interest in the case that files moved against the wishes of the home
secretary and the four month vanavasa of the senior police officer came
to an end. En attendant, the subordinate with criminal charges continued
bien chausse in his cushy job. The new Chief Secretary in the beginning
dove-tailed to the depraved home secretary against the sound judgement
of his predecessor on the ground that he never had an opportunity to
know the senior police officer. This is how police administration is run
in India.
HUMAN RESOURCES STIFLED
A serious lapse of police administration in India is its presumed virtue
of indifference to other’s predicaments and idee fixe to distance from
noble human values. The compulsions of being led and the sequacious
tendencies cap-a-pie gratuitously deprive government officials the great
human gifts like freedom of thought, originality and creativity and
drain off feelings and sensibilities. It is why common human sense
treats odd to find intellectuals poets, artists or genius among
government officials. The humble situation is spawned for government
officials by themselves by their overzeal to conform. An outcome of the
ambience is administration going heartless and mindless, dry and
irresponsive to the core to its surroundings. While arrogance of power
adds to this, the situation becomes worse. This is the position in which
police administration finds itself. The need of making virtue of the
irresponsiveness leads to mendacity, dishonesty and immunity. Finding
honest and dependable people there , finding people of character and
integrity, finding a genius or creative soul at any level in police
administration is like finding a pepal tree in a desert. Normal human
courtesies are unknown there. Evasion is the stock reply for queries.
Vanity is the hallmark. Ironically , these negative qualities are
accrescently pro rata to the heights in the ladder of the police
administration. Approach to all except higherups is always brusque and
stroppy. Normal man to man interaction is impossible unless one is
capable of gratifying. Public relations is an unknown concept McGregor’s
need hierarchy and such man-management concepts are nonexistent in their
vocabulary and thoughts. Efficient management of human resources is a
fool’s paradise to them. They find the greatest virtue of administration
in ruthlessness. In the process, human resources wither and gargantuan
wastage of manpower becomes a common phenomenon of the police.
BREAKING THE SPINE
Police force is a vital instrument that if brought on knees can be of
immense help to stave off the interferences of the rule of law and its
enforcers and help to lead a good and comfortable life sans the fear of
law and law–enforcers. Breaking and bringing on knees individual
policemen is a clavis to this end. Police administrators know this
secret as none else. They know that nothing works on police as fear at
whatever ranks. They know that the advantages of a policeman broken of
spine and reined-in easily outweighs the risks of breaking his spine by
whatever means and that the policeman goes to any extent even at risks
to his life and honour to gratify and pander to the needs of his master,
because of his sequacious job culture. This is the reason why police
administrators spare no efforts and lose no opportunities to beat,
terrify and cow down a policeman of whatever rank, status and
enlightenment though they know well that they are sacrificing the
interests of the professional pride of the police, its commitment to the
profession, efficiency, organisational interests, the interests of the
rule of law and national interests at the altar of their personal grists
in doing that. Service rules and jus naturale are arriere concerns to
them in exercise of their governmental powers to chevir this goal. No
normal human concerns nor common courtesies for fellow beings deter them
from pursuing their evil designs. The recent example is an upright
officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police in a state.
A scholar in diverse fields, he is known not to easily bend against his
conscience. This rendered him unpopular to the police administration.
While he was holding the post of state prisons chief in 1995, he
addressed government about tragic security lapses in a major prison of
the state and sent proposals to government for improving the situation.
No actions were taken on them by the government. In the closing months
of 1995, a mafia gangwar ensued in the state capital led to murder of a
gang leader lodged in the prison. Government ordered an enquiry into the
matter by the home secretary of the state. The latter who algate found
the ADGP of his same age, rank and status an inconvenient candidate for
his esoteric urge of bringing police to submission. He found a golden
opportunity in the enquiry. The ADGP was immediately removed from his
position and refused any posting for the next 3-4 months though as the
state prisons chief, he cannot be held responsible for the security
breach in the prison, particularly while his report on the matter was
ignored by the government . If anybody was to be acted on a highest
levels for lapses in the prison, it was the home secretary for not
acting on the report of the ADGP. If it is the position of officers at
highest ranks in the police in the hands of police administration, how
precarious is that down the ladder, can only be imagined.
ROLE OF PERSONAL GAINS
The apostasy and prevarications of the police administration from the
right path in most cases is not even a malfeasance to achieve right
professional ends. They mostly are pure and simple means to self
grandiosity and personal grists. The fact is that police administration
seld goes to any length of initiatives and risks for purely
administrative reasons unless some elements of personal gains are
involved. As far as purely administrative reasons are concerned, the
communi consensu among police administrators is for letting the police
carcass boil in its own broth uninterfered. After all, who wants the
risks of awakening the sleeping monster? Somehow the police function,
and let it do so as long as possible. Who knows how the monster may
react while they loosen or tighten a screw or a nut here and there. Who
wants gratuitous risks? It is the reigning thought of Indian police
administration in normal times. Show them elements of personal grists.
Lo, colour of everything changes and risks become sine qua non of the
administration. Files move fast. Discussions and meetings are held day
and night Decisions are taken overnight. Procedures and cut-short to
ease the process. Ordinary situation turns to an emergency.
Administration becomes a hub of incessant activity. Lots of energy and
thought go to the process of administration. The result is that work is
done irrespective of the relevance and importance of the work while more
pressing and vital, but less remunerative works rot in files for years.
Selection and recruitment of men in the age of prolate unemployment and
purchase of heavy vehicles in the ambience of commissions play a pivotal
role in the administration of police and related safety oriented
organisations. Recruiting men in thousands and purchase of scores of
heavy vehicles in a single go in the name of expansion of an
organisation involves subterranean change of hands of crores of rupees
at a short span of time. It is a dizzy amount to be pocketed with little
risk. Decisions were taken by the administration for expansion of the
organisation with fresh recruitment of thousands of men and sub-officers
and purchase of scores of heavy vehicles. A police officer in a
sensitive juncture of his career who could be compromised was put in
charge of the organisation and the selection and purchase processes. The
setup worked out by the home secretary worked to his satisfaction. The
result was that the police officer in charge was rewarded in oodles. The
concerned organisation saw rapid expansion. Thousands of unemployed
youths got job. Manufacturers of heavy vehicles got business. And the
home secretary got what he Wanted. Thus all are happy and contented.
This is how administration works in India.
Most ills of present Indian police emerge from the malaise of the morbid
handling of the police administration at different levels. Be it in
handling of the body and shape of the organisation and its functions or
managing the spirit and the soul of the force, police administration can
play a major role either in building or marring the prospects of raising
a healthy police outfit for the country. As on today, police
administration failed the country and its police by indifference on one
hand and crass handling of the organisation and its affairs on the
other. The only solution on this serious malady lies in rebuilding
police administration with people of character, integrity devotion,
efficiency, ability and above all, deep insight to human nature and its
problems.
In a blinkered system like ours, where power and wealth are the ultimate
virtues, where power and wealth in themselves stimulate mutual growth to
the exclusion of all other dimensions of life, it is no wonder, the
people of this poor country succumb to the trappings of power and wealth
at the cost of all virtues, values, pride, dignity and human decency. In
an increasingly competitive and complex world where every day more
mouths are added to share limited resources, where the principle of the
survival of the fittest operates to its immane logical end and where the
basic needs of survival and decency can be assured only with power and
wealth, people naturally go all out to ramp the ladder of power and
wealth by whatever means and cost. In the process, justice and morality
become casualties and criminality raises its ugly head as an instrument
to achieve otherwise impossible objects. This is how politics and crime
knit together in the fabric of Indian public life.
POLICE AND POLITICS
The story of the police is somewhat different. As the catchpole of the
nation’s administration, the police enjoy tremendous power over vast
fields of human activities with responsibilities to life and death of
the hoi polloi as well as dignitaries. In this sense, the police is the
cutting edge of the state power and its ultimate bearer. No power can be
its own sans the police on its side as an executioner and loyal
watch-dog. This is why politicians felt the need for wooing police to
their side in their activities. The police of independent India has
become an easy prey to the power-baits of smarter politicians by the
reason of their failing strength of character and talent. Their greed,
unsound social background, lack of commitment to good values and failure
to partners in whatever politicians do or intend to do. They refuse to
look beyond their political masters with their dispensations of job
favours; and so law, justice, righteousness, professional ethics,
morality, decency, human dignity, common good of people, national
interests and even conscience, otherwise common to any human being, have
become invalid nonsense to them. The police, sans sound character and
personal integrity, is no more than a country dog which is what the
Indian police has become in free India. The politicians, inebriated with
new power, smartly brought these weaklings to absolute submission and
hold them on a tight leash to be their personal watchdogs and personal
gendarmes in requital for favourable job placements, undue promotions
and other largition from time to time. Nothing is valued higher than
this largess and its dispensers by the new police of India. It is how
the police was involuted in the conspiracy against decent public life of
India.
POLICE AND CRIME
It was a hop and skip for the police from the plangent world of politics
to the mysterious world of crime and the underworld. The police became a
weapon of politicians to bring about the subjugation of the crime world
to prise their resources for the political ends. They thus made good use
of the decreasing strength of character of the police in forging a nexus
between the police and criminals in furtherance of their own telos. With
a week spine to hold itself and hapless in the face of odds, the police
is only too pleased to follow the footsteps of its political masters as
the cardinal principle of policing. In changed circumstances, discipline
and subordination which form the basic connecting link of the police
hierarchy, lost all their shades of meaning and are interpreted as dunny
and blind subservience to those who have power, seeking personal
interests. And politicians easily led the police to the despicable cul
de sac of the nexus with criminals, the very people whom both are
supposed to control and bring to book for antisocial activities. With
politicians as the custodians of power en arrier to the hilt to support,
the police plunged lock, stock and barrel into the lucrative crime
world; the consectaneous wealth and comforts were in no way less sweet
than the hard earned money of law–abiding society. This is how the nexus
between the police and crime world was established.
CRIMINALISATION OF POLITICS.
Whom should we blame for this hapless position? Certainly not the
politicians or their auxiliaries like criminals and police who are
unfortunate by-products of the grind. They are created by the situation
arising from a system which is misfit to the people to whom it was
devised. The blame lies either on the Indian people who are impair to
the democratic system evolved for them, because of their unenlightened
and venal consciences which is so dim-witted that virtues like honesty,
service, patriotism, quality and excellence can make no dent on is at
all, or it lies with the political system devised for them which failed
to take their psychological makeup into account and ipso facto led to
the problem of maladjustment in national life. Otherwise, how can we
explain criminals and goondas winning elections with impunity even while
rioting and murders were committed at their behest on the eve of
elections itself. The fact is that the chance of winning an election
often is pro rata to the aura of a tough image built around the
candidate. It is these people whom the Indian electorate prefer to
invest with powers to safeguard their interests. Obviously, the Indian
electorate lacks of foresight and vision to understand the consequences
of its irresponsible decision. It is yet too immature to take decisions
about the interests of the nation and see how national interests are
closely linked to its personal interests. It is yet to broaden its
perspective to include the life of the nation as an integral part of its
own. Long term and rational decisions are alien to its nature. Immediate
selfish interests and a parochial outlook continue to be the driving
force of all its actions and decisions, whether it be on the matters of
national importance or personal concern. In most parts of India, it is
money, arrack, sari, threat, fear of landlords or the blazoning
propaganda of a candidate that influence it to decide as to whom to vote
for. How can the avenir of this country be safe in the hands of such an
electorate and its elected leaders? How can an indifferent and
irresponsible electorate provide honest and efficient leadership to the
nation? This weakness of the electorate has ultimately left Indian
politics in the heath of violence and manipulative extortions, with the
instruments meant to protect them mowing the field. Saner elements in
politics, who found survival difficile, have left the field, giving way
to the elements which are more suited to what is required in the field.
It is how politics has become a pit of junk from a class of dedicated
and virtuous leaders. The credibility which is the pith of any political
life is the biggest casualty political institutions and the percentage
of the electorate that takes the trouble of going to polling booths to
cast votes is steadily decreasing from election to election, It is an
open secret that an election is an opening for a candidate to invest
money to reap wealth, comfort and power for the next five years. And how
he reaps the wealth, comfort and power again is not a mystery at all. It
is corruption and misuse of public money. If he is ambitious and intends
to promote his career interests, there is no way out in the existing
system but to resort to pulling strings and pursuing other more deadly
methods, often with the active collusion of the officious criminals and
police.
POLITICAL PATRONAGE
The unhealthy nexus often leads to and facilitates other forms of crime.
Cases of rioting assault, kidnap, rap and blackmail, involving the
supporters or relatives of politicians, criminals and police in
furtherance of a political cabal are other usual forms of crime that
result from the vicious nexus. Often, criminals and police are employed
to create disturbances or inspire sensational crimes in furtherance of
political goals. The losses of life and property involved in the wily
schemes seld touch the conscience of either the politicians, the
criminals or the police who are responsible for these dastardly acts.
The political patronage and the nexus with police desensitize criminals
to the process of law and justice; they are thus emboldened to commit
more daring and ruthless crimes that endanger the life and property of
the plebeians. The police, in its links with politicians on one hand and
with criminals on the other, is in its new avatar as the protector of
vested interests with no more commitment and passion for law and
justice. It has become a discredited force, a willing instrument of
power-brokers in a ruthless and violent cabal of power-games with no
heart for the common man and the common cause. This is the requital, the
Indian electorate gets for letting its political system putrefy by its
nonchalance and irresponsibility.
CHANGED ROLE:
With the increscent involution of the police with glidder politicians,
the conception of the police about its own role has undergone a
large-scale change. No more does it look at crime control and
maintenance of order as its first duty. With this, the concern for crime
control received a setback and crime control and investigation have
receded to the last priority except when politicians are interested in
them for a specific purpose. Only crimes that disturb politicians foment
police to galvanic and meaningful action. Other crimes receive no
priority . The very definition of the gravity of crime is adapted to
suit the new concept. Those crimes which are tolerated by politicians
are no more crimes. The self-image of the police as ‘ a fearless arbiter
of crime’ is changed to a solicious servant in attendance at the
pleasure of a politician-master. This blunting of the crime card of the
police has made it less awe-inspiring and less deserving of respect from
the criminals. The police has more and more realised that criminals,
particularly those from organised syndicates are personal friends of its
political masters and it is no match for the criminals in terms of
wealth, influence and social standing. The men of the police see those
criminals on equal footing with their political masters and learn to
treat them with awe. They find it absurd to act with authority against
the immarcescible criminals who are too high for the small stature of
the police. It is unfortunate that the police of the present days has
never realised its infinit stature as a law-enforcing agent vis a vis
all others including criminals and politicians whom it is empowered to
search, arrest and take to court if they deviate from their rightful
path. Sadly, the trifling wealth and the concomitant “big-man” image of
others appear to the present police as more appealing than its own awful
police authority.
POLITICISATION OF POLICE:
The extant system of selecting the police chief is erratic at best and
motivatedly amoral that meets the political ends of the rulers at worst.
A police chief in a state was taken to court with his wife after
retirement in 1990 February for defrauding the public and a spastic
society by sale of charity tickets in name of the spastic society and
pocketing huge amount of money. This is the standard of people who are
chosen by politicians to lead post independent Indian police.
A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT:
In an atmosphere where placements and transfers are decided by the needs
and wishes of self-seeking politicians, no police can efficiently
function nor can it be free from the vice prise of the politicians. It
is not surprising that power-esurient politicians more and more grab
powers that are legally and traditionally invested with the police
department when the top brass lack the strength of character and
conviction. This leads to a position wherein the police department
becomes a chessboard on which politicians move their pieces to checkmate
their adversaries and win the political game in their favour. In other
words, the police sans effective leadership is becoming more a handmaid
of politicians by moving away from its sacred role as the guardian of
law and justice and protector of the society and the common man. The
credit of bringing the police from its height of power to the present
level of absolute submission should go to the superior strength of
personality of wily politicians who bent the police on their own terms
with selective use of stick and carrot. This police is not the police
and what it does is not policing in the proud sense of the term.
CRIMINAL TENDENCIES:
A Deputy Inspector General of Police infamous for his epinosic and
corrupt activities in 1982 while holding charge of Eastern Range in
Davangere in Karnataka desired a young Deputy Superintendent of Police,
under him marry a girl from the family of a rich arrack contractor of
his range. The parents of the young officer fearing undue pressure got
their son married in desperation to a girl of their choice. This
antagonised the Deputy Inspector General. His next annual confidential
report of young officer showed the junior as a liability to the police
department and misfit as a subdivisional police officer. He also
prevailed year after year upon other officers who wrote confidential
reports of the young officer to incorpse similar or more deadly remarks.
Most of them obliged and this bright junior officer ended up with a
series of unsubstantiated adverse remarks repeated time and again in his
annual confidential reports. All his appeals were never allowed to reach
the government. It is to the credit of the young officer that he
remained unbroken and continues in police service while his far less
competent colleagues have superated him on the career ladder and the
young officer was successively denied important postings though there
was not a single thing in his career to justify such a treatment.
Undeterred by the unjust scorn heaped of him by refusing promotion in
preference to his less qualified and less competent juniors, he later
addressed the chief secretary of the state government not to consider
him any more for the promotion. He took this unprecedented autophagous
decision in utter contempt of the corrupt and immoral departmental heads
and government functionaries who crushed his career prospects.
There is a case of a Director General of Police in charge of Crimes and
Special Units in 1987 in a Southern State in India who as head of the
Food and Civil Supplies Enforcement cell of the state under a Director
was accustomed to getting free supply of quality rice, sugar, pulses and
other commodities from traders to his house through the latter
organisation. The new Director of the organisation in 1987 in the rank
of Superintendent of Police failed the Director General of Police by his
principled stand in this regard. This enraged the latter to the extent
of hounding the young Superintendent of Police and seeking opportunity
to publicly humiliate him. He followed the young officer wherever the
latter went for raid hoping that he would get some opportunity to fix
the latter. When all the efforts failed, the Director General of Police
decided as the dernier ressort to play a drama of searching the
Superintendent of Police in public before invited press and public in an
induced case of trapping on suspicion while the latter was returning
from raids in northern parts of the state, depending his calculations
entirely on the humiliation engendered by the publicity of such
suspicions and searches by a very senior officer coram populo. However,
the cabal of the senior officer came to nought and the Superintendent of
Police, was saved from the gratuitous humiliation in public while
inscience of the welcome set for him on the way by his senior. The
Superintendent of Police reached back state headquarters through another
route that night. It is of interest to note that the Director General of
Police who stopped so law in his police career was posted as an advisor
to the Governor of North-East state during President’s rule after a few
years, postliminary to his retirement from police service. This is the
calibre and integrity of extant Indian Police Service. This is the
reason why Indian society prefer tolerating social maladies to
approaching police manned by such people, devoid of any decency,
objectivity and fairplay, both in private and public life.
As corruption takes control and spreads to all strata of the force,
upright elements in the force become a minority and also forfeit coveted
positions in the organisation as inconvenient candidates. They are
scorned as removed from ground realities and detested and avoided as
moles in the mainstream. Their honest and professional approach becomes
a disaster and unpopular everywhere. Their courage in face of odds loses
character amidst popular sound ad fury of the misinformed. Vested
interests inside and outside the police let loose false propaganda and
spread distorted versions of events against such officers and suborn
character assassination to keep own reputations on right sides. The
Situation becomes really distressing when superior officers partake in
the game on the side of vested interested for consideration and join
hands in an unholy alliance to bend and silence the upright among them.
Taking recourse to unfair and illegal means to crush upright officers is
also not uncommon. Though courts of law can theoretically protect
against such harassments, expenses, time and uncertainties involved and
the history of court judgements being dodged or rendered ineffective by
administrative sleight, render the protection meaningless and force the
upright officer to face all humiliations and losses in silence or yield
to the pressures. It is to the credit of Indian police that it has great
officers who withstood all slights without yielding to pressures.
It is an irony that the political leadership which supposed to take the
lead of reconstructing India is colluding for mutual selfish ends with
the police which is supposed to be the tool of the reconstruction and
thereby strike at the foundation of the strength and orderliness of the
country. Every passing year sees a new phase and a new trend in this
nasty connection between the important players of the national
reconstruction to take the country by some miracle at the last moment.
As the people become more and more attuned to the nefarious nexus and
resign to the assuefaction, the players become more and more bold with
the passing years and go with their nasty collusion at the cost of the
nation’s interest with impunity for mutual relief and benefits by
subornation.
Politicians, criminals and the police-the troika that is taking
the country towards total chaos and ruin.
Organised violence is so much a part of Indian politics that all
politics parties have created youth and volunteer wings to accommodate
young hoodlums as a fighting and street-smart force to be used when
violence is needed.
Those who sand out in courage and toughness rise fast and reach the top
and today a very high percentage of Ministers in the Indian Government
are these people.
It is ironical that politicians, whose help criminals sought to save
themselves from the police, brought the police and criminals closer to
each other, building a bridge between them. The understanding reached
between criminals and the police is to a great degree responsible for
criminalising Indian public life and blunting the effectiveness of the
police.
Though the nexus between criminals and the police is not a new
phenomenon, what was once an exception has now become the rule and what
was the rule once has become the exception. Today criminals on the one
hand overawe a weak police force with their connections with powerful
politicians and lure the police with easy money and comfort on the
other, thus tilting the balance to their advantage.
POLITICAL MISHANDLING
Though criminals play their political cards with adroitness, their real
aim is to lessen the pressures of the police on themselves.
If some are born criminals, some choose the path of crime consciously
and some others are constrained to follow it. While faulty financial and
social policies forged by short-sighted politicians are responsible for
forcing many helpless people to a life of crime, these same policies
often drive sensitive people to revolt and to embrace terrorism and
violence.
Naxalisim, Sikh terrorism, the ULFA movement, Kashmir separatism, Hindu
and Muslim militancy and even the sympathy in India for the LTTE cause
are direct results of political mishandling of national issues.
India has seen isolated political attempts in the past to save people
from the clutches of crime and to rehabilitate them. The famous Chambal
experiment initiated by the late Jaya Prakash Narayan had some success
in spite of the machinations of certain politicians in the area.
Not that politics is all bad. It is, by definition, governance of the
State by popular leadership. The malaise of today’s politics lies in its
tilt to populism at the cost of leadership and more dangerously,
populism is being considered an investment to earn returns in multiple
proportions. Nothing, it appears, means as much to the Indian electorate
as money to prod them to cast their votes for a particular candidate.
VICIOUS CIRCLE
The history of independent India makes it clear that honesty,
patriotism, quality, service, excellence and even charisma have become
casualties vis a vis money and power on the Indian election stage. In
this situation, political poser is equated with electoral popularity,
which in turn is equated with money and power, which can be had only
though political patronage.
The vicious circle has helped to create a class of extortionists who
manipulate the passive public. Politics too has its honest and patriotic
people who are committed to the welfare of society. But, sadly, they are
caught up in a system which does not let them come to prominence unless
they come terms with it and adopt the venal proposition of wining
elections to make money to win the next election.
Only those who correctly grasp the inner dynamics of this and adapt to
its mechanics can hop to make any headway. Others are bound to sink.
When the system itself made the election a venal mechanism, corrupt
practices that rope in criminals and police are bound to follow.
It can be categorically said that the business of crime cannot survive
anywhere if politicians and the police join hands to bring the crime
world to heel. But alas, this is not to be in a world of opportunist
politicians and a corrupt, weak, police force both with an eye on the
spoils of the crime. The police force is the weak link in the troika of
power-brokers consisting of politicians, criminals and the police. It
functions as an instrument politicians use to bring criminals to them.
The role of the police as a law-enforcing agency and its hold over
criminals makes it a handy instrument for politicians to use.
SAD COMMENTARY
The police is the executioner and odd-job boy of the Government. This
image of the police is effectively made use of by politicians for all
conceivable personal and official purposes. While low-ranking police are
used as bodyguards, gunmen, messengers, watchmen etc, high-ranking
police officers are used for the same jobs at higher levels.
It is a sad commentary on today’s police force that while low-ranking
police do these jobs as an unavoidable duty, high-ranking officers
compete and fight among themselves to attend to the odd jobs of their
political masters. This they do, even when they are fully aware of the
criminal antecedents and police histories of some of their benefactors.
Jobs are judged for importance in the police force on their
potentialities for illegal money from crime. And jobs with potential for
such gains are most sought after and are often paid for in lakhs. This
is considered an investment. which will earn many times more in a short
period of time.
Many other jobs, on the other hand are known as punishment postings and
are largely detested. These jobs have no potential for illegal earnings.
It goes without saying that judging jobs on the basis of the challenge
or the opportunity for service that they provide is a thing of the past.
It is the crime world that decides the importance or otherwise of
different police jobs and in actual fact controls the type and calibre
of officers in each job.
In other words, it is criminals who invisibly control the police rather
than the police controlling the criminals. This reversal of function has
a lot to do with the low morale of the present Indian police.
Its members find themselves at the mercy of criminals whom they are
supposed to bring to book. The police is no longer confident that it is
mentally and organisationally equipped to do its job.
Increasingly powerful and modernised crime syndicates have made a farce
of crime control by the police. Many factors place the police at
disadvantages. Its growth has not kept pace with population growth. It
is also at a disadvantage as far as communication, transportation and
weaponry are concerned as criminals have the best of all these.
INCOMPETENT LEADERSHIP
Consequently, police fatalities in encounters with criminals and
terrorist groups are increasing. As a result the police in India is no
longer keen to intrfere with the activities of the underworld. The
understanding between criminals and the police is that both will confine
themselves to their respective fields a and avoid embarrassing each
other.
The police is paid for its passiveness while stray troublemakers are
silenced. The Indian police is sane enough to quickly realise that its
interests lie in silence while entangling with the crime world may
invite a host of complications.
The responsibility for the present state of the Indian police rests
solely on its incompetent leadership rather than on anything else.
Unimaginative planning uninspiring guidance and lack of leadership and
conviction in the top police ranks has led to utter chaos. Dangerously
ineffective recruitment policies, poor training programmes, misuse of
the facilities of confidential assessment of subordinates and the
degeneration of control and supervision machinery have resulted.
The present Indian police force is utterly unmotivated and police jobs
are considered only as devices that provide rank, power, social status,
sundry comforts and a pension. How can the people of India depend upon
this sort of police force for security, protection and law and order?.
It is a fact that Indian public life is a vast field of criminal
activities and politicians and police, though the custodians and
protectors of Indian public life, from part of the crime world. However,
knowledge of the involvement of politicians and police in this nasty
world stirs the public conscience for the reason that they are supposed
to be the people on whom the public relies to save them.
CRIME AND NATIONAL ECONOMY
A word about the effect of the nasty nexus between politics, crime and
police on the national economy.
Unity gives strength. It is true about this nasty nexus also.
The only telos of the nexus is gain by synergy, which brings confidence
and courage to the troika in its nefarious activities, thereby inducing
it to more daring and innovative criminal activities.
This results in proliferation of crime is illegal gain and the incidence
of crime is directly related to increase in black money in the national
economy, the proliferation of crime invariably results in inflation and
the weakening of the national economy.
More dangerously, it results in polarisation of the society into
criminal rich and honest poor, and destroys the country’s moral fabric.
The increasing incidence of easy money, material comforts and political
power of the criminal rich ultimately leads to internal strife and
popular terrorism.
The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularises criminal
activities by bringing an aura of status to them and negating all
inhibitions in the popular mind.
Society easily accepts the example of the wealthy and powerful for
making an easy buck to lead comfortable lives in the world where life is
becoming increasingly difficult because of the spurt in black money,
caused by proliferation of crime.
While decent life becomes impossible by honest methods, the need of
survival forces honest citizens to accept crime as a way of life as the
last resort. This would be where politicians, criminals and police lead
the country.
Easy money and easy wealth have a tendency to inflate. Criminals tend to
spend lavishly. This ends up in a spurt in prices of land, buildings and
essential commodities, while honest men have to toil hard for an extra
quarter.
Crime begets money, and money begets more money, and more money gets
power, comfort and everything. In the crush, the honest man is lost
forever. The ocean of criminal wealth around him, which is beyond even
his wildest dreams, frustrates him and ravages his sense of morality and
righteousness.
It turns him violently against all human values and decency, leading him
to a world of crime and violence. It is what we have seen in Punjab,
Kashmir, Assam, in faraway Sri Lanka or even in Naxalism, where it is
disguised as political ideology.
It is an irony that politicians and the police, who create the demons,
fall to the bullets of the grievously hurt, self-righteous, once
innocent people. It is said that even the dacoits in Chambal are
symptomatic of this social and economic malady.
It is true that crime cannot be eliminated from any society as the
tendency to commit crime is ingrained in human nature. However, crime
can be suppressed by appropriate restraints. What restraints and how
they are to be applied are ironically decided by politicians and the
police.
If they come out of their indulgent interests to commit themselves to
their professional objectives, they can certainly save India from the
present predicament.
Not that every politician and very policeman can come out to achieve
this noble task, but there certainly are noble elements yet surviving as
exceptions among them, who should take up cudgels in favour of the
Indian polity and sacrifice their lives and careers, if necessary, to
make the renaissance of Indian police and Indian public life possible.
The question yet to be posed is: Will the inveterate vested interests
let these sacrifices bear fruit? Let us hope for the best.
No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running
his crime syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses,
narcotics dealers or plain hoodlums, the only way to survive is to have
comfortable political protection at the right levels. The crime
syndicates en revanche, pay a good percentage of their criminal gain to
the protectors. Thus, it is an arrangement to mutual advantage. The
crime world also provides hoodlums as volunteers to perform challenging
tasks during the election campaigns of their political patrons, apart
from liberally financing these campaigns. How can a politician, after he
gains power with the help of a criminal, ever let down the criminal?
This symbiosis of politicians and criminals which has emerged from the
extant Indian political system is the root cause of all the
complications.
The very fact that politicians are prepared to risk their reputations
rather than distance themselves from the crime world, shows how highly
the world of crime is regarded by the politicians in their scheme of
things. Politics and crime have become the tow faces of the same coin in
the present state of affairs and a saying goes that there cannot be
politics without crime and no crime without politics. In the present
Indian situation, it is true that the lotus of politics can blossom only
in the offal of crime.
UNIVERSALITY OF CRIME
On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living being
are criminals in varying degrees. Criminal thought is a part of the
natural function of a healthy mind as is the moral restraint that
prevents the criminal thought from being acted upon. External restraints
brought about by the fear of law, custom and adverse reaction reinforce
the inner restraint to prevent the committing of crime. However, as the
force of external restraints weakens for diverse reasons and the
proportion of gain to be made in committing a crime overweighs the risks
involved in the balance sheet of the operation, the lure of crime
increases and the deed is done. It is social situation which controls
the external restraints to make committing a crime an asset or a
liability and thereby decides the proliferation or suppression of crime
with human nature being what it is always. Criminals are criminals
because society gives them easy openings to thus meet their needs.
Politicians love to befriend criminals rather than bring them to book
because the society they live in makes their lives comfortable with
criminals as friends rather than as adversaries. Policemen find the
crime world sweeter because it is how things stand for them. The remedy
for the proliferation and endearment of crime lies in changing the
social dynamics to make crime a liability to criminals and criminals a
liability to politicians and the police. In the existing nexus of
politics, crime and police, crime is an asset to criminals and criminals
are an asset to politicians and police. Criminals should not be
construed as a separate block of citizenry. They are a cross-section of
people from all fields of life who have moved beyond a commonly accepted
degree in their criminal tendencies. Criminality may be prolific in
certain civilised fields like commerce and industry in the form of tax
evasion, violation of foreign exchange regulations, hoarding etc; such
crimes are generally not taken seriously in spite of the public
awareness of the crimes, with the social standing of the criminals
remaining unaffected. Government servants too come under this category
of criminals because of the unconfined corruption in public life. It is
a fact that Indian public life is a vast field of criminal activities
and politicians and police, though the custodians and protectors of the
Indian public life. Form part of the crime world. However, knowledge of
the involvement of politicians and police in this nasty world stirs the
public conscience, for the reason that they are supposed to be the
people on whom the public relies to save them. But, it cannot be because
they are also part of the society which makes public life a nasty affair
and nourishes it.
CRIME AND NATIONAL ECONOMY
A word about the effect of the nasty nexus between politics, crime and
police on the national economy. Unity gives strength. It is true about
the nasty nexus also. The only telos of the nexus is gain by synergy,
the synergy which brings confidence and courage to the troika in its
nefarious activities, thereby inducing it to more daring and innovative
criminal activities. This results in proliferation of crime, a part from
affecting the quality of crime by opening up new avenues for operation.
As the ultimate end of all crimes in illegal gain and the incidence of
crime is directly related to increase in black money in the national
economy, the proliferation of crime invariable results in inflation and
the weakening of the national economy.
More dangerously, it results in a polarisation of the society into
criminal rich and honest poor and destroys the country’s moral fabric.
This increscent incidence of easy money, material comforts and political
power of the criminal rich ultimately leads to internal strife, emeute
and popular terrorism.
POLITICISATION OF CRIME
The overworld is just the tip of the real, raw world. There are more
things hidden in this world than that are seen. This is soon realised by
opportunist Indian politicians who seize the first available instance to
enlist the support of criminals and underground operators for their
nefarious designs. This is turn is a god-sent benison for criminals to
restore their lost credibility and social standing with the help of
their association with the custodians of power, apart from the security
and protection from the police that ensues from the association. They
promptly grab the opportunity to their advantage and show how useful
they can be to politicians in their career-promotion designs and
wreaking of personal vendettas. The experience and professionalism of
criminals is handy to politicians to execute their hasty operations
without attracting the stigma attached to them.
The vast army of criminals has become a ready resource to them for use
whenever need arises. This has given a sense of confidence and security
to politicians, who are otherwise vulnerable in their highly uncertain,
challenging and competitive environment. Often politicians have so much
relied on criminals that the latter have become their most trusted
lieutenants even getting elected to legislature with their help and
blessings. There have been instances in India, where prominent
politicians have refused to disown their notorious criminal friends in
public even after reaching the vertex of their political career. This
shows the sway held by criminals over politicians in the Indian
situation. It is a fact that no syndicate of organised crime in small
and big cities anywhere in the world can survive even for a day without
political patronage. Ergo, all syndicates of organised crime and their
menace are the direct outcome of the internchant nexus between
politicians and criminals, indeed with the police as bystanders.
SOCIAL POLARISATION
The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularises criminal
activities by bringing an aura of status to them and negating all
inhibitions in the popular mind. Society easily accepts the example of
the wealthy and powerful for making an easy buck to lead comfortable
lives in the world where life is becoming increasingly difficult because
of the spurt in black money, caused by the proliferation of crime. While
decent life becomes impossible by honest methods, the need of survival
forces honest citizenry to accept crime as a way of life as the last
resort. This would be where politicians, criminals and police lead the
country.
It is the national character of the CBI that makes it stand head and
shoulders above the myriad crime investigation departments. But does
the CBI, in its present form, fully qualify to be a premier
investigating authority? The answer is, no. A statutory panel comprising
(retired) members of the judiciary may help restore the dignity of the
institution.
The last decade of this century sees the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) becoming the Indian version of the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Intelligence(FBI) headed by J.Edgar Hoover in the middle of the century
With one difference.
The FBI became a key component and much feared public institution,
thanks to the open aggressive moves of its energetic Director, while the
CBI gained notoriety as a pawn in the political game of chess used to
bring rivals down on their knees. The trend altered the judiciary which
became active.
The CBI, closely watched by the judiciary, had to discharge its
professional responsibilities and this saw many skeletons in the
cupboard tumbling. The organisation, in the process, shed its meekness
against powerful politicians and proved it was a force to reckon with.
Being the highest authority of the country in crime investigation, the
CBI must contain the best investigation brains vested with the power to
execute the work.
Personal attributes such as probity and professionalism are essential.
But does the CBI meet all these needs?
The seventh Schedule of the Constitution has the police and public
order, except for the deployment and use of forces of the Union, under
the State List, and criminal law, criminal procedure, administration of
justice and judicial proceedings under the Concurrent List.
The Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation figures in the
Union List. The arrangement provides for a separate bureau of
investigation. The legal authority of the CBI is defined by a short
six-section Act of 1946 titled “Delhi Special Police Establishment Act,
1946” which provides for the constitution of a special police force by
the Central Government for the investigation of notified offences in any
Union Territory and in any area in a State where the jurisdiction of the
police force is extended by the order of the Central Government on the
consent of the State Government.
The last section of the Act states the special police force cannot
exercise its powers in an area without the consent of the Government of
that State. The special police force enjoys all the powers, duties
privileges and the liabilities of the police officers of an area in the
investigation of the offences committed there.
The superintendence of the special police force lies with the Central
Government and the administration with an officer whose grade is on par
with State police chief.
The preamble of the Act speaks about the need for the constitution of “
a special police force in Delhi for the investigation of certain
offences in the Union Territories and to make provision for the
superintendence and administration of the said force and for the
extension to other areas of the powers and jurisdiction of the members
of the said force in regard to the investigation of the said offences”.
It is the national character of the CBI that makes it stand head and
shoulders above the myriad crime investigation department. Its prime
position as the investigator of all important and sensitive crimes has
brought it to the centre-stage in the public life of India.
Otherwise, the CBI, as an investigating agency, is on par with any other
crime investigation department regarding the law, judicial proceedings,
investigation methods and the powers and privileges given to the
investigators.
Does the CBI, in its present form, fully qualify to be a premier
investigating authority? The answer is no. The restraint on the CBI from
exercising its powers and jurisdiction in any area in a State without
the consent of the government of that State is a great handicap.
India, in 50 years, has come across several States giving and
withdrawing consent depending on their political and parochial
conveniences. This attitude renders the CBI part of a political game
plan tarnishing its image and degrading the merit of the investigations.
The CBI should be empowered to extend its tentacles to all areas of the
country and investigate all types of offences classified crime. The Act
has to be amended to that effect.
The Act provides for the appointment of the head of the CBI by the
Central Government, which involves politicians. Now, why should the head
of the premier investigating agency be named according to the whims and
fancies of the politicians in power? The power of appointing the head of
the CBI should be taken away from the Centre. The agency will then have
its credibility restored. Again, the Act has to be amended.
Once a case is referred to the CBI, the people assume that the law will
take its course. Only insiders know the turns and twists it undergoes
depending upon who is what in the case and in the Government
Right from taking up a case for investigation to the stage of filing a
chargesheet and later, anything may happen at any stage depending upon
the political dictates. A case may be investigated and chargesheet filed
within a few weeks or months or just shelved for decades. Arrests,
decisions on bails, searches, seizures and chargesheets are all subject
to political convenience. The political head gains this leverage by
becoming instrumental in the appointment of a particular police officer
who would never have dreamt of making it to the top.
The grateful chief knows to whom he owes his coveted position, and his
power and conscience are at the convenience of his political boss. This
is an arrangement of mutual benefit.
When the new chief dares to challenge the will of his political patron,
the sword of abrupt removal from the post is held over his head. Now he
has no option but to go against his conscience and professional will
unless he is prepared to sacrifice his job. By quitting, he does service
to nobody: after all, there are others waiting to distort professional
decisions at the command of the politicians. So he would rather join the
race. This is how the agency chief is brought down on his knees.
The malaise lies in the legal framework inherited from the Act the
provided for constituting the special police force. When a series of
sensitive cases against prominent political leaders was referred to the
CIB in the Nineties, the agency stood exposed by its meddling.
The case of the Bofors gun deal drags on; the handling of the St.Kitts
forgery case, the Jain hawala case, the urea scam, the JNN bribery case,
the Lakhubhai pathak cheating case, the Indian Bank scam, the
telecommunications scandal, the anti-Sikh riots case of 1984 and the
case of harbouring terrorists and mafia associates has dealt a blow to
the credibility of the CBI. The public no more trusts the CBI.
What exactly has brought about the situation? Delay, sometimes running
into years, in taking up or completing investigation of politically
inconvenient cases, prompt execution when the political climate is
congenial, decision to oppose or allow bails on political
considerations, building up cases around flimsy evidence such as entries
in diaries and inconsequential photographs sans corroboration have all
eroded the status of the CBI.
Going to the press about chargesheeting key political personalities even
before statutory permission is obtained for the purpose (the Supreme
Court observed, in this context: “ talking too much outside and also
carrying documents” in the pockets) and leaks about politically
sensitive cases make the agency suspect.
The charge that the CBI is more interested in trying the cases in the
media than in courts cannot be answered squarely.
If the appointment of the CBI chief is one side of the coin, the
enormous powers he and his political masters enjoy is the other.
Professional investigation by an upright officer can always be scuttled
and the officer abruptly removed if he is found too inconvenient.
Reverting officials to the base is always a possibility.
Mr.K.N.Singh, former Joint Director of the CBI, in his book, “My CBI
Days” refers to the harassment he underwent for pursuing investigation
according to his conscience. Mr.K.Madhavan, another Joint Director,
preferred voluntary retirement.
The solution lies in liberating the CBI from the grip of the politicians
and bringing its top brass to their senses about professional
responsibilities. Making the CBI autonomous is not going to achieve
anything.
There is no guarantee that the CBI chiefs who make merry in the company
of their political benefactors will behave better when left free.
Chances are that they may run parallel political manoeuvres to build a
base for theselves.The Supreme Court pronounced on May 5, 1997, that it
was not in favour of making the prime investigating agency totally
autonomous, but would like to evolve a method based on checks and
balances so that it could function independently in accordance with the
law.
The crux of the matter is “ a method based on checks and balances”. The
key is the appointment of the chief of the agency.
A statutory panel constituted of men from the judicial profession as
advisor to the agency may fulfil the need for “checks and balances”. The
panel may be invested with the power to appoint and remove CBI chiefs on
the basis of their performances.
The panel may advise the agency on taking up cases, arrests, searches,
seizures bail and chargesheets. The advice has to be statutorily binding
on the process of the investigation. The panel has to be free to monitor
the process and the pace of the investigation.
The panel may consist of a dozen senior most retired judges of the
Supreme Court as permanent members, one of them as chairman and the CBI
chief as member-secretary. The membership of the panel must be awarded
to the senior retied judges including chief justices.
Only a full panel with a minimum of 80 percent quorum must be empowered
to decide, on a simple majority, about the appointment and removal of
the CBI chiefs, promotions and transfers of officers of an above the
rank of Assistant Director.
The function, privileges, rights, liabilities and responsibilities of
the panel have to be clearly defined in order to avoid clashes with the
CBI.
A suitable amendment to the ”Delhi Special Police Establishment Act
1946” is the first step. The constitution of the panel as part of the
body of the CBI shall be the second step. And the third and most crucial
step will be suitable administrative measures to ensure that the panel
discharges its responsibilities in a fair manner. Appreciation and an
atmosphere free of bureaucratic hassles and pulls and pressures will
help the elder members of the judiciary discharge their responsibilities
in guiding the CBI in the right course.
Easy money and easy wealth have a tendency to inflate. Criminals tend to
spend lavishly. This ends up in a spurt in prices of land, building and
essential commodities while honest men have to toil hard for an extra
quarter. Crime begets money and money begets more money and more money
gets power, comfort and everything. In the crush, honest man is lost
forever. The ocean of criminal wealth around him which is beyond even
his wildest dreams frustrates him and ravages his sense of morality and
righteousness. It turns him violently against all human values and
decency, leading him to a world of crime and violence. It is what we saw
in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam, in far away Srilanka or even in Naxalism
where it is hidden in the guise of political ideology. It is an irony
that politicians and the police, who create the demons, eat their own
pies by falling to the bullets of the grievously hurt, self-righteous,
once innocent people. It is said that even the dacoits in Chambal are
symptomatic of this social and economic malady.
It is true that crime cannot be eliminated from any society as the
tendency to commit crime is ingenerate in human nature. However, crime
can be suppressed by appropriate straints. What straints and how they
are to be applied are ironically decided by politicians and the police.
If they come out of their indulgent interests to commit themselves to
their professional objectives, they can certainly save India from the
present predicament. Not that every politician and every policeman can
come out to achieve this noble task, but there certainly are noble
elements yet surviving as exceptions among them, who should take up
cudgels in favour of the Indian polity and sacrifice their lives and
careers, if necessary, to make the renaissance of Indian police and
Indian public life possible. The question yet to be posed is whether the
inveterate vested interests will let these sacrifices bear fruit. Let us
hope for the best.
Mr.Justice B.P.Jeevan Reddy, the law Commission Chairman while talking
on the provision of forfeiture of property illegally acquired by public
servants under the proposed bill titled the " Corrupt Public Servants
(Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1999" said, "Corruption has been severely
affecting the country's economy, security and administration. To weed
out this dreaded disease from public life, we need a bitter medicine".
All previous measures to rein- in corruption in public life failed
because nothing mattered as far as the ill-gotten property is safe a
huis clos. Situation may change tout ensemble after the proposed
legislation becomes law and gallows the corrupt of wiping out the very
corpus of the corrupt deeds and striking at the very roots of
corruption.
Corruption unfortunately has become an accepted phenomenon in extant
Indian society. No more it attracts societal disapproval or contempt.
Wealth is seen as wealth whether it is begotten by fair or illegitimate
means. Nowadays, jobs having means of easy money are sought and bought
at all costs. It is why such jobs command high premium in the job
market. It is no secret why jobs in select departments in government
service are in high demand. And within these departments there are
specific posts that command high premium on account of their
potentiality to generate enormous wealth by unfair and illegitimate
means. Such jobs command money in multiple suitcases in advance to the
posting in addition to periodical profferings for keeping the job terms
because those payments are proved sagacious investments. Politicians,
journalists to the victims of the system while condemning the vicious
practice from the public platform accept it as the sine qua non reality
of the life. The sterling question is whether corruption in any form
with the concomitant atrophy in administration and public life should be
tolerated to disgorge the vitals of the Indian democratic fabric.
It is tragic that the police which is morally and professionally bound
to protect the public from the vice of corruption is among the avant
coureur in the pernicious race. Sadly, the addiction is uniform at all
ranks from Police Constables to Police Commissioners save rare
exceptions. The corrupt practices take disparate forms in diverse
circumstances, but all leading to the same unfortunate end: derailing
the rule of law and the loss of credibility of the police.
A south Indian state saw in 1998 several wars of attrition between a
Police Commissioner and his political boss about posting of their own
favourites to key positions, leading to messy and dangerous situations
like more than one police officer being posted to the same key post of
profit and all of them holding to it fast for months together. Often
fightings broke out among the contenders in the same post for the loaves
of power and other behoofs and such matters made headlines in
newspapers. It is wrong to heap all blames tout a fait on any one side
as corrupt. Certainly no side is a paradigm of virtues in the extent
rat-race for pelf and booty. Corruption in India has become just a rider
of the availability of opportunities to share the res gestae of the
power.
Police is an institution in the service of law and order. Every case of
corruption involving the police represents a case of the rule of law and
justice harrowed. Imaging the extent of the distortion of the rule of
law and justice and the betrayal of the hoi polloi by the police
machinery that apportions in some cases a crore of rupees a year to
middle-ranking official as the illgotten money. The mise en scene is
complete with the swarms of police officials of all ranks au reste
warring inter se with wads of high denomination notes to corner posts
potential of generating unlimited illegitimate wealth. Added to this is
those apparatchik at the top making transfers and postings a thriving
business. What can be expected from a law and order machinery run with
such a symbion, but gross abuse and distortion of the rule of law? That
is why police is often called the legalised mafia.
Karnataka had a Superintendent of Police in northern district in 1980
who openly encouraged those down the line to take bribes and shared the
booty. He used to insist that they were free to allow illegal activities
like gambling dens, prostitution, illicit distillation etc. in their
respective areas, provided the criminals remain under their control and
run the activities pro rata to what they proffer to the police. A
maffled logic indeed. Naturally, he was very popular among the corrupt ,
subordinates. He left the district in 1981 and thereafter luckily went
on central deputation, never to return to the state sinsyne.
Corruption has disparate facets. And each has its distorted
justification. There is a case of a Police Commissioner whose misuse of
the police machinery in the marriage of his daughter in 1998 became a
stormy issue in the public eyes after press made it big. The press
claimed that the subordinate police officers were forced to man the
doors of the marriage hall and escort VIPs visiting the place. And
police wireless and departmental transport facilities were recklessly
made use of in the marriage and its preparations. Soon the issue was
hijacked by the subordinate police officers of the city who gave press
statements that police officials were allotted duties in the marriage a
la police duties in a security operation and expressed fears that those
who failed to budge would be victimised and likely to be removed from
their coveted posts in the city police. The Police Commissioner openly
defended his action in the interview to a private TV channel saying that
every father puts his heart to celebrate his daughter's marriage a
grands frais as his parting gift and he was not an exception.
CONSCIENTIOUS POLICING:
Conscientious policing is raised on the bedrock of committed and
non-corruptible policing. Serious and committed policing is conditio
sine qua non for professional policing and professional policing
presupposes duties and responsibilities taking precedence over personal
comforts and safety. Being conscientious brings depth and width to the
profession and raises policing to nobler heights. Corruption in whatever
form is the antithesis of this. It pulls down the police from its
elevated position as the national asset and insurance against the
atrophy of national values, security and well-eing of the hoi polloi.
A case of dowry death reported against a retired high court judge and
his family in February 1992 was referred to the state investigation
agency for investigation. The investigation made out a case for
chargesheet against the retired judge and five other persons including
his wife, son, two daughters and another person The chief of the
investigating agency in the rank of IGP being egregiously corrupt and
close to the retired judge, dragged his feet from further proceedings in
the case. The Superintendent of Police who was supervising the
investigation of the case wanted to take the investagation to its
logical end. But, arrests in the case were prevented and chargesheet was
unduly delayed from above. The insistence of the Superintendent of
Police, to chargesheet the case as the logical step of the investigation
process cost him his post and he was transferred in July 1992 to the
State Home Guards as the head of its training wing. The case remained
frozen sans chargesheet for more than 1 ½ years sinsyne till the IGP was
transferred out of the organisation in 1993. The case was later
chargesheeted in March 1994 with the retired judge and his two daughters
dropped from the chargesheet on the basis of the evidences tampered at
later stages. The dropped names were later included in the chargesheet
on the orders of the judge trying the case. The IGP who tried to stall
the wheel of the legal process subsequently succeeded in gaining entry
to a sensitive police organisation like the CBI and held the job till
1997.
PROFESSIONAL OBJECTIVITY:
A police organisation open to public pressures can do no policing worth
the name. They very idea of being receptive to pressures and
interferences is sysptomatic of lack of will for objectivity and
justice. Criminal elements take advantage of such opportunities to drive
the police and the policing on the wrong rails. Pressures often render
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 being open to the
pressures of the rich and powerful deprives the police of its
credibility. A police force that works at the behest of the rich and
powerful safeguards the interests of the rich and powerful only. It
would thus be factious and a 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 five decades. India and its people must now abraid to
the situation and spawn a police that behooves to the trust laid on it.
The aberration of professional objectivity is the Achille's heel of the
police of independent India. The problem was simple in British India
where ruler and ruled were distinctly bifurcated and ipso facto the
loyalty of the police was perspicaciously defined unlike that of the
Indian republic of the 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 the 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.
In the perverted situation of India where the loyalty of the police to
those in power rather than to professional ideals is a reality, none can
vouch that police responsibilities would be carried out strictly on
merit of each case. Factional loyalties have the singular potentiality
of blasting fairness and impartiality. It renders professional loyalty
meaningless. A mature and sober political leadership can make up for the
Achilles' heel of the fractured loyalties of the police organisation.
Indian police needs a sober organisation above to bring it on rails of
carrying out its responsibilities. The neoteric judical activism, as far
as periodical review of the progress of investigation of some cases of
national importance is concerned, is a welcome step, though in normal
circumstances, such a judicial review would have amounted to gratuitous
interference with the independent functioning of the investigating
authority.
CHANGING VALUES:
Corruption of Indian police quite possibly is consectaneous of the
degringolade of values in Indian life of the post-independent era.
Indian police cannot stay sequestered from developments around while
there are marked falls in standards of diligence and integrity in other
walks of life. It adopted and adapted to the corrupt surroundings and
the result is extant corrupt police, India finds itself with.
The basic lures of corruption in Indian context are money and power. As
government service even at higher rungs lost charm in terms of monetary
comforts and prestige and power, it attracted only the second bests or
the lesser from the crème de la crème of the country's youth, who in
turn were left in lurches in the service to mend themselves. This
started a mad rush to the res gestae of pelf and power at the cost of
professional dignity and integrity. The situation led to corruption and
brought shifts in the concepts of diligence and professional loyalty and
rearranged the service objectives with priority to filling the coffers
of money and power. Organisational objectives were completely lost sight
of. Shifts in diligence helped to build money-power while shifts in
loyalties moulded proximity to power-brokers in efforts to maximise
individual behoofs after throwing professional ideals to dogs. The
degeneration spread in leaps and buonds with the passage of time as the
organisational commitments became demode and pragmatism taught that
immediate personal interests are the center of leading a good life. This
was the beginning of corruption of Indian police in a big way.
A major factor responsible for the corruption of Indian police is the
gross fall of its professional pride since independence. Crass and
insensitive handling of the police and police matters by political
leaders frustrated the high morale and sense of belonging of the police
force. Attempts to suppress and gain complete hold over the police in
democratic India affected the force adversely and injected a sense of
inadequacy in the force. Once the centripetal force that bound the force
together was squandered, centrifugal forces took over and dissipating
attitudes behaviors and influences ruled the roost to bring the Indian
police to the present triste state.
Motivation to achieve organisational goals and show results being
weakened is the inevitable manifestation of the fall of professional
pride. The police which once prided in enforcing law, maintaining order
and ensuring peace and security of the hoi polloi, lost all its
enthusiasm for these ends as they became factors of politicking and lost
importance independent of political relevance as crimes, criminals and
law and order and their handling by the police became accrescently tools
of political convenience. The development shattered the professional
pride of the police and struck a blow to their motivation towards the
organisational ends. No organisation can exist sans a driving force to
sustain it. The result is a vacuum of a drive to carry the police
onward. The vacuum is filled by corruption. Indian police find in
corruption a way to sustain itself in absence of any organisational
objectives to drive it onward.
Myopic and maffled approaches of the police often lead to untold
miseries and blatant violation of basic rights of simple individuals. A
daughter of an influential man in 1986 eloped with a man against the
wishes of her parents and was hiding in the neighbouring state of
Karnataka. The couple were in their twenties and decently employed. The
chief of intelligence of Karnataka was sought assistance to trace the
couple and ensure that the daughter rejoins her parents. The
intelligence machinery started to work in festinated zeal and the couple
were traced in Bangalore and were separated. The man was held in illegal
confinement and exposed to umpteen threats while arrangements were made
to call the influential man to rejoin his daughter. The man in
confinement was set free only after the influential man reached back his
home with his daughter. The action of the police in this case
perspicaciously is against the law of the land and violated the basic
rights of a young couple.
STRUCTUAL CHANGES:
The first and foremost job to do to bring back the police on rails is to
extricate the police from the unhealthy influence of all hues by making
it responsible to an independent Authority with absolute powers to take
decisions on matters of policing and police organisation. The Authority
should be a professional body of men and women of proven probity and
competence, who reached a stage from where they need not sacrifice their
convictions to appease those in power as members. A working arrangement
is to be devised by which the Authority becomes responsible directly to
the legislature and functions independently a la the judiciary, the
Central Vigilance Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General or the
Chief Election Commissioner.
Creation of a Core Group of people adept in assessing men and character
within the aforesaid Police Authority helps to create a feeling of
confidence and job security in police and prod to discharge duties
fearlessly. This Group that oversees the work of police personnel from a
distance should be ultimately responsible for all career decisions in
the police force. The responsibility of senior officers in assessing the
work of the subordinates that forms the major embarrassment of the
present Indian police dispensation must be limited to giving opinion
about the performance of their subordinates to the Core Group; the
expert Core Group must process the opinion by its own research,
expertise and discretion and take responsible decision on its own
research, expertise and discretion and take responsible decision on its
own. The Group must be made responsible for all development plans of the
police, work assessment, job analyses, recruitment and management of
human resources etc. Institution of such a Core Group to oversee the
career development of police personnel without personal bias may bring
revolutionary changes in police by committing it to its work-ethics and
professional ends with single mindedness.
Police is not an odd -job boy of the government. It is not the hand-maid
of politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisaion of
professionals committed to the safety, security and well-being of the
country. Justice and rule of law are the litmus tests available to
achieve the ends. Once police miss the bus of justice and the rule of
law, their goals of safety, security and well-being of the public remain
a distant dream. They lose the credibility and respect of the public, so
essential for effective and proficient policing. The fear that the
police inspire can not take it far in the absence of credibility,
respect and sympathy of the public. Once the police lose their
usefulness in political and power gameplans consequent to losing public
credibility, their political patrons will discard them like used
condoms. The best bet for the police is to be professional and committed
to their responsibilities towards the administration of justice. Police
would forget this need only at their own peril. Doing anything violative
of its raison d'etre like sabotaging the course of justice and the rule
of law in the cauldron of corruption will prove fatal to the relevance
of the police to the society.
Police is one of the most vital instruments of the public administration
and works as a link between the executive arm and judiciary. It is the
ears, eyes and limbs of the government. No government with a failing
police system can survive whatever be its other assets, It is against
this background that the glitches bedevilling the present Indian police
should be viewed. Any complacency at this stage about the existing
police system may prove too costly for the unity and well-being of the
country and the health of its governance.
A job culture involutes basic beliefs and objects of the organisation,
professional ethics and the 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 the 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.
How deeply the police is self-centred even within its own organisation
and what care and concern the police leaders show to evolve a perficient
and planned police organisation can be assessed by the trend of
evolution of the police organisation as an increscently top heavy setup
and the speed with which promotions are effected at different levels. In
states where there were only two officers of the rank of Inspector
General of Police, for say forty thousand men and officers about 20
years back, there are now nearly 30 officers of and above the rank of
Inspector General of Police, for say 80,000 men and officers; thereby
the last 20 years account for 100% expansion in the lower levels against
1500% expansion at higher levels. What these people at the top do for
policing apart from being a drain on the state revenue and a strain to
officers down the levels with conflicting instructions of dubious merit?
Almost nothing. It is unfortunate that none in the police administration
realises that it is not the rank but the real human stuff inside that
decides the height, excellence, merit, intelligence, honesty, integrity
responsibility, work knowledge and human qualities of a person.
Promotion to higher rank serves no purpose unless the higher rank
provides a really higher challenges and job content and a suitable man
is perforce selected to meet the increased challenges. This is not the
case in present police promotions where sinecures are created to
facilitate promotions to satisfy in-group instincts, Most of these jobs
are without any job content and responsibility and often are places to
relax from the pressures of family life. However, the same courtesy does
not extend to the more unfortunate ranks at lower levels including the
constabulary. While vacancies at the topmost level are filled up by
promotions strictly overnight, promotions at intermediary levels are
effected in weeks or fortnights or months, depending on the rank in the
police hierarchy. It is years in the case of the constabulary. There are
cases where vacancies of Head Constables and Assistant Sub-Inspectors or
Sub-Inspectors are not filled up for several years, depriving the
constabulary of their de jure promotions. There are any number of
instances of men in the constabulary retiring without promotion non
obstante their eligibility and seniority for the existing vacancies,
which are not filled up from many years. Policing is a job performed
mostly at lower levels with decreasing involvement upto the level of
Superintendent of Police. Beyond that, it is tout court a supervisory
task and in a police force with no supervision to speak of, higher ranks
are just de trop. Any move to expand these ranks and any undue haste to
promote to these levels cannot be called honest decisions in the
functional or public interest. Unfortunately, the Indian police is doing
just that and there is none to put it back on the right track.
DYNAMICS OF CORRUPTION:
A fall-out of corruption in the police is build- up a dynamics which
promotes the interests of corrupt in the system at the cost of those who
retained the pristine value of professionalism. The flexible elements
who can be menoeuvred to required moulds through the juste milieu of
pelf and position are useful assets to people in key position to save
their kith and kins’ interests as and when they get involved in criminal
proceedings. Such characters in police are always cultivated and posted
to key positions so that striking compromises when situation warrants
becomes easy. This strategy ends up in honest police officers being
sidelined and it promotes corruption. The dynamics while helps
influential individuals to evade the long arm of law, harms the
interests of the country, its police and the rule of law. Police
officers of plastic conscience are preferred to upright professionals to
key posts even in national level police agencies like the Central Bureau
of Investigation and the Intelligence Bureau. Police officers known for
professional approach are spurned and distanced as inconvenient
elements. In the situation, competence plays no role in preferences
while honesty, integrity and professional commitment play negative
roles. A history of bending backward on nonprofessional considerations
always becomes a qualification in obtaining preference to more sensitive
jobs in important police organisations.
The first and foremost job to be done is to free the police from the
unhealthy influence of all hues by making it responsible to an
independent authority with absolute power to take decisions on matters
pertaining to policing and police organisation. The authority should be
a professional body with men of proven probity and quality as members,
who have reached a stage from where they need not sacrifice their
convictions to appease those in power. A working arrangement is to be
devised by which the authority is responsible directly to the
legislature and functions as an independent authority like the
judiciary, Comptroller and Auditor General or Election Commissioner.
Creation of a high core group of people who are adept in assessing men
and character within the aforesaid police authority may help to create a
feeling of confidence and job security and prod them into discharging
their official duties fearlessly. This group which oversees the work of
police personnel from a distance should be made ultimately responsible
for all career decisions. The responsibilities of officers in assessing
the work of their subordinates which forms the major embarrassment of
the present Indian police must be limited to giving their opinion about
performance to the core group; the expert core group processes the
opinion by its own research, expertise and discretion and takes
responsible decisions on its own. The group must be made responsible for
development planning of the police, work assessment, job analysis,
recruitment and management of human resources, Institution of such a
core group to oversee the career development of police personnel without
personal bias may bring revolutionary changes by committing the police
to its work-ethics and professional ends with due single mindedness.
The extant system of selecting the police chief is erratic at best and
motivatedly amoral in that it meets political ends of the rulers at
worst. A conspicuous example is from a southern state of India where a
police officer who was sidelined in his career as an inefficient person
and degenerate habitual drunkard was given a fresh leash of lefe in
career a I’improviste and posted as the chief of the state police in
July 1980, after being promoted as the first Director General of Police
of the state to meet the political and personal ends of the new Chief
Minister of the state in new dispensation that came to power in the
state in elections. Soon, the state found itself engulfed in law and
order problems, rise in incident of crimes, indiscipline and discontent
in the state police force and dangerous union activities by the police
personnel. The new police Chief who was arranged to retire as IGP of the
State Vigilance Commission before being awarded the coveted post of the
state police chief was known to attend office in inebriated condition
and while away time in offence, doing nothing, However, political needs
overshadow all such facts in selection to the posts of Police Chief.
This is a dangerous trend. Attempts of the Supreme Court of India in its
recent order to formulate a system for the selection of the chiefs of
important police forces of the country like the CBI is a welcome measure
at least in its intent and must spur steps to formulate procedures of
the selection of all key police posts to insulate the process from
amoral and very dangerous extraneous considerations. This is a must in
the interests of the country.
Multitude brings confusion. Multitude breeds rifts. Multitude is the
source of contraplex drives, necessitating efforts to forge divergent
thrusts into a single mosaic. This is true of police also. India has a
multitude of police organisations. Crime and law and order being a state
subject, each state and union territory has its independent police
force. A host of central police agencies like CBI, IB, SIBs, RAW, CRPF,
BSF, CISF, ITBP, SPG, BPRD, NPA, NICFS operate under the direct control
of the central government. The fabric of Indian police is woven with
nearly two scores of police organisations, held together by same laws,
procedure and the goal of national interests.
Various state and UT police organisations reflect the diversity of India
while central police agencies, the unitary nature. State and UT police
organisations extending from Kerala to Jammu and Kashmir, from Gujarath
to Arunachala Pradesh enjoy divergent ethos, environment and
professional attitude in spite and uniform police structure and goals.
They are manned at lower and middle levels of the hierarchy by the
people of the concerned regions though officers drawn from the length
and breadth of the country head them at the top. These organisations
jealously retain their identity and character and seldom venture out to
interact with others though much is made on paper and public platforms
about the needs of border meetings, combined operations and sharing of
professional expertise and intelligence. Though a deep feeling of
fraternity is a reality in police all over the world, it seldom
manifests in cooperation and coordination in working for professional
goals. Police organisations see each other with suspicion. Competition
rather than cooperation forms the plane of their mutual relationship.
The ingrained thirst for recognition and desire to monopolise accolades
and policing is the basic thrust of avoiding anything to do with
outsiders. Differences of job culture and environment make cooperation
and coordination further difficile. Differences of identity and
character add to the problem. As a result, police organisations build
barriers around them and work in isolation on common issues of crime,
security and law and order, leading to duplication of work and wasted
efforts en face criminals and hors la loi with their tentacles spread
all over the country, taking best advantage of the splintered mosaic.
The spiel of central police agencies is quite different. They represent
unity in diversity with an amalgamation of men, identities, environment
and character, drawn from diverse sources and tested in a single
crucible. Their stretch is broad covering the length and breadth of the
country with opportunities for interaction inter se and outside. These
agencies do depend on state and UT police forces for manpower. They do
operate all over the country. Yet, these agencies have their own
identity, character and job environment, which do not encourage give and
take with state police forces and inter se in any meaningful sense.
Again, it is one-upmanship and immanent passion to corner all
recognition. Precedence of narrow interests over performance and results
in central police agencies is not a wholesome affair.
Synergy for better policing is briller par son absence in the mosaic of
Indian police. An institutional mechanism for cooperation and
coordination between various police organisations is the need of the
hour in India. Old habits die hard. There are instances of such an
institutional mechanism being proved ineffective. An apex intelligence
coordination committee to bring all intelligence agencies under a single
umbrella has not met with much success in independent India. Save
routine inconsequential papers and reports, intelligence agencies and
elite security and protection groups of the country work in isolation
from each other with no coordination to speak of. It is so also with
police training and research agencies, working in their own ivory towers
abstracted from field requirements, as there is neither the
institutional mechanism nor the will to come together, interact and
cooperate.
Reasons are many for these barriers. Police forces work under different
governments and ministries headed by politicians of their own political
and ideological agenda. State and UT police forces follow the agenda of
their respective governments. Among the central police agencies, CBI
reports to the ministry of personnel, intelligence agencies to cabinet
secretariat and most of the other agencies to the home ministry. Egos of
the heads of these governments and ministries come to play in the style
of functioning of the police forces. Added to this is the bloated egos
of the heads and chiefs down below the line of these organisations.
Together, they prove a deadly combination against creating a mosaic of
police environment in the country. Each piece works on its own in
artificial isolation from the other. This is the tragedy of Indian
police.
Good fences make good neighbours. But, this is not true of organisations
forming the splinters of gestalt dedicated to common goal like policing.
Cooperation, coordination and synergy for concerned efforts are the
needs here. Symbiosis, not fences makes sense here. Organisational goal
is the raison d’etre and has to be reached by all means and resources.
Every failed opportunity lost to do better signifies a failure. Every
failed opportunity to interact with a potential source is an opportunity
lost to do better. Every wasted mutual relationship signifies a failed
opportunity to interact. Every missed beneficial contact is a wasted
mutual relationship. Such beneficial contacts being infinite among
police organisations, moving towards the same goal of security and rule
of law, the dimension of the lost opportunities to do better can only be
imagined. This is what is happening in Indian police: police forces
failing to pool together their immense potentialities by each going its
separate way. And each looking shilpit and weak sans mutual support in
the process.
Lack of coordination is not just an inter-organisational challenge. It
is an intra-organisational problem too. In the mosaic of state police
force under a single police chief, myraid subordnate units pull apart
from different sides and defy the compulsions of cooperation and
coordination inter se, required in the interests of the organisational
goal. District police units and functional units like the crime branch
special branch, armed forces, training units, police research and
administration units, each function independently and in complete
isolation from the other in violation of the call for synergy from
above. The tendency of going alone is inveterate in Indian institutional
psyche. Ultimately, it is individual performances that is recognised and
appreciated. Institutional performances have few takers in Indian
environment. Cooperation and coordination though spawns better
performance, the prospects of shared recognition and appreciation are
deeply resented. Recognition and appreciation get precedence over
organisational objectives in the present environment of Indian police.
The remedy lies in restoring organisational objectives to their rightful
place in the ambience of police. The immanent prevarication of the
police from the professional path and the ingrained slant to
self-agrandisement make it easier said than done.
Border meetings are rare. More than that, often they are meaningless
exercises conducted for the purpose of record. Joint operations by
neighbouring police units are rare to the extent of being unheard of.
Resentment to take advantage of the specialised units like crime branch,
special branch, training units etc is also evident. The only exception
is the services of the armed police in states and the paramilitary
forces at the centre. The reason is that the utility of these forces in
controlling unruly mobs overshadows the problems of ego-clashes and
recognition.
Mutual indifference is just one side of the problem and simpler in that.
The other, more complicated face of the problem is inter-organisational
rivalry and attempts to sabotage the works of each other. This manifests
in two forms: One, as a self-surviving, instrument and the other, as a
result of jealously and one-upmanship. Police in a region collude with
law-breakers of the region wherein the law-breakers restrain from
creating problems in the region in exchange for trouble-free life from
the local police. The criminals are allowed free to operate anywhere
outside the jurisdiction of the local police. The arrangements can other
passive or active. In a passive collaboration, police, do not actively
assit the law-breakers in their nefarious activities outside. Just that
the police knowingly shut eyes to the existence of the criminals in
exchange for the latter refraining from stirring water at their ponds.
Criminals in exchange for the latter refraining from stirring water at
their ponds. Criminals use the places for retreat and rest. They serve
as hiding places for the criminals. Criminals need such places of
retreat and rest to fall back after their activities outside. Bangalore
serves as such a retreat for most terrorist groups including Naxalites,
LTTE,ULFA,Kashmir separatist and radical Akali cadres. The terrorists
avoid striking anywhere in Karnataka and unnecessarily stirring the
police there. In return, Karnataka in general and Bangalore in
particular is used by them as a retreat for hiding, rest, medical care
and strategic meetings. Sivarasan, Subha and their associates hid in and
around Bangalore after assassinating Rajiv Gandhi. Naxalites are often
noticed taking medical treatment at various private clinics in
Bangalore. So also other terrorist groups. Local police avoid acting
against them unless compulsions dictate otherwise, so that dogs in
slumber are allowed to continue to sleep.
In an active collaboration, both the police and the criminals or one of
the parties actively assist the other. The police may assure and
actually provide protection from potential troubles. They may leak
intelligence about outside police organisations operating against. The
hors la loi on their part may use their criminal skills to the
advantages of the police in sabotaging the interests of the rival police
organisations apart from sharing the res gestae of their operations with
the police. The police may use the criminals to raise crime rate at
particular areas in the neighbourhood or create law and order problems
there for strategic benefits.
Even in case of cooperation and coordination as a state policy,
coordination may become a casualty in the absence of purposefulness and
commitment. The combined operations of Karnataka and Tamilnad police
often with the help of BSF in the forests of M.M. Hills region along the
Karnataka-Tamilnad border against forest brigand Veerappan is a point.
Nine years of combined operations yielded no results. Lack of
coordination among Karnataka and Tamilnad police is often stated as a
source of the glitch. Approach of the police of the two states to catch
the brigand is presumed to be at variance. Tamilnad is considered to be
relatively soft to the brigand while Karnataka, that lost many of its
officers and men to the guns of the brigand, is after his blood. Au
reste, absence of bureaucratic and operational coordination between the
police of the two neighbouring states and survives in his exploits sans
souci. As a strategy, he strikes inside the borders of a state and
escapes to the forests of the former state after striking inside the
borders of the other state. A perfect coordination between the police of
the two states should have made the operation easier and more feracious.
But, it is not to be the case. The game is going on and the police of
both the states are frustrated on end. The case of Veerappan clearly
shows that border areas where coordination between different police
units are called for for effective policing, are havens of criminal
operations. Absence of coordination in police makes it so.
Sabotage of mutual interest is not a problem confined to Indian police
only. It is a universal problem and manifested in the police of even
enlightened countries like the United States. There are instances
available of the CIA and the DIA, the intelligence brethren of the
United States government, trying to steal sensitive assests and useful
agents from each other’s furrow and undermining them when failed to win
over. Such instances in the police of other countries, however, do not
make them en regle in Indian police.
Lack of professionalism and single minded commitment to organisational
goals is the root cause of the problem. Absence of an institutional
machinery for affecting coordination and efforts to define the scope of
such a coordination adds to the problem. The so called border meeting
and occasional seminars and conventions are informal and far-between
measures on individual inspirations of a few, at best. In the ambience
of absence of the spirit of cooperation and coordination, such isolated
inspirations seldom make abiding impact, Mutual suspicion builds
barriers. The problem can be overcome by two methods; One devising an
institutional machinery for such cooperation and coordination between
different police organisations with a rider of making their use binding
in all relevant case. A compulsion brought about by law for cooperation
and coordination will go a long way in improving the situation. Second,
encouraging and cultivating the spirit of cooperation and coordination
in the police culture. Coordination at higher levels in key operations
and exposure of the lower levels to their success stories will bring
necessary changes in the psyche of the Indian police. Careful overhaul
of the selection process to absorb right people and a training programme
devised to strengthen the characteristics of coopertion and coordination
will go a long way in building an environment of cooperation and
coordination in Indian police. Work curlture in police force must
encourage it. Leadership qualities that realise cooperative and
coordinated efforts into reality and pave the the path for it, have to
be made the bedrock of policing and police character.
Indian police now is more a collection of splinter groups than a mosaic.
There is no rhyme or reason in their mutual relationships. Different
police forces do not match with each other. There is discord and
cacophony; no concinnous music. Each Police organisation in the tapestry
of Indian police works for its own end at its own wavelength, spawning a
picture of disorderly melange. How such a motley crowd can perform the
job of national interest together? The disharmony cost India a Prime
Minister and an ex-Prime Minister in the hands of assassins and terribly
suffered the country in the hands of the extremists of Punjab, Kashmir
and North-East. Dacoities are rampant. Threat to peaceful and orderly
life is prolate. Security is shaky. Crimes and steadily accrescent.
Commitment to professional policing is fractured. Public fund invested
on the police goes down the drains. The resurrection of Indian police
must be built on the foundation of cooperation and coordination between
diverse police forces to make concerted policing possible. A semblance
of unity in diversity in the mosaic of Indian police is the need of the
hour. A sense of belonging and oneness among all police forces is sine
qua non for effective policing. Unless this foundation is laid, the
edifice of Indian police is bound to crumble and collapse one day. No
attempts to resurrect Indian Police will ever succeed unless this basic
need is fulfilled. A fractured police setup as in India now is a
dangerous drain on the public exchequer with unimaginably huge money,
time, energy and work wasted by seepage through weak joints. Once this
problem of cooperation and coordination is fully attended to, the money,
time, energy and work saved are enough to take the police to the heights
unimagined before and infuse new life and vitality to it. Unfortunately,
no serious thought was given to this matter of utmost importance in the
last five decades of independence. It is high time now that Indian
leaders realise the bevue and make up for the lost time by giving their
full attention to this nonfeasance. Only that can save India and Indian
police from the present maelstrom.
Nature created woman different from man to her disadvantage to
bear male atrocities unless and until society in an enlightened mood
comes to her rescue. Atrocities against women are covered under
various sections of Indian Penal Code and a few special laws. Of
these, dowry death cases have become sensational topical issues with
public being highly sensitised to the menance. Investigation of dowry
death cases has special links with the science of forensic medicine
because of the special nature of the investigation taking place within
the
family circle without eye witnesses or even nonpartisan witnesses.
Inexact definitions and certain anomalies of Acts and Rules concerning
Dowry death investigation render investigation difficile. The loopholes
Need to be corrected. Marriage as the second birth in a girl’s life
brings
Adaptation problems with it. An integrated approach to these problems
Alone can bring deliverance to the fairer sex of the human genre.
Nature created women different from men with a definite purpose. Balance
is stillness and stagnation; imbalance is motion and progress. Nature
designed life and action by means of the imbalance brought about in the
traits of men and women. In the process, women find themselves at the
receiving end. They ended up as the weaker half of society by their very
nature and are naturally handicapped in a world of men, by men, for men.
In a world where strength commands charity and weakness receives
cruelty, a woman is at a great disadvantage. She has suffered all types
of cruelty and humiliation all along centuries with patience and in
silence. This part of woman is symbolised in tradition by calling her as
the Mother Earth who bears all sufferings. The cardinal principle of the
survival of the fittest applies to the weak, natural attributes of woman
which renders her less fit for survival than man. She must live at his
mercy and on his charity, silently bearing all his atrocities unless and
until society in an enlightened mood comes to her rescue.
The immane approach of the stronger world to its weaker counterparts has
to be countered with strong arm methods of the state power. In an
enlightened age such as this people in public life are sufficiently
sensitized to this issue and more and more legislation come up to stop
stronger people from riding over the weak and meek. India too has
several legislations that have become Acts to protect its women folk.
Atrocities against women in India are mainly rape and unnatural
offences, dowry deaths, abduction and kidnapping for various purposes
and outraging their modesty apart from minor acts like various marriage
offences, dowry and other harassments, insulting the modesty, causing
miscarriage without consent and prostitution. Most of these offences are
punishable under the Indian Penal Code : in sections from 375 to 377,
for rape and unnatural, offences, abduction and kidnapping girls for
various purposes being punishable in sections from 364 to 369, offences
related to marriage being subjected to penal provisions in sections from
493 to 498, outraging the modesty of a woman in section 354 and
insulting the modesty in section 509 being offences. Section 314 makes
causing miscarriage without women’s consent, a punishable act. The
Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1983 (No.43/83) provided for in camera
trial of rape cases and also enlarged the scope of rape cases by placing
the burden of proving innocence on the accused persons apart from making
penal sections more mordant, particularly in cases of custodial rapes by
public servants. The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and girls
Act 1956 with the Suppression on Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls
(Amendment) Act, 1986 and rules framed by states u/s 23 of the Act deal
with offences relating to immoral traffic in women and girls.
Dowry death cases have become sensational topical issues these days with
the public being highly sensitised to the menace of the offences with
the unfortunate swelchie of cruel practices and circumstances deliver an
innocent girl at death’s door. All institutions of society including the
government, press, women’s organisations, judiciary and police handle
dowry death cases on a special footing. Each such case outrages the
patience of thinking people and rouses passion and outcry against the
perpetrators of the offence. The police too give special importance to
the investigation of these cases and closely supervises the
investigation process. In the circumstances, an insight into the
investigation of dowry death cases and proper understanding of the
spectrum of challenges posed and how they are met is in the interests of
both the public and investigating officers. It must be borne in mind
that no investigation can succeed without public cooperation. And the
public, particularly people aggrieved by such unfortunate incidents, can
contribute to the progress of investigation of they have knowledge of
its due process. With this in view, salient features and parameters of
dowry death investigation are outlined in this work.
Investigation of dowry death cases has special links with the science of
forensic medicine because of the special nature of the investigation.
Dowry deaths are figuratively called bedroom deaths. In most cases, no
outsider including the investigating officer can have any knowledge
about the circumstances and events that led to the death. Secondly, the
offencers being the custodians of the dead body and the scene for many
hours after the death till they volunteer to make its occurrence known,
have all the time in the world to eliminate or tamper with any clues. In
the circumstances, the investigating officer is completely at the mercy
of medical experts to interpret the cause of death.
Often, the mode of death noticed, be it asphyxia, drowning, or burning,
may prove to be post-mortal ;ipso facto suggesting homicide in place of
suicide. Only forensic medicine can provide decisive proof to the
investigating officer.
The success of the investigating officer in investigating dowry death
cases largely depends upon forensic medicine experts. Sans proper
briefing from the latter, the investigating officer may not realise the
importance of noting the profusion of bleeding or marks of inflammation
in deciding whether wound is antemortal or not. Again, in a poisoning
case, the investigating officer may overlook the importance of recording
the time when the deceased ate last, how many hours thereafter the first
symptoms of poisoning were noticed, what were those symptoms and how
many hours thereafter death occurred. Thus, the interaction between the
investigating officer and forensic medicine experts is crucial to give
the investigation a direction.
Dowry death investigation has to address certain problems in the field
in collecting evidence and examining witnesses.
These offences take place within the family circle. Sometimes, though
blood relatives of the deceased volunteer evidence in the heat of
trauma, a gradual reconciliation would be the normal tendency.
Therefore, sound evidence is rarely forthcoming and difficult to
sustain. Dowry death being an offshoot of the relationship of wife and
husband and veiled in a shroud of secrecy, even the parents of the
deceased may be unaware of the hardships the deceased underwent at the
hands of her husband and his relatives in the process of the dowry
death.
If the investigating officer is lucky, he may succeed in collecting
some, evidence of cruelty. The next stage at which he would find himself
would be the girl’s death. There would be an absolute void in-between
with no clues or evidence of what happened or no eyewitnesses to vouch
for that , Clues on the dead body and surroundings are likely to be
tampered with by the offenders.
Investigations are witness-oriented. A dowry death case being primarily
a family affair, independent witnesses refuse to involve themselves. And
partisan witnesses are too polarised to be credible.
It is in these circumstances that investigating officers have to trace
witnesses, conduct purposive examinations and undertake directional
recording of statements after proper analysis of the offence and likely
charges.
The dowry death cases are offences primarily under central Acts namely
the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 with its amendments of 1984 and 1986 and
certain sections of the Criminal Procedure code, 1973 as amended by
Criminal Law ( 2nd Amendment) Act, 1983. In spite of attempts during
amendments to avoid ambiguities in some sections of the earlier Acts, it
is patent that there are still several louche terms that need
interpretation by the court. The term ‘ in connection with the marriage’
while defining dowry in section 2 of the Dowry Prohibition Act is
unspecific about the flexibility of the word ‘ connection’ and gives way
for its subjective interpretations as well as that of the term dowry. ‘
The same word ‘ connection’ brings in a similar impression while
defining ‘ dowry death’ in Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code and
Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act while declaring ‘ in connection
with demand of dowry’ ipso facto rendering the incatenation between the
offence of dowry death and dowry’ demand uncertain and open for
discussion. In the same sections, the phrase ‘ soon before her death’
raises the question, how soon before? Similarly, the words ‘ relative of
her husband’ that figure in Section 498A of the Criminal Procedure Code,
Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 113A of the Indian
Evidence Act in no way provide exactly what is intended to be defined;
the scope of the words there is too vast and includes even the blood
relatives of the deceased as they are also relatives of the husband
after the marriage. Another important term that defies full
comprehension is ‘ likely to drive’ in Section 498A of the Indian Penal
Code, where the word ‘like’ by its very meaning is indefinitive and open
for subjective interpretation. The scope for divergent interpretations
of these terms in the comparatively new acts do create problems during
investigation of the cases until convention assigns them definite
meanings.
Law by sections 113 (A) and 113(B) of the Indian Evidence Act relieves
the investigation of cases of death of girls within seven years of their
marriage from the special nature of difficulties by the reason of the
crime being committed in the intimate circle of the offenders. The law
provides that the court trying the case may presume that the accused
persons committed the offence if it is proved that the victim was
subjected to cruelty by the accused persons inter alia. The presumptions
made easy the investigation of these otherwise impossible cases.
While the presumptions under section 113(B) of the Indian Evidence Act
is applicable to prove dowry death cases u/s 304 (B) IPC, section 113
(A) is applicable to prove abetment to commit suicide u/s 306 IPC within
seven years of the marriage. The latter presumption benefits
investigation of cases while a girl commits suicide under harassment for
reason other than dowry also by her husband or in-laws within seven
years of the marriage while the benefit is available for cases of
suicide under the same circumstances and homicide for dowry reasons
under the same circumstances. This renders investigation of cases of
homicide of girls by husband and in-laws within seven years of marriage
which poses the same difficulties as suicide cases under the same
circumstances an impossible task and there are any number of such
homicide cases that were acquitted which would have been convicted by
the benefit of the presumptions u/s 113(A) of the Indian Evidence Act if
they were suicide cases. Amendment of concerned laws may be necessary to
avoid this loophole in law.
If the investigating officer adequately employs his common sense and
intelligence during the preliminary stage of the investigation while
examining the dead body and the scene and collects all incriminating
clues and evidences without restricting himself to the apparent cause of
the death, no criminal can fool him and deflect him from the right line
of investigation.
Marriage is often called the second birth in a girl’s life; it brings an
entire metamorphosis in the form and contents of her life and in the
process exposes her to inopinate adaptation problems. It is an irony of
nature and social customs that it is the girl who is delicate in nature
rather than the man who is selected for this difficile gauntlet of
transformation in the process of familial socialising. Per case, the
gentle and amenable character of the female breed expose her to the
natural selection for the purpose. In the process, death of the most
unfortunate of them by felo de se or homicide because of the grind of
the circumstances has become an unfortunate phenomenon. Dowry is only
one though primus interpares among various immane manifestations of
adjustment problems to which the tender psyche of a young girl is
exposed after her marriage. An integrated approach to all these symptoms
of adjustment problems to which a girl is suddenly exposed while her
persona is yet unprepared to meet the gauntlets alone can bring
deliverance to the fairer sex of the human genre. The entire process of
social legislations and their enforcement is only a distant link in the
whole catena of luctation warranted to achieve this end.
With liberalisation, the aboideau of scams and financial irregularities
is thrown open and Indian financial market is flooded with all
conceivable kinds of frauds, shady transactions and corrupt practices.
As long shadows of mixed economy receded from the four decade old sky of
the Indian Republic, the Indian economy is sweltering under the heat of
economic crimes. Not that economic crimes are new to human generation or
India; small fraudulent dealings were born with man and bound to
continue as part of his nature till the imbalance of supply and
consumption haunts his existence. What manifested is organised frauds to
loot the public its money by clever use of the financial environment and
the innocence of the hoi polloi; ill-conceived financial rules and laws
and slack financial practices and procedures evidently failed to carry
the weight of the liberalised economy. The people who were inured to
protected economy and state control cannot easily adapt to liberalised
economy where all sorts of worms and creatures creep, waiting to make
best use of the laissez-faire. Rules and laws being not tightened to
meet the challenges of the liberal atmosphere, unscrupulous elements
have a field day in playing with the public money either to
intentionally defraud or experiment in risky projects. The plans are
always mega-schemes running for hundreds or thousands of crores of
rupees of the gullible public. Corruption in government and public life
ease the process. Bribes play key roles in keeping rules, laws and
regulatory authorities shut. The sounding of finance minister,
Mr.P.Chaidambaram in June, 1977 after CRB scam came to light that law
enforcers must ruthlessly deal with economic offenders is too small
coming too late to have any meaning or impact on the atrophy already
set-in, in Indian economic labyrinth. The problem lies in the
liberalisation process having taken-off without adequate infrastructure
of checks and counterbalances to sustain it. Educating the public about
the nuances of a liberal economy and preparing them for the risks
immanent in the system as well as strengthening the reticulation of
rules, laws and law enforcing system to handle and control economic
crimes go a long way in keeping away the extant maelstrom and making
liberalisation a more relevant and meaningful direction to Indian
economy to pursue.
On closer scrutiny, it is obvious that Indian democracy and
administration are over-weighed with myraid rules, regulations, laws and
controls. The problem of India is their enforcement. What India needs is
efficient enforcement, and not more and more rules and laws. This is
true of Indian economy also. The need is desperately felt in the
atmosphere of liberalisation. Enforcement has two faces: preventive and
investigative. As far as preventive measures are concerned, the present
rules and laws are adequate to bring any financial operation to a
standstill. Slack, inefficient and casual enforcement process laced with
corruption makes economic activities possible in India. In the
atmosphere of liberalisation where economy is less regulated and
controlled with fewer rules and laws to tie the hands and legs of the
market forces, illegal activities find avenues to surface to the
detriment of the open market. Stringent enforcement of relevant rules
and laws to prevent illegal activities is the need of the hour. When
preventive machinery fails in its activities is the need of the hour.
When preventive machinery fails in its task, the investigation agency
comes to the force. When preventive measures collapse, the demands on
the investigating machinery increases to bring the hors la loi to book.
Demands per se do not meet the needs of efficient investigation.
Commitment to the job is one side of the need. The other side is the
skill of investigating economic offences.
Investigation of economic offences is a specialised job requiring
special skills far removed from the needs of investigating bodily
crimes. An investigator of economic offences has to be well versed in
the intricacies of financial transactions, the dynamics of the market
forces, rules and laws regulating and controlling the financial market
and the finer aspects of auditing and accounting apart from a sound
analytical disposition to interpret the data and evidences during the
process of investigation. He should command indefatigable patience to
scrutinise and interpret stacks of bills, vouchers, minutes, contracts,
balance sheets, audit reports, correspondences, records, registers and
other documents. It is a time consuming drudgery far removed from the
glamour attached to it.
A point central to both economic crimes and their investigation is the
willing cooperation and participation of several related agencies and
individuals in the operation. They call for group-work involving meeting
of mind and synergy towards the main goal. Symbiosis is the sacred hymn
of the operations. Indeed, there is a main player to whose initiative
and plan, all others contribute as and when required. Other constituents
in the play necessarily include key government agencies responsible for
regulating financial activities in the country and its key officials.
Large scale economic crimes need their cooperation in shutting eyes to
willful violation of inconvenient norms and regulations of financial
discipline and active connivance in issuing official favours against
rules to ease the passage of defrauding the public. Such constituents
may include commercial banks, the SEBI, The RBI, the Ministry of
Finance, any of the three credit rating agencies of the country, the
auditors who audit the company or all of them in synergy as in the CRB
scam. Other ministries and agencies involved in activities related to
financial matters may also form part of such fraudulent operations. As
CRB scam made explicit, non-banking finance companies form the spine of
such frauds on the gullible public.
Investigation of an economic crime must cover the role of these
agencies, the key officials involved and the mens rea, the quid pro quo
involved etc and support each fact with sound evidences. The work
necessarily requires willing cooperation of the agencies concerned to
provide related documents as evidence, interpret the meaning and
significance of these documents, explain the related practices,
procedures, rules and laws and provide inside information pertaining to
the commission of the fraud au reste volunteering to be witnesses to the
crime. The investigators require guidance from these experts about
evidences and the course of further investigation to build up the case.
This is a formidable job that cannot be handled by one investigator and
a handful of his assistants. An essential feature for the successful
investigation of an economic crime of large dimension is constitution of
a team of experts drawn from all related agencies to assist the
investigator.
Investigation of any economic crime cannot be fair and square unless the
investigation covers all aspects of the crime. Localised investigation
leads to unfair and partial justice. The aspect is popularly forgotten
in the investigation of scams and scandals in Indian environment.
Localised investigation limited to the main front-man of the fraud is a
simple job that can be completed in a short duration to everybody’s
satisfaction including the clever criminals and the guillible public
with only a paid front-man sacrificed in requital to the gain of
hundreds or thousands of crores of rupees. Such unfair investigation
suffers justice and financial discipline and encourage financial
institutions to connive in such frauds. The crux of the investigation of
economic crimes in tracing the end-users of the fraud and reaching the
persons responsible for planning and organising them. Rarely these
investigations in Indian environment reach the depth, nor touch the
government agencies and its key officers who willingly contributed to
the fraud for gain by commissions and omissions. It is a grave Achilles’
heel of the investigation of economic crimes in India.
In an intelligently planned, organised and executed megafraud, the big
fish always remains inconnu. It is only the little or sometimes
middle-sized fishes who act as the front for the main-players are
caught. It is so arranged in such frauds that all books and records
point only to the front-players; public contacts and media exposures are
designed to play up the roles of the front-players. The real players
remain at the background harmless even while the fraud comes to open. It
is only a few daring players who venture into risky financial operation
with honest intensions, do so in their own names and get caught while
their venture with the public money dooms. An investigator should be
familiar with these nuances of the crime. Another aspect is the
possibility of the grists made from the fraud being tucked away or
invested in some far away foreign countries. Swiss banks are only a tip
of the ice-berg. An investigation into economic crimes is incomplete
without a probe to this possibility. A corollary of this aspect is
violation of Foreign Exchange Regulations; thus FERA comes to picture,
Offences under Income-tax provisions is another side of the crime. A
mega-economic crime spreads it tentacles over myraid financial
enactments to involve independent investigations to the same crime by
different agencies au reste the investigation by the police. This leads
to gratuitous waste of time, manpower and energy by duplication of works
apart from creating problems of inter-agency coordination and
inter-agency rivarly. The fear of impinging on the limits of other
agencies prevents free and concerted investigation. The result is
shallow and peicemeal investigations by several agencies leading
nowhere. Solution to this problem lies in integrated single
investigation with the cooperation and active participation of the
concerned financial institutions as expert advisors in the investigation
team. Only such a holistic investigation can delve deep into the roots
of the crime and unearth the truth in its entirety as a means of
deterring recurrence of mega-frauds. No investigation into economic
offences is complete without the impresario of the fraud, however deep
be his cover, is brought to book and his gains, wherever it be stacked,
is unearthed. This is seld done in extant Indian investigation
situation.
Investigation of mega-economic crimes cannot be handled by all and
sundry investigators. Apart from investigation skill, they required
special attributes to lead that investigation to a successful end. For
one, they must have basic knowledge and familiarity of the goings on in
the financial world to help them understand the interpretations and the
explanations of the experts in the team about the complexities and
intricacies of the financial transactions of the crime. In the absence
of this basic familiarity, the investigators may appear like fishes out
of water in the maze of financial transactions leading to the crime.
These datas being often encoded and computerised for safety by clever
criminals, a splatter of knowledge of computer and software are helpful
to manage control over the process of the investigation. An essential
feature for a investigator of economic crimes is leadership qualities,
an ability to delegate and decentralise work, ability to trust right
people, inspire confidence, draw cooperation and ability to coordinate
the works of myraid agencies involved in the investigation to guide to
the desired end. Commitment to lead the investigation to successful end
and ability to work hard are other characteristics sine qua non for the
investigator.
A serious handicap of the investigation of economic offences is its slow
process. The reason is mental fatigue. Examination of loads of
documents, records and papers per se is a tiresome and time-consuming
labor. To crown it, the mental processes involved in sifting right and
relevant documents from the heap of papers, interpreting them, placing
in right perspective to the commission of the crime, assessing its value
in the overall process of the commission of the crime etc., are
extremely exhausting and tiresome job. It naturally retards the pace of
the investigation and the process taking years for completion is a
common spectacle. On the other side, time is central to the
investigation of economic crimes. Money rapidly multiplies with time in
form of profits of investments or interests on deposits. Delay of
investigation is in the interests of the criminals with this illgotten
money. Delay in investigation process helps criminals to multiply their
res gestae several times with the passage of time, ipso facto rendering
them huge gainers in terms of monetary benefits that easily off-set the
pains of trial and conviction in court, if any. Early completion of
investigation is vital for the cause of justice. Constitution of a team
of investigators including experts from various financial institutions
should be able to overcome the natural handicap of inordinate delays in
the investigation of economic offences.
A need of common sense in investigation of economic crimes is the
initiative of the investigator to make up the losses of the victims of
the fraud to possible extent by luring the criminals to a deal. Here
comes to picture the discreetness of the investigator in striking a deal
with the criminals selon les regles without jeopardising the process of
the investigation in any way. Investigation per se does not bring any
relief to the victims of the fraud as its value lies only as an
instrument of deterrence. Safeguarding the interests of the hapless
victims is the cardinal need in the circumstances au reste bringing
criminals to the book.
Huge money running to hundreds and thousands of crores of rupees is at
the centre of the investigation of scams and criminals are those who are
clever, influential and stacked with easy money. In the circumstances,
attempts to lure the invesigator from the rightful path of investigation
are a natural phenomenon. For the investigation to be successful, the
investigator should have immense inner strength to resist the lures and
stick to his professional path. It is said that every person has a price
; and meeting whatever price is no problem in the efforts to distract
investigators of mega-economic crimes from their commitment. In the
circumstances, selection of right people as investigators becomes a key
decision in the success or otherwise of the investigation.
The tendency of soft-pedalling the role of financial institutions in the
commission of economic crimes for whatever reason is a serious Achilles
heel in the investigation of such crimes for the simple reason that
lapses by these agencies create a framework for the crimes. No large
scale frauds against the general public is possible without these
agencies responsible for the financial discipline of the country
willingly ignore violations of financial norms and regulations and offer
favours against rules and laws of the financial discipline to the
criminals engaged in the frauds. The role of theses institutions in the
commission of the crimes is as grave as that of the main –players and
the impresarios of the fraud. The fact is forgotten in the investigation
of economic crimes in India. The result is lopsided and unfair
investigation which satisfies none let alone acting as a deterrent
against recurrence of such frauds. CRB scam is an example. Unless many
agencies responsible for financial discipline helped the the commission
of the fraud by the CRB capital markets by blatantly ignoring violations
of norms and regulations by the latter and unlawful favours, the
swindling of the public to that extent would not have been an easy feat.
The SEBI tolerated CRB managing scores of shady share issues and
permitted to start a mutual fund and a share custodial service. The SBI
opened its banking services to the company to encash interest warrants
and refund orders of the company from the public without adequate
security. Credit Rating Agency and IDBI’s subsidiary CARE gifted the
company’s fixed deposit programme, CRB caps a “A+” rating in spite of
the full knowledge of the liquidity problems and deteriorating assest
quality of the company after ICRA and CRISIL failed to oblige the
company. The auditors of the company ignored irregularities in the
company’s operations in the audit report. To top it all, the RBI turned
blind eye to massive irregularities noticed during inspection and issued
an in–principle banking licence as favour and even tolerated the company
raising money for its bank after the licence was withdrawn. In absence
of the synergy by various financial institutions of the country. CRB
Capital Markets just could not befool and defraud thousands of investors
to the extent it did, and struck gold. The key figures in these
financial institutions who helped CRB scam are as much responsible for
the scam as was Mr.C.R.Bhansail, the head of CRB capital Markets. Their
involvement gives an added dimension of conspiracy to the case. Law
which provides for the investigation of the case, treats all these
players of the conspiracy on equal footing. The exclusive attention of
the investigation agency on the CRB chief and his close associates to
the exclusion of other conspirators cannot be called en regle and bound
to shake the confidence of the public in the investigation.
This is not an isolated case of financial institutions prevaricating
from their raison d’ etre. Another top credit rating agency of the
country CRISIL failed to warn investors in advance about the poor
showing of ITC Classic Finance on the eve of the issue of NCD and fixed
deposit schemes of the company. For CRISIL, this was the second instance
within the short duration of a year after similar failure regarding
Mideast Shoes. The role of commercial banks infamous security scam is
too well known to be repeated here. Indian Bank scam is waiting on the
side-wings to blow up to a major scam. Ignoring the part of financial
institutions and other government agencies in mega-economic crimes is a
sure way of ringing the death-knell of the financial discipline of the
country. An investigation true to its profession must give primus to fix
these institutions for their irresponsible roles and connivance in the
scam. The responsibility of the main-player of a scam reduces to
insignificance before the filures, lapses and impacts of the connivance
of the players of these institutions on the financial market and public
life of the country. No honest investigation can afford to leave the key
figures of these institutions out of the field of investigation.
Distractions like strikes and protests by the colleagues of the
offenders in the institutions as in the case of suspension of the
officials of the Bombay Branch of the State Bank of India for complicity
in CRB scam should not deter a professional investigator from his
commitment. Corrupt colleagues flocking together to go on agitation to
protect one of them while caught is becoming a popular strategy of
scaring away the hands of law reaching them. A few years back, central
customs and excise staff of Delhi international airport resorted to
agitation to protect a few corrupt colleagues from the CBI net,
Recently, air traffic control staff went on agitation while some
inefficient of them were suspended from service for grave dereliction of
duty. Very recently, arrest of public servants in Bihar fodder scam was
deferred by the CBI for the fear of creating law and order problems. A
turly professional investigator should not be deterred by such
extraneous developments in his resolve to unearth the truth. This is ore
so in case of the investigation of economic crimes for the simple reason
that the money involved in such crimes in capable of buying anything
under the sun and creating any situation to the advantage of the
criminals.
Crimes are committed either out of passion or for gain, if not by
accident or negligence. Economic crimes constitute a major and important
block of the crimes for gain. Economic crimes against the gullible
public and the financial system of the country assume dangerous
dimensions because of the magnitude of the crimes, their impact on the
financial discipline of the country, the losses and grief come with it
to the gullible public and the sense of the loss of credibility it
brings to the financial market. Professional and in depth investigation
to these scams is sine qua non for the growth and stability of the
economy of the country.
Policing, being a specialised job, remains an enigma to outsiders,
including administrators and the general public. Its status, somewhere
between the armed forces and the civil administration, renders its
structure, scope and style of functioning undefined in the monolith of
governance. This coupled with the prolate powers to cover all aspects of
living, has made the police an awful force to live with.
The situation is like one-way traffic wherein the police have a say on
every aspect of the life of the people while the latter hardly know
anything about the department. This has given the police the unique
advantage of dictating what should be what, where and how in policing
and the police organisation. This could be a boon if the right man sits
at the top. But, sycophants climb the ladder and reach the top to hold
the reins and guide the destiny of the police. The result is the Indian
police has got what it deserves-a spiritless culture created by
incompetent leaders.
It has been nearly five decades since independence. The standard
expected and observed in the police at the dawn of independence is no
more. Belatedly though, it has been realised that self-rule does not
mean fraud and tyranny and that the cabals of compatriots are no less
pernicious than that of the aliens. Forty eight years is a long enough
period to realise the need to break away from the webs of corruption in
independent India. India and the Indian police thus stand at a
crossroads.
Policemen are social doctors and policing is a surgical operation to
systematically remove cancerous growths from the body of society. What
if the band of doctors itself is infested with serious malignant
growths? This is the position of the present day Indian police. The
police, as the enforcers of law and protectors of public interests,
wield tremendous powers. Such powers must be invested only in people of
high probity and conscience. Otherwise, the powers will ruin the social
fabric of the country and usher in anarchy. Powers to search, seize,
remove, detain, direct, arrest, hit and even kill may prove pernicious,
if trusted to wrong hands.
How these powers are exercised depends on the work ethics of the
organisation. It is those in an organisation who build up its job-
culture and vice versa. Even a degenerate character turns honest and
efficient in an honest and efficient environment. The work-culture
builds and moulds the vitality to meet the general atmosphere around.
Also, an honest and efficient person in a degenerate culture is bound to
change sooner or later, unless his individual strength conquers the
vitiating work-culture of the organisation. Building up a proper
job-culture is, therefore, the bedrock of a proficient police
organisation.
The problem of the Indian police lies in a lack of understanding of the
scope and ground rules of its 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. This,
unfortunately, is accepted by all strata of people. The Indian police
never recognises the equality of all and the need to provide security to
all citizens of India. Whether it is in matters of protection,
maintenance of order, crime control or investigation, the standards of
policing applied to a nameless poor farmer in a remote village and say,
a former Prime Minister, both of whom have equal rights before the law
and the Constitution, do vary.
The point is not that the principle of equality should defy ground
realities, but policing must have a reasonable set of standards within
which the more important and the less important aspects must operate. It
will not be so in India until people who place their personal interests
beyond everything, including law, justice, fairness, objectivity,
righteousness, career pride and professional interests, hold the reins
at the highest levels of the department.
There are two types of approach to policing:
a. The playful approach wherein the police, as players in a football
game, play
the game within the scope of the ground rules to have the ball inside
the goalpost without committing a foul. Here, the game is played
dispassionately and played because the members are paid to do so.
b. The passionate approach wherein the police break all rules and laws
that come
in the way to make their task a success. They may even commit crimes in
the
process.
The Indian police oscillate between these two disparate approaches,
depending on for whom they work and what would be their personal gain
ultimately. Only a few people with money and power to back policing of
the passionate genre deserve the passionate approach. Others must remain
contented with the ‘ playful approach’. A dignified police organisation
should shun both attitudes. The former is against the tenets of
professionalism and commitment to work. The latter, in spite of its
commitment to its goals, is devoid of objectivity, fairness and justice.
For, policing by criminal methods cannot be called professional
policing.
The right approach to professional policing is a synthesis of both the
approaches in which the commitment to achieve goals respects the rules
and laws of which the police 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 in 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
maturity of professional commitment extending equal attention to all the
needy, irrespective of their stature, wealth and position in society.
The state of human relations in Indian police does not bring credit to
the organisation. The relations are brittle and mechanical without a
human touch. The relation between different ranks are soft or hard
depending upon the nature of their jobs and mutual advantage. 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 fo recognition of the other man as another human being. The
other’s human qualities and talents are dismissed as inconsequential
trash. This is equally true among officers of the same rank and has led
to an atmosphere of mutual suspicion in spite of an outward show of
belonging to the single family that the police is.
The police chiefs must think hard to decide whether the current model of
human relations in the police is conducive to healthy policing or not. A
sound police organisation thrives on sound human relations between and
within ranks, sustained by genuine concern, mutual respect, recognition,
sympathy and understanding. Such relations do not perforce go against
police discipline and the official command-obedience functions. Instead
a sense of belonging and unity of purpose are cultivated. The
hierarchical order only defines the relations created in the minds of
the people. Good relations strengthen the hierarchical order by making
the order willingly acceptable to all and thus facilitating its working.
A subtle mental bond that links all men in an organisation is its
greatest asset. A sense of recognition from others coupled with the
pride of belonging creates a happy atmosphere in the organisation and
improves efficiency and output.
Sadly this is just the reverse in the Indian police. Here, human
relations are vitiated. Mutual suspicion and antagonism are the rule.
Men in higher ranks revel in hurting the pride of the subordinates while
the latter wait for the right time to settle scores. In this atmosphere
of hostility and under-cuttings, the organisation and its objects
suffer, all its people suffer and the country suffers. This is where
India stands at present.
The success of a police organisation depends on its ability to create a
sense of pride and dignity in its members including the constabulary, so
that they consider 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, rewards, praise, good treatment,
respect, censure or punishment has been earned by him. This is a far cry
from what is actually happening in India. Good work is seldom
recognised. Every job is done as a personal favour. Medals and citations
are divested of their distinction by being linked to seniority and not
merit That is why medals carry no meaning within the organisation.
What the 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 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. The police
does stand on a different footing from the general public but that
status is based on trust, respect, love and a healthy awe, not, fear and
hatred. It is healthy awe that inspires in citizens genuine cooperation
and willing subjection to police authority.
Police is not synonymous with fear. A smiling and helpful police force
is a salient feature of democracy. The police is not the enemy of the
people, especially in democracy. Policing involves enforcement of order
for the good of many which may sometimes mean inconvenience to a few.
The job, if performed right, must win the trust, love and respect of the
masses. The misuse of power and a supercilious approach will alienate
the common man and earn his hatred. The exercise of police powers with
absolute humility is quite possible. An approach of service to the
general public renders the exercise a sensible and delicate task and
avoids harshness. It is up to the police to show its good intentions and
convince the public about its trustworthiness. Nothing the Indian police
does now will help to create this image. It is time serious efforts were
made in this direction.
The situation can be salvaged by clearing the cobwebs. There is a bunch
of self-motivated officers in key positions in the police who have
contributed to the downslide of the Indian police in the post-democratic
era. They have corrupted the police atmosphere, set wrong precedents,
encouraged self-indulgence eroded its tough image and reduced it to its
present cadaverous existence. These elements should be sidelined to make
way for men of probity to refurbish and rebuild the setup.
The future of India depends upon the strengths and weaknesses of its
police. Defence forces are relevant to the existence of India in so much
as defending its borders and protecting its system of government. But
the relevance of the police is more meaningful, for, here, the very
existence of India as a nation is at stake. The significance of the
police is often forgotten somewhere between the width of civil
administration and the depth of the defence forces.
The police must be powerful. It must be a disciplined and committed
force. 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 can function
as an armed force if the military fails. The importance of this great
tool of governance is yet to be recognised. It is time Indian police is
given a fresh lease of life of vitality and strength. 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 cat to bring it to
its senses?
The police, with their links with politicians on the one hand and
With criminals on the other, have become the protectors of vested
Interests with no more commitment and passion for law and justice.
People are more and more disillusioned with the extant political
Institutions. The percentage of the electorate that takes the trouble
of going to polling booths to cast votes is steadily decreasing from
election to election.
In a blinkered system like ours, where power and wealth are the ultimate
virtues and where power and wealth in themselves stimulate mutual
growth, to the exclusion of all other dimensions of life it is no wonder
that the people of this poor country succumb to the trappings of power
and wealth at the cost of all virtues, values, pride, dignity and human
decency.
In an increasingly competitive and complex world, where every day, more
mouths are added to share limited resources, where the principle of the
survival-of-the fittest operates to its logical end and where the basic
needs of survival and decency can be assured only with power and wealth,
people naturally go all out to ramp the ladder of power and wealth by
whatever means and cost.
JUSTICE, A CASUALTY
In the process, justice and morality become casualties. Criminality too
raises its ugly head as an instrument to achieve otherwise impossible
objectives. This is how politics and crime knit together in the fabric
of Indian public life.
The story of the police is somewhat different. As an important part of
the nation’s administration, the police enjoy tremendous power over vast
fields of human activities with responsibilities towards the life and
death of the hoi polloi as well as dignitaries. In this sense, the
police are the cutting edge of the State power and its ultimate bearer.
No power can be its own law without the police on its side as an
executioner and loyal watch dog. This is why politicians in their
activities feel the need for wooing the police to their side.
The police of independent India have become, by reason of their failing
strength of character and talent, easy prey to the power baits of smart
politicians.
Their greed, unsound social background, lack of commitment to good
values and failure to comprehend police virtues in the right
perspective, make them willing partners in whatever politicians do, or
intend to do. They refuse to look beyond their political masters and
their dispensations of job favours.
So law, justice, righteousness, professional ethics, morality decency,
human dignity, the common good of people, national interests and even
conscience-otherwise common to any human being-have become invalid
nonsense to them
The police, sans sound character and personal integrity, are no more
than country dogs. This is what the Indian police have become in free
India. The politicians, inebriated with new power, smartly brought these
weaklings to absolute submission and held them on a tight-leash to be
their personal watch dogs and personal gendarmes-in-requital for
favourable job placements, undue promotions and other largesse from time
to time.
Nothing is valued higher than this largesse and its dispensers by the
new police of India. It is how the police were involuted in the
conspiracy against decent public life of India.
It was a hop and skip for the police from the ugly world of politics to
the mysterious world of crime and the underworld. The police have become
a weapon of politicians to bring about the subjugation of the crime
world to use its resources for political ends.
FALL OF CHARACTER
Politicians, thus, made good use of the decreasing strength of character
of the police in forging a nexus between the police and criminals in the
furtherance of their own ends.
With a weak spine and no principles in the face of odds, the police are
only too pleased to follow in the footsteps of their political masters.
In these changed circumstances, discipline and subordination, which form
the basic connecting link of the police hierarchy, have lost all
meaning, and are interpreted as blind subservience to those who have
power to serve personal interests.
And politicians easily led the police to the despicable cul-de-sac of
the nexus with criminals-the very people who are supposed to be
controlled and brought to book for antisocial activities.
With politicians as the custodians of power en arriere to support, the
police plunged lock, stock and barrel into the lucrative crime world;
the resulting wealth and comforts were in no way less sweet than the
hard earned money of law-abiding society.
This is how one nexus between the police and crime world was
established.
Whom should we blame for this hapless position? Certainly not the
politicians or their auxiliaries like criminals and police who are the
unfortunate by-products of the grind. They are created by the situation
arising from a system which misfits the people for whom it was devised.
The blame lies either on the Indian people who are unresponsive to the
democratic system evolved for them. Because of their unenlightened and
venal conscience, which is so insensitive that virtues like honesty,
service, patriotism, quality and excellence can make no dent in it at
all; or it lies with the political system devised for them. It failed to
take their psychological make-up into account, and ispo facto led to the
problem of maladjustment in national life.
Otherwise, how can we explain criminals and goondas winning elections
with impunity, even while rioting and murders were committed at their
behest on the eve of elections itself? The fact is that the chance of
winning an election often is pro rata to the aura of a tough image built
around the candidate.
IMMATURE ELECTORATE
It is these people who win elections and rule this country. It is these
people whom the Indian electorate prefers to vest with powers to
safeguard their interests!
Obviously, the Indian electorate lacks the far sightedness and vision to
understand the consequences of its irresponsible decision.
It is yet too immature to take decisions about the interests of the
nation and see how national interests are closely linked to its personal
interests. It is yet to broaden its perspective to include the life of
the nation as an integral part of its own.
Long –term and rational decisions are alien to its nature. Immediate
selfish interests and parochial outlook continue to be the driving force
of all its actions and decisions- on the matters of national importance
or personal concern.
In most parts of India, it is money, arrack, sari, threat, fear of
landlords or the blazening propaganda of a candidate that influence its
decision as to whom to vote for.
How can the future of this country be safe in the hands of such an
electorate and its elected leaders?
How can an indifferent and irresponsible electorate provide honest and
efficient leadership to the nation?
This weakness of the electorate has ultimately left Indian politics in
the hearth of violence and manipulative extortions, with the instruments
meant to protect them mowing the field. Saner elements in politics, who
found survival difficult, have left the field, giving way to elements
which are more suited to the field.
It is how politics, from a class of dedicated and virtuous leaders, has
become a pit of junk. The credibility, which is the pith of any
political life, is the biggest casualty in Indian politics.
People are more and more disillusioned with the extant political
institutions. The percentage of the electorate that takes the trouble of
going to polling booths so cast votes is steadily decreasing from
election to election.
It is an open secret that an election is an opening for a candidate to
invest money to reap wealth, comfort and power for the next 5 years. And
how he reaps the wealth, comfort and power is again not a mystery at
all. It is corruption and misuse of public money.
If he is ambitious and intends to promote his career interests, there is
no way out in the existing system but to resort to pulling strings and
pursuing other more deadly methods. Often with the active collusion of
the officious criminals and police.
The unhealthy nexus often leads to and facilitates other forms of crime.
Cases of rioting, assault, kidnapping, rape and blackmail, involving the
supporters or relatives of politicians, criminals and police in
futherance of a political cabal are other usual forms of crime that
result from the vicious nexus.
Often, criminals and police are employed to create disturbance or
inspire sensational crimes in furtherance of political goals. The losses
of life and property involved in the wily schemes seldom touch the
conscience of either the politicians, the criminals or the police who
are responsible for these dastardly acts.
The political patronage and the nexus with police desensitise criminals
to the process of law and justice. They are emboldened to commit more
daring and ruthless crimes that endanger the life and property of the
plebeians.
The police, in their links with politicians on the one hand and with
criminals on the other, are in their new avatar-the protectors of vested
interests with no more commitment and passion for law and justice.
They have become a discredited force, a willing instrument of power
brokers in the ruthless and violent cabal of power-games with no heart
for the common man and common cause.
This is the requital the Indian electorate gets for letting by its
nonchalance and irresponsibility-the political system putrefy.
POLITICISATION OF CRIME.
What we see today is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more things
hidden in the latter than are seen.
This is soon realised by the opportunist Indian politicians who seize
the first available instance to enlist the support of criminals and
underground operators for their nefarious designs.
This, in turn, is a god–sent opportunity for criminals to restore their
lost credibility and social standing with the help of their association
with the custodians of power, apart from the security and protection
from the police that ensure from the association.
They promptly grab the opportunity to their advantage and show how
useful they can be to politicians in their career-promotion designs and
in the wreaking of personal vendettas.
The experience and professionalism of criminals come in handy to
politicians to execute their nasty operations without attracting the
stigma attached to them.
The vast army of criminals has become ready resource for them to use
whenever need arises. This has given a sense of confidence and security
to politicians, who are otherwise vulnerable in their highly uncertain,
challenging and competitive environment.
Often, politicians have so much relied on criminals that the latter have
become their most trusted lieutenants, even getting elected to
legislature with their help and blessings.
There have been instances in India, where prominent politicians have
refused to disown their notorious criminal friends in public even after
reaching the vortex of their political career. This shows the sway held
by criminals over politicians in the Indian situation.
It is a fact that no syndicate of organised crime in small and big
cities anywhere in the world can survive even for a day without
political patronage. Ergo, all syndicates of organised crime and their
menace are the direct outcome of the nexus between politicians and
criminals, with the police as bystanders.
No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running
his crime syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses,
narcotics dealers or plain hoodlums, the only way to survive is to have
comfortable political protection at the right levels.
MUTUAL ADVANTAGE
The crime syndicate, in return, pay a good percentage of their criminal
gain to the protectors. Thus, it is an arrangement to mutual advantage.
The crime world also provides hoodlums as volunteers to perform
challenging tasks during the election campaigns of their political
patrons, apart from liberally financing these campaigns.
How can a politician, after gaining power with the help of a criminal,
ever let down the criminal? This symbiosis of politicians and criminals
which has emerged from the extant Indian political system. Is the root
cause of all the complications discussed until now.
The very fact that politicians are prepared to risk their reputation
rather than distance themselves from the crime world, shows how highly
the world of crime is regarded by the politicians in their scheme of
things.
Politics and crime have become the 2 faces of the same coin in the
present state of affairs and a saying goes that there cannot be politics
without crime and no crime without politics.
In the present Indian situation, it is true that the lotus of politics
can blossom only in the offal of crime.
In an atmosphere where placements and transfers are decided by the needs
and wishes of self-seeking politicians, no police can efficiently
function nor can they be free from the interference of the politicians.
It is not surprising that hungry politicians grab more and more powers
that are legally and traditionally invested with the police department
when the top brass lack strength of character and conviction.
The leads to a position wherein the police department becomes a
chessboard on which politicians move their pieces to checkmate their
adversaries and win the political game.
In other words, the police sans effective leadership is becoming more a
handmaid of politicians by moving away from its sacred role as the
guardian of law and justice and the protector of the common man.
The credit of bringing the police from their height of power to the
present level of absolute submission should go to the superior strength
of personality of wily politicians who have bent the police on their own
terms with the selective use of stick and carrot.
The police is not the real police and what is does is not policing in
the proud sense of the term.
CHANGED ROLE
With the increasing involvement of the police with crass politicians,
the conception of the police about their own role has undergone a
large-scale change. No more do the police look at crime control and
maintenance of order as their first duty.
With this, the concern for crime control has received a setback and
crime control and investigation have receded to the last priority-except
when politicians are interested in them for a specific purpose.
Only crimes that disturb politicians foment police to galvanic and
meaningful action. Other crimes receive no priority.
The very definition of the gravity of crime is adapted to suit the new
conception. Those crimes which are tolerated by politicians are no more
crimes.
The self-image of the police as “a fearless arbiter of crime” is changed
to a solicitous servant in attendance at the pleasure of a
politician-master.
This blunting of the crime card of the police has made it less
awe-inspiring and less deserving of respect from the criminals.
The police have more and more realised that criminals, particularly
those from organised syndicates, are personal friends of their political
masters and they are no match for the criminals in terms of wealth,
influence and social standing. The men of the police see those criminals
on equal footing with their political masters and learn to treat them
with awe.
They find it absurd to act with authority against the high-profile
criminals who are too high for the small stature of the police.
It is unfortunate that the police of today have never realised their
infinite stature as law-enforcing agents vis-à-vis all others including
criminals and politicians whom they are empowered to search, arrest and
take to court if they deviate from rightful path.
Sadly, the trifling wealth and the concomitant “ big-man” image of
others appear to the present police as more appealing than their own
awful police authority.
On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living beings
are criminals in varying degrees. Criminal thought is a part of the
natural function of a healthy mind as is the moral restraint that
prevents the criminal thought from being acted upon.
External restraints brought about by the fear of law, custom and adverse
reaction, reinforce the inner restraint to prevent the committing of
crime.
However, as the force of external restraints weakens for diverse
reasons, and the proporation of gain to be made in committing a crime
outweighs the risks involved in the balance sheet of the operation, the
lure of crime increases and the deed is accomplished.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE
It is the social situation which controls the external restraints to
make committing a crime an asset or a liability. It thereby decides the
proliferation or suppression of crime, human nature being what it is
always.
Criminals are criminals because society gives them easy openings to thus
meet their needs. Politicians love to befriend criminals rather than
bring them to book because the society they live in makes their lives
more comfortable with criminals as friends rather than as adversaries.
Policemen find the crime world sweeter because it is how things stand
for them.
The remedy for the proliferation and endearment of crime lies in
changing the social dynamics to make crime a liability to criminals and
criminals a liability to politicians and the police. In the existing
nexus of politics, crime and police, crime is an asset to criminals and
criminals are an asset to politicians and police.
Criminals should not be construed as a separate block of citizenry. They
are a cross-selection of people from all fields of life who have moved
beyond a commonly accepted degree in their criminal tendencies.
Criminality may be prolific in certain civilised fields like commerce
and industry in the form of tax evasion, violation of foreign exchange
regulations, hoarding etc.
Such crimes are generally not taken seriously in spite of the public
awareness of the crimes and the social standing of the criminals remains
unaffected. Government servants too come under this category of
criminals because of rampant corruption in public life.
The appointment of the CBI chief has to be a professional,
not political, decision. This power must be taken away from
the Central Government.
The last decade of the century sees the CBI becoming the Indian version
of the FBI under J.Edgar Hoover in the middle of the century-with one
difference. The FBI became a key component and feared public institution
through Hoover’s open aggression, while its Indian version gained
eminence by the open, meek submission of its spineless Director to his
political masters. This naturally alerted the otherwise somnolent
judiciary and the result is the proactive judiciary of today. The CBI,
with cases against political leaders stacked on its shelves, under the
nose of the proactive judiciary, had no option but to steadfastly
discharge its responsibilities. So the CBI started working, and shed its
vulnerability to the political class.
The CBI is the premier investigative agency of India. Naturally, it must
command the best brains in the country and should have wide-ranging
powers. It must have adequate leadership, marked by exemplary personal
attributes like probity and professionalism. But are these needs met by
the CBI at all?
The seventh schedule of the Constitution brings police and public order,
except for deployment and use of forces of the Union, under the State
List, and criminal law, criminal procedure, administration of justice
and judicial proceedings under the Concurrent List. However, it
specifically lists the CBI under the Union List. The legal basis of the
CBI is provided by a short six-section Act of 1946 titled the Delhi
Special police Establishment Act, 1946, which provides for the
constitution of a special police force by the Centre for the
investigation of notified offences in any Union Territory and in any
area in a state where jurisdiction of the police force is extended by
the order of the Centre, with the consent of the state government.
The last section of the Act specifies that the force has no jurisdiction
in any are in a state without the consent of its government. The force
enjoys all the powers, duties, privileges and liabilities of the police
officers of an area in connection with the investigation of offences
committed in that area.
A premier investigative authority invested with powers extended to all
areas is a sine qua non for maintaining the rule of law. Naturally,
police and public order provisions under the State List cannot meet the
needs of a central agency. Hence the enactment of the Delhi Special
Police Establishment Act 1946, as a prelude to the constitution of the
CBI and its inclusion in the Union List.
But sadly, the CBI does not measure up. The dependence on state
clearance is a great handicap. We have seen umpteen number of states
providing and withdrawing consent to the CBI depending on political and
parochial conveniences. This is a dangerous trend that renders CBI
functions and jurisdiction subject to political manoeuvring, and lowers
its images. The result is the growing criminalisation of politics. The
remedy lies in spreading the tentacles of the CBI, by law, to every area
of the country, with blanket powers to investigate all classes of
offences.
The Act provides for the appointment of the head of the CBI by the
Centre. Considering the importance of the CBI, it is natural to wonder
whether the choice ought to be dictated by the politicians in power. The
question is of immediate significance because of degraded political and
public morality, and fragile coalition governments. The appointment of
the CBI chief has to be a professional, not political decision. This
power must be taken away from the Central Government, to bring all on
par, deprive the party in power of an unfair advantage and give the CBI
some credibility.
There is no alternative to trust, even in the current atmosphere of
degraded values in building an institution. Fides punica leads nowhere.
So also in the appointment of the CBI chief. The solution lies with the
judiciary, whose members are assumed to be nonpartisan.
The CBI should be subjected to the supervision of a statutory panel
constituted of men of the law, acting as advisors to the agency. The
panel has to be invested with powers to appoint and remove CBI chiefs,
on the basis of performance, at its collective discretion. It should
advise the CBI on whether a case merits investigation and decide on
arrests, searches, seizures, bail and chargesheets. Its advice has to be
statutorily binding. The panel has to be free to monitor the process and
pace of investigation and must constitute a statutory part of the CBI at
the highest layer.
The panel may consist of a dozen senior retired judges of the Supreme
Court as permanent members, with one among them chosen as chairman on
the basis of seniority, and the CBI chief as member-secretary. The
membership of the panel must come to the senior most retired judges,
including retired chief justices, as a matter of right, unless an
eligible candidate opts out in writing or is incapacitated by age or
illness, ratified by a two-thirds majority in the panel. By the same
majority, the panel, may force out one of its extant members in the
interests of justice. The panel may monitor and take decisions on cases
as a full panel or constitute sub-panels with the CBI chief as
member-secretary for each. However, only a full panel with a minimum 80
per cent quorum can decide by simple majority on the appointment and
removal of CBI chiefs and decide on deputations, promotions and
transfers of officers of and above the rank of Assistant Director, and
assess their work.
The panel’s functions, privileges, rights, liabilities and
responsibilities have to be clearly defined to statute to avoid clashes
with the main body of the CBI. An amendment is the first step, followed
by the constitution of the panel. And the third and most crucial step
will be administrative measures to ensure that the panel discharges its
responsibilities with commitment. Due recognition and an atmosphere free
of bureaucratic pressures will help the members discharge their
responsibilities properly. Life membership, barring contingencies, will
help them to be true to their conscience.
The CBI is the spine of the criminal justice system, and a shattered
spine leads to umpteen complications. The derailment of the CBI is
reflected in public life, in political uncertainty. It is an irony that
the situation created by a weakling CBI led to circumstances wherein it
is in a position to dictate terms up political parties. The CBI is
metamorphosing into a Frankenstein’s monster. This is not in the
interests of the CBI, the country or its criminal justice system. The
sooner out leaders realise the gravity of the situation and infuse new
life in the CBI by amending the Act, the better.
India wanted its All India Services of the post-independent era to break
away from the British legacy and as a first step altered the names of
the services. It is an irony that the process led to and marked a
dilution of quality. The present Indian Administrative Services is not
even a poor shadow of the old Indian Civil Service; nor does the Indian
Foreign Service bears a resemblance to the Indian Political Service; and
the present Indian police service lacks the vigour of the good old
Indian Police.
The old All India Services was built on the tripod of faultless
selection and recruitment, perfect training and exposures to the highest
standards of professionalism and character to sustain it throughout.
But, new India just failed to give these factors the importance they
deserved.
Reasons for this deterioration are many. The first is inherent lack of
passion for quality and excellence. The agency incharge of selections,
the Union Public Service Commission, is manned by people unequal for the
task either in their professionalism, efficiency, passion for brilliance
or basic character, How can the process be reversed?
Merciless pruning of the extant services to create a compact and highly
responsible core of administrative potentialities to handle a few
sensitive key positions in the colossus of the administration is needed
now. Nothing short or brilliance and highest potentiality to handle the
affairs of the country should find a place in the wing that is
responsible for constituting the nerve-centre. The administration must
be kept beyond the purview of extraneous constraints such as reservation
of any kind and even age restrictions by way of multiple point entries
for different age groups. The guiding principle here is drawing the best
talents from whatever sources without restraints of any kind for the
best results. The services should not be treated as an employment
opportunity to the elite, but as the foundation and pillars of the
government.
HUMAN RESOURCE
The basic source of manpower for these services has to be boys and girls
below the age of 16 years who have completed secondary education. The
selection must be made part of the final secondary examination. The UPSC
must be made responsible for grooming those recruited. The commission
must handle their further academic studies at the government’s expense
for the next seven years to meet the demand of the services.
Identifying the best talents of the country at higher age groups has to
be the goal of the Establishment Cell created within the UPSC on the
lines of the Establishment Officer of the Home Department of the British
Raj. The cell must get busy scouting for best talents from whatever
source for direct absorption to the All India Services at the
appropriate levels after initial training. Outstanding professionals,
technocrats and creative minds of proven calibre can be the candidates.
Every recruit has to be put in independent charge of a subordinate job
for two years under the supervision of a competent senior officer. His
performance in this sphere must from a vital ingredient in the annual
assessment. The trainee must be judged at every stage at different
levels to decide his or her suitability for various jobs.
Five years of regular service after the field training must pave the way
for the first promotion. This must function as a natural filtering
process as those fit should be promoted in the mainstream while others
get elevated to higher ranks in the related subordinate departments to
man posts covered under the Central Services.
Mr.B.K.Nehru, in his memoirs “ Nice Guys Finish Second” refers to an
incident in 1950s wherein the then Finance Minister T.T.Krishnamachari,
asked the chairman of the Central Board of Revenue to show him a
particular income-tax file. The latter refused point blank on the ground
that the law did not allow it. While he agreed that T.T.K. was his
superior, he contended that he himself could see the file as the chief
of the Income-Tax Department while TTK could not as he was not directly
involved with the department. India needs such spirit.
While the Ministers must lay down objectives and policies, their
secretaries must formulate programmes including drafting appropriate
laws and rules to channel the government objectives and policies. The
onus of implementation of the programmes must be left to the departments
concerned.
India, in the pre-independent years needed brilliant people to handle
its administration. British India, with all its brilliant ideas and
administrative wisdom, created the All India Services. It recruited
brilliant people for the services, imparted the best possible training
to them, exposed them to the highest standards of the profession and
presented them the best of trust, powers and opportunities to carry out
their responsibilities. The Government took care of all their personal
needs, provided them with many opportunities for growth and bestowed on
them a halo of invincibility.
The training programmes for the services should be relevant to the time
and highly advanced in content. Subjects taught have to be updated every
year by experts and made challenging even to the brightest among the
members of the services unlike present training programmes which are
intellectually impoverished, irrelevant to the time and do not help tune
attitudes to higher levels. Another need is making the promotional tests
mandatory and of a high standard. Overhauling the present mediocre Union
Police Service Commission to create an efficient and responsible set-up
capable of handling the enormous responsibilities under Article 320 that
compels attention to arrest the degeneration set in, in the set-up that
led to blunders in identifying talents and managing the services.
CREDIBILITY OF THE UPSC
A recent case is from Karnataka where three promising officers from the
state cadre were denied selection by the UPSC to an All India Service
for no obvious reason for ten years from 1990 while their juniors scored
the elevation. The acute frustration and demoralisation caused led to
the break-up of family life of one of the promising trio and subsequent
divorce, repeated violent behaviour by him in public leading to public
humiliation and ultimately involvement in a murder case ending in his
arrest and conviction.
The answer to unprofessional transgressions by the UPSC lies in
transforming it to a highly professional outfit managed by people of
unimpeachable character, efficiency responsibility. The objective can be
achieved by suitable amendment to Articles 316 and 317 to ensure that
only right and sensible people become members and chairman of the
organisation and remain in the saddle only till they retain their moral
and professional calibre.
This can be made possible by the constitution of a committee comprising
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chief Commissioner of Central
Vigilance Commission and Speaker of Parliament as members and the
Vice-President of India as the Chairman to clear the names for
appointments as members and chairmen of the UPSC for a fixed tenure and
initiate actions for their removal by an appropriate procedure in fit
cases. Changes to this effect in Articles 316 and 317 plug the loopholes
in the existing provisions that provide too much scope for political
interferences in the selection of members and chairman of the UPSC.
All –India Services as the nerve-centre of the administration has to be
made responsible to an apex body called All India Services apex board.
The board should oversee, supervise, study, control and manage every
affair pertaining to the Services at its own collective wisdom and
discretion with powers of rewards, punishment and placements invested
with it. Sensitive posts in the governments and public undertakings have
to be identified in advance for the All India Services and once it is
done, placements have to be left to the wisdom and discretion of the
apex board. The governments concerned and public undertakings as
employers must keep the apex body constantly and periodically informed
about the performances of each official placed under it and request
changes wherever necessary with reasons therefore. The final decision on
such requests has to be left to the judgement of the apex board based on
its constant research, study, enquiry and assessment.
The best bet for professional resolve and high commitment in such an
apex body is having senior most officers of the All-India Service in
fine fettle as members of the apex board under the seniormost member as
the chairman, appointed strictly on seniority. It is these members with
tow-thirds majority who must be empowered to bar a competent senior
officer from becoming a member or remove an existing member of chairman
from the board by recording sufficient reasons for the act.
Under the new scheme one should be committed to service for life unless
one offers to retire on health or personal grounds or forced out by the
apex board for valid reasons. Except in cases of retirement on request
before the age of 60 years for nonmedical reasons or removal by the apex
board as a punishment, every officer should be entitled to all the
benefits as in service for life even after retirement. However, once
confirmed in the service, one should be prohibited from taking up any
private or other government jobs while in service or after retirement or
even after resignation from the service. These safeguards should be
relaxed only by the apex board.
The country should take cognisance of all the legitimate needs of these
officers and provide them with the best possible living standards.
Instead of salaries, these exceptionally brilliant officers must be
allowed to decide and draw emoluments against performances every month
on their own assessment which include liberal perks such as free
education for children in any kind of educational institution, free
educational supports, free medial aid of whatever kind, free club
membership and other entertainments, free foreigh tours, free housing
and transportation of whatever kind, help to earn permanent assets, free
supplies of daily needs and other movable properties. Each officer must
submit to the apex board a periodical report of his performances. The
board must study each report to judge the officer. It may warn or take
whatever action found necessary.
The Government is doing nothing to arrest the decline of the All India
Services on all fronts. India is preoccupied with myriad issues of
economic and social developments and perhaps the rapid deterioration of
its All India Services does not seem important. But, the Government
should realise that a strong civil service is mandatory for the survival
of India and act fast.
The police basically is a backup force of the state administration. Its
primary functions are from en arriere. It is the backbone of the state
administration. The police is the enforcer of the rules and laws of the
land and safeguards its compliance by all. For this reason, the police
can be rightly called as the guardian of the state administration. State
administration would be edentate sans the police with none to keep
people on the right sides of the rules and laws of the administration
and make the state administration more than mere paper-work. Even for
the hoi polloi, administration is mostly police functions and nothing in
state administration holds its attention as much as what the police
does. The police is the most visible and the most obvious state
functionary for them, by its striking uniform and prim mien in addition
to its availability as the dernier ressort of the state administration.
The police forms the cutting-edge of the statecraft. The police
functions as both the enforcer of the country’s laws and as the
investigator of the crimes. Ergo, the police both precedes and succeeds
the law enforcement process and ipso facto encompasses the whole gamut
of the state legal system. The very fact that no folds and rumples of
the state administration are excluded from the field of the police
reveals that the range and scope of the policing is as wide as the
administration itself and often exceeds it. Take away the police, the
state administration crumbles and collapses like a messy mass without
backbone. The sine qua non of the police in the statecraft is a widely
recognised fact among the scholars as well as the plebeian.
The inevitability of the police in the statecraft also renders it the
most abused setup in the spectrum of the tools of governance. Control
over the levers of running the police organisation is considered to be a
significant privilege in the realm of state administration. The explains
the range of influence peddling and prolate pressures on police
transfers and keen concours among politicians and others to befriend the
police.
The significance of the police lies in the lowest nature of the work it
does in contrast to the highest degree of awe and weight it commands
among politicians, administrators and the general public. The esteem,
however, worked only to the detriment of the police organisation. The
propinquity to pamper the police while helped the growth and expansion
of the organisation, it certainly spoiled the police setup and crumbled
its professional value system. The development is obvious in
post-independent era for the simple reason that the propensity to paper
the police saw abnormal rise after the country’s reign came to people’s
hands and politicking and political cabals became the rule of the game.
While friendly police became valuable assets to politicians in the
chess-board of the country’s politics, it became the mainstay of the
administration with the gradual fall in the skill and acumen of running
the administration. The police, which once in pre-independent days was
basically a force to keep the freedom fighters at bay and maintain law
and order, became the alter ego of the governance sinsyne.
THE POLICE AND THE CIVILIAN AUTHORITY:
The root of the problem lies in the civilian control of the police; this
control renders the police liable to function at the pleasure of the
civilian authorities against whom also the police are required to
proceed as required by its professional ethics relentlessly in case of
commission of criminal acts. This is a strange position in a disciplined
organisation in which absolute obedience to masters in the most
sanctimonious obligation. Thus the police finds itself in an unenviable
position of being absolutely obedient to its political and civil
masters, antilogous to being ever-ready professionally to proceed
against to put them in the gaol. This is an impossible position for the
police and against the tenets of the human nature. But, this impossibly
contrarious functions are expected from the police The problem is
overcome by advanced countries like the United Kingdom by strict
adherence to the chain of command with the head of the organisation
responsible to the laws of the country while civilian authority has to
be contented with the administrative control of the police. The
safeguard is yet to seep into the police system of democratic Indian.
THE POLICE AND THE MAGISTERIAL POWERS
However, complete insulation of the police from the civilian control may
not be a healthy development per se in a democratic rule. Here, the need
of check over a function through the bifurcation of operation and
control processes in related job a la the bifurcation of accounts and
audit functions in accounts department come to the fore. The police au
fond is arms and muscle of the administration; it basically is an
operational wing of the administration. It is only the watchdog of the
administration. This locus standi of the police imprimis denies it any
job, related with administrative decisions and assessments. The police
is there to obey the orders of the administrative machinery above it to
exercise control over it. A watchdog perforce indicates a master to rein
in. This nature of the police functions necessitates administrative
control over it in the use of force and other enforcement activities.
This is the backdrop of magisterial powers being denied to the police
except where police commissionerates are organised. The demand of the
police to invest it with the magisterial powers is a corpus of the
ongoing dispute. The matter continues to be a contentious issue between
the police and the civil administration and a major source of
dissatisfaction in the police force. The civil administration is
resisting a toute force any attempts to do away the magisterial powers
from its hand in favour of the police, it be in promulgating preventive
orders or issuing search warrants or conducting inquest proceedings or
initiating externment proceedings or initiating preventive proceedings
or ordering the use of force, to name only a few. The argument of the
police is that the denial of the magisterial powers which are exercised
by officers as low as Tahsildars in the civil administration is a
preposterous step sans any rational basis and suggests lack of trust in
the police organisation. The denial of the magisterial powers to the
police has nothing to do with trust or lack of it a la audit control
over accounts function does not suggest lack of trust in accounts. The
police have forgotten that the civilian control over the police is in
step with well established principles of administration and functions as
a safeguard to the hoi polloi against the dangerous overstepping or
overzealous use of police powers, potential of bringing destruction
including death. Use of force by whomever it be, has a tendency to
exceed the limits of requirement and the plebeian has to be protected
from such possibilities. Ergo, the magisterial control over the police.
It is a professional requirement in sound administration rather than an
issue of who is more trustworthy. The resistance of the civil
administration to the demands of the police for the magisterial powers
is justified to that extent. The police commissionerates are special
organisations for special circumstances requiring intensive policing
under the closer scrutiny of the government in charge of civil
authorities. Yet, both magisterial powers and the police powers being
invested in the same hand requiries lots of explanation to be a
convincing administrative arrangement.
PROFESSIONAL POLICING
In professional terms, insulation of the police only implies insulation
from the political control of the police functions. Neither the
magisterial control over the police functions nor the administrative
control of the police force by the civil authorities come under the
meaning of this concept. The symbion between the magisterial control and
the policing functions in one hand and between and administrative
control and the organisational buildup on the other hand is essential
for a healthy police setup. The symbion should stop here. Nothing more.
When it comes to policing by the police per se, when policing operations
demand professional decisions, it should perspicaciously be professional
police decisions sans outside interferences in any form. The police
organisation has to be built up as a system to achieve this essential
goal to make policing a professional, convincing and creditable job
wherein there would be no scope for any outside interferences in
policing with the highest authority in the setup being responsible only
to the rules and laws framed for the purpose a la the policing system in
Britain.
JUDICIARY AND THE POLICE
The position of the police as the enforcer of the laws of the country
gives it an important place in the judicial system of the country in
enforcement of laws, preventive measures and investigation of crimes and
provides it a strategic relationship with the dispenser of laws namely
the judiciary. Though the judiciary has absolutely no say in the
organisational matters of the police force, it, if it so desires and
have adequate resources to do it, can have absolute control over the
police functions as the police au fond is the enforcer of laws and the
judiciary is the interpreter and dispenser of the laws and the synergy
between the two functions perforce implies absolute subordination of the
police functions to the judicial review. However, this may not be the
case in practice for several reasons. One is the concept of judicial
restraint. Another is the constraints within which the judiciary
functions. The other is the disinclination of the judiciary to interfere
with the executive functions of the police unless circumstances compel
it to do so to discharge its cardinal responsibility of upholding the
rule of law and justice in the country.
In the spectrum of the state administration, the police enjoys or
suffers a rather polemic position defying many principles of the
statecraft like the insulation of legislature, executive and judiciary
in the machinery of the state governance or the compatibility between
the constitutional rights invested with the importance enjoyed by a
government organisation in the state administration. The police
organisation on the other hand is the best example of the unity of state
administration, of the synergy of various organs of the state
governance. It, as an enforcer of laws, investigator of crimes and an
apparatus of state security, share a lever with all the pockets of the
statecraft and acts as the spinal chord of the government by
coordinating the functions of the legislature, the executive and the
judiciary in establishing the rule of law. Its bonds with the executive
and the judiciary are equally strong and act as a powerful link between
the two powerful sings of the government. It is a string that binds
disparate wings and organs of the government together and give it a
sense of oneness and belonging while itself remains en arriere. This
explains the sine qua non of the police in state administration while
denying it a ranking place as a governing body sui juris like many other
organs of the state administration. The police as a government agency
represents the driving force of the executive and the controlling device
of the judiciary. It is the working muscle of the government. It
represents the law of the country and therefore ultimately responsible
to the laws of the country. While it is part of the executive, its
subordination to the judiciary and responsibility towards the law of the
country raise it above the scope of the executive functions. While it is
part of the judiciary, its position as a handmaid of the executive,
spreads its role above the scope of the judiciary. Ergo, the police is a
government agency that performs functions both within and above the
scope of the executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The
police is a government agency that performs functions both within and
above the scope of the executive and judiciary as well as the
legislature. The police is part of all these wings of the government and
subordinate of each to them while outgrow each of them in professional
discharge of its responsibilities. What is required is the realisation
of this sui generis position of the police and preparing itself mentally
to discharge these cardinal responsibilities in compatibility with the
professional requirements.
The major problem that confronts extant police is its attitude to work,
responsibilities, profession, organisation, government and the public.
It is confounded about its goals, objectives, loyalties, professional
ethos, job culture, procedures and practices that carry it forward in
the field in attending professional duties. In the wilderness of
undefined roads, Indian police grope for perspicacious directions to
reach professional ends. Popular phrases like maintenance of order,
enforcement of law, prevention of crime, investigation of offences,
protection of security interests etc are too generic terms to carry any
meaning and significance during the process of actual policing.
Perficient policing is possible only in the ambience of well-rounded and
clearly defined specific guidelines for action that help moulding
professional attitude in the organisation. Police develop wrong
attitudes in its absence by erroneous interpretation of the situation
around. This is what happens to Indian police now: wrong attitudes and
concomitant confusion about performing legitimate duties.
A profession like police naturally has its own goals, objectives and
ideals to pursue. They get clouded in the smog of practical turn-arounds
in the field and ultimately lose their edge in the spin of attitudinal
aberrations. The consequence is clashes of loyalties, adoption of
immodest vectors in policing, the issue of excesses and inactions,
tendency to bend rules and laws to achieve perceived ends in the hour of
need of upholding the rule of law, urge to cash-in on the ignorance and
weaknesses of the ignorant people around and indulgences in
unprofessional works in the name of discharging legitimate police
duties. Performance of any profession depends upon three factors:
professional ideals, job culture and actual practices and procedures.
Job culture is spawned of constant interaction of professional ideals
and actual practices and procedures in the field. Though basically is a
product of the past, it considerably affects the future performance of
an orgnisation. Practices and procedures being the primary vehicle of
attitude, they help moulding job culture a la immanent attitude in the
job. The result is a pollent hold of attitude in deciding the direction
of an organisation. A profession loses its raison d’etre while attitude
in the job prevaricates from professional ideals.
Professional ideals of police are rooted in the terra firma of the rule
of law, justice, order and the security of the country and its citizens.
Police organisation is basically responsible to the constitution of the
country and the government constituted and the laws enacted in
accordance with the constitution. Police lose its relevance to the
country when its professional attitude goes against the cardinal ideals
of the profession. The challenge of a police organisation lies in
moulding professional attitude as required by the ideals of the
profession. Wrong attitudes inveterate in extant practices and
procedures of policing are shaped by self-interests, misconceptions,
ignorance and tendency to pursue easy and shortcut methods: they are
hard to be broken and survive under most odds. Only efficient, honest
and highly motivated leadership alone can crack the etui encompassing
it. Once it is done, building a new set of right professional attitudes
is relatively a simpler job to a committed leadership. Basic to these
efforts is a realisation among the top-brass about what constitute right
and wrong attitudes. The crux of the problem of Indian police lies here.
It is distressing to note that the top leadership of post-independent
Indian police is responsible for the prevarication of the organisation
from its professional attitude of absolute commitment to public order
and safety, justice and rule of law to easy and shortcut avenues of
selfish interests. The change percolated downwards. In the rush of
Indians replacing the British to sensitive government positions on the
eve of independence, men of inadequate calibre and merit occupied key
government posts. This happended in police as in other government
departments. The result was happened in police as in other government
departments. The result was corrosion in leadership qualities, traits of
excellence and high personal merits, so essential to run public and
national affairs at the top. It was during this period that Indian
police lost its track in professional policing and exposed itself to the
luxury of dancing to the easy and soft tunes of convenience by yielding
to pressures of political and other vested interests. Policing powers
served as a tool of maximising self-interests and personal comforts at
the cost of professional policing. In the process, the country suffered
and police lost its face.
A major handicap of the extant Indian police is its dependence syndrome.
No more, Indian police realise itself as a master sui juris. For every
piece of work under its sphere of decision, it looks for advice,
guidance and direction from the political leadership, bureaucracy or the
judiciary. It is more a symptom of immanent servilitude and lack of
spine than anything else. Present Indian police lack of hardihood of
professionalism and the self-confidence ensues from it. Policing is not
a job dependant on outsiders like politicians and bureaucrats. For one,
the latter are not professionals and their advice, guidance and
directions in re policing are unlikely to be sound. Secondly, subjecting
policing to their advice, guidance and direction while they themselves
are subjects to policing discipline is unlikely to be in the best
interest of the professional policing. Not that police officers do not
know these facts. They lack the professional resolve to uphold the
purity of the principles of policing au reste being unsure of
themselves. Tendency is to avoid risky responsibilities of policing
while hawks outside are avizefull to make the maximum out of the
weakness of the police and pledge policing responsibilities to those who
sit above them in exchange for secure career prospects. That is shy
meekness and servilitude of police officers in India is pro rata to the
importance of the posts they hold. Somebody cornered or placed in an
insignificant slot has nothing to lose by standing up to his superior
and no need to go servile to anybody unlike somebody in a coveted spot
and therefore not required to protect his position coute que coute. It
is impossible for an upright officer to land in key jobs like chiefs of
police forces in states or the centre save in disturbed provinces like
Punjab and Kashmir. The result is downward slide in professionalism and
perpetuation of servilitude and dependence. Policing worth the name is
possumus only while the glissade in professional resolve is arrested.
But, the vice in which Indian police is caught is too pollent to be
breached. The dependence syndrome has to be replaced by professional
resolve. This requires change of attitude. The change is not easy to
come in present vicious circumstances. Without it coming soon, Indian
police has no deliverance.
A serious handicap of present Indian police is its noncommittal and
causal reliance on mechanical procedures sans passion for professional
objectives. Tendency is to show the amount of labour put to a job rather
than showing results. There is no true passion to reach goals and
achieve professional objectives of safety, security, justice and the
rule of law. Every attempt is to do minimum required so that the chances
of being caught committing mistakes are minimal. Procedures and
practices form the staple and there is no spark for creative policing.
Policing has become a mechanical process sans substance. It is the
minimum common denominator that counts in present policing environment.
The passion natural for those in police for public security and order,
rule of law and justice is seldom felt in Indian police of the present
vintage. Risk-taking which is a common trait of good policing has become
a rarity and a scarce commodity. The problem lies in wrong attitude. The
atrophy set in, in the field of committed policing has become the
mainstay of the Indian police. Reversing the trend is the first priority
to bring Indian police on the right rails.
A manifestation of this wrong attitude is evident in investigation of
crimes. The reason for the problem lies in the environment in which
investigators function. They are prosecutors of another kind in real
terms in Indian police environment and work to collect evidence of
whatever merit to prove that the persons accused of crime had committed
the crime rather than unearthing truth. Persons under investigation are
treated as criminals and harassed. When sound evidences are not
available, anything that goes for evidence is trumped up. The infamous
Jain Hawala case is a case in point. The case was cold-stored for years.
The dependence syndrome of the premier investigation agency of the
country prevented it from investigating the case sans clearance from
political masters. Once polictical bigwigs calculated that investigation
of the case was in their interests, CBI proceeded full-steam to prove
the case. When direct evidence was not available, CBI probed for
circumstantial evidences. When circumstantial evidence failed to prove
anything, CBI went for anything available to feed its fanciful
interpretations. Need of corroboration was thrown to the wind. Political
leaders were tried on the basis of initials and numbers entered in a
diary. Court of law exonerated the politicians for lack of evidence. In
the process, many heads rolled on the block of the political gameplan.
Professional attitude to investigation with a passion for fairplay,
objectivity, truth and justice would have saved the country from the
quite unnecessary hardships. Politically sensitive cases are taken up
for investigation only when people in power decide in favour, and
investigated with a particular end in sight and chargesheeted on the
basis of whatever little could be gathered in the name of evidence.
Professional investigation is not meant to proceed in this fashion where
possibility of a prima facie case and quality of evidences precede every
thing else and decide the course and pace of the investigation process
and chargesheet. Sensitisation to fairplay, objectivity, truth and
justice is the foundation of the professional policing. Professional
police display extraordinary scruple in exercise of policing powers like
arrests, bails, searches, seizures, interrogations etc so that law bites
only the hors la loi and innocent citizens go absolutely unharmed. It is
not the case in Indian police now. Investigation has become a one-way
track of somehow raising evidences and chargesheeting, truth and justice
become tragedies in the process. This basically is a problem of wrong
attitude.
People caught in the web of criminal laws deserve sympathy and kindness
until they are proved guilty beyond doubts. They need to be treated with
gentleness and courtesy that behoves to interpresonal relationship in a
civilised society while the process of investigation continues with all
efficiency and ruthless exactitude. Police as investigator is not
invested with powers to punish for the crimes committed. Fair chance to
persons under investigation to prove their innocence goes a long way in
unearthing truth and solving crimes justly. This has to be the attitude
of the police during crime investigation. Truth and justice have to be
their goal. Indian police lack the maturity and poise.
A serious Achilles’ heel of Indian police is its perverted attitude
towards rules and laws. Bending rules and laws to suit self interests is
one dimension of the spiel. Another dimension is its blind application
sans sense of proportion and discreetness while self-interest is not an
issue. It is seen in enforcing laws and maintaining order. Police forget
that rules and laws are just tools in the larger cause of peace and
order of the society and sadly handle laws for law’s sake. Rules and
laws are invested on police like weapons as the dernier ressort while
all other avenues are shut. Discreetness in their constraint. Objectives
are primary Rules and laws must follow them only as tools to that end.
The realisation is rarely found in the present police. It operates laws
for law’s sake by relegating organisational objectives to oblivion.
Professional objectives suffer and police become an object of
detestation consequential to this perverted attitude. Mechanical
enforcement of gratuitous rules and laws constrict the freedom of people
for no specific purpose and weaves an unnecessary web of constraints
around them for nobody’s good. The attitude is fatal to fair and
professional policing practices and needs to be corrected on priority to
make application of rules and laws need-based in reaching professional
targets.
Another field where police need to change its attitude is its contempt
for human values. Policing is just an instrument to the cause of
protecting human values. Police oblivious to this fact, subject human
values to immane policing methods in the name of policing. Third degree
methods are the point. Malfeasances do not behove to the cause of human
values. Means are as important as ends in policing. Pursuing unjust
means for the cause of justice is the spiel of the frankenstein, the
story of an off-spring eating its creator. Inviolable commitment to
human values and rights is the foundation of good policing. Human touch
is sine qua non for professional policing. Human concern is the raison
d’etre of good policing. The shift in attitude needs to be from blind
and blanket-policing for the policing’s sake to discreet and enlightened
policing to reach professional objectives. The shift has to be from the
use of policing powers to maximise professional goals. The shift must
see police taking risks in the interests of the profession and doing
intelligent policing rather than indulging in manoeuvres of personal
security. The process warrants massive exercise in attitudinal change.
What constitutes perficient exercises of attitudinal change in a massive
organisation like the police? Police organisation is a tough and
hard-to-crack candidate for any manipulations. It is a no nonsense
outfit. The only way to bring it to senses is intensive and extensive
appeal to its reason and emotion to convince about the need of change.
Police rely on past practices and procedures. It looks for the job
culture to aemule. Forcing police away from vicious practices and
procedures and undesirable job culture through the attitudinal change is
an arduous and time consuming exercise even for experts in the field.
The exercise has to be a multi-pronged attack on inveterate
misconceptions and wrong notions in extant policing by extensive
exposures to talks, discussions, seminars, briefings, studies,
researches and in-service training involving analyses of policing, its
ideals, objectives, methods, means and ends, social relevances,
pressures, policing environment, psychological aspects of policing etc.
The exercise have to be intended to provoke police personnel to think
about their profession without dogma and arrive at desirable conclusions
about professional policing and impress them on the ingredients of good
policing by constant exposure. A few ideal cases as models have
tremendous impact on the cause of creating eight attitudes, Studies and
researches on policing and policing methods provide a sound foundation
to these exercises. A police organisation interested in improving its
quality and performance cannot go without sound study centres and
research projects on the issues of policing. These attempts provide both
inputs and insight to the behavioural pattern of the police in field
under different situations and stress patterns as differentiated from
what are desired. They bring both gestalts to contrast in terms of their
perficiency, professional needs and relevance to the environment of
policing to affect attitudinal change in right direction by way of
conviction. The immediate need is inducing doubts about the soundness of
existing attitudes to encourage discussion on the topic. Deliberate
guiding through structured mental exercises to desirable end forms the
latter part of the task. Indeed, the whole exercise has to be planned
and executed in detail by highly efficient leadership in the police. The
conundrum is who behoves to handle the highly responsible job while the
leadership of the police itself is mired in wrong attitudes to the job
of policing.
Problem of attitude basically is a problem felt at higher wrungs in
top-brass of the force. The stiff hierarchical order and
command-obedience pattern of functioning make the lower wrungs
irrelevant in matters of job attitude. Those down the ladder are loyal
followers and obedient operators in the path and policy laid above them.
Their attitudes change shape from case to case to meet the demands
trickle from above. When the demand is to let out a rich and powerful
criminal with royal honours, those down the level do just that with
vengeance; when the demand from above is to frame an innocent man and
obtain his confession by subjecting to torture, they just do that with
dedication for the sake of a well-earned pat of their omniscient
superiors. It is again a question of ill-conceived job culture and
attitude which need to be corrected as it is tangible to the standards
of policing as all organisational matters are. The primary target of
attitudinal change is the higher wrungs and the top-brass. Others follow
and fall to place. The key lies in the realisation that something is
wrong in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of
the construction. Once the realisation of wrong dawns upon,
reconstruction becomes possible. Police being an extrovert and
action-oriented outfit, self-analyses and inward-looking tendencies do
not come easily. While things to wrong, introversion becomes sine qua
non for healthy growth. This is what is required in Indian police now.
With the accrescent demands for limited resources of the Earth and
concomitant concours for survival in the world of the survival of the
fittest, the advent of the new century is bound to herald ascensive
economic bewilderments in the crucible of hotting up social
complexities. Reintepretation of life in the complex environment of
technical advancements, systemic and structural changes in society and
spurts in criminal activities is likely to provide the paramenters of
the coming age and determine the quality of life in the coming century.
The police, as the custodians and enforcers of the safety of life and
property, have to move pari passu with the time for perficient handling
of the emerging situation. They cannot afford to adapt to challenges as
and when they are posed as in vogue in government service. Assessment of
situations ahead, defining the future challenges and deriving means to
checkmate them in advance form the basic tenets of good policing and are
sine qua non with the survival of the country and its peaceful life.
The piece de resistance of future policing has to be perficient
performance with minimal visible presence. This means a far more
professional organisation than now. This means far more skilled policing
than now. This means better management of the police organisation,
better equipped force, men of higher calibre and devotion to work and
more contented people manning the police hierarchy.
20th Century saw the expansion of the utility of the police to every
conceivable field of human activity in social and national life.
Security duties are increasingly encompassing ceremonial objectives.
Traffic and law and order police are more and more replayed to add
grandeur and humour to private functions of the well-to-do and powerful.
The presence of the police is becoming more a matter of prestige and
social standing in society than an emergent need of protection. The
police are now called to mediate and solve familial problems, labour
disputes and case and communal differences. People call them now to
intervene in their differences with others, expect them to handle rescue
operations during natural accidental and man-made calamities. Their
services are warranted to bring order wherever and whenever things go
wrong at public as well as private events with unending number of acts,
rules and their amendments passed every year by the legislatures. This
wide use of the police in the vast spectrum of the statecraft rendered
it jack of all and master of none. The transformation blunted the
effectiveness of the police in handling its cardinal duties of providing
security, maintenance of order and investigation of crimes.
Policing is presently seen as an unintellectual exercise with a flare
for brawn, ruthlessness and derring-do. Reality is not very different
from this image. The situation certainly does not do in the future
complex societal network as the breeding ground for complicated criminal
activities warranting skilled and intelligent policing. The Police of
the 21st century have to be manned by highly intelligent and brainy
species of men should it be feracious in meeting challenges and showing
results. The change, apart from improving the quality of policing, will
bring respect to the job in addition to the present awe and fear, the
police inspire. An overhaul of selection and training policies to infuse
and buildup mental and intellectual strains in the manpower of the
police should be the bedrock of the efforts to snod the organisation to
meet the challenges of the future.
The paramount need of the future police is a professional image tout au
contraire to present image as a handmaid of rich and powerful. What is
required is a perspicacious definition of police duties and
responsibilities and relegating the force to perform the duties under
the avizefull eyes of the constitution without the distractions of
interferences ab extra. The police should have free hand to tackle and
solve issues cropping up during the process of policing with concomitant
responsibility for any failures squarely lying on its shoulders.
Hi-tech policing is another imperative of the 21st century. Police
cannot afford to lose ground to criminals in the field of hi-tech.
Efficiency of policing is pro rata to competence to perform in a given
situation in meeting challenges offered. The competence necessarily
implies moving pari passu with the fast changing hi-tech environment in
the fields of transport, communication, weaponry and detection system.
Police can ignore this need only at its own peril.
The growth of police in the 20th century is marked by its insulation
from the intellectual explosions of the age. Police is seldom touched by
the zeist geist. Policing methods and ideas remained stagnant throughout
the century sans effective voice raised to infuse new spirit to the body
of the police. The century saw no concrete and concerted efforts to
bring crime investigation on modern lines. The problem of human rights
violations remained a major blot on the policing process throughout the
century. Use of third degree methods in interrogations sullied the image
of the police in a century which brought revolutionary changes in the
concepts of human dignity, equality, justice for all and basic rights.
The image of the police in the 20thcentury is that of a licensed
criminal syndicate run by the government to checkmate unlicensed
criminal activities.
Indian legislatures churn out new legislations and bring out amendments
threeon in such numbers and festination that neither those legislatures
nor the police who enforce them can afford to keep a track of the
enactments and their provisions. This Achilles’ heel in the law
enforcement machinery will perforce disappear in years ahead. A solution
is creation of the Community Police as enforcers of the social
legislations as distinct from the body police. The community Police
require skills different from those in general policing owing to the
special nature of the social legislations and special sensitivities of
its enforcement. The huge share of the social legislations among new
enactments and the gargantuan task of enforcing them is another
justification for creating a separate community police wing out of the
present police. The measure will relieve the body police from lots of
work-pressures and provide it spare time and energy to concentrate on
vital issues of the general policing.
Another task ahead to attend tout de suite is sewing the investigating
responsibilities and the prosecution duties to a single whole.
Inter-departmental co-operation though specious in theory on paper, it
is exceptions in field in the Indian environment of interdepartmental
jealousy and rivalry. The police with the need of prompt responses and
quick decisions vis a vis the complex nature of emerging crimes cannot
do for long with the extant system of the police and the prosecution
pulling apart from opposite directions in the race for one-upmanship.
The key to the success of the police is its response time, the speed
with which it responds to the challenges of the crime. Where time is a
precious commodity and a difference of a couple of seconds make the
difference of success and failure of a police operation, persistent
efforts to shorten response time will get the highest priority. The
thrust of the police administration of the next millennium will be
directed to bettering the response time as speed will be the mainstay of
crimes and criminals of the coming age. Short response time implies
improved communication and transport network and highly motivated human
resources ever-ready to handle challenges. Outmoded communication and
transport facilities in disrepair conditions most of the time have no
relevance there and casual manpower is rather passe in that ambience.
The millennium will see the police force in the finest fettle in terms
of orgtanisation, manpower and equipments and becoming a highly
organised efficient limb of the state apparatus.
The 21st century police will be required to shed to idee fixe for the
show of strength in lieu of efficient policing. The stress in future
will be on lean and fit policing. The structural deformity and oveweight
caused by redundant posts, undefined jobs, lack of accountability,
epinosic equation of rights and responsibilities, top-heavy structure,
erratic span of control, demotivating factors, nonprofessional ambience
and uninspiring leadership will become a matter of the past with the
police going perforce competitive en face gargantuan challenges from
criminals posing threat to the raison d’etre of the police and its
relevance to the extant society.
Going hi-tech to match the gauntlets of the crime world is another
possibility open for the police of the 21st century. The age will see
the needs of investigation process expanding the horizons of science and
technology rather than the other way round. Gene tests will become a
strategic and commonly employed tool of investigation against crimes
relating to bodily harm, paternity and even bodily associations. Laser
guns will come handy in handling violent law and order issues.
Night-vision instruments will become an essential part of the
investigation and security operations kits to be handled by every
policeman. The age may see police using eaves-dropping instruments to
overhear unsuspecting people from distance. “X-ray eyes’ aid viewing
across walls or closed doors. Computers will become an integral part of
the routine as well as special police works and police stations. Police
may see software devised to guide investigating officers in
investigating every kind of crime at every level. Helicopters and
mini-aeroplanes will become common mode of transportation for carrying
investigating teams, deployment of security staff and airlifting armed
forces to disturbed places as time becomes precious and criminals become
ingenious in dodging the police.
An important possibility of the next millennium is the police becoming
an elite force with even its bottom levels being manned by highly
qualified, skilled and enlightened professionals as a result of the
pampering ahead for the police in the administrative hierarchy.
Constabulary will be spruced to striking forces and manual works without
policing powers. With it, may go the pernicious misuse of the
constabulary as household assistants. Single-point recruitment will come
to vogue with linear promotions from the lowest to the highest ranks on
the basis of merit and actual performances in the field as assessed by a
panel of distinguished public figures, constituted for the purpose.
A cost-efficient manpower policy in future police administration will
bring motivation and commitment centre-stage. The extant diffident
response of maximum mobilisation or raising of new units under every new
challenge will give way to perficient strategies and tactics. The
present tendency of doing minimum required in a given situation unless
otherwise compelled by the situation amounts to criminal wastage of
manpower. The 21st century will require every single policeman straining
his best with a sense of motivation and commitment in the interests of
superior policing.
Motivation and commitment are derivatives of self-actualisation in the
need hierarchy postualted by Maslow. Pride of performance can be a
reality only while lower physical, security and social needs cease to be
issues. Indian police planners have no alternatives to grooming the
police manpower of the next century to this level of sans souci. This
means good living conditions, job security and sound social status. The
police must find a respectable place in the hierarchy of state
administration and shed away the extant obnoxious image of odd-job-man
of the government as well as political leaders to inspire awe and
respect in the hoi polloi. The transformation is sine qua non with the
new age.
Creating a self-contained police machinery in place of the present mere
nuts and bolts of the administration is cardinal need ahead. The nasty
political and bureaucratic interferences in professional policing have
done no good to the country and its police in the last five decades.
Insulating the police from the vice prise of ectogenetic pressures and
influences needs to be a reality in the coming decades should the police
have relevance in the governance of the country. This is possible only
by the metamorphosis of the police to an independent body with goals and
objectives perspicuously defined and laid down. The new police have to
be responsible only to the constitution through a suitable machinery of
checks and counterchecks exercised by constitutional bodies manned by
people of proven track-record in matters of integrity, competence and
other mental attributes and chosen from academic, bureaucratic and
political fields as well as public life. The change may bring a
semblance of justice and fairplay to administration and ipso facto
infuse a value system to Indian public life and bring the fear of god to
force strict adherence to probity and the rule of law in public life.
India has no alternative to this metamorphosis should the country
survive the moral crisis and degringolade of national spirit, it
witnessed since independence.
Independence circa half a century back marks the greatest turning point
in the history of Indian police. It marks the end of 88-year history of
policing on modern lines under the British Raj which began with the
enactment of the Madras District Police Act of 1859 and assumed
countrywide acceptance with the enactment of the Police Act of 1861.
Independence marks the beginning of the history of Indian police under
Indian hands in a democratic milieu unlike of yore though in form and
contents they were its continuation. The hitch lay in its sprit, in the
contradictions of the intentions of a colonial police and the traditions
of a democratic police. It patently is against jus naturale to expect a
colonial police transform to a democratic setup overnight with the
awakening of the country at midnight. Spirit is never known to be a
quick-chameleonic, particularly while form and contents maintain their
stead. Change in spirit is the natural outcome of changes in ambience
leading to metamorphosis of value system and attitudes by rapid
exposures to changed experiences. The process perforce requires a very
long period of trails and tribulations to ripen the spirit to its new
avatar. The first fifty years of independence of India marks this period
in context of the spirit of Indian police maturing to democratic
traditions in the hands of Indian rulers.
RISE OF CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS
It is significant that the history of police of sovereign India begins
immediately posterior to the turbulent years of the second world war
which opened up or saw expansion of a new vista of duties for the police
worldwide. The most kenspeckle of them is clandestine operations in
international scale for national security. Though the history of
intelligence collection and covert operations go as far back as human
history itself and stand next only to prostitution as the oldest
profession practised by man, it flowered, expanded and received
worldwide plaudite as an established tool of statecraft only during and
after the maelstrom of the second world war with Germany, the Soviet
Union and Britain before and during the war and the United States and
Israel after, perfecting the techniques. The raising of the Central
Intelligence Agency(CIA) in the United States
in the early years of 1950”s from the crumbs of the old American secret
service of the second world war vintage, the Office of Special Services
(OSS), with an elaborate Plans division to handle gray clandestine
operations abroad (sometimes domestic operations also) marked a long
step in the history of international twilight operations. Following
words spelled out by the Hoover Commission during those momentous days
form the agenda of secret police service all over the world. The
commission, in justfication of postern operations, said, “ There are no
rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not
apply. If the US is to survive, longstanding American concepts of fair
play’ must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and
counter-espionage services. We must learn to subvert, sabotage and
destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more
effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary
that the American people be acquainted with, understand and support this
fundamentally repugnant philosophy”.
COVERT OPERTIONS OF INDIAN POLICE
Free India, in spite of its moral values and abiding impact of Gandhian
Philosophy of truth and honesty, found covert operations sine qua non
for survival. Though attempts were scratchy in inchoate stages, India
made significant breakthroughs in penetrating, moulding and controlling
the affairs of the neighbouring countries after raising the Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW) to handle covert operations in foreign countries.
Its operations and performances in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan
and to somewhat lesser extent in Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and
some of the Gulf countries are on par with the best in the world. Its
chevisance in international events like the creation of Bangladesh,
containment of Eelam ambitions of Sri Lankan Tamils in India,
eheckmating the Kashmir card of Pakistan and controlling the terrorist
misadventures of international Sikh communities against Indian targets
earned it worldwide accolades. This is in spite of the fact that Indian
secret police is a feather-weight performer in the arena of
international clandestine wars and its overall performance in world
events is very unimpressive for the size and resources of the country.
Reasons are many. Foremost of them is lack of commitment to the national
cause and national ideologies like national integration, democracy,
secularism, nonaligned movement and mixed economy. Another reason is the
moral atrophy experienced by Indian police after independence leading to
decline in professional commitments. Postings to RAW with opportunities
of foreign assignments has become a status symbol and lost all substance
of challenges and performances from it. The other reason is political
interferences in postings to and transfers of the RAW officials. It is
political connections rather than security screening and clearances and
aptitude for clandestine operations decide the postings in the RAW. Huge
unbudgeted and unaccounted funds at disposal makes the RAW postings
highly lucrative and attracts easy going siblings of the powerful to its
fold. This is an extremely dangerous trend in a security apparatus where
commitment, trust and absolute secrecy form the basics of survival and
an unguarded moment may make life and death difference for many. More
important, clandestine operations unlike other police responsibilities
require highly specialised skills, ignoring this need in manning the
organisation is a sure way of compromising the organisation, betraying
its operational efficiency and exposing the country to dangerous
security threats. Another important reason for the retarded growth of
Indian secret police is the general lack of security consciousness in
the country and inability to see and place the imperatives of a national
security policy in right perspective. These glitches end-up in security
breaches of the dimension of ISRO spy case Purulia arms drop case.
Rattan Sehgal episode etc. India lacks larger horama of the country and
its survival needs and goes algate weighed down with ephemeral
considerations. Its approaches to national security are always
piecemeal, incoherent, causal and disturbingly unsound. It does not have
a sound and well-conceived national security policy. Its approach to
security threats are always short-term face-saving responses which never
contribute for the real long –term security needs of the country. If it
is the situation at government level, people who fought a mighty power
to the situation at government level, people who fought a mighty power
to liberate their country from the yoke of foreign rule just half a
century back care nevermore about even saving what they gained then from
the internal and external inimical forces by as much as raising a public
debate on the subject of the imperatives of national security. Indian
security now is left to the mercy of time and it is sheer luck that
Indian democracy survived for long decades from the hungry wolves
waiting to fall and prey on it.
NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY
National security policy is the craze of super powers of the world
today. It is the essence and unifying factor behind all national
policies of most developed as well as developing countries. Whether it
is foreign policy, defence police, economic policy, industrial policy,
trade and commerce policy, science and technology policy or human
resources development policy, they are all oriented with an eye on
national security and implemented to boost the national security goals.
Most developed countries have exclusive super agencies reporting
directly to the head of the government to advise on, oversee and
mastermind national security policies and its operations. The US has the
National Security Agency (NSA) doing yeoman service to the country as
the national security advisor to the president of the country and enjoys
powers superior even to the CIA in national affairs. Israel and Russia
have their efficient equivalents at political levels to formulate their
national security interests. Most developed countries have created their
own gestalts to mastermind matters touching national security interests
with powers invested to override decisions of other departments when
national security interests are at stake. India is yet to learn lessons
from these developments.
PARALLEL POWER CENTRE
The excessive concern for national security in some countries often led
to the creation of parallel governments and power centres ectogenous of
the democratically instituted governments. There are instances of black
acts committed against legitimate policies of the countries in the garb
of national security as in the US, and civilian governments toppled and
constituted at will eo nomine as in Pakistan. Pakistan is an example of
constitutionally elected government living under the shadow of fear of
its secret police, the ISI, which assumed on itself the apocryphal
responsibilities of Pakistan’s national security. The blackest days of
twilight operations in the name of national security were seen by the US
when a pollent section of the Plans Division of its own CIA with the
cooperation of crime syndicates and Cuban hors la loi, assassinated its
young and popular president John. F.Kennedy in 1963 en revanche of the
latter’s opposition to the CIA-inspired Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and
pro-peace overtures to the them Soviet Union. A positive aspect of
India's’poor concern to security interests is its clean slate as far as
existence of secret parallel governments and clandestine power- centres
are concerned. It is to the credit of Indian police that its secret
police remained subordinate and loyal to their legitimate authorities in
the last half century since independence. It per se is a remarkable
accomplishment.
INDIAN SECURITY CONCERNS
This does not mean that everything is all right with Indian security
agencies. Their filed for operation continues to be confined to
traditional isolative methods ignoring the present needs of integrated
approach in national policies and programmes. This is a dangerous trend
in the present competitive world where even a minor edge over the
opponent makes the difference of elimination and survival for a country.
While even developed countries made all aspects of their national
policies subordinate to their security interests, India cannot afford to
subordinate its security concerns to the freaks of people who come to
head various ministries in government and their political and personal
ideologies. India lacks in a cadre of long range security programmes to
make its security operations meaningful and purposeful. It is lagging in
hi-tech ultra-secret espionage operations far behind world standards and
nowhere comes near even to the old U-2 spy plane of the US of 1950’s .
Its secret police is yet to make perficient use of the country’s
impressive progresses in fields like satellite launches to the outer
space and other space programmes. Except for isolated cases as in
Pakistan, India is yet to fully utilise the services of world-class
mercenaries in its clandestine operations as in vogue in almost all
major gray operations worldwide. Security services in India unlike other
countries world over, do not weigh high in the national priorities of
the country.
SPECIAL BRANCHES
This affairs are worse in Special Branches or intelligence units of
states and union territories. Special Branches have become pure and
simple tools of political intelligence of ruling parties with
surveillance over political opponents and assessment of field situations
for the benefit of political masters becoming the piece de resistance at
the cost of law and order concerns accrescently losing importance in the
portfolio of their responsibilities. As far as internal security is
concerned, they are rather passe and ill equipped for the task in
manpower resources, hi-tech equipments, expertise, organisational
efficiency and motivation factors, save some routine VIP security
exercises sans any expertise in it. That is also meant just to oblige
and gratify political masters and provide grandeur to their presences.
Their assets in news media which is sine qua non for a sound Special
Branch is rather impoverished and mostly confined to local newspapers
for the purpose of disinformation and keeps track of news dissemination.
Occasionally, these contacts are misused to promote favourite
subordinates as authors or experts in a discipline. The ambition of
these Special Branches providing skilled recruits to security agencies
at the national level remains a far-fetched dream in the situation of
gross unconcern for national security commitments.
PERMANENT CORE GROUP FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
Institution of an all-powerful apolitical agency for national security
with a permanent core group of security experts of proven commitments to
the cause of the country as the nucleus at the highest level as the
guide and advisor in national security matters to the head of the
government a la the NSA of the US with over-riding powers can alone
change the situation for free India and lead it safely to the centennial
of its independence. Efforts made to this end till now are rather
sketchy, ill-conceived and half-hearted. It is high time now that
spade-works are initiated to institute a comprehensive agency in India
for handling national security concerns.
EMPHASIS ON VIP SECURITY
National security for all practical purposes in India is synonymous with
VIP security and Indian police vocabulary refuses to read for it any
meaning much beyond protecting leaders. This is because of the lopsided
loyalties and aberrations in Indian police in understanding professional
objectives and responsibilities of the police at best and a tendency to
trade off professional responsibilities and services for the benefits of
career promotions of a few at worst. That is why units for the security
of different kinds of VIPs like Black Cats, National Security Guards and
Special Protection Group are raised from time to time. While security of
national leaders is an important role of a national security policy, it
is not the only plank on which the national security concerns stand.
There are many more important and vital roles a national security policy
is called to assume and sidelining those aspects for the sake of a
single role of political clout is suicidal tot he country’s security
interests. It is public knowledge in India how VIP security has become a
public farce with all kinds of people with some lobbying muscle striving
and obtaining a security classification depending on the type of money
and power they have so that they get the cover of highly trained police
personnel as a caract of their prestige and social standing. It has to
be understood that all matters concerned with national security are
highly sensitive and considerably grave entities and need to be treated
as such. They should not be allowed to stoop to epideictic exercises for
the benefit of a few powerful as witnessed in democratic India. Such
abuses lower the gravity of national security commitments. National
security has to be treated and respected as a matter of highest priority
and insulated from the trifle fancies of superficial leaders. The
strength and relevance of national security to the country lie in its
esoteric and purposeful operations; not in pandering to the superficial
needs of a powerful few.
VIP SECURITY AS A SHOW BUSINESS
VIP Security has become such a craze in Indian police that it
incorporates all wings of the national police force in its body, it be
central police, state police or district police, it be security police,
Special Branch, striking forces, investigating agency or law and order
police. In the process, other police functions rapidly lose importance
as the pressures of VIP security mount up with the number of dignitaries
and their spheres of activities expand with the accommodation of more
and more influential people and their kith and kin under pressures as
VIPs. All said and done, these VIP securities are nothing but shams
meant only as epideictic ensemble without any substance as far as real
protection is concerned in the present age of hi-tech terror.
The period saw no substantial progress in expansion and reorganisation
of the district police. There are much to be done in the field, both in
strengthening the organistion and cleansing it. Policing at this level
comes in daily contact with the hoi polloi, and for them police means
the district police. The police at this level really form the image of
the police for the common man. Unfortunately, corruption is rampant in
district police, because of the powers invested in it to control the
daily affairs of the people. The power breeds corruption; and the
corruption breeds mad rush to man key positions in district police. In
magnitude also, the district police form the biggest slice of the police
force in the country.
The serious maladies witnessed in secret police and investigation
agencies of India are actually common symptoms of the atrophy observed
in all wings of Indian police including the law and order police.
Dishonesty, lack of professional commitment, extra-professional
loyalties and unchecked corruption are the albatross that commonly
suffer Indian police at all levels. It is not a rosy picture to have to
a police force more than a century old and now reaching half a century
mark of existence in a free country. The deterioration of Indian police
is steep after independence. Perhaps, democratic rule in the country
sinsyne has not done any good to Indian police. The nexus of police with
criminals and politicians is smothering and squeezing the country and
its public life out of its vitality to a stage of paralysis. While the
virus is coram populo in states like Bihar and UP, it is eating up the
vitals of the country in other states ab intra. No part of the country
is free from this slow process of sphacelus. The talk of private armies
during elections in UP and Bihar is indicia to the confidence Indian
police inspire in public after fifty years of self-rule. Indian police
in 1990s appear like a century-old giant tree rendered hollow ab intra
by the temite of corruption. Unless something is done fast to return the
vitality of the professional pride and commitment, Indian police may
irrevocably fail the country in leading it forth to the century-mark of
India’s independence.
The article deals with the organisation, management and
operations of intelligence network in reference to India
and its significance in safeguarding the internal security
of the country. Efforts are made to trace the Achilles’
heel in the organisation and functioning of the present
intelligence build-up in India and how it has to be handled
to strengthen the internal security machinery of the country
is discussed in the article with emphasis on selection of
right people, right training, right motivation, right planning
and right preparations before each field action. The intricacies
of intelligence operations are also discussed in three distinct
levels namely intelligence gathering, research & planning and
field operations with reference to their importance to the
internal security.
The police force in India was raised imprimis to tackle crime and law
and order problems. Its recruitment, training and on-the field
experience programmes stress upon the elements required to tackle those
problems. The Indian police organisation, in its stiff hierarchical
order and discipline, is geared to meet these challenges. There is
little scope in the present police for the growth of an aptitude other
than for these déjà vu function. No effort was made to overhaul the
police even after security challenges have superated in their primacy in
police functions. It should be borne in mind that the demands on the
police to meet security challenges are tout a fait distinct from the
demands to which the Indian police has long been accustomed. The
aptitude required to protect targets from determined esoteric strikes by
terrorists is antipodal with the aptitude required for the show of
strength, necessary to suppress a loosely knit mob of wankle
law-breakers. In spite of these excessive strains on the Indian police,
its organisation and resources, due to the dangerous spurt in security
threats, it unfortunately has failed to abraid and overhaul its system
to face the new challenges. The glitches of the Indian police in
internal security are obvious by the fact that Indian soil has become a
fertile ground to breed and feed terrorist organisations. Every corner
of India has its own terrorist outfit and each of these outfits has
proved itself a pernicious challenge to the Indian police. Never, even
by chance has the Indian police shown that it can control a terrorist
outfit. The fact is that even all armies of the world together cannot
bring a terrorist outfit to heel, unless the soft belly of the terrorist
outfit is subtly hit embusque by intelligent operations. Sadly, the
Indian police is yet to realise this fact.
Sabotage, terrorism and security risks are not phenomena, pro tempore.
They are here to stay and the police must know to meet the situations
they engender. And threats to internal security, by all means will
assume demonic proportions as time advances. The
survival of the police in coming years depends upon its ability to meet
the needs of internal security. It has no alternative but to overhaul
its passe system, organisation, operational methods, approach to work,
training and manpower resources to be able to do so. The faster it is
done, the better. For, the inability of the police in successfully
handling security challenges is resulting in fatalities almost every
day.
The first parameter for preparing the police for the future challenges
of the internal security is selecting right people with right aptitude,
right abilities and right background. This requires thorough job
analysis in the requirements to handle the pertinent responsibilities.
Choosing the right man from the motley to inclip him to the ergon forms
the foremost need of preparing the police for the impending challenges.
It should be realised that the need of such people to the police
overweighs the need of the police for these extra-ordinary species. As
internal security is a condition of national survival, no law, no
fundamental right, no directive principle nor any social welfare
ideologies should interfere with the recruitment of the right people.
Internal security being a highly sensitive and secretive job, each less
than right man inside is a positive risk to security operations. Further
, such people are a drain on the efficiency and effectiveness of the
organisation. Ergo, avoiding people less than right for the job is as
important in recruitment as selecting the right person.
The people who fit-in to internal security responsibilities must have an
innate trait to give themselves to the job that they take up. They must
be sensitive people with a high commitment to their responsibilities
with the mental and physical ability to fulfil the task. Men of high
intelligence quotient, patience, aplomb and perseverance have to be
immanent in their nature. A profound sense of patriotism is an added
qualification. However, not many people having these rare qualities are
readily available. It must be a sacred duty of the security operators to
ingest such rara avis to the organisation wherever they are found and
with whatever sacrifice. It is possible only if recruitment to these
places are made a postern affair at the highest level without throwing
recruitment open to competitions where all types of people sneak in for
various reasons. Internal security, more often than not, is an envious
profession wherein life is committed to its objectives.
In the circumstances, the indraught to the fold must be agraste with
respect and behoofs in form of liberal purses and perks apart from more
than generous promotional and death-cum-retirement benefits that behove
to the compulsive commitment sine qua non for the job. This helps to
widen the latitude of choice by promising a belle vue which is puerile
to its demands to the aspirants to this difficile career.
Having suitable manpower is one thing. Preparing them for the future
challenges is quite another. It is here that training comes into
picture. Training high-calibre, sensitive people is a much more
responsible and arduous job. If the training is to prepare them for
sensitive job like internal security, the gravity of the task gets
further compounded by the addition of another dimension to the
responsibility. The emphasis here is to raise the innate traits of the
trainees to desired levels. They should be moulded to be highly
motivated, knowledgeable, bright professionals with a flair for results.
They must be taught to operate without plangent attention and get
maximum mileage from minimum basic action. Such a training needs a
carefully drawn-up training programme with creative inputs. In sensitive
jobs like internal security, grooming manpower including recruitment and
training is more vital than the job itself.
Indian security plans lay stress on covering targets with armed men and
preventing people from approaching the threatened target. In absence of
adequate penetration into the source of threat, none of these tactics
can have any impact on the capabilities of a terrorist to strike his
target. A human wall around the target is an infructuous show of
strength in an age where there are powerful weapons and ammunitions that
can penetrate several such layers in a single stroke. Even the best of
the snipers protecting a target would be at a disadvantage in feeling a
terrorist-to-strike who has all the advantages of time, place, surprise
and the mental and physical reflexes to superate both his target and
armed protectors. A well-planned terrorist attack fully prepares for all
these odd contretemps.
Another important strategy of the Indian security machinery is screening
people before permitting proximity to the threatened target. A
resourceful terrorist plan can facilely circumvent this with money
connections and influence. There are infinite ingenious ways available
to a resourceful and imaginative man, determined to reach his target in
circumstances where a police force remiss and ineffectual at best and
corrupt at the worst is in charge of screening as spotters, his job is
facile and custom-made for his aptitude.
The Indian police system lays emphasis on dashing qualities rather than
on mental qualities and planning that form the elan vital of security
policing. The age-old police traits like a criant show of force and a
strict adherence to hierarchical order have a mis-alliance with the
needs of security operations where patience, perseverance, calculating
mind and imagination was to foresee developments, speedy physical and
mental reflexes, unbreachable sang-froid in adverse situations, high
commitment to the work in hand, initiative and above all, courage to
take responsibility for action decide the success or otherwise of the
security build-up. Indeed, these human qualities have to be reinforced
with neoteric security equipment including latest communication,
transport, information, weaponry and other security –oriented systems.
The organisation must have three full-fledged wings in charge of (a)
collection of intelligence; (b) process and assessment of security
risks; and (c) field operation.
Collection of vital intelligence forms the pith of perficient security
operation. An effective security build-up perforce stands on the
foundation of strategic intelligence. The ferocity of security basically
depends on the quality of intelligence as an input. A security
organisation of neoteric age cannot survive without an effective
intelligence wing as a backup unit. And key intelligence does not come
freely. It has to be extracted at great risks from closely guarded
sources by resourceful intelligence operators. Often, such an operation
may require years of patient preparation by an undercover to cultivate
dependable insiders to the cause. These operations are potential
comminations to the mutual relation and ergo intelligence operators are
left to their own fate by employers when the operators are caught.
Intelligence is a venal commodity and its price can be fixed in monetary
terms. Collection of intelligence involves huge expenditure to maintain
organisation and communication reticulation, support the logistics of
the operations and at times to affect outright purchases as well. It
requires a huge army of highly-paid and expensive operators and agents
to cover places and groups that are potentially security risks. The
success of security back home tout a fait depends upon the quality of
the intelligence sent back. In an age of bitter concourse to win over or
withhold a piece of intelligence, double crosses or even triple crosses
are au naturel. The situation necessitates keeping an ey on these
operators from a distance.
The raw inputs from intelligence sources have to be winnowed, classified
and processed if found to have security relevance. Intelligence
collection sans processing is as good as, if not worse than, not
collecting them at all. Raw intelligence throws the national security to
the winds by raising a maelstrom, wherein facts and fancies are
completed beyond recognition. It blunts the sensitivities of the sleuths
and excoriates targets to real danger. The possibility can be avoided by
creating a nerve-centre, a command post in the security organisation to
process and assess intelligence inputs anent ground realities, past
history and known facts. This organisation must be manned by people au
fait and capable of reading between lines to arrive at right conclusions
as well as invenit strategies in the interests of the internal security.
This body must have a flair for research and analysis and knowledge of
the internal situation of the country, dynamics of various factors that
have bearing on the internal security and possess an insight into minor
developments that may blow up into serious security risks at some future
date. It must be constituted of carefully chosen professionals with
proven records of eximious work and a deep sense of patriotism and
commitment to their work and should be directly responsible to the chief
of the organisation and work as a high-power advisory body in all
matters pertaining to the security.
Field operation is the cutting –edge of the security build-up. Other
activities in the organisation are just postern backups to the field
operation that forms the mainstay of the security organisation and
inclips a vast portion of the organisation’s manpower, equipments,
machinery, money, time and other resources. If intelligence operators
must have alert eyes and ears, security analysts must have smart mental
faculties and field-operators must have smart reflexes inter alia. Only
people with exceptional courage and perseverance and dare devilry can
behove to this job. Resourceful people with energy and willingness to
work hard in tramontane circumstances, rare single-mindedness of purpose
and devotion can alone be successful in the dangerous world of field
operations. They have to be pollent-willed people with the precinct to
risk their lives for the sake of achieving goal. Screening people for
these traits is not a facile job. This arduous job has to be performed
with great care and caution for the quality of internal security of the
land depends upon the work turned out by them. The people who are chosen
for the job must be able to provide security to men, places and
structures, known to be sensitive and comminuted by enemies, while
themselves remain in shades. Speed and surprise are their chief
attributes. Resourcefulness to do jobs which appear impossible is their
mainstay. Indeed, the demands are too high and this necessitates careful
selection and recruitment, efficient training, high motivation and
liberal compensation in the form of generous pay, perks and expenditure
accounts. The people who play with their lives to meet the objectives of
the internal security have to be treated well for the risks to which
they willingly submit themselves in the interests of the country and its
internal security.
All internal security operations must be part of a raisonne security
plan that is drawn out in advance after through research and study of
the best available intelligence on internal and external affairs, the
geographical position of the country, the internal and external economic
situation, likely shifts in foreign relations, objects and intentions of
neighbouring countries, the dynamics of ethnic, communal and linguistic
interaction within the country and scientific advances in weaponry and
other gadgetry, having a bearing on the security matters. The security
plan must foresee likely sources of trouble inside and outside the
country and cultivate undercover operators at sensitive spots either by
its own resources or through agents, often years or decades in advance
to keep an eye on developments, feed intelligence and control situations
by infiltration to strategic positions. Without this groundwork, no
security operation can make much headway.
Any security build-up must stand on two basic requirements; firstly,
up-to-date knowledge of the security risks and their starategies and
secondly, a security machinery devised to meet specific demands of the
specific circumstances. A thorough knowledge of the adversaries includes
an in-depth knowledge of their long and short term objectives, their
time-to-time aberrations, strategies, expertise, modes of operation,
friends, enemies, sources of support, likely change of strategies and
their analyses to assess the possibility of security threats and likely
targets. Yes, it is a stupendous task involving huge manpower and other
resources a grands frais. Yet, it is worth the cost and trouble in the
interests of the national security and a far more intelligent and
meaningful use of human and material resources than spending them to
criminals after they accomplish their pernicious job. Investigation of
terrorism-oriented crimes serves practically no purpose and makes no
impact on the plan and strategies of a well-planned terrorist outfit.
A security build-up is infrangible only if it is specific for each
circumstance depending upon the needs as assessed by security experts
from time to time. Security must essentially be an esoteric operation
with open eyes and ears and closed mouth; with open mind and closed
heart . It must be a shadowy operation rather than a gust of light
blinding people around. Intelligent terrorist operators prefer to strike
in this gust of light which is what security tends to be. A good and
pollent security plan should not have an open set-plan which by all
likelihood would be used by intelligent terrorists to their advantage.
The pollicitation of a good security plan depends upon its
secretiveness, perspicacity and ability to take even a well-prepared and
resourceful terrorist operator by surprise.
Civil Service being the trunk of the tree of democratic
Governance, Praveen Kumar wants it to be safeguarded
From the axe of job reservation policy.
It is a historical fact that India which is characterised by its unity
in diversity was never a single nation at any time in its long course of
history of several millenniums, till the feat was achieved in the 20th
century.
Neither Asoka Mourya or Samudra Gupta or Chandra Gupta nor Akbar or
Aurangzeb of Mughul dynasty in Indian history can boast of binding all
the regions stretching between Cape Camorin and Karakorampass, and Rann
of Kutch and Arunachal Pradesh under a single rule to give meaning to
the concept of a single nation.
No military strength, no religion, no cultural similarities, no unity of
civilisation, no linguistic resemblances nor geographical proximities at
any time before succeeded in forging a single nation out of the vast
land masses south of the Himalayas.
If India is a single nation today, though in its rather moth-eaten form,
the credit should go to its distinguished civil service of early and
middle 20th century vintage which was rightly called as the steel-frame
of Indian unity.
Should India continue as a single nation, it has to be through the grit,
strength and quality of its civil service alone.
Any tampering with the quality of the civil service and doing anything
that may mangle the ‘steel-frame’ grade of Indian civil service
certainly go fatal to the very existence of India as a single nation.
The worst curse on India and its people is the classification and
stratification of humanity on the basis of births and adoption of rigid
codes of social conduct to rule the relationship between those in
different strata.
The lower strata being condemned to be treated less than street dogs and
denied equality and any opportunity of growth and decent life.
This curse for several millenniums permanently handicapped certain
accurst social groups from breaking away from primitive way of life.
This cancer in Indian social life develops a major moral responsibility
on India not only to get rid of the nasty disease, but also to
rehabilitate the victims of the age-old social bevue.
Post-independent India, as welfare state, took innumerable measures,
both constitutional and legislative, towards absterging the sins
perpetrated by its past practices of ages on the unfortunate sections of
the society.
The removal of untouchability, prevention of atrocities, reservations,
in jobs and educational opportunities to quote but a few.
Sine dubio, such special treatments alone can somewhat remedy the
inhuman treatment and delour meted out to some without an iota of
fellow-feeling and kindness for generations after generations.
Such measures on special footing are not only compensations India must
pay for having deprived some of its children of their growth
opportunities for so long, though belated and inadequate as they are.
They are also a kind of remorse the country suffers for its past sins.
But the cardinal question is the direction such measures must take.
Wrong policies in such matters may not only fail to make the measures
efficacious, but may also block the existing opportunities too.
It may also further weaken the social fabric of the country and ipso
facto pose real threat to the very existence of India as a country.
The apollyon in question is the policy of job reservation in civil
service which may eat up the quality and steel-frame toughness of the
setup to disintegrate and balkanise India sans its only binding force
namely a sound civil service to keep the country united in its
diversities.
The victims of the age-old stratified class system actually deserve many
more special privileges than delivered to them at present.
The necessarily need easier access to educational opportunities to
prepare them for higher slots in life.
Hence, the need of reservations in educational institutions.
Perhaps, institution of an apex development bank with branches in all
districts or taluks of the country, exclusively for their financial
needs of nonconsumptive nature at nominal rate of interest a la rural or
agricultural banks may prove a significant step in this direction.
Institution of liberal scholarships, concession in or exemption from,
application fee for jobs, wider network or board and lodging facilities
for students, free higher studies, special vocational training for men
and women, concessional hostel facilities for working men and women,
easy housing schemes, free advanced medical treatment facilities, etc
are other welfare schemes for the unprivileged classes that may help to
bring them on par with others.
This will wipe out the achilles’ heel from the face of Indian social
structure to make Indian society civilised without affecting the quality
of its governance and parameters of survival.
It was Winston Churchill who said democracy is the worst type of
governance except for all other types of governance. Basically,
democracy signifies rule of common man and rule of mediocrity and ergo,
more dangerously the rule of hoi polloi or mob.
This definition applies principally to the political system of the
democratic governance and not to the civil service system which is
expected to be the subtle spine of the democratic rule. A sound civil
service as amicus curiae draws the metes and bounds of governance within
which the democratic system must function and also inspire a sense of
moderation, di