B K Karkra
Quite many people complain about the boorish behaviour and atrocious attitudes of the police force in our country. They hold the opinion that police is one organ of the state that has stubbornly refused to get in tune with the times. I, as a former police officer, may assure them that there is nothing genetically wrong with our policemen. The man in khaki is as human as any of us. However, the system under which they have been required to work in for the last many centuries is truly inhuman. The problem with them is that they are carrying a lot of unwanted baggage from the past and the present political order does not permit them to shed it.
The primary role of the Indian police during the British era was to keep the natives in awe of the Empire. The handful of the British aliens— their number never went beyond two hundred thousand in the country— could rule the vast multitude of Indians through a policy of terror alone. No wonder, therefore, when a politico-spiritual typhoon, called M.K. Gandhi, finally burst on the Indian horizon and drained out the fear psychosis from the native nerves, the British quickly came to the conclusion— ‘This far and no further’.
The British knew that police could be the most effective and handy instrument of awe. However, they had come to this colony with the aim of generating wealth and repatriating it in droves back home. So they could not afford to spend much on policing in the country. Yet, they wished to hold their Indian colony, the Jewel of the British Empire, in a tight grip. What they needed for the purpose was a powerful police force, ruthless in its attitudes, but completely subservient to the imperial authority. Their political shrewdness came to their rescue in this situation. What if they did not have much money to raise a sizeable police force, they had political power in abundance. They could always throw some crumbs of political authority before the natives to achieve their objectives cheap.
So, their innovative mind devised a highly effective system of cheap policing, very different from the one they had back home. This was structured around the all-powerful district magistrates, generally the Britishers and Station House Officers, mostly the natives. This marrying of mind and muscle served the imperial interest fabulously well for quite some time. The de jure power of the magistrates and the de facto authority of police thus emerged as a highly potent instrument of intimidation for the natives. The combination of the two, with the police taking care of the dirtier part of it, could play merry hell with the common men at the first sight of any violent spirit among them. To add to this all, the British created a system of ‘numberdars’ and ‘chowkidars’ in the villages. These functionaries who were paid a pittance (along, of course, with some miniscule crumbs of police authority) acted as eyes and ears of the empire in all seriousness. Earlier our villages were almost the self-governing units. They rarely took any cognizance of who were their rulers at the centre or in the provinces. Periodic plans of controlling them got quickly squashed because of the supposedly high costs in terms of effort and expense involved. Now, the British innovatory measures had put them in the tight grip of the government at hardly any cost to the exchequer.
The S.H.O. `s just about got the pay of an upper division clerk, but were otherwise vested with an awful amount of raw authority over the natives. Generally, the heavily-built, thickly moustached and macho-looking individuals, broadly answering to the description of ‘yumraj’ (god of death) in our mythology, were picked up for the job. These hatchet-men of the Empire were meant to be wolves for the refractory natives, but dogs in their obedience to the colonial authority. They could freely use batons and even bullets to crush any rebellious spirit or agitation against the Empire.
This is the predicament our polfound himself in at the dawn of our Independence. With his past sticking to him like a dirty leech, he needed the blessings of his political masters to shed his earlier image and gradually endear himself among the people, like his counterpart in the London police. Had the post Independence politics somehow managed to put him in the shoes of the London Bobby, I am sure; he would have lost no time in changing his ways and emerging as the darling of the people. Unfortunately, he continued to be badly misused for political purposes even after we became a democratic republic in name. In the circumstances, he also learnt to cope with all sort of fair and unfair demands on him. After all, alcohol could be easily accessed by him to beat physical fatigue, mental stress and all uneasiness on his conscience. Besides, the sense of power over the common man was also there to console him. Power and money are also freely convertible commodities. What if he did not have the love and regard of the citizenry? He had many things going for him. However, all said, love being a biologic urge his nerves still ache over its denial.
Police power is the inherent authority of every state. In other words, there cannot be any state in the absence of police power. The political masters in our states, therefore, have to have sufficient say in the matter of control over their police forces, especially when subjects like “Police” and “Public order” stand exclusively assigned to them in our statute. Still some regulation is urgently needed to shield police from undue political interference.
Nonetheless, the first step in the direction of police reforms should be to give a decent burial to the imperial idea of cheap policing in the country. The powerful post of the S.H.O. must not stay with a petty official of Group-C status who would always remain easily susceptible to undue influences. It should instead be held by the officers of the Indian Police Service with at least five years experience. With the vast improvement in the state of communications, we could rather reduce the number of police stations. The police stations could have a number of police posts headed by Deputy Superintendents of Police with reduced police power. The district police chief should be a selection grade I.P.S. officer. In line with this upgrading of police, the district magistracy should also be overhauled with the post of district magistrate going to a selection grade I.A.S. officer. The money for this elevation of the police and magistracy structure could be found by pruning drastically the top-heaviness in these establishments at the state headquarters` level.
Police, after all, produces the precious wealth of peace for the society. It cannot be allowed to be played with by the politicians.
(The author is Commandant (Retd)
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