Copped out in khaki

The Indian police has inherited all the negative dimensions of the Raj. But the force can humanise, if given the chance

Anju Gupta Delhi

From New Delhi to New York to Berlin to Bangkok to Osaka to Singapore, the term ‘police’ evoke a strange, but familiar, reaction. International organisations, too, seem to carefully scrutinise human rights credentials of anyone coming with a law-enforcement background. Indeed, it does not take too much to diagnose that the common perception about police that runs across cultures is its ‘unique’ ability to ignore the humanness of a situation. There is something inherent in the role of police as an enforcer (and controller) that brings out the lack of human touch universally, and to varying degrees. Of course, in this comparison, professional standards are not being compared.

In India, the picture of the men in khaki evokes variety of feelings among people, induced mostly by common sights ‘on the streets’, such as a cop chasing a rickshawpuller, a traffic constable badmouthing a commoner for an innocent violation of a traffic law, merciless beating of an encroacher-hawker or protestor, with the usual sprinkling of the card-playing, paan-chewing and paunch-sporting cop in the neighbourhood looking for his weekly hafta from a poor vendor trying to earn his honest living.

It is these recurring, undeniably negative, visual experiences that create deep impressions on the minds of people and stay with them forever. Although a large number of people do not come in direct or indirect contact with police, yet, these negative images create a formidable barrier between a citizen and the subordinate levels of police (who present the face of the police organisation).

Since, for most people, police is the first point of contact with the criminal justice system, a citizen feels unsafe at the mercy of a ‘brutalised’ police force. What if I have to deal with the police?

It is intriguing how a friendly young man from the neighbourhood becomes so unfriendly after joining police. Why does he/she exhibit less humanity when faced with real or so-called provocations? But before we probe into what brings about this change, let us take a hard look at the character of the society this person comes from. How does society (a collection of people in a situation) react in the face of real or so-called provocations?

In case of a road accident, for example, we usually protest by smashing vehicles or by bashing up the driver and thereby creating a lot of tension in public space. To protest against the low supply of electricity, we block roads, burn down electricity offices and beat up the staff. We sometimes go berserk over the natural death of a movie icon. If we catch a thief, we definitely beat him up mercilessly before handing him over to police. We quietly rejoice extra-judicial killings of criminals. We generally demand/buy/plead summary trial by police for most of our problems and would even proactively support ‘third degree’ to recover a lost item.

These undeniably negative and violent images are as real. It is rather easy to understand that anyone coming from a society with this kind of social conditioning will have to be reformed in a lawful and humane manner in the face of real or so-called provocations. Having said that, police was created and used by the British to keep the ‘colonised subjects’ in check, by implementing the undemocratic rule of force in the garb of rule of law. The legacy has, more or less, continued in this approach to policing. Hence, anyone joining the organisation with unreformed social conditioning internalises these ‘values’ over a period of time. The process gets reinforced and accelerated by environmental factors, such as working and

service conditions.

As per a report (‘Study on Police-People Interface, presented at the Police Science Congress, Bangalore 2006) of real-time data collected for a sample district for one-year period, an average police person works for around 15.5 hours per day, gets no weekly time off, spends most festivals on duty, works all-weather, odd-hour duty life long, is entitled to 61 days of leave (against 140 days by other equivalent government employees) and utilises only 56 per cent of leave (as against above 90 per cent by other government employees).

Most constables retire as constables and a small fraction of sub-inspectors get promoted to the next rank (inspector) and that, too, after waiting for more than 18 years or so. She/he generally supports three establishments (at the place of duty, family at district or some other headquarter and parents in the village), spends hardly any time with his/her family, observes odd eating/sleeping hours and lacks basic resources for even maintaining physical fitness, so crucially required for the job. There is little or no access to small things, such as safe drinking water or desk space or clean toilets in a police station. He/she lives and works constantlyin sub-human conditions constantly.

Huge workload and lack of resources create conditions of ‘short supply and high demand’ leading to familiar consequences: corruption, role of sifarish, two sets of rules (for VIP and common citizens) and bad practices. Together, these conditions create huge dissatisfaction in the society, while they have much more disastrous impact on police at subordinate levels. They become hopeless and cynical.

Professionalism and initiative become low priorities. Morale, motivation and discipline tend to depend solely on the quality of leadership at a given point in time. The job is looked at more as a drudgery and a source of some extra gratification. These dehumanising conditions are hugely responsible for bad behaviour that shows up on the streets as unfriendly or violent reaction to real or so-called provocations, occurring many times a day in the life of an average police person.

A police person, therefore, cannot be humanised in isolation, as it is the systemic and societal factors that lie at the root of the problem. There is an urgent need to review critical issues of rationalisation of workload, availability of required resources, creating supportive and enabling working conditions at police stations and places of duty.

Also, there is need to create a system of weekly off for all ranks, commensurate leave and leave utilisation, time-bound and minimum three promotions those in lower ranks, a fair and relevant recruitment process, capacity building of lower ranks for public-dealing and modernising overall management practices of the police organisation.

Besides, we must start a public debate in the civil society and among the governing structures on ‘violence’. We have to initiate creative programmes for educating the masses about how to respect the ‘rule of law’, even while we should be sensitive enough to dismantle the colonial mentality and stereotypes police has inherited from the Raj. Or else, the rule of law might lose its humane and democratic essence.

The writer is Deputy Inspector General, UP Police