Opinion - News Analysis   

India's dysfunctional police

Ramesh Thakur

In addition to being insulated from political interference, the police must be brought under independent civilian control.

A COUNTRY discharges its responsibility to protect citizens through security forces. Of India's three groups of security forces, I used to think of the police as largely corrupt, inefficient, distrusted, and everywhere; the paramilitary forces as brutal, ruthless, feared but called out of the barracks only periodically; and the armed forces as disciplined, efficient, respected, and generally insulated from the public.

Has the military been infected by the general malaise afflicting public sector discipline? In Kolkata, a couple of army officers, allegedly misbehaving under the influence during New Year revelry, were taken into police custody. They were rescued by armed fellow soldiers and the police station trashed.

On the opposite coast, a British tourist was killed somewhere between Goa and Mumbai. The police version, that he was killed by villagers angered by his molestation of a local woman, is flatly rejected by the village and by his family back in England.

In Noida, an angry mob attacked the police for criminal dereliction of duty in refusing to investigate serial kidnappings of children. One of the Cabinet Ministers of the relevant State Government was dismissive: "Such small and routine incidents happen." Over a three-year period, 38 children reported missing, and 22 found sexually abused and killed — small and routine? Clearly, stuff happens in India as in Iraq.

These cases come on top of public outrage at police incompetence-cum-complicity in a couple of high-profile murder cases which were then righted by India's increasingly — and sometimes alarmingly — activist judiciary.

Feared by the public

The demoralisation and ill-discipline of the police forces is matched by the public's distrust and fear of them. They are widely believed to be anti-poor, anti-women, anti-Muslim, and anti-outcastes. Torture is as routine as corruption is endemic.

Yet protecting citizens' rights to pursue their legitimate interests, peacefully and safely, is fundamental to the political, economic, and social well-being of society. The principles of democratic policing are to uphold the rule of law and the rights of individuals, and to resolve law and order incidents with the minimum use of force. Where liberalism views police as the servants of the people, the Indian police behave like masters over the citizens. The common constable is held in low regard, is notorious for petty corruption, and receives little cooperation from the public.

Most people believe that the police perpetrate some crimes themselves, shield criminals, refuse to register complaints against criminals, fabricate false cases against innocent victims instead, use beatings as their favourite technique of investigation, and frequently resort to illegal detentions at police stations. For ordinary citizens, contact with the police can lead to extortion and bribery. I recall my late lawyer father telling me once that if there should be little or no crime within a thana's jurisdiction, the first priority for the thanedar and his staff would be to foment crime else their supplemental incomes from all sides would dry up.

Policing has become more onerous and dangerous with escalating sectarian and political violence. Often, the police have to confront a political dilemma as well as a civil disturbance. They have to be sensitive to the possibility that today's demonstrator at the receiving end of the police lathi may turn out to be tomorrow's political master. In caste clashes, they have to maintain the fine line between inaction, over-vigorous action, and sectarian partiality and identification with one of the groups engaged in the clashes.

Political patronage has corrupted law enforcement. Police are often asked to file false charges against political opponents, or drop investigations against political allies. In some parts of the country, the practice is strongly institutionalised: the price of recruitment, promotion, and transfers for the various ranks is well known both to those seeking and dispensing political favours. Village police are used with surprising brazenness to harass, intimidate, and otherwise coerce local political or feudal rivals.

Recalcitrant police are "disciplined" by transfers to remote areas or trivial tasks; pliant officers are rewarded with plum postings and accelerated upward mobility.

There is an unholy nexus among politicians, armed criminals, and the police. The steady criminalisation of politics has been followed by the politicisation of crime. If Bihar today is the mirror to tomorrow's India, even God might despair of helping the country. People revile the police for their mouse-like timidity towards political superiors but lion-like arrogance in dealings with citizens. Whole communities — for example the Muslims in Gujarat, where the police stood idly by when rampaging Hindu mobs killed large numbers of Muslims in 2002 — have lost faith in the police.

Critical requirement

There is a critical, even desperate need for radical police reform. First, they must be given better education, training, discipline, pay, and merit-based promotions. I remain nonplussed at how poorly the police fare on these dimensions, in particular in view of their responsibility and ready recourse to arms.

Secondly, in addition to being insulated from political interference, the police must be brought under independent civilian control: an ombudsman to handle less serious complaints and an independent police complaints authority to deal with serious charges of misbehaviour. One price — or is it collateral benefit — of the rapid emergence of India into the international limelight is the searchlight of scrutiny on the actions and behaviour of its security forces by the world media.

(Ramesh Thakur is senior vice rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo. These are his personal views.)

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