INDIAN POLICE

PRAVEEN KUMAR

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Baltimore

 2009 by Praveen Kumar.

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Im incomplete, my Love, without you,

Hell or heaven, my Goddess, you are my all;
this volume is lovingly dedicated to
PRIYA CHAITRA TAPASVINI

Most charming and most wonderful girl

Ever born on this world

BOOKS AUTHORED BY PRAVEENKUMAR

POLICING FOR THE NEW AGE

POLICING THE POLICE
INDIAN POLICE
INSIDE INDIA
POLICING THE POLICE 2 EDN
UNKNOWN HORIZONS
PORTRAITS OF PASSION
SIMPLY YOURS
LOVE & PRIDE
SHOBHA PRIYA
GOLDEN WONDER
CELESTIAL GLOW
DIVYA BELAKU
BHAVANA
PRIYA CHAITRA TAPASVINI
ANANYA PRIYA LAVANYA
PRIYA GEETHEGALU
TAPASVINI

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Service here is modeled after Priya Chaitra Tapasvinithe sublime paragon

of conscience and conscious moral rectitude, most charming and most
wonderful creation of pure beauty, devotion, love and sacrifice ever born in this
world, most perfect and prettiest in all worlds. This volume of poetry is lovingly
dedicated to that exquisite wonder God has ever created.
This work would not have been possible without the inspiration and active
support of my son, Pratheek Praveen Kumar and wife, Jayashree. Also, my
mother, Smt. B.Sarojini, my sister, Pramodini Ganesh, brother, Nishith Kumar,
sister, Asha Narasimha and brother, Sushir Kumar stood behind me in this
effort. I record my gratitude to all of them.
I acknowledge with deep humility that this work would not have been
possible without the inspiration of my late father Shree R.D.Suvarna who
instilled in me right values and a sense of dignity without which I would not have
been what I am now. I would be failing in my duty if I fail to express my gratitude
to late Shree A.R.Sridharan, IPS (rtd.), former Director General of Police and
former Honble 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 Indian bureaucracy.
- PK

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 11
THE CRUMBLING STEEL FRAME OF INDIA ....................................... 13
THE CORE OF POLICE PROBLEMS .......................................................... 20
POOR ADMINISTRATION AFFECTS POLICE MORALE .................. 25
INDIAN POLICE: WHO WILL BELL THE CAT? ................................... 29
INDIAN POLICE NEED HEALTHY JOB CULTURE ........................... 34
CORRUPTION IN INDIA ................................................................................ 41
POLICE AS SOCIAL SURGEONS ................................................................. 46
NEED OF TOUGH DECISIONS FOR INDIAN POLICE ................... 51
LAW ENFORCERS IN UNHOLY ALLIANCES ....................................... 56
ROLE OF POLICE IN NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION ................. 61
UNPROFESSIONAL POLICING ................................................................... 66
WHAT AILS PROFESSIONAL POLICING IN INDIA? ......................... 69
INDIAN POLICE NEED COMPETENT BRASS ..................................... 73
RAT RACE AT TOP AFFECTS POLICING ................................................ 77
CONFUSION OF LOYALTIES IN INDIAN POLICE ............................ 82
POLICING UNDER POLITICAL PATRONAGE .................................... 85
CHALLENGES OF THE INDIAN POLICE .............................................. 92
POLICE AND THE UNDERWORLD ......................................................... 98
CAUGHT IN THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CORRUPTION .................103
ROLE OF POLICE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ......107
POLICE STRUCTURE NEEDS THE MANAGEMENT TOUCH ....115
MAN MANAGEMENT IN POLICE ...........................................................120
WHERE INDIAN POLICE IS HEADING ................................................126
POLICING THE POLICE...............................................................................132
NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN POLICE ..............................138
WHAT AILS THE INDIAN SECRET POLICE ........................................145
THE ROLE OF POLICE IN A DEMOCRACY .......................................149
LAW AND ORDER POLICING IN INDIA .............................................157
CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION IN INDIAN POLICE .........165
POLICE AS A BACKUP FORCE ..................................................................171

CORRUPTION: INDIAN POLICE SCENARIO .....................................176

CRIME, POLITICS AND THE POLICE ....................................................183
INDIAN POLICE AT THE CROSSROADS ..............................................208
HUMANISING THE POLICE .......................................................................231
ORGANISATIONAL CHALLENGES OF THE POLICE ...................242
INTERNAL SECURITY CHALLENGES ..................................................257
REVAMPING THE INVESTIGATION MACHINERY .........................274
COORDINATED APPROACH TO
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM ...............................................................278
INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES IN POLICING .......................................285
VISION FOR THE INDIAN POLICE ........................................................288
LOGISTIC REQUIREMENTS OF INDIAN POLICE ..........................301
TRAINING STRATEGY FOR INDIAN POLICE ...................................310
POLICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
DOES END JUSTIFY MEANS? ..............................................................320
POLITICAL CRIMES AND SECURITY .....................................................325
NEED OF REVAMPING INDIAN POLICE............................................335
RESTORING CREDIBILITY TO CRIME INVESTIGATION ...........338
NEED TO REVITALISE THE POLICE ....................................................343
INDIAN POLICE NEED VIGOUR ............................................................347
PROFESSIONAL PRIDE OF THE POLICE .............................................351
PRECEPTS OF POLICE ADMINISTRATION ........................................354
KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM .....................................................................365
INVESTIGATION OF ECONOMIC CRIMES ........................................369
RECENT TRENDS IN ECONOMIC CRIMES .......................................377
INVESTIGATION OF DOWRY DEATH CASES ...................................384
THE DEADLY PRICE OF POLICE COMPLACENCY .......................389
INDIAN POLICE AND SIXTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE ......393
INDIAN POLICE: COURSE AHEAD IN THE 21st CENTURY .......400
ROLE OF POLICE IN THE CAUSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE ..............405
ENFORCEMENT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE ..................................................410

INTRODUCTION
The Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy
(PERC) in a 12-page report on a business survey of 12 economies of Asia
released on June 3, 2009 where 1,274 expatriates working in these countries were
interviewed showed Indian bureaucracy at the bottom at the 12 position as the
least efficient bureaucracy after Philippines and Indonesia in 10 and 11 positions
respectively. The report says that working with the countrys civil servants in India
is a slow and painful process and it continues to report that They are a power
centre in their own right at both the national and state levels, and are extremely
resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties.
The cause of the malady in reference to Indian Police is analyzed and remedies
are recommended in the article, The Crumbling Steel Frame of India of this
volume. The deterioration is a post-independence phenomenon. The once steel
frame of Indian bureaucracy of the British vintage gradually crumbled to its
extant putridity under the sad auspice of its corrupt and incompetent UPSC
(Union Public Service Commission) and the deterioration trickled fast
downwards in the last six decades to bring India to this sad state of affairs.
This volume is a first hand account of the observations, impressions and
experiences of the author as an insider. Naturally, most illustrations in this volume
are from Karnataka police where the author served at senior levels for nearly
three decades. However, this makes no difference to the over all picture of India
as situation is not much different elsewhere.
As far as Karnataka police is concerned, in spite of misdeeds of notorious
scoundrels like R.S.Chopra, A.R.Nizamuddin and degenerates of the similar ilk,
situation is better there than some of the more notorious state police
organizations of India. The core weakness in Karnataka police lies in sweepingly
conforming to the putrid system and bad culture against conscience to cover
own tracks. It is mere cowardice of mediocrity and gross selfish interests of
ignobility and nothing more. Yet, no way can Karnataka police be called as an
efficient, healthy and responsible bureaucratic setup yet.
Faithful assessment must precede reconstruction. This volume is an effort in
this direction. Complacency leads to stagnation and is a dangerous indulgence in

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

a rotten situation like Indias. This volume is intended to breach the vicious
indulgence involved and inspire India to its rich potentialities on the way to much
dreamed of world leadership.
India is a civilization of diversities and a culture of contradictions. Indias is
an inclusive way of life. Along its long history, it saw umpteen falls and rises
without losing its innate vitality and always rose from worst quagmires
unscathed. This resilience of India underscores its unique heritage spawned by its
thoughts and philosophies that perhaps are nearest to the true nature of the
universe that the scientific world of today is engaged in to probe, discover and
formulate as the Grand Unification Theory (GUT). This is the secret of the
eternal strength of India.
This resilience of India gives hope. The present fall is not forever. Time of
revival shall come. India shall see a better system replace the present corrupt and
incompetent UPSC and a healthy administrative system replace the extant
inefficient and rogue bureaucracy.
The nature of the police accurately reflects the quality of democracy
entertained by a country. This is true of India and Indian police also. Further, the
menace of the current world namely terrorism is increasingly moving the police
centre-stage in governance as the sine qua non mechanism for founding peace and
safety of the citizens. These factors together render the police and policing the
deciding parameter in determining the character of a national life. That is why
India must act to bring its police and bureaucracy on right track to fulfill its dream
of a regional power and act pronto.

12

THE CRUMBLING STEEL FRAME

OF INDIA
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 formthe 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 Indias
size and diversity, also goes to the original All India Servicesto 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

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 realize the importance of
maintaining its Steel Frame and improving upon it, but also 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 recognize 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

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INDIAN POLICE

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 caliber. This led
to all kinds of evils including corruption, opportunism and lack of moral strength
to stand by ones 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
caliber 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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

procedures, which were poorly conceived and unskillfully 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 characters
itself.
As the selection of members of the UPSC became politicized, 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 degeneration.
The degeneration is manifest 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 specialized services, whether at the sub-divisional or
provincial level or at the highest levels of Central Government. The degeneration
is uniform everywhere.
Whether it is in creative genius, intellectual heights, strength of character, moral
values, width of human interests or noble qualities, the Civil Service of the postIndependence 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 caliber 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
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INDIAN POLICE

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 realize 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 even
to the brightest among the new recruits, unlike present training programmes
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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, three promising officers from the State cadre of a southern
State of India were denied selection till retirement by the UPSC to an All India
Service for no obvious reason, while their juniors were elevated. The acute
frustration and demoralization caused by this led to the break-up of the family
and untimely death 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 that led to his
conviction and ultimately untimely death of alcoholism. 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 caliber. He weathered the
frustration for the next seventeen years till his untimely retirement only 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 unprofessional 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

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people become Members and Chairman of the organisation and remain in the
saddle only as long as they retain their moral and professional caliber.
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.

19

THE CORE OF POLICE PROBLEMS

A Country begets the Police it deserves. The Police are 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 doubleedged 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 loi, powerful and rich criminals, the lure of
money, the constraints of democracy, legal hurdles, fragile system, fractured
organisation, professional constraints, increasingly 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 detre of the Police and do not constitute excuses for
inefficiency, nonperformance and failures. The challenge is to accept the reality

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INDIAN POLICE

and show results. The burden is on those at the top-wrung of the Police. It is their
failures to adequately plan, organize, execute and control that toppled the Indian
Police of the democratic vintage from its high pedestal. 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 unsavory ratrace among officials to reach the top-wrung, and consequent race to doublebend before the political 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 loi 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 are overindulged 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 clamor 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 hitech 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
manpower 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 remold 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 specialized job and no outsider can have a keek to the
intricacies of the Police and policing job.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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-tuning 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 Indias 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 are 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 that 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.
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INDIAN POLICE

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 the pedestal of 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 desired condescence 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 by the Governor of the state
in 2000 was got cancelled by undue promptings and maneuvers on the
Governor just a few hours before the release. He was invited by the Bureau of
Police Research and Development, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of
India, New Delhi to present three papers on police subjects in 37th All India
Police Congress held in Bangalore from June 6, 2006, a rare and unprecedented
honour to invite to present three papers. Karnataka police as the host of the event
prevented him from presenting the papers and the BPRD looked helpless and
resigned en face the insistence of the host of the event regarding its own officer.
Envy also played role in this.
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 officers 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 characterizes the ACR today is a distinct
lack of objectivity; it has become a means to personal ends, a medium for the
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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, specialization 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. A Supreme Court Judge must head the Authority 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.

24

POOR ADMINISTRATION AFFECTS

POLICE MORALE
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 realize 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 suffers 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 know that the advantages of a policeman outweigh 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.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

SCAPEGOAT
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 gang war 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 that 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 at least 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 that 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, and codes of conduct, moral values, natural courtesies and human dignity.
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 him 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 chiefs house under renovation
to keep vigil over the construction materials. This infuriated the police chief so
26

INDIAN POLICE

much so that the Deputy Commissioner was not selected for the vital All-India
Service. 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 reports 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 specialized 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 organizational 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 zero.
Threats and suppression form the essence of manpower management. Waste
of human resources and man-days 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 specialized field to be handled

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 fulfilling 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 specialized study and
application.
The complex psychological factors involving policing in diverse social
conditions and social imperatives of a policemans life require dexterous
handling of affairs to promote morale and right motivation in place of the ruleof-thumb approach adopted now. Unfortunately, the present chiefs of the civil
service are unequal to the task.
What is required is highly intricate organizational policy imbued with
specialized skills and insight of the highest order to inspire, motivate and get the
most out of the manpower at disposal. This 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.

28

INDIAN POLICE:
WHO WILL BELL THE CAT?
Policing, being a specialized 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 have got what it deservesa 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 realized that self-rule does not mean fraud and tyranny and
that the cabals of compatriots are no less pernicious than that of the aliens. Sixty
years is a long enough period to realize 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,

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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. All strata of people, unfortunately, accept this.
The Indian police never recognize 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:
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.
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
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INDIAN POLICE

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 are 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 is 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 of recognition of the other man as another human
being. The others 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.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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, its entire 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
endeavor 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 recognized. 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 inspire 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 fears are a
necessary constituent in policing is not based on the right understanding of
human psychology. The police do 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 are not the enemy of the people,
especially in democracy. Policing involves enforcement of order for the good
of many that 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 do 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
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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 watchdog. 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 recognized. 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?

33

INDIAN POLICE NEED

HEALTHY JOB CULTURE
Policemen are social doctors and policing is a surgical operation of the society
to systematically remove cancerous growths from its body. What if the band of
doctors itself is infested with serious cancerous growths? This is the position of
the present-day Indian police. The police, as the enforcers of law and protectors
of the public interests, wield tremendous powers for the public good. Such
powers to interfere with the life of the citizens must be invested only in people
of high probity and conscience. Otherwise, the powers by themselves ruin the
social fabric of the country and bring anarchy. Powers to search, seize, remove,
detain, direct, arrest, hit and even kill may prove pernicious in the wrong hands.
Powers to decide who has done wrong and how to prosecute them, when
invested in dishonest hands, certainly ruin society and the country. How these
powers are exercised depends imprimis on the work ethic of the organisation.
Though it is the people of an organisation au fond who build the job-culture of
the organisation, it is this job-culture of the organisation that creates a person in
the organisation at a given point of time. Even a degenerate caractere turns honest
and efficient in an honest and efficient environment. The work culture builds and
moulds vitality to meet the general atmosphere around. Similarly, an honest and
efficient person in a degenerate culture is bound to atrophy sooner or later, unless
his individual strength superates the vitiating work-culture of the organisation.
Ergo, building up a proper job-culture is the bedrock of a perficient police
organisation.
India, as one of the foremost and largest democracies of the world, have a
great burden on its flabby shoulders to prove to the world that democracy as
a form of government can stand up to any dissipating influence and hold
disparate geographical, racial, ethnical, linguistic, religious, cultural and economic
factors united in its pandemic prise of liberal benevolence and serve the cause of
the unity of the sovereign country at all odds. The gauntlet India faces in this
regard is made kenspeckle by the locus standi or the country in terms of its position
as a ranking leader of the developing countries. Human nature being as it is, the

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INDIAN POLICE

emerging atmosphere of commercialization and material comforts vis a vis

increasing concours for limited resources of the Earth, makes man increasingly selfcentered and more and more adventurous and violent in his appropinquation to
reach his self-appointed narrow goals. It is true of all social divisions including
religions, language groups, ethnic divides, cultural interests and national
aspirations. Communal hatred, linguistic barriers, ethnic clashes, cultural
bickering and threats to the national security are orders of the day rather than
exceptions with the trends betraying the indicia of dangerous chorisis.
Democracy, unfortunately, is a fertile ground of such degenerate tendencies
because of the trust democracy lays wrongly on the basic nature and general
abilities of common man. The trust is wrongly laid for the reason that democracy
fails to take into account the reality of the limosis in man which creates all which
creates all havocs and assesses man as just a need-oriented simple animal.
Liberalization that forms part of democracy, in cahoots with material
interpretations of life, in spite of myriad benefit and comforts it brings with it,
certainly poison the atmosphere to the extent of comminating the very
foundation of the democracy and the unity of the country. This is where the
police come to the picture to control the situation and save the democracy from
its own vices.
The police in a democracy are the watchdog of the democracy. Democracy
basically being the rule of the hoi polloi, clash of interests therein is an expected
feature. In an atmosphere of self-rule by the self-centered people of the present
commercial world, a machinery to show peoples their limits and punishes
devious elements in sine qua non. The police form the master-axle that runs this
vital engine of the administration. It being the ultimate executors of the laws, rules
and regulations that form the chemistry of a rule of law, whatever are the other
attributes of an administration, its efficiency, quality and success tout a fait depend
upon the merits of the police, the democracy evolves for itself. In the atmosphere
of 20 and 21 centuries unified world, like all other social and administrative
apparatus, Indian police too have most of its external patterns modeled after the
police organisations in other countries rather than evolved ab intra. This is true
in pre-independent era as well as in post-independent age. In pre-independent
era, because, the then rulers namely the British modeled Indian police on the
patterns of their own police back in England. In post-independent age, because,
independent Indias new rulers continue with the system left by the British except
for spasmodic retouches here and there in response to time to time compulsions
of the realities in the fields of crime, security and law and order of the country.
Though the retouches made their appearances from the field realities, the ideas
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

and models are algate modeled on parallel machinery in other countries. It is true
about the gestalts and protocols of Indias own Research and Analysis Wing or
Intelligence Bureau or Central Bureau of Investigation or Paramilitary forces or
crack-forces or anti terrorist-squads or organisations to fight narcotics and other
economic offences or normal police station, district and state police
administration. It is not to say that Indian police is tout ensemble alien to Indian
situation just because of its tramontane jacket. Far from it. Indian police in its
foreign jacket goes perforce Indian in its soul with concomitant advantage and
disadvantages of Indian spirit, because Indian police works in Indian situation
and ispo facto adapts to Indian needs and spirit. The utility of Indian police to
India depends upon the direction and degree to which Indian police have taken
to this process of adaptation and also how successfully and efficiently. It is in this
perspective, the role of the police in reconstruction of India, expectations from
it, actual chevisance, and its import on national life are discussed.
Indias experiments in democracy are sui generis and stand apart from similar
experiments other where by the non a such characteristics of the country, its people,
their aspirations and historical background. Though the process of adaptation
to democracy was not guided by any deliberate plan to be different, Indias very
own situations dictated terms to the shapes to be molded specific to its values,
needs and aspirations. The growth of Indias police remained faithful to these
shapes more suo.
It is a fact that an organized effort is on in Indian police to force its members
to fall in with its line of profile at the cost of individual brilliance and creative
height. Indian police are continuously starved of freshness and creative
innovations as the result of shutting itself to the creative sparks and other precious
attributes of its human resources. Such wastage of available human resources can
occur only in a government setup of a developing country like India. What
surprises is the extent to which the organisation goes to nip in bud excellences
to perpetuate the interests of its old, secure world of unquestioning servilities
down the line. All loud talks of Indian police leaders on public platforms about
the need of infusing excellence and outstanding qualities to the police
organisation are shenanigans meant for the consumption of the ignorant public.
Most leaders of the Indian police at heart desire continuation of the status quo
at the peril of the growth of the organisation so that they and their interests remain
undisturbed with unquestioning and dull-witted subordinates down the ladder
at their personal beck and call. Any mark of threat to the perceived security? Any
brilliance of new concepts or interpretations about the functioning of the police?
Lo, most heads come together and join hands in scruple less cabals to undermine
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INDIAN POLICE

the source of brilliance. The reason is self-interests. Nothing attract and bind
them together so fiercely as the possibility of new thoughts surfacing in the
organisation and somebody down the ladder leaving a trail of blaze of brilliance
that may cloud their organizational superiority.
What ensues is a fight jusqu au bout; it would be a fight sans moral or legal
scruples, a fight without a tinge of mercy or sympathy where all fall as one against
the lonely prey till it is neutralized.
Though courts of law can theoretically protect against such harassments,
expenses, time and uncertainties involved and the history of court judgments
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.
A distinct case is of a senior police officer of outstanding caliber and
excellence from a southern state of India whose uprightness cost him his career
prospects. His disinclination towards flexible ways made him unpopular among
those higher in the hierarchical ladder. He was though greatly feared and highly
respected for his superior and foursquare qualities, most of those senior to him
were uneasy at his presence. Repeated attempts were made to discredit him and
sully his reputation by any means. Most senior police officers took him as a thorn
in their flesh and joined hands to tarnish his image. When his superiors in unholy
alliance found that none of their customary methods work with him, they almost
declared a war of nerves on him in 1996. He was refused all normal benefits
entitled to his rank: his car was withdrawn, telephones were disconnected, his
personal staff was harassed and subordinates were encouraged to disobey and
even access to office stationeries was denied. While even these measures were not
proved feracious in bringing the upright officer to heels and instead the honest
officer grew from strength to strength by his distinguished and impregnable
strength of personality, desperate as they were, the senior officers, against all legal
and administrative proprieties, divested him of all his official powers he naturally
exercised virtuti officii in an effort to isolate the upright officer tout ensemble. Such
harassments are common when a few officers with awakened conscience,
honesty, professionalism and probity in public life disturb the immoral
indulgence of the corrupt lot in police and related departments. Most
consciences do breach, most professional competencies crack and most
concerns for probity in public life just disappear under unrelenting pressures
from above. Surviving such repressions as above is only a rarest of the rare
exceptions.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

It is a tragedy in Indian police that there is no relation between the efficiency

and performance of an official and his standing in the organisation. The police
officials are so indifferent to the performance of their subordinates and their
work turnout 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 unqualified to assess. This situation leads to random assessment when
a senior is statutorily bound to assess and in the process, talent withers and
opportunists overtake high-caliber workers on the hierarchical ladder.
A yardstick to measure an organisation is the degree of success of the
organisation in meeting its raison detre. The responsibilities of the police as an
organisation basically is three fold, in that enforcing the rule of law, assisting the
judiciary in dispensation of justice and functioning as the watchdog of the internal
security of the country. The three responsibilities do widely vary in their scope,
functional requirements and appropinquation that while the police function as
law enforcers while discharging law and order responsibilities, they may
sometimes be called to break laws though surreptitiously as the watchdogs of
the internal security of the country. Or while they function only as a fact-finding
machine to the judiciary, in enforcing the rule of law in their capacity as the
investigating authority, they may be called to enforce laws as enforcers of law and
order. In spite of these wide variations in the nature of the works and
responsibilities on their bold shoulders, one thing that holds all works and
responsibilities of the police together is its importance as the spine of the rule of
law. The police are the cutting edge of the administration. It is the watchdog of
the administration. This scope of the police often renders it to appear like the
odd-job boy of the statecraft. They, as ultima ratio, are the real dispenser of the
rule of law as well as the guardian angels of the country. This vital place in the
administration of the country makes the police the arms, legs, eyes, ears and noses
of the administration, but also the very tool of the countrys well being and
survival. The police are one of the most important levers required in running the
machinery of the statecraft. It is why the blind rush and impatient race among
rulers to control this vital lever.
The reasons lie in the rulers as well as in the police. In the rulers, because it is
natural for anyone to take advantage of the tools that make it available for use
and rather preposterous to expect rulers to shut their eyes while the police
willingly offer itself for their personal behoofs. And rulers of democratic India
douse the police for their personal and party ends to the extent that the first half
century after independence has obfuscated the distinction between the national
interests and the personal interests of the rulers as far as the use of the police of
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INDIAN POLICE

democratic India elected to subordinate its professional and national

responsibilities to the gloria and being the handmaid of the politicians in power.
Two factors helped the process. One was the wrong type of people at the helm
of the organisation as models. Another was the lack of proper understanding of
the concepts like obedience and discipline. These two factors together and
separately brought about slowly but steadily the degringolade of professionalism
in the police of democratic India. The nonprofessional approach of the self
seeking police leadership at the helm to sub serve the personal and party interests
of the rulers percolated downwards in the organisation as a model and sadly
accepted as the general rules of conduct by the maffled police down below at
all ranks per procurationem obedience and discipline. The wrong model led Indian
police to forget that their primary obedience is to the laws of the country and
rulers surface to the front only as the representatives of the laws of the land and
ergo secondary to the sacred police responsibilities. The police in new
dispensation forgot the cardinal principle that they are subordinate to the rulers
faute de mieux and their profession dictates them to exercise policing duties even
against those rulers if the laws of the country find them doing wrong. These
serious professional lapses not only weakened Indian police, also damaged
political system, social values and the credibility of Indian democratic process.
Ignorance and lack of interest is part of the Indian public in general and
intellectual class in particular in the police system and its time-to-time devious
shifts added to the malady in the form of giving free hand to the police to evolve
itself sans restraint and sound guidance.
Adaptations to political masters as a bargain to secure key posts prove fatal
to the dignity as well as professional values of the police setup. A police officer
of a state in southern India succeeded in cornering the coveted post of Police
Commissioner of the State Headquarters a few years back by the support of
politician known in the then political parlance as the Father, Mother of the
Chief Minister of the state. A few days after, the politician in inebriated state was
arrested with his associates while fleeing in a car late night after involving in a sex
scandal involving a budding film star. The police official who affected the arrest
recognized the identity of the person he arrested only after the arrested persons
were brought to a nearby Police Station in the city. The police Commissioner was
intimated about the developments. The Police Commissioner promptly made
his appearance in the Police Station in the night and ensured immediate release
of his political godfather. But, the political heavy weight in temulent state was
implacable. He caught the uniform collar of the Police Commissioner in front
of the shocked lowly officials of the Police Station and shouted at the Police
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

Commissioner in his inebriated voice whether he made him Police

Commissioner to arrest and bring him to the Police Station through his juniors.
The Police Commissioner was seen meekly begging the politician to pardon him.
The incident made headlines in newspapers. The scoundrel Police
Commissioner later rose to become the Police Chief of the state and retired now.
Such incidents abound in circumstances of Police Officers vying for coveted
posts a tout prix and as a consequence, the dignity of the posts lowers and the
professional qualities of the organisation suffer.
Present India does have an adequately large and sturdy framework for the
police apparatus in terms of organizational strength and budgetary provisions to
sustain it. Only the canvas held by the framework is flabby and limicolous. This
predicament per se speaks aplenty about the very cause of it. For one, the fact
that an adequately large and sturdy framework or organizational strength and
liberal budgetary provisions available for the police setup is clear sign of the
willing political patronage to the apparatus; it sine dubio proves that the rulers
recognized the import of the police in running the administration. However, the
flabby and limicolous canvas ab intra speaks of the nonprofessionalism under the
sound political patronage. This adds up to the close links between politics and
the police for nonprofessional purposes, possibly with criminal intent as
nonprofessional police approach mostly suggests criminal angle in view of the
professional police concerns mostly being focused on crime control and crime
prevention. Unfortunately, India has passed a long way in this undesirable links
to the lengths of being cannot easily retract its path to cleanse the Augean stables
of the police organisation now.

40

CORRUPTION IN INDIA
The size of Indias parallel economy at 40% of GDP does provide fertile
ground for corruption. Lack of deterrence against corruption and importance
to wealth begotten by whatever means enormously promoted corruption in
India. More important, corruption in India flows from above from the political
class under covers like party and election funds, and senior bureaucrats who are
seldom investigated or punished, either through conspiratorial silence or through
conspiratorial legislative manipulations. Further, political patronage gave an aura
of invincibility and respectability to corruption and deprived it of all moral and
legal fears. The Central Bureau of Investigation in the Centre and Criminal
Investigation Departments in the states and Union Territories have become
political tools in the hands of the ruling party and grossly politicized the criminal
investigation process in the country. What is worse, the conviction rate is hardly
6% in criminal cases.
India was placed 73rd in corruption among the 99 countries rated In the
Transparency International rankings for 1999. Corruption flourishes in India
because it is perceived to be a low risk and high profit business. Lack of
transparency in administration provides an opportunity for public servants to
mislead citizens and extract bribes.
The Central Vigilance Commission which was set up in the Centre in 1964
and Vigilance Commissions and institutions like Lok Ayukta which were set up
in some states as Government agencies and headed by retired public servants or
High Court or Supreme Court judges are proved too inadequate to meet the
challenges in hand because of again the conspiratorial refusal of the political and
bureaucratic leaderships to invest them with necessary powers and
organizational strength.
It is only the Supreme Court in India seems waging a war against corruption.
The Government of India converted the Central Vigilance Commission into a
statutory body through an executive order in 1998 on the directive of the
Supreme Court. It rendered the CVC at least statutorily independent of the
political and bureaucratic set-ups.

41

PRAVEEN KUMAR

Although everybody in every nook and corner of the country knows who are
corrupt in the Government set-up and knows every details of their mode of
operations, Indias administrative machinery is so devised to ensure that
corruption never comes to its official cognizance even while taking place en plein
jour in its own corridors and antechambers to the benefits of the key politicians
and senior bureaucrats. Power corridors and ministerial antechambers are
rendered protected places from anti-corruption moves and converted to safe
havens for corruption at high places.
Ill-gotten wealth is generally stashed away in the form of black money in
foreign accounts and benami bank accounts, property, jewellery and other
valuables.
It is a common principle in government world-over that if a person is facing
a vigilance inquiry, he should not be placed in a sensitive post. However, this
practice was not being followed in India. Actually, exactly the opposite is true in
India. Only those politicians and bureaucrats who have disposable black money
a gogo can afford to buy high public positions in India. Others are mercilessly
sidelined as nonconformists or even discredited or destroyed as dangerous
outsiders in the big business of bribery. Media and its lack of depth and insight
add to the maelstrom while it presumes and glorifies those in key posts as the
rare personification of noble virtues and merit while truth is that those posts are
invariably cornered these days by those who can afford to illegally pay for that
either by kind or other means and therefore grossly corrupt in the world of
transfer business. It is not uncommon to media to add its mite to the charges of
the vested interests against and question appointment of the senior most officers
to the top post of a Government department on the ground that the officer
never held charge of a key executive post till then. Media in India is yet to grow
to appreciate the point that the denial of venal key posts in spite of seniority in
the extant milieu of transfer business per se vouches to the probity and
noncorruptibility of the concerned officer. That is how corruption has flourished
in the system.
Endless delays common in India in the conduct of departmental inquiry,
investigation and prosecution help corruption to flourish. Delay provides a
cover of respectability for the guilty.
The significance of corruption as a factor that adversely affects the growth
of a country is being increasingly recognized. Corruption, in the words of Indira
Gandhi, is a world phenomenon. It exists in developed countries too.
Corruption is institutionalized as a part of the democratic process in the USA as
lobbying and public relations activities and the country prides in its mushrooming
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INDIAN POLICE

lobbying and public relations firms with major foreign governments inter alios as
its clients. The firms are nothing but mammoth business houses indulging in legal
corruption. This nohow justifies corruption other where. Indian corruption has
special characteristics that make it far more damaging than corruption in other
parts of the world.
First, people in India being poor and largely dependent on the Government
for decent living and even survival, and limited by its excessive laws, rules,
regulations and largess in almost all activities of life with high rates of taxation on
every conceivable items and services, corruption literally sucks life out of their
existence unlike those in developed countries whose dependence on the
Government is relatively not so deep and prolate. This renders corruption in
India an extremely dangerous phenomenon with terminal consequences on the
culture, value system and the quality and the content of the life of the people.
Second, corruption in India flows down from above. Corruption at the top
affects key decisions and policies with sweeping implications while core
decisions in developed countries are taken on merit through transparent
competition.
Third, the wealth accumulated by corrupt means in India as black money of
the parallel economy has the habit of disappearing out to safe havens abroad
unlike western countries where capital made out of corruption is generally
ploughed back into domestic production and investment. Thus, the proceeds of
corruption while help to finance business in developed countries, it just adds to
foreign accounts in India.
Fourth, corruption in India as a general rule leads to promotion and not to
prison. It is particularly so about powerful officials hand in glove with the ruling
party and those who have money and influence to buy justice and ruling party
stalwarts in contrast to developed countries where in a system and process of
accountability even top leaders are investigated and prosecuted. The most
frustrating aspect of corruption in India is that the corrupt are too powerful to
go through such an honest process of accountability as causa sine qua non of their
ill-gotten wealth and power.
Fifth, corruption in India is a process against some of the poorest in the world
and against half a billion poor people who are below the poverty line while that
in developed countries it is mostly against people with per capita incomes above
twenty thousands dollars. While corruption anywhere is reprehensible, it is
political dynamite when the majority of the population cannot meet their basic
needs and a few make fortunes through corruption as in India and other poor
countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Corruption there leads to massive
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

deprivation of basic needs and extreme income inequalities. Ergo, combating

corruption in the milieu of poverty is not only punishing corrupt politicians and
bureaucrats, but more important, saving human lives.
Corruption was born with the human being and its history is as long and as
varied as the history of the mankind itself. Kautilya refers to the invincibility of
corruption in public life and the Government of the time in his magnum opus Artha
Shaastra. Corruption is a shortcut to wealth and ones goals and relegation of
rightful means to oblivion in preference to ends at the earliest. It is a problem of
attitude that highlights selfish ends in preference to higher values and ideals that
define noble and dignified life, and pollutes the environment. Corruption is
potent of growing exponently by poisoning the environment to the extent of
forcing the noncorruptible to fall in line to survive. The milieu compels the society
to accept corruption as a means of livelihood imprimis and as a means of
accomplishments later. The situation reaches a climacteric while governing
system of the country accepts corruption as a way of public life and its leading
lights pollute the public life by openly resorting it for short time gains. India has
already reached the stage and nothing can save a country from the atrophy save
a complete overhaul by the forces of probity, perhaps vi et armis.
Corruption is the product of mans natural greed and contempt for rightful
means and constitutes the bedrock of his natural disposition. Therefore, any
dream to wipe off corruption from the face of the Earth is too idealistic to be
realistic. Corruption perforce dies only with the humankind. What can be done
and attempted is its suppression and creating an environment wherein it becomes
less lucrative and more dangerous than it is now. The deed warrants mobilization
of the increasingly depleting forces of integrity and probity in high places in
Government and public life to fight the environment favorable to corruption.
It is easier said than done. The temptation of the easy money is too pollent to
break through its plexure. Indian political system being what it has grown to be
in licentious India of the post-independent vintage does not easily let the easy
provenance of ill-gotten wealth to slip from its proprietorial grip. So also is the
demoralised and easy-laid bureaucracy of the free India. The evil nexus of the
two forces need to be breached to loosen the taut prise of corruption on the
public life of India. Till then, meaningful amendments to the Constitution,
criminal Acts and Rules to make corruption dangerous and less lucrative like
decheance of the wealth gained through corruption, institution of Lok Pal
machinery to try corruption at highest levels, making such anti-corruption bodies
really powerful bodies with extra-ordinary powers and unperstringed
independence to tackle corruption cases of any kind and doing away with
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INDIAN POLICE

notorious provisions like Single Directives to protect higher echelons of the

administration from the corruption charges while it is people in those positions
itself are the true springboards of corruption in India are bound to remain empty
slogans for the public platform to fool the public and resisted by those who
count a tout prix while it comes to the crunch. It is left to those outside the circle
to mobilize forces and fight the evils that one day definitely destroys India.
If kingship is single-point exploitation, democracy is a license for countless
exploitations of who are weaker and more helpless and corruption is the engine
that runs the process of the exploitation. The extent of corruption is a clear mark
of the degree of exploitation afoot in a given democracy. A democracy is
meaningful only when it is expropriated from the evil of exploitation. In other
words, corruption as an indicator of exploitation in a country stands for negation
of the democratic values of a democracy. Until corruption is extirpated from the
face of the democracy of a country and unless India does it piu mosso, brilliant and
enlightened youngsters like Saket Rajan in India falling out of the mainstream of
the national life to join rebellious anti-exploitation organisations like the Naxal
Movement and sacrificing their precious life to police bullets is unavoidable.
India can be a true democracy only when it succeeds in bringing corruption in
its public life under control.

45

POLICE AS SOCIAL SURGEONS

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 witnesses
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

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birds of the same feather flock together operates to hold them united 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 latters 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, environ 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 centre stage 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 endsurgical 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.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 are 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 enlightened 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 selfrespect 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
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INDIAN POLICE

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
recognize 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 recognized as social
surgeons. It is position in which they are held while recognized 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 are 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 wield. In some parts of the country, even the rear is glidder after the
plebeian 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 caliber, 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 detre, 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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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.

50

NEED OF TOUGH DECISIONS

FOR INDIAN POLICE
It is Indias good fortune that its fabric of law and order has withstood the
effects of growing complexity of the Indian society for so long in spite of the
fragility of its policing system. The fact that the police systems in a few
neighboring 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 that 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 are not what it was before
Independence. The pride, toughness and commitment to duty are no more

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visible. On the contrary, the Indian police have become soft humble and easy
going. Pressure from all directions has deprived it of its vitality. The police have
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 policemen.
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 realize 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 that 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
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police, in a democracy are 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 inveterate.
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 caliber. 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 on judgement above men of probity
is a dangerous situation. 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 workrelationship 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?

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 endeavor 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 organizational 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 judgment 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 force
and makes its hierarchical order meaningful and purposeful, the commandobedience 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, and independent and ask questions.
A subtle hatred for superior qualities of the subordinates is inherent in the
Indian police force of today. Another act carried out behind the faade of
discipline is an officer forcing a subordinate to achieve personal ends. Here, the
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INDIAN POLICE

police ranks display exceptional unity in helping a colleague to suppress the

subordinate who shows the tendency to go against his seniors 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 find 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.

55

LAW ENFORCERS IN
UNHOLY ALLIANCES
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 that his illegitimate son committed the act 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

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pursued with an ex-convict being picked up and shown as the accused. Arrest,
recovery and charge sheet 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 protg. They visited the town
and entrusted the investigation to a Deputy Superintendent of Police of
neighboring 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-Inspectors 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 SubInspectors 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.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

How subordinates are brought around is another story. A young subdivisional 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 patronized by prominent people of the town. The
officer rounded up more than fifty 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 Superintendent of Police of the district and the Deputy Inspector
General of the range patronized the gambling den 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 antagonized 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 that 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 in 1990 Karnataka 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 that

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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.
Only efficient police leadership at all levels can overcome these problems and
only if a semblance of objectivity reasonableness and good judgment 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, rationalizing
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 officers 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 characterizes 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, specialization 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
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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. A Supreme Court judge must head the Authority 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.

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ROLE OF POLICE IN
NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
The police are the watchdog in a democracy. It forms the axle that keeps the
vital engine of the administration running. It is modelled on the British system
except for a few changes made in response to the situation regarding crime,
security and law and order. That is not to say that the Indian police are alien to
the Indian situation. The utility of the Indian police to India depends on the
direction and degree to which they have taken to this process of adaptation and
also how successfully and efficiently.
The responsibility of the police as an organisation is three fold in enforcing
the rule of law; assisting the judiciary in the dispensation of justice and keeping
an eye on the internal security of the country. The three responsibilities do widely
vary in their scope and functional requirements. The police may sometimes be
called upon to break laws, though surreptitiously, in order to protect the security
of the country. Or, while they function only as a fact-finding machine to help the
judiciary enforce the rule of law, they may be asked to enforce laws as enforcers
of law and order. In spite of these variations, what gives the police a holistic
dimension is their importance as the spine of the rule of law. They are the
watchdogs of the administration. The police are one of the most important
levers required in running the machinery of statecraft. That explains the impatient
race among rulers to control this vital lever.
ASPECTS FORGOTTON
The very nature of the functions of the police demands that it be insulated
from the vagaries of the short-time rules of a democratic setup. Their
responsibilities as enforcers of law warrant their allegiance exclusively to the rules
and laws of the country; they are beholden to the judiciary as the investigating
authority while their part as watchdogs of the countrys internal security raises
them above political and leadership bickering. Often, these aspects of the police
are happily forgotten in India.
The reasons lie in the rulers as well as in the police. In the rulers because it is
natural for anyone to take advantage of the tools that make themselves available

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

for use and it is rather nave to expect the rulers to ignore it while the police
willingly offer themselves to be at their disposal. The rulers of democratic India
do use the police for their personal and party ends to the extent that the nearly
half a century after Independence has obfuscated the distinction between
national interests and personal interests of the rulers in the use of policemen.
RESPONSIBILITIES IGNORED
The reasons lie in police because the police of democratic India chose to
brush aside their professional and national responsibilities and instead preferred
to be the handmaid of those in power. Two factors helped the process. One was
the wrong type of people at the helm of the organisation as models. Another was
the lack of understanding of the concepts of obedience and discipline. The
nonprofessional approach of the police leadership percolated down and sadly
was accepted as the general rule by the rank and file.
The entire force has forgotten that its primary obedience is to the laws of the
country and that the rulers and mere representatives of the laws. The police have
forgotten the cardinal principle that their profession dictates them to do their
duty even if it may be against the rulers if the law finds the latter doing wrong.
Serious professional lapses have not only weakened the Indian police, but also
damaged the political system, social values and the credibility of the democratic
process. Ignorance and indifference on the part of the public in general, and the
intellectual class in the police system, have ended up with the police acquiring a
free hand to function without restraint and guidance.
The country indeed has a sturdy police framework in terms of organizational
strength and budgetary provisions. Only, the fabric is in poor shape. That money
is liberally made available to the police indicates political patronage. In other
words, the rulers have recognized the important role played by the police in
running the administration. This leads to a close link between politicians and the
police. This is where crime enters the picture. The link is too deep-rooted to be
easily severed.
The police have two weak areasthe nonprofessional approach and
arbitrary management. Both are interlined and contribute to each others
existence. The nonprofessional approach has eroded professional commitment
and encouraged corruption. Professional pride has been pushed into oblivion.
Personal interests have gained precedence over organizational interests. The
breaches have helped opportunists to intervene and dictate terms to the police.
Matters beyond the realm of the police have gained in importance at the cost of
the organizations credibility.

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The system has undergone a lopsided growth with random spurts of control
and workload, unfair selection and recruitment procedures, neglected training,
inaccuracies in the assessment of work and people, irregular promotions and
transfers, unplanned modernization programmes and funny service rules.
Efficient management has been relegated to the background with the whole set
up inclined towards a rigid hierarchical order. This trend has told upon the
professional qualities of the policecausing decline in its organizational
efficiency.
BRITISH CHARACTERISTICS
India, on the threshold of independence, saw both the positive and negative
sides of the British administration. Among the positive attributes was the creation
of a sound police system. Other aspects were a sound professional approach,
objectivity and toughness in police work, a feeling of pride among the
policemen, a sense of commitment and fair play in discharging the work in hand,
high morale and respect for a healthy value system.
The most glaring among the negative qualities are its disinclination to
democratic values, failure to identify with the Indian ethos and failure to
appreciate the common mans aspirations and predicament. An independent
India has added to the negative aspects. One of them is corruption. Also, the
passage of time has set in motion a process of continuous reconstruction.
The police of the British rule has as its prime objective the interests and upkeep
of the British Raj in India. In democratic India, in the absence of capable
leadership, the system has failed to reset its priorities and formulate its objective.
It seems to have failed to comprehend where its loyalty should lie. The fall of the
British Raj, may be, left a void and they found refuge in the political leadership.
On the one hand, the policemen were unable to think clearly, and on the other,
some officers in higher ranks wanted to be close to and in the good books of
key political figures to promote their interests. As a result, the system gradually
lost touch with its professional objective of being loyal to the Indian Constitution,
an objective of establishing the rule of the law in the country Power went into
the hands of dishonest and criminal elements.
EMERGENCY TREND
The police acted as the handmaid of the political leadership during the
Emergency in 1976, save for a few dignified people. Both the Central Bureau
of Investigation and the Intelligence Bureau were extensively used for political
ends. Then emerged the custom of providing protection mostly to political
leaders and other well-connected personages at the expense of the public. The
trend of the police being committed to political leadership has continued.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

It is an irony that the political leadership that is supposed to take the lead in
the reconstruction of India is colluding with the police, who are supposed to be
the tool of the reconstruction, and is striking at the foundation of the strength of
the country. Every year sees a new phase and a new trend in this nasty collusion
among the important players of national reconstruction taking the country nearer
to the brink of lawlessness
During the Bandh in Bangalore (1991) in connection with the Cauvery water
dispute, the police were mute spectators as the agitators indulged in vandalism
and violence. In some places, the officers were forced to open fire in self-defense
and all hell broke loose. Dealt with in a professional way, the situation could have
been brought under control and the death of several people and destruction of
property could have been avoided. Indeed, a commission of Inquiry under
Justice N.D.Venkatesh indicted the Police Commissioner for his lapses.
However, the officers political masters rose to the occasion and soon he
superseded a more efficient and down-to-earth senior. It is a different story that
the State administration changed hands within a few months and the new Chief
Minister restored order by putting people in their places. But the fact remains that
the findings of the Justice. N.D.Venkatesh Commission of Inquiry never saw the
light of day.
SERVING POLITICAL MASTERS
The political leaders are wary about the law and the judicial system; and they
have to be cautious on their dependence on illegal political funds. They need the
help of the police and it is not the other way round. There are many police officers
who understand this dynamics and play their cards shrewdly. A police officer in
a southern State played it so well that in spite of his publicly proclaimed moderate
efficiency, he not an occupied the coveted position of the Police Commissioner
of an important city as Inspector General of Police (by removing the holder of
the position within six months of the latter coming there), but also managed to
be there for many years by getting the post upgraded as and when he was
promoted as Additional Director General of Police and later as Director
General of Police at the cost of all other aspirants. On his retirement from service,
the political masters obliged him by constituting a one-man committee for him,
supposedly to examine and advice on the reorganization of the police setup of
the State, but actually to provide him creature comforts at Government expense.
A case of cheating, forgery, falsification of records and misappropriation of
over Rs.35 lakh by the officials of the Karnataka Home Guards department was
unearthed in 1994 and a criminal case was registered in the jurisdictional police
station in December the same year. As the amount involved was huge, a process
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was set in motion to refer the case to the Corps of Detectives for investigation.
The then State police chief came to know that one of the accused was his
confidant when he was the Commandant-General of the Home Guards the
previous year. Suddenly, all activities regarding the criminal case were frozen for
the next six months till the police chief retired. Only in July 1995, the case was
taken up and handed over to the Corps of Detectives.
In the absence of concern on the part of the political and executive wings of
the administration in straightening out things, the judiciary is doing exemplary
work by taking action to counter the criminal elements. The attitude of the
Supreme Court to the Jain hawala case is a case in point. The awarding of jail
sentence to senior bureaucrats and police officers of Haryana, Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and other states in 1995 for contempt of court and creation of
false evidences, and issue of nonbailable warrants and refusal of bail to a couple
of former Union Ministers this year for allegedly sheltering mafia dons and
engineering anti-Sikh riots in New Delhi are other instances.
The scene is not as bleak as it seems to be. The wheel of change is slowly
turning. The interest taken by the Supreme Court in the nexus between the
politicians, the bureaucrats and the criminals and the Vohra Committee report
on the criminalization of politics are found to have their effects.

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UNPROFESSIONAL POLICING
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 in 1982 at Davangere in Chitradurga district of
Karnataka will illustrate the kind of professional commitment Indian police
pursues. The police raided a gambling den and the owner spoke lowly of the
notorious range DIGP whom he said was taking mamools from him every
month. A local newspaper reported the matter. 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 newspaper 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

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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 organizational 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. Its
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
organizational matters. Under the cover of discipline and the need of tacit
obedience, the game of favoritism is willfully played on the one hand and any
resistance is ruthlessly crushed on the other. Organizational 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 higher-ups 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 higher-ups and the
state Home Secretary for the removal of a functionary of the college from his
important position. 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) ensured that the commandant of the college faced the
consequences for recommending action on their favourite official. He was
variously harassed. 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.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

Professional pride is the panacea for the malady of self-interest in

professionals. Creating 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
that both are important to create an environment conducive 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 organized
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.

68

WHAT AILS PROFESSIONAL

POLICING IN INDIA?
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 caliber and quality that 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.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

Those who are empowered to assess subordinates and their work must be
made answerable to prevent misuse of this responsibility. The creation of a highpower 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 officers 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-caliber workers on the hierarchical ladder. Arranging motivation
courses for police officers about the work they are required to perform, its
importance and how to discharge their duties can rectify this. Policemen generally
distance themselves from all mental activities. Training must endeavor 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.
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
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INDIAN POLICE

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 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 he 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 are 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 modernization projects have resulted in its losing the race
with organized crime and syndicates. Modern equipment is bought, but the
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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.

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INDIAN POLICE NEED

COMPETENT BRASS
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
bedeviling 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 involves 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 lifelines 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 endeavor to provide a fresh lease of life for effective policing.
How deeply the police are self-centered 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 increasingly 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 30 years back, there are now nearly 100 officers of and above

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

the rank of Inspector General of Police, for say 3, 00,000 men and officers;
thereby the last 30 years account for 750% expansion in the lower levels against
5000% 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 realizes 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 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 up to 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 are 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 that can be maneuvered 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
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INDIAN POLICE

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, it 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 that 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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

sidelined in his career as an inefficient person and degenerate habitual drunkard

was given a fresh leash of life in career a limproviste 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.

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RAT RACE AT TOP AFFECTS POLICING

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 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 organizational character of the police
setup. The symptoms are deeper at higher ranks and reach their saturation at the

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

rank of the chiefs where political selections are crucial in appointments to the
levels. Except in rarest of the rare cases, every police officer increasingly
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
that are generally meek and very popular with politicians of any colours and
succeed in getting favorable postings whichever 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 marks 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 that trusted him
to up hold the values of his profession till the end.
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INDIAN POLICE

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, which can be winning 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 organizational
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 increasingly brought under the direct control of the chief executive of the
government from its traditional field of the Home Department and as a
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

consectary, intelligence chiefs are increasingly 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,
illegalities 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 leads 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 intelligence officers and camped in Delhi for several days to help his political
masters maneuver for the Prime Ministership during the turbulent weeks of
instability 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 pillars of the
state police setup namely the state intelligence chief and the Police Commissioner
of the State Headquarters in front of the state Chief Ministers 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
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INDIAN POLICE

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
Clearing the cobwebs from the entrails of the Indian police can salvage the
situation. 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 postdemocratic era. They corrupted the police atmosphere, set wrong precedence,
encouraged self-indulgence, pulled down its no-nonsense tough image and
reduced it to its present cadaverous existence. These elements should be sidelined
to absorb men of probity to refurbish and rebuild the police setup. Only really
capable impresarios can pull the Indian police out from its present fix.

81

CONFUSION OF LOYALTIES
IN INDIAN POLICE
The primary duty of the police is to maintain order, which would include
enforcing the law and the prevention and detection of crime. The police ought
to be concerned about the interests of the general public, the standard of the law,
the administration of justice and the security parameters that ensure it. Loyalty is
the foundation on which the police organisation is built up. Loyalty would mean
steadfast adherence to what is legal and the law as the word loyalty originates
from the Latin lex and legalis. Policing, as a profession in a democracy, denotes
fidelity to the sovereignty of the people and necessitates upholding the law of the
country, keeping up the orderly life of the common man and safeguarding peace
and security.
This is where the police differ from private armies. Disaster strikes when the
police function as the private armies of the ruling political party or any influential
member of society. The police in India have fallen into this quagmire, its vitality
and professionalism pushed to the background.
Loyalty is of two kinds. One is pure and simple fidelity to the master. The
other owes its allegiance to certain ideals and principles. This implies allegiance
to ones duties, responsibilities, objectives, profession and the chosen path of life.
This commitment raises their loyalty to the status of a mission. The loyalty needed
in a profession like that of the police is of elevated nature and it bestows the
qualities of nobility and dignity on the organisation. It lifts the police above
factional interests and gives them a cosmopolitan vitality. The strength and the
trust born out of this superior form of loyalty stand the police force in good stead
in its hour of risk and crisis.
It is tragic that the Indian police prefer to trade this characteristic for trivial
and ephemeral benefits. The trend has spread like wildfire to ravage the
institution. The genesis lies in the promotion of career prospects and other perks
dumb loyalty brings to individuals. Personal loyalty to political masters takes
some people to the top, tempting others to follow suit.

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The models created a pattern and the pattern became a part of the system in
a setup where individuality and orginality are not sacred. The real threat lies in the
possibility of this tendency coming to be accepted as the true character of the
police. This may not take long to happen if the present goings on is any indication.
The malady is not limited to a particular state or unit. There can be hope of
remedy if there is at least one example of the right model. But none seems to be
available. Isolated attempts to tread the right path are seen as deviations from the
mainstream. This is the beginning of the atrophy of the Indian police. How far
the degeneration has spread is evident from the way some important criminal
cases of political significance have been handled. A criminal case warrants
professional loyalty in its investigation to bring the culprits to book. The political
status of the accused and the fall-out are irrelevant to the process of investigation.
The misconceptions about loyalty with a slant in favour of the political
masters and other powerful influence peddlers have clouded this vital aspect of
policing. With the result, the rule of law has suffered and the administration of
justice is crippled. The damage already done to the countrys public life cannot
be repaired until the police are brought back on the rails of loyalty to their
profession.
The police, whether it is the Special Protection Group, the Intelligence
Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing or the Central Bureau of Investigation,
survive the transient political masters and their political groups in power. In the
circumstances, the police ought not to be subservient to the political masters
whose future is unpredictable. The police going loyal to transient political
interests certainly will damage and debase the system itself.
It is a common practice in some States to change key officers when a new
dispensation takes over the rule. A recent example is from Tamil Nadu. And this
is not an isolated case. It reflects the attitude of the political leadership towards
the professional loyalties of the police. Public opinion about the professional
loyalty of the police is rather low.
Politicians believe that all those in the police are commodities that can be
bought and loyal policemen to make a substantial difference to their political
fortunes. Hence the mad rush to place favourite police officers in key positions.
Thus politicians exploit the weakness of the organisation. The culprit here is the
perverted loyalties of the police. What is termed as political interference is
patently the making of the police by their personal loyalties.
The intelligence unit is the most abused section and its chief is the most willing
tool. Intelligence officers have a responsibility to their organizational objectives
and they ought to work towards meeting their objectives. But misplaced loyalties
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restrict the scope of the intelligence units, which are seen as the lackeys of the
ruling parties and their leaders. The usefulness of the intelligence units as political
tools is so pronounced in India that they are brought under the direct control of
the Chief Executive of the Government from the traditional Home Department
and the chiefs are the main advisers of the Chief Executive, head and shoulders
above even the Chief Secretaries in States and the Cabinet Secretary at the Centre.
This importance is a reward for the lengths to which these officers would go
risking their personal and career safety and indulge in illegal acts to oblige the
political masters. Telephone tapping and shadowing political rivals of the ruling
party leaders are only minor prevarications these loyal police officers indulge in
to keep themselves in the good books of their political masters.
Assessing the political trends and suitability of candidates in different
constituencies during elections and reporting the activities of politicians within
and outside the ruling party are now wrongly seen as legitimate functions of the
intelligence units.
Mr. Chandra Sekhar, former Prime Minister, in response to a question on the
Jain hawala case during the 11th Lok Sabha election campaign, said the
investigation of corruption cases was the job of a Police Inspector and not that
of a Minister. That answer would be right in an ideal situation where the police
function professionally, with their loyalty fixed to their duties. It has no relevance
in a situation where policemen are loyal to individuals or groups in power. The
police being the executive edge of the administration, their loyalties make all the
difference to the quality of administration.
Factional loyalties have the singular potentiality of eroding fairness and
impartiality. They make professional loyalty seem meaningless. A mature and
sober political leadership can set right the fractured loyalties of the police
organisation. In this
context, judicial activism, in a periodical review of the progress of
investigation of some cases of national importance, is a welcome step although
in normal circumstances such a judicial review would have amounted to
interference in the independent functioning of the investigating authority.
The duty of providing the right guidance and direction to the police lies with
the political leadership. Ironically, the police force has become an object of
ridicule by being asked to investigate certain affairs of the politicians with whom
its absolute loyalty lays and who twist policemen around their little fingers.

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POLICING UNDER
POLITICAL PATRONAGE
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 nations
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 are 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 watchdog. This is why politicians felt the need for wooing
police to their side in their activities. The police of independent India have
become an easy prey to the power-baits of smarter politicians by the reason of
their failing strength of character and talent. They refuse to look beyond their
political masters with their dispensations of job favors; 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, are no more than a country dog, which is what
the Indian police have become in free India. The politicians, inebriated with new

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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 favorable 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 involved 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 that 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
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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 prefers 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 is on the matters of national importance or personal
concern. In most parts of India, it is money, arrack, sari, threat, and fear of
landlords or the blazoning propaganda of a candidate that influence it to decide
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 heath of
violence and manipulative extortions, with the instruments meant to protect
them mowing the field. Saner elements in politics, which found survival difficile,
have left the field, giving way to the elements that 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 the politicians, the criminals or the police
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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, are 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 that 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 realized that
criminals, particularly those from organized 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 realized its infinite 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.
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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 poweresurient 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 are 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 are 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 notorious for his degenerate 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 antagonized 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 sub divisional 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.
There is a case of a Director General of Police in charge of Corps of
Detectives in 1987 in a Southern State of India as the boss of the Food and Civil
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Supplies Enforcement cell 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. New Director of the organisation who
took charge in 1987 failed the Director General of Police in this illegal
gratification by his principled stand. 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 raids 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 the state
headquarters accidentally through another route that night. It is of interest to note
that the degenerate Director General of Police was posted as an advisor to the
Governor of North-East state during Presidents rule after a few years,
subsequent to his retirement from police service. This is the caliber 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
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and uncertainties involved and the history of court judgments 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 that supposed to take the lead of
reconstructing India is colluding for mutual selfish ends with the police that 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 nations interest
with impunity for mutual relief and benefits by subornation.

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CHALLENGES OF THE INDIAN POLICE

The hazard of the Indian police lies in immobility of its organizational
structure. The existing police system is utterly devoid of any adjustment
mechanism that keeps it relevant to the zeitgeist. A time-to-time review and
concomitant updating of the police organisation becomes sine qua non in the
circumstances. A systematic study of the policing in India with an adequate
pernoctation to screen the latest researches and findings in relevant fields of social
and political systems and science and technology in reorienting the public
organisation and administration is an essential parameter in the vital exercise.
A police setup worth its salt should meet the specific needs of the policing.
The police setup must necessarily be sturdy in its frame to be capable of
absorbing the shocks to which it would often be exposed. Secondly, motive
factors should be substructed in the body of the organisation as sound
motivation alone can make policing a purposeful activity. This should be
reinforced with external motive factors that can be infused to the organisation
e ra nata. Thirdly, the system should be organized so as to generate optimism and
confidence to generate magical entrainment. Another important aspect that should
weigh in evolving an effective police organisation is evolving a mechanism
whereby every police officer or unit is put in charge of a specific job matching
his or its competence and aptitude. An element of entrain should be brought to
policing so that the work in hand can be attended to with genuine involvement
by each police officer. Another strategic principle of healthy police organisation
is having absolute faith and giving full responsibilities to subordinates with a
concomitant, reward and punishment system that follows at the heels. Any
attempt to disturb the balance of faith, full responsibility and reward and
punishment system is certain to fell the organisation into desuetude. The extant
concept of collective responsibility through a chain of command has gone passe
by its propensity to demotivate the real workers due to the corrupt ambitions
of those at higher levels in the chain of command. Policing has grown of late to
be such independent fields of specialisiation that it is impossible for a mortal
being to be proficient in even a single aspect of policing. It is rather a folly to fancy
a police officer as being able to handle all aspects of policing. Hence, the need

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of specialization-oriented policing. The present managerial world is increasingly

realizing the importance of human resources as organizational inputs. Unless allout efforts are made to inhaust to police the crme de la crme of the country with
exceptional attributes of probity, intelligence and commitment and impart
eximious and purposeful training to bring out the best of each, no efforts at
updating the organisation can bring about a sempiternal transformation in the
setup. The fact that policing can be successful only with popular co-operation
focuses the attention of the police organisation on the needs of building up its
image. Although efforts are already afoot towards building up the image of the
police, the depths of the possibilities are yet to be fully explored and exploited.
A scientific approach in this score will make policing tanto uberior. Also, the scope
for scholarly and intellectual activities in policing will make policing multidimensional and add to its effectiveness. The future police organisation and
administration should cater to the need of intellectual activities.
The present police organisation and administrative system have to be
overhauled in the near future as the ineffectiveness of the extant system becomes
increasingly obvious with the flaws in the edifice starting to gape wider. The areas
wherein restructuring is desirable and the thrusts sine qua non to fill the gaps to
create a healthy police setup that is quite capable of facing the challenges of the
future are discussed below.
The proclivity of weighing the police with reinforcement of all types of
legislations has become a major hazard to effective policing. While the
proliferation of legislations in independent India made it impossible even to keep
track of their numbers, it is senseless to force the police as being able to enforce
them all. The stupendous task of enforcing these legislations adversely affects the
effectiveness of the police and corrodes its credibility. This is emphatically so with
social legislations which pass out of our legislative houses sans cohibition. These
progressive measures are inherently controversial in nature and their
enforcement by the police weakens its credibility as an agency of serious business
and peremptory order. It is plauditory to conceive of the police as a vehicle of
progressive measures, but in the process, is certain to put both its credibility and
professionalism into jeopardy as the social legislations lack depth and gravity to
enforce them and assiduous enforcement may ricochet as an out-cry of
harassment and high-handedness. It is not in the interest of the country to expose
its police to such civil contecks and suffer it thereby.
India can have an independent social policing system under the social welfare
ministry to which police officers with a flair for progressive measures may be
deputed. The social policing system as a professional enforcement agency of the
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social policing system as a professional enforcement agency of the social welfare

ministry can do an effective job in enforcing progressive social legislations with
all their nuances, by fully devolving on it while saving the police organisation from
the embarrassment of handling issues to which it is not equipped either mentally,
professionally or organizationally. This measure will exeme the police
organisation from unwarranted pressures and enhances its legitimacy in handling
serious security and law and order issues.
The growth of police functions as adnated to present life-style of increasing
complexity is enormous of late with policing slinking to the vitals of all streaks
of social and nonsocial living. Policing is slinking to the vitals of all streaks of social
and nonsocial living. Policing has become a hi-tech affair these days with scopes
for further advancements. Each major activity of policing like maintenance of
order, investigation of crimes, collection of intelligence and security operations
have assumed such an independent status of non a such expertise and
professionalism that these fields being inhered is neither desirable nor feasible.
Nor in the circumstances, does shifting a functionary from one field of expertise
to the other help his overall performance. Anfractuosity in any one of these fields
of specialization for life is becoming a requisite as time goes by.
The futuristic policing of India must have its subordinate police as
professionals in a given field of specialization, say maintenance of order crime
investigation, intelligence collection or security operation with synergy
manifesting only at higher levels. So India may have independent law and order
police, detective police, special police and security police each separately
recruited and trained for professionalism and expertise in their respective fields.
Officers from all these specialized fields should be eligible to rise to general
policing at higher levels on the basis of a pro rata quota system for promotions.
The increased preoccupation of the police with law and order and security
issues in view of the growing cataclysmic activities in the country has adversely
affected effective crime administration of late. Police stations have become
registering stations as far as crime administration is concerned. The time of the
local police is fordone with immediate issues of law and order and VIP security,
and in the process, crime investigation has become a casualty. The process may
further deteriorate as security and law and order problems increase in coming
years. Neither the crime staff at subordinate levels nor the supervisory staff at
district and higher levels, in the melee, has the will or the resources to divert to
crime investigation while the crime rate in the country is assuming dangerous
proportions.

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Crime investigation should not be allowed to suffer because of disorder and

insecurity in the country, as otherwise, a vicious circle may develop wherein
disorder and insecurity lead to fall in investigation and flabby investigation in turn,
to patulous disorder and insecurity. This triste development may be effectively
dealt with by an independent crime setup, parallel to the law and order outfit.
An independent crime outfit in district and state may exquisitely behove to
a futuristic police setup by giving crime investigation a boost and insuring it
against the peracute pangs of organizational maladies of the future.
The compulsions of urban policing are strikingly different from those of rural
policing. Response time is the hallmark of urban policing where a delay of a few
minutes can make a difference between death and life as criminals and terrorists
with the most sophisticated communication, and weapon system and hairraising organizational accuracy overawe the police, pitted against them in the
course of their criminal operations. The present police station-oriented policing
are incompetent to meet the challenges of the urban criminals either in resources
or in organizational ingine. Further complacency in this regard may stifle the very
policing system of India.
Unity, resourcefulness and speed form the spine of urban policing. The
control room-centered policing in urban centers where men and transportation
and latest communication facilities that work round the clock in shifts enables
galvanic operations to tackle law and order problems.
This outfit with unlimited resources at its disposal for launching any type of
operation within a few minutes of communication may suffice to meet the
challenges of maintaining law and order in urban areas in the new age.
In spite of adequate infrastructures available for training police officials of
various ranks these centers largely fail to meet the quality required to make a
recruit a thorough professional. An overhaul of the extant training facilities in
terms of its quality, content and character is inevitable to keep the Indian police
prepared for future challenges. The training facilities should be made centers of
scholarship and research on police subjects with professionals of national
reputation in each subject handling their respective subjects. The psychology
faculty of the centre should endeavor to build character and infuse right
orientation among the recruits. The faculty members of the training centers
should be exceptionally well paid so as to inveigle the best in the field to join.
Army officers must handle outdoor classes. This model helps in instilling the
highest standards and expectations in trainees till they become full-fledged
officers and orient them to become professional police officers, apart from
distancing them from the moderate influences that are herded to handle police
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training centers in the present setup. The trainees must be exposed to police
officers as guest speakers, by inviting very senior police officers of the highest
integrity and job standards to deliver talks on specific topics. Separate
professional training courses should be available in the training centers for law
and order police, crime police, intelligence police and security police with scope
for advanced learning with an eye to the latest developments in each respective
field. Latest training methods should be adopted with management, computers
and advanced psychology inter alia as the common subjects of study for all the
courses. The training centers should give the impression of being temples of
advanced studies apart from being so.
Policing requires commitment and dedication on the part of its operators.
The principles of faith and responsibility must run invisus through the vitals of the
policing, should it be purposeful and successful. The extant bureaucratic malady
that infested the Indian police setup cohibits healthy policing practices. The police
organisation should be reoriented to develop a professional approach to its
operations with full faith and responsibility as the hallmark of the delegation of
power. The present emphasis on procedures should be shifted to commitment
and result-orientation within the ambit of the rules.
An analytical study of policing, its trends and modern techniques help to bring
professionalism in policing. Due encouragement for the study of theoretical
aspects of policing and its application in the field through in-service training will
be a welcome step in this direction. If police managers succeed in inspiring in
police officers an interest, in theoretical aspects of the policing and its latest
techniques, it would be a kenspeckle leap in abraiding Indian police to the
challenges of the future.
Policing as a phenomenon of maintaining order and security in society cannot
afford to be oblivious of the flux in the modern lifestyles. As an integral part of
civil living, policing must prepare itself to amate the increasing complexities of
modern life by modifying its organizational and administrative setups to the
demands these vicissitudes create. The changes warranted in policing may either
be deciduous or peremptory depending on the nature of the transition in society.
It is left to police planners to analyze the nature of the flux in the society and locate
the areas where decession from the past practices has become sine qua non for
policing. This should be an ongoing process if policing is to retain its relevance
as the guardian of social discipline. The futuristic challenges of policing would
be pro rata to the twists of the future living. The prospects of Indian population
reaching the mark of a billion and the concomitant luctation of two billion needy
hands to grab a share in the countrys limited resources of food, shelter, water,
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clothing, electricity schooling, employment etc., naturally make life a cut-throat

concours and a ruthless adventure devoid of scruple, human values and concern
for fellow men. Though the Indian policing system managed somehow to deal
with the vicissitudes till now, the geometric acceleration of the flux of the coming
years may prove to be too much to the extant police setup. Therefore, it is high
time now that we prepare out police organisation and administration for the
future challenges.

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POLICE AND THE UNDERWORLD

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 organized 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 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 brings 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 nether land 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 those worlds word apart. It is only the police from the
open world keep avizefull eyes on the underworld. They are the bridge between

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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 vicedens of gambling, prostitution, cabaret, bars, massage parlors etc, indulging in
crimes like smuggling, drug peddling, adulteration of petroleum products, land
grabbing, arms shipments, hawala transactions, forgeries in securities, extrajudicial 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 breadwinner 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. 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
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knowledge does not constitute evidence in court of law. All cares are taken to
cover anything that constitutes valid evidence to crimes committed. Cutouts are
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 formers 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 harboring 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 fatuous 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 romanticize 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 film world in the prise of the easy funds from the underworld help the
latter to manipulate the film world to its advantage. In the ensuing publicity blitz,
gullible 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
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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 film world 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 gang wars 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 gang wars 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 waiting 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
gangster to leave the place immediately as they had come to arrest him. The
gangster immediately drove away from the place. The police team formally
conducted search of the place and reported back that the gangster was not traced
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there. This is species of what happens in most actions against Mafioso and the
underworld. In most gang wars 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 gangsters 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.

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CAUGHT IN THE VICIOUS CIRCLE

OF CORRUPTION
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. Organizational objectives have been
completely lost sight of. Shift in diligence helped to build money-power while
shift in loyalties facilitated proximity to powerbrokers. The degeneration spread
rapidly with the passage of time as organizational 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 organizational goals and show results is a
clear manifestation of the fall in professional pride. The police, who once was
proud to enforce law, to maintain order and to ensure peace and security, have

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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 organizational 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 exampleopen 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, elicit business carried out with police patronage or
tacit support make huge grist in which the police naturally have a huge share. On
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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 matched. 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 acronyms. 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
is also not uncommon. Though courts of law can theoretically protect officers
against such harassment, expenses, time and uncertainties involved and the
history of court judgments 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

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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.

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ROLE OF POLICE IN THE

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Justice begotten at a cost is justice lost. The fact is lost sight of by the present
administration of justice. Justice is a natural right. It is the sine qua non and raison
detre of social grouping. Justice in a social environment has to be as natural as
sleep or oxygen to a living being. Free and fair justice is the leges legum of human
rights. The proficiency of justice administration has to be assayed with this litmus
test and the role of the police in the system has to be judged by its contributions
to this goal of the justice administration system.
Justice in its basic sense necessitates an integral vision. Justice abstracted from
its environment, past, present, future, diverse issues, dramatis personae and related
events cannot be justice in the true sense of the word. Justice in parts is no justice
that lasts. Justice involves delving deep down to the heart of an issue and
delivering justice in reference to all related issues and matters to the rightful
entitlement of all. This presupposes a passion for objectivity and justness and
above all, selflessness in the arbitrators of justice as well as in those who are in
the service of the administration of justice. The role of the police in the
administration of justice comes to scrutiny in the context of their non a such part
in the investigation of crimes and maintenance of law and order.
Police play umpteen roles as grass root executors. They are basically
performers, actual doers in the field. Passion is the normal trait of action.
Objectivity and justness seldom give company to those who act to show results.
Expecting selfless traits in a profession like police is waiting for raindrops from
white clouds. They do perform duties with normal flair and loyalty while put in
service of justice. The tragedy is that the loyalty of the police prefers the interests
of the rich and powerful to the abstract idea of justice they are put in service of.
Loyalty to justice is a noble cause. It signifies a heightened mind bound to a
heightened cause. Loyalty to a value or a just cause is always a great virtue. The
same cannot be said about loyalty to individuals of whatever importance. Loyalty
by definition signifies loss of freewill and independence of thought. Loyalty is a
binding, strong in that, an emotional binding by volition, but a binding

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nevertheless; there is no independence in it. It is a mortgage of the self. Loyalty

denotes polarization of the self; devotion to one, and thoughtless opposition to
whoever stands up to the object of the devotion. This notion renders loyalty
devoid of any sense of justice, which bounces from the springboard of freedom
of thought and independent judgment. Ergo, individual loyalty in the service of
the administration of justice is self-defeating to the cause of justice. The Achilles
heel lies in loyalty basically being a faith, a blind faith. Sans stirrings in the
conscience. It is an inferior submission to a superior existence, ipso facto
subverting per se the very foundation of the cardinal principle of equality among
individuals. The only loyalty to conscience, freedom of thought and independent
judgment. A policeman with this loyalty can do exemplary job in service of the
administration of justice.
Police as the cutting-edge of the governance, enjoy enormous powers.
Bringing law-breakers and criminals to book is just a part of the gargantuan
responsibilities on their shoulders. As the taskmasters of the statecraft, they are
invested with diverse rights and privileges. They have a peek to all-private as well
as public activities of the citizenry. They can constrain people to perform specific
tasks and forbid from doing others in the national and public interests. They
prevent, check, prohibit, restrain, regulate, confine or arrest erring people
depending on time-to-time needs dictated by the circumstances. They can
forcibly break open, enter, search and seize when need arises. They use weapons
to hurt and kill. The wide spectrum of powers impinging on the basic rights of
the plebeian places the police on a pedestal different from that of the common
man as far as the administration of justice are concerned. These extraordinary
powers are tools of the police in serving the interests of justice. The police, as the
means of justice, are often exempted from the process of justice by the law itself.
Human nature being what it is, the need of keeping the police in tight leash
regarding exercise of their sensitive powers has become conditio sine qua non for
the administration of justice.
The relevance of the police in administration of justice is two fold; one, fair
exercise of their responsibilities in the interests of justice; two, fair exercise of their
powers to ensure that no harm is done to the process of justice. As dispensers
of justice during investigation of crimes and maintenance of law, police perform
highly sensitive tasks capable of undermining the very process of the justice
administration, police enjoy unrestricted freedom unbecoming to the sensitivity
of their job. Practically, there are no means to force them to comply with the
needs of objectivity and fairplay in work save their own interpretations of laws
and actions. Subsequent interferences of courts are too little, too late to be
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meaningful. By the time an issue knocks at the doors of courts, damage to the
process of justice could have been irrevocably done. Whatever courts do
thereafter help only partial recovery from the damage. Innocent people would
already have been arrested, charge sheeted and harassed; decent people would
have been dishonestly denied rightful dues in the name of maintenance of law;
criminals would have been willingly let off the noose; or hors la loi would have
been let free to do things in violation of the extant laws as quid pro quo. What
police do in the name of dispensing justice are material to the hoi polloi, not what
courts deliver, if deliver at all, at some distant future. The fact brings the police
centre-stage in the administration of justice. Police unequipped for the crucial role
is the crux of the issue. Lack of sound mechanism of supervision and poor
position of policeman in society, mediocre education, deviant job culture etc
inhibit police from performing at levels adequate for the importance of their
responsibilities. It denies them organizational pride. Field orientations distract
them from high human values. Weak economic position and easy opportunities
for dishonest riches render them prone to corrupt practices. There is nothing
tangible in their service to inspire commitment to noble causes. Their job culture
does not inspire them to delve deep into diverse nuances of their job. Their
service lacks in facilities to enhance professional competence. Consequence is
shallow policing, mechanical works en face policing crying for deep, intellectual
analyses of its relevance for establishment of a just society and national well being.
Shallow policing is responsible for all the mishaps and turbulence of the first half
century of independent India. The period saw police distracted to go berserk
seeking parochial and selfish ends. A force committed to parochial and selfish
interests can hardly do any justice to the administration of justice.
Another relevance of the police in the administration of justice is exercise of
their special powers without committing wrongs against justice. Police are
dangerous fences with their extraordinary powers potential to uproot and
destroy the crops they are put in charge. Their enormous powers presume special
responsibilities on their shoulders to protect innocent people from rash exercise
of powers. This is an infinitely more difficile responsibility considering what
human nature is and how every man suffers from a blind spot about him. Every
person is right for himself. Every criminal is just in his own assessment. Every
act, every human being, does has its own logic, reasons and justifications.
Nobody ever is wrong to himself. This is true of the police too. Every encounter,
every lockup death, every third degree method, every wrongful confinement,
every illegal arrest, every excess committed by police has its own police
justifications. It is irrelevant how the justifications. It is irrelevant how the
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justifications appear to outsiders. You seld find police confessing to a wrong or

an excess committed. We have examples of police commissioners justifying
gunning down of innocent citizens by subordinates in broad daylight in a busy
street as a bonafide cause of mistaken identity. We have any number of cases of
senior police officers colluding with subordinates in destroying evidences of
lock-up death cases. Punjab police reveled in hushing up cases of cold-blooded
murders through false encounters. Police excesses are justified by the top brass
per procurationem of the solidarity of the police force as though the concept is
inimical to the interests of justice. Use of third degree methods is excused as the
bedrock of policing as if justice is as irrelevant concept as far as police are
concerned. The ambience, with the police going berserk with their special
powers to establish a just society, is not conducive to the administration of justice.
The police are committing wrongs against justice by the very means invested to
them to protect the interests of the justice. This is an irony of the relevance of
police in the administration of justice.
The cause of failure of the police lies more in the systems failure the character
of its dramatis personae, deviant job culture and wrong leadership than in the
concept of police. Police in inappropriate milieu may turn into a Frankenstein.
It is like a herd of tamed elephants in a khedda operation. Lack of direction, weak
management and poor organisation turn the tamed rogues on rampage against
the organizational goals instead of bringing of knees the ferae naturae. Remedial
measures have to be found for the prevarications rather than blaming the police
tout a fait.
Policing being a specialized job with rare keeks inside by outsiders about
measures and decisions taken in disparate circumstances, few outsiders
comprehend that the job gives tremendous leeway for work and decisions, be
it crime investigation or maintenance of law. This is a dangerous liberty in the
system of dispensing justices that warrant preciseness and smug exactitude in the
sensitive business of balancing justice. The sensitivity is briller par son absence in the
present police and policing system. Justice being what it is in the present age of
prolate concours making threatening differences, the leeway in policing process
gives scope for favors, misuses and corruption. Lack of real supervision and
control over the work ab extra is another face of the problem. Beginning from
deciding whether a prima facie case is made out in a complaint and whether the
case is to be investigated to whether it is to be charge sheeted, at what stage, on
whom, with what all evidences, every decision is exclusive police decisions. How
an investigation proceeds, at what speed, whom to arrest and whom not, at what
stage, whom to release on bail and whom not to, what to search and seize, where,
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at what juncture of time, the direction of the investigation to be pursued and what
turns to be taken at what phase, police decide on own without reference,
supervision, guidance or control from outside. Though laws provide for courts
to keep track of the process of investigation, it is rarely the case in the field. The
situation is blatantly glidder in the field of maintenance of law sans the mechanism
of courts keeping track of the issues unless the matter is filed, before a court of
law. The Achilles heel is taken advantage of by the rich and the powerful. Police
have become willing tools in their hands in warping justice in barter of the crumbs
they throw from the res gestae of their unjust deeds. The situation is conspicuous
in police bending laws in favour of the people in power to let them out of the
noose of laws or crush their enemies or keep Sophocles sword hanging on the
crowns of their opponents to ease political maneuvers. The degringolade began
during the emergency of 1975, saw a rising swing in 1980s and found in excelsis
in the early 1990s with courts taking cognizance of the situation and convinced
about the need of their interference in the interests of the administration of justice.
Public interest litigations became popular. Higher courts ventured into close
scrutiny of investigations into cases against people in power. It became public
that there was no history of convictions of powerful politicians in independent
India in criminal cases investigated by investigating agencies including the CBI
and rarely such cases were investigated but on political compulsions. The premier
investigation agency and its chief were subjected to strictures in open courts for
nonperformance, partisan approach and contempt of court in investigations to
cases against people in power. Close scrutiny of the investigations led to arrest,
charge sheet and conviction of powerful political leaders. The tragedy of the
awakening is that the so-called judicial activism saw itself serving the interests of
the political witch-hunt preceded it. This considerably reduced the impact of the
alert courts on the national scene.
The witch-hunt became a part of the policy of survival of United Front
government that followed. The use of the CBI and revenue enforcement
agencies to bring political rivals to submissions led to the fall of government in
April 1997.
The state terrorism against political rivals became a perfect art in 1970s with
the use of intelligence agencies for surveillance and opening secret, files, and in
1990s with the use of investigation agencies for maneuvering investigations into
criminal cases, with the willing cooperation of police leaders in the respective
agencies. While the trend strengthened the position of the chief executive of the
government, it sine dubio, weakened the political fabric of the country, so essential
for a democratic process. In comparison, misuse of investigating agencies
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proved a deadlier assault on the political process of the country. Jain-Hawala case
caught the popular attention as nothing before. The case took down its author
and his party with his political rivals to the drains. The coalition government that
followed used the same ropes to strike a wedge among the leaders of the party
that supported it from outside by terrorizing some through the CBI and revenue
enforcement agencies and luring others with the crumbs of power. Bofors
kickback case got a lease of life. St.Kitts forgery case and Lakhubhai Pathak
cheating case were re-enacted and maneuvered to net-in strategic political rivals
on flimsy evidences.Rs.133 crores Urea scam and JMM bribery cases loomed
large. A key leader was interrogated without sound grounds for possessing
wealth disproportionate to known sources of income and later implicated in
Tanwar murder case on suspicion. The party was subjected to various enquires
by revenue enforcement agencies. The acts nailed the fate of the coalition
government to prove that misuse of police often goes counter productive in
political maneuverings as did in Tamilnad where erstwhile Chief Minister,
Ms.Jayalalitha, found a series of criminal cases stacked against her and her
associates, once she fell out of power and popular support.
Recent past saw executive heads of government opting for their own men
in the police force to head the premier investigation agency of the country and
political rivals being investigated and charge sheeted at politically opportune
times on flimsiest grounds while cases of national significance on sound footing
were dragged on for decades wantonly. Often, ambiguous entries in diaries to
prove bribery and old photographs together in public functions to prove
collaboration became conclusive evidence to proceed against inconvenient
political leaders. It was a scene of every successor hurling criminal cases against
his predecessor. Police reduced to a tool of political revenge in this power game.
In the process, the police lost its credibility as a nonpartisan player and an
invincible tool of establishing justice. It is a pity that the leeway police enjoy in
policing contributed to its loss of face and spine by its patent sequacious
comportment and lack of passion to the case of justice.
Opportunities of dispensing favors during maintenance of law are common
and aplenty in policing. It be raids on vice dens, issue of licenses, or action on
rowdy gangs, decisions of police about whom, when and how, play important
role in political game plan. The decisions and concomitant actions more often
than not are taken on political convenience rather than as measures of curbing
lawlessness. Police act as conduits of partisan measures in favour of the powerful
rather than as tools of administering justice to all. Power assumed higher
importance to police than justice. Vice dens, criminals and rowdy gangs, bien
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chausse with political patronage or money power, are not only allowed to run
trouble-free, but often protected to the hilt by the police. This is how the police
in the job of serving justice are stabbing it en arriere.
Police patronage to hors la loi is ephhemeral and changes colours with the
change of guard in the government. Personal ambitions of some in the
organisation lead to patronages ectogenous to political maneuvers in form of
cross-political allegiances and subservience to rich and influential segments of the
society. In the maelstrom, justice suffers, and the nation, its constitution and the
general public to whom the police as the guardians of justice are responsible,
suffer.
Police is not the odd-job boy of the government. It is not the handmaid of
politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisation 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 these ends. Once police miss the
bus of justice and the rule of law, their goals of safety, security and well-being
remain a distant dream. They lose the credibility and respect of the public, so
essential for effective and perficient policing. The fear the police inspire cannot
take it far in absence of credibility, respect and sympathy of the public. Once the
police lose their usefulness in political and power game plans 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 detre like
sabotaging the course of justice will prove to be fatal to the relevance of the police
for the society.
The relevance of the police lies in its usefulness to the administration of justice
au reste safety and security. Police are the arms of the administration of justice.
They are the drive and thrust of the administration of justice. Paralyzed arms
crumble the body of the administration of justice. Arms struck by struck by
gangrene, poison the whole system of the administration of justice. As a vital
organ of the administration of justice, police have inherent potentiality to
sabotage the interests of justice ab intra in umpteen kinds including blatant
mendacity. Inordinate delays in the process of investigations are one. Bartering
justice is another. Subjecting justice to the terms of quid pro quo is one more.
Inefficient and shallow policing adds to the list. Delivering partial justice adds to
the problem. Refusing to act against injustice is another kind of injustice to justice.
Making justice a costly affair gives another dimension to the issue. Effectiveness
of police lies in its ability in making justice an easily and cheaply dispensable
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commodity. Police are the first line of the means of dispensing justice. Courts
come to the scene only in far later stage for restricted number of cases. For the
hoi polloi, police is the first and the only easy defence against injustices. Most cases
of disputes never cross the thresholds of the police stations. Police do act as
arbitrators of justice in criminal as well as civil cases in exercise of the wide
spectrum of responsibilities of crime investigations, investigations, maintenance
of law, enforcement of order, preventive measures and security duties. They
enjoy a key position in the administration of justice. A good police certainly
symbolize effective administration of justice more than courts and prosecution
department together do. That is why a sound police system is conditio sine qua non
for the health and progress of the country and its tenuous social fabric.

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THE MANAGEMENT TOUCH
A major handicap in police administration is the absence of a tool to assess
performance. The problem is, in fact, peculiar to the fields of crime control and
security operations. The object of the organisation is preventing crimes and
success can be measured only in relation to the extent the efforts pay. As the
factors of such an effort are unknown after the crimes are prevented, the
effectiveness of policing can never be measured. The results that are tangible,
namely the successful protection of a sensitive target or the creation of a crimefree atmosphere during a particular period, can be the outcome for two different
reasons; either no crime was attempted, in which case even the least effective
police could have produced the same results or an all-out major attempt to
commit crime has been prevented, which could not have been achieved by
anything less than first class policing.
The measurement of the quality of crime investigation and maintenance of
order are also equally complex for different reasons. Policing in these fields
largely depends upon intangible factors such as luck, surroundings and the willing
cooperation of the public. In order to tackle these problems in gauging policing
qualities, the organisation compares developments in the same period in the
preceding years. But this is an unscientific method and gives unsatisfactory results
for various reasons. The crime rate or other policing problems do not remain
static over a period of time. These depend upon population, complexity of
society, economic conditions, moral values, quality of leadership, political
conditions, prices and climate, none of which follow any formula.
SUBJECTIVE FANCIES
The police needs, as a control device, a tool to measure policing quality. Until
such a device is invented, the administrators have to rely upon their subjective
fancies to measure and control policing and assess the work of their
subordinates. Until a scientific device is formulated, the heartburns and
frustrations caused by erratic measurement of work and policing qualities,
wherein a few mealy-mouthed smart guys always corner accolades at the cost

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of efficient silent workers, will continue to prevail. A sufficiently active tool to

measure policing qualities is therefore the first priority in the task of creating a new
shape for the Indian police. The success achieved in this field will decide the
degree to which the Indian police can shed its shoddy image.
The police organisation is being run without requisite management principles.
The major lapse lies in the failure to define organisation objectives and formulate
a specific set of actions thereon. For example extraneous objectives such as
creating employment opportunities often inspire the creation of additional posts
irrespective of the organizational needs, which results in the corrosion of job
contents and thereby erode the morale of the force. Work, often, is not allocated
on the basis of scientific assessment of character and aptitude.
Sophisticated equipment purchased under modernization schemes without
creating the infrastructure for their operation or analyzing their relevance and
their relative merits to the organisation, have resulted in their being dumped a few
days after commissioning while even some of the basic needs are yet to be met.
MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
The police organisation of India would do well to formulate actions and
operations in line with the latest management principles and practices followed
elsewhere. It may either constitute an efficient cell of management experts to
advice or hire a management consultation firm for guidance. At any rate, the
police organisation of the third millennium should be a far smaller unit than now,
manned by highly committed and capable officers who are paid and looked
after well by the Government.
The last three decades have seen a tremendous expansion in the Indian police.
For the lack of an organizational plan and the foresight to assess future demands,
haphazard growth has resulted. Organizational sensibilities such as workload,
unit of control, accountability functional conveniences, span of control and
information flow are never given the attention they need building an
organisation. As a result, while a few posts in the police are overburdened with
work, there are many which have no work or accountability. The lopsided
growth of the organisation has spawned acute likes and dislikes for various
positions. Naturally, probity and objectivity are sacrificed in favour of survival
and protection of career interests. Corruption is rampant. This may not be the
sole reason for the falling standards of policing. Yet, it is a major cause.
Rationalization of the police structure to bring about a balance among the
various posts in the same rank would certainly help to ameliorate the situation.
It would also help to eliminate the wastage of Government funds on unnecessary
posts. The creation of such posts, in order to accommodate unwanted elements,
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cannot be tolerated in a serious department like the police. A systematic growth

plan for balanced expansion is essential if the department is to meet the tasks
ahead.
INSTINCT
For the administrators, the knowledge of modern management principles
makes policing and related operations cheaper, effective and less demanding in
terms of time, place, manpower, equipment and other resources. The instinct to
study and plan operations in terms of layout charts, time flow, span of control,
methods of programming of operations, motivational aspects, human
relationships, information flow, control methods, work analysis and
contingencies for emergencies must be inherent in police culture whether it
pertains to raids, maintenance of order, crime control, investigation, intelligence
collection, security exercises or simply administration.
Only the meticulous exercise of management techniques will make police
administration meaningful, purposeful and useful in giving the personnel
direction and content.
The present policing system in India has too much of paper work with
hundreds of registers maintained in each station or office with tens of forms filled
up at each stage. A detailed study of the need for paper work should be taken
up to eliminate its need so that time is saved.
Professional knowledge is vital in the field of policing too. What is at issue is
not only the knowledge of law and procedures but also a deeper insight into their
applications, necessary in diverse circumstances. A mind, alert to its surroundings
with an inexhaustible curiosity to know what is afoot and triggers each
development and its likely impact on policing in general and the worker at hand
in particular, is essential for efficient policing. This entails special efforts to update
professional and general knowledge at all levels. There are training programmes,
including in-service training, but they lack in substance and quality. They fail to
impart the right knowledge to the trainees and induce attitudinal changes in them.
The lack of commitment to work, either in actual performance or in supervision,
is the primary cause of this failing. A healthy police setup, from the constabulary
to the ranks of the Director-General must possess sound professional and
general knowledge at all levels.
The modernization of the police force with the latest communication,
transport, weapons and office equipment system and the simultaneous creation
of the necessary infrastructure for their operation in advance alone will make the
police force rise to the challenge of elite criminals who are armed with
sophisticated equipment. India of the third millennium will require its police
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force to be equipped with helicopters as an aide in emergencies. A genuine and

effective effort to achieve modernization would be indispensable in the future.
A face-lift to police stations and offices with the latest office equipment and
general facilities will go a long way in boosting the morale of the policemen.
INTELLECTUAL ANALYSIS
The passion for modernization is not met with an intellectual analysis of the
needs for modernization. The result is spasmodic efforts without the logistic
support to sustain modernist ion. This has resulted in enormous wasteful
expenditure towards the acquisition of gadgets. Indian is yet to develop a system
to assess the needs of modernization in the police and to devise techniques to
speed up the process. India is yet to make full use of advanced computer facilities
for policing; computerization of fingerprints is yet to reach a satisfactory phase.
The use of helicopters for policing remains a dream. Distant hearing and night
watch devices are also unknown.
The response time of the Indian police to a crisis call is unduly long when
compared to international standards. Efforts to shorten it, in Delhi and few other
places where terrorist strikes made shocking impacts did bring about some
improvements. These are only exceptions. Otherwise, no serious though is given
to the need for quick response. The modernization programmes that should
pave the path for improving the response time, seldom attend to this salient need.
The Bangalore city police spent liberally in 1991 on modern communication
gadgets; but this did not improve its speed of response. Instances of such
wasteful expenditure on modernization are available in other parts of the country
also.
Though efforts have been made to redeem the image of the Indian police
nothing substantial has been achieved thanks to amateurish handling of the affair.
The managers have their image development tools limited to issuing occasional
press statements when actually image development has become a highly
advanced field of specialization.
CONSTABULARY
The constabulary which forms the backbone and cutting-edge of Indian
policing and wields real authority over the populace, is a lowly paid, modestly
educated, non-elite mass of works in uniform. The authority they wield makes
them fearsome while their low status in society stands in the way of their getting
empathy and respect. The fearsome authority sans empathy, respect and
legitimacy decidedly proves a deadly substructure for an organisation and people
certainly resent an organisation with this unhealthy attribute. This foible in the
extant setup makes policing more complex.
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The Indian police of the 21-century will require sub-inspectors with their
present scale of education and status in society as the primary unit of policing at
the cutting-edge level. Constables up to the level of Assistant Sub-Inspectors of
Police should be limited to the duties of assistants without police powers and
responsibilities. This will require a huge army of sub inspectors while the
constabulary stands to be severely spruced in strength.
With the removal of the constabulary from the hierarchy, the sub-inspectors
will occupy the lowest rank in the setup. Each police station works under a police
inspector assisted by a host of sub-inspectors, performing all subordinate
functions including beat patrolling and investigation of minor cases.
Diligent efforts at the highest level in the organisation to create a force
characterized by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost
need of a police organisation of the future. The prevalence of police
administration over general administration in the survival of a nation as a
democratic and disciplined country may necessitate changes in the recruitment
and service condition rules to attract the best talent.
WORK ASSESSMENT
The system of assessment of work for promotion has fallen into utter misuse.
Subjective assessments of corrupt influences must be replaced with periodical
promotions in a time scale of say, 25 years. So every police constable retires at
least as an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police, a Sub-Inspector as a Deputy
Superintendent of Police and an Indian Police Service Officer as an Inspector
General of Police. The officers of the Indian Police Service may be posted, on
first appointment, as Superintendents to make the career more attractive, though
not to districts directly. And dual recruitments as in vogue now, have to be
stopped to make selection meaningful.
Officers, in exceptional cases, may have avenues for special promotions in
addition to the two provided in a time scale of say 25 years, on the basis of a
written examination and on an overall assessment of their career of 25 years by
high-power committees formed for the purpose. The promotion of
constabulary in exceptional cases to the ranks of PSIs and above should be
screened by the All-India Police Authority and the promotion of an IPS officer
as the Director General of Police and above should be approved by a Central
Cabinet Committee headed by the Prime Minister

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MAN MANAGEMENT IN POLICE

Man management is the point d appui around which all organisations revolve.
Among man, material, machine and money, it is man with his skill and creative
ingine, with his wisdom and capacity for ceaseless labour, with his thinking faculty
and intelligence, manifests in excelsis in any organisation structure as its real spine.
The strength, vitality, quality and real test of any organisation depend upon its
human stuff and the process of its man management. For, man in an organisation
stands for totality of his motivation to the organizational objectives and totality
of motivation a toute force depends upon the grade of man management in the
organisation. Ergo, man management is the fulcrum of any organizations
process of survival. This is more so in a police organisation where policing a fond
is a human resources orientated profession with boundless need of motivation
for successful operation and therefore sub structured tout a fait on the merits of
man management. A police organisation sans right man management policy is
bound to crumble in a welter of discontentment and demotivation. Salient
parameters of a sound man management policy in police organisation though
vary e re nata, more prominent of them can be discussed to lay the matter in right
perspective.
HIGH MORALE
The present Indian environment of ruthless competitions impleached with
the degringolade of values made human resources management a farce in India. The
Wherewithal of human resources management like recruitment, promotions,
transfers, rewards, punishment etc, is no more employed for the maximum
benefit of the organisation. Self-interests have undermined quality and character
and organizational interests are subordinated to personal behoofs. Though this
proclivity is prevalent in all fields in India of late, its adverse effects are kenspeckle
in police organisation as the line-system of the organisation makes the ingenuity
of human resources management, a factor having direct bearing on the quality
of the policing. While is becoming a dynamic part of the governance in urban
areas, with the rise of urban pockets, the damage done by egregious management
of human resources in the police cannot be exaggerated. The declension may go

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patulous with the passage of time if frack measures to arrest the depravation in
human resources management are ignored.
Diligent efforts at the highest level in the organisation to create a force
characterized by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost
need of a police organisation of the coming age. The prevalence of police
administration over the general administration in the survival of a nation as a
democratic and orderly country may necessitate future changes in recruitment
and service condition rules to attract the very best talents of the country to the
police organisation with extraordinary care to ensure that anything less than the
best with clean antecedents does not step into the organisation.
WARMING-UP PROCESS
The period of initiation is the most important and impressionable period in
the career-life of fresh recruits to the police department. The process of
warming-up is based on the psychological needs of human nature. New entrants
must be handled with utmost care to give them confidence and a feeling of
belonging at the incipient stage itself. A sense of confidence and belonging to the
organisation and an ingenerate love and respect for the higher-ups are the
substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate discipline in a void
a like waiting for rain from the autumn sky. Indian police impresarios failed to
understand such finer nuances of administration when they copied the system of
the British Indian police. And so we now have a police system where discipline
is insisted on subordinates sans the conditions requisite for the discipline. The
recruits, who enter the fold with open sensibilities and high expectations, wither
after braving for a while the brusque and insensitive conduct of their higher ranks.
These recruits continue thereafter to be constant enemies of the higher ranks and
the department for which they must continue to work for the next three to four
decades. A police department constituted of such members, thanks to the
shabby approach of the insensitive higher ranks in this most impressionable
period of the formers career-life, cannot turn out eximious work. It is a tragedy
that India neither spawned a police force of its ain superior values nor copied
the police force of the British vintage in its entirety with its finer points, but
cultivated instead a burlesque of the rough and mediocre aspects of both.
WORK PRESSURE
All creations in their beginning and the natures bounty are kind and tender
and elegant. The strains of the environment cause inquietude in natures balance
and leads to the obfuscation of a few precious sheens from its innards. It
manifests in loss of human factors in man and his mental space turns intenible
of human qualities by environmental strains such as work-pressures.
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The Indian police are weighed down with an impossible quantum of

responsibilities and tasks. This work-pressure adversely affects the mental
balance apart from depriving those tasks from the due attention. It is impossible
to expect a man bogged down with responsibilities and tasks to spare his time
for the niceties of human qualities.
An important measure in humanizing the police is to scale down the workpressure on it to a bearable level. An element of lightness in work makes the work
environment dulcet and provides an adequate mental space to devolve on the
exuberances of human compotation.
HUMAN ASPECTS
The human aspect is the fulcrum of policing. Human comportment teethed
with authority to compesce the human mass from undesirable activities forms
the essence of police activities. Policing essentially is human interaction, latitant in
unending luctation to smite criminal and anti-social elements. It is the human
quality in the force that determines its effectiveness and vitality. Therefore, human
resource policy in a police organisation needs careful and gritty handling at the
highest possible level. People can afford the luxury of humaneness when they are
insulated from the quotidian diversions of their occupational hazards. A
delectable service atmosphere mellows their responses to those around them.
They begin to see the world in a better light, in conformity with the atmosphere
around them and try to share these pleasant feelings with those they come in
contact with. The levity of the environment and the absence of strains from the
service-front facilitate their opening-up to give vent to their latitant human
contents. An effort to humanize the police cannot ignore the need to improve
service conditions to make the police proud to be enraced in the vocation. The
sense of contentment generated by the service atmosphere devolves to the public
that interacts with the police. In addition, the public learns to hold the police in
esteem in conformity with its improved service conditions and sophistication.
The interaction between the police and the public can be a sound substruction
for humane policing.
GOOD LIVING CONDITION
A reasonably good standard of living helps the police to rise above the
physical and security need-levels to social and higher need-levels in the needhierarchy outlined by McGregor and have the mental space for wider interests
like human concerns of kindness, tenderness, elegance and civility. A low living
standard retards the police image and esteem in society.
The police organisation functions effectively only when a reasonably good
living standard is made affordable to all ranks, so that they can deal with anti122

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social elements from a level of strength and confidence sans the lure of easy
booty, thrown en revanche to a let-off. A low living standard retards the police
image and esteem in society that are the essentials of successful policing. It is more
so in future while more and more of the so-called elite jump into the fray of
criminal activities in an increasingly complicated society. It is necessary to make
the police financially bein by adequately compensating for the risks and hazard
factors of their jobs to attract the best men to its fold apart from securing them
against financial distractions. A feeling of condign compensation and
contentment is certain to raise the police above physical and security need levels
to give free expression to natural human tendencies. It may be necessary to make
police officers financially bein in comparison to their counterparts in other
services with risk allowance and hazard allowance to compensate job factors.
This helps to attract the best to the fold of the police organisation, apart from
protecting them from financial distractions. A feeling of condign compensation
is certain to boost the commitment and efficiency of the police.
HOUSING
Policing is a risky profession that draws antagonism and hatred by its very
nature. It involves round the clock duties, often at odd hours, at odd places in
odd circumstances. Retaliation by criminals is a constant risk under which
policemen live. Their work constantly exposes them to danger. The very nature
of their duties necessitates their being treated on a different footing to others in
the government. The security of housing and other facilities being generously
available to them is de rigueur. Indeed the spirit of the ancien regime remains
undisturbed in matters of housing facilities for the police. However, a much
more liberal attitude in providing housing and other facilities to the police is
necessary to strengthen the Indian police and make policing more effective.
WELFARE ACTIVITIES
Police forces administer welfare funds for the benefit of their members. The
current approach of disbursing money from these funds to needy applicants
needs to arouse a sense of pride and dignity even in receiving help from the
establishment. Much thought has to go into this aspect to make the welfare funds
useful to them without giving the impression of charity. If the funds go to them
as their rightful share, they would be put to better use than as a charitable
contribution. A newly structured police for the new age certainly requires a fresh
approach to the utilization of police welfare funds.
TOUGHNESS
The Indian police are not paying sufficient attention to the need for physical
prowess, sturdiness and skill in martial art. The need for attention to these factors
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during recruitment, basic training and in-service challenges is tout a fait ignored.
A healthy and sturdy police requires healthy and sturdy men and officers, capable
of taking up gauntlets and defending themselves when exposed to
comminations. The need can be sidelined only at the risk of weakening the
organisation. The police are often required to defend it in circumstances when
unarmed and undefended. Policing involves performance of tough and
physically trying jobs that can only be performed when policemen and police
officers are physically and mentally fit. The police, aspiring to a bright future,
must attend to this need for its own good health with genuine seriousness.
UNIFORM
A change in the existing police uniform is an issue to be deeply probed to
improve the police image. The present khaki uniform of police inspires
resentment, as it is psychologically associated with repression and violence. A
change of police uniform to white or pleasant colours may prove to be a measure
for the better in removing the negative image of the police. The overall strategy
in selecting a new police uniform should be to infuse a sense of oneness and
quality among the ranks of police and inspiring a psychological disposition of
friendliness, confidence, dignity, respect and healthy fear in the public with a
compulsion to see the police as their own people, but invested with the
responsibility of a noble task.
HUMAN RESOURCES FROM THE PUBLIC
The performance of the Indian police in utilizing the services of the public is
far from desirable. Most parts of the country are yet to avail of the services of
the people as special police officers, as is provided by police regulations to assist
in policing. Wherever the services are availed, the potential is not made use of to
the full. The system of village police officers also is yet to fledge to take off. The
use of people as traffic wardens to assist traffic police is limited to major cities
of India. No police can be tout a fait self-contained. Involving the public and
obtaining its cooperation in policing is a necessary art that needs to be carefully
cultivated for making policing a success story in India. There is no shortage of
people among the public who would volunteer their services. Only, the police
must open its doors to such services and organize a system to make such services
really effective and useful.
WEAK LEADERSHIP
A factor that seriously affects the morale of a disciplined force like the police
is weak leadership, often affected by disorders of inferiority complex, in posts
from where it can affect the career of subordinates. This is a very serious situation
wherein weak and insecure leadership holds reins of the career of thousands of
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subordinates with many at very senior levels. The feeling of insecurity in them
colours their interpretation of normal conduct of subordinates from their
pusillanimous standpoint to interpret foursquare qualities of subordinates as
surquedry; normal reporting or explanation appears like an intrigue and tough
posture appears like insubordination. A desire to teach a lesson to the forthright
subordinates who make the leadership feel inferior is a natural outcome of this.
This makes retaliation an ever-pensile threat to the career of the subordinates.
And the threat, sine prole is true in the police. This makes people of sound mind,
a must in responsible positions in the police. For an organisation like the police,
the need of sound mind is more basic than any other faculty. Should the prodigies
of virtues like sufferance, intrepidity and foursquare qualities in face of odds
constitute the bedrock of the police organisation, the force make meaningful
impact on the society.
The basic tenets of man management in police organisation discussed above
are that a person happy, contented and proud of himself makes his work
situation happy, contentful and something to be proud of, and ipso facto
enriches his work and himself; that man au fond is good natured, trustworthy
and tends to take responsibility and if he is treated as such, he certainly turns out
his best work that if he is convinced that fairness is the rule of the game, he is the
easiest social animal to be handled. It is left to the police leaders to infuse these
tenets in their man management policy to get most out of the human stuff under
their charges. But the conundrum is that the police leaders need to be motivated
towards the end, and who is to motivate these police leaders to the task by own
man management programmes?

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WHERE INDIAN POLICE IS HEADING

History of Indian police on modern lines dates back to the dawn of the 19th
century. East India Company controlled police activities in areas under its charge
through Village Police Regulations. Post-sepoy mutiny saw enactment of laws to
streamline police organisations at provincial levels. Enactment of the Police Act,
1861 as Central Act V in 1861 is a major step in streamlining police organisations
and their activities at the central level. The Act which calls itself as An Act for
the regulation of police preconises at its Preamble that . it is expedient to
reorganize the police and to make it a more efficient instrument for the
prevention and detection of crime. The Act seeks to establish one police force
under State Government and its Preamble declares prevention and detection of
crime as the objective of the force.
POLICE UNDER BRITISH CROWN
Periods sinsyne saw ascensive use of the police force for suppressing
freedom struggle and maintaining law and order au reste prevention and
detection of crime. Indian police metamorphosed to a law and order outfit in
the next nine decades au contraire to the proclamations of the Preamble of the
Police Act, 1861. British Raj ruled India on the strength of police force during
the turbulent periods of the independent struggle. In the process, law and order
functions came to centre stage in the charter of priorities of the police duties at
the cost of the objectives of prevention and detection of crimes.
A MAJOR TURNING POINT
Indian independence marks a major turning point in the history of its police.
The event marks the transition of India police from a colonial heritage to a
democratic character. The change has momentous impact on the spirit, character
and objectives of the organisation. The basic interest of a colonial police is the
perpetuation of the colonial rule wherein matters ectogenous to the interests are
treated secondary. In a democratic police, the foremost objective is upholding
the interests of the country, its people, its democratic heritage and the sanctity of
the constitution. This is a formidable responsibility. Maintenance of order, rule
of law, security of the people, safety of the national properties and interests,
prevention of offences and investigation of crimes sit squarely on the sturdy

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shoulders of a democratic police. Its allegiance shifts from the rulers in a colonial
rule to the people, the interests of the country and its constitution in a democracy.
The shift is basic to the character, job culture, functional values and the
organizational gestalt of the police force.
WORLD-WIDE TRENDS
The cardinal question is how far Indian police in the democratic ambience
worked-out its adaptations to the new situation and zeit geist. Half a century
should suffice for a fair and complete assessment. The developments Indian
police underwent in this period can either be due to the worldwide
developments in the field of policing and police system as a continuing process
or due to the adaptation of Indian police from the colonial heritage to the
democratic vintage. The evolution in worldwide policing practices and police
system in the latter half of the 20th century itself is portentous. National security
activities gained primacy neck and shoulder above the crime and law and order
functions. With it came the grey areas of clandestine operations across the
countries. Police shed their uniforms and threw laws and morals to the wind in
pursuit of national security policy. They became international players, hopping
from country to country in disguise, committing murders, overthrowing
governments, forging passports, shipping weapons, training rebels, spreading,
disaffections, organizing violent protests etc in the interests of their own
countries.
SECURITY CONSCIOUSNESS
Indian police could not lag behind. Moving pari passu with the world trend
is basic for survival. The consequence was the rising prominence of security
activities at the cost of both the prevention and detection of crimes and the law
and order functions. A craze for VIP and VVIP security is the Indian
manifestation of the new security consciousness. Worldwide rise in terrorism
gave way for specialization in anti-terrorist operations all over the world. Crackforces became the spine of the security police. Anti-hijack squads were organized
as an elite force of the police. Advances in science and technology made national
security a high-tech field. Satellites, modern communication systems, highresolution photographics, laser beams, night vision systems, computer
technology etc made national security highly advanced and complex operations.
The international developments only marginally touched Indian police for lack
of will to be a major player in international clandestine warfares. The only real
concern of Indian police more suo in the last half century was VIP and VIPs
security. Here too, performance did not match the concern as many of its
important leaders including those occupied top positions of Prime Minister and
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Chief Minister fell prey to assassins. Indulgence of Indian police in form in lieu
of substance, in number in place of efficiency and in display where subtle moves
were en regle led to the grave failures. The popular axiom of Indian police to this
day is that larger the number, better the security. Motto is countering security
threats with counter threats; or better, meeting security gauntlets with the show
of muscle power. The approach is the antithesis of modern perceptions and
theories of security policing. In Indian ambience, VIP security has become a
fanfaronade; a procession of sound, light and motions; a festive assemblage.
Tragically, it is happening at the cost of law and order functions and more so,
at the cost of prevention and detection of crimes.
MUSICAL CHAIR
The situation is tardier in law and order functions. Obvious powers and
tremendous avenues for ill-gotten money make law and order jobs hotly sought
after posts. Politicians and people in power are the bestowers of these jobs on
favourite few. Result is the desperate concours of police officials of all ranks to
aggrace politicians and people in power to corner right spots in the musical chair.
The ragmatical situation leads to law and order functions losing the edge of
fairness and objectivity in efforts to keep right people in right side. This is how
law and order police become law for themselves or for their political masters
against the raison detre of a law and order machinery. The situation breeds
corruption and encourages partisan policing. Law and order duties being closely
interlinked with the everyday life of the people, police on the duties come in
contact with them everyday and present the image of the entire police force. The
hors la loi image, corruption, inefficiency, meekness before the mighty,
insensitivity, arrogance and immanity to the hoi polloi, these are the cornerstones
of the epinosic image, the law and order police spawned for the benefit of the
Indian police.
LOSS OF CREDIBILITY
Fences itself grazing the field in law and order policing led to the debasement
of moral values in public life. Money power became the effective counterpeise
against the arms of the law and the state power. Making money by any means
became the secret of success. Frauds and corruption became lucrative business.
Governance was commercialized and State power became a venal commodity.
Administration process became a scelerate and police lost credibility. People
were forced to pursue illegal and unwholesome means in their dealings with the
State and the police for survival. Laws as means of the state power became
loathsome objects for the common man. This spread unrest and protests and
violent agitations became the order of the day. The people and the police found
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themselves pitted against each to break the other. Violent protests led to violent
suppressions by the police. Hatred spawned hatred and violence begot violence.
This is where India stands today. Violence by dalits, attacks by Naxalites,
terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir, gang wars in Bombay and Bangalore,
lawlessness in Bihar and UP or enlevements by ULF activists speak of the
symptoms of the same malady namely lawlessness in the law and order police
that divellicate from its raison detre.
CHARTER OF PRIORITIES
The pressure of law and order functions and importance of VIP security
sidelined prevention and detection of crimes to a minor responsibility in the
charter of priorities of the Indian police. Preventive techniques saw no updating
from the mechanical motions of the pre-independent vintage. Prevention is
forgotten in the pressure of other works. Indian police come to picture only after
a crime is committed for detection. Here again, investigations are hijacked by
political and money muscles.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Too many cases under investigation with investigators are a serious misease
of Indian crime investigation field. Work-pressure leads to cursory investigation.
Third degree methods are adopted for easy results. The malfeasance itself is a
black-mark on Indian criminal justice system. Corruption and political pressures
lead to miscarriage of justice. Cases are taken up for investigation, investigated
and charge sheeted according to political conveniences. Bails, arrests, searches,
pace of investigation and timings of the charge sheet or final report are subject
to the equation between the head of the investigating team and the head of the
government. This is the situation at all levels including the premier investigating
agency of the country. Case diaries were tampered at highest levels before sent
to courts. Intentions of charge sheeting political heavyweights were declared to
media before legal compulsions of such a sensitive act was met. Cases of political
significance were charge sheeted on flimsy grounds and later acquitted by the
court. Inaction in some cases in part of the apex investigating agency of the
country led courts to monitor investigation of the cases and warn of contempt
proceedings for noncompliances. The apex court of the country observed about
the conduct of the heads of the premier investigating agency of the country that
there appears to be too many officers bitten by the publicity bugInefficiency
appears writ larger than performance. When the head of the agency was
removed from his position for misdemeanor, the media of the country fished
in the troubled water to sensationalize the issue; the apex court was constrained

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in the matter to observe that his removal should have come earlier. This is the
egarement to which Indian police condemned its criminal justice system.
INDIFFERENT POLICE ADMINISTRATION
There should be a single root for the general fall of standards in Indian police.
It is insensitive and indifferent police administration, lacking in all branches of
administration, be it planning, organisation, coordination, direction, execution,
control or research and development mechanism. The cause of atrophy lies
more in negative scheming than in lack of a positive face. Haphazard
organizational growth as responses to the time to time pressures sans elements
of foresight and detailed planning, corruption in selection and recruitment
procedures, sham training practices, non-existent inter-branch coordination,
apocryphal infrastructure, directionless directions, self-serving decisions, deviant
control mechanisms, perverted assessments and farcical research and
modernization programmes have all added to the poor standards of Indian
police today. Huge budget allocations made for police are want-only frittered
away without accountability. Precious human resources are wasted away with
frivolous and mischievous games in career planning programmes sans thought
or seriousness. The culprits of these shoddy affairs vary from the top brass of
the police to the fonctionnaire in the government to the so-called professional
outfit, the egregious Union Public Service Commission. Incompetence is writ
large in their approach to police administration. Their failures and mischief in
managing human resources seriously affect the interests of an organisation based
on human resources like the police.
GLIMMER OF HOPE
Not that all is bad. Occasional good works are there. The role of Indian secret
police in liberation of Bangladesh is the tour de force of Indian clandestine
operations. So to lesser extents are the successes in containing activities of LTTE
cadres and Sikh and Kashmiri militants. India showed considerable presence of
mind in Afghanistan front also. The fear of law and a semblance f order, the law
and order machinery could infuse in a country of Indias size itself is a matter of
credit and pride to Indian police. The unshaken trust of the plebeian on the
criminal justice system of the country nonobstante the extant maelstrom in the field
per se is its apogee and speaks volumes about the utility of police investigation
in controlling crime.
What is distressing is that what is done is far short of what is expected from
Indian police. No country can afford to have an apollyon in its midst in the shape
of a corrupt, inefficient and disorganized police force. Right leadership at the top
can be the lever de rideau to bring the system to its professional senses. Such a
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leadership in police should rise ab intra from the very womb of the degenerate
system by rupturing the womb. The walls of the womb are hard and thick in
police. That is why the apotropaic process takes a long time. Till then, Indian
police must boil in the broth of its own ignominy.

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POLICING THE POLICE

The work police or policing is derived from the Greek roots polis means city
and politeia, Latin politia and French police means polity; its English root is policy
means statecraft, plan or course of action especially in statecraft or administering
the laws. The spectrum of the meanings of the word police and policing swings
from city in one extremity to statecraft and administering the laws in the other.
Police and policing imply administering the laws of the country in the process of
the statecraft. Police deal with laws as part of the administration in shape of its
enforcement and detection and investigation of its violations. Policing the police
is administering laws to police and bringing violators to book selon les regles. It is
a measure of fencing the fences to prevent them from themselves looting the
crop. The vectors of policing the police rely on the moral convictions of the
police force and pro rata decide the effectiveness of policing outside. A lawabiding police is a boon to the country, its administration and policing system as
well.
The very concept of policing the police is pregnant with the suggestion that
police do not necessarily limit themselves to the bounds of the laws, therefore
require policing. A protector, guardian and enforcer in one have two facets: he
is a master as well as a servant at the same time. This is what is expected of police
in regard to laws. The issue is whether police serve the laws in the capacities. They
do act as masters in enforcing them. But their role as servants of laws needs
deeper probe about how far they are subject to and guided by the laws in force.
Policing the police involves self-policing. Internal vigil against lawlessness
within in the form of prevention, investigation, enforcement and protection
motivated by a sense of commitment to law and justice is its pith. Such
commitment presupposes professional pride, conditioned by high morale
spawned by clean professional culture of high values, sound reputation and
standing of the profession in society and the sense of achievement and
recognition, the profession induces. The elements of policing the police are
embedded in the organizational culture and the managerial dynamics of the
police setup. Its value system, objectives, means pursued to achieve them,
attainments, strengths and weaknesses, the reticulation of human relationship,

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public image, efficiency of managerial vectors, sense of fairness in assessing

performance and granting recognition determine the orientation of a police
organisation to rein in itself to the consuetude within the bounds of law, justice
and popular acceptability. Their sensitivity to their image and reputation helps to
strain every fiber to keep up to public expectations and avoid unfair practices.
This is au reste the individual pride in the force about being a worthy member of
a worthy institution. The individual and organizational prides interact to create
an ambience of high morale and great professional pride to serve as the greatest
tool of policing the police from within.
Creation of a distinct arm within the police setup to police the organisation
a la military police in army is another technique. This is gratuitous in police for
the simple reason that police organisation is capable of handling police
responsibilities within as effectively as outside. The only block to the process is
natural fellow feeling and sympathies to erring colleagues. The issue can be
handled through appropriate administrative measures au reste adequate
sensitization to the threats of unlawful and criminal activities ab intra.
Criminal and other unlawful activities of the law-enforcers destabilize the
democratic foundation as well as the judicial system of the country. Police hors
la loi while act as harbourers and pillars of support to outside criminals and create
havoc in the law-enforcing system, no meaningful policing is possible. They
boost the confidence of criminals and help the spread of criminal activities. A true
effort to arrest lawlessness in the country must begin with pernoctation against
outlaws within the police and drastic measures to snap their connections with
outside criminals. This brings the need of policing the police to the forefront.
Efforts at policing the police must begin with right recruitment policy to
ensure that only right people enter the job. Next important stage is right training.
Third stage is creation of right ambience of job culture within the service. Fourth
factor is institution of a right system of rewards and punishments on the basis
of actual performance. Fifth is sensitizing the top brass of the force about the
need of policing the police too make policing meaningful and purposeful. An
extension of this sensitization is willingness of the police administrators to track
down unlawful and criminal elements within the force and efforts to deracinate
hem from the system as fast as possible. It is easier said than done in actual
practice.
Obstacles to policing the police are numerous, ranging from clever use of
loopholes in the system and laws to circumvent the arm of legal authority to use
of external pressures to extricate from impending disciplinary proceedings.
Police is a part of the world outside and cannot exist in complete isolation from
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it. Their close interdependence and symbiosis make them sine qua non for each.
In the circumstances, they mutually influence and the lawlessness and criminal
tendencies of the society outside seep into the police system to allay its resolve
for self-policing, and corrode the process. This allay reflects in recruitment,
training, job culture, system of rewards and punishments and resolve to cleanse
the system. Concomitantly police lose moral right to policing anywhere.
Vigilance organisation does keep tab on all government organisations
including the police. The arrangement is simply inadequate to meet the needs of
policing the police for the simple reason that the scope of a vigilance organisation
is more or less limited to activities related to corruption and that its jurisdiction
is so widely spread on all government organisations that it can hardly do any
meaningful work to cleanse the police even on the single agenda of rooting out
corruption. The pith of such a vigilance organisation being constituted of police
personnel, chances of sympathies for criminal colleagues are more than
incidental. That is why, vigilance organisation can hardly be an answer for the
problem of policing the police.
Service and conduct rules that guide the conduct and activities of government
servants is too weak an instrument to meet the needs of policing the police. Rules
therein couched in procedural hurdles and usual governmental loopholes can
scarcely be effective in providing the vigorous drive needed for the efforts of
policing the police. It is a fact that these rules achieve no more than keeping the
government business going. They are not meant either to inculcate true fear or
induce motivation towards any end. Police cannot look to them for sustenance
of its need of policing the police.
An outside agency that can substitute for the lack of self-regulation in police
is judiciary. Both are closely-knit in the cause of the administration of law and
justice. Police organisation is functionally subject and subordinate to the
directions of the judiciary in the dispensation of justice and the rule of law. The
ethos of judiciary prevents it from close and day to day scrutiny of the police
functions unless it resorts itself to pro-active mode in select cases when warranted
by the atrophy set in as in extant India. Judiciary is a disinterested and uninvolved
observer of the field trends unless it is forced to interfere in the overall interests
of justice. Its ethos prevent it from being an effective tool of policing the police
save in rare and far-between circumstances like the recent ones wherein handling
of investigations of politically sensitive cases came to public scrutiny and popular
condemnation. Further, judiciary lacks the infrastructure required to perficiently
police the police. Judiciary is best suited to give jolts once in a way on selective

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basis. This is just about to remind police about what is right and what is expected
of them rather than effectively policing the police.
Bihar is a distinct example of how police, putrid at the core, add to the
atrophy of the public life rather than bringing a sense of discipline there. Police
organisation is not only ineffective there; it foots the bill of being a setup of
criminals in uniform. The claim of justice Mulla of the Allahabad High Court in
1968 that if there was an organized force of criminals in India, it went by the name
of police, perfectly suits the police setup of some major states of North India
like Bihar and U.P. Though Punjab police did commendable job in containing
terrorism in Punjab the police in the job there at the time were almost sans selfpolicing. The point is that the same goal could be achieved with better selfpolicing in part of the Punjab police. Nexus of criminals and police in Bihar is
too striking to be ignored. The police of U.P do not lag behind much. The
misease is a common phenomenon in India. Politicians hold criminals and police
together from above for obvious reasons. In the circumstances, policing the
police from below becomes meaningless and purposeless even in the unlikely
even of efforts of self-policing within the police. The true clavis of policing the
police lies in breaking the noxious nexus.
Policing must begin from within and spread outward. Self-policing is the
primus of the responsibilities of any effective policing setup. It needs higher
commitment and resolve as a foundation to meaningful policing other where.
Self-policing must constitute the core of activities of a police organisation worth
the name. As only a flame within can shed light outside and only a conviction
within can spread confidence outside, a clean environment inside only gives
strength to cleanse the world around. The conundrum is how to bring it about.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Police as the arm of the
state power structure, enjoy enormous powers. Incidence of corruption is
natural in the circumstances. Corruption of police badly affects the hoi polloi and
their trust in police, judicial system and honesty of the government. A corrupt and
lawless police makes lives of plebeian a hell. Policing by a lawless and corrupt
police is just a mockery played on hapless people.
A cardinal measure in policing the police is making the unlimited power of
police accountable. The present provision of protection given for acts done
under the colours of office is largely misused. No proper mechanism is evolved
to demarcate what to what degree constitute acts done under the colours of
office. Anything done in performance of official duties including unlawful acts
and often those done outside the ambit of official duties too are carried
piggyback under the clause of official protection unless the acts draw the public
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scrutiny and become too hot to be defended by the birds of the same flock in
uniform and their godfathers above in government. Police being a closely-knit
organisation, its members rarely let down each other as any of them may find
himself in a similar situation at any time in the prevailing prolate disregard for law
in police. Also, the usefulness of police renders them protected for their
misdeeds by the bureaucracy and the politicians. The outcome is a police force
with unlimited powers and protection against its misuse without any purposeful
accountability. No organisation with such powers, protection and lack of
accountability can develop any respect for law. The foremost need is forcing
police out of this protection to bring it en plein jour to accountability for every
evil committed by it. Protection has to be an exception rather than a rule for
actions done in honest discharge of official duties. A suitable machinery manned
by disinterested persons of high standing can be instituted to oversee the benefit
of official protection is justifiable. Leaving the matter to official superiors from
the same flock may only serve the travesty of justice.
An important safeguard to strengthen the process of policing the police is
insulation of disciplinary and rewards system from outside influences. A sense
of exactitude and promptitude has to be injected to the system and objectively
is made the abracadabra of the process. A sense of certitude about penal action
for a given failure has to develop in the organisation. Punishment has to be pro
rata to the gravity of the mens rea and adequate to deflect others in the organisation
from pursuing the path in future. More important, nothing from outside should
deter the process, so that the feeling of security that one can save him from
whatever irresponsible and unlawful act by bringing pressure from outside
remains no more available to schemers and wrongdoers.
There are informal measures too, like transfers and selections of police
personnel for medals and other rewards. Presently these measures are careened
towards money and political clout one enjoys which is earned always by corrupt,
immoral and illegal means. Once weightage is given to right people in the
organisation in posting to rewarding jobs and selection for medals and other
rewards instead of those with ill-gotten money and political clout, the measure
itself works as an enormous boost to the morale of the police force and brings
its members on right and lawful tracks. The first step here is bringing an end to
the present policy in favour of money and political powers. This step itself helps
police force enormously in weakening the prise of money and political clout on
the police force. The positive step of encouraging right personnel by proper
transfer and rewards policy adds to the benefit. These subtle measures can do
wonders to the efforts of policing the police.
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Intelligent employment of conventional stick and carrot method can certainly

cleanse the police setup and make policing purposive, meaningful and effective.
What is required is willingness to police the police to make the organisation
condign of policing responsibilities. The power of police does not lay in its
numerical strength or the arms it wields. The real power of police is its moral
strength and the image it presents to the outside world. A clean, honest and
professional police have galvanic effect on the public as well as law-breakers.
They are feared, loved, respected and patronized by everybody. This is an
environment, most conducive for perficient policing. Clean and professional
police help the cause. A clean and professional police is possible only with an
effective tool of policing the police. The major task in reforming and building
a new police force to India is restructuring it with an inbuilt mechanism of
effective self-policing. How fast it is done, so much easier for the country to build
a healthier nation by the time India will celebrate the centenary of its
independence.

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NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE

IN POLICE
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 molding 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-around 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 organisation. Practices and procedures being the primary vehicle of
attitude, they help molding 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

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profession loses its raison detre 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 molding
professional attitude as required by the ideals of the profession. Wrong attitudes
inveterate in extant practices and procedures of policing are shaped by selfinterests, 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
realization 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 caliber and merit occupied key government
posts. This happened 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 maximizing 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 realize 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 servilities and lack of spine than anything else. Present Indian police
lack of hardihood of professionalism and the self-confidence ensues from it.
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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 of 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 servilities of police officers in India
are 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 servilities 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 that
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

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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 game plan. 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 charge sheeted 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 charge sheet. Sensitization 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 charge sheeting, 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 civilized
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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 laws sake. Rules
and laws are invested on police like weapons as the dernier ressort while all other
avenues are shut. Discreetness is their constraint. Objectives are primary Rules
and laws must follow them only as tools to that end. The realization is rarely
found in the present police. It operates laws for laws sake by relegating
organizational 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 nobodys 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 offspring 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 detre of good policing. The shift in attitude needs to be from blind and
blanket policing for the policings sake to discreet and enlightened policing to
reach professional objectives. The shift has to be from the use of policing powers
to maximize professional goals. The shift must see police taking risks in the
interests of the profession and doing intelligent policing rather than indulging in

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maneuvers 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 relevance, pressures,
policing environment, psychological aspects of policing etc. The exercise has 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 right
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 centers
and research projects on the issues of policing. These attempts provide both
inputs and insight to the behavioral 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
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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 honors, 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 needs 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 realization that something is
wrong in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of the
construction. Once the realization of wrong dawns upon, reconstruction
becomes possible. Police being an extrovert and action-oriented outfit, selfanalyses and inward-looking tendencies do not come easily. While things go
wrong, introversion becomes sine qua non for healthy growth. This is what is
required in Indian police now.

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WHAT AILS THE

INDIAN SECRET POLICE
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 recognized 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, molding and controlling the affairs of neighbors
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

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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 that 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 specialized skills, ignoring this need
means compromising and betraying the organizations 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. Indias 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 that 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
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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 centers 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 Indias poor concern for secret interests
is its clean slate regarding the existence of secret parallel governments and
clandestine power centers. 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 that 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 countrys impressive strides in satellite launches and
other space innovations. Except perhaps in the case of Pakistan, India is yet to
fully utilize 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 that 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, organizational 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
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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.

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THE ROLE OF POLICE

IN A DEMOCRACY
Democracy stands for popular rule. Popular rule implies mass involvement
of people in the political process. Mass involvement of people necessitates rules
and laws and an agency to enforce it. Here lies the relevance of police in a
democracy.
The seed of democracy is self-discipline. It involves responsibility to the
interests of the country and identifies self-interests with the national interest. In
this sense, every person is police for himself in a democracy. This being only an
ideal situation, field realities necessitate an external agency per procurationem of the
government to enforce rules and laws and police the national interests from the
assaults of parochial and anti-social interests lurking in shadows of a democratic
rule. This is the police of a democracy.
Police is a double-edged sword. Its front is national interests and safety and
security of the national life. Its one edge accounts for policing of the people; the
other, for policing the process of governance. Though the two functions
towards the well being of the country appear intrenchant prima facie, they do make
significant difference in the actual process of policing. In one, police police the
ruled from the side of the government. In the other, police police the rules from
the side of the people as true power-wielders. While in one, it is the will of the
rulers that prevails in driving the police to police, in the other, it is the will of the
people as expressed through the public media, bind the police to police in a
particular way. Police in a democracy are no more than a system driven by the
pulls and counter pulls of the government and the public opinion in one hand
and the laws in force and the safety and security of the national life on the other.
For the infaust police, the diverse contradictory pulls and pressures only multiply
with the ascensive complexity of the national life. This situation of policing in a
democracy makes policing an infinitely more difficult task than otherwise by
forcing police to make decisions and take sides. This may be an opportunity for
better service in the circumstances of true professional work. It turns to grave
mess-up in absence of professionalism probity and genuine national interests.

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The key of policing in a democracy is sensitivity; sensitivity to the needs of the

society and the nation. Policing in a democracy involves keeping eyes ears and
even olfactory organs open with an argute faculty of conceptualization to
understand the fast changing dynamics neath the frontal layers of the society and
ability for fast responses to handle emergent situations. No society is static.
Changes are repaid in a democratic atmosphere with group interests in constant
conflict. The kaleidoscope of changing faces of the society is best accounted by
the media in diverse forms. Though government is expected to be alert to the
needs of the society, factors like inefficiency and corruption more often than not
work against social vectors and lead against social sensibilities. Policing under
such a government hardly fulfill the needs of the national well-being. An avizefull
police can always comprehend the complexity of situation through media and
judge the right course of action on its own wisdom. However, media in a
democratic ambience is not infallible. Public opinion is more an artificially
created venal commodity than a natural phenomenon in a democracy. Media has
become a hi-tech business in the age of power through elections. Most tools of
creating and arousing public opinion are instruments of propaganda. In the
circumstances, blindly relying on opinions artificially trumped-up by the media
may not lead police anywhere. Rather, it may mislead police in its pursuit of justice
and well-being of the country. Ergo, perpetual pernoctation is the watchword
of a democratic police while being sensitive to the needs of the government au
reste the ripples of the public opinion with the national interests and its well-being
as the litmus test.
Police is the ultimate weapon of the rule of law in a democracy. Government,
laws and police form a holy trinity in a democracy and each is sine qua non for
the other two in the system. The fact is that laws are mutable. They are enacted
to meet the challenges of the society from time to time. Laws are collective
responses of the legislators to a given situation. Chances are that laws in force are
not adequate to handle extant challenges in the field. It is a serious problem, police
face. Policing is not exactly like a football game wherein rules of the game are
paramount and goals are scored selon les regles. Laws are sine dubio paramount.
Equally paramount is the safety and security of the national life. Here lies the
dilemma of the police. When the two paramount objects refuse to go pari passu,
police find themselves in the precarious position of making a choice between the
two as in national security decisions. Laws have to be broken in the larger interests
of the country while national interests cannot wait for the enactment of requisite
laws. The situation leads to human rights violations and popular condemnation
of police in some cases. Police have to bear the humiliation with dignity in the
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interests of their professional objectives. The pith of the issue is that what
constitutes national interests and what not, and how far police to be trusted in
deciding where they can be given leeway to break laws in the presumed interests
of the safety and security of the national life. Even while laws provide for action,
laws only speak what to do; it is left to police how to do and how much to do.
In the polluted atmosphere of criminalization of politics and the politicization of
police, neither the police nor the political leadership as the highest layer of
governance in a democracy is worthy of a trust of such a magnitude. The need
is a sensitive balance between the laws in force and the safety and security of the
national life. Police in a democracy need to be perpetually alert to both the needs
and find an aurea mediocritas to fine-tune its professional objectives.
Police enjoy tremendous leeway in governance in a democracy. The only
limiting factor that works on it is pulls and counter pulls. The contradictory pulls
and pressures are the clamor of the public for professional and honest policing
on the hand and the call of politicians and bureaucrats steeped in personal
interests for work as their handmaids on the other. The cardinal issue is where
the loyalty of police should lie in the exercise of leeway in pursuit of professional
objectives in a democracy. Is it the convenience of the government or the public
interests? People in government claim that the first loyalty of the police to
government is en regle. Their argument is based on the position that police form
a part of the government. The government appoints men and officers of the
police force; they are subject to conduct rules, administration and
superintendence of the government. The other side claims that the police are
responsible only to the laws in force and for nothing else. Such a commitment
by police is the foundation of the administration of justice. This is the situation
even in England from where India adopted the gestalt of its democratic system.
In the famous Blackburn case in England, Lord Denning in reference to police,
pronounced, is not the servant of anyone, save of the law itself. No minister
of the crown can tell him that the must or must not keep observation on this place
or that; or that he must or must not prosecute this man or that one. Nor can any
police authority tell him so. The responsibility for law enforcement lies on him.
He is answerable to the law and to the law alone.
The responsibility of the police in a democracy is multifaceted. It must
guarantee justice and safety to all strata of people and ensure equitable
enforcement of law sine ira et studio. This implies special care and protection to
weaker sections en face exploitation from the powerful and involves contranatant
stimuli. This is where the sphere of social laws comes to picture. Police has to
paramount role in social transformation in a democracy. Resistance is inherent
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and conflict is inevitable in the world of changes. Group dynamics make conflicts
pronounced in a democracy. The roles police play in social conflicts have a major
say in determining the futuristic pattern of society. The importance necessitates
police to be a thinker and a judge in addition to being a cutting-edge executor.
A thinking police is a special need of a democracy. Laws only say what to do and
what not to do; it is left to police to decide how to do and how much to do.
It decides where, when, how and how much invokes what laws. Only a thinking
police can handle the responsibility perficiently. It has to deal with a variety of
situations of different points of time in enforcement of laws. Failure cripples the
evolution of social system to social justice.
A special feature of police in a democracy is involving people in policing.
People policing themselves are the leitmotiv of in involving people in policing
in a democracy. The regular police force is just a skeleton for the true policing
efforts of a democracy wherein every citizen is a policeman of his country. The
regular police force is just a reticulation with necessary structure, resources and
expertise at its disposal towards that end. The potentiality of the citizens to police
themselves being fully exploited is an essential ingredient of a successful
democracy. No police organisation can succeed in a democracy without people
being activity involved. The involvement can be either formal or informal. In
informal involvement, services of eligible citizens are enlisted for policing under
diverse categories of schemes provided by police Acts like Special police
Officers, Additional Police, Traffic Wardens, Village Police or even Home
Guards as provided by the Home Guards enactments. The citizens so enlisted
help the regular police in various police duties with special rights and privileges
under the supervision and superintendence of the police force. The services are
normally voluntary. The skill of the regular police lies in making the voluntary
schemes attractive and popular and enlisting enthusiastic citizens to its fold in
large numbers. Not much is done in India in this area. Nor real efforts are made
to activate such voluntary schemes provided by the law. The result is that Indian
police sweat out without a mass base in a maelstrom and bear impossible
burdens on its weak frame to the point of breaking down.
The informal involvement covers the use of citizens during the policing. The
help the citizens render to police varies from being informers, witnesses and
signatories to various panchanamas in criminal cases to patrolling in groups in
strife-stricken or dacoity-infested areas at nights. These duties are principal to the
success of policing. The skill of the police in enlisting the cooperation of
respectable citizens plays an important role in making policing successful. Not
much attention is given to this skill in the present scheme of things in police. The
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result is poor policing for lack of involvement of the people. Stock witnesses are
the order of the day. Willing cooperation of the public in policing is a rarity. Police
are more hated, feared and distanced than respected and helped.
Involvement breeds a sense of belonging. It brings police and the public
closer. This is a major step towards the relevance of police in a democracy. The
sense of participation in policing helps to appreciate the problems of the police
and policing. It enthuses citizens to partake in nation building and boosts
patriotism.
The relevance of police in a democracy lies in the direct interaction between
the people and their police. Utility of police lies in its usefulness to the people and
the country. A two-way channel between the people and the police makes a
democracy really democratic. Periodical meetings between the public and the
police at various levels serve the purpose. People from all walks of life of a
specific area interact with the police officers of the area in formal meetings held
periodically on policing issues. The exercise helps the public and the police know
each other better and appreciate mutual limitations in right perspective. It makes
better cooperation between the public and the police possible. Informal contacts
between the police and the public at different levels also help the process. It
boosts mutual confidence to the benefits of both the sides and makes policing
cost-effective and efficient. The interactions develop a sense of belonging
between the two to the advantage of both the sides as an essential ingredient of
good policing in a true democracy.
Policing in a true democracy can be extended to a wider scope of experiment
a la the Goa Police Bill, 1995. The bill modeled on Singapore police, provides
for creation of auxiliary police force by owners of private establishments to
safeguard life and property in specified areas apart from being empowered to
maintain law and order, preserve public peace and prevent and detect crime
within that area. The auxiliary police force enjoys police powers and protections
provided by law on par with the regular police. It is a welcome experiment in
India in democratizing the police of a democracy, provided every act of the
auxiliary police force is subjected to effective control, supervision and
superintendence of the regular police force to avoid misuse of powers. The idea
of people policing the people should not degenerate to a situation where bigger
fishes gorge the smaller ones or the fittest only survive. Democracy is not a freeplay of powers. It is a balanced exercise of power wherein all people co-exist
irrespective of whether they are weak or powerful. Giving them policing powers
to police themselves is in line with the highest traditions of the democracy. In the
circumstances of the corrupt society, the vigil of the regular police as the symbol
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of the state power is absolutely necessary to make the auxiliary police force
behave within the parameters of the law. The same thing can be said about
provisions in the Bill to punish uncivilized conduct like spitting, smoking,
urinating, throwing garbage etc in public places. They are bound to be
appreciated in an enlightened democracy as a measure of cleansing their cities and
inculcating decent and healthy practices among them while in an unenlightened
democracy like India, there is bound to be opposition to the provisions as an
intrusion on their right of doing what they want and irresponsible and sensationmongering Indian media is bound to linger on the protests as an event of national
significance. Both sides are the part of the democratic interplay of a democracy.
The options before the police in a democracy are often a bundle of nonoptions. They find themselves in the precarious situation of neither taking a
decision nor avoiding it. It is like being caught between the devil and the deep
sea. Democracy let loose contradictory forces to pounce on police from all sides.
A police not steeped in professional resolve gets seized in the melee and exposes
itself to grievous errors. A good example is the case of dreaded underworld don
Arun Gawli of Mumbai. The world knows that he is a dangerous criminal with
scores of criminal cases pending against him. Mumbai police obviously was
helpless in containing his criminal activities. Large sections of the people in Dagdi
Chawi, Mumbai and Maharastra idolized and supported the criminal.
Democracy dictates respect to the feelings and sensitivities of all sections of the
society. Shiva Sena supreme, Bal Thackeray and his party called him as their
answer to dreaded underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and tried to promote
him and his gangsters. He become a respected figure to Mumbai police under
Shiva Sena Chief Minister, once he established his Akhila Bharatiya Sena (ABS)
at Mumbai and other places of Maharastra. When he fell foul with Shiva Sena
and its supremo, political parties like congress tried to woo him and his muscle
of labour organizations to their fold. Then Mumbai police under Shiva Sena
government realized that Arun Gawli and his criminal activities are security threat
to the nation and he was arrested and detained under NSA for a couple of
extortion cases and harboring criminals. Nagapur Bench of Mumbai High Court
declared the arrest and detention under NSA as illegal. The episode explains all
the maladies of policing in a democracy in the ambience of criminalization of
politics, politicization of police, lax judicial system, constricting group dynamics
and the ability of criminal elements to take advantage of the Achilles heel of a
system. A flexible police is the centre of all these malaises.
People, their group interests and concomitant conflicts are centre stage in a
democracy. Police are caught in the web of the dynamics of a democracy. In a
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situation where government and power depend upon the vote banks of groups,
the task of police weaving through these groups to police them and bring wrongdoers to book pro bono publico is an unenviable task demanding tact. In the
notorious Shivani acid attack case of Jaipur, a 17 year-old girl, Shivani Jadeja on
way to school from her residence on April 12, 1997 was attacked with acid,
allegedly by the son of the transport minister of the state and his friends; the state
police turned impervious to the statement of the victim recorded by them and
her letter addressed to the Jaipur Superintendent of Police about the involvement
of the ministers son in the offence. Even public protests and agitations by
womens groups and the interest of the media in the case failed to deter the state
police from its inaction against the actual offenders. Even the state police chief
gave evasive answers to the media about action against the offenders named by
Shivani. This is the quantum of political pressure on policing. It was only after
two representations from socially conscious organisations being treated as Public
Interest Litigations that Rajastan High Court directed the state government to
withdraw the case from the state police and get the investigation done by the CBI.
This is the extent of the credibility of the police under political pressure. Police
just cannot do justice to justice under the extant democratic pulls and pressures.
Every interest group in a democracy is powerful with scores of followers. Police
by the very nature of their work cannot please every side and therefore bound
to work in an atmosphere of hatred and inimical feelings. In group dynamics of
Indian kind, law, justice and propriety make little sense.
Even criminals form a pollent group of considerable political
maneuverability and strength in a democracy. Any move against the interests of
this group is bound to create serious problems to police. A police officer with
a commitment to crush crime syndicates and their criminal activities on coming
to power meets with dramatic rise in crimes and law and order problems in his
area to the extent that he soon realize that he has no alternative to keep the
underworld on right side were he to save his professional reputation, his new
position and peace in his area. A few fools, who fail to read the writings on the
wall, get thrown out of their post and avoid any responsible job thereafter on
the charge of being incapable of controlling crimes and maintaining law and
order. Cooperation of the powerful criminal groups is conditio sine qua non for
smooth policing a democracy. The recent example is a state capital in India. Its
new Police Commissioner adopted a soft approach to powerful mafia gangs of
the city and shut eyes to the flourishing business of cabaret, live bands and
nightclubs. The result was a relatively crime-free tenure for him in the city. But,
he rubbed the media on the wrong side on the first day of his taking charge in
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the city. As a consequence, he had to bear an unfavorable media throughout. The

next Police Commissioner of the city was after stopping the menace of cabaret,
live bands and night clubs and containing organized crimes in the city. The
immediate response to the new Police Commissioner was inordinate rise in
crimes like chain snatching, kidnapping, extortion, gang war, housebreaking and
dacoity and law and order disturbances. It was the crime syndicates sending
signals to come to terms with their existence and activities. The political pressures
the underworld wields au reste the warning shots are capable of bringing a
practical police officer to his senses. He is forced to compromise his convictions
to retain his position. This is how police is under seize in a democracy. Police
derive strength by adhering to law and justice. Once off the track to aggrace
political masters. Thus develops a vicious circle that leads police to be perpetually
under the beck and call of the politicians in power. The beginning of the collision
of politicians and the police in a democracy is always for mutual benefits.
Police is a democracys spine, its conditio sine qua non. It is an instrument of
containment in the ambience of narrow interests trespassing on each others
interest. Success of a democracy entirely depends on the effectiveness of the
police there. It is the only instrument available to bring people to their senses and
to the needs of the laws. It is unlike other forms of government, wherein other
forms are created to bring the people to submission to the will of the rulers.
Private armies in whatever name sans the leash of law, operate as executors of
the will of the rulers in non-democracies. Indian police these days with its deep
politicization is gradually approximating to the sad state. Mass transfer of police
officers at all levels with the change of government, use of intelligence units for
political maneuverings, use of investigating agencies to keep political rivals in
check etc are just the signs on the surface of this tragic malady. The slant is not
in the interests of democracy, for, the strength of democracy is pro rata to the
professional resolve of the police. A weakened and ineffective police is a sure sign
of crumbling democracy. A democracy just cannot stand up without the spine
of the police, especially while people are yet to realize their democratic
responsibilities. Strengthening the police is the foremost need of firming up
democratic traditions. How soon India realizes this, so much good for the
country.

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LAW AND ORDER POLICING IN INDIA

Amidst the diverse functions the police perform, the plebeian identifies the
police with maintenance of law and order. He sees the police in uniform
intervening in the incidents of his everyday life beginning from a simple street
quarrel to mob violence. He sees them conducting raids on vice dens and
restricting his actions and movements in the name of public interest. He sees their
presence in well nigh all state and public gatherings, controlling crowd and
maintaining order; in beats and villages, checking history-sheeters. As a part of
the law and order staff, traffic police in white uniform are visible controlling and
regulating traffic during rush hours. The hoi polloi have learnt to see the law and
order police as their saviors in hours of need in spite of restrictions involved in
the latters methods. As far as public deals are concerned, help and support of
the law and order police have become sine qua non in the ambience of prolate
fruad and unruly tendencies in public life. Non obstante uncivil methods and mouvais
ton, ordinary citizens consider the law and order police as a necessary evil and the
pith of the public order. It enjoys a special place in the psyche of the people as
a hated savior and a constant compagnon in public life. The image of law and order
police decides to them the image of the police in general. The law and order
police steeped in corruption makes them believe that the police force en semble
smell rammish and its good performances earn their unqualified plaudit to the
entire force. The strategic position of the law and order police in crime scene is
patent from the fact that it comes to picture right in time of a crime to prevent
its commission as the true strain of law and order policing while other wings are
involved either too early as in the case of security police or too late as in the case
of crime police. The strategic timing brings them to the centre-stage of crime
management in the eyes of common people and wins them their trust and
confidence. Furthermore, the law and order police provide a rare praxis of
symbion with the law with each limiting and protecting the other unlike security
police ectogenic and crime police subservient to it. There cannot be laws sans the
law and order police and no law and order police sans the laws. This is the secret
of the matchless relevance of the law and order police to the orderly life of the
country.

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ABSENCE OF COMMON POLICY

Police stations are pillars of the law and order police reticulation with district
police offices in districts and police commissionerates in major cities at regional
levels and state police headquarters at provincial levels beholden to the
responsibility. Intermediary levels like circles, subdivisions and ranges coordinate
the work in-between. Armed forces are maintained as reserves at regional and
state levels in addition at the centre to assist the law and order police in highly
disturbing situations. These are striking forces, specially trained to handle serious
lacunae of Indian law and order police is that no special training facility is available
for its staff for actually dealing with the quotidian law and order issues. It is rather
crude to expect the police to depend on past experiences and untrained personal
faculties to meet professional law and order challenges. The lapse leads to
arbitrary handling of law and order situations sans sound and uniform policy
save peripheral measures to be adopted before and during use of weapons and
opening fire. The only help available to an official on the field is the general
guidelines of his seniors who are equally ill equipped to handle those situations.
This complicates situations during actual actions by depriving the elements of
mutual understanding among the police and the subjects as a natural and essential
factor of successful policing, and ipso factor creates chaos. The situation can
hardly be called as professional policing of law and order. The uncertainties of
each law and order issue added to it, make handling of law and order in India,
a pure maelstrom.
PULLS AND PRESSURES
Pulls and pressures are sine qua non in a democracy. Pressures of influential and
powerful blocs are an accepted phenomenon of the working of a democratic
government. This is patent in the working of Indian police. Police as an agency
that limits the liberty of the people pro bono publico and discipline those who
prevaricate, occupy a strategic position in the interpersonal and public life of the
citizens and makes success and failure or life and death differences to them and
their ventures. The strategic position of the police is more pronounced in law and
order policing. Sadly law and order policing in India imprimis is management of
pulls and pressures in the wilderness of rules and laws. Law and order policing
has become a contrivement of bending and interpreting rules and laws to the
convenience of rich and powerful who can pull strings at right places. This is an
irony of democracy. These prevarications go conspicuous in acts of political
avatars and subject the police to serve public censure. Otherwise, it is a mute affair
as the police algate are on the vocal side of the rich and influential against dumb
and helpless plebeian with none to fight the latters cause against the risk of the
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wrath of the police save isolated cases of courage and commitment. The situation
is to the benefit of the police as the shocks of possible disturbances by the
prevarications are always absorbed by the powerful on whose favour the police
acted and the interests of the police are safeguarded avec acharnement by them.
This is a tacit arrangement between the police and the powerful wherein the
police are really lower partners in the high-stake game played for the benefits of
the powerful bloc. The police with their little statute and easy contentment, trade
off their high powers to the mighty people for the limited gains of the easy
process of policing, career promotions, peaceful life and lucre. In the process, the
police sacrifice the sacred objectives of its profession.
UNDUE STRESS ON PLAYING SAFE
The current abracadabra of Indian police in managing law and order issues
is letting sleeping wolves sleep and avoid further troubles. Who meet the
requirement is hailed as the best law and order hands. Sine dubio, management of
law and order issues anywhere requires handling situations without inviting
gratuitous problems. But, the matter seems overstretched in Indian ambience.
Not ruffling feathers unnecessarily is indubitably a priority. But, this should not
be in shape of a compromise, at the cost of law and justice, at the cost of
professional objectivity like in extant Indian law and order machinery which
believes in calm at all costs; those who are adequately insensate to go to that length
by placating powerful trouble-makers only win races for coveted law and order
posts in Indian ambience. The consequence of the apostasy is that the law and
order policing in India has become progressively a nest of playing favoritism
with utter contempt for professional character. Those with a sense of objectivity
and professional probity self foot the bill as their professional uprightness falls
foul with powerful lobbies who in tune with the thoughts and fears of the higher
echelons of the law and order police, create troubles to those who dared not to
favour them. The sleight leads to a vicious circle that perpetuates the wily interests
of the powerful at the cost of weak and dumb in the hands of the law and order
police by hoisting corrupt and lither elements in key law and order jobs. The
conundrum is whether being a part of such a vice system is as inevitable to the
law and order police as it appears. The answer definitely is in negative. An
understanding of the trickery en train in the system and a little toughness and
resolve to stand up to the challenges of the powerful certainly help to solve the
riddles. The real question is whether the law and order police really want a
solution to the riddles or is it contented with what is there as its own making. All
available data point to the fact that the law and order police of India enjoy what
is there as its own making that provides them security and patronage.
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INTOXICATING POWERS
Important responsibilities of the law and order police include prevention of
crimes, enforcement of laws, maintenance of public order, controlling rowdy
activities, checking the spread of vide dens, regulating meetings, processions, and
other activities in public places in the interests of the maintenance or order,
controlling crowds, quelling mob violence etc. The police are invested with a
spectrum of powers which include powers to arrest, detain, search seize
impound, prosecute, levy collective fines, enter and take possession of private
places and buildings, use weapons to hurt and even kill to force compliance etc.
Most of these powers save in specified emergent circumstances are
circumscribed by the need of obtaining appropriate magisterial orders for
exercise. The maintenance of law and order in large cities is facilitated by investing
the magisterial powers with police commissioners, often delegated up to the
level of DCPs in charge of law and order. The powers enjoyed by the law and
order police amate to their enormous responsibilities and perhaps rank first in
range and the width vis a vis other wings of the police setup. Unfortunately, the
importance and the width of powers of the law and order police per se are its
real bane. The dependence of the common man on this wing of the police and
the fear, the police inspire prompt him to gratiate the police by all his means. The
incessant rush of people on the doors of the law and order police for patronage
creates farthing power-centers at lower levels, giving an image of feudal lords
to the chiefs of police stations who dare to preside over and pass judgments on
small local disputes irrespective of their relevance to maintenance of order and
other police duties. Marriages made in Police Stations are not uncommon in
states like Karnataka and Tamilnad. Favoritism abounds and rules and laws are
sidelined at will in these arbitrary arbitrations. This in itself creates angry
frustrations among wronged people and leads to group rivalries and clashes.
Thus the police are integrated as an inseparable component of a deteriorating law
and order situation.
TOOLS OF PATRONAGE
Powers enjoyed by the police to control and contain vice dens and rowdy
activities provide a new dimension to the importance and maneuverability of the
law and order police. Powers are two-sided weapons employed for punishment
as well as patronage. Human nature being what it is, the police use its wide
powers more as tools of patronage than as tools to check rowdyism and vice
dens in absence of professional commitment and motivating factors to guide
them on right lines. Organized crime syndicates vie inter se for the favour and
patronage of the police that ensure the smooth sail of their anti-social activities
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and protection to the gang. The gang that gains upper hand in the race rules the
roast till the key figures in the police responsible for the patronage remain in
power with the tacit understanding that the gang operates within certain limits
to save the police from undue embarrassments plus a subterranean arrangement
to share the res gestae. The importance of the police being what it is for the survival
of these organized crime syndicates, the importance of having right police
officials in key positions for these gangs cannot be overemphasized; this leads to
huge amounts changing hands to ensure that particular police officials are posted
to particular law and order jobs. The end-result is happy and secure crime
syndicates in highly lucrative vice business under police patronage at the cost of
unassuming citizens and a contented and richer law and order police running the
show without a fluster of major law and order scene. The hoi polloi too are
contented because there are no major disturbances and crimes with the
underworld crime lords on the right side of the police. Only they do not know
how they are looted ab intra and their unsuspecting character is taken advantage
of and ravaged by the conspiracy of criminals and criminal-baiters namely the
law and order police.
LACK OF CONCERTED DRIVE
Any shakeup in key positions of the law and order police leads to the
problems of maladjustment among the crime syndicates for superiority and
between the police and the crime world with gang-wars and ascensive criminal
activities creating real problems to the police. Once the police come to terms with
the crime gangs again, situation returns to normalcy. Refusal by a four square
official in a key law and order slot to cooperate with crime syndicates invariably
leads to further disturbances till the official is either brought to heels or
transferred out to placate the disturbed powerful gang-lords. It is a rather triste
affaire of Indian police that the resolve or the killing instinct to go tough with the
crime syndicates that play the police by their little fingers is just not present there.
More distressing is how upright officials who choose to fight powerful crime
syndicates without yielding to the temptations of easy and comfortable life feel
isolated when seriously let down and compromised by their own organisation
by denying support at the behests of the powerful crime lords on the mendacious
plea of maintaining peace. In a case more than a decade old, a young Deputy
Commissioner of Police in the port city of Calcutta in West Bengal fell foul with
a powerful crime syndicate operating from the port area and patronized by a
powerful politician in power in the state. He was lured by the gang to pursue a
criminal into the strongholds of the gang in the port area; caught, horrendously
tortured in captivity and later lynched. Though criminal cases were registered
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later, nothing came out of the case. This way a living lesson to upright police
officers that dare to take on powerful crime syndicates.
SIDING WITH THE PRIVILEGED
A major cause of law and order disturbances is the absence of objectivity,
fairness and sense of justice in the police in handling important issues. The police
tend to favour the rich and privileged few in interpretation and exercise of
powers to the disadvantage and outrage of the weak and dumb majority. This
in the long run, leads to resentment and breeds resistance against the
establishment and the system that conspires to perpetuate the weak and
unprivileged position by denying just and legal dues. The lex non scripta of the
police that whatever the rich and powerful do is right convince the poor and
disadvantaged that the extant system is not for them. The situation prompts
wronged people to meet the system by its own coin by going rich and powerful
by means outside the system to force the system and its police crawl before their
riches and power for their pro-rich slant, en revanche. That is why the ranks of
rowdy gangs and organized crime syndicates surface almost everyday in India
to go rich and powerful at the earliest. They soon learn that riches and powers
have no laws and morality and the police bought with it have no weaker legal
and moral authority; that the police patronage is pro rata to the riches they earn
and share. The notorious Chambal dacoits are the makings of the social evils and
the police patronage to its privileged perpetrators. The fact that Indian electorate
send ex-dacoits and criminals as their representatives so state assemblies and
parliament show the sympathies the criminals enjoy with the people who are in
touch with field situations and know how weak and helpless people perforce run
away from the society and go hors la loi by the outrageous acts of rich and
powerful with the police licking boots at their feet and letting loose brutality on
whoever dare to oppose the feudal lords. This by no means is justification of
lawless life and meant only to show how police by their greed and irresponsible
handling of situations add to the growth of crime and lawlessness in the society.
Phoolan Devi and her associates from the Chambal valley and UP and Bihar
maifa gangs proved that criminality pays in India; it pays wealth and fame as well
as political power and love and respect of the people. If there is a reason for this
highly deplorable moral degringolade in the country, it is the highly irresponsible and
most detestable handling of the law and order situation by its corrupt police,
which the hoi polloi find worse than the Chambal dacoits and Bihar and UP
mafia gangs.

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POORLY ORGANISED
All said and analyzed, the impact of Indian police on the management of law
and order scenario cannot be called satisfactory. The Indian scenario is based on
a few age-worn clichs devoid of professional expertise, academic input and
creative genius; the methods employed are rude at best and arrogantly
provocative at the worst. The whole range of law and order management
techniques of Indian police can be formulated in a few crude catchwords like
mediations or warnings followed by use of force. Indian police have no in-build
advantages of researches to various types of law and order situations,
psychological variables of divergent law and order issues their social and political
potentialities and group dynamics, law-breaking tendencies and identification of
and communication with potential law-breakers, stratified use of police powers
at differential situations, application of latest psychological techniques to field
situations or rehabilitation vectors. Nor their performances are up to the
expectation in traditional contrivances like effective use of weapons, strategies
and tactics of operations and techniques of mediation or warning. The riot
control weapons used by Indian law and order police are yet age-old lathi and
tear-gas shells; such common weapons like water jets and plastic bullets are
beyond the reach of police in most parts of India. Nor is there a perficient
machinery to gather information and intelligence pertaining to law and order
issues. The district and police station level machinery devised for the purpose are
ill equipped for the enormous job because of their limited size, resources,
expertise and professional training. The law and order police often depend on
the state intelligence unit that with a scope different from the local law and order
needs may fail the law and order police. The intelligence failures of the law and
order police contributed for eruption and spread of law and order disturbances
in many instances. A striking example of such a failure of intelligence is the
Veerappan case wherein the combined forces of Karnataka and Tamilnad police
failed to humble and bring to book the notorious forest brigand Veerappan who
operated from the forests bordering the two states. Though the operations by
no means were easy, the failure of the efforts for nearly two decades till he was
finally killed speak volumes about the strengths and weaknesses of Indian law
and order police.
The most precious aes triplex of a law and order police is its professional
honesty and commitment to the objectives of the profession. The selflessness,
impartiality and the sense of justness and fairness bred from such a professional
commitment endear the police to all including its friends and foes. The trust and

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respect ensue from this, take the police along way to success in its professional
endeavor and protect it from enormous professional hazards and risks common
to the job. Once this trust and respect are breached by immoral and illegal slants
in discharge of responsibilities lucri causa and other selfish causes, the police are
exposed to the wraths of the public and the assaults of its foes and those crowds
wronged by it. By prevarications, the police are protecting neither their job
interests nor the interest of the country and its people; nor are their personal
interests protected as no gains made at risk to the life are worth the trouble. Indian
police seld book so long and open eyes to look around. Once they stop to shed
their professional arrogance and see the minefields underfoot, they realize the
bevue they commit and may pursue a path befitting the dignity of their own
profession.

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CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION IN
INDIAN POLICE
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 have
its independent police force. A host of central police agencies like CBI, IB, SIBs,
RAW, CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, SPG, BPRD, NPA, NICFS to name a few
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 Gujarat to Arunachala
Pradesh enjoy divergent ethos, environment and professional attitude in spite
and uniform police structure and goals. The people of the concerned regions
man them at lower and middle levels of the hierarchy 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
monopolize 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

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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 oneupmanship 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 are 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.

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Good fences make good neighbors. 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. Organizational goal is the raison detre and
has to be reached by all means and resources. Every failed opportunity lost to
do better signify 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. Each looking weak sans
mutual support in the process.
Lack of coordination is not just an inter-organizational challenge. It is an intraorganizational problem too. In the mosaic of state police force under a single
police chief, myriad subordinate units pull apart from different sides and defy
the compulsions of cooperation and coordination inter se, required in the
interests of the organizational 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 recognized 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 organizational objectives in the present environment of Indian police. The
remedy lies in restoring organizational 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 makes 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 neighboring police
units are rare to the extent of being unheard of. Resentment to take advantage
of the specialized 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
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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-organizational 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 oneupmanship. 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 assist the lawbreakers 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, they in particular use Karnataka
in general and Bangalore 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 assists 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 neighborhood 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
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against forest brigand Veerappan is a point. Nine years of combined operations

yielded no results. Lack of coordination between 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
neighboring 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 is called 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 assets and useful agents from each others 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 organizational
goals is the root cause of the problem. Absence of institutional machinery for
affecting coordination and efforts to define the scope of such 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 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
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police. Careful overhaul of the selection process to absorb right people and a
training programme devised to strengthen the characteristics of cooperation and
coordination will go a long way in building an environment of cooperation and
coordination in Indian police. Work culture in police force must encourage it.
Leadership qualities that realize cooperative and coordinated efforts into reality
and pave 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 Northeast. Dacoities are rampant. Threat to peaceful and
orderly life is prolate. Security is shaky. 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 realize 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.

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POLICE AS A BACKUP FORCE

The police basically are a backup force of the state administration. Its primary
functions are from en arriere. It is the backbone of the state administration. The
police are the enforcer of the rules and laws of the land and safeguard 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 are 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 form the cutting-edge of the statecraft.
The police functions as both the enforcer of the countrys laws and as the
investigator of the crimes. Ergo, the police both precede and succeed the law
enforcement process and ipso facto encompass 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 recognized
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. This 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

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helped the growth and expansion of the organization, 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 countrys reign came to peoples
hands and politicking and political cabals became the rule of the game. While
friendly police became valuable assets to politicians in the chessboard of the
countrys politics, it became the mainstay of the administration with the gradual
fall in the skill and acumen of running the administration. The police, who 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 find 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, these 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 are
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
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force and other enforcement activities. This is the backdrop of magisterial

powers being denied to the police except where police commissionerates are
organized. 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 that 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 trustworthier. The resistance of the
civil administration to the demands of the police for the magisterial powers is
justified to that extent. The police commission rates 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 require 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 comes 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 organizational 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
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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 organizational 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 enjoy or suffer 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
wings of the government. It is a string that binds disparate wings and organs of
the government together and gives it a sense of oneness and belonging while it
remains en arriere. This explains the sine qua non of the police in state
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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 represent 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
are a government agency that performs functions both within and above the
scope of the executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police are a
government agency that performs functions both within and above the scope
of the executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police are 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 realization of this sui generis position of the police and preparing itself mentally
to discharge these cardinal responsibilities in compatibility with the professional
requirements.

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CORRUPTION:
INDIAN POLICE SCENARIO
Mr.Justice B.P.Jeevan Reddy, former 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
countrys 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 illgotten 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 proffering 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 who are morally and professionally bound to protect
the public from the vice of corruption are 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

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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 favorites 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 fighting 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 ill-gotten 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 that
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 legalized mafia.
Karnataka had a Superintendent of Police in Dharwar district in 1980 that
openly encouraged those down the line to take bribes and shared the booty. He
used to insist down the line 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. 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 to the Intelligence Bureau only to
return to the state in 2001.
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.
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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 to the media and 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
victimized 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 daughters
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 noncorruptible 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-being 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 namely the
Corps of Detectives for investigation. The investigation made out a case for
charge sheet against the retired judge and five other persons including his wife,
son, two daughters and another person The head 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 investigation to
its logical end. But, arrests in the case were prevented and charge sheet was unduly
delayed from above. The insistence of the Superintendent of Police, to charge
sheet 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 charge sheet for more than 1
years sinsyne till the IGP was transferred out of the organisation in 1993 to the
Central Bureau of Investigation under the central government and held the job
till 1997. The case was later charge sheeted in March 1994 with the retired judge
and his two daughters dropped from the charge sheet on the basis of the
evidences tampered at later stages. The dropped names were later included in
the charge sheet on the orders of the judge trying the case.

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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
symptomatic 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 Achilles 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 are 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 inveterate. 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 that 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
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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 judicial 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 crme de la crme of the countrys 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. Organizational objectives were completely lost sight of.
Shifts in diligence helped to build money-power while shifts in loyalties molded
proximity to powerbrokers in efforts to maximize individual behoofs after
throwing professional ideals to dogs. The degeneration spread in leaps and
bounds with the passage of time as the organizational 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
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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 organizational 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 increasingly
tools of political convenience. The development shattered the professional pride
of the police and struck a blow to their motivation towards the organizational
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
organizational 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 neighboring state of Karnataka. The couple was 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 was
traced in Bangalore and was 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

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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 handmaid of
politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisation 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
cannot take it far in the absence of credibility, respect and sympathy of the public.
Once the police lose their usefulness in political and power game plans
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 detre 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.

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CRIME, POLITICS AND THE POLICE

Crime, politics and the police are the three meiths of the vicious triangle within
which the future of democratic India and its free people is inexorably involved.
Though wealthy industrial and commercial houses form the fourth dimension
of the unfortunate predicament, their techniques are as yet limited to
manipulative strategies to gain an increscent hold over political power by remote
control in pursuit of their professional interests and seld they jump on the
indignity of involving themselves with the vicious triangle of crime, politics and
the police. It is that their wealth flows to the spendthrift chests of the troika and
operates as catalyst in reducing the normal life of free citizens to a welter of
uncertainties and unending hardships. However, their anfractuosity in the process
of atrophy is rather distant and indirect unlike the trio of crime, politics and the
police. Politicians protect criminals from the grip of the law while criminals
reciprocate by acting as their henchmen in handling underground activities. The
police go officiously to politicians en revanche for job protection and strike an
understanding with criminals to ease personal financial interests. Thus works this
nexus of vile power brokers, preying on innocent people, bloating itself on the
blood of the hapless masses.
POWER AND WEALTH
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.

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POLICE AND POLITICS

The story of the police is somewhat different. As the catchpole of the nations
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 are 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 watchdog. This is why politicians felt the need for wooing police to their
side in their activities. The police of independent India have 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 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 with their dispensations
of job favors; 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 are no
more than a country dog that is what the Indian police have 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 favorable 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 involved in the conspiracy against decent public life in 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 resource 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 weak 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
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to book for antisocial activities. With politicians as the custodians of power en

wrier 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.
DANGEROUS NEXUS
The trio of manipulators is a dangerous force to reckon with, in the Indian
democratic situation. Cohered as a tight-knit power-block, they have permeated
into all conceivable facets of Indian public life with the sole intention of garnering
all the benefits and pilferages of the inefficient public administration, for sharing
among themselves in line with the proverb that one who dines well in a whores
house is wise. Those whom the public trust as their benefactors and protectors
perpetrate the vice is the tragedy here. The amoral side of this operation does not
seem to have affected either the police or politicians in any way and the vile cabal
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 also its very social fabric. The blame for this sad end should
squarely be borne by the ugly troika of politicians, criminals and the police.
DILEMMA OF INDIAN POLITICS
Not that politics is all bad. It is, by definition, governance of state through
popular leadership. The malaise of the present Indian politics lies in its tilt to
popularity at the elimination of leadership and more dangerously, popularity
being made a serious business proposition to be attended to by spending hard
cash as an investment to earn returns in multiple proportions. How popularity
can be won by investment remains a mystery of the democracy. However, sine
dubio, popularity is won on the field pro rata to an investment in Indian situation.
It is res judicata that nothing means as much to the Indian electorate as the money
and power to prod them to cast their votes for a particular candidate. The history
of independent India makes it patent 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, a vicious equation is formed wherein
political power is equated with electoral popularity, which in turn is equated with
money and power, which can be had only through political patronage. The
vicious circle has helped to create a block of manipulative extortionists as divided
from the passive common public. Politics too has its honest and patriotic people
who are committed to the commune bonum. But, sadly, they are caught in the grind
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of a system which does not let them surface to prominence unless they come to
terms with it and adopt the venal proposition of winning 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 hope to make headway. Others
are bound to sink. When the system itself made the election a venal mechanism,
corrupt practices that rope in criminals and police cannot remain far away from
the scene.
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 that 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 conscience which is so dim-witted that virtues like
honesty, service, patriotism, quality and excellence can make no dent on it 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 who win elections and rule this country! It is these
people whom the Indian electorate prefers to invest with powers to safeguard
their interests! Obviously, the Indian electorate lacks the foresightedness 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 is 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 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 heath of violence and manipulative extortions, with the instruments
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meant to protect them mowing the field. Saner elements in politics, which found
survival difficile, have left the field, giving way to the elements that 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 in Indian politics. People are more and more disillusioned with the extant
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 MURDERS
Political murders are common features these days in India. When a political
adversary grows to be an irritant, he is seen to be eliminated. No career politician
wants to stain his name with a murder case and get his name registered as a
criminal in a police station. He does the work through his faithful underworld
henchmen whom he keeps in good humour always for being available for such
a need, by providing them political support and protection. For this, he keeps
the police at his side. Intervening in police postings easily does this and helping
to get early promotions for favored ones.
BOOTH CAPTURING
A candidate for an election may even resort to booth capturing through his
criminal aides to facilitate his victory. This operation requires thorough planning
and training of the men involved, apart from the willing cooperation of the
police. An attempt at booth capturing can succeed only with the intrenchant
nexus between politicians, criminals and police for synergy.
POLITICAL PATRONAGE
The unhealthy nexus often leads to and facilitates other forms of crime. Cases
of rioting, assault, kidnap, rape 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 the politicians, the criminals or the police
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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, are 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.
POLITICISATION OF CRIME
The over world is just the tip of the real, raw world. There are more things
hidden in this world than there are seen. Opportunist Indian politicians who seize
the first available instance to enlist the support of criminals and underground
operators for their nefarious designs soon realize this. This in 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 nasty 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 became their most trusted lieutenants, even getting elected to
legislature houses 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 organized crime in small and big cities anywhere in the world can
survive even for a day without political patronage. Ergo, all syndicates of
organized crime and their menace are the direct outcome of the intrenchant
nexus between politicians and criminals, indeed with the police as bystanders.
PLACE OF CRIME WORLD
No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running his
crime syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses, narcotics
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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 that 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 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 two 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.
IMPORTANCE OF VIOLENCE
The need for organized violence is so high on the priorities of the Indian
politics that all political parties have created youth and volunteer wings to
accommodate young hoodlums as a fighting and street-smart force to further
the interests of the political party in street-fights and gang wars. Those who stand
out among the recruits to these wings for their exemplary courage and toughness
are provided with fast promotional avenues to reach the top and the fact that
a very high percentage of ministers in Indian Governments are the fighters from
this arena gives a glisk to the high priority of violence and crime in the present
Indian political setup.
CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE
It is an irony that politicians, whose patronage criminals sought to ease them
from the straints of the police, brought the latter closer to each other, building
a bridge between them. The understanding reached between criminals and the
police goes a long way in criminalizing Indian public life and blunting the
effectiveness of the policing. Though the nexus between criminals and the police
is not a new phenomenon, that what was an exception once has become a rule
now and what was a rule once has become an exception. The criminals overawed
the weak police with their connections with powerful politicians on one hand and
lured the police with easy money and comfort on the other and thus tilted the
balance to their advantage from the mouse and cat disadvantage they once
suffered not long ago. Though criminals played their political cards with
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adroitness, their real target a tout propos was easing themselves from the pressures
of the police. This, they achieved with little cost by deftly flaunting their political
connections to a weak and crumbling police. Criminals did business with
officious police for huge grist to their coffers of professional interests without
giving away anything substantial in return, save trifling throw always. This itself,
however, was an unimaginable bonanza to the lowly police of all ranks who had
never seen life with open eyes outside their regimens.
CRIME AND INDIAN POLITICS
If some are born criminals, some choose the path consciously and some
others are constrained to follow the path. While faulty financial and social policies
forged by unenlightened politicians are responsible for forcing several helpless
people to the path of criminality on the one hand, their opportunistic, politically
motivated demarche more often drives sensitive people on the path of revolt to
inclip the fold of terrorism and violence. Naxalism, Sikh terrorism, the ULFA
movement, Kashmir separatism, Hindu and Muslim militancy and even
sympathy in India for the LTIE cause are direct outcomes of the nonchalant
political handling of the national issues.
India has seen isolated political attempts in the past to lure people out of the
clutches of the crime world and rehabilitate them; these, however form
exceptions. The famous Chambal experiment initiated by the late Sri.
Jayaprakash Narayan had some success in spite of discordant vibes raised by the
machinations of certain politicians in the area.
POLITICAL KIDNAPPING
Political kidnapping is an international phenomenon that comminated the
world of diplomacy in excelsis in the 1970s. The menace trickled onto the Indian
scene though slowly, decisively in the 1980s. The realization that political ends
can be easily met by the malengine of the kidnap-drama opened up an aboideau
to the terrorists who were desperate to meet their political targets. The increase
in terrorist activities in India, perchance, as an outcome of the suspected
balkanisation of India policy adopted by some foreign countries, made
political kidnapping a ubiquitous reality on the Indian political scene from the
latter half of the 1980s.
The terrorists of Kashmir and Punjab set the tone in India that was picked
up by the Peoples War Group and the ULFAs in the 1990s. The inexperience
of Indian political leaders in tackling the problem complicated the matter. While
most countries around the world explicated a policy of stubborn refusal to yield
to kidnappers demands under straints a tout prix the Indian leaders goofed by
displaying their weaknesses while people close to them were abducted, in
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yielding to demands as a quid pro quo in releasing a large number of dangerous

terrorists who were arrested at huge cost and loss of lives. The situation has been
further complicated by adopting a policy of double standards in sacrificing the
lives of lesser mortals in some other cases. It is obviously sending a wrong
depeche to the would-be terrorists that the closer the proximity of the kidnapped
to a political leader, the bigger is the chance of meeting their political ends.
The publicity attached to the kidnap-drama and the arousal of the public
interest in the developments that follow is another dimension of the political
kidnapping that brings an identification and gives an image to a terrorist outfit
as nothing else can. It has become the fashion to initiate a terrorist outfit with a
kidnapping operation. This chevisance in the inchoate drama proves the strength
and resourcefulness of the new outfit and its locus standi among such other outfits,
in the way that the murders committed by a recruit decide his place in the Mafia.
The finesse displayed in executing the operation to a successful end decides the
future of the organisation apart from the advantages of the ransom money and
release of compatriots. Interestingly, the first experiment of political kidnapping
in the Indian scene was conducted in a foreign country in the form of the
egregious abduction and killing of Mr. R.H. Mhatre, a junior diplomat in the
Birmingham consulate in the first week of February 1984 by JKLF militants.
Political kidnapping and murder is tout court the most heinous crime that often
involves the cold-blooded murder of absolutely innocent people for political
ends. The mental agony and subsequent destruction involved to the maledict
hostages and their near and dear ones because of the misguided entrainement of
a handful of greenhorns naturally make kidnapping an infructuous political tool
at the end.
The considerable fall in the incidences of political kidnapping on the
international scene of late is an indication of the increasing realization of this fact.
Crime scarcely survives in the situations of haute politique like diplomacy and
relations between nations. High thinking by enlightened people functions as a
catchpole to check the criminal tendencies from being perpetuated. Political
kidnapping on the Indian scene is also bound to be a temporal phenomenon as
seen other where in the world.
A disturbing trend in political kidnapping is the possibility of professional
criminals like smugglers and drug peddlers resorting to political kidnappings at
the hest of their illegal profession in the guise of political kidnappers. The
increasing dependence of terrorists and professional criminals on each adds to
the complexity. This unhealthy situation is already true in India as it is in many

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other countries, a pernicious cohabitation thats a commination to peaceful

international order.
The kidnapping of Romanian charge d affaires in India, Liviu Radu on
October 9, 1991 on his way to office by the Sikh militants is the first instance of
a high ranking foreign national of diplomatic corps being kidnapped by Indian
militants to meet domestic political goals. This succeeded, a series of similar
kidnappings of Indian and foreign officials by the Peoples War Group, the
ULFA and the Kashmir militants. The abduction of Mr. K. Doraiswamy, a
senior director of the Indian Oil Corporation by the JKLF militants and his later
release in exchange for nine arrested Kashmir militants hit headlines in Indian
newspapers by the reason of the Stockholm syndrome noticed in the hostage
after his release. His empathy with his captors and their cause and sympathetic
references to Azad Kashmir, liberation struggle, misguided boys etc. after his
release rather than a degout to them were explained in the language of the
cooperative behaviour se defendendo of the pusillanimous hostages of a bank
robbery in Stockholm in 1973, and is indited in psychology texts as Stockholm
syndrome. The tendency of a diffident hostage to cooperate sans gene as the only
dernier ressort and even aid his captors at the dumdum of seity may well nigh turn out
to be a malengine in the hands of resourceful criminals to force a change in
political attitude in the symbiotic world of the criminals and politicians. The
salutary references of Mr. K. Doraiswamy to his captors also throw light on the
possibility of his being conducted well, non obstante his other where political
affiliations, ipso facto suggesting that political criminals more than often are gens de
bien of high principles and a selfless goal to achieve. It is why these criminals come
under a distinct class and command furibund aficionado from specific sections
of the society, it be Subha and Sivarasan of the LTTE or Sukhadev Singh (Sukha)
and Harjinder Singh Jinda of the Sikh militants of yore.
POLICE AS A LINK
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 as is
expected of them. Alas, it is not to be in a world of opportunist politicians and
muticous, weak police, both with an eye on the spoils of the crime world. The
police, actually, are the weak link in the troika of power brokers. It is just a
significant link between the major players of the drama, namely politicians and
criminals, and functions as an instrument of politicians to bring criminals to their
grip and to tighten the prise. The role of the police as a law-enforcing agency and
its consequential hold on criminals makes it a handy instrument for politicians.

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POLITICISATION OF POLICE
The police are imprimis an executioner and odd job boy of the government.
This image of police is effectively made use by politicians for all conceivable
personal and official purposes. While low-ranking police are put to use as body
guards, gunmen, messengers, watchmen and odd-job attendees, high-ranking
police are put to the travails of the same odd jobs in higher forms. It is a triste
commentary on the present police that while low-ranking police do the job as
an unavoidable duty, high-ranking officers compete and fight among themselves
to get and attend to the odd jobs of their political masters. This they do, even
while they are fully aware of the criminal antecedents and police histories of some
of their benefactors. Where is the passion of our police for law and justice, the
fighting spirit against crime and lawlessness that should be the cardinal
professional emotions at all levels? It is just that our police have no more
commitment to justice and social cause and nothing seems worth the effort, save
career promotions and creature comforts.
Not that the police force is devised to be the personal handmaid of the
politicians. It is to be the ultimate power-bearer, the moving force of power on
the field. This necessitates discretion and exemplary personal dignity to be its
primary traits. It has to be a cornucopia of strength of caractere and probity and
stand up as a model to less fortunate people of the country. This beau ideal is also
relegated to oblivion in current Indian policing where all-out self-promotion by
devious methods is the norm.
SUBSERVIENCE IN POLICE
The present police, particularly at higher levels, condescend to any mean level,
even at the cost of personal pride, human decency, individual dignity, social
standing and professional ethics, just to get a pat from its political masters. There
are instances wherein police officers of higher rank exposed their careers and
lives to deadly risks by pursuing deviant methods to please politicians. The
mishandling of the Bangalore Bandh on December 13, 1991 wherein violence
was let to spread and intensify till it went out of control in the evening is a point
in issue. These facts only make out a point that a normal man, once he enters the
police service, somehow unconsciously assumes to role-play the canine nature
and gives a go-by to human instincts, conscience and such noble traits, which are
exclusive to the human animal. The question is should the police be so? Is it
imperative to shed human qualities and assume canine instincts to join the police
service? Is it true that policing can be effective only with the canine instinct of blind
loyalty and instinctive obedience, deprived of all individuality, conscience and
rational judgment? The answer is a categorical no. On the other hand, policing
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can be genuine policing only with the strength of character, tempered with
rational judgment and healthy exchange of ideas at all levels.
VOICE OF REASON IS SILENCED
It is not as if all people who join the police are always weaklings. Saner
elements made up of stronger fiber too once in a way enter the police. However,
numerically superior leeway swimmers with their stronger positions, by courtesy
of officious politicians, strangle the reasonable voice of the enlightened few who
enter the service. If some among such a minority are found to be implacable and
refuse to be illaqueated, they are easily crippled by murky malengines that bring
mayhem on their career prospects. The police display an extraordinary unity of
purpose in executing the telos of eliminating the common enemy of its personal
ends, though, otherwise, it is as polarized as any conteck-ridden organisation.
Career-long enemies become friends and most inefficient officials become
thorough professionals in fulfilling this task. Most of the righteous few yields to
the straint and fall in line with the majority pursuits. This success has made the
police think that its weapon is inviolable, though foul and dangerously wrongful.
However, sadly, it has forgotten that all are not the same and that there are
exceptions for everything. It is quite possible that none of such unethical methods
affect the few exceptionally strong-willed, noble individuals, but obsign their
resolution not to yield to the pravity and fight out a tout prix.
CASUALTY OF INDIVIDUALITY
A police official who commits his time to the services of his favored politician
is aware of his weak position that it may embarrass him when the concerned
politician loses his power. This consciousness sensitizes him to the need of
garnering support from all around, including subordinates, colleagues and
seniors. Any source of plain speaking among subordinates is taken with serious
apprehension and everything possible, either legal or illegal, is plotted to keep
such a source in place. It is ruthlessly hit in its most sensitive parts to bring it to
its senses. This approach has led to a myriad number of casualties: really bright,
outstanding, conscientious and foursquare officers who inadvertently joined the
police. Either they are made to blunt their sensitivities and caliber to adapt to the
ground reality or pack-up right away. The travails of ploughing the field for a
fresh approach are not only not allowed, but even the thought of such
experimentation is roughed up. Is the police department doomed to be the cold
storage of musty, old skeletons without room for resilience? Those who reached
the top with the support of opportunistic politicians think so.

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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 poweresurient 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 are 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 are not the police
and what it does is not policing in the proud sense of the term.
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
conception. Those crimes that 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 realized that
criminals, particularly those from organized 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 day
has never realized its infinite stature as a law-enforcing agent vis a vis all others

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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.
REVERSAL OF FUNCTIONS
The very possibility that policemen trade off their awful authority lucri causa
is an astounding phenomenon. Undoubtedly, the poor salaries and inadequate
working conditions have brought about this sad state of affairs. The hafthas and
such periodical shares of the spoils from criminal activities often are the mainstay
of the well-being of many police families. This triste glissade has unfortunately
permeated even to the highest levels in the police as reported in a shameful case
from Karnataka sometime back in 1990 wherein a IPS man and his wife on the
day of the formers retirement were taken to the court of law by the public on
the complaint of defrauding the public by selling tickets in the name of a spastic
society charity show and collecting money eo nomine. The event made big news
with bold headlines splashed across newspapers at the time. That apart, the
importance of various police jobs is determined in police circles on the basis of
the potential of the posts for attracting illegal money from the crime world. And
jobs with potential for such gains are most sought after and the concours for such
jobs is so high that often postings to such jobs are bought by paying money in
lakhs of rupees. Indeed, the investment is made with the esperance of making
it back several times over within a short period thereafter in synergy with the
crime world. It is the reason why law and order posts, traffic policing, postings
in the food enforcement cell and even certain vigilance jobs outside the police
as in the KEB for instance are known as jobs to be earned by beating out cutthroat competition while many other jobs are known to be punishment postings
and are largely detested. It goes without saying that judging jobs on the basis of
the gauntlets they provide or on the opportunity of service is now a matter of
yore. It is the crime world with the wealth it appropriates to each job that decides
the importance or otherwise of the police jobs and ipso facto controls the type and
caliber of officers in each job. In other words, it is the criminals who invisibly
control the police ab extra rather than the police controlling the criminals. This
reversal of functions has lots 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 trammel and bring to book. The police are no more confident that
it is mentally and organizationally equipped to treat criminals in malam partem.

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WEAKENED POLICE
The increasingly powerful and modernized crime syndicates vis a vis the ageold police force have made crime control a misnomer in the Indian context. The
decreasing percentage of the police presence due to its failure to keep pace with
the population growth in the face of the increasing crime density, the
disadvantage of the police in re the speed of communication, transportation and
weaponry before the ultra-modern machines of the crime world, the advantage
of criminals in terms of the choice of time and place of operation and
concomitant superior numerical strength and ability to produce surprises and the
highly skilled and motivated cadres of the criminal world pressing down a
demoralized and indifferent police give criminals an edge over the police in their
encounters. Consequently, police fatalities in such encounters are increasing. This
holds good for terrorist groups, too. Ergo, the police in India are no longer keen
to actively interfere with the activities of the crime world. The understanding
between the criminals and police is that both confine themselves to their
respective fields and avoid embarrassing each other. The police are duly paid for
its silence while stray troublemakers who jump in medias res are silenced. The
Indian police are sane enough to quickly realize that its interests are safe in silence
while an uncalled-for tangling with the crime world may invite a host of
complications and comminate individual job security and lives.
POLICE LEADERSHIP
The albatross of the atrophy of the present Indian police solely rests on the
incompetent police leadership of independent India rather than on anything else.
Unimaginative organizational planning, uninspiring operational guidance and
control and lack of leadership conviction in modem police leaders has led to utter
chaos, resulting in a random chorisis of the organisation without any conceivable
planning or application of mind to the needs of effective supervision and control
mechanisms; dangerously ineffective recruitment, ineffective training, misuse of
the facilities of confidential assessment of subordinates and the degeneration of
control and supervision machinery are symptomatic organizational maladies.
The present Indian police force is utterly demodulated from its professional
objectives and police jobs are considered only as devices that provide rank,
power, social status, sundry comforts and a comfortable job to fall upon when
an urge to work arises. How can the people of India depend upon a police force
of this sorry state of affairs for their security, protection and orderly living?
ORGANISATIONAL GROWTH
How deeply the police are self-centered even within its own organisation and
what care and concern the police leaders show to evolve a perficient and planned
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police organisation can be assessed by the trend of evolution of the police

organisation as an increasinglyly top-heavy setup and the speed with which
promotions are affected 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 thirty years back, there are now nearly hundred officers of and
above the rank of Inspector General of Police, for say three hundred thousand
men and officers: thereby the last thirty years account for 750% expansion in the
lower levels against 5000% 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 realizes
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 and challenging 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 SubInspectors 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 a 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 up to 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 are doing just that and there is none to put it back
on the right track.

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MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES

The position is worse in recruitment. Selection has become a misnomer. It
is random at best and high business at its worst. This approach to recruitment
may turn out to be a highly dangerous situation for both the governance and
public life of India. Policing is a highly sensitive profession and requires only
specially equipped people to handle it. It demands certain specific traits in its
officers, which cannot be learnt by any amount of training. The police being the
ultimate power-bearer on the street, the public look to it as a model and its mien
decides public trust in the government. In the circumstances, the wrong selection
to the police is bound to be fatal to the national life. India is deeply mired in such
a dangerous situation now. There is a price fixed for each rank of the police. How
can a fresh recruit who enters service by paying a bribe be expected not to reap
returns from his large investment? What can be his mental picture of the service
he enters? It is absurd to expect professional policing from such a recruit. Those
who permit such nasty doings in the police or involve themselves to bring the
organisation to its painfully slow sphacelus are the butchers of a great tradition.
Even when there is genuine scope for proper selection in recruitment, nothing
is done to rope in the really competent. It is either because none bother much
to have a really competent person in the slot or because of the incompetence of
the persons entrusted with the job of selection. The common aim of the police
in recruitment now is to complete the job without inviting legal hurdles at the
best.
Sometimes, even rules are overstepped to cut short procedures and do away
with cumbersome work. Even sensitive posts at the lowest level like police
drivers are filled up arbitrarily and quality suffers as a result. This is equally so in
matters of transfers as discussed in detail elsewhere.
LINE OF COMMAND
Everything is not right in the spine of the police organisation namely the
hierarchical order-itself. The importance of honesty, integrity, hard work and
excellence is replaced with personal loyalty and usefulness for personal odd jobs.
This is the outcome of the natural devolution of personal loyalty to politicians
at higher levels on the ladder. Those who do not come up to the expectations
of personal loyalty, fall out of favour and are eliminated from the line of
command as persona non grata. This pravity has a more demoralizing effect in a
force of line of command than meets the eye. This trait in the organisation results
in the deflection of brighter, proud and foursquare officers to insignificant jobs
to the advantage of the opportunistic ones who are insecure and ergo tend to

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make up their famishment with personal loyalty to those in power. It is the main
contributing factor for the slow degeneration of the present Indian police.
QUALITY IS SUPPRESSED
There are some unwanted under currents in the Indian police that make pride,
efficiency, excellence, originality and such superior qualities the objects of fear
and hatred. Perhaps, these superior qualities do not go pari passu with the line of
command by the reason of the insecure feelings, these superior qualities rouse
higher in the line. The fear is not based on reality in a disciplined force like police
where the line of command functions a tout propos without reference to personal
traits. The question is why this fear surfaces in the modem police while the preindependent police with all its better manpower could run without it. The
possible answer is that the line of command is a perfect mechanism in a
disciplined force when the force indulges in de jure professional duties. However,
the line of command becomes increasingly strained when it is used for personal
ends as of late. Ergo, ultimately, it is a vicious circle wherein poor leadership leads
to elimination of quality and that in turn results in poorer leadership that slowly
blights the police organisation to its triste logical end.
POLICE BROTHERHOOD
The police are a sacred confrerie of those who choose policing as their
profession. It is here, as brothers irrespective of caste, creed, social standing, rank
or personal traits, they live as one, in the interests of the common objective of
crime control and maintenance of law and order. How can this ideal which was
once a strikingly kenspeckle reality survive in changed circumstances where there
is no common cause except personal advancement at the cost of everything?
Consequently, groupism is abounding in the police force and jealousy has
become a characteristic feature of the ranks. There is no mutual warmth among
police personnel. The police force, once a smooth silk fabric, is now in shreds
with each group pulling on opposite sides to the detriment of the unity, essential
to its survival in view of the natural job hazards. Indifference to the others
predicament is a rule in the police these days. Often, those in the police contribute
to each others misfortune because of accidental bad blood or just fun. No
confrerie is patent anywhere in the present Indian police.
LACK OF PLANNING
The police, by the nature of its jobs, are required to walk hand in hand with
modem advancements to keep it fit and functionally effective. The general
reluctance of the Indian police to adapt to new ideas and the ungainly handling
of modernization projects have resulted in its falling en wrier in terms of modem
machines and organizational techniques in comparison to the syndicates of
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organized crime which keep themselves pari passu with neoteric findings and
inventions to keep themselves in excelsis of the effectiveness. En attendant, modem
communication, information, transport, office and armament gadgets are
bought for the police on the advice of some sales agents without creating the
adequate infrastructure or trained personnel for their use and without assessing
the real need of such equipments in the existing police situation. As a result, the
gadgets so bought fall apart with desuetude after the initial entrainement cools
down. Such a light-hearted approach to modernization results in the police
becoming more and more an obsolete unit, apart from putting an unproductive
burden on the state exchequer.
The police are 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
bedeviling 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 wellbeing of the country and the health of its governance.
PROFESSIONAL POLICING
The police of India imprecise should be extricated from the clutches of
criminals and politicians to make it a professional policing outfit with objectivity
and commitment to its task as the cardinal gospel. Both criminals and politicians
have stakes in the style of functioning of the police and neither of them, the
criminals with their easy money and the politicians with their easy power, let the
police slip from their grip. There is no point in beginning the cleansing operation
from the sides 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. If this bifarious object is fulfilled, all others fall into place by themselves.
Once the vile shadows of the criminals and politicians are removed from the face
of the police, it is certain to resile to its old professional self-a highly committed,
motivated and efficient force. But the golden question is how to achieve this end
and save the police from these two debilitating influences.
INDEPENDENT POLICE
In a free society like India with a democratic political system in the saddle,
interaction between various strata of society is a natural phenomenon and efforts
to raise barriers between blocks are bound to be infructuous. Yet the gauntlet
of saving the police from dangerous influences should be courageously taken up
in the national interest. The fact of the police being a disciplined force is both an
advantage and disadvantage in this stupendous challenge. It is an advantage
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because the weapon of discipline, if discreetly employed, can be used to block

the police from undue interaction with unwanted elements. It is a disadvantage
because the police with its trained response may find it difficult to isolate itself
from the personal behests of its political masters. It is left to police leaders to
devise appropriate techniques to make the best use of the existing advantages in
this sacred and patriotic task. To begin with, somebody among the police leaders
should decide to bell the cat. Who can do that while all of them are willing
partners in creating the vested nexus that helps them to ascend to their present
high positions in the hierarchy? Yet, the world is not as bad it is painted. There
have to be exceptions for everything and thus, good people among the police
too, who by the quirks of dextro tempore avoid the long arms of Satan and survive
to reach the place where they rightfully belong. These breaches in the otherwise
swarth layers of clouds throw rays of hope upon the future of Indian police.
POLICE AUTHORITY
The first and foremost job to be done is to free the police from the unhealthy
influence of all hues of politicians 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.
CORE GROUP
Overhauling the recruitment procedure and investing utmost care to ensure
that really the best from the job seekers are let in to the service can undo the
damage already done to the police by the ancien regime. Any interference in
matters of recruitment should be promptly and decisively resisted. To make
recruitment an efficient operation, only highly qualified officers of proven
probity should be entrusted with the task with the absolute authority to take
decisions within the framework of law. The ugly head of bribery in recruitment
should be ruthlessly crushed and the unhealthy tendency of making recruitment
a business should be curbed tout a fait. Infusion of good blood at least at this late
hour is certain to undo the damage done till now and bring the ancien regime yet
extant inside to its senses. Indeed, the recruitment should be followed with a
sound training that sensitizes the recruits to their professional ethics and motivates
them to their sacred duties and responsibilities.

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CONTENTED POLICE PERSONNEL

Police jobs should be made attractive with good salaries and satisfactory
working conditions that give the strength to resist the bait thrown by the
criminals. It is proved by social scientists that the incidence of bribery is inversely
proportional to the financial strength of a social group. Therefore, better salaries
and eximious working conditions definitely make the police less sensitive to these
lures. This would be a major step in breaching the hold of criminals over the
police. The measure must be closely followed by a perficient and strictly
professional policy of placements to ensure the right man comes to the right job
with merit and honesty being duly rewarded. Measures to ensure an unbiased
assessment of the work and character of subordinates strengthen and place the
police organisation on sound footing. Those who are empowered to assess
subordinates and their work must be made answerable therefore and any
unscrupulous and random discharge of their duties should condemn them
forever for the misuse of this sacred responsibility to the future of the
organisation.
FAIR PLAY
Creation of a high power 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 that oversees the work of police personnel
from a distance should be made ultimately responsible for all career decisions.
The responsibility 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.
MENTAL QUALITY
It is a tragedy in the current Indian police that there is no relation between the
efficiency and performance of an official and his standing in the organisation. The
police officials are so indifferent to the performance of their subordinates and

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their work turnout 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 unqualified to assess. This situation leads to random assessment when
a senior is statutorily bound to assess and in the process, talent withers and
opportunists overtake high-caliber workers on the hierarchical ladder. This tragic
melange can be brought to order by exposing police officers periodically to
motivation courses where they are taught about the work they are required to
perform, its importance and how to discharge their duties. There is an innate trait
in the police that makes people entering it shut their minds and distance
themselves from all hues of mental activities. Police training must endeavor to
break this trait and coax trainees to open their minds and reflect on all matters
before making decisions. Often, the habit of reading becomes a casualty, once
a person enters the police. The police are in no way antipodean to mental and
scholastic pursuits. It is a mystery what there is in the police that bind its men to
let their minds and hearts languish by desuetude. Police researchers must look to
this matter to mould the police into an organisation that acts and thinks before
resorting to action. Before this happens, police training has a major role to make
a recruit a thinking animal with a heart to feel and an intelligent instinct to follow.
PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE
This negative approach to reading and thinking has resulted in poor
professional knowledge in the police, particularly at the higher ranks. Work
knowledge is generally limited to what is remembered from previous work
experience and bits of what is learnt from books during police training, decades
before. Their defective conception about supervision compounds the situation
by depriving them of the benefit of learning new things during supervision of
work. The style of supervision in the police should be seen to be believed. All
orders to subordinates emanate from a perfect void. The orders warrant
subordinates to feed them what is to be done in a given situation and the reply
received is returned to the same subordinate as an order to perform. The best
style of supervision in the police is no more than holding a meeting of
subordinates wherein the latter are allowed to arrive at a course of action to meet
a given challenge, and the decision is returned to them as an order to perform.
This style of ineffective supervision must stop if quality is required in police work.
The system of overlapping supervision because of multiple ranks, where none
really discharges his supervisory role must be scrapped to make the police a
meaningful organisation. A thorough overhauling of police training
programmes and application of modem organisation techniques to bring in

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effective check and control mechanisms would go a long way in ameliorating the
ground realities in the police.
UNIVERSALITY OF CRIME
On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living beings are
criminals in varying degree. 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 reinforces 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 the social situation that 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 civilized 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 fields 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 that makes public life a nasty affair and nourishes it.

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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 that 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,
apart from affecting the quality of crime by opening up new avenues for
operation. As the ultimate end of all 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 invariable results in inflation and the weakening of the
national economy.
More dangerously, it results in a polarization of the society into criminal rich
and honest poor and destroys the countrys moral fabric. The increscent
incidence of easy money, material comforts and political power of the criminal
rich ultimately leads to internal strife, emeute and popular terrorism.
SOCIAL POLARIZATION
The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularizes 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.
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 begets power,
comfort and everything. In the crush, honest man is lost forever. The ocean of
criminal wealth around him that 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 see 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

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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.

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Policing is a reaction of the society to its warped situations. The process of
policing is always in a state of flux to keep a la hauteur de rapidly evolving nature
of the social complexities. In this sense, the police are a reflection of the face of
the national life. Stability in the national life slows down the process of policing;
a volatile situation strings police to high tension and energizes it. Growth or
retardation in social progress accordingly reflects the style of policing. When the
nation stands at the crossroads, the police also find itself on compita: at the
intersection of a reneging past and a converging future. This is where India and
its police stand now after four decades of becoming a republic. As with old
generations that saw life, society and politics prior to the independence give way
to new generations in national life and old passions and values atrophy before
the gust of speed, smartness and a garish way of life, the police too find itself in
a peregrine role with no past for continuity and no future for creativity. The
police find itself rising from a claut to pave the new path; it must blindly choose
from alternatives, it thinks available to it. There is no past experience to fall upon,
no future guidelines to pursue. Yet, it must walk with time to fulfill its raison detre.
The Indian police find itself in this blind spot today, at the crossroads from where
it should build bridges to the future. The immanent swither of the compita is like
the new freedom of a caged animal. It must acclimatize and warm up to the new
situation, shed us mental fetters, bring strength to its legs and learn to move au
naturel. A slip at this stage would be a sempiternal tragedy; a right move here
would be a lucky rise forever. At this stage in its evolution, the possibilities are
endless. The Indian police now stand at this momentous juncture.
IMPORTANCE OF POLICE IN NATIONAL LIFE
The police and policing are larger than an individual and his self-interests. The
police are an institution that is constituted of man, machinery and ideas. Man is
just a minute constituent of the monolith that is the police. An institution of the
police organizations dimensions naturally has defacements at places that in no
way affect the overall view of the structure. Ergo, minor casualties are common
in such a mammoth edifice. Only when the defacements have an impact on the
overall mien of the structure and distort its face, do corrective measures become

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comme il faut. The police should be continuously watched for such vital distortions,
for its health or otherwise has a serious bearing on the national life. A minor shift
in the style of policing in the country can make a life-and-death difference to
myriad people. It is in this perspective that decisions regarding policing should
be taken. The decisions become sensitive when the police reach crossroads and
forces further decisions on the course of its passage. A wrong turn? The police
may inadvertently tear the fabric of the national life to shreds and ruin the country.
A right step? An era of perfect security, order and peace. Only a selfless analysis
of the needs of the time and assessment of the future would give the insight
necessary to make the right choice about the course to be pursued. Highly
competent persons at the highest level who can see things dispassionately and
take decisions must carry out such an analysis. They must be people who have
an overall view of things and are capable of seeing them against the wider
background of the national interest. It is a very responsible job, requiring
thorough knowledge of the nuances of the police and policing. The people who
do it must be capable of taking hard decisions that may often go against their own
interests and may have far-reaching consequences. This book is an obvious effort
in this direction. The Indian police must give serious thought to what it wants to
be in future and take tough decisions.
MISHANDLING OF POLICE IN INDEPENDENT INDIA
There is an impression that the Indian police are not what it was before
Independence. The previous pride, toughness and ferocious commitment to
duties are no more patent. The Indian police have become soft, humble and easygoing in post-independence days. Humility and pressures all round deprived it
of its vitality. The police have become a widely abused organisation by the virtue
of its conticent submission to the wishes of its masters under false notions of
discipline. It is the popular scapegoat for anything and everything that goes
wrong in the public life. In the circumstances, a sense of insecurity has developed
in the police that comminates career-life. A natural outcome of this fix is, taking
things easy with eyes and ears shut, unless career interests warrant otherwise.
Commitment to policing is sacrificed in the process. These developments have
reduced the police to a toy that moves only when the spring inside unwinds. New
entrants to the police who begin to run left and right with nascent entrainement in
the first few months, soon realize the realities on the ground when the wounds
on the body of their career dehisce, looking fatal and ready to gorge their
esperance for the future. This is the triste spiel of the Indian police now.

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OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE IN POLICING

A serious malady affecting the tough and no-nonsensical image of the police
is the interference of people of some standing in the society with the quotidian
policing at all levels. An organisation, looking for a serious image, cannot afford
this luxury. Policing must be insulated from public pressures except at the top,
to which all policing affairs must be responsible. People handling policing should
be responsible only to law and their heads in the police department and to none
else. The regulation of policing policies in all details must be controlled and
guided by the top. On the other hand, the line authority of the organisation must
be all-powerful to guide and regulate policing and police administration and bear
the responsibility for everything below the level. Such a setup sine dubio presumes
a pollent leadership. For an organisation with powers and responsibilities like the
police, such a strong leadership is sine qua non otherwise as well.
A police organisation, open to public pressures can do no policing worth the
name. The very idea of being receptive to pressures and interferences
presupposes a lack of will for objectivity and justice. It is criminal elements that
cultivate sources for such straints on the police that have put the policing on the
wrong rails. Pressure on policing often renders the police to commit crimes
under the veil of authority, either by protecting criminals or more dangerously,
by replacing them with innocent people as criminals. The possibility of the police
being open to the straints of the rich and powerful deprives it of its credibility.
A police force that works at the behests of the rich and powerful can guard their
interests only. It would thus be the villain to the hoi polloi. Does democratic India
need such a police force to perpetuate the tyranny of the poor and helpless by
the rich and powerful? Democratic India tolerated such a police in the last four
decades. India and its people however, must now abraid to the situation and
spawn a police that behove to the trust laid on it.
FALL OF PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
The aberration of professional objectivity is the kenspeckle signature of the
police in independent India. The problem was simple in British India where ruler
and ruled were distinctly bifurcated and ipso facto the loyalty of police was
perspicaciously defined unlike the Indian republic of democratic genre where
people rule themselves through elected representatives. Here, the loyalty of
police to the public and public law is the professional ethic; misplaced loyalty to
an individual, a family, a party or an ideology at the cost of the general public is
an apostasy from the inviolable professionalism of the police. The police, in a
democracy, are 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
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in independent India where mental fetters are yet to be broken and legacies of
the British rule continue inveterate. How can a police that stays loyal to personal,
familial or party interests ever discharge its functions objectively to law and
general public? What can its locus standi be when a different person or party comes
to power? A sequacious police is an asset to any individual or party and no
sensible individual or party distances it in name of the professional ethics. It is the
paravant duty of the police not to breach the edifice of the police organisation
and its spirit by misprising its professional standards. This infrangible obligation
is thrown to the winds in the maelstrom of career advancements by the selfseeking gendarmerie of the Indian republic.
A byproduct of this degenerate trend is the rise of opportunists and
sycophants to key posts and the fall of pollent caractere to insignificant and
humiliating slots. The trend creates a catena of reactions that slowly-cats up the
vitality of the police organisation and reduces it to a foul bunch of bloodhounds
of the rich and powerful few. The shoddy creatures sitting tout court above men
of probity is a dangerous situation in an organisation like the police where a stiff
hierarchical order and a command-obedience relationship exist between ranks.
This reverse order of merit is sure to bring frustration and the collapse of the
organisation someday ex consequenti. This is because, a few selfish elements put
own interests before the professional and national interests. And this is in a
disciplined organisation. This is where commitment to organizational objects is
the life-fluid of the profession.
POLICE CULTURE OF FREE INDIA
The British were the forefathers, of the unified Indian police. They created
the reticulation of the police force for India with their own designs and objects
in sight. It was a force that met the needs of the time. In an age of rapid changes
due to the opening up of new vistas and dimensions to life by inventions and
discoveries in science and technology, nothing remains quiescent. The scope,
design and objects of the Indian police underwent a basic metamorphosis with
the transfer of government to native hands. The process spawned a synod
wherein undemanding aspects of both the worlds survived to create a new police
culture. The distinguishing traits of the Indian police of the British vintage like
objectivity, apoliticism, commitment, discipline, quality and high standards were
discarded as peregrine and irrelevant in the changed circumstances; and
traditional Indian values like simplicity, charity, wisdom, mutual respect, encraty
and human qualities were distanced as indign to the police culture. The
convenient factors of the old and new worlds were chosen to warp a new world
of police culture while demands on policing were at the crucial stage in the creant
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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 ancient 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 own 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 atrophy and how can it uphold the rule of law and justice in
line with its professional edit in such a circumstance?
POLICE AT THE CROSS-SECTION
Policing, being a specialized job wherein few people venture to have a keek
owing to its fearful image, still remains an enigma to outsiders including
administrators and the general public. Its locus standi somewhere in between the
armed forces and civil administration renders its structure, scope and style of
functioning undefined in the monolith of governance. This, compounded with
the prolate powers of the police to cover all aspects of living, has made the police
an awful company to live with. This is a situation of one-way traffic wherein the
police have a say on every aspect of the life of the people while the general public
is dumb and blindfold to everything about the police. The situation has placed
the police at the unusual advantage of dictating what should be what, where and
how in policing and police organisation. Sine dubio, it is a god sent benison for
the police while right man sits at the sconce. To the worst mauvais moment of the
police, sycophants ramp the ladder and reach the top t hold reins and guide the
destiny of the police in independent India and consequently the Indian police has
got what it deserved, namely a spiritless culture, composed of the weak and bad
precedences of its incompetent leaders.
It has been a long time since independence. What people and those in the
police accepted as standards in the inchoate entrainement of the dawn of
independence, no more stir them. The atrophy of more than two generations of
independent India opened their eyes to what was happening around, in the name
of the supercherie of the self-rule. Enough is enough. Though late, they realized for
certain that self-rule does not mean fraud and tyranny by their own people, that
self-interests know no nationality, that the cabals of compatriots are no less
pernicious than that of the aliens. Forty-five years is a long enough period to
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realize the need for breaking away from the corrupt innards of the statecrafts of
independent India. India and the Indian police stand at this crossroads at this
hour.
POLICE AS SOCIAL DOCTORS
Policemen are social doctors and policing is a surgical operation of the society
to systematically remove cancerous growths from its body. What if the band of
doctors itself is infested with serious cancerous growths? This is the position of
the present-day Indian police. The police, as the enforcers of law and protectors
of the public interests, wield tremendous powers for the public good. Such
powers to interfere with the life of the citizens must be invested only in people
of high probity and conscience. Otherwise, the powers by themselves ruin the
social fabric of the country and bring anarchy. Powers to search, seize, remove,
detain, direct, arrest, hit and even kill may prove pernicious in the wrong hands.
Powers to decide who has done wrong and how to prosecute them, when
invested in dishonest hands, certainly ruin society and the country. How these
powers are exercised depends imprimis on the work ethic of the organisation.
Though it is the people of an organisation au fond who build the job-culture of
the organisation, it is this job-culture of the organisation that creates a person in
the organisation at a given point of time. Even a degenerate caractere turns honest
and efficient in an honest and efficient environment. The work-culture builds and
moulds vitality to meet the general atmosphere around. Similarly, an honest and
efficient person in a degenerate culture is bound to atrophy sooner or later, unless
his individual strength superates the vitiating work-culture of the organisation.
Ergo, building up a proper job-culture is the bedrock of a perficient police
organisation.
UNEQUAL TREATMENT
The problem of the Indian police lies in a lack of proper understanding of
the scope and ground rules of the work. This results in the absence of a proper
set of standards to approach the call of duty. Consequently, each call of duty is
approached subjectively, depending upon the mood and understanding of the
police in charge of the situation. All strata of people sans prole unfortunately
accept the subjective policing on the Indian scene. The Indian police never
recognize the equality of all and the need for equal coverage of policing facilities
to all citizens of India. Whether it is in matters of protection, maintenance of
order, crime control or investigation of crimes committed, the standards of
policing available are kenspeckle in their disparity for a nameless poor farmer in
a remote village and an ex-Prime Minister, both of whom have equal rights
before the law and the Indian constitution to have crimes against them
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investigated. The coverage is nonpareil for a landlord and an agricultural laborer.

The point is not that the principle of equality should balk the ground realities, but
that the policing must have a reasonable set of standards, within which more
important and less important aspects of the policing must operate. It will not be
so in the Indian police until people who place their personal interests beyond
everything including law, justice, fairness, objectivity, righteousness, career pride,
professional interests of policing and the nation hold the reins at the highest levels
of the police, courtesy of those whom they serve better than the hoi polloi.
POLICING APPROACH
There are two types of approach to policing as distinguishable on the Indian
scene, namely,
a) The playful approach, where the police as players in a football game, play
the game within the scope of the ground rules to have the ball inside the goal
without committing a foul. Tout au contraire to the real football game, here the
game is played dispassionately and leisurely and played because they are paid to
play the game; and,
b) The passionate approach, wherein the police break all rules and laws that
come in the way with the sole approach of making their task a success.
They may even commit dangerous crimes in pursuance of their goals. The
Indian police oscillate between these two disparate approaches, depending
upon, for whose advantage they work and what would be their personal grist
ultimately. Only a few high-flying people with money and power en arrier to back
policing of the passionate genre deserve the Passionate Approach. Others must
remain contented with the Playful Approach. Both approaches are indign to a
dignified police organisation. The former, namely the Playful Approach is
against the tenets of professionalism and a professional commitment to work.
The latter, namely the Passionate Approach in spite of its commitment to its
goals, is devoid of its professionalism by lack of professional commitment to
the objects of objectivity, fairness and justice. Policing by criminal methods
cannot be called professional policing. The right approach to professional
policing is a unity of both the approaches in which the commitment to achieve
goals follow the professionalism of rightful means in respecting rules and laws
of which the police as professionals are guardians. Professional commitment
implies achieving goals within the parameters of the permitted methods. The
professional end of the police is upholding the interests of law and justice.
Policing is not an end by itself. It is a tool to serve law and justice. Policing by
committing crimes against law and justice is committing crimes against policing.
The Indian police are yet to show its maturity of professional commitment in
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policing, which as a standard policing approach would be equally available to all

the needy, irrespective of their status, wealth and position in the society.
CRIMINAL TENDENCIES IN POLICE
A serious subculture of the Indian police in Indian hands is committing crimes
to prevent and detect crimes and breaking laws to catch law-breakers: indeed in
the name of showing results. The misplaced stress on results sans a concern for
organizational and national objects of law and justice in committing grave
malfeasances only reflects a shallow intellectual commitment to policing by
Indian police leaders and a bankruptcy of ingine to delve to the roots of policing
problems. Third-degree methods in crime detection are the point. Even senior
officers tacitly supporting inhuman crimes of the third-degree methods on
suspects, who may turn out to be innocent at the end, is not uncommon. Crimes
are crimes whether they are committed by the police or by the public. What right
has the police to inflict sufferings on others albeit on suspicion? After all, it is not
the agency to pass judgment on crimes. None placed the police ayont the scope
of the Indian Penal Code. What justification can the police have to commit crimes
to collect evidences of other crimes? The Indian Penal Code never conceived
two sets of laws for the crimes committed by the police and others. Crimes
committed by the police in the name of detecting other crimes are not less
harmful to the well-being of society. The sadism and criminal tendencies of the
police are not more justifiable than those of the general public. On the other hand,
society has to be avizefull and deracinate criminal tendencies from the police, for,
criminals from the police with the state plenipotence and laws behind it can be
a real death-knell to the society. The difference between crimes for official and
crimes for personal ends is wafer thin. Those who have tasted the blood of
crime, takes to that more easily than others, because of their special accesses to
the field and special privileges. A good police force requires an inveterate cause
against crime and criminality. In absence of such a cause, the police may
metamorphose into a demonic organisation that throws the country into a mux
of atrophy.
In an atmosphere of the maintenance of law and order in the hands of
unprincipled police, queer things may take place. Long ago, a dacoity was
reported in the house of a person of doubtful character at Betgeri in Dharwar
district. People who had knowledge of the coup de fond opined that his illegitimate
son committed the act after a serious quarrel, the preceding night. He had bad
relations with and court cases pending against the illegitimate son. The
investigation of the case by the local police also obsigned the matter. The person
who had cultivated some standing in Betgeri thought it imperative after he settled
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his feuds with the illegitimate son, to have the case of dacoity substantiated as a
professional offence to save his family name. Soon, he patched up relations with
the young man, settled his court cases with him and arranged for the case to be
charge sheeted, with an ex-convict of Stuartpuram being picked up and shown
as accused. A mangalasutra recast from the gold recovered in some other case was
shown as property seized from the criminal out of the property worth of about
300 gms of gold being reportedly snatched away. Arrest, recovery, detection and
charge sheet followed after a decade of the reported commission of the dacoity.
Such developments make criminal administration a mockery. What a serious
breach of the public trust and what a serious crime is it by the police officials in
consciously involving a person, albeit an ex-convict, in a crime in which they
knew, he did not commit and fabricating evidence to a crime which never took
place to help to settle the family affairs of a bad character? Such paradigms reflect
to what levels of criminality the Indian police have sunk to. Percase, the weather
is stormiest before the return to stillness. The boundless pravity of the police,
perchance, is the sign of the advent of a new age of honest and committed
policing in India.
In another instance that dates back to 1981, a police official holding the charge
of Koppal police subdivision in Karnataka picked up a poor goldsmith from
a small town of a neighboring district for interrogation about receiving stolen
properties. He subjected him to inhuman torture in a tourist bungalow of the
same town for two nights to make the innocent goldsmith confess to an act that
he did not do. The wife and children of the goldsmith, who spotted him in the
tourist bungalow after endless running from pillar to post, were mercilessly
scared away from the place even while they could hear his agonized shrieks. The
goldsmith succumbed and died on the second night of torture. The Koppal
official, who had worked as Circle Police Inspector in the town until a few
months before, carried out this illicit, nefarious activity without the knowledge
of the senior police officers of the town. The news of the lockup death, as such
deaths are popularly known, broke out in local and other newspapers. The wife
of the goldsmith filed a private complaint before the local court about the killing
of her husband. The district Superintendent o Police and the Range Deputy
Inspector General of Police, in whose good books the Koppal official was as
the Circle Inspector of the small town, due to his liberal give-and-take approach,
rose to the occasion to save their protege from any harm. They visited the town
and entrusted the investigation of the case to a complaisant Deputy
Superintendent of Police of a neighboring subdivision with perspicuous oral
directions to finalize the case as not proved, before the magistrate who received
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the wifes private complaint took cognizance of the plaint. The officious Deputy
Superintendent of Police duly complied with the directions and sent his
investigation report to the court for action u/s 2l0 of the Cr.P.C. Thus ended the
case of cold-blooded torture and culpable homicide of an innocent goldsmith.
The person who committed the crime stealthily in a place outside his jurisdiction
now lives a retired life, unaffected by the crime in anyway and the two officers
who saved him from the wheel of justice are continuing in service at higher ranks.
It is such success stories of cruelty and criminality that make the police appear like
a criminal demon. What right has the police to investigate and prosecute criminals
while it protects killer criminals from its own field to the disservice of law and
justice?
In another incident, a police official who got posted as police chief of a state
of India in 1986 on the support of his community, wanted to favour a fingerprint
Sub-Inspector, who had been under suspension for a long time after being
arrested in a criminal case involving community interests, en revanche to the
support of his community for his elevation as police chief, by releasing the latter
from suspension even while the criminal case was at the trial stage in court. He
summoned the Superintendent of Police in charge of the Sub-Inspector and
examined the file about the suspension after assuming the charge as police chief.
The Superintendent of Police, who was a greenhorn in such matters, failed to
understand that the action was an indication that he was to release the SubInspector from the suspension coute que coute. Even if he understood the tacit
meaning of the act, he could not act selon les regles for two reasons; a) that the SubInspector was suspended by an officer of the rank of Deputy Inspector General
of Police and ipso facto no officer below that rank was empowered to release the
official from the suspension as per civil service rules, and b) that as the official
was under suspension for being arrested in a criminal case and the case was then
pending trial in court of law, release from suspension was not en regle. After a
fortnight, the police chief secured the fingerprint Sub-Inspectors release from
suspension. However, he nourished esoteric spite for the young Superintendent
of Police for not understanding what he wanted him to do; he manipulated the
records and ensured that the latter lost his selection for the Indian Police Service
during the selection committee meeting, held after three years. The career of the
bright officer is in shambles now. Such cases of avenging the non-cooperation
in criminal activities of those at higher ranks are common in the Indian police
these days. This egregious trend adversely affects the policing outfit by
weakening its cause for fairness, law and justice.

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How subordinates are brought to requisite shapes is a different story tout

ensemble. A young sub divisional police officer in a small town that was known
for speculative business activities, conducted a raid on a library, run by a powerful
local community as a common gambling house where prominent people of the
town were patrons. He apprehended more than fifty prominent people
including the richest businessmen, senior government officials and local
politicians with huge stake monies. Though the library had been a blue-chip
gambling den for many years, none dared to raid it in spite of repeated public
petitions. As law requires that the place must first be proved as a common
gambling house, the sub divisional police officer entered the names of all those
who were gambling at the place on the Station House Diary of the town police
station and let them out with written warning that cases would be booked if they
continued to gamble there. The officer learnt too late that the Superintendent of
Police of the district and the Deputy Inspector General of the range patronized
the gambling den and the men whose names were brought on the police Station
records were their friends. He was transferred out to a sinecure post tout de suite
of the incident, with his annual confidential report stating that the public might
revolt against the officer if he had continued in the police department. The library
continues to be a gambling den even now.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police at the place of the new posting of
the officer at in 1982 wanted the maledict young Deputy Superintendent of
Police to marry a girl from his circle. The parents of the young officer fearing
chantage got their son married in hurry to a girl of their choice. This antagonized
the Deputy Inspector General. His next annual confidential report showed the
junior as a liability to the police department. He also prevailed year after year
upon other officers who wrote confidential reports of the officer to incorpse
adverse remarks. Most of them obliged and this bright junior officer ended up
with a series of unsubstantiated adverse remarks in his annual confidential
reports. All his appeals were never allowed to reach the government.
These garish paradigms are just a croquis of the criminal clinamen of the people
in todays Indian police. In no way are they more committed to law and justice
than the criminal elements of the society. Do not the police need people in its fold
with deeper passion for law and justice? Is it by design or accident that
independent India raised a criminal outfit to catch criminals? It is in the interest
of the Indian police to accept the reality in its naked form so as to inspire remedial
measures.

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POLICING BY FALSE PUBLICITY

Sadly, the police of independent India learnt to rely on poor public memory
to obliterate its poor performance. Incompetent and directionless reporting by
the Indian media helps them in this image-salvaging task. It is a fashion in police
circles to issue press notes about detection of major dacoity cases after small-time
thieves are apprehended. Only if somebody from the press or public pursues the
information of the press-notes, will they come to know that no dacoity case has
been really detected and that the loud claims of successful policing are only meant
to hoodwink the public, press and political masters. It is interesting to note that
most claims of detection of dacoity cases coincide with legislative assembly
sessions. This is true at least in Bangalore City where during 1989-91, such press
notes abundantly appeared in newspapers during legislative assembly sessions.
Of late, the public has learnt to take such claims cum grain sails and consequently
the credibility of the police is waning in its eyes. The tough no-nonsense image
of the Indian police of the British vintage has given way to a nonsensical, comical
image in free India. What better thing can come from hoc genus omne hype?
UNITARY POLICE ADMINISTRATION
In the current system of policing in India, police stations and district police
units form basic units of the administration. Some of the functions discharged
at these levels have concurrent jurisdiction with some special units at state and
national levels. Crime investigation in special circumstances can be taken over
from the district police administration by the state CID or the CBI at the national
level. So, it is with the intelligence collection, security operations, the raising of
armed police forces, maintenance of crime records etc. The police in the states
are devised as an independent unit. In a vast country like India, policing being
shared between scores of independent units with no perspicaciously defined
mechanism of cooperation, the problem occurs of coordination and unity of
purpose in tackling challenges that cover more then one of these units. There are
too many challenges such as these in the increasingly complex society of India.
Except for the sense of national unity, there is nothing common among these
units to approach the gauntlets with a common cause. Even the common Indian
Police Service is unable to bring about a unity of purpose to policing throughout
India. This gives an impression of fragmentation in the Indian police. A
fragmented police cannot turn out work in full stream, owing to the waste by
leakage in the process of co-ordination between the fragmented pans. India must
consider devising a pollent unitary police administration at the centre with full
control over subordinate state and union territory police setups. This would

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avoid coordination problems and help policing to be more purposeful in

tackling challenges from the national perspective. It also makes available larger
resources from the national level for policing apart from strengthening the sense
of belonging to one police. This is necessary in the interests of the country and
its policing in the future.
STUDY AND RESEARCH IN POLICING
Policing is a field of specialized study. There is the need of in-depth study of
policing as a discipline, apart from research to improve policing functions. Police
administration is a distinct field with sui generis characteristics. The police
organisation with its hierarchical order, stiff discipline, nonesuch policing
characteristics, unique operational difficulties and functional modalities poses its
own challenges. These challenges must be met and superated more suo. This
requires the development of the subjects of police and policing as a distinct field
of intense study and research. Whatever was done in this field till now has not
sufficed and has contributed nothing to policing methods and style. Myriad
problems in the field of practical policing stare planners on the face, be these
problems of operational strategies, timing of the operations, procedural hurdles,
organizational planning, control techniques, information and feedback systems,
communication networks, effective supervision, leadership qualities, work
distribution, work measurement, job analysis or human relationships. Useful
study on and research into these subjects would make a momentous impact on
the style and effectiveness of policing in India. Such studies and research impart
respectability to police and policing by creating an intellectual dimension. The
academic interests work as stepping-stones in remodeling the police organisation
and redefining policing functions to create an effective police force.
MEASUREMENT OF POLICING
A major handicap in police administration is the difficulty posed in
measurement of policing. No tangible tool to measure police performance has
as yet been devised. The problem is peculiar to the fields of crime control and
security operations. The object of the organisation is preventing crimes fro being
committed and success of the policing can be measured only in relation to the
extent of the efforts being made to commit crimes, which are prevented. As the
factors of such an effort being unknown after the crimes are prevented,
effectiveness of the policing can never be measured. The results that meet the eye,
namely the successful protection of a sensitive target or the complete crime
prevention during a particular period can be the outcome for two different
reasons: either that none have attempted such malicho, in which case even the
least effective police could also have produced the same results or that an all-out
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major attempt to commit crime has been prevented, which could not have been
achieved by anything less than the first-rate policing. Here, the same results meet
the eye for two different dimensions of the policing, ipso facto rendering outcome
a factor not related to the quality of the policing. Measurement of the quality of
crime investigation and maintenance of order are also equally complex for
different reasons. Policing in these fields largely depends upon intangible factors
like luck, surroundings and the willing cooperation of the public. To superate
these problems of measurement of policing qualities, a police organisation
depends upon comparing developments in the same periods in preceding years.
This is an unscientific method and gives unsatisfactory results for various reasons.
The crime rate or other policing challenges do not remain static over time. These
depend upon population, complexity of the society, economic conditions,
moral values, quality of leadership, political conditions, prices, climate etc, none
of which develop from any predictable formula. The police perforce needs a
tool to measure policing quality as a control device. Until such a device is
invented, police administrators have to rely upon their subjective fancies to
measure and control policing and assess the work of their subordinates. Until a
scientific device is formulated, the heartburns and frustrations caused by erratic
measurement of work and policing qualities, wherein a few mealy-mouthed
smarties always comer accolades at the cost of efficient silent workers, will
continue to precipitate. A sufficiently efficient tool to measure policing qualities
is the first priority in the task of creating a new shape for the Indian police. The
success achieved in this field will decide the degree to which the Indian police can
shed its old shoddy image.
MANAGEMENT IN POLICING
For police administrators, knowledge of modern management principles
makes policing and police operations cheaper, effective and less demanding in
terms of time, place, manpower, equipments and other resources. The clinamen
to study and plan operations in terms of layout charts, time flow, span of control,
methods of programming of operations, motivational aspects, human
relationships, information flow, control methods, work analysis and
contingencies for emergencies must be ingenerate in policing whether it pertain
to raids, maintenance of order, crime control, crime investigation, intelligence
collection, security exercises or even quotidian police administration. Only the
pernickety exercise of management techniques will make police administration
meaningful, purposeful and useful in giving policing a direction and content. The
police cannot afford to sit back while others reap the behoofs of the latest tidings
in the field of management techniques.
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HOUSING AND OTHER FACILITIES

Policing is a risky profession that draws antagonism and hatred by its very
nature. It involves round-the-clock duties, often at odd hours, at odd places in
odd circumstances. Retaliation by criminals is a constant risk under which
policemen live. Their work constantly exposes them to danger. The very nature
of their duties necessitates their being treated on a different footing to others in
the government. The security of housing and other facilities being generously
available to them is de rigueur. Indeed the spirit of the ancien regime remains
undisturbed in matters of housing facilities for the police. However, a much
more liberal attitude in providing housing and other facilities to the police is
necessary to strengthen the Indian police and make policing more effective.
REORGANISATION OF POLICE
The last three decades saw a tremendous expansion in the Indian police. For
lack of an organizational plan and the foresight to assess the future demands of
policing, an erratic growth has resulted. Organizational sensibilities like
workload, unity of control, accountability, functional conveniences, span of
control, and information flow are never given the attention they need in building
an organisation. As a result, while a few posts in the police organisation are
overburdened with work, there are many which sinecures without work or
accountability are. The lopsided growth of the organisation generated acute likes
and dislikes for various police jobs. This made postings in the police department,
a matter of haute politique and high business. Naturally, probity and objectivity are
sacrificed to give precedence to survival and protection of career interests.
Corruption flourished. This may not be the sole reason for the glissade of the
standards of policing. Yet, it is a major cause. Rationalization of the police
structure to bring a balance among various posts at the same rank would certainly
help to ameliorate the situation considerably. It would also help to eliminate the
wastage of government funds on unnecessary posts. The justification for the
creation of such de trop posts, that they fill slots to post unwanted elements, does
not hold ground in a no-nonsense and serious department like the police. A
systematic growth plan for balanced expansion is sine qua non if the police
department is to be of any relevance to the difficile tasks ahead.
PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE
Policing is a field where professional knowledge is perforce in use. What is
at issue is not only the knowledge of law and procedures but also a deeper insight
into their applications, necessary in diverse circumstances. A mind, alert to its
surroundings with an inexhaustible curiosity to know what is afoot and what is
the coup de fond of each development and its likely impacts on policing in general
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and the work at hand in particular, is sine qua non for perficient policing. This need
entails special efforts to update professional and general knowledge at all levels.
Though there are training programmes, including in-service training, in the Indian
police, these are lacking in substance and quality. They fail to impart the right
knowledge to trainees and induce attitudinal changes in them. The poor mental
makeup is a common failing at all police ranks in India. A lack of commitment
to work, either in actual performance or in supervision is the primary cause of
this failing. A healthy police setup must possess sound professional and general
knowledge at all levels, from the constabulary to the ranks of the Director
General: this is the number one priority.
TRAINING IN MARTIAL ART
The Indian police are not paying sufficient attention to the need for physical
prowess, sturdiness and skill in martial art. The need for attention to these factors
during recruitment, basic training and in-service challenges is tout a fait ignored.
A healthy and sturdy police requires healthy and sturdy men and officers, capable
of taking up gauntlets and defending themselves when exposed to
comminations. The need can be sidelined only at the risk of weakening the
organisation. The police are often required to defend themselves in
circumstances when unarmed and undefended. Policing involves performance
of tough and physically trying jobs that can only be performed when policemen
and police officers are physically and mentally fit. The police, aspiring to a bright
future, must attend to this need for its own good health with genuine seriousness.
POLICING THROUGH PEOPLE
The performance of the Indian police in utilizing the services of the public is
far from desirable. Most parts of the country are yet to avail of the services o the
people as special police officers, as is provided by police regulations to assist in
policing. Wherever the services are availed, the potential is not made use of to
the full. The system of village police officers also is yet to fledge to take off. The
use of people as traffic wardens to assist traffic police is limited to major cities
of India. No police can be tout a fait self-contained. Involving the public and
obtaining its cooperation in policing is a necessary art that needs to be carefully
cultivated for making policing a success story in India. There is no shortage of
people in the public who would volunteer their services. Only, the police must
open its doors to such services and organize a system to make such services really
effective and useful.
LACK OF PLANNING IN MODERNISATION
It is indubitable that neoteric communication, transport, weaponry, office
and other scientific systems arc musts for a feracious turnout of work in the
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police. Only modernization can equip the police for perficient action. The fact
is well realized in police circles sans an insight as to the what, where, how and whys.
The passion for modernization is not met with intellectual analysis of the needs
for modernization. The result is a spasmodic modernization without the logical
support to sustain modernization systems. This has resulted in enormous,
wasteful expenditures on mal a propos gadgetry. India is yet to develop to
machinery to assess the needs of modernization in the police and to devise
techniques to speed up the process. India is yet to make full use of advanced
computer facilities for the policing work; computerization of fingerprints is yet
to reach a satisfactory phase. Use of helicopters for policing is as yet a distant
dream in India. Distant hearing and night watching devices are similarly
unknown.
RESPONSE TIME
The response time of Indian police to a crisis call is unduly long when
compared to international standards. Efforts to shorten it in Delhi and a few
other places where terrorist strikes made shocking impacts brought some
improvements. These are only exceptions. Otherwise, no serious thought is given
to the need for quick response time. The modernization programmes that
should pave the path for improving the response time, seldom attend to this
salient need. The Bangalore city police spent liberally in 1991 on modem
communication gadgets; but it did not better its response time even by the
fraction of a second. Instances of such wasteful expenditure on modernization
are available in other parts of the country also.
NEED OF SOUND HUMAN RELATIONSHIP
The current state of human relationships in Indian police does not bring credit
to the organisation. Relationships are brittle and mechanical without the edge of
human feelings. The relationship between different ranks turns out to be soft or
hard depending upon the contractual relationship established for mutual
advantage from time to time: it is rather a donor and recipient relationship while
soft and master and servant relationship while hard. There is no genuine human
concern and no sense of recognition of the other man as another human being
with more suo approach. The others human qualities, sui generis attributes and rare
gifts are balked as inconsequential trash. Rank differences superate other factors
in molding the brittle pattern of these relationships. This is equally true among
officers of the same rank. The model of bad human relationship within the police
bred an atmosphere of mutual suspicion in spite of an outward show of
belonging to the single family that the police are.

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Indian police leaders must think hard to decide whether the current model
of human relationship in the police is conducive to healthy policing or not. A
sound police organisation sprouts only on the terra firma of sound human
relationships between and within ranks, founded on genuine concern, mutual
respect, recognition, sympathy and understanding. Such relationship does not
perforce go against the police discipline and official command-obedience
functions. A sense of belonging and unity of purpose are spawned in the mind
not in a stiff hierarchical order. The hierarchical order only defines the
relationship that is created in the minds of the people. Good relationship
strengthens the hierarchical order by making the order willingly acceptable to all
and thus lubricating its working. A subtle mental bond that links all men in an
organisation is its greatest asset. A sense of recognition from others and the pride
of belonging create a happy atmosphere in the organisation and improve
efficiency and output by bringing-in the elements of co-operation and unity of
purpose. Sadly, this is just the reverse in the maledict Indian police. Here, human
relationships are vitiated. Mutual suspicion and antagonism are the rule. Men at
higher ranks revel in hurling the pride of subordinates while subordinates in turn
wait for the right time to wreak of revenge. In this atmosphere of antagonism
and under cuttings, the organisation and its objects suffer, its entire people suffer
and the country suffers. This is where India stands at present.
WARMING-UP OF POLICE RECRUITS
The period of initiation is the most important and impressionable period in
the career-life of fresh recruits to the police department. The process of
warming-up is based on the psychological needs of human nature. New entrants
must be handled with utmost care to give them confidence and a feeling of
belonging at the incipient stage itself. A sense of confidence and belonging to the
organisation and an ingenerate love and respect for the higher-ups are the
substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate discipline in a void
are like waiting for rain from the autumn sky. Indian police impresarios failed
to understand such finer nuances of administration when they copied the system
of the British Indian police. And so we now have a police system where discipline
is insisted on subordinates sans the conditions requisite for the discipline. The
recruits, who enter the fold with open sensibilities and high expectations, anon
wither after braving for a while the brusque and insensitive conduct of their
higher ranks. These recruits continue thereafter to be constant enemies of the
higher ranks and the department for which they must continue to work for the
next three to four decades. A police department constituted of such members,
thanks to the shabby approach of the insensitive higher ranks in this most
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impressionable period of the formers career-life, cannot turn out eximious

work. It is a tragedy that India neither spawned a police force of its own superior
values nor copied the police force of the British vintage in its entirety with its finer
points, but cultivated instead a burlesque of the rough and mediocre aspects of
both.
RECOGNITION AS A MOTIVATING TOOL
The success of a police organisation depends upon to what extent it creates
a sense of pride and dignity in its members including the constabulary, so that they
realize and recognize themselves as useful and responsible members of the police
outfit and endeavor to live up to the image. The goal can be achieved by proper
modulation of perks, reward-and-punishment policy and rank-to-rank
relationship. The approach must create an impression that whatever a police
official gets as perks, rewards, praise, good treatment, respect, censure or
punishment, has been earned by his swink and potential. This makes the
proceedings a part of his service and seity and thus helps him to identify with his
work and conduct and ultimately with the organisation. This brings him a sort
of recognition and makes him more responsible to his work and organisation.
This is a far cry from the simulacrum of what is actually happening in Indian
police. Recognition of good work as a rule is shied away from. Every behoof
is bestowed as a personal favour. Even a reward en regle in recognition of
eximious work is made to look like a favour. Meritorious and distinguished
medals too are divested of their distinction by being linked to seniority and not
actual merit. This is the reason why these medals carry no meaning within the
police organisation.
REMODELLING THE USE OF WELFARE FUNDS
Police forces administer welfare funds for the benefit of their members. The
current approach of disbursing money from these funds to needy applicants
needs to be revised in line with the need to arouse a sense of pride and dignity
even in receiving help from the establishment. Much thought has to go into this
aspect to make the welfare funds useful to them without giving the impression
of charity. If the funds go to them as their rightful share, they would be put to
better use than as a charitable contribution. A newly structured police for the new
age certainly requires a fresh approach to the utilization of police welfare funds.
NEEDS FOR RIGHT PEOPLE AT THE TOP
A job culture involutes of basic beliefs and objects of the organisation,
professional ethics and degree of commitment to the aspirations of the
organisation, as laid down by precedence and practice. To what results
precedence and practice mould the job culture decide the success or otherwise
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of the organisation. The decisions and conduct of those at the helm as the point
dappui of police circles substruct the lifelines of the organisation. It is important
that only right people reach the top. A headless organisation is better than one
headed by a degenerate weakling. This is why the policy of selection and
promotion at high levels plays a vital role in the growth of the organisation. In
a democratic age of self-seeking, short-term political leadership, where
sycophancy is the sole criterion for ascending the career ladder, the policy of
selection and promotion is misdight at best and motivatedly in the reverse gear
at worst, to the detriment of the growth and functioning of the organisation. All
those committed to the cause of police and effective policing must break the
trend and endeavor to provide a fresh lease of life for effective policing.
BAD MODELS AT HIGH LEVELS
There are myriad instances of unhealthy practices at the highest levels on the
current Indian police scene. A scoundrel who retired as the police chief of a
southern state of India was taken to court with his polio-struck wife on the eve
of his retirement from service in 1990 by a prominent social worker for
defrauding the public and a spastic society by defalcation of huge amounts of
money collected by sale of charity entertainment tickets in the name of a spastic
society. It is a different story that the alleged escroc succeeded in silencing the social
worker through police pressure and ensured that the case fell through for lack
of evidence. The point is to what sad levels men reaching high ranks in this
maledict independent India can stoop to make a few dirty bucks. Fortunately,
the nithing, in spite of dance afore men who count in politics, could
not get an extension of service ayont his superannuation in 1990. Such
instances of mauvaise sujet at high ranks abound in Indian police scene.
Discipline is a potential uniting force of the police organisation. It defines all
parameters of the force and makes its hierarchical order meaningful and
purposeful, the command-obedience relationship sharp-edged and functional
conduct pernickety. This pollent instrument devised as an esemplastic factor for
the police force during the British era has now become a demonic evil in the
Indian situation and gorges its vitality. It is used as a cover by the people in higher
ranks to indulge in wrongdoing and to silence the conscientious few in the lower
ranks from protesting. It is also a gleg cover to promote the interests of juniors
who support their evil deeds by sycophancy and personal loyalty; and to suppress
those juniors of inner strength, individual pride, independent mind and argute
conscience. A subtle hatred for superior qualities of the subordinates is patent in
the Indian police force of the post-independent vintage. The juniors who are
perspicaciously inferior in intellectual qualities and other superior attributes are
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valued and helped to superate others on the career ladder. Perchance, an innate
inferiority complex in police leadership and a consectaneous fear of weaknesses
being excoriated before those lower in their ranks bother them au fond. Another
farce carried out behind the facade of discipline is that of an officer forcing a
subordinate to meet personal ends ranging from getting a regular supply of
vegetables to even forcing to marry his daughter or wifes sister. Here, police
ranks display exceptional unity of purpose in helping a colleague to corner the
subordinate who shows the hardihood to go against his seniors desire. In the
process, foursquare youngsters in the organisation drop out or are cornered and
those impair to higher tasks scale the ladder of the organisation, thus weakening
the organisation ab intra. There are myraid paradigms of such fearless officers
who acted upon their consciences and lost their seniority through catenated false
annual reports.
PUBLIC IMAGE OF POLICE
What the Indian police inspire in the public is fear and hatred, not trust, respect
and love. This is the greatest single failing of the Indian police. A police force thus
feared and hated is irrelevant in a democracy. The argument that fears is a
necessary constituent in policing is not based on the right understanding of
human psychology and the basic tenets of policing work. The police do stand
on a different footing from the general public while exercising policing powers.
The different footing perforce is based on trust, respect, love and consectaneous
healthy awe, not on fear and hatred. The image incorpsed with healthy awe is
more lasting and pollent than that based on hateful fear. While the former inspires
genuine cooperation and willing subjection to police authority, the latter only
forces such subjection till the fear lasts. An argument advanced in favour of fear
in policing is that the strains of fear are deep in the very nature of policing. This
again is based on a mendacious notion, about policing and belike on the
preposterous practices of the present police outfit. The police are not
synonymous with fear. A smiling and helpful police is the model of democratic
policing. The police are not the enemy of the people, especially in a democracy.
Policing involves enforcement of order for the good of many, which may
sometimes involve inconvenience to a perverted few. The job if performed
rightly must win trust, love and respect of the hoi polloi for the police. Only the
misuse of power and a supercilious approach to the exercise of the powers
would antagonize the plebeian and earn his implacable haired. The exercise of
police powers with absolute humility is quite possible. An approach of service
to the general public renders the exercise of police powers, a sensible and

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circumspect task and avoids harshness. The performance inspires trust, love and
respect and not fear and hatred. Only if people learn that police really care for
their well-being, percase, no other government agency would be as loved and
respected as the police. Only the police should show its good intentions and
convince the public about its trustworthiness. Nothing the Indian police do now
helps to create this image. It is high time that serious efforts are made in this
direction.
What is basically required for the Indian police is a tough, mature and nononsense image in place of the present fear. The police organisation must create
an impression of strength of character and infrangible probity. Only from this
height, can the police discharge its sacred duties of protecting and maintaining
order in national life. This is now a far cry from the invious misdight of the Indian
police. The leap from the current glidder field to what should be is not an
impossible feat. Each step ahead must be carefully laid to make steady, albeit
slow progress towards the difficile goal. It is an attempt worth making. It is an
opuscule worth doing.
NEED OF SOUND MIND AT HIGHER LEVELS
A factor that seriously affects the morale of a disciplined force like the police
is that of men affected by psychological disorders of inferiority complex,
holding posts from where they can affect the career of the subordinates. This is
a very serious situation where distorted minds hold reigns of the career of
thousands of subordinates with many at very senior levels. The mental disorder
brings a psychological imbalance by which the people in high ranks learn to
interpret subordinates normal conduct perversely as surquedry; normal
reporting or explanation appears like an intrigue. The extra modum fear of
insecurity, inspired by the feeling of inferiority is so pollent that it does not permit
cunctation in striking back at the source of the commination with all strength at
disposal. This makes retaliation an ever-pensile threat to the career of the
subordinates. And the threat, sine prole, is true in the police. This makes people of
sound mind, a must in responsible positions. For an organisation like the police,
the need of a sound mind is more basic than any other faculty.
The inferiority complex seriously manifests when the pusillanimous person
troubled with the disorder is newly posted to a responsible position after
marcescere in a sinecure post for a long time. The metabasis from the void to the
strains and straints of responsibilities breaches his inner confidence and the
disorder of nettlesome suspicion on everything around raises its ugly head. There
is any number of such examples in the Indian police.

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SALVAGING OPERATION
Clearing the cobwebs from the entrails of the Indian police can salvage the
situation. 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 postdemocratic era. They corrupted the police atmosphere, set wrong precedences,
encouraged self-indulgence, pulled down its no-nonsense tough image and
reduced it to its present cadaverous existence. These elements should be sidelined
to absorb men of probity to refurbish and rebuild the police setup. Only really
capable impresarios can pull the Indian police out from its present fix.
The future of India as a country depends upon the strengths and weaknesses
of its police. Defence forces are relevant to the existence of India insomuch as
defending its borders and protecting the system of government. But the
relevance of the police is more meaningful, for, here, the very existence of India
as a nation is an issue. The significance of the police in the survival of the nation
is often forgotten somewhere between the width of the civil administration and
the depth of the defence forces. A highly competent and disciplined police force,
percase, is the greatest asset of any country. Every patriotic Indian must aspire
to that. The police must be powerful. En attendant, it must be a disciplined and
committed force, a no-nonsense, tough outfit. It saves the country from all
disasters; it supports the administration in civil rule and works as its watchdog.
It works as a subsidiary force in support of the military during war. If need be,
it can run the administration when civil rule breaks down and function as an
armed force when the military fails the country. The importance of this great tool
of governance is yet to be duly recognized. It is high time that it is done now and.
the Indian police is exemed from its nauseating subculture and gets a fresh life
of vitality and strength. It is really heartrending to see the swinging police in its
present mauvais ton, especially for an insider who is a part of this great institution,
entrusted with the high objects of protecting public life. Yes, something should
be done to save the police. The question is who should begin the process, and
where, when and how? Who will bell the demonic cat to bring it to its senses?

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I have made a ceaseless effort
Not to ridicule, not to bewail,
Not to scorn human actions,
But to understand them.
These words of Spinoza give expression to the subjacent current of human
responses that constitute humanism that as the common denominator of all
natural human activities breeds an environment of facile fusion of hearts and
minds wherein sprout further causes for human evolution as manifested in
diverse fields of human activities including policing.
Humanism involves a sense of belonging to mankind with all its qualities and
limitations that breeds an intense urge to respond to the joys and sufferings of
other beings. The chief attributes of humanism are a sixth sense that
accommodates and cooperates in the common interests of mankind and an
uncanny power to perceive the self as an indivisible part of the larger scheme of
the universe in the pattern of Atma imbibed in Paramatma. It is a concept that
instills kindness and tenderness in an individual, elegance and classicism in a
culture, softness and civility in a civilization and concern and participation in a
society. It is a transpicious crucible wherein the negative discharges of evolution
crumble to be transformed into efficient propellants of natural evolution.
Humanism is an eerie solvent that causes depravity and selfishness to
effloresce as the beatitude of kindness and tenderness. It ennobles a caractere with
a sense of levity and concinnity, substructed in its environment and leaves an
organisation in excelsis of its potentials. Humanism renders the organisation
germane to human activities either as a service-oriented unit or as an
establishment of human interplay by rendering it sensitive to the joys and
sufferings of human beings and thereby making it responsive to their needs and
efforts. William Wordsworth in Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Titem
Abbey beautifully brings out the salubrious, mellowing effects of humanism.
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

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A presence that disturbs me, with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.
Though policing is a human service au fond, its methods are strikingly inhuman
in India due to poor leadership and a failure of our planners to tread pari passu
with the amble in the clime of man management and policing techniques. The
tragedy of the Indian police is that its means and ends do not amate. The
querimony that the feral methods of the Indian police are more contemptible
and anti-social than the criminal acts they are supposed to control cannot be
dismissed glibly as inaccurate in prevailing circumstances. Our police system has
grown of late to be a monster deprived of all strains of humanism by its perennial
exposure to the inhuman methods of both the criminals and policing. It is true
that association moulds character. The tenor of immane policing methods
inextricably obfuscates and dislimns the strains of humanism in rerum natura. The
issue can be dealt on two fronts; adopting the latest developments in police
techniques to make it a more civilized operation and shaping the police
environment to make it less sensitized to inhuman exposures. As the police
leaders themselves are victims of this infaust mould of mind, tremendous
organizational efforts may be necessary to refract the fallouts and reinstate
humanism in the police. Should the police conform to standards of humane
comportment and methods, policing would become a meaningful and relevant
service to society.
The test of the Police as a humanized organisation is its acceptance by the
society as couthie associate, so that no child is scared of hearing the name of a
policeman and no agrestic folks take to their heels at the mere sight of one. It is
a wonder how people manage to accept the police-whom they perceive as an
embodiment of bestiality, incivility and inanity-as guardians of their life, honour
and property. The Indian police have cohabited long enough with its disrepute.
A decision anon t furbish its image as a humanized setup though late, will not be
intempestive as policing is as yet far from having its relevance to society luxated
though its inhuman methods are fast eating up its credibility. Its leaders cannot
afford any more the exuberance of complacency if the police must stand up to
its expectations as the peace-keeper of society and assert to resile to its deeper
human strains. The process of showing the police its roots that are obfuscated
by the strokes of time and its own working methods must begin anon. The
wherewithal of affecting the transformation is varied and covers such disparate
avenues as recruitment, training, environment, exposures, man management,
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policing methods, uniforms, organisation, criminal laws, living and working

conditions, work pressure, image, public relation techniques etc. A police leader
should effectively cover all these aspects in his plan should he wish to see his police
humanized.
POLICE RECRUITMENT
The human aspect is the fulcrum of policing. Policing is primarily latitant
human interaction in the perennial luctation to safeguard the security and rights
of the common man and the human quality in the force determines effectiveness
and vitality of the performance. Human resources policy as a device of selecting
human stuffs needs careful handling at the highest level to attract right people to
the fold.
The present Indian environment of ruthless concours, impeached with a
degringolade of values has made human resources management a farce. The
wherewithals of human resources management like recruitment, promotions,
transfers, rewards, punishments, etc. are no more employed for maximum
benefit of the organisation. Self-interests have undermined quality and character
and organizational interests are subordinated to personal behoofs. Though this
proclivity is prevalent in all fields in India, its adverse effects are kenspeckle in the
police organisation as the line-system of the organisation makes the ingenuity of
the human resources management a factor having direct and immediate bearing
on the efforts of humanizing the police.
An earnest effort from the highest level to infuse the creme de la creme,
characterized by genuine human stuff, probity and commitment may be the
foremost need of the police. The prevalence of police administration over
general administration in the survival of a nation as a democratic and orderly
country may necessitate changes in recruitment policy. This is to ensure that only
those with a deep natural humane disposition step in to the police so that the
arrogance and savagery, bred by its environment can do little harm and the tenue
of humanism will continue alongside policing work.
PROPER TRAINING
The chief cause of the police seldom being humane in India is its ineffective
training facilities. In spite of adequate infrastructures available for police training
in India, these centers largely fail to offer quality to the training to humanize a
recruit adequately to stand up to the challenges of the temulence of the arrogant
and feral environment that policing breeds. An overhaul of the extant training
facilities in terms of quality, content and character in favour of humanized
policing practices is inevitable to keep the police excubant against the depravity
of the modem society. The psychology faculty of the centre should endeavor to
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build character and strengthen human fibers. The training centers should lay
emphasis on an attitudinal change in the recruits and develop the skills of
humanized policing. The training centers should give the impression of being
temples, dedicated to humanizing the police apart from actually being so.
EXPOSURE TO ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES
C. Kluckhohm and H. A. Murray said, Personality is the totality of a mans
knowledge, motives, values, beliefs, goal-seeking patterns and psychological
makeup of an individual and include environmental and hereditary factors. The
substratum of individuality is molded of complex building blocks derived ab
extra and ab intra to the persona. The same view is supported by Argyris when
he says, Behaviour occurs as an interaction between organism and
environment in the simulacrum of Prakrithi devolving on Purusha to create the
Universe. The environmental aspect as a wherewithal, open to police leaders,
calls for designs that can humanize the police. The environment, gravid with
human comportances like tenderness, elegance, civility and concern, impinges
upon its subjects to make them conform to its influences. A police leader can
humanize his force by exposing it to those influences.
The strenuous nature of policing hardens the police in spirit and mind. A
measure of creative activities like literary interactions, exposure to poetry and fine
arts, musical performances etc besprent in the precious spare-time between
policing hours intenerates the man behind the police facade and resiles him to his
natural human tendencies. Artistic activities counter pose the damage done to the
man by the role-play of policing and open him up to the halcyon clime of an ideal
and imaginary world, far removed from the hard and brusque realities of police
life and make his life tanto uberior.
EXPOSURE TO SOCIAL SERVICE ACTIVITIES
The exposure of the police to social service activities is the celestial surgeon
who enraces human mellowness and dignity to the police. Interaction with
people from the plane of oblation sinks the policeman from his inflated self to
the roots of his genuine feelings and concerns and conditions him to respond to
the vicissitudes of the environment. It opens up a new vista of feelings and
experiences that make life richer and meaningful au reste sensitization of the self.
The social service activities, as a form of servitude to mankind and a voluntary
involvement with the people, absterge the temulence of power and abraid
latitant human tendencies in the policeman to bring to the surface his pristine self.
It is left to the police leaders to include opulent social service schemes in their
human resources development programmes if their force is to be genuinely
humanized.
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BETTER TREATMENT OF SUBORDINATES

Rogers in On Becoming A Person says, The more fully the individual is
understood and accepted, the more he tends to drop the false fronts with which
he has been meeting life, and the more he tends to move in a direction which is
forward. An atmosphere of respect, dignity and fairness resiles his self to its
pristine charm of innocence and couthie disposition. Au contraire, the strains of
humiliation, contempt and scorn drive him to catharize his frustrations and
indignities on both those lower in the hierarchy and the members of the public
who come to his doors au desespoir for redressal at the cutting-edge level of the
policing. The spite and the feral indignities he inflicts on those at his mercy would
be pro rata to those he is subjected to by his leaders.
A policeman shabbily instated in his organisation develops a poor self-image.
Solley and Murphy analyze this when they say He perceives, responds, acts and
communicates in terms of his complex self-image by trying to be consistent with
it; too negative a self-image leads to adjustment mechanisms. A policeman,
proud of his self and work is created by respect to his individual dignity that
develops a confidence about humane strains subjacent in his person and dares
him to betray the human responses that are so natural to his entrails and make
the Police environment in the country besprent with the milk of human attributes
like kindness, tenderness, elegance and civility.
EXEMPLARY PUNISHMENTS FOR INHUMAN ACTS
Motivation and deterrence are opposite facets of the same coin that pays for
attitudinal change. Deterrence, although an extra force to the system, is an
effective wherewithal in materializing mobility in an intended direction as an
addendum to disparate motivation factors. Efforts to humanize the police call
for the apposite employment of deterrence to inhumane acts by way of
exemplary punishments.
The prevalence of means over the ends should be made the cardinal principle
of policing. The ends, however eximious they be, should not find recognition b
the police if the means adopted are mean and deplorable. All inhuman acts by
the police should be met with heavy punishments and an atmosphere of social
ostracisation of such elements should be created in the force. The realization that
the police are ordinary people and no criminal act committed in discharge of
official duties would extricate them from the ensuing liability should be made
crystal clear.
An ingenerate sense of regard for people, oblivious to their locus standi in the
social ladder, can be generated in the police by installing a mortal fear of inhuman
acts through exemplary punishments.
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ELIMINATION OF VIOLENT METHODS FROM POLICING

The fact that policing is a human service au fond does not justify adoption of
feral methods in policing. Adoption of violence and savagery by the police gives
legitimacy to such methods in the public eye and thus weakens the orderly fabric
of society. Violent methods like employment of third degree in interrogation to
obtain quick results, in preference to the tedium of swinkt investigation, weaken
the image of the police, already weighed under by pressures of work.
Adoption of scientific methods in policing helps in humanizing the police. It
saves the police from the antilogy of committing criminal acts to meet the ends
of justice. Al efforts at humanizing the police prove infructuous until the police
continue to be at the mercy of violent methods for results.
A genuine effort at humanizing the police should begin with the adoption of
modem policing techniques and scientific methods to instill sophistication and
accuracy in policing. Old habits die hard. Vigorous efforts to mundify old nasty
habits should find priority as a substruction on which the edifice of efforts of
humanizing the police should be built.
ELIMINATION OF CONSTABULARY
The constabulary that forms the backbone and cutting-edge of the Indian
policing and which wields a real authority over the populace is a lowly paid,
modestly educated and non-elite mass of uniformed workers. The authority they
wield makes them fearsome while their low status in society prevents them from
commanding empathy, respect and legitimacy. Authority sans empathy, respect
and legitimacy decidedly proves to be a deadly substructure that breaks the
conduit between the organisation and the public and renders the organisation
dyspathetic to the aspirations of the humanity at large. The constabulary with its
intramural enlightenment and responsibility finds the intricacies of civil and comme
il faut comportance rather peregrine to its taste.
In the circumstances, the rank of sub-inspector with its present level of
minimum education and status in society should form the cutting-edge level with
no policing powers and responsibilities devolved beneath that level. The conduct
at the cutting-edge of the police decides its image because of its perennial
interaction with the general public. Sub-inspectors as the cutting-edge level
functionaries must perform the bulk of police tasks like beat patrolling, station
house duties, preliminary interrogations and other investigation assistance that
brings the police to actual contact with the public. The officials with their
education and social status can be more civil and courteous to the general public.

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CHANGE OF UNIFORM
A change in the existing police uniform is an issue worth assessing as a device
to humanize the police force. The present khaki uniform inspires a mood of
arrogance and savagery by its psychological association with power and
repression. Change in uniform to a friendly and soothing shade may prove to
be for the better in intenerating the psyche of the police. The strategy in selecting
a new uniform is to imbibe a sense of cleanliness, levity, balance and probity and
to inspire a couthie disposition in the force.
CHANGE IN CRIMINAL LAWS
A few glaring anomalies and erroneous provisions of the extant criminal laws
in India contributed to the easy release of criminals from the clutches of the law
in many cases and the harassment of innocent persons by the police in some other
cases. The loopholes in the criminal laws have to be plugged if crime
administration is to be humanized and command a semblance of public respect
and confidence. Intelligent adaptations in the extant criminal laws to interdict
inhuman policing methods and provide wherewithal for facile crime
administration are the needs of the hour.
The policeman or the judicial officer under whose custody a person is kept
under detention must be made responsible by name for the timely release of the
detenue with the provision that if detention exceeds the period provided by law,
the concerned officer is liable for proceedings for the unlawful detention sans the
privilege of exemptions for acts performed in official color. Also, all cases of
violence and physical outrage committed in police custody should be made
punishable with exemplary penalties by special legislations. Such extreme
measures may bring an end to shocking inhumane acts committed in the
similitude of policing in some quarters and save the Indian police from acute
public resentment.
The current bail provisions of Indian criminal law are a source of acute
embarrassment to police officers with criminals arrested by them after weeks or
months of stupendous efforts being let off by the judiciary on bail only to
facilitate them to jump the bail. All discretions with police and judiciary regarding
bail should be taken away with only a select few offences of enormous gravity
mad non-bailable. This will restrict both the police and the judiciary from
showing favors to some criminals as quid pro quo and bring mechanical accuracy
to bail provisions. This measure may be found a path-breaker in preventing the
misuse of criminal laws and the inhuman play of favors and disfavors to
criminals.

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CIVIL LIBERTY CELLS

External controls must walk pari passu with ingenerate encraty in the act of
self-disciplining in view of the human propensity to unwittingly stray from the
chosen path. Institution of civil liberty cells in each district and metropolitan city
as advisory conseil to the police chief of the region with local civil liberty
champions as its members to draw attention to specific instances of inhuman
conduct by subordinate officers would meet the need of control ab extra to keep
the police on pernoctation against inhuman comportment. The civil liberty cell
should be a dynamic part of the police administration in the region and its
observations should set in motion a process of verification and peremptory
action. Though subjecting police to the scrutiny of an outside setup may appear
a retrograde measure, it helps the assuefaction of the policing methods to human
conduct.
BETTER SERVICE CONDITIONS
People can afford the luxury of humaneness when they are insulated from the
quotidian diversions of their occupational hazards. A delectable service
atmosphere mellows their responses to those around them. They begin to see
the world in a better light, in conformity with the atmosphere around them and
try to share these pleasant feelings with those they come in contact with. The levity
of the environment land the absence of strains from the service-front facilitates
their opening-up to give vent to their latitant human contents.
An effort to humanize the police cannot ignore the need to improve service
conditions to make the police proud to be enraced in the vocation. The sense of
contentment generated by the service atmosphere devolves to the public that
interacts with the police. This interaction between the police and the public can
be a sound substruction for humane policing.
BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS
A reasonably good standard of living helps the police to rise above the
physical and security need-levels to social and higher need-levels in the needhierarchy outlined by McGregor and have the mental space for wider interests
like human concerns of kindness, tenderness, elegance and civility. A low living
standard retards the police image and esteem in society.
It is necessary to make the police financially bein by adequately compensating
for the risks and hazard factors of their jobs to attract the best men to its fold
apart from securing them against financial distractions. A feeling of condign
compensation and contentment is certain to raise the police above physical and
security need-levels to give free expression to natural human tendencies.

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LIGHTER WORK
All creations in their fraicheur and natures bounty are kind and tender and
elegant. The strains of the environment cause inquietude in natures balance and
leads to the obfuscation of a few precious sheens from its innards. It manifests
in loss of human factors in man and his mental space turns intenible of human
qualities by environmental strains such as work-pressures.
The Indian police are weighed down with an impossible quantum of
responsibilities and tasks. This work-pressure adversely affects the mental
balance apart from depriving those tasks from the attention due. It is impossible
to expect a man bogged down with heavy responsibilities and tasks to spare his
time for the niceties of human qualities.
An important measure in humanizing the police is to scale down the workpressure on it to a bearable level. An element of levity in work makes the work
environment dulcet and provides an adequate mental space to devolve on the
exuberances of human comportations.
EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS
The propensity of weighing the police with the enforcement of all types of
legislations has become a major hazard to effective policing. It is emphatically so
with social legislations which pass out of our legislative house sans cohibition.
These progressive measures are inherently controversial in nature and their
enforcement by the police weakens its credibility as an agency of serious business
and peremptory order. It is plauditory to conceive of the police as a vehicle of
progressive measures. In the process, however, the police are certain to put both
its credibility and professionalism in jeopardy as these social legislations lack the
depth and gravity required to enforce them. Assiduous enforcement may be
perceived as inhuman acts of high-handedness and harassment of certain sections
of the society. It is not in the interest of the process of humanizing the police to
expose it to civil contecks that are gravid with the malengine of expropriating
from all those concerned from human concerns. The exclusion of social
legislations from
the ambit-of normal police work will save the police organisation from the
embarrassment of handling issues for which it is not equipped either mentally or
professionally or organizationally. This measure will release the police
organisation from unwarranted pressures that add to the dehumanization
process and also enhances its legitimacy as the guardian of order and security of
human interests.

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EXPOSURES TO PUBLIC RELATIONS TECHNIQUES

Though efforts have been en train to ameliorate the image of the Indian police
for a long time, nothing substantial could be achieved due to amateurish
handling. The present Indian police managers have their image development
wherewithal limited to issuing occasional press statements while image
development has become a highly advanced field of specialization with perennial
scope for further advancements. In view of the considerable significance of the
image for successful police operations, the wherewithal of image building in the
police is required to be updated with the latest techniques, applied by
professionals in the field.
It does not suffice if the police are humanized; the police also should appear
humanized. While public relations professionals can handle the job from the
organizational level, an insight to the police about the rudiments of public
relations is sine qua non if it is to appear humanized to the public eye. This
necessitates the exposure of the police to the latest public relations techniques at
regular intervals to imbibe the skill of civility in interacting with the public.
IN-SERVICE IMAGE
The proclivity for role-play is a major driving force in the process of
motivation. People who enter a new setup, look to their new environment for
the role they should assume? And the setup renders them homo colons in conformity
to its own image. People joining a humanized organisation play the role of
humaneness to fulfill their esurient urge to identify with the setup. The in-service
image of an organisation is a powerful springboard that sets it to actuate that
image.
An in-service image as a humane setup is de rigueur if humanizing the police
is to grow as a tradition. The very reputation of the police as a humane setup limits
the options of the insiders to act antilogous to its reputation and thus exert an
invisd pressure to rise to the expectations of the organisation that owns them. The
process of building a humanized image ab infra requires the assistance of skeely
image-building technicians and adroit operations by police leaders. This forms
the desinent and vital stage in humanizing the police.
McGregor identifies man as rational-emotive. inextricably interwoven and
defines motivation as an emotional force. According to Irving Sarnoff
motivation is an internally operative tension-producing stimulus that provokes
the individual to act in such a way as to reduce the tension. Plato traces the origin
of mans behaviour to knowledge from the head as he identified prominently
in politicians, emotion from the blood as identified prominently in soldiers and
desire from the stomach as identified prominently in businessmen. MoDougall
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in Instinct Theory of Hormic Psychology speaks about sensory, motivational

and emotional aspects of behaviour. He says that environmental situations
provide the stimuli necessary to arouse a particular behaviour in a cognitive
(sensory) aspect; goal-directed behaviour is caused by the conative (motivational)
aspect while an affective (emotional) aspect arouses its own behaviour. Man
should be approached from two levels inter alia for an attitudinal change from
conviction, which according to Woolbert, is an appeal to reason, and
persuasion which is an appeal to emotions. The role of police leaders in
humanizing the police lies in emotionally integrating it with humanistic causes by
esoteric organizational moves to supervene a rational appeal to conviction by
training and creation of environments in policing where a man is treated as a man
imprimis in spite of all his foibles or strengths.
Humanistic propensities in a hierarchical setup like the police should permeate
from above should the organisation be humanized and its lower strata identify
it with their organizational self. The police leaders should set standards of human
comportment for others in the organisation to make it the substruction of
organizational behaviour.
Policing is an exercise revolving around the fulcrum of humanism while
humanism is the foundation on which the edifice of policing should stand.
Policing is a crime sans human concerns to support it. The infaust polarization of
dulcet human propensities from nefandous policing activities in the present
police setup is a serious organizational malady that renders the very policing
system of India counter-productive and as a perpetuator of licensed crimes.
Policing powers are a trust invested in the police for exercise in the general
interests of the people. The police lose all its claims to power, the moment it sinks
its concerns for people and its policing activities become depravity in purls
naturalibus. Humanism is the ineluctable other side of the policing. Rather,
policing is the negative discharges de rigueur to the upward thrust of human
interests. The Indian policing with its obfuscating backfire sans the upward thrusts
of human concerns may sink in the Bay of Bengal some day unless its leaders shed
their indolence to vitalize the police with genuine human qualities.

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OF THE POLICE
It is Indias good fortune that its fabric of law and order withstood the
onslaught of growing complexity of the Indian society lest fragile is its system of
policing. The fact that the police systems in a few neighboring countries of Asia
and Africa are worse cannot be a solace as the political, social and economical
structures forming the cornerstones of those countries have tout a fait different
backgrounds and value systems from ours. India is a crucible wherein the
dynamics and relevance of democracy in the third world are experimented with.
The Indian police system must necessarily meet the latitant aspirations of the
democracy in fulfilling its desinent objective of maintaining internal order arid
security. This dimension added to the problems of policing in India. The Indian
polity confronts its police with ever-greater challenges while affording it an
increasingly limited wherewithal to do so. The Indian police system dodders
while taken on ride by the shocks of the growing complexity of the Indian society
and its relevance to society is luxated in the seemingly unending luctation for
relevance. The tenor of the setback lies in the failure to foresee and continuously
keep the system one step ahead.
The hazard of the Indian-police lies in this immobility of its organizational
structure. The existing police system is utterly devoid of any adjustment
mechanism that keeps it relevant to the zeitgeist. A time-to-time review and
concomitant updating of the police organisation become sine qua non the
circumstances. A systematic study of the policing in India with an adequate
pernoctation to screen the latest researches and findings in relevant fields of social
and political systems, science and technology in reorienting the police
organisation and administration is an essential parameter in the vital exercise.
A police setup worth its salt should meet the specific needs of the policing.
The police setup must necessarily be raucle in its frame to be capable of
absorbing the shocks to which it would often be exposed. Secondly, motive
factors should be substructed in the body of the organisation as sound
motivation alone can make policing a purposeful activity. This should be

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reinforced with external motive factors that can be infused to the organisation
e re nata. Thirdly, the system should be organized so as to generate optimism and
confidence. Another important aspect that should weigh in evolving an effective
police organisation is evolving a mechanism whereby every police officer or unit
is put in charge of a specific job matching his or its competence and aptitude. An
element of levity should be brought to policing so that the work in hand can be
attended to with genuine involvement by each police officer. Another strategic
principle of a healthy police organisation is having absolute faith and giving full
responsibilities to subordinates with a concomitant reward and punishment
system that follow at the heels. Any attempt to disturb the balance of faith, full
responsibility and reward and punishment system is certain to fell the
organisation into desuetude. The extant conception of collective responsibility
through a chain of command has gone passe by its propensity to demotivate the
real workers due to the corrupt ambitions of those at higher levels in the chain
of command. Policing has grown of late to be such an independent field of
specialisation that it is touts de force impossible for a mortal being to be proficient
in even a single aspect of policing. It is rather a folly to fancy a police officer as
being able to handle all aspects of policing though at different times. Hence, the
need of specialization-oriented policing. The present managerial world is
increasingly realizing the importance of human resources as organizational
inputs. Unless all-out efforts are made to inhaust to police the creme de la creme of
the country with exceptional attributes of probity, intelligence and commitment
and impart eximious and purposeful training to bring out the best of each, no
efforts at updating the organisation can bring about a sempiternal
transformation in the setup. The fact that policing can be successful only with
popular cooperation focuses the attention of the police organisation on the needs
of building up its image. Although efforts are already afoot towards building up
the image of the police, the depths of the possibilities are yet to be fully explored
and exploited. A scientific approach in this score will make policing tanto uberior.
Also, the scope for scholarly and intellectual activities in policing will make
policing multi-dimensional and add to its effectiveness. The fremit reception
given to intellectual activities in some quarters of policing may not go down too
well with the future police planners. The future police organisation and
administration should cater to the need of intellectual activities.
The present police organisation and administrative system have to be
overhauled in the near future as the ineffectiveness of the extant system becomes
increasingly obvious with the flaws in the edifice starting to gape wider. The areas
wherein restructuring may be desirable and the thrusts sine qua non to stuff the
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hiatus valde deflendus to have a featous police setup, quite capable of facing the
challenges of the future are discussed tout court below.
EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS
The proclivity of weighing the police with reinforcement of all types of
legislations has become a major hazard to effective policing. While the
proliferation of legislations in independent India made it impossible even to keep
track of their numbers, it is senseless to expect the police as being able to enforce
them all. The stupendous task of enforcing these legislations adversely affects the
effectiveness of the police and corrodes its credibility. This is emphatically so with
social legislations which pass out of our legislative houses sans cohibition. These
progressive measures are inherently controversial in nature and their
enforcement by the police weakens its credibility as an agency of serious business
and peremptory order. It is plauditory to conceive of the police as a vehicle of
progressive measures, but in the process, is certain to put both its credibility and
professionalism into jeopardy as the social legislations lack depth and gravity to
enforce them and assiduous enforcement may ricochet as an outcry of
harassment and high-handedness. It is not in the interest of the country to expose
its police to such civil contecks and suffer it thereby.
India can have an independent social policing system under the social welfare
ministry to which police officers with a flair for progressive measures may be
deputed. The social policing system as a professional enforcement agency of the
social welfare ministry can do an effective job in enforcing progressive social
legislations with all their nuances, by fully devolving on it while saving the police
organisation from the embarrassment of handling issues to which it is not
equipped either mentally, professionally or organizationally. This measure will
exeme the police organisation from unwarranted pressures and enhances its
legitimacy in handling serious security and law and order issues.
SPECIALISATIONS IN POLICING
The growth of police functions as adnated to present life-style of increasing
complexity is enormous of late with policing slinking to the vitals of all streaks
of social and nonsocial living. Policing has become a high-tech affair these days
with scopes for further advancements. Each major activity of policing like
maintenance of order, investigation of crimes, collection of intelligence and
security-operations have assumed such an independent status of nonesuch
expertise and professionalism that these fields being inhered is neither desirable
nor feasible. Nor in the circumstances, does shifting a functionary from one field
of expertise to the other help his overall performance. Anfractuosity in any one
of these fields of specialization for life is becoming a requisite as time goes by.
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The futuristic policing of India must have its subordinate police as

professionals in a given field of specialization, say maintenance of order, crime
investigation, intelligence collection or security operation with synergy
manifesting only at higher levels. So, India may have independent law and order
police, detective police, special police and security police, each separately
recruited and trained for professionalism and expertise in their respective fields.
Officers from all these specialized fields should be eligible to rise t general
policing at higher levels on the basis of a pro rata quota system for promotions.
PARALLEL CRIME ADMINISTRATION
The increased preoccupation of the police with law and order and security
issues in view of the growing cataclysmic activities in the country has adversely
affected effective, crime administration of late. Police stations have become
registering stations as far as crime administration is concerned. The time of the
local police is fordone with immediate issues of law and order and V.I.P. security,
and in the process, crime investigation has become a casualty. The process may
further deteriorate as security and law and order problems increase in coming
years. Neither the crime staff at subordinate levels nor the supervisory staff at
district and higher levels, in the melee, has the will or the resources to divert to
crime investigation while the crime rate in the country is assuming dangerous
proportions.
Crime investigations should not be allowed to suffer because of disorder and
insecurity in the country, as otherwise, a vicious circle may develop wherein
disorder and insecurity lead to fall in investigation and flabby investigation in turn,
to patulous disorder and insecurity. This triste development may be effectively
dealt-with by an independent crime setup, parallel to the law and order outfit.
The crime outfit should be responsible for the investigation of criminal cases
and function under an Inspector General of Police who is responsible to the
police chief, with a crime Deputy Inspector General of Police in each range. Each
district may have a crime Superintendent of Police with the necessary number of
detective Deputy Superintendents of Police, detective Inspectors, SubInspectors and constabulary to assist while only Sub-Inspectors and above are
empowered t investigate cases. The Sub-Inspectors will be attached to various
police stations with powers to register criminal cases and investigate only petty
cases. The crime Superintendent of Police refers criminal cases of his district for
investigation to Police Inspectors or Deputy Superintendents of Police, coming
under him, on the basis of the gravity of the cases and take up exceptionally grave
cases for personal investigation. The crime Deputy Inspectors General of Police
may take up exceptionally sensational cases in his range for personal investigation.
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The crime outfit in a district must run parallel to the law and order outfit of the
district.
An independent crime outfit in district and state may exquisitely behove to
a futuristic police setup by giving crime investigation a boost and insuring it
against the peracute pangs of organizational maladies of the future.
CONTROL ROOM-CENTERED POLICING
The compulsions of urban policing are strikingly different from those of rural
policing. Response time is the hallmark of urban policing where a delay of a few
minutes can make a difference between death and life as criminals and terrorists
with the most sophisticated communication, weapon system and hair-raising
organizational accuracy overawe the police, pitted against them in the course of
their criminal operations. The present police station oriented policing are
incompetent to meet the challenges of the urban criminals either in resources or
in organizational ingine.
Unity, resourcefulness and speed form the spine of urban policing. The
control room-centered policing in urban centers where men and transportation
and latest communication facilities that work round the clock in shifts enables
galvanic operations to tackle law and order problems. All town and cities require
control rooms of appropriate sizes with a control room chief of a befitting rank.
A control room of a metropolitan city having a population of more than fifty
lakhs may be entrusted to a control room chief of the rank of Deputy Inspector
General of police; a city having a population exceeding ten lakhs requires a chief
of the rank of Superintendent of police to its control room; a city of a population
exceeding a lakh may have a control room in charge of a Deputy Superintendent
of Police; a town having a population of more than 20,000 may require an
Inspector to head its control room; and a town with a population of less than
twenty thousand may need a control room under a Sub-Inspector. Each control
room may have four shift-officers of the rank immediately lower in rank; all
subordinate staff of the town or city is kept under the control rooms disposal
on round the clock shifts. The control room should be well connected with
several channels of telephones, wireless sets, mobile telephones and other stateof-the-art communication equipments to strategic points, mobile vans, task
forces, hospitals, fire force units, civil defence units, neighboring police units and
residences of senior police officers and civil authorities. The control rooms
should be equipped with the latest gadgets and sufficient transportation facilities
for the maintenance of law and order. The law and order unit of the urban area
may be headed by an officer of the rank above the rank of the chief of the control
room.
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This outfit with unlimited resource at its disposal for launching any type of
operation within a few minutes of communication may suffice to meet the
challenges of maintaining law and order in urban areas in the new age.
REORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE UNITS
The place of collection and analysis of intelligence and special operations in
policing including security operations, maintenance of law and order and crime
investigation is sui generis as intelligence forms the building blocks of all nuances
of the police operations. The police, operating to collect intelligence, form the
substructure of the edifice of policing of the country. Indian intelligence system
is yet to stand up to the enormous challenges thrown to it and it can nowhere
be compared with its counterparts in developed and even a few developing
countries. Various intelligence outfits of India are often found functioning at
cross-purposes. India should reorganize and strengthen its intelligence outfit if
it is to survive the challenges of the coming age.
The Indian intelligence system should develop unity of purpose and
operation by working under the umbrella of a unified intelligence authority
headed by the union cabinet Secretary with intelligence chiefs of the police and
military as members. The authority should affect a synergy of intelligence
operations through its various wings of internal intelligence, foreign intelligence,
counter-intelligence, military intelligence and security intelligence. Sufficient
attention should be given to infuse entrain in the intelligence system of India and
modernize its methods to raise it to a few degrees closer to the international
standards. The interferences of officialdom should be eradicated from
intelligence operations and a sense of commitment and dedication should be
infused by making intelligence operations a lifelong career.
An Inspector General of police, directly responsible to the state police chief,
should head the state intelligence wing. The intelligence wing should be overall
in charge of intelligence operations, pertaining to security, law and order and
crime in the state.
SPECIALLY TRAINED SECURITY OPERATORS
The ultimate purpose of all police functions is public security. Either it is
intelligence collection or crime investigation or maintenance of law and orderall roads lead to this single aspiration. Therefore, the security operations form the
crown of policing activities without which all other police operations prove futile
exercises.
The India of the new age will need specially trained battalions of security
operators in every state to take charge of the security of vital installations and
VIPs. Each will work under the supervision of an Inspector General of police,
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responsible to the state police chief. Also, each state police unit will have a small
commando force under the Inspector General of police to meet threats during
emergencies like hijacking, VVIP security under difficult circumstances,
complicated operations against terrorists etc. This special group will be brought
into operation only under exceptionally difficult circumstances on the direct
orders from the state police chief. Otherwise, it will be involved in continuous
commando training of the highest order. The commandos will be well equipped
with the wherewithal of commando operations of the latest order. Only select
officers will be recruited to the group with extra emoluments to make the job
really elite. The commando units of the central government will train the state
commando forces.
The need of commando groups in the state police will be increasingly felt in
future as the menace of terrorism and sabotage grows uninhibited with the future
possibility of peracute methods being accepted as legitimate ways of expressing
political dissent.
IMPROVED MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES
The human aspect is the fulcrum of policing. Human comportment teethed
with authority to restrain the human mass forms the essence of police activities.
Policing essentially is human interaction, latitant in unending luctation to smite
criminal and anti-social elements. It is the human quality in the force that
determines its effectiveness and vitality. Therefore, human resource policy in a
police organisation needs careful and gritty handling at the highest possible level.
The present Indian environment of ruthless competitions impleached with a
degringolade of values made human resources management a farce in India. The
wherewithal of human resources management like recruitment, promotions,
transfers, rewards, punishments etc, is no more employed for the maximum
benefit of the organisation. Self-interests have undermined quality and character
and organizational interests are subordinated to personal behoofs. Though this
proclivity is prevalent in all fields in India, of late, its adverse effects are kenspeckle
in police organisation as the line-system of the organisation makes the ingenuity
of human resources management, a factor having direct bearing on the quality
of the policing. While policing is becoming a dynamic part of the governance in
urban areas, with the rise of urban pockets, the damage done by egregious
management of human resources in the police cannot be exaggerated. The
declension may go patulous with the passage of time if frack measures to arrest
the depravation in human resources management are ignored.
Diligent efforts at the highest level in the organisation to create a force
characterized by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost
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need of a police organisation of the coming age. The prevalence of police

administration over the general administration in the survival of a nation as a
democratic and orderly country may necessitate future changes in recruitment
and service condition rules to attract the very best talents of the country to the
police organisation with extraordinary care to ensure that anything less than the
best with clean antecedents does not step into the organisation.
Once the ingine is inveigled into the fold of the organisation, the ingenerate
need of retaining it in the organisation sans delusions and disappointments and
improving upon its attributes gains added momentum. In the extant system, only
those less than the best join the police organisation; less than satisfactory training
is imparted to them that fail to infuse even elementary professionalism; and the
practical experience in the field emaciates their noble ettles, if any are left alive,
as an improvident fools paradise and causes them to fall in line with the
mediocre. Futuristic India may not have an alternative to breaking this vicious
circle for its survival and better managing its human resources by designing a
training programme that makes a budding officer a thorough professional in
policing, reinforces his noble ettles and changes the environment of the police
organisation to inspire a subjacent faith in the right value system.
TIME-BOUND PROMOTIONS
The system of assessment of a subordinates work for promotion has fallen
into utter desuetude and dangerous misuse by the prevalent corrupt atmosphere.
India, in the interest of its future policing may do well to extricate the prospects
of career developments like promotions from subjective assessments of corrupt
influences by ensuring two periodical promotions in a time scale of twenty-five
years. So, every Police Constable retires minimum as an Assistant Sub-Inspector
of Police, a Sub-Inspector as a Deputy Superintendent of Police and an Indian
Police Service Officer as an Inspector General of Police. The present incidence
of most of the Police Constables retiring as Police Constables may not go well
with the concept of ex aequo society of futuristic India and pose a threat to the
health of the police organisation in the environment of increased awakening of
the 21st century. The officers of the Indian Police Service may be posted on first
appointment as Superintendents of Police to make the service more attractive,
though not to districts directly and the dual recruitments at the rank as in vogue
now require to be stopped to make police recruitment meaningful.
Officers in exceptional cases may have avenues for special promotions in
addition to the two, provided in a time scale of twenty-five years, on the basis
of written examination and on an overall assessment of their career of twentyfive years by high-powered committees formed for the purpose. The
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promotion of constabulary in exceptional cases to the ranks of PSIs and above

should be screened by the Police Board of the State; the promotion of PSIs as
Superintendents of Police and above should be screened by the All India Police
Authority and the promotion of IPS Officers as Director General of Police and
above by a Central Cabinet Committee headed by the Prime Minister. This
arrangement will ensure fearless and professional policing sans complaisance to
corrupt elements, particularly when the prospects of corrupt practices of
repriming professionals of probity and hoisting flaccid complaisant to
prominence are certain to be in excelsis in the new age.
REMOVAL OF CONSTABULARY
The constabulary that forms the backbone and the cutting-edge of Indian
policing and wields real authority over the populace is a lowly paid, modestly
educated, non-elite mass of uniformed workers. The authority they wield makes
them fearsome while their low status in society sperres them from commanding
empathy, respect and legitimacy. The fearsome authority sans empathy, respect
and legitimacy decidedly proves a deadly substructure for an organisation and
people certainly resent an organisation with this unhealthy attribute. Nor the
truculent authority, invested in officials of an intra-mural enlightenment and
responsibility can ensure its comme il faut exercise. This foible in the extant setup
manifests as increased hazards to glib policing as the complexity of its challenges
thickens in coming years, if no remedial measures are undertaken belive.
The Indian police of the 21st century will require Sub-Inspectors with their
present scale of education and status in society as the primary unit of policing at
the cutting-edge level with no policing powers and responsibilities devolved
beneath this level. The constabulary up to the level of the Assistant SubInspectors of Police should be limited to the duties of menial assistants without
police powers and responsibilities. This will require a huge army of SubInspectors in the Indian police while the constabulary stands to be severely
spruced in strength.
With the removal of the constabulary from the police hierarchy, the SubInspectors will besort to the lowest rank in the police setup. Each police station
works under a Police Inspector assisted by a host of Sub-Inspectors, performing
all subordinate functions of the policing including beat patrolling and
investigation of minor cases under this dispensation.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FACILITIES
The chief cause of policing never being a profession in India is the
ineffectiveness of its training facilities. In spite of adequate infrastructures
available for training police officials of various ranks, these centers largely fail to
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meet the quality required to make a recruit a thorough professional. An overhaul

of the extant training facilities in terms of its quality, content and character is
inevitable to keep the Indian police excubant to future challenges. The training
facilities should be made centers of scholarship and research on police subjects
with professionals of national reputation in each subject handling their respective
subjects. The psychology faculty of the centre should endeavor to build character
and infuse right orientation among the recruits. The faculty members of the
training centers should be exceptionally well paid so as to inveigle the best in the
field to join. Army officers must handle outdoor classes. This model helps in
instilling the highest standards and expectations in trainees till they become fullfledged officers and orient them to become professional police officers, apart
from distancing them from the moderate influences that are herded to handle
police training centers in the present setup. The trainees must be exposed to
police officers as guest speakers, by inviting very senior police officers of the
highest integrity and job standards to deliver talks on specific topics. Separate
professional training courses should be available in the training centers for law
and order police, crime police, intelligence police and security police with scope
for advanced learning with an eye to the latest developments in each respective
field. Latest training methods should be adopted with management, computers
and advanced psychology inter alia as the common subjects of study for all the
courses. The training centers should give the impression of being temples of
advanced studies apart from being so.
PROFESSIONALISM IN POLICING
Policing requires commitment and dedication on the part of its operators.
The principles of faith and responsibility must run invisus through the vitals of the
policing, should it be purposeful and successful. The extant bureaucratic malady
that infested the Indian police setup cohibits healthy policing practices. The police
organisation should be reoriented to develop a professional approach to its
operations with full faith and responsibility as the hallmark of the delegation of
power. The present emphasis on procedures should be shifted to commitment
and result-orientation within the ambit of the rules.
An analytical study of policing, its trends and modem techniques helps to
bring professionalism in policing. Due encouragement for the study of
theoretical aspects of policing and its application in the field through in-service
training will be a welcome step in this direction. If police managers succeed in
inspiring in police officers an interest in theoretical aspects of the policing and its
latest techniques, it would be a kenspeckle leap in awakening Indian police to the
challenges in the future.
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GENTLEMANLY IMAGE
Though efforts have been en train to ameliorate the image of the Indian police
for a long time, nothing substantial could be achieved for amateurish handling
of the affair. The present Indian police managers have their image development
tools limited to issuing occasional press statements when image development has
become a highly advanced field of specialization with unending scope for further
advancements. In view of the considerable significance of the image for
successful police operations, the wherewithal of image building in police
organisation is required to be updated with latest techniques with the help of
professionals in the field.
CHANGE OF UNIFORM
A change in the existing police uniform is an issue to be deeply probed into
to improve the police image. The present khaki uniform of police inspires
resentment, as it is psychologically associated with repression and violence. A
change of police uniform to full white or pleasant colours may prove to be a
measure for the better in removing the negative image of the police. The overall
strategy in selecting a new police uniform should be to infuse a sense of oneness
and quality among the ranks of police and inspiring a psychological disposition
of friendliness, confidence, respect and healthy fear in the public with a
compulsion to see the police as their own people, but invested with the
responsibility of a noble task.
GOOD LIVING STANDARDS
The police organisation functions effectively only when a reasonably good
living standard is made affordable to all ranks of officers, so that they can deal
with antisocial elements from a level of strength and confidence sans the lure of
easy booty, thrown en revanche to a let-off. A low living standard retards the police
image and esteem in society that are the essentials of successful policing. It is more
so in future while more and more of the so-called elite jump into the fray of
criminal activities in an increasingly complicated society.
It may be necessary to make police officers financially bien in comparison to
their counterparts in other services with 30% of their pay paid as risk allowance
and 20% as hazard allowance to compensate job factors. This helps to attract the
best to the fold of the police organisation, apart from protecting them from
financial distractions. A feeling of condign compensation is certain to boost the
commitment and efficiency of the police.
MODERN FACILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TOOLS
The police organisation has seen mushroom growth sans application of
requisite management principles. The major lapse lies in failure to define
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organizational objectives and formulate specific set of actions thereon. For

example, extraneous objectives like creating employment opportunities often
inspire creation of additional posts irrespective of the organizational needs,
which results in corrosion of job contents and thereby morale of the force. Work
often is not allocated on the basis of scientific assessment of the character and
aptitude. The latest equipments purchased a grands frais under modernization
schemes without creating the infrastructure for its operation or analyzing its
relative merits to the organisation, resulted in its being dumped a few days of its
operation while even basic necessities of policing are yet to be met in a few other
quarters. These anomalies prove criant luxuries to a police organisation, sure to
be faced with enormous challenges in the third millennium.
The police organisations of India do well to be featous, well organized and
formulate actions and operations in line with latest management principles and
practices. K may either constitute an efficient cell of management experts to
advice or hire a management consultation firm for guidance. At any rate, the
police organisation of the third millennium should be a far smaller unit than now,
manned by highly committed and capable officers who are paid and looked
after well by the government.
The present policing system in India has too much of paper work with
hundreds of registers maintained in each station or office with tens of forms filled
up in each stage of policing. A detailed analytical study of paper works in policing
may help to considerably reduce paper works and thereby save precious official
man-hours for use in actual police operations.
The modernization of the police force with the latest communication,
transport, weaponry and office equipment system and me simultaneous creation
of the necessary infrastructure for their operation in advance alone besort the
police force to the challenges of elite criminals, armed with latest equipments.
India of the third millennium will require its police force to be equipped with
helicopters as an aide in policing in emergencies. A genuine and effective effort
to achieve modernization ends would be sine qua non for the future policing. A
face-lift to police stations and offices with the latest office equipment and general
facilities will go a long way in creating a psychological atmosphere for effective
policing.
CREATION OF CRIMINAL LAW BOARD
India requires the constitution of a statutory Criminal Law Board as an
advisory body to liaise between the police setup and the union law ministry
regarding criminal laws to facilitate glib policing. The board, as a permanent
body, may have senior most officers of the central government from home and
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law ministries, police and prosecution departments, distinguished humanists and

senior advocates of the Superme Court as members with the union home
minister as its chairman. It must undertake the study of the need of changes in
criminal laws from rime to rime. The board may meet every quarter and discuss
extant criminal laws and their shortcomings in the light of representations
received from officers in the field from the police and prosecution departments
and make proposals for requisite changes in criminal laws e re nata.
WIDENED RESPONSIBILITIES IN CRIME ADMINISTRATION
A few glaring anomalies and some erroneous provisions in the extant criminal
laws of India contributed to the easy escapade of criminals from the clutches of
law in many cases and harassment of innocent persons by the police in some
other cases. The loopholes in the criminal laws have to be plugged imprimis if
crime administration has to be effective in India and command a semblance of
respect and confidence of the public.
The police or judicial officer under whose custody a person is kept under
detention should be made responsible by name for the latters timely release with
a provision that if detention exceeds the period provided by law, it will make the
concerned officer liable for proceedings for unlawful detention without the
privilege of exemptions for actions performed in official colours, available
under extant laws. Also, all cases of violence and physical outrages committed
in police custody should be made punishable with exemplary penalties by special
legislations. Such extreme measures may bring an end to shocking criminal acts
committed eo nomine policing in some quarters and save the Indian police from
the embarrassment of severe public resentment.
Current bail provisions of the Indian criminal law constitute a source of acute
embarrassment to police officers with criminals, arrested after weeks or months
of stupendous efforts, let off by the judiciary on bail only to facilitate jumping
the bail. All discretions about bail with police and judiciary should be taken away
with only a select few offences of enormous gravity being made non-bailable
wherein neither police nor judiciary can release criminals on bail. This eliminates
the possibility of favours to some criminals and brings mechanical accuracy and
objectivity to bail provisions. This measure may prove to be a trailblazer in
ensconcing criminal laws from misuse during the difficult period ahead.
POLICE COMMISSIONERS IN CITIES
Every city in India with a population of more than a lakh must have an
independent policing unit under a Police Commissioner of a rank befitting the
population of the city; a city with a population up to ten lakhs may have one of
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the rank of Superintendent of police; a city with a population up to 50 lakhs may

have a Deputy Inspector General of Police as the chief and a city with a
population of 50 lakhs or more may have an Inspector General of Police as its
Police Commissioner. The setup of Police Commissionerate gives a sense of
unity and purposefulness to the task of policing, apart from being most suitable
form of setup for urban policing with magisterial powers being invested with
the police to enable prompt action. This setup with empight responsibilities
instills commitment and dedication in policing.
CREATION OF ALL INDIA POLICE AUTHORITY
All maladies of the present policing emanate from the politicians who are only
concerned with winning the next election. Until the police organisation is
extricated from the vile prise of the mediocre politicians, it cannot hope to rise
above the mediocre level of its el patron either in proficiency or in character, as
such mediocrity is wont to permeate downwards in a democratic setup. In the
circumstances, the police organisation with its sensitive responsibilities towards
the maintenance of order and security of the country, cannot afford to submit
to political vagaries.
Though a proposal to extricate precious machinery like the police from the
clutches of the politicians is likely to be met with enormous resistance, it is an
important measure to be undertaken at all costs in the overall interests of the
country. The task may be achieved by creation of an All India Police Authority,
responsible only to the President of India at the national level with regional Police
Boards in states as independent bodies, managing police organisations at the
centre and states. A Supreme Court Judge must head the All India Police
Authority with union home secretary and central cabinet secretary as members
and the senior most police officer of the country as the member-secretary. The
regional Police Board must have a High Court Judge at the helm with home
secretary and state chief secretary as members and the state police chief as its
member-secretary. The arrangement is likely to bring an end to undue
interference in police affairs, thus enabling the police to function in an
independent atmosphere. The Indian police may hope to turn out eximious
work in the new age if these measures are implemented.
Policing as a phenomenon of maintaining order and security in society cannot
afford to be oblivious of the flux in the modem lifestyles. As an integral part of
civil living, policing must prepare itself to amate the increasing complexities of
modem life by modifying its organizational and administrative setups to the
demands that these vicissitudes create. The changes warranted in policing may
either be deciduous or peremptory depending on the nature of the transition in
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society. It is left to police planners to analyze the nature of the flux in the society
and locate the areas where decession from the past practices has become sine qua
non for policing. This should be an ongoing process if policing is to retain its
relevance as the guardian of social discipline. The futuristic challenges of policing
would be pro rata to the twists of the future living. The prospects of Indian
population reaching the mark of a billion and the concomitant luctation of two
billion needy hands to grab a share in the countrys limited resources of food,
shelter, water, clothing, electricity, schooling, employment etc. naturally make life
a cut-throat concours and a ruthless adventure devoid of scruple, human values and
a concern for fellow men. Though the Indian policing system managed
somehow to deal with the vicissitudes till now, the geometric acceleration of the
flux of the coming years may prove to be too much to the extant police setup.
Therefore, it is high time now that we prepare our police organisation and
administration for the future challenges.

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In an age of sabotage and terrorism, no man, no place and no structure are
really safe; no time of the day or night can be construed as safe. With the increasing
complexity of human society, with increasing claims on limited resources of the
world, the kettle of human life is spilling over with organized hatred and violence.
Terrorism has become an international phenomenon. Accrescent unemployment makes terrorism popular by giving unemployed youths a raison detre for
life and an ideology to pursue. The lopsided material growth of the 20th century
life at the cost of contentment and inner peace, endeared to man the thrills and
adventures of the life that fill up his inner void. New scientific inventions give man
such sophisticated mechanisms and machinery that he can do anything he wants
without being personally present at a place. Each man has potentially become a
power centre and he can build or destroy the world he lives in. Each man has
become a force to reckon with in the survival of this Earth. The rise in hatred
and violence in the present world, compounded with the mans dangerous
power to wreak vengeance avec acharnement made internal security an unsure field.
It replaced the avital police function of crime control and maintenance of law
and order to become the primary gauntlet of the police.
POLICE ON AN UNEQUAL JOB
Highly trained, highly motivated volunteers belonging to highly organized
and highly resourceful terrorist outfits pose the threat to internal security. The
unenviable task of providing protection to men, places and structures from these
committed zealots on the antipode with the precious choice of time, place and
target in their favour and any number of sophisticated methods and techniques
of strike to choose from, continually sap the manpower, machinery and other
resources of the police. The police, with its forfain organisation and approach
to challenge, are found to be too nonpareil to the dimensions of the problem even
in advanced countries. The pressure sine dubio helped the police to walk along with
regard to plans of modernization following them. What should have been is the
other way round, that is, the police keeping the lead in modernization techniques
and the antipode marching to keep pace with the police. Unfortunately, it is not
to be in the Indian situation.

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LACK OF GROUND WORK

In absence of strength, resources, plans and the confidence to meet the
gauntlets of terrorism, the reaction of the police to terrorist threats is desperate
mobbing and covering the target at best and diffident immobilization at the
worst. The inability of the police to penetrate highly raisonne terrorist
organisations and get an insight into their goal, plan and method of work put it
at a costly disadvantage. The failure of the police to draw up detailed long-term
plans to meet terrorist challenges handicaps it in its operations. It is just nonpossumus to guarantee internal security sans a sound knowledge of the terrorists
and their proclivities and a systematic ruse de guerre to checkmate them in carefully
drawn-out phases. Terrorists are not the stuffs and internal security is not the telos
to be dealt with in bits and farthings as and when challenges arc posed.
SPASMODIC APPROACH TO SECURITY CHALLENGES
Internal security machinery working in a void often gives rise to ludicrous
security reactions. Anonymous calls or letters in most unlikely situations arc
attended to with a desperate mobilization of men and machinery a grands frais to
the stale exchequer sans any research into the call or the letter and everything ends
up as a hoax. Any number of such instances is available in recent Indian police
history. An anonymous Kannada letter claimed to have been written by LTTE
cadres was received in Mysore with a threat of blowing up the KRS dam on the
intervening night of 14 and 15 of August, 1991 and was later followed with
similar threats of blowing up Vidhana Soudha on me same night. The
comminations were followed with exoteric security preparations at all those
places to the fun of the plebeian. A right Kenner to the LTTE objectives,
expertise and method of operation would have dismissed the calls and the letters
as a non-event. The Karnataka police had to prepare itself en plein jour for an
emergency because it was not prepared and equipped to handle internal security
problems with courage and confidence. It is not wrong to gear up the police
machinery to meet challenges even in cases of suspected threats. But, such security
could have been given more subtly without fanfare, flare of publicity and undue
show of strength, to save the police from being a laughing stock. The desperate
police reaction in such patently unlikely situations may prompt mischievous
elements to shoot similar missives almost daily. Can the police react to all those
letters similarly? The desperate reaction of the police only betrayed a lack of
courage and confidence in meeting the needs of internal security. No show of
strength can ever provide real security. It is subtle planning and conticent
operation that make security possible. All security arrangements must be

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preceded by thorough research and detailed operational plans. This is completely

forgotten in the Indian situation.
NEED OF SILENT AND PLANNED APPROACH
In an expertly drawn-up operational plan of sabotage, minimum possible
number of people is involved, usually one or two apart from the logistic support.
It is quality that counts and not quantity in sabotage and security operations. The
minimum number of people who really execute the sabotage arc highly
motivated and highly trained, competent individuals, capable of keel operation.
No sabotage operation depends upon the strength of manpower nor can it hope
to succeed by the number of people, involutes. Rather, the larger the number,
the smaller the chances of success because of human nature, coordination
problems and higher chances of leakage of subtle operational details. It also
involves the problem of providing security and escape routes for more men in
the post-operational period. Ergo, it is futile to depend on the strength of
manpower and machinery at the cost of quality in security plans. No numbers
can stop a highly motivated and trained man from sneaking up to his target and
blowing it up with modern gadgetry which are next to impossible to detect.
What were required were not companies of policemen, but a handful of highly
qualified and motivated men of experience with an intelligent, thoroughly
drawn-up security plan, based on competent intelligence inputs about the objects
and operational plans of the adversary. Everything except these salient features
of an internal security plan is present in the responses of the Indian police to
security challenges.
OVERHAULING OF POLICE SYSTEM
The police force in India was raised imprimis to tackle crime and law-andorder 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 deja vu functions. 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 have 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 ascensive strains on the Indian
police, its organisation and resources, due to the dangerous spurt in security
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threats, it unfortunately has failed to abraid and overhaul its system to amate the
new challenges; the consectaneous fatalities of men and other targets are steeply
rising every year with a free hand to terrorist reticulation to strike at will. The
glitches of the Indian police in re 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,
have 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 are yet to realize 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 lo 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.
SELECTION OF RIGHT PEOPLE
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 re 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 realized that the need of such people to the
police overweighs the need of the police for these extraordinary species. As
internal security is a condition of national survival, no law, no fundamental right,
no directive principle or 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.
SELECTION ON SPECIAL FOOTING
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
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with a high commitment to their responsibilities with the mental and physical
agility to fulfill the task ex mero motu. 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 is made
a postern affair at the highest level without throwing recruitment open to
competitions where all types of people sneak in malam partem for various reasons.
Internal security, more often than not, is an invious 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-retirements 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 that is pareil to its demands to the aspirants to this difficile
career.
TRAINING
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-caliber, sensitive people is a much more responsible and arduous job. If the
training is to prepare them for a 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 molded 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 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.
SECURITY OPERATIONS
All internal security operations must be part of a raisonne security plan that is
drawn out in advance after thorough 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 neighboring 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 mailers. The
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security plan must foresee likely sources of trouble inside and outside the country
and cultivate undercover operations 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. Such a long-drawn security plan that foresees events decades ahead in
the sempiternal interests of the state security presumes foresightedness and a
thorough study and research of facts by its author to back up the plan. There is
no mark of any such a plan obvious for Indian internal security and what is
happening around gives the triste impression that the gauntlets of internal security
are met day to day in line with meeting daily law-and-order problems. The best
India can gasconade now arc the internal security schemes in police offices with
names of sensitive targets and general instructions about where and how they
must be protected in emergencies and normal days. These schemes are tout a fait
wasted exercises in these days of highly sophisticated terrorist strikes by
organized terrorist outfits. More important, the pass instructions in these
supposedly secret official documents are no more secret. Though some attempts
are made to update these instructions when a security lapse leads to a public
outcry, none of such general instructions can assure even a semblance of security
in this age of sophistication. A resourceful terrorist gladiator who is committed
to execute his strike a tout prix can hit his target at will malgre tout security
precautions undertaken I compliance to updated security instructions in Indian
internal security schemes. It is obvious that the security lapses during Shri Rajiv
Gandhis Sriperumbudur election campaign made the job of the LITE squad
easy. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that no measures by security
outfits of India in its present infaust state of affair would have prevented the
committed and avizefull cadres of the LTTE from accomplishing their devilish
task. The killing would have been merely a matter of time. There is infinite
number of courses available to a resourceful and inventive mind. It is in these
circumstances that India should devise its new security outfit.
KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECURITY RISKS
Any security buildup must stand on two basic requirements; firstly, up-todate knowledge of the security risks and their strategies 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
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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 indagate 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.
SPECIFIC SECURITY PLANS
A security build-up is infrangible only if it is specific fur 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 that is what security tends to be. A good and
pollent security plan should not have an open set-plan that 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.
RING ROUND DUTY
Indian security plans lay stress on covering targets with armed men and
preventing people from approaching the threatened target. In absence of
adequate penetration to the source of threat, none of these pernoctation 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 felling a terrorist-to-strike that 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. Those around the target, posted to spot suspicious movements
among people are also at the same disadvantage. It is the skeely terrorist who is
keenly watching his target and men around versus the spotters staring blankly at
inconnu for suspicious movements. An intelligently chosen and thoroughly trained
terrorist operator can easily overcome this problem.
SCREENING OF PEOPLE
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.
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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.
QUIET SECURITY
Indian security plans ignore the cardinal principle of a good security
reticulation namely, providing security without coming in the way of the normal
process of life of the target except where unavoidable. The minimum show of
force must form an inviolable part of the scheme. The leitmotif of an effective
security buildup is providing perfect security with minimum inconvenience to the
concerned. But, Indian security sleuths believe otherwise. They believe in taking
over the target a toute force to their control, modifying the normal course and
process of the target to their convenience with the least regard to whether the
target is a place, an installation, or a dignitary, as if they try to provide security in
exchange for the freedom of movement and action. And all this for obviously
ineffective security! This is ludicrous. Indian security reached this facetious ebb
because it is diffident of even thinking of providing security to targets au naturel.
The fact is that it cannot provide true security in its present mauvais ton in spite of
dictating terms to the target. En principe, security is a birthright and it should be
available in that form with no constraints attached on free movement. It is not
to be so in the existing circumstances of Indian security buildup and even national
leaders in India accepted the fact by trading their image and popularity for this
supposed safety.
RELEVANCE OF PRESENT SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS
It is argued that the extant Indian security system is effective in discouraging
less resourceful terrorist outfits from attempting strikes and preventing halfhearted attacks. The argument is not convincing for the reason that there can be
no lesser terrorist strikes in the present world. All terrorist outfits worth the name
in the present international situation are extremely resourceful with serious
objectives, plans and strategies and a complete commitment to carry out their
operational plans. Budding terrorist groups do not come into picture and plans
to provide security from them cannot be called security schemes. With Indias
present security capabilities, no target is really out of reach from the commination
of a determined terrorist outfit. If a target of a terrorist outfits hit-list is not struck
for a long time, the reasons for the same can be only three, that the terrorist
organisation has not really intended to strike the target, that the outfit is yet to
grow resourceful enough, or that security sleuths could gear up their machinery,
taking this specific case as an exception to foil the plans of the outfit concerned.
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India should reach a stage where the third reason that is an exception becomes
a rule in providing foolproof security to all targets, all the time, sans throwing the
normal course of life of the threatened target to the winds.
NEEDS OF A PERFICIENT SECURITY BUILDUP
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 ageold police traits like a criant show of force and a strict adherence to hierarchical
order have a mesalliance with the needs of security operations where patience,
perseverance, calculating mind, an ingine to foresee developments, speedy
physical and mental reflexes, unreachable sangfroid 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 buildup.
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 fullfledged wings in charge of a) collection of intelligence, b) process and assessment
of security risks and c) field operation.
A) COLLECTION OF INTELLIGENCE
Collection of vital intelligence forms the pith of perficient security operation.
An effective security buildup perforce stands on the foundation of strategic
intelligence. The feracity 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 employers leave intelligence operators to their own fate 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 arc potentially security risks. The success of security back home lout
a fait depends upon the quality of the intelligence sent back. In an age of bitter
concours to win over or withhold a piece of intelligence, double crosses or even
triple crosses are au naturel. The situation necessitates keeping an eye on these
operators from a distance. In other words, the intelligence collection setup is a
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very complicated machinery that always must be maintained in top condition a

grands frais as an important factor in an internal security buildup.
B) PROCESS AND ASSESSMENT OF SECURITY RISKS
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 complected 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 capable
of reading between lines to arrive at right conclusions as well as devise strategies
in the interests of the internal security. This body must have 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 chose 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. The unit must function as a command post
where intelligence inputs are instreamed and where from field operations
emanate.
C) FIELD OPERATION
Field operation is the cutting-edge of the security buildup. 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
organizations manpower, equipments, machinery, money, time and other
resources. If intelligence operators must have alert eyes and cars, security analysts
must have smart mental faculties and field-operators must have smart reflexes
inter alia. Only people with exceptional courage and perseverance and
daredevilry can behove to this job. Resourceful people with a plurisie of energy
and willingness to work hard in tramontane circumstances, rare singlemindedness of purpose and devotion can alone be successful in the dangerous
world of field operations. They have to be pollent-willed people with the
preparedness to risk their lives for the sake of achieving goals. Screening people
for these traits is not a facile job. This arduous job has to be performed with great
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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
comminated by enemies, while they remain in shades. Speed and surprise are
their chief attributes. Resourcefulness to do jobs that appear impossible is their
mainstay. Indeed, the demands arc too high and this necessitates careful selection
and recruitment, efficient training, high motivation and liberal compensations 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.
GLITCHES OF INDIAN SECURITY SETUP
A coup doel over the security surroundings of India gives an insipid taste be it
about security intelligence, security planning or security operation. The bungling
of the Indian police at Konanakunte recently where they failed to capture
Sivarasan and Subha of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is a recent paradigm.
The chance intelligence as early as on 18-8-91 that both the extremists were holed
up with others in a ramshackle house at Konanakunte could not help Indian
security forces to catch them alive with all time, resources and the element of
surprise at their disposal while the handful of desperados inside the walled
structure had no knowledge of what was happening around them. This primarily
reflects grim glitches in the field of security planning in India. A little use of the
faculty of thinking and planning and ingine to retain an even keel under pressure
would not have made capturing the extremists alive a difficile goal to achieve.
Instead of showing conticent patience to devise an undercover strategy that
allowed the unsuspecting extremists to come on the street on their own and thus
enter the waiting dragnet of security sleuths or entering their den as friends with
the help of undercover agents, our cops used the first available opportunity to
spoil the advantage of surprise that fell into their hands by openly surrounding
the building and thought of storming it while
even the average newspaper reader knew a coup sur that the first reaction of
the extremists when they were cornered would be the felo de se. What transpired
ultimately there by the acte gratuit was not only the suicide by the extremists, it was
the fetish suicide of the operation to catch the extremists alive. India and the Rajiv
Gandhi assassination investigation gained nothing by the extremists death. They
would have been more useful to India and the investigation had they remained
alive in India or anywhere in the world. All hopes were doused by the senseless
seizure of the hideout, ironically, using a vital piece of intelligence that would have
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made the Rajiv Gandhi assassination investigation a true success story of the 20th
century. The glitch itself is a tragedy.
MICRO- AND MACRO-SECURITY PLANNING
The primary reason for such bungling is that Indian sleuths have not yet
realized the intricacies of security operation. Their perception of security
operation does not go much beyond multiple crack-forces, created one after the
other like the Black Cats, National Security Guards, Special Protection Group
etc. Perhaps some more are to follow at the cost of the state exchequer. Indeed,
these crack forces are important. They are the ammunitions of the security
weaponry. However effective the ammunitions be, they are worthless without
a working gun to fire them. It is the situation of the present Indian security
atmosphere. India is yet to develop an effective infrastructure to plan security
strategies at micro and macro levels. In the absence of such machinery, the Indian
security system is bound to react with struts and frets, mere random reactions
depending on the fancies of the person in charge of the situation. Never should
the internal security of a country be left in the hands of a few individuals; the vital
interests of the country cannot be based on casual decisions of a few security
sleuths. An exhaustive internal security plan on which all security strategies and
operations are based must be the gospel of the internal security religion. Sadly,
India is yet to have such a macro-plan to guide its
security sleuths; it is yet to realize the inevitability of the macro-plan in reacting
to security threats.
MODEL INTERNAL SECURITY SCHEMES
The present perception of internal security in India revolves round a few
catchwords like prohibited areas, protected areas, official secrets, sensitive
installations, static guards, armed pickets, mobile patrols, striking forces,
perimeter protection, infiltration, mechanical breakdown, external and internal
attacks, verification, unobtrusive watch, internal watch, intelligence collection,
top-secret papers, security information, leakage of information etc. Model
internal security schemes, containing jugglery of these words are available in all
district and police offices. The plans in the security schemes are intended as
guidelines for police officers during security emergencies, which are rarely the
case for various reasons. The first and foremost reason is that the model schemes
are anything but model, being too simplistic for this complex modem age. The
plans in the schemes do not touch even the fringes of the present security needs.
Secondly, the model schemes are based on outdated facts and statistics, which
became irrelevant in subsequent periods. Though these model schemes are

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expected to be updated from time to time, seldom are they touched. This
renders them irrelevant to a given phase of time. Thirdly, the security guidelines
in the model schemes can in no way make a claim to expertise. They are simple
suggestions based on common sense. Any police official with sound field
knowledge can improve on them according to specific instances by relying on
his own savvy. For all practical purposes, these model internal security schemes
have become passe and impair. They have only historical interests in the neoteric
scheme of things.
CONTENTS OF MODEL SECURITY SCHEMES
The model security schemes enumerate in terrorem the likely sources of threats
to the countrys internal security such as aggression by an alien power, sabotage
and subversive activities, communal riots, student unrest, extremist activities,
violent labour problems, natural calamities etc. The scheme distinguishes
between peacetime threats and wartime threats and deal with each period with
various stages of approach like precautionary stage, preventive measures and
protective measures. What are striking in these schemes arc the details of work
to be attended to, like evacuation of lunatics, police-public relations, peace
committees, mobilization of NCC and volunteer organisations etc. But,
unfortunately, there is nothing really instructive in these schemes for a security
officer of good field experience and sound common sense. The only advantage
the schemes provide is that all obvious measures are listed in a raisonne nutshell
for easy reference. But, as said before, albeit the measures listed out are exhaustive
as routine jobs to be performed in such disturbances, they in no way help in
tackling complex internal security challenges of the present day. The reason for
this is that the format of the schemes was conceived decades back when
challenges of internal security were simpler and on expected lines. No serious
thought was given to overhauling the format of the schemes since then. The
position though is similar in respect of the blue book that deals with aspects of
security for dignitaries, political compulsions helped to update them as more and
more dignitaries fell to the bullets of extremists. The updating of the blue book
is one of the plus points of the subservience of the police to political masters. Yet,
the blue book too needs a complete overhauling on the basis of the new realities
of security challenges and new perceptions and conceptions about meeting such
challenges.
PARAMETERS OF NEW SECURITY SCHEMES
What the new blue book and new model internal security schemes need is
guidelines on how to approach a security challenge and not what peripheral

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matters should be attended to. Each security challenge of the present day is sui
generis and needs a specific approach depending upon the time, the place and
other circumstances of the challenge. It is too simplistic to imagine that a
common formula, however exhaustive it is, can tackle all internal security
challenges of the present day. The blue book and model internal security schemes
must lay down broad guidelines and the spirit with which security challenges
must be approached, the nature and classes of such challenges, available methods
of approach for each class of challenge, salient features of the risks involved and
precautions to be attended to, alternative courses of action and assessment of the
chances of success for each course under different circumstances etc. The security
guidelines must name the nature of security threats under various situations and
list out likely targets of sabotage under all imaginable circumstances. They must
be able to forewarn about potential sources of threats and suggest ways and
means of overcoming them and devise short and long-range plans to meet likely
serious challenges. Such an approach to security relieves pressure on prototypal
security and shifts stress to creative security and saves manpower and other
resources from being wasted on unproductive quotidian mobilization. This
works as a panpharmacon to the under-utilization of precious security tools by
unintelligent routine deployment.
PROBLEMS OF SECURITY OPERATION
The problems of security are manifold. In the stage of intelligence collection,
the plurisie of intelligence itself poses the problem of blunting the edge of really
vital intelligence. Often, true and false information are insomuch entwined that
winnowing the one from the other becomes impossible; even if such a piece of
information is identified as possibly true, it gets emaciated by the loss of
credibility because of its locus standi in the midst of the heaps of intelligence that
are sometimes true and many more times mendacious. Even if a piece of
intelligence is winnowed out as true for further action, more often, than not, the
intelligence is an isolated piece of information and ipso facto removed from the
adversarys total action plan. Such a piece of intelligence, many a time, leads to
wrong conclusions and dangerous situations. Continued research per
procurationem the piece of intelligence is a must to make it complete and fit for
action. The research of available intelligence requires motivated intelligence
operation, which is not possible without an elaborate and anfractuous
infrastructure. If the particular piece of intelligence does not fall into place by such
research, it may end up as an indign piece of information. The useful intelligence
that falls in place by research requires to be subjected to analysis and study to test
and substruct the situation and circumstances of both the challenge and the means
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to amate the challenge. This again depends upon the skill and experience of the
individual or group of individuals who handle the job. Often, both the research
and analysis are carried out under the constraints of time because of the proximity
of the threat even while security operation is based on the research and analysis
of intelligence, the basic intelligence and its sources are required to be kept as a
closely guarded secret. Any leakage about an impending plan may prompt an
adversary to modify his strategy to superate the security operation. This
necessitates every security operation to be esoteric in its substance and scope and
carried out with perfect elements of surprise. This creates problems of
mobilization and deployment without rousing suspicion. The men to handle the
security operation should be handpicked for competence and probity. Their
antecedents and recent activities must be closely examined before they are
cleared. It is the failure of security agencies to effectively carry out such
preparations that cost India Smt. Indira Gandhi. The briefing of security
operators about their job itself poses its own problem. The time of briefing must
be carefully chosen so that while the gap between the impending operation and
the briefing gives sufficient time to the operators for preparation, it must not be
so long as to give them louche ideas or to allow any inadvertent actions to leak
the plan. The timing of briefing and development must be decided at high levels
to ensure perfect secrecy. Another crucial problem of security, operation pertains
to the quantum of briefing: how much must be briefed? Security operation
basically involves the creative initiative of the operator. His success depends upon
his ability to assess the situation and pursue better course of action sans loss of
time. Too much briefing trammels the mind and results in loss of creative
initiative. Too little may fail to provide the insight into salient features of the
operation and leave the operator in a cul-de-sac. The success of a security operation
depends also on deciding how much briefing must be made to each of the
operators at disparate ranks and levels and how much information and
background knowledge can be fed to them. Here again, liberal outlets for vital
information create security risks. The primary requirement of any security
operation is a thorough study and analysis of intelligence and other inputs, a
detailed conception of the plan of operation with adaptability for contingencies
and painstaking in execution with a resourceful mind and quick reflexes to meet
such contingencies, if any.
TIMING OF OPERATION
Timing is an essential ingredient of the security planning. Perchance, this is the
most significant single ingredient that decides the success or failure of an
operation. Apart from infusing the element of surprise, the time-factor provides
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for making the strike while the adversary is mentally and physically least prepared
for it. Often, the right time helps the operation to succeed with right contents,
which may not be possible otherwise because of the alertness of an equally skeely
and prepared adversary. The failure of Indian security forces to capture Sivarasan
and Subha can be attributed to the swither and inexplicable cunctation of nearly
1 day for action after it was inadvertently made known to the terrorists that
they were cornered with no recourse for survival. Unfortunately, the police force
discounted the time-factor and the bevue ended up in tragic perdition to the
investigation that would have otherwise turned out to be a world event, a
plangent success story of the century.
RELEVANCE OF TRADITIONAL APPROACH
Not that everything of traditional approach to security is irrelevant today.
Certain aspects therein are indeed sempiternal tools in a security buildup. The
strategy of quadruple deployment namely static guards, armed pickets, mobile
patrols and striking forces yet constitute the skeleton of any security buildup for
a static target. The strategy takes the form of standing guards, personal security
officer, inner cordon, outer cordon and striking force in respect of a human
target. Its derivative for a mobile target is a security officer, escort, piloting and
striking force. The in-built deployment though it in no way pre-empts a raisonne
strike by a perficient outfit, perforce provides a semblance of resistance to
random strikes and gives a psychological advantage to security in the form of a
show of strength. However, it should be borne in mind that this strategy in no
way replaces specific security strategies; it only complements them.
Security, its challenges and the strategies to counter it are ever-growing
phenomena. Security and its challenges change their colours like chameleons and
force strategies that counter them to keep pace pari passu. An effective strategy
must foresee future challenges and arm itself in advance for them. Otherwise, the
security is bound to be indign of its raison d etre. It must be said that Indian security
agencies do not meet this cardinal need. Not that India has no concern for its
internal security. Bloodcurdling terrorist outfits from all sides surround it. The
Kashmir separatist movement in the North, the Akali separatist movement in the
west, the ULFA in the East, the LTTEs in the South and the Naxalites in the
Centre comminate a corps perdu, Indias internal security and very survival. The
number of new security outfits coming up is an indication of Indias concern for
its security. The triste part of the spiel is that India yet does not know how to face
these gauntlets to its very existence and the misplaced emphasis on quantity in the
form of a new security outfit every time a serious security breach shakes the
country, rather than building quality, complicated the matter. Indian security
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standards have not made kenspeckle headway pro rata to the rise in expenditure
incurred thereon in recent years because India is yet to gain an insight into the
salient features of security in the modem complex political world that learnt to
achieve its goals by comminations and bullets. Until India learns the basic lessons
of modern security, tragic deaths and destruction are bound to continue. Ergo,
India must act pronto.

273

REVAMPING THE
INVESTIGATION MACHINERY
Indian Constitution makes Criminal Justice System a Rhadamanthine steel
frame of the rule of law when it preconises in Article 20(1), No person shall be
convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the
commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty
greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the
time of the commission of the offence. A common place looking but potent
instrument in theory that keeps out faith, public opinion or even sittlichkeit
beyond the purview of the nations Criminal Justice System and proclaims the
rule of law as its sole life and blood and making all equal before the law
irrespective of ones status, standing and rank in the society. However, the realities
in the field as it developed today are entirely different from what was perceived
then by the fathers of the Indian Constitution at a milieu of different value system.
The democratic political dynamics of India since independence took a direction
entirely different from the popular expectations and thus the need of corrections
perforce.
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
Amod Kanth, DGP, who was sacked by the Government from the post of
the Police Chief of Goa on 25 November on the ground that the DGP did not
obey the Governments written orders reacted by stating that the police are the
agents of law and he did not believe in loyalty to anyone, but strongly believed
in the performance of duties in terms of constitutional, legal and people-oriented
parameters. Kudos to his noble ideas and values. I too had championed that
cause of the profession and perhaps the first to bring out the ideal in concrete
ideas in 1990s. However, the conundrum lies in the lengths to which the Indian
Constitution moves and prepares for those paradigmatic roles for its police in
its body and gestalt.
Police and policing for the Indian Constitution are nothing more than the
subject matters of Legislative Powers as enshrined in the Lists of its Seventh
Schedule under Article 246, ipso facto rendering it within the constitutional limits

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subordinate to the control and supervision of the political bosses in power and
their policies and programmes. Sadly, Indian Constitution does not recognise
their professional ideals, values and conscience, and their singular role as the
custodians of the rule of law. They are circumscribed by the political will to which
they are subordinate. All the extant ills of this maledict country emanate from this
sole provenance. This is a serious matter as far as investigation of crimes is
concerned.
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Criminal investigation as the bedrock of the prosecution, judicial proceedings
and subsequent penal servitude forms the seed of the criminal justice system.
Crime prevention activities being pneumatic and nebulous as what it is, it is
criminal investigation that constitutes the spine of the crime administration
anywhere in the world. Right investigation of crimes is the soul of fair societal
living and the foundation of the fair and secure living.
The Indian Constitution rests the control and supervision of the premiere
investigation agency of the country, the Central Bureau of Investigation, in the
hands of the political leadership of the Union Government and the police and
the offences against the State Laws in the hands of the political leadership of the
State Government by keeping the subject matters in respective Lists of the
Seventh Schedule under Article246. This sine dubio provides a key and decisive
role to the political leadership in power in the investigation of crimes and renders
the police mere professional tools of the political decision makers. Considering
the growth of the political culture of the country in the last six decades and the
need of absolute fairness and objectivity in the process of the criminal
investigation, better deal for criminal investigation in the gestalt of the Indian
Constitution is certainly called for. This is sine qua non for the survival of the
nation as well as for the health of its political and public life.
POLITICAL COMPULSIONS
Shibu Soren, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief, who was the Coal and
Mines minister in the UPA government quit the Cabinet on July 24 in face of
vociferous demand by the BJP and its NDA allies for his resignation after a
Jharkhand court issued a non-bailable warrant against him in a 20-year-old case
relating to the 1975 Chirudih massacre during the agitation for a separate
Jharkhand state, only to be reinducted to the Union Cabinet on November27
as the minister of Coal after the Opposition was cornered by its own act of going
all out in support of the Kanchi Shankaracharya, Shri Jayendra Saraswati while
the latter was arrested by the Tamilnad police on November 11 on the charges
of conspiracy for the murder of a whilom devotee of the Kanchi Mutt,
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Shankararaman. The episode makes it crystal clear how political parties treat
investigation of even serious cases of murder as their political pawns to
checkmate the opponents. Criminality is a non-issue in Indian political parlance
and criminals increasingly proved to be the pillars of Indias democracy. They
constitute the spine of the Indian politics. No Government is possible and
complete without their participation. Criminal investigation becomes a farce if
left to the mercy of these people, which it has already become in the last half
century in India.
POLITICS IS FOR POWER
Politics is for power. Power in democracy does not come for free. No
sensible person can squander his hard earned money in political gambles. That
is how corruption enters politics a la derobee. Peter Ustinov said, Corruption
is natures way of restoring our faith in democracy. It is dangerously radicated
in the extant political system of India so much that politics sans corruption has
become unimaginable. As back as in 1971, when the then Union Finance
Minister, Y.B.Chavan approached the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with
a proposal for demonetisations to curb corruption, the only curt response from
the Prime Minister was a question, Chavanji, are no more elections to be fought
by the Congress Party? That reveals the political compulsions within which a
politician must operate.
The grab is more serious lower down the level. Every MLA or MP counts
in the survival game of the politics. The choice is between power interests and
national interests. Almost always it is the survival instinct and the lure of power
that prevails true to the very definition of the politics. Peoples representatives are
allowed to auction postings within their constituencies to influence the
administration in their favour or to enable them to pool the fund to face the next
election as a quid pro quo for their continued support to the Chief Executive of
the Government and his survival. This is a vicious circle of political compulsions
outgrown in the Indian variety of the democracy. No investigation machinery
can remain fair and objective in such an ambience. Political system in India has
just not matured for the enlightened leadership of the criminal justice system.
POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY
Criminal investigation in India has become a matter of political expediency.
State political leadership decides about the permission to the CBI to investigate
a case depending on its own vulnerability and interests in the case. Whether it is
in states or in the Centre, criminal cases are taken for investigation, the pace of
the investigation is decided, arrests are made, bails and post-arrest treatments are
decided, and even the quality of the investigation are regulated according to the
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needs of the politicians in power. Important investigations continuing for

decades and even dying in rerum natura following political needs are no more
exceptions in India.
The way out to resile the criminal investigation machinery to its normal
fairness, objectivity and the framework of the rule of law is to institute a
constitutional body for criminal investigation called the Indian Investigation
Authority in the Centre and subordinate Authorities in the states by due
constitutional amendments a la the judiciary with autarchy to guide the process
of the investigations from the scratch to the end sans immunity to any except
perhaps to the President of the country. Indeed the process necessitates a
specialised cadre of investigators responsible only to the Investigation Authority
with a senior Supreme Court judge as its constitutional head and senior police
and civil service officers of proven integrity selected by the Authority in
consultation with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as members in
constitutional posts and responsible only to the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court and the President of the country. This may considerably relieve the
investigation machinery of the country from the epinosic political compulsions
and bring fairness, objectivity and the framework of the rule of law so essential
for the rightful process of any investigation back to its frame.

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COORDINATED APPROACH
TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Justice begotten at a cost is justice lost. Justice is a natural right. It is the sine
qua non and the raison detre of the social grouping. Justice in a social
environment has to be as natural as sleep or oxygen to a living being. Free and
fair justice is the leges legum of the human rights. The proficiency of the judicial
administration system has to be assayed with this litmus test and its role in the
system has to be judged by its contributions to this goal of the judicial
administration system.
Justice in its basic sense necessitates an integral vision. Justice abstracted from
its environment, past, present, future, diverse issues, dramatis personae and
related events cannot be justice in the true sense of the word. Justice in parts is
no justice that lasts. Justice involves delving deep down to the heart of an issue
and delivering justice in reference to all related issues and matters to the rightful
entitlement of all. This presupposes a passion for objectivity and justness and
above all, selflessness in the arbitrators of justice as well as in those who are in
the service of the administration of justice.
JUDICIARY AND THE POLICE
Effectiveness of police lies in its ability in making justice an easily and cheaply
dispensable commodity. Police are the first line of the means of dispensing
justice. Courts come to the scene only in far later stage for restricted number of
cases. For the hoi polloi, police is the first and the only easy defence against
injustices. Most cases of disputes never cross the thresholds of the police stations.
Police do act as arbitrators of justice in criminal as well as civil cases in exercise
of the wide spectrum of responsibilities of crime investigations, investigations,
maintenance of law, enforcement of order, preventive measures and security
duties. They enjoy a key position in the administration of justice. A good police
certainly symbolize effective administration of justice more than courts and
prosecution department together do. That is why a sound police system is
conditio sine qua non for the health and progress of the country and its tenuous
social fabric.

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The position of the police as the enforcer of the laws of the country gives it
an edge 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 organizational 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 enjoy or suffer 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
wings of the government. It is a string that binds disparate wings and organs of
the government together and gives it a sense of oneness and belonging while it
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 represent 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 a 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 a part of the judiciary, its position as a handmaid
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of the executive, spreads its role above the scope of the judiciary. Ergo, the police
are a government agency that performs functions both within and above the
scope of the executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police are a part
of all these wings of the government and subordinate of each to them while
outgrows each of them in professional discharge of its responsibilities au reste.
What is required is the realization of this sui generis position of the police and
preparing itself mentally to discharge these cardinal responsibilities in
compatibility with the professional requirements.
UNITY OF PURPOSE IN INDIAN POLICE
In the current system of policing in India, police stations and district police
units form clavis of the administration. Some of the functions discharged at these
levels have concurrent jurisdiction with some special units at state and national
levels. Crime investigation in special circumstances can be taken over from the
district police administration by the state CID or the CBI at the national level. The
police in the state are devised as an independent unit. In a vast country like India,
policing being shared between myraid independent units with no perspicaciously
defined mechanism of concinnity, the problem occurs of coordination and the
unity of purpose in tackling crimes. Except for the sense of national unity there
is nothing common among these units to appropinquate the gauntlets with a
common cause. Even the common Indian Police Service is unable to bring about
a unit of purpose to policing throughout India. This gives an impression of
fragmentation in the Indian police. A fragmented police cannot turn out work
in full-stream owing to the waste by leakage in the process of co-ordination
between the fragmented parts. India must consider devising a pollent unitary
police administration at the centre with full control over subordinate state and
union territory police setups. This would avoid coordination problems and help
policing by allogamy to be more purposeful in tackling challenges from the
national perspective. It also makes available larger resources from the national
level for policing apart from strengthening the sense of belonging to one police.
This is the conditio sine qua non for the perficient policing of the future.
CRIMINAL LAWS
A few glaring anomalies and some erroneous provisions more suo in the
extant criminal laws of India improvise for the easy escapades of criminals from
the clutches of law and the harassment of innocent persons by the law enforcing
authorities. The psellisms of the criminal law have to be plugged imprimis if
crime administration has to be effective in India and command a semblance of
respect and confidence of the public.

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The police or judicial officer under whose custody a person is kept under
detention should be made responsible by name for the latters timely release with
a provision that if detention exceeds the period provided by law, it will make the
concerned officer liable for proceedings for unlawful detention sans the privilege
of exemptions ingenerate to the actions performed in official colours.
CRIMINAL LAW BOARD
India requires the constitution of a statutory Criminal Law Board as an
advisory body to liaise between the criminal justice setup and the union law
ministry regarding criminal laws to facilitate glib process of the criminal justice
system. The board, as a permanent body, may have senior most officers of the
central government from home and law ministries, police and prosecution
departments, distinguished humanists and senior advocates of the Supreme
Court as members with the union home minister as its chairman. It must
undertake propaedeutic of the need of changes in criminal laws from time to
time. The board may meet every quarter or a year and discuss extant criminal laws
and their shortcomings in the light of representations received from officers in
the field from the police and prosecution departments and make proposals for
requisite changes in criminal laws e ra nata.
HUMAN RIGHTS CELLS
Institution of human rights cells in each district and metropolitan city as
advisory conseil to the police of the region with local human rights champions
as its members to draw attention to specific instances of inhuman conduct by
subordinate officers would meet the needs to keep the police on pernoctation
against excesses. The human rights cells should be a dynamic part of the police
administration in the regions and its observations should set in motion a process
of verification and peremptory action. Though subjecting police to the scrutiny
of an outside setup may appear a retrograde measure, it may help the
assuefaction of the policing methods to human comports and saves the
establishment from the charges of violation of human rights
STRUCTUAL CHANGES
The first and foremost job to do to bring back the police on rails as a fair
dealer in the process of the criminal justice system is to extricate the police from
the epinosic influence of all hues by making it responsible to an independent
Authority with absolute powers to take decisions on matters of policing and
criminal investigation. The Authority should be a professional body of men and
women of proven probity and competence as members, who 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 becomes
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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 the duties of crime investigation
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 the police
by committing it to its work ethics and professional telos with single mindedness
to bring in objectivity and fairness to the process of the crime investigation from
the vile prise of those in power and rich and powerful enough to dictate terms
to the police.
PROSECUTION
The weakest link in the chain of the criminal justice system in India ironically
is the cardinal factor of the system namely the prosecution that actually heads and
guides the criminal justice process in countries like the United States of America.
The prosecution as the interface between the investigating agency and the
judiciary and between the investigation and the law is run in India by minor
government departments with all the malaises and malfeasances common to
such setups like indifference, inefficiency, complacency, casualness, corruption
and lack of professionalism and competitive edge. Prosecution is cardinal to
criminal justice process and professionalism and competitive edge constitute the
summum bonum of the process as it makes investigation relevant to the judiciary
and judiciary meaningful to the investigation to emphasize that crime never pays
and criminality never succeeds. While investigation involves indagation of facts
and adjudication involves interpretation of laws, prosecution is involved in right
interpretation as facilitator of the criminal justice system. In this sense,
prosecution is the unifier of the process and needs really high-calibre
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performance to make the criminal justice system a success. It needs social

sensitivity and commitment of the highest order and competitive edge to fight
out the rich and powerful criminals with the best defence lawyers and creative
edge in the service of the truth and justice. It is easier said than possible in a
government setup of the Indian mindset.
An efficacious criminal justice system calls for a sound prosecution
mechanism that is flexible enough to draw the best talents from the open market
and reward strictly by chevisance. The investigating agencies at various levels
should have the liberty to pick the best legal talents in the field as prosecutors for
a fixed tenure like five years on a contract to try their cases at attractive
emoluments. The fear of outsiders on contract in government setups is
meaningless in the triste ambience of the profligate insiders of the independent
India. The selection of the right prosecutor cannot be left to any individual at any
rank because of the prolate fall in moral standards of the country. Each district
police unit and state and central investigating agencies must have a statutory
prosecutor selection committee constituted of the principal district Judge or his
representative as the chairman, the Deputy Commissioner of the district, the
president of the district Bar Council and a representative formally appointed by
the Deputy Commissioner from the local Human Rights organization or any
public service organization as the members and the district police chief as the
member-secretary for each district, High Court or Supreme Court Chief Justice
or his representative as the chairman, Chief Secretary of the state or the Cabinet
Secretary, the president of the High Court or the Supreme Court Bar Council
and the head of the Human Rights Commission as the members and the chief
of the investigating agency as the secretary-member for the state and the central
investigating agencies for the selection of right prosecutors from the best legal
talents in the field for quantum meruit based on performance for fixed tenures
on contract as deemed fit from time to time. The high nature of the selection
committee behoves to the high importance of the right prosecutors at all levels
for the success en semble of the criminal justice system and the concomitant
peace, security and prosperity of the country and its people.
PRISONS
The place of prisons in the plexus of the criminal justice system is sine qua non
in that it is the guardian of all the condemned persons and the fate of their families
and dependants. Their responsibilities therefore are unenviable. This is especially
so in the circumstances that criminals are not born, but made by the
circumstances and the insensitivities of the society and the society that has
spawned criminals out of them because of its failures has a responsibility towards
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them to reform and accommodate them. Sadly, extant prison setups in India as
government departments as hubs of inefficiency, indifference and corruption
largely lack sensitivity to the gargantuan task. The sensitivity of the task as the
custodians of the periculous criminals including security threats further escalates
the problem. Powerful and rich criminals of whatever category living in prisons
en prince is common knowledge. There are myriad cases of dangerous criminals
running their criminal gangs extra muros from the precincts of the prisons and
even committing murders and sabotages with the patronage of the corrupt
prison officials. Such a prison administration undermines the very purpose of the
criminal justice system.
Indian prison administration needs overhauling a fond without the edifice of
its structure being disturbed. How about a Prisons Management Board for each
prison with the head of the prison as its member-secretary and the head of the
prisons department as the chairman with the Deputy Commissioner of the
concerned district, the district police chief and the district medical officer and
two representatives from the local human rights and social service organizations
appointed by the Deputy Commissioner as members running the administration
and statutorily being responsible for the performance of the prison? It shall
deracinate all extant evils of the prison administration and free the hapless
prisoners from all their gratuitous inhuman sufferings and the rich and powerful
among them from being a princely retreat and a haven of safety and security to
hide from the revenge of the opposite groups.
The heart of the responsibilities of the criminal justice system is cleansing the
society by bringing criminals to book. Investigation is the prime tool available for
this end. Human rights, justice and equitability before the law make up the essence
of the privileges man enjoys in the social setup. The organisations entrusted with
the responsibility of protecting the rights and doing justice to all with the equitable
process of the criminal justice system en semble are doing a disservice to the
professions and humanity if failed in their cardinal responsibility for want of
coordination and synergy in approach.

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INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES
IN POLICING
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 presuppose 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 increasingly
palliated by external pressures. The prevarication is a major factor in the

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degringolade of the police and policing standards in India subsequent to

independence.
Indian police can cover the Achilles heel by carrying out a separate detective
cadre up to 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 necessitates perforce the creation of
investigation centers parallel to the police stations in the process of the division
of policing responsibilities at the grass root 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 umbilical 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 democratization of the policing at the grass root 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
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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 wellnigh impossible to breach complacency. Ergo, if anything, it must be at lower
levels. And the grass root 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 grass root level are dealt in
brief 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.

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VISION FOR THE INDIAN POLICE

The most basic requirement of any good governance is a vision, an ability to
look ahead to the future of the country with great expectations and endless
possibilities in sidelines. This is potential of evolving the governance to greater
heights to herald an era of successes and prosperity. Visions carve paths to the
future and prod the governance to navigate along the couloirs. It provides a
break from the quotidian plod in preference to innovative strides to fulfill the
vision. Governance sans vision is like building an edifice a tatons without a plan
or blueprint. It at best is a random erection. Vision gives direction and purpose
to the governance. It gives grandeur and a proportion to the process. No
governance can be good and complete without a vision to steer ahead, and true
governance can be built only on the terra firma of a vision. The old concept of
a prosperous India is based on the vision of Rama-Rajya. The new concept
of India coming of age is based on the vision of a world power or a regional
power in Asia. Once a vision of that dimension is contrived to back, it is easy to
put the pluses and minuses to conceive a strategy towards the end. Otherwise,
governance is nothing more than a mechanical motion.
Shree A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the honble former President of India is quoted
in Introduction to the Report of the Committee on India Vision prepared by
the Planning Commission in December 2002 as saying, A vision is not a project
report or a plan target. It is an articulation of the desired end results in broader
terms. The same report in Conclusion enumerates Nine Nodal points of Indian
Prosperity, which as adapted and edited to the police and policing of the 2020
vintage, can be summed up ut infra:
1. PEACE, SECURITY & NATIONAL UNITYPhysical security both
from external and internal threatsstrong national defence, domestic law
enforcement and social harmony.
2. PRODUCTIVITY SECURITYA vibrant and highly productive
policing sector that can ensure national security, generate stability, stimulate peace,
and produce a safe and confident social fabric.

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3. JOBS FOR ALLA departmental commitment to ensure the right of all

police personnel to be employed round the year in policing according to his merit
competence and skill.
4. KNOWLEDGEAn environment of cent per cent expertise in policing
activities all over the world including latest policing techniques, latest police
technologies, organizational and administrative updates from all over the world,
law reforms and related matters by training and exposures to maximum police
personnel.
5. HEALTHCare towards physical well-being of all citizens.
6. TECHNOLOGY & INFRASTRUCTUREContinuous expansion of
the physical infrastructure for rapid low-cost transportation and communication
that is required for effective policing competitiveness and policing aides.
Application of computers to improve access to knowledge and information,
and increase in the speed, efficiency and convenience of activities in all fields of
policing.
7. GLOBALISATIONSuccessful integration of Indian Police with the
policing activities world over.
8. GOOD GOVERNANCEFarsighted and dynamic leadership to
maximize effective policing, security and social justice through responsive,
transparent and accountable administration that removes all the bottlenecks to
successful policing.
9. WORK VALUES-Activation of all these nodal points requires firm and
determined adherence to high values, including prompt decision-making,
disciplined execution, systematic implementation, finely tuned co-ordination,
unceasing effort and endurance.
The report also says that the future depends not on what will happen, but on
what is decided to become, and on the will to create it. The vision of 2010 or
2020 must be one in which all levels and sections of the police and all of its parts
march forward together into a more productive and prosperous future. The
vision of police 2010 and police 2020 is discussed under these parameters
provided in the report as a national perspective with the purpose of bringing
about uniformity of approach and identification with the national thought
process.
PARAMETERS OF CHANGE
Panta rhei. Change is a universal phenomenon and the proof of life. Change
is the manifestation of adoption and adaptation and a carrier of the process of
the evolution. No living organism or organisation can remain unchanged
between 2006 and 2010 or 2020. Necessitas non habet legem. Necessities of the
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environment dictate terms for changes and changes occur inter se. That is a sign
of growth. This is so for the police also. Police being an essential service, it can
never remain a deadwood, ergo, must show signs of life and concomitant
propensity for change. But the clavis here is that natura non facit saltum. Change
is a gradual process running on the bedrock of certain definite parameters.
Understanding here is prognostication. Assessing the parameters of the change
in this perspective gives clues to the dynamics that shape the police of 2010 or
2020. A vision is possible and shapes on the determinants decided upon on the
terra firma of these parameters. Vision gives direction to the flow of the
dynamics of the change, and determination to pad-up and execute the vision
provides fuel for realizing the vision.
POPULATION GROWTH
Increase in population does have significant impact on the challenges and the
performances of the police, and inevitably on the direction it takes for its growth.
Ability to assess the challenge provides an allee to decide upon how disadvantages
can be converted into advantage to envision the police of the 2010 or 2020
vintage in an advantageous mould corresponding to the overall national interests.
Corresponding to the increase in the global population from 6.3 billion in
2006 to estimated 6.7 billion in 2010 and 7.5 billion in 2020, India which is home
to 1/6 of the humanity is expected to have its population rise from 1.1 billion
in 2006 to 1.18 billion in 2010 and 1.35 billion in 2020 ipso facto figuring to 1.6%
population growth per annum. Police being the custodian of peace, security and
national unity in the environment will have larger challenges and responsibilities
to shoulder and endure, necessitating appropriate measures to stand up to the
problems and do better.
GLOBALISATION
With further shrinking and diminishing of the globe to a global hamlet in the
next fifteen years thanks to advancements in the fields of transport and
communication, the magnitude of policing also becomes globalize with its own
advantages and disadvantages. The shift certainly renders policing a trans-border
phenomenon touching humanity tout ensemble. With crimes and criminality
increasingly transcending national borders, policing no more will remain an intraborder affair by 2020 and cooperation between the police in the international
arena in the common interests of the rule of law and justice will become the
condition sine qua non by then. Extradition and exchange of criminal intelligence
will become centric to effective policing processes.
It is not only transport and communication that render the globe smaller to
an aldea and contributes to bring global dimension to the criminality. Computer
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and Internet revolution added another dimension to the issue along with global
economic enterprises and their global reticulations adding their own
contributions to the ascensive criminal tendencies and their global spread. Cyber
crime is gaining its own currency in the police parlance with its reverberations felt
in countries across the world. It will be trans-border cooperation or perish for
the profession of policing in the milieu of the globalization. Terrorism as an
international phenomenon against humanity will bring the need of watching and
addressing trans-border crimes into sharp focus even to the exclusion of
common intra-border crimes in priorities.
TECHNOLOGY EXPLOSIONS
Technology is a powerful vehicle of the successful policing and constitutes the
spine of effective policing. This is one factor that renders change inevitable for
policing to update itself to keep au courant with the latest technological
developments affecting police and policing as aides either in criminal or policing
activities. Technology explosions touching policing activities either as carriers of
the policing activities or as policing techniques occurred in recent past are bound
to continue with accrescent pace in coming years and the technology
advancements in related fields in the next five or fifteen years will be considerable,
calling for suitable updating by the police. Again it is remain fit or perish for the
police. Au reste, it is left to the vision of the top brass how to meet the gauntlets
and make best out of the vicissitudes. If police fails here, criminals, anti-social
elements and the hors la loi will take advantage of the situation and gain upper
hand in this field to be the ultimate apollyon of the policing concept as the savior
of the innocent and law-abiding citizens. It is an issue of whom among the police
and criminals take better advantage of the open market of the technology
explosions for survival and bring the other to its knee. Police ignore this bitter
concours at its own peril.
Technology advancements in the fields of transport and communication do
have pollent impact on the policing methods as they serve as the harbinger of
faster response time and provide access to areas unthought otherwise as possible.
Communication technology is in excelsis these days and bound to make further
progress in coming five or fifteen years. Computer and Internet technologies are
the other fields to be watched as a pollent tool of the information technology.
E-governance is a by-word now. It will be an omnipresent reality in 2020 with
2010 forming a part of the transition period. It will be particularly so in a key
sector like policing with e-policing through computer and Internet technologies
in policing methods and techniques going hi-tech apart from police
administration and organizational activities being fully computerised. Computer
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and Internet technologies by 2020 may change the very face of the policing all
over the world so much that the present police systems will remain by that time
only as a matter of archival interests. Policing techniques too may find
revolutionary changes if extant technological advancements are any indications.
Latest technologies like DNA profiling for identification and related activities
will find universal acceptance as popular as fingerprints and footprints now.
Even the researches on stem cells coming with solutions to decide and perhaps
cure criminal tendencies cannot be ruled out. Also, feracious researches and
discoveries on super conductivity, solid fuel and liquid nitrogen and allied
subjects may find some relevance to the process of the policing and policing
techniques by the year 2020 if not earlier in 2010. What is called for is a vision and
vigilance in part of the police leaders to make use of the breakthroughs at the
advent of the right time to overtake the visionary and vigilant criminals in the
concours for the superiority.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Economics and crimes algate go pari passu. They are the two faces of the
same coin in any society, more so in a democracy, and economic growth
perforce affect crime and criminal fields, ipso facto police orientations in a major
way. Indias increasingly dynamic and vibrant economic base lends credence to
the view that India can achieve and sustain higher than historical rates of
economic growth in the coming decades. The compounded effect of achieving
the targeted annual GDP growth rate of 8.5 to 9 per cent over the next 20 years
would result in a quadrupling of the real per capita income and almost eliminating
the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line. This will raise Indias rank
from around 11th today to 4th from the top in 2020 among 207 countries given
in the World Development Report in terms of GDP. Further, in terms of per
capita GDP measured in ppp Indias rank will rise by a minimum of 53 ranks
from the present 153 to 100. This will mean, India will move from a low-income
country to an upper middle-income country. It will be a major accomplishment
indeed that is certain to make major impact on the crime scenario of the country.
Human greed is the main culprit. Inequality and disparities of the economic
growth, particularly in an open market milieu is the second Momus. It is dumb
to presume that economic growth brings peace and stability. The truth is other
way round. Statistics have proved that economic growth in the form of unequal
distribution of the national wealth always increased the propensity towards
violence, crime and instability in the country. This will be the major concern of
the police in 2020.

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SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS

Factors like social inequities, conflicts arising out of the conversion of the
traditional stratified society to egalitarian society, religious extremism, interstate
territorial disputes, racial and linguistic violence and radical politics of the Maoist
Communist Party variety will continue to plague the police of both 2010 and
2020 and keep them on their toes if not further add to their problems. IndiaPakistan conflict may also continue to plague the country in form of internal
instability prompted by ISI and such external agencies. In spite of terrorism
prompted by external elements and extremist activities from disgruntled internal
elements, police is expected to maintain the Indian social fabric intact, and this
will be a major challenge to the police by 2020.
TARGETS FOR THE POLICE
Peace, security and national unity are the pillars on which the edifice of the
police is constructed. Social justice and removal of the injustices from the face
of the society are its prime objectives. Crime prevention measures, crime
investigation, enforcement of the laws of the country, security measures,
regulating and establishing order in the public life for the commune bonum are
the tools of the police to accomplish these objectives. Police is duty-bound to
perform these objectives and bring about a sense of safety and security among
the people, and a sense of unity without disturbing the social fabric of the country
and without offending basic human rights. People look to the police for their
safety and security. The country looks to the police as an esemplastic factor in the
process of the nationhood. And the society looks to the police for protecting
their interests and basic human rights from vested interests. In the increasingly
complex society of the 2020, these cardinal contraplex objectives of the police
will continue to eat up to its vitals unless sound police alferez finds a balance and
guides policing in aurea mediocritas.
Indian police of the 2020 vintage with that of 2010 in a transition to the end
will come on par with the police of the advanced western countries and the
weltgeist in schemes for the protection and safety of the weak, feeble and
exploited sections of the society. Novel and revolutionary schemes for the
protection of children, women, elderly citizens, weaker sections and helpless
foreigners from the exploitation will find favour with the Indian police in the next
five to fifteen years.
ELDERLY CITIZENS
Elderly citizens of the age 65 years or more will rise to 76 millions in strength
in 2020 from 58 millions in 2010 and 51 millions in 2006. This section of the

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society that is weak and incapable of looking after itself needs priority attention
to averruncate exploitations of their age-related infirmities in a society in which
their children because of prolate migrations to foreign countries or other parts
of the country for job-related or other encheasons assurgently leave them to their
own fate unattended. The elder citizens are found targets of specific crimes and
exploitations by unscrupulous elements, and police worth the name should have
special programmes for their safety and well-being. Police of advanced countries
including the United States of America have special schemes and programmes
for the safety and protection of this section of the society. Indian police is yet to
catch up with the zeitgeist though scattered attempts are felt here and there. But,
concrete measures in this direction are yet to shape up. Indian police must see
awakening itself to this aspect of its responsibility by the year 2020.
CHILDREN, WOMEN, FOREIGNERS
All weaker sections of the society need special attention of the police with
specific schemes for protection after avizefull study of crimes and criminal
tendencies in the field and adoption of protection machinery most suited to the
situation. Just having schemes do not make any difference. There should be will
to earnestly execute them and bring safety and protection from exploitation to
all the sections of the society to bring in overall atmosphere of peace, security and
freedom from exploitation in the country in cause of its policing objectives.
Indian police certainly will rise to this professional commitment by 2020.
Child labour is a crime as well as a social dilemma in a country where for many
a square meal is a luxury. Though India has myriad Acts meant for the protection
of the weaker sections of the society like children, women, SCs & STs, and
bonded laborers, often their enforcements are found lacking in will to execute
and sometimes steeped in social problems. The confusions and incertitudes in
enforcing social legislations are likely to be overcome with the coming of age by
the police by 2020 to meet the overall objectives to bring about an atmosphere
of peace, security, stability and national unity to the country without disturbing
the social fabric of the country.
In the ambience of globalization, safety and security needs of the foreigners
also warrant priority attention. Incidence of rape and extortion of foreigners is
increasingly becoming a common phenomenon in India these days. Indian police
leaders will find themselves hand-tied by 2020 to attend this menace in the
interests of their own country.
CRIME INVESTIGATION
Investigation is an area Indian police needs to improve considerably. Key to
public confidence in police investigation is a conviction rate of a minimum of
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51% so that there can be a claim that majority of the hors la loi goes behind the
bar. But, it is a far cry from the reality in any police organisation including the
Central Police Organisations in India for any category of crime. That means
conviction for a crime is an exception rather than a rule in India and crime goes
unpunished. This reality must change if police is to be relevant to the future crime
situation of the country in 2020.
Another important field where Indian police needs change of its image is
completing investigation within a time-bound frame of three months, or better,
less. Justice delayed is justice denied. Time is a crucial factor in bringing a culprit
to the justice. Period that goes unpunished after a crime a la money borrowed
incrementally adds to the free life of the criminal at others expenses. It is not
seldom in Indian situation to see convictions coming after the death of the
criminal, or after the criminal fully made use of the res gestae, thereby rendering
Indian criminal justice system and its conviction an ironical farce. This should stop
if Indian police has any passion and commitment for justice and crime
investigation process. It is another vision of the police 2020.
These are not something impossible objectives to be achieved in the next five
or fifteen years. Political will and committed police leadership at the helm can
easily achieve these targets. And fifteen years is not too short a period to
accomplish these crucial feats. After all, vision of India in 2020 is predicated on
the belief that human resources are the most important determinants of overall
development, and it is here that the Indian police needs to focus to achieve these
targets. Indeed minor amendments to the criminal laws of the country after
convincing the political leadership and procedural updates with an iron hand
should be able to bring about these changes. It is a vision a portee for
accomplishment by 2010, if not by 2010 or earlier.
COMMUNITY POLICING
Policing ideally is a job performed for the people, through the people, with
police acting just as catalysts in the process. Police as the specialists in the field
initiate and guide the volunteers from the public pro bono publico. They provide
information and expertise input in the process. The function of the police in
policing in a democratic milieu is just that of an alferez; a friend, guide and
philosopher. Secondly, the crucible of policing in precipitating justice needs to
be transparent, and accountable to the public. This need can be met only by
involving the public in the process of the policing. Thirdly, no police organisation
however mammoth and powerful it be, can do full justice to its work without
the cooperation of the public. Ergo, true policing needs to be community
policing-centric. This aspect also covers counseling and consultation aspects at
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crucial levels. Community policing lightens the quotidian burden of the policing
to the police, so that the latter can focus on macro aspects of the policing touching
national interests and international angle.
PROFESSIONALISM
A major handicap of the extant Indian police is the infusion of
nonprofessional decisions to the mould of professional decisions of the policing
whether it is in service matters like postings and transfers or policing processes
like investigations and enforcement of rules and laws. All the present maladies
emanate from the politicians who are only concerned with winning of the next
elections. 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
entrusting 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.
Until the organisation is extricated from the grip of politicians practicing
machtpolitic, it cannot hope to rise above mediocrity either in proficiency or in
character. Such mediocrity is wont to percolate downwards in a democratic
setup. Lack of character among the noumenal police leadership actually brought
the police forces in India to its knees before the political leadership of the
democratic vintage where more often than not, politicians bear the major share
of the criminal activities of the country. This is a triste affaire for both the country
and its police. The situation is slipping from bad to worse ad nauseum. Indeed
these are mauvais moment for the Indian police. But, no bad days are a jamais
and the tide should change. After all, post tenebris spero lucem. It is a desperate
vision that the bad days in the annals of the Indian police will be over by 2020
and Indian police will come clean under sound police leadership and right
political leadership by that time. This can be achieved by the creation of the
Policing Authority at the helm of the policing affairs of the country.
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
need to be created to oversee and take major decisions pertaining to policing and
service matters including assessment of performances and transfers more suo.
A Supreme Court Judge must head the Authority 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
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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
facticite 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 will oppilate the glissade and
bring back all the former gloria of commitment to merit and character to the
police. This vision though appears a dreamers dream because of the exercise of
machtpolitic and political unwillingness to give up its extant prise on the police,
2020 is far away to dismiss such a miracle outright as apocryphal. No
labefactation in a national life continues in perpetuum. This vision as the enfants
perdus of resurgence and the pollicitation of the revival of the Indian police are
must for all those who have police interests in their hearts.
SPECCIALISATIONS
If policing is to be effective in the years ahead, specialization is crucial. The
year 2020 must see 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 the Air
Force. The vision can be brought to reality by committed police leadership to
bring true professionalism in discharge of the policing responsibilities and
enhance the public confidence in the competence of the force by 2020 or earlier.
POLICE RUN ON MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
Police will do well to formulate actions and operations in line with the latest
management principles and practices following the welt geist. The force by 2020
should be able either to constitute an efficient gestalt of management experts to
advice or hire a management consultation firm for guidance. At any rate, the
police organisation of the 2020 should be a far smaller unit than now, manned
by highly committed and capable officers who are paid and looked after well
by the government.
The last three decades have seen tremendous expansion in the police force.
For lack of an organizational plan and the foresight to assess future demands,
haphazard growth has resulted. Organizational sensibilities such as workload,
unit of control, accountability functional conveniences, span of control and
information flow are never given the attention they need building an
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organisation. As a result, while a few posts in the police are overburdened with
work, there are many which have no work or accountability. The lopsided
growth of the organisation has spawned acute likes and dislikes for various
positions. Naturally, probity and objectivity are sacrificed in favour of survival
and protection of career interests. Corruption is rampant. This may not be the
sole reason for the falling standards of policing. Yet, it is a major cause. By 2020,
police administration should be able to see the vestigial retrorsum from the
prolate conspurcation.
Rationalization of the police structure to bring about a balance among the
various posts in the same rank would certainly help to ameliorate the situation.
It would also help to eliminate the wastage of government funds on unnecessary
posts. Creation of such posts to accommodate unwanted elements cannot be
tolerated in a serious department like the police. A systemic growth plan for
balanced expansion is what is called for, if the department is to meet the tasks
ahead.
LEAN AND MEAN FORCE
The piece de resistance of the policing by 2020 will 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.
The police of the 2020 will be required to shed its ide fixe for the show of
strength in place of efficient policing. The stress in future will be on lean and fit
policing. The structural deformity of the chorisis and overweight 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
must become a matter of the past by the year 2020 with the police going perforce
competitive en face gargantuan challenges from criminals posing threat to the
raison detre of the police and its relevance to the extant society.
RESPONSE TIME
The key to the success of the police is its response time, the speed with which
it responds to the gauntlets 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
priority in excelsis. The thrust of the police administration of the next fifteen years
must be directed to bettering the response time as speed will be the mainstay of
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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. Coming years must see the
police force in the finest fettle in terms of organisation, manpower and
equipments and the force becoming a highly organized and efficient limb of the
state apparatus.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
India in its long history saw governance of all kinds, proportions and
dimensions and survived through them. It saw the worst and the best in its 2500
years of recorded history. It, like other old civilizations of the world, has worked
as the crucible of various experiments in governance. The governance and
policing in India now is based on this long experience. It is the collective will for
good governance that is lacking in India. The consequence is that the hoi polloi
suffer and the country fails to reach the height it is potential of. The besoin of the
extant India is the evolution of a collective will to have good governance. People
must pool their energies to force good governance for the country. Indeed the
job is not easy and the resistance from those in charge of the governance whose
interests lie in the status quo is bound to be hard. But, this cannot be an encheason
to leave the matter of this dimension unattended as the fate of one billion people
depends on this development. Only such a collective will can devolve truly good
governance and policing for the country.
Creation of a self-contained police machinery in place of the present mere
nuts and bolts of the administration is the 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 six decades. Insulating the police from the vice
prise of the ectogenetic pressures and influences needs to become a reality in
fifteen years since, 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 the Indian public life and bring the fear of god to force strict adherence
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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
the national spirit, it witnessed since independence.

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OF INDIAN POLICE
Greek verb logistikos meaning compute or calculate, and French verb
loger meaning lodge are the roots of the English noun logistics, meaning
supply of supportive attributes like manpower, transport, communication
reticulation, weapons systems and other facilitators in any operation as planned
in advance, and accurately trace the true nature of an effective logistics in terms
of computed and calculated planning, and lodging or infixing the supportive
tools as calculated and planned in advance to be lodged at right time, place and
occasion to meet the needs of the operation for efficient performance and
results, ipso facto investing logistics and its execution a managerial edge. Logistics
and logistics support imprimis are managerial tools built on the bedrock of the
management techniques. Logistics au fond is perficient material management run
with an edge of precise time management and efficient space management,
made possible with right foresight, creative vision, incisive planning and accurate
execution. Evolution of norms for logistics in police organisations is byword for
the desire for the application of management principles to policing and police
organisations. It represents induction of the faculty of ratiocination to the field
of policing and police organisations. It is a visionary step and prognosticates the
aurora of the scientific age in police organisations. Logistics norms differ only
in details from the Police Station level to the sub-division level to district level
while rest on the same bedrock of broad managerial techniques.
PRIME VECTORS
Both Police Station and District Police Administration are the pillars of the
policing structure of India with sub-divisions providing the links between the
two. Sub-divisions derive their sustenance and draw manpower and logistics
from the Police Stations, ergo strong and efficient Police Stations mean strong
sub-divisions. In exceptional cases, sub-divisions can always depend upon the
strength of the district police force. Sub-divisions as such do not have
independent existence apart from the Police Stations under them and the district
police administration that guides and controls them. Therefore, discussion on the

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logistics requirements of the Police Stations and the district police administration
inter se covers sub-divisions too.
Police Stations and district police administrations as the basic structures of the
policing need to be pollent units capable of independently tackling crimes,
security and law and order issues from their own provenances, so that higher
units are free to focus on larger issues of countrywide dimensions sans
distractions. For this to happen, the Police Stations have to be full-fledged units
as far as their manpower and logistics requirements are concerned without the
need of asking and waiting for the help extra muros. A sense of autarchy and
autarky is basic here. The change brings pride to the unit and boosts morale
bringing in high motivation and inculcating lofty purpose to the job of policing.
The end result will be quality and often competitive performance of very high
order in policing which sadly is a mere dream in the extant policing structure of
India.
Police Station setup of present India grievously falls short in logistics and
infrastructure support whether it is in manpower, transport, communication
network, weapon systems or financial powers. Though district police
administrations are in far better position than the Police Stations in all
compartments en face respective requirements, they too are far from an ideal
position in respect of their requirements. While Police Stations must look to the
district police administration for help for manpower and logistics support for
every uncommon situation, the district police administration in turn looks to the
state headquarters for elbow space. Even begging other government
departments for transport and other infrastructure facilities is not unheard of.
This is not an ideal situation by any stretch of imagination to any police setup and
should stop.
ARMED POLICE UNITS
Both Police Stations and district police administrations should become selfcontained units in respect of manpower, transport facilities, communication
reticulatum, weaponry and other logistics requirements. Every Police Station
should convert into a nidus of police functions under an officer of the rank of
Police Inspector assisted by scores of Sub-Inspectors in charge of different
policing functions like crime, traffic, headquarters, intelligence, law and order and
armed police. Every Police Station must have a unit of its own armed reserve
under a PSI that provides men also for extraneous duties like guards, courts,
summons, orderly services apart from being the striking force. The armed police
units of the district police administration need to be strengthened in most districts
and properly trained.
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INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
Both Police Station and district police administration setups as far as
intelligence gathering is concerned is in extremely poor shape uniformly in most
states of India, save a few like Jammu and Kashmir where the need of selfpreservation perforce dictated terms to strengthen the intelligence apparatus.
Intelligence is the bedrock of effective policing and sine qua non for professional
policing. Intelligence gathering and analyses apparatchik is the principium among
the core logistics supports that makes difference to the quality of the policing
process in both the Police Station and district police administration levels.
Districts do have structures to handle both the crime and law and order
intelligence, though poorly equipped and seldom made use of, while the same
in the Police Station levels is almost nonexistent. Intelligence gathering
apparatchik needs to be strengthened at both the levels to enrich policing process
with relevant intelligence. An officer of the rank of PSI with adequate staff in a
Police Station should be in exclusive charge of collecting both the crime and law
and order intelligence to strengthen the hands of the officer heading the Police
Station.
MINI POLICE COMMISSIONERATES
Police Stations as centers of policing functions must work as mini police
commissionerates sans magisterial powers and treated as such in importance and
powers. Trust begets trust and trust sprouts responsibility. Once Police Stations
revive respectability and importance on par with that of the British vintage, they
may regain their whilom aureole at no time. This is so also with the district police
administrations. Indeed, there are the issues of corruption and misuse of powers
that are beyond the scope of this discussion and it suffices to state that
appropriate checks and counterchecks should be in place to counter such
eventualities.
NIDUS OF POLICE FUNCTIONS
Pollent Police Stations as the centers of police functions justifies fewer police
stations around and irrationalize the present donnert trend among the top-brass
of crying wolf for creating more and more police stations at every possible
opportunity and howling hoarse for many more to create gulli-gulli police
station situation with most of them weak and incapable of independent
existence and just meant as mere show-pieces for the public consumption and
adding to the welter in jurisdictional and other complications. The epinosic
response is owing to the copycat mindset so prolate among the Indian police
leadership of the post-independent vintage. Quantity is an irrelevant concept in
the extant age of hi-tech world, and transport and communication explosions
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render the world increasingly smaller every passing day. What is required is
quality. The stress must be on resourcefulness and response time. Fewer Police
Stations, each a nidus of the police functions at strategic locations and selfdependent in its manpower and other logistic requirements of transport,
communication, weaponry and related facilitators is the need of the hour.
Control room oriented policing with shortened response time are capable to
tackle any kind of police emergencies and contingencies within a given area.
District police administrations must function as the custodian and provider of
special techniques, high-tech gadgets and higher counseling and guidance to the
benefits of the Police Stations apart from its extant conventional duties.
CONTROL ROOMS
This brings the issue of control room oriented policing that suits best in urban
areas to the fore. Shift systems round the clock and response time are the key
factors in such a policing system. Logistics support becomes the crucial issue in
the control room oriented policing system as the effectiveness of the system
depends tout a fait on effective logistics designs, planning and management in
place. Police Stations fully self-dependent in manpower and other logistics
supports like transport, communication, weaponry and other facilitators alone
can handle control rooms successfully for perficient policing. Such a system
presupposes committed manpower working on round the clock shifts and
requiring high morale. High morale in turn depends on job satisfaction and right
job culture that are built on perfect man management practices. All these issues
need to be tackled one after the other for efficient policing. Indian police of
present days is a far cry from those objectives.
MANPOWER
In a country bogged down with endemic unemployment, and steeped in
cheap labour, manpower should not be a problem though eurhythmic quality
production may often become an issue. No discussion on manpower is
complete without the factors of morale, motivation, competence, discipline and
commitment are taken into account. No analysis on logistics is complete without
the production factor of the manpower is assessed.
SHIFT SYSTEM
Policing being a round the clock responsibility, a three-shift system is sine qua
non in a grass-root policing unit like the Police Station. And unlike now, the
system must be statutorily defined and duly molded and rounded off for
effective functioning with clear-cut division of labour in place. Lack of this clarity
and arbitrary day-to-day allotment of duties on ones own fancies by lower ranks
in the Police Stations is the radical of the entire maelstrom in man management
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noticed in police stations these days resulting in low and inefficient turn-out of
work. A well-defined shift system and purposeful man management policy
directed towards high motivation and morale should work as the nostrum to the
malady.
EFFICIENT MAN MANAGEMENT
Sound incentive schemes based on the innards of the human psyche and latest
managerial techniques and committed leadership models can do the tricks to
maximize the output with the minimum input and save the criminal wastages in
manpower that are common features of the present man management in Indian
police, where a few islands of manpower are over-worked while most wanze
precious man-hours without productive output. Any step to break this epinosic
trend will save Indian police from gargantuan manpower wastages. This aspect
needs priority.
An important feature of the efficient man management is best utilization of
the available manpower talents. Indian police of the post-independent vintage
is notoriously profligate in frittering away and even curbing precious human
talents that land on its lap by its good fortune. An example is that of a brilliant
police officer from an Indian state who made name as a poet, an intellectual and
an original thinker on police and policing subjects with scores of published books
on poetry and policing subjects to his credit and a popular writer on police
subjects on all major English newspapers, and well-known for his immaculate
conduct and foursquare character, being persistently and consistently harassed
gratuitously for decades, denied promotion for more than twenty-one years
without offering a reason in the ambience of no reasons existing, often denied
facilities normal even for his posts and repeatedly forced to work in the rank of
Superintendent of Police under his far less talented and far less upright juniors
from his own batch now in the rank of IGPs. Such atrocities are possible in
Indian police these days. Reason for the reductio ad absurdum of the man
management in Indian police of the present vintage to this scale is just jealousy
and fear among the higher-ups of being overshadowed by his superior talents.
His fault lies in the denial to approach the court of law in propugnation of own
interests in spite of promptings from well-meaning seniors and his preposterous
pride in deciding that what are his, must come by themselves sans promptings
from any quarters and philosophizing che sara, sara. He continues in the plight
even now without promotions. This is an example of the criminal wastage of
human talents apart from cruelty and crimes involved. Just thinking how best and
to what advantages an efficient organisation would have made use of his talents
by providing right incentives rather than curbing and crushing his normal
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opportunities makes this example of negative norms of the Indian police an eye
opener. Such perversions and prevarications of the man management norms of
epinosic dimensions must stop. It is a different story that he did not wither away
like most in similar situations and made big name and brilliantly succeeded in
other avenues. It is true that true talents cannot be hidden and even villainy of the
top brass of the police has limits in curbing and crushing the talents of the
fonctionnaire lower down. This is the brighter side of the spiel.
PRECIOUS MAN POWER
Every employee in any efficient organisation is a precious asset. This is not
because labour comes at enormous cost, but because of the presence of innate
potentialities in every person and its mammoth utility were they are adequately
tapped. The problem lies in the need and competence to extract the potentialities
and talents. Police organisation has a long tail of hierarchy of seniors after seniors.
The billion-dollar question is whether this long tail of seniority of the police
department has any relevance as far as leadership and leadership qualities are
concerned. The answer is a big no. Present Indian police is least bothered
about the need of sound leadership and leadership qualities in its body as far as
seniority go and sadly leadership and seniority are synonymous in its diction. That
must stop and the organisation must constitute per se a climacteric norm to
enable the resorgimento of the Indian police to draw it out of its present chilling
hiems.
None realizes the importance of every single human hand available as the
USA does, and the care taken and the investment made on each hand in American
armed forces are legendary. India and Indian police though cannot fully follow
the American ideal because of its financial constraints and other reasons, the
model sine dubio deserves avizefull consideration to aemule as a vaulting norm
adapted to Indian milieu. Human being a natura rei is potential of extending and
shrinking to any scope created for him. This is so also in work environment. A
man or woman treated as lowly and dispensable as it is in the constabulary and
other lowly ranks of the Indian police, shrinks au naturel to adjust to the space
created for him, and expands and extends to be der Unsterbliche ubermensch if
he or she is provided for and treated as such. Indian police lacks this insight to
the human psyche and pays heavily in terms of human cost for the grave
incompetence. How fast Indian police realizes this fault, so good it is pour-soi.
Maximum output out of minimum resources is the motto here. Maximum
output should be the norms of manpower management in Indian police at all
levels rather than going for blind increase in manpower strength at every possible
occasion. High morale, high motivation and job contentment, high professional
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pride, adequate rights and responsibilities, reasonably sound infrastructure and

logistics support are the claves for productive and perficient policing and make
difference to the quality of the policing whether it is in Police Station levels or
district police administration levels. This brings the issue of logistics support to
the fore.
LOGISTICS SUPPORT
Logistics and infrastructure supports are the core of effective policing and
also serve as the multiplier of manpower. Transport and communication
logistics are the eyes and ears of the perficient policing. In the age of hi-tech crimes
and criminals, high-level logistics support is sine qua non for the policing to be
successful. Right logistics support has four dimensions or factors to be useful and
effective in policing: quantity factor, quality factor, relevancy factor and time
factor. Quantity factor covers availability of adequate logistics support; quality
factor covers availability of latest and hi-tech logistics support; relevancy factor
covers the need of logistics support being relevant to the needs of the policing;
and time factor refers to the availability of the logistics support at right occasion
and time. Inadequacy in any of these factors certain to affect the quality of the
policing and needs foremost attention of the police leadership to keep the police
and policing in top gear.
In Indian situation, the principium of the four factors namely the quantity
factor itself often is a major hurdle because of financial constraints and other
problems though recent rise in terrorism alerted the bureaucratic and political
leadership to awaken to this problem and make more and more logistics support
available to police de grado in grado. But, the quality factor continues to be a
major pain in the spine. Criminals are often found in India better equipped than
the police as far as hi-tech gadgets and even crucial intelligence are concerned.
Indian police lacks adequate organizational strength and expertise to keep up
dated to the research explosions in the world market in hi-tech gadgets in
transport, communication, information and weaponry systems. This shortfall
needs to be attended on priority if Police Stations and district police
administrations to be effective in defeating crime and criminals in their own
games. Whatever done at present in this field are sporadic attempts sans systemic
efforts. This lacuna needs to be rectified.
Relevance and time factors are logistic maneuvers tout court involving human
assessments and decision making in the process of the policing and depends assez
bien on human excellence involved and requires improved human qualities. That
comes by practice, skill, training, commitment and mature leadership. These
factors also need close attention in efforts to give quality policing to the country.
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MAINTENANCE
Any talk on logistics is incomplete without a discussion on maintenance,
which is the weakest link in the mindset of the Indian psyche. Maintenance
inherently is the byproduct of a disciplined mind that is anathema to the Indian
psyche. Naturally Indian police is pathetically poor in maintenance aspect of
whatever it does. One factor responsible for this perilous assuetude is the cost
factor involved. The second factor that brings about this neglect of the
maintenance structure in the organisation is the lack of appreciation of the need
of the maintenance in running an organisation and carrying out its operations.
This Achilles heel of the Indian psyche holds its sway in police organisations also.
Sound maintenance of the logistics infrastructures and other assets is sine qua non
for sound policing and perhaps gets precedence in importance over acquiring
new gadgets and assets. A sound police organisation just cannot ignore this
crucial need that considerably contributes to the success of police operations.
FINANCIAL POWERS
Police Stations as the nidus of police functions with considerable manpower
and huge logistics support means in its possession and responsible for their
maintenance perforce need considerable financial powers for themselves so that
they can look after themselves without waiting for sanctions from above. This
investment also boosts the confidence and self-reliance of the Police Stations as
independent units apart from bringing respectability and accountability to them
unlike now. The advantage here is both physical and psychological and needs
priority attention.
STRATEGIC LOCATION
It be a Police Station, district police administration or any other police unit,
its effective functioning depends very much on small details like its location and
building also. They have to be located at a place decided upon after careful study
of the issues involved and operational facility and convenience considered not
only for the easy access to the public, but also for more crucial strategic reasons
of operational considerations like facile movements, easy logistics support,
access to hi-tech equipments, easy access to key manpower assets, convenience
for secret operations et cetera. This important factor is often ignored in Indian
police and it is common to find a Police Station situated in a locality outside its
jurisdiction in urban areas and district police administration being located in an
unplanned shabby rented building in a busy and strategically unsound locality.
Easy availability often guides such decisions in Indian police. Such casual
approaches in such key decisions should stop and proper norms should be laid
to bring order in such key decisions and avoid concomitant mishaps.
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Norms are mere standards, or more precisely, standard customs to be set or

evolved. Indian police as defined and structured by the British administration
more than a century back served the British administration and its objectives in
a far less complex milieu appreciably for nearly a century and later. But, in a
situation of panta rhei, the antianus reticulation is increasingly becoming unfit and
incompetent to the changing trends of the crime and criminality and may become
entirely irrelevant to the changed complexities of crime and criminality if
immediate corrective steps are not taken and new norms are evolved and set for
the posterity. In a donnert police structure steeped in blinkers and mental
inaction, the very idea of evolving fresh norms for manpower and logistics is a
highly welcome initiative and deserves hearty plaudite.

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INDIAN POLICE
The major problem that confronts extant police is its attitude to work,
responsibilities, profession, organization, 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 molding professional attitude in the organization.
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.
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 organization
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 organization lies in molding
professional attitude as required by the ideals of the profession. Wrong attitudes
inveterate in extant practices and procedures of policing are shaped by selfinterests, 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
realization 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

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the top leadership of post-independent Indian police is responsible for the

prevarication of the organization 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 caliber and merit occupied key government
posts. This 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 maximizing self-interests and personal comforts at the cost of professional
policing. In the process, the country suffered and police lost its face.
WRONG ATTITUDES APLENTY
A profession like police naturally has its own goals, objectives and ideals to
pursue. They get clouded in the smog of practical turn-around 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 organization. Practices and procedures being the primary vehicle of
attitude, they help molding 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 detre while attitude in the job prevaricates from
professional ideals.
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 interpersonal relationship in a civilized
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
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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 laws sake. Rules
and laws are invested on police like weapons as the dernier ressort while all other
avenues are shut. Discreetness is their constraint. Objectives are primary. Rules
and laws must follow them only as tools to that end. The realization is rarely
found in the present police. It operates laws for laws sake by relegating
organizational 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 nobodys 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 offspring 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 detre of good policing. The shift in attitude needs to be from blind and
blanket policing for the policings sake to discreet and enlightened policing to
reach professional objectives. The shift has to be from the use of policing powers
to maximize professional goals. The shift must see police taking risks in the
interests of the profession and doing intelligent policing rather than indulging in
maneuvers of personal security. The process warrants massive exercise in
attitudinal change.

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AFFECTING ATTITUDINAL CHANGE

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 relevance, pressures, policing environment,
psychological aspects of policing etc. The exercise has 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 right 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 centers and research projects on
the issues of policing. These attempts provide both inputs and insight to the
behavioral 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.
RIGHT RECRUITMENT
Character is nascitur, non fit. Sound character is the materfamilias of right
attitudes. The principium of right training strategy is the realization that character
and attitudes cannot be created. Character is an immanent element. Any
discussion on right training strategy sans discussion on right recruitment is like
building an edifice on sand-bed, like watering a dead plant, an exercise in futility,
an intellectual wanze. Right training is nothing more than perficient seedling of
a seed or precocious flowering of a blossom. It is more so in issues of character,

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attitude and behavior, the three being entwined into one with character spawning
attitude and attitude in its turn defining the behavior. This brings us to the intricate
issues of character and character building. The triste state d affaire of the Indian
police of the post-independent vintage and its degringolade after independence
can be attributed tout a fait to this single factor: lack of character. That is
recruitment of wrong people, recruitment of people lacking in character,
integrity, honesty, human sensibilities, service motive and Rhadamanthine
attributes.
The corner stone of any perficient training strategy is right recruitment. The
emphasis should be on sound character reflecting on integrity, human sensibilities
and service motive. This necessitates creation of a character profile of each
applicant imprimis in the process of selection and recruitment. Once character
is in place, other needs follow by the fundamentum relationis and secondary to the
need hierarchy enface crucial character in professional policing. Ability to
envision and see things in broader perspective also needs to be tested for final
selection.
Indeed, practical problems are mind-boggling if not impossible to manage.
First of all, drawing the character profile of eligible applicants is easier said than
done. It calls for complete overhauling of the extant selection procedures and
evolution of psychological processes as the prime mechanism of the selection in
place of present highlight on answering abilities. Competence of the present
psychological processes in drawing right character profile is another issue. And
the ever-presence interference of political and influential lobbies and the greed
of the selectors at all levels are the grave hurdles for this process to be feracious.
WARMING-UP PROCESS
The period of initiation is the most important and impressionable period in
the career-life of fresh recruits to the police department. The process of
warming-up is based on the psychological needs of human nature. New entrants
must be handled with utmost care to give them confidence and a feeling of
belonging at the incipient stage itself. A sense of confidence and belonging to the
organisation and an ingenerate love and respect for the higher-ups are the
substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate discipline in a void
are like waiting for rain from the autumn sky. Indian police impresarios failed
to understand such finer nuances of administration when they copied the system
of the British Indian police. And so we now have a police system where discipline
is insisted on subordinates sans the conditions requisite for the discipline. The
recruits, who enter the fold with open sensibilities and high expectations, wither
after braving for a while the brusque and insensitive conduct of their higher ranks.
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These recruits continue thereafter to be constant enemies of the higher ranks and
the department for which they must continue to work for the next three to four
decades. A police department constituted of such members, thanks to the
shabby approach of the insensitive higher ranks in this most impressionable
period of the formers carrier-life cannot turn out eximious work. It is a tragedy
that India neither spawned a police force of its own superior values nor copied
the police force of the British vintage in its entirety with its finer points, but
cultivated instead a burlesque of the rough and mediocre aspects of both.
ACADEMIC TRAINING
It is euphemistic to nuncupate extant Indian police training cap-a-pie as a
maelstrom. It is in utter disarray and directionless. Emphasis is on information,
which is not a big deal in this age of Internet and competitive marketing of all
kinds of information. What is required is blossoming of the potential right
character, attitudes and requisite skills. This is the field where complete
overhauling of the training system is called for. Save the constabulary for which
spoon-feeding of the rudimentary criminal laws are must, other where wanze the
precious training period on basics while prime issues like character building and
behavioral and attitudinal evolutions remain untouched is criminal offence per
se. What is required is laying a sound foundation for character building as a
powerful base for passions for righteous policing, and motivating the young
recruits in that direction. This aspect is completely forgotten in Indian police
training now.
Basic police training course at all levels should begin with exclusive exposure
in the first month to the sine qua non of sound character, integrity, honesty,
humility, human sensibilities and the Rhadamanthine attributes as the
springboard of the right attitudes in policing. Policemen as the custodians of the
rules and laws of the country and the agents of the public sittlichkeit in uniform
how stand out from the public must be deeply etched on the young minds to
guide them all through their career and light their path with the flambeau of
righteousness thus lighted. The need of right public relations and image building
in perficient policing cannot be over-emphasized at this stage of the adsorption
of the young recruit to the fold of the police setup. The young recruits should
be impressed on the importance of means in achieving targets and how
malfeasance leads to utter disaster in the end. And also how right policing stands
on the bedrock of the human rights.
The subjects to be covered during this period of one month at all levels should
cover in-depth study of human values and their philosophic foundations,
policing philosophy, objectives and ideals of right policing, the locus standi of
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the police and policing in a democratic setup and the requisites of adjustments
with the political and other leaderships and the degrees to which the police should
maintain its own space and balance, the place of rules and laws in the overall
scheme of the criminal justice system of the country and the shortfalls, the
supremacy of the constitution of the country, the true meaning of the loyalty and
its extensions in a democratic setup, the field realities of the less than perfect
society with which police constantly remains engaged in performing its duties
and how to maintain an adjustment mechanism in diverse situations in the overall
interests of the peace and security of the society. The period must cover also
diverse case studies from the field about the success stories of right character and
attitudes in policing and analyses of the inner dynamics therein. Indeed, these are
intangible topics lacking suitable textbooks for police studies at all levels now. It
means earnest measures towards writing of suitable textbooks to this end for
various levels must find priority.
While the first month of the academic training exclusively covered the
character and attitudinal issues, the remaining period of nine months too should
have the subject covered in addition to conventional police subjects. The telos
is to build characters that approach policing nec cupias, nec metuas. Here too,
case studies from the field about success stories of right character and attitudes
must find priority.
Other measures during the academic training at all levels must cover
recognition and ample rewards for development of right character and attitudes
even to the exclusion of talent and technical skills in the training scheme, and right
people as the models in the training staff unlike now when it is only unwanted
mediocre stuffs are fed to the police training institutions at all levels. Excellent
initiatives can do the tricks. There is an instant of a police officer in a police training
academy whilom a few years since for a batch of PSI recruit trainees rubbishing
his allotted law classes and in place briefing on practical tricks from his field
experience about making maximum at the earliest to recoup the bribe paid for
obtaining their recruitments. This is ovem lupo committere.
FIELD TRAINING
Field training is the phase at which an entrant truly comes in contact with the
true policing and begins to form his own impression about police and policing
in the field. There are any numbers of instances in police department senior police
officers at the eve of their retirement recalling with fondness the contribution of
a PC or HC they came in contact at this phase of their career and actually trained
them in the intricacies of policing in the field in drawing the road map of their
whole career. This is just to map out the significance of this phase of ones career
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in policing. A wrong trainer at this stage, and a career wanzes. Ergo, it is of

paramount importance that only right people in the field should be carefully
selected and nominated to assist and train probationers. Any wrong choice will
result in irreparable casualties and should be avoided with maximum caution.
This principle should be applied to trainers even at higher levels including the
district Superintendents.
In addition, the district Superintendent should be made statutorily
responsible for imparting right and effective training particularly forming right
attitudes in those under his charge with mandatory provision for his
performance in this regard figuring in his Annual Performance Reports. There
should be provisions for removal from service at this stage of the probationary
period for failing to develop right attitudes and character even after repeated
detailed warnings, indeed with checks and counterchecks in place to avoid
misuses.
IN-SERVICE TRAINING
Repeated exposures to the need of sound character and right attitudes do
help in instilling the qualities. A refresher course of five days on character building
and right attitudes in police training institutes should be made statutorily
mandatory once in every five years at all levels up to the ranks of IGPs. In
addition, every promotion up to this rank should be provisional until the
concerned official passes a written test on character building and right attitudes
conducted by the concerned police-training institute.
RESEARCH ON RIGHT POLICE ATTITUDES
Higher police training institutes should take up research projects on right
police attitudes on priority on a continuous basis by partaking in the services of
both eligible police officers and non-police academics from the relevant fields.
Every higher police-training institute of the country should have an exclusive
department for research and producing textbooks on character and attitudes in
relevance to police and policing.
JOB CULTURE
Learning is a continuous process. It is so in police and policing also. All
advantages of the right recruitment, right academic training in police training
institutes and right field training face serious reif if field realities become
inconducive to the ideals. Field realities with their positive and negative elements
truly constitute the nidus of the attitudes one is compelled to adopt and adapt.
Therefore, field realities of the policing warrant utmost attention in the process
of breeding right attitudes in the service. It is only through the right job culture

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that the police environment in the tide of high morale turns the leaf and policing
sorienter to build up a set of right attitudes among its personnel.
It is the sacred responsibility of the top brass of the police to ensure that right
means gets precedence over achieving targets somehow. Shortcut methods at
the cost of right means should be discouraged. Exitus acta probat should not be
the only and ultimate motto of the policing. Right attitude should be amply
rewarded in the usual course of the policing. Further, a culture of senior officers
briefing their juniors on the need of right character and attitudes in every possible
opportunity should be created in the organisation. Repeated stresses do have
their own impact particularly in a disciplined organisation like the police.
It is just the opposite of what is prolate in Indian police these days. Wrong
values are encouraged. Corrupt and caste-ridden elements see vaulting spots.
Yes, Minister tregetours win the rat race. Corruption is swept under the carpet
on the specious claim that there is a separate organisation to deal with the matter
and it is none of the responsibility of the organisation to keep itself clean. For,
if one resorts to the cleansing process, he is certain to be unceremoniously kicked
out by the political leadership. The situation has reached such a rien ne va plus
pass in India that it is often visioned that if an fonctionnaire is overlooked for
promotion or transferred to an undesirable post, more than often he is surmised
and hailed as a four-square and outstanding person and those who corner
desirable posts are looked down upon as part of the coprophagous rot. It is a
grave vicious circle. There is no point in discussing right attitude unless this
pythogenic vicious circle is broken.
Problem of attitude basically is a problem felt at higher wrung in top brass
of the force. The stiff hierarchical order and command-obedience pattern of
functioning make the lower wrung 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 honors, 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 attitudes, which need to be corrected,
as it is tangible to the standards of policing as all organizational matters are. The
primary target of attitudinal change is the higher wrung and the top brass. Others
follow and fall to place. The key lies in the realization that something is wrong
in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of the construction.
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Once the realization of wrong dawns upon, reconstruction becomes possible.

Police being an extrovert and action-oriented outfit, self-analyses and inwardlooking tendencies do not come easily. While things go wrong, introversion
becomes sine qua non for healthy growth. This is what is required in Indian police
now.

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POLICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

DOES END JUSTIFY MEANS?
A basic tool man devised to preserve his common rights is the police. It is
an irony that most incidents of human rights violations have their roots in the
police. This is an example of the fence grazing the crop.
The reasons are many. The most important lies in the police culture itself-its
inability to look beyond certain barriers it raises around itself; its failure to see a
human being as he; its incapacity to see its relevance to the common man outside
the power structure; its inveterate indulgence with power play; its deviant
interpretations of its role in the rule of law and, above all, its scant respect for
means (in achieving the end) The result is the police siding with the wrong-doers
in the clashes between individual and national or other social interests, leading to
popular condemnation of the police.
Right thinking people are aware of the predicament and sufferings of their
fellow men. Thanks to the revolution in the communication sphere, human rights
violations have become a highly sensitive issue, with the human rights
commissions at the regional, national and international levels on their toes to
detect, investigate, report and protest. The factual reports have embarrassed
Governments and their police outfits. It is distressing to note that developing
countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America prominently figure in these reports;
and the record of the countries in the Indian sub-continent, including India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka, is not inspiring either. India, in particular, must reread its
recent human rights record.
The basic question is whether human rights violation is sine qua non with
safeguarding national and the larger social interests. The second is whether such
violations are justified in the cause of such interests. The third is what are the limits
within which violations are confined, and who imposes these limits and by what
mechanism. What would be the situation if the police who indulge in human
rights violations to protect national and social interests are thoroughly corrupt,
immoral and unworthy of any trust? Answers are desperately needed.

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Indias human rights record is particularly bad in Punjab and Kashmir. Its
record has never been satisfactory in the North-East or with the naxalites.
Where does one draw the line between the larger interests of the country and
the violation of human rights? Blame is shifted from one level to another
whenever the police are pulled up for human rights violation during action. The
top brass blames the field officers for excess while the latter blame the bosses
for exerting pressures to show results without any guidelines to protect human
rights.
The truth is that the police, at all levels, and its administrators are to be blamed,
that none among the police and their administrators really bother about human
rights and their violations, least of all during actions which expose them to
tremendous risks. It is a do-or-die situation. Once on a dangerous course of
action, the sole aim of the police is to succeed in the operation by whatever
means. Moral questions such as human rights violations and the public agitation
likely to follow do not matter, considering the dangers they face in carrying out
the task. It is a crisis and the tendency is to somehow overcome the situation
irrespective of what the future might hold. The administrators know that
excessive checks and moral fears blunt the killer instinct in the policeman and
affect the chance of his success in the field. The authorities up the hierarchy also
believe in succeeding somehow rather than play by the rules. This is the crux of
the matter regarding human rights.
Human rights take precedence over national and social interests and
transcend religious and moral issues. Human rights become a sensitive issue only
when they clash inter se and invite a decision on basic issues. The question is who
is to judge such basic issues. Certainly the decisions cannot be left to the whims
and convenience of the police.
The human rights are the spine of policing must be made an integral part of
the police culture. This is absolutely necessary. Only such emphasis restrains the
police from indulging in violations.
NATURAL AND BASIC
Human rights are the natural rights of the human race as well as the laws that
help make social life possible. This gives a legal slant to the issue. The legislature,
in a democracy, decides how much of such rights could be surrendered in
common interest. The legislature by promulgating laws and the courts by
interpreting them delineate what natural rights constitute inviolable human rights
violations are an issue between the legislature and the judiciary on the one hand
and the executive, which is the police, on the other. For the fear-struck citizens,
it is an issue between the helpless them and the arm-twisting Government. In
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simple terms, human rights violations involve violating the basic rights of life,
liberty and human dignity beyond the limits of the law. The violations may be
committed in the acts of execution, confinement or torture. It is basically the use
of power beyond the scope of law for certain ends and is not committed for
any noble end. Such violations are common in secret service operations; in
emergent situations, say, when separatists or terrorists are active or dangerous
operations of foreign agents are suspected.
The police indulge in human rights violations on suspected elements to bring
the situation under control either by eliminating them or by forcing them to reveal
their plans. Fake encounters were first contrived and staged by the Indian Police.
Crime investigations account for a large share of human rights violations in the
developing countries where third degree methods are employed in the
interrogation of the people detained. Death, rape and torture in custody are
common in many developing countries.
Are acts of human rights violation effective in crime investigation or in
controlling a troubled situation? The answer is no. A temporary lull may be
created, but in the world of organized crime, the illegalities of human rights
violations have either no impact or have just the opposite impact. The criminals
are mentally and physically prepared to face any threat to their basic rights.
Devising alternative plans to counter police action is only a minor diversion in
their massive operations. In fact, they enjoy fighting the Government on equal
terms with no legal or moral inhibitions. Their resolve to fight the Government
with all the resource at their disposal is only strengthened. It becomes a no-hold
barred fight then onwards, the law-enforcers losing their initial advantages and
the edge of civility and decency.
Inhuman and outrageous acts perpetrated by established Government
agencies have an electrifying impact on the common man whose sympathies are
in favour of the victims. The legal and moral relevance become immaterial to the
citizen. A well-organized outfit actually contrives to create a situation to earn the
sympathy of the public.
HARDENED CRIMINALS
Another reason why acts of human rights violation will not put an end to
crimes is the criminals get hard and wish to take revenge and embarrass the
establishment. This is how resistance grows. This is what happened in Punjab, in
Kashmir and in Vietnam in the Sixties and the Seventies.
Another impact of the violation of human rights by the state is the loss of fear
and respect for the authority of the state. Once subjected to third-degree

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methods during interrogation, a petty criminal comes out as a hardened criminal.

A government devoid of moral authority cannot rule at all.
Secret services indulge in dirty tricks involving human rights violation in
national interests, though law and morality demand that such violations in any
form and for reason are bad. Criminals have their own code of conduct. Secret
service is a world apart and its dramatis personae are inveterate in criminal games
with the official sanction to play them. The danger lies in committing excesses
that endanger the safety and the well-being of innocent people not involved in
the game in any way. It is left to each state to draw the line depending on the
sensitivity of each problem though it cannot openly declare that it is promoting
and guiding the secret acts even remotely. Yet it is a cardinal duty it must perform.
Another dimension of human rights violations is its commission for personal
ends in the garb of fighting a social cause. In the atmosphere of violence,
individuals from enforcement agencies as well as terrorist outfits may take
advantage of the situation and indulge in killings, extortions and rape. India saw
it happen in Punjab and Kashmir and even in the North-East where personal
scores wee settled.
The tragedy about Indian law-enforcers is that they are keen on the immediate
show of results to earn the appreciation of the higher-ups, in the process
relegating to the oblivion the need to find lasting solutions. That is why the
violation of human rights is on the rise as efficient and ingenious policing is less
preferred. This is true about managing law and order issues as well as
investigation of crimes.
Laws are formulated and promulgated by the government keeping in sight
the needs of the country and the responsibilities of its enforcing machinery. The
need to go lawless in order to enforce laws arises only when the law-enforcers
perceive that the laws are inadequate or their abilities are inadequate to meet the
challenges in the field. The laws being what they are, framed from time to time,
to suit the needs of the field, the only conclusion one can draw from rampant
human rights violations is that the enforcers are utterly devoid of professional
skill and the instinct to do effective policing and hence resort to lawlessness as
a short-cut-method.
The heart of police responsibilities is protection of rights, be it individual,
corporate, organizational or social, or the rights of the nation for survival.
Protection, prevention and investigation are the tools available for achieving
these ends. Human rights make up the essence of the privileges man enjoys in the
social setup. The police, entrusted with the responsibility of protecting rights, are

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doing a disservice to the profession and humanity in violating human rights in the
discharge of peripheral duties.
But this is not unique to Indian police. The police and the governments of
almost all the developing countries suffer from the syndrome, the problem being
acute in non-democratic countries.
The problem is laying the emphasis on results irrespective of the means.
Committing an injustice in the name of justice cannot be called a service in the
cause of justice. In policing, each means is an end by itself. Policing by its very
nature, involves extreme measures such as detention, arrest, search, seizure,
impounding, forced entry, taking possession, controlling movements and the use
of weapons. These methods when not employed discreetly and moderately do
great harm to individuals and society. Perhaps in no other organisation is means
as vital as in the police.

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POLITICAL CRIMES AND SECURITY

The importance of political crimes for the police lies in politics and crimes
being two fields ex utraque parte of policing with the police depending on political
leaders for sustenance while acting on criminals to justify its raison detre. The police
can ably deal with politicians and criminals separately in discharge of their
professional duties with their obedience and subordination side furbished for
political masters and tough and ruthless side reserved for criminals.
Unfortunately, the police are not required always to deal with politics and crimes
separately. They are more and more required to handle a special category of
crimes by the name, political crimes where their masters and subjects join hands
to their chagrin. To further flummox the issue, the political crimes rate the highest
in the scale of importance of various crimes on the basis of national interests at
stake, the prominence of personalities involved and the magnitude of interests,
the crimes arouse in the country and outside. The scope of political crimes range
from petty crimes committed by political activists to serious crimes including
white-collar crimes committed in the colours of performing political duties to
grave crimes against national interests committed for political reasons from
within or outside the country. The gravity of political crimes and their threat to
the national interests subject them to the scrutiny and handling by a district of
distinct security apparatus attached to the intelligence setup in addition to the
usual purview of the uniformed police. But, the technique of handling political
crimes in India is yet to be perfected. The present technique is yet a patch work
and the police especially at the top are psychologically ill-equipped to handle
political crimes as seen by poor performance of the Indian police in handling of
such important political crimes as Bofors gun deal, St.Kitts affairs, Jain Hawala
case, anti-sikh riots of 1984 and investigation of cases against godman
Chandraswamy. The result is proliferation of political crimes in India and fear
of a parallel rule by the crime world coming into existence under political
patronage.
CRIME AS A TOOL OF POWERGAME
Vohra Committee report on the nexus of politicians and criminals
perspicaciously indicated Indian political culture for its close links with the

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underworld and provided a compte rendu on the havoc created by the

criminalization of politics and the politicization of crime. Politics imprimis being
a power game and an art of possible, Shakespeares characterization of love and
war where everything is fair, most politicians obviously presume, holds good to
their profession as well. War and politics being two facets of the same power
game, one external and one internal, there is no point why the axiom that
everything is fair in politics should not be honoured while fairness of war in all
its shapes and forms is sacrosanct. As politics being a power game in extremis
like war and decides the degringolade or steep rise of those involutes in it, the
politicians are convinced that they are justified in seeking any means, apocryphal
or de jure, to ensure that they win and survive. After all, being suicidal is not a virtue;
nor faulting the art of possible brings any credit in public life. Ultimately, it is
success that decides what is right and wrong. There is no sin or wrong worse than
a defeat. History has shown how success can absterge even the sin of mass
murder of innocent people by dropping atom bombs. The cardinal goal of
survival and success is the first priority and the means to achieve it takes care of
itself. Depending upon the success or failure of the mission in hand. So goes the
thinking of politicians maintaining close links with underworld. The only gaffe
in their perception of politics is their failure to understand politics in a civilized
system like democracy as a power game selon les regles unlike emotional games of
love and war, where everything goes by emotion and passion. In a democratic
party system, where procedures are shaped to make the rule of the majority a
scientific reality in form of constitutional provisions, rule of law is paramount and
one who moves extra muros is not only debarred from the game, but also dealt
as a criminal. However, many politicians refuse to accept constraints on their
political powerplay and continue to indulge in links with criminal world to have
immediate need of winning power fulfilled. The crux of the problem of Indian
politics lies in this with certain categories of crimes in delicius of Indian political
field loosening the very terra firma of the Indian democratic system.
POLITICIAL MURDERS
Political murders are common features these days in India. When a political
adversary grows to be an irritant, too serious for comfort. He is seen to be
eliminated. No career politician wants to stain his name with a murder case and
get his name registered as a criminal in police station. He does the work through
his faithful underworld henchmen whom he keeps in good humour always for
being available for such a need, by providing him political support and
protection. For this, he keeps the police at his side. Intervening in police postings
easily does this and helping to get early promotions for favored ones.
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BOOTH CAPTURING
A candidate for an election may even resort to booth capturing through his
criminal aides to facilitate his victory. This operation requires through planning
and training of the men involved, apart from the willing cooperation of the
police. An attempt at booth-capturing can succeed only with the intrenchant
nexus between politicians, criminals and the police for synergy.
POLITICAL KIDNAPPING
Political kidnapping is an international phenomenon that comminated the
world of diplomacy in excelsis in the 1970s. The Menace trickled onto the Indian
scene though slowly, decisively in the 1980s. The realization that political ends
can be easily met by the malengine of the kidnap-drama opened up an aboideau
to the terrorists who were acharne to meet their political telos. The increase in
terrorist activities in India, perchance, as an outcome of the suspected
balkanization of India policy adopted by some foreign countries, made
political kidnapping a ubiquitous reality on the Indian political scene from the
latter half of the 1980s. The terrorists of Kashmir and Punjab set the tone in India,
which was picked up, by the Peoples War Group and the ULFAs in the 1990s.
The inexperience of Indian political leaders in tackling the problem complicated
the matter. While most countries around the world explicated a policy of
stubborn refusal to yield to kidnappers demands under straints, the Indian
leaders goofed by displaying their weaknesses while people close to them were
abducted, in yielding to demands as a quid pro quo in releasing large number of
dangerous terrorists, who were arrested at huge cost and loss of lives. The
situation has been further complicated by adopting a policy of double standards
in sacrificing the lives of lesser mortals in some other cases. It is obviously sending
a mauvais depeche to the would-be-terrorists that the closer the proximity of the
kidnapped to a political leader, the bigger is the chance of meeting their political
ends.
The publicity attached to the kidnap-drama and the arousal of the public
interest in the developments that follow is another dimension of the political
kidnapping that brings identification and gives an image to a terrorist outfit as
nothing else can. It has become a fashion to initiate a terrorist outfit with a
kidnapping operation. The chevisance in the inchoate drama proves the strength
and resourcefulness of the new outfit and its locus standi among such other outfits,
in the way the murders committed by a recruit decides his place in the mafia. The
finesse displayed in executing the operation to a successful end decides the future
of the organisation, a part form the advantages of the ransom money and the
release of compatriots. Interestingly, the first experiment of political kidnapping
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in the Indian scene was conducted in a foreign country in the form of the
egregious abduction and killing of Mr. R.H.Mhatre, a junior diplomat in the
Birmingham consulate in the first week of February 1984 by JKLF militants.
POLITICAL KIDNAPPING VERSUS DISPLOMACY
Political kidnapping and murder is tout court the most heinous crime that
often involves cold-blooded murder of absolutely innocent people for political
ends. The mental agony and subsequent destruction involved to the maledict
hostages and their near and dear ones because of the misguided entrainement of
a handful of greenhorns go waste and make kidnapping an infructuous political
tool at the end. The considerable fall in the incidences for political kidnapping
on the international scene of late is an indication of the increasing realization of
this fact that Crime scarcely survives in the situations of haute politique like
diplomacy and relations between nations. High thinking by enlightened people
functions as a catchpole to check the criminal tendencies from being perpetuated.
Political kidnapping in the Indian scene is also bound to be a temporal
phenomenon as seen otherwhere in the world.
PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN KIDNAP DRAMA
A disturbing tread in political kidnapping is the possibility of professional
criminals like smugglers and drug peddlers resorting to political kidnappings at
the hest of their illegal profession in the guise of political kidnappers. The
accrescent dependence of terrorists and professional criminals on each adds to
the complexity. This unhealthy situation is already true in India as it is in many
other countries.
POLITICAL KIDNAPPINGS IN INDIAN SCENE
The operation Rhino against the ULFA activities is a direct offshoot of a series
of kidnappings of Indian and foreign nationals and killing of some of them by
the ULFA militants in Assam. The peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh is
going progressively active in kidnapping government officials to bring the state
government on its knees. The government of Andhra Pradesh is yet to take the
gauntlet by the horns. The kidnap dramas excoriate criminals, politicians and the
police to a war of nerves and those who have steel-nerves in them, emerge
successful in the end. The political kidnappings are further complicating the
welter created in the Indian and international scene by the rise of kidnappings by
misadventurous individuals or groups lucri causa. The kidnappings becoming the
piece de resistance of organized crime as a means of making a fast buck is already
evident on the Indian scene as more and more reports of businessmen,
industrialists or their relatives and children being kidnapped for ransom appear
in newspapers in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay
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and even smaller places. Ascensive anfractuosities of egregious mafia gangs in

these operations are a pollent possibility. The relevance of the police comes into
the picture in their ingine to check these pernicious developments. The triste reality
is that the Indian police have failed to rise to the occasion till now.
UNITY OF PURPOSE IN INDIAN POLICE
The political crimes of gargantuan proportion can be successfully tackled
only by pollent police organisation with its all resources and resolves pooled
together. In the current system of policing in India, police stations and district
police units form basic units of the administration. Some of the functions
discharged at these levels have concurrent jurisdiction with some special units at
state and national levels. Crime investigation in special circumstances can be taken
over from the district police administration by the state CID or the CBI at the
national level. So, it is with the intelligence collection, security operations, the
raising of armed police forces, maintenance of crime records etc. The police in
the state are devised as an independent unit. In a vast country like India, policing
being shared between scores of independent units with no perspicaciously
defined mechanism of cooperation, the problem occurs of coordination and
units of purpose in tackling challenges that cover more than one of these unities.
There are too many challenges such as these in the increasingly complex society
of India. Except for the sense of national unity there is nothing common among
these units to approach the gauntlets with a common cause. Even the common
Indian Police Service is unable to bring about a unit of purpose to policing
throughout India. This gives an impression of fragmentation in the Indian police.
A fragmented police cannot turn out work in full-stream owing to the waste by
leakage in the process of co-ordination between the fragmented parts. India
must consider devising a pollent unitary police administration at the centre with
full control over subordinate state and union territory police setups. This would
avoid coordination problems and help policing to be more purposeful in
tackling challenges from the national perspective. It also makes available larger
resources from the national level for policing apart from strengthening the sense
of belonging to one police. This is necessary in the interests of the country and
its policing in the future.
CRIMINAL LAWS
A few glaring anomalies and some erroneous provisions in the extant criminal
laws of India contribute to be easy escapades of criminals from the clutches of
law in many cases and harassment of innocent persons by the police in some
other cases. The loopholes in the criminal law have to be plugged imprimis if crime

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administration has to be effective in India and command a semblance of respect

and confidence of the public.
The police or judicial officer under whose custody a person is kept under
detention should be made responsible by name for the latters timely release with
a provision that if detention exceeds the period provided by law, it will make the
concerned officer liable for proceedings for unlawful detention without the
privilege of exemptions for actions performed in official colours, available
under the extant laws. Also, all cases of violence and physical outrages committed
in police custody should be made punishable with exemplary penalties by special
legislations. Such extreme measures may bring an end to shocking criminal acts
committed eo nomine policing in some quarters and save the Indian police from
the embarrassment of serve public resentment.
CRIMINAL LAW BOARD
India requires the constitution of a statutory Criminal Law Board as an
advisory body to liaise between the police setup and the union law ministry
regarding criminal laws to facilitate glib policing. The board, as a permanent
body, may have senior most officers of the central government from home and
law ministries, police and prosecution departments, distinguished humanists and
senior advocates of the Supreme Court as members with the union home
minister as its chairman. It must undertake the study of the need of changes in
criminal laws from time to time. The board may meet every quarter or a year
and discuss extant criminal laws and their shortcomings in the light of
representations received from officers in the field from the police and
prosecution departments and make proposals for requisite changes in criminal
laws e ra nata.
HUMAN RIGHTS CELLS
Political crimes whether it is of the stature of national politics or international
politics have the queer propensity of arousing issues of violation of human rights
to crumble the credibility of the law-enforcers in the eyes of the public. Institution
of human rights cells in each district and metropolitan city as advisory conseil to
the police of the region with local human rights champions as its members to
draw attention to specific instances of inhuman conduct by subordinate officers
would meet the needs to keep the police on pernoctation against political crimes
credible vis a vis likely false hue and cry by affected political leaderships. The
human rights cells should be a dynamic part of the police administration in the
regions and its observations should set in motion a process of verification and
peremptory action. Though subjecting police to the scrutiny of an outside setup
may appear a retrograde measure, it may help the assuefaction of the policing
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methods to human comports in rerum natura and save the establishment from the
charges of violation of human rights in controlling political crimes a la Kashmir,
Punjab and elsewhere in the country.
INTELLIGENCE OUTFITS
Collection and analysis of intelligence and special operations from the
building blocks of all nuances of the police operations. Indian intelligence system
is yet to stand up to the enormous challenges thrown to it in detecting and
controlling political crimes and can nowhere be compared with its counterparts
in developed and even a few developing countries. Various intelligence outfits
of India are often found functioning at cross-purposes even in protecting VVIPs
and other sensitive targets from political crimes. India should reorganize and
strengthen its intelligence outfit if it is to survive the challenges and stand up to
the threats of political crimes to the integrity, security and law and order of the
country.
UNIFIED INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITY
The Indian intelligence system may develop unity of purpose and operation
to control political crimes ab intra and ab extra by working under the umbrella
of a unified intelligence authority with the chiefs of all intelligence organisations
as members. The authority must affect a synergy of intelligence operations
through its various wings of internal, external, counter, military and security
intelligence. Sufficient attention has to be given to infuse entrain to the intelligence
system of India and modernize its methods to raise it to a few degrees closer to
the international standards. The interferences of officialdom need to be
minimised and a sense of commitment and dedication to be infused by making
intelligence operations a lifelong career.
The ultimate purpose of all police functions is public security. Either it is
intelligence collection or crime investigation or maintenance of law and order,
all roads leads to this single aspiration. Therefore, the security operations form
the crown of policing activities, without which all other police operations prove
futile exercises.
SECURITY OPERATIONS
India needs specially trained battalions of security operators in every state to
take charge of the security of vital installations and VIPs. Also each state police
unit may have a small commando force to meet threats during emergencies like
hijacking, VVIP security under difficult circumstances, complicated operations
against terrorists etc. This special group has to be brought into operation only
under exceptionally difficult circumstances. Otherwise, it has to be involved in
continuous commando training of the highest order. The commandos have to
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be well equipped with the wherewithal of commando operations of the latest

order. Only select officers may be recruited to the group with extra emoluments
to make the job really elite. The commando units of the central government must
train the state commando forces.
The need of commando groups in the state police forces will be increasingly
felt in future as the menace of terrorism and sabotage grows uninhibited with
the future possibility of violent methods being accepted as legitimate ways of
expressing political dissent.
INADEQUATE SECURITY PLANNING
The present perception of internal security in India revolves round a few
catchwords like prohibited areas, protected areas, official secrets, sensitive
installation, static guards, armed pickets, mobile patrols, striking forces,
perimeter protection, infiltration, mechanical breakdown, external and internal
attacks verification, unobtrusive watch, internal watch, intelligence collection,
top-secret papers, security information, leakage of information etc. Model
internal security scheme, containing jugglery of these words is available in all
district police offices. The plans in the schemes do not touch even the fringes of
the present security needs. Secondly, the model schemes are based on outdated
facts and statistics that have become irrelevant in subsequent periods. Though
these model schemes are expected to be updated from time to time, seldom are
they touched. This renders them irrelevant to a given phase of time. Thirdly, the
security guidelines in the model schemes can in no way make a claim to expertise.
They are simple suggestions based on common sense. Any police official with
sound field knowledge can improve on them according to specific instances by
relying on his own savvy. For all practical purposes, these model internal security
schemes have become passe and impair. They have only historical interests in the
neoteric scheme of things.
The model security schemes enumerate in terrorem the likely sources of threats
to the countrys internal security, such as aggression by an alien power, sabotage
and subversive activities, communal riots, student unrest, extremist activities,
violent labour problems, natural calamities etc. The schemes distinguish between
peacetime threats and wartime threats and deal with each period with various
stages of approach like precautionary stage, preventive measures and protective
measures. What are striking in these schemes are the details of work to be
attended to, like evacuation of lunatics, police-public relations peace committees,
mobilization of NCC and volunteer organisation etc. But, unfortunately, there
is nothing really instructive in these schemes for a security officer of good field
experience and sound common sense. The only advantage the schemes provide
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is that all obvious measures are listed in a raisonne nutshell for easy reference. But,
as said before, albeit the measures listed out are exhaustive as routine jobs to be
performed in such disturbances, they in no way, help in tackling complex internal
security challenges of the present day. The reason for this is that the format of
the schemes was conceived decades back when challenges of internal security
were simpler and on expected lines. No serious thought was given to overhauling
the format of the scheme since then. The position though is similar in respect of
the blue book that deals with aspects of security for dignitaries, political
compulsions helped to update them as more and more dignitaries fell to the
bullets of extremists. The updating of the blue book is one of the plus points of
the subservience of the police to political masters. Yet, the blue book too needs
a complete overhauling on the basis of the new realities of security challenges and
new perceptions and conceptions about meeting such challenges.
CHALLENGES OF INTERNAL SECURITY
What the new blue book and new model internal security schemes need are
guidelines on how to approach a security challenge and not what peripheral
matters should be attended to, Each security challenge of the present day is sui
generis and needs a specific approach depending upon the time, the place and
other circumstances of the challenge. It is too simplistic to imagine that a
common formula, however exhaustive it is, can tackle all internal security
challenges of the present day. The blue book and model internal security schemes
must lay down broad guidelines and the spirit with which security challenges,
available methods of approach for each class of challenge, salient features of the
risks involved and precautions to be attended to alternative courses of action and
assessment of the chances of success for each course under different
circumstances etc. The security guidelines must name the nature of security threats
under various situations and list out likely targets of sabotage under all imaginable
circumstances. They must be able to forewarn about potential sources of threats
and suggest ways and means of overcoming them and invent short and longrange plans to meet likely serious challenges. Such an approach to security relieves
pressure on prototypal security and shifts stress to creative security and saves
manpower and other resources from being wasted on unproductive quotidian
mobilization. This works a panpharmacon to the under-utilization of precious
security tools by unintelligent routine deployment.
Political crimes call for special skills in police in handling them as the crimes
involutes political leaders and ergo, sensitive in nature. Such crimes are often of
national importance and draw the glare of pubic attention with all hues of
Judgements passed by all kinds of people. There would be pulls and counter
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pulls by influential people from different sides at all levels of policing to handle
them in a particular rendering objective appropinquation to such crimes non
possumus, unless concerned police officer dares to endanger his own career
prospects and even his life to achieve the object of objectivity. Only special skills
save police from such a terrible fixe. The skills are hard to come and very taxing
on the police. But, these are the job hazards and police must learn to live with
it.

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NEED OF REVAMPING INDIAN POLICE

If policing is to be effective in the years ahead, specialization is crucial.
Creation of three distinct police services with separate recruitment and training
is the need of the hour.
a) Regulatory Police or Uniformed Police in charge of law and order and
other regulatory duties; (b) Mainstay police in charge of crime investigation,
crime prevention, security and intelligence operation; (c) 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 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 Police Chiefs of all three wings as members and the Chief Secretary of the
Government as its Chairman.
At present, the growth of the Police Department is not really much more than
a spasmodic reaction to various stimuli and lacks the benefit of an integrated
approach. As a result, a structural chorisis is evident which places operational
facilities, counterbalances and counterchecks in jeopardy. The constitution of a
permanent cell of organisation experts under the direct control of the police chief
to redefine Police Organisation is required to make it more meaningful and needbased. This could help in streamlining the hierarchy by identifying and eliminating
redundant posts, rationalizing workloads and preventing their duplication,
redefining duties and procedures and thus the rights and responsibilities at each
level. In consequence, 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 was originally meant to be. In no way, under the present circumstances,
does an ACR reflect an officers qualities or capabilities or lack thereof. Any
reliance on this clavis to mischief is sure to demoralize the force. It is my strong
conviction that the department would be far better off without this pernicious
evaluation process that encourages corruption and favoritism in the force.
Though, it must be said that the evils of the ACR are not inherent in the process

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itself, but stem rather from the calibre of those who write them at various levels.
What characterizes the rite of 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 towards commune bonum in the police force.
Police Officers who dont opt to join the IPS must have the opportunity for
promotion provided by reservation of a suitable percentage at the next level.
New rules would of course have to be prescribed for such promotion. Similarly,
a minimum percentage of the total number of district and other coveted posts
must be reserved for these officers. As the KSPS and IPS are two distinct services
and nowhere is it stated that the latter superates the former, equal opportunities
should be given to officers of both services. There would be no harm in allowing
KSPS officers to grow in the service of their induction if proper avenues for
advancement are vouchsafed. They would also feel more of a sense, of
belonging in their own service rather than in an alien service, where a degree of
alienation is perhaps inevitable.
It is common experience that police officers on deputation land in jobs far
lower in rank than in their home departments. The tendency to only gradually
upgrade posts to facilitate promotion further complicates matters. Many posts
generally held by Deputy Commissioners in administrative service were held by
DIGs and then by IGs in the police department, with a consequent lowering of
the prestige and dignity of the ranks. Similarly, there are very high-ranking posts
in the Police with minor job contents, ipso facto affecting the dignity of the ranks.
These matters require critical review by organization experts to have a more
balanced police setup.
The blame that no talent breeds and grows in the heath of the police setup
cannot be easily gainsaid. The Indian Police Service continues to be an
intellectually poor, unattractive, subsecive service in the spectrum of All India
Services with only misfits opting for the service. The constabulary that forms the
bulk of the service is largely constituted of people from the lower strata of society
who are psychologically handicapped to exercise their police powers against the
more enlightened people in society. The tendency to foul-up superior intellect
and excellence is another contributing factor for the atrophy of 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 psychological insight to human nature are other factors responsible
for the unfortunate state of affairs in the force. Only capable police leadership
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at all levels can overcome these problems. The organisation is bound to

experience a glissade until the trend of donkey-judging-and-riding-horse is put
to an end in the police setup and a semblance of objectivity, reasonableness and
good judgment touch the core of police administration.

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RESTORING CREDIBILITY
TO CRIME INVESTIGATION
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 that 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

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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 centrestage 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 60 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 is 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
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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 charge sheet filed within a few
weeks or months or just shelved for decades. Arrests, decisions on bails, searches,
seizures and charge sheets 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 harboring 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 charge sheeting 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.
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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 are 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 maneuvers to build a base for themselves. 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 fulfill 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 charge sheets. 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

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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 theDelhi 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.

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NEED TO REVITALISE THE POLICE

In a disciplined organisation like the police where subordination and role-play
forma crucial psychological necessity, rigid inheritance of the style of functioning
has become sine qua non in the vacuum of independent and creative thinking.
This is the seed of the frigidity of the Indian Police set up. More dangerously,
blind faith in the inherited style of functioning as the only way out to the exclusion
of all other open alleys deprive the Indian police of the richness of variety and
growth opportunities while cementing ranks and bringing a sense of unity and
belongingness that create a sense of strength about the organisation in outsiders.
The stereotype style of functioning irrespective of merit, suitability to a given
situation and options available makes the police functioning largely mechanical
and stripped of any intellectual or creative contents in it. Any deviation from the
beaten-path is considered with contempt and suspicion and birds of the same
flock come together to bring the prevaricator to the required path. Until then,
he is labeled and condemned as pout of the mainstream. That is why an
imaginative and creative soul newly entering the Indian Police feels absolutely
stifled and either follows the flock at the cost of his convictions or just withers
away fighting a loosing and humiliating battle outside the mediocre mainstream.
Winning such a battle to effect a couple of changes in the mental makeup of the
giant organisation is an extremely rare phenomenon and not worth to an
individual to have that try.
These features bring distinct characteristics to the organisation. Indeed, the
police have people come from all walks of life with their distinct personal
features and styles. But, once they enter the police organisation, the grind of the
system takes its toll and creates a common profile in its members. Though such
a grind is common in many other organisations also, it is not as complete and
clear as in the police. The process is not consciously man-made and ergo
incidental to the policing system. The standardization so brought by the process
has its own advantages and disadvantages. In case of the police, it appears that
disadvantages as the standardized style of functioning cut through the growth
process of the organisation in efficiency and excellence. It also grievously
destabilizes dignity of the service and stifles professional values. There are

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inveterate servilities in the style of functioning evolved in the police by these

prices. This often exposes the police to gratuitous risks in performance of
legitimate duties.
POLITICIAN-POLICE NEXUS
Adaptations to political masters as a bargain to secure key posts prove fatal
to the dignity as well as professional values of the police set up. A Police officer
of a state in southern India succeeded in cornering the coveted post of police
commissioner at the State capital a few years back with the support of a politician
known in the then political parlance as the Father, Mother of the state Chief
Minister. A few days later, the politician in an inebriated state was arrested with
his associates while fleeing in a car late night after being involved in a sex scandal
involving a budding film star. The police official who affected the arrest
recognized the identity of the person he had arrested only after they were brought
to the nearby police station in the city. The Police Commissioner was intimated
about the developments. The Police Commissioner promptly made his
appearance in the police station in the night and ensured the immediate release
of his political godfather. But, the political heavy weight in a temulent state was
impeccable. He caught the collar of the Police Commissioner in front of the
shocked subordinate officials and shouted at the Police Commissioner in his
inebriated voice asking him whether he was made the Police Commissioner to
arrest and bring him to the Police station. The police Commissioner was seen
meekly begging the politician to pardon him. The incident made headlines in
newspapers. The scoundrel Police Commissioner later rose to become the
Police Chief of the state and is now retired. Such incidents abound in
circumstances of Police officers vying for coveted posts a tout prix and as a
consequence, the dignity of the posts lowers and the professional qualities of the
organisation suffer.
An important reason at the derriere of this failing of the police lies in their
general inability at assessments. A rather queer characteristic of the police is its
dithering as far as assessments in any form are concerned. It is an organisational
failing in the police and the police have found an easy way out of this failing
falling in line with the general trend and precedence sans application of mind. An
officer once wrongly rapped as difficult to work with, would be seen so forever
by all so much that he himself would begin to trust it as true.
Though this trend strengthens the sinew of collectivity and collective
responsibilities for whatever purposes in the organisation, it considerable
weakens the intellectual credibilitys of the police and tears to pieces the fabric of
objectivity and fairness in the organisation.
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Once in service, independent thinking becomes a disaster and metabasis as

a mechanical part of the flock becomes a crude habit. While this tendency in the
organisation brings the elements of collective acceptance within the danger of a
person or situation or event once wrongly interpreted, never again to be seen in
right perspective, destroys its strength and credibility. This lessens the possibility
of seeing things at anytime rightly thereafter. The result often is perverted
assessments. In the police, where assessments of men and events form a crucial
role, this failure proves fatal to the organisation as well as to the society. This
fomented with generally low intellectual qualities of the police, confines the police
to mediocrity and restrains it from rising to excellence in performances and
promoting high calibre in its personnel.
SENSE OF COLLECTIVITY
There is a sense of collectivity for good or bad in the police. None in the police
normally get a spark to see a thing from a new angle and give their own
interpretations or judgment ectogenesis to the view already held. The sense of
rectitude becomes secondary when the sense of collectivity is at stake. Though
the police profession demands fairness, justice and rectitude as its primary
concern, passion for the values in the police is surprisingly feeble. The
commitment to do things legally and rightly is superficial.
A fall-out of corruption in the police is build-up of a dynamics that promotes
the interests of corrupt in the system at the cost of those who retained the pristine
value of professionalism. The flexible elements that can be maneuvered to
required moulds through the juste milieu of pelf and position are useful assets
to people in key positions to save the interests of their kith and kin as and when
they get involved in criminal proceedings. Such characters in the force 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 promotes corruption. The dynamics that 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 professional considerations always becomes a qualification in
obtaining preferences to more sensitive jobs in important police organisations.

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A case of dowry death reported against a retired judge and his family in
February 1992 in a state as referred to the state investigation agency. The
investigation made out a case for charge sheet against the retired judge and five
others including his wife, son, two daughters and another person. The chief of
the investigating agency in the rank of IGP being 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
investigation to its logical end. But arrests in the case were prevented and the
charge sheet was unduly delayed. The insistence of the Superintendent of Police
to charge sheet the case cost him his post and he was transferred in July 1992 to
the Home Guards department of the state as the head of it training wing. The
case remained frozen sans charge sheet for more than one and a half years, till
the IGPs transfer in 1993. The case was later charge-sheeted in March 1994 with
the retired judge and his two daughters being dropped from the charge sheet on
the basis of evidences tampered at later stages. The police officer that tried to stall
the wheel of the legal process subsequently succeeded in gaining entry to a
sensitive police organisation at the national level and later in his own state.
An extension of this style of functioning is their complete absorption in their
service to the exclusion of other dimensions of life including family life. Nothing
interests them outside the police except specific popular entertainments to
counterpoise the tension of the quotidian police work. The result is the family life
of most police officers being disoriented and their children more then often
betraying criminal tendencies because of the lack of paternal care and attention.
The lack of attention to personal habits manifests in very few police officers
leading a happy and normal retired life.
It is in the interests of the police to come out of this pernicious grind of the
style of functioning, to breach the accretion and break out to the fraicheur of the
invigorating open world of endless possibilities. But the adnate growth over the
police system is so thick that no trickles of fresh air survive through it. Anything
ab intra cannot ruffle the complacency of the constricting system. This is general
experience and concomitant conviction, that something cataclysmic from
outside should shake the system and bring it to its senses to show it how and why
it is wrong and what retards the growth of the police to its full bloom to
efficiency and excellence and how returning the style of functioning can flush new
life to the Indian police. We can only hope that such a development comes soon
and saves the Indian police from further degradation.

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INDIAN POLICE NEED VIGOUR

Independence half a century back marks the greatest turning point in the
history of Indian police. It marks the end of the 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 spirit, 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 set-up 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 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.
Crime investigation is a task as important to police as national security is. While
national security gained currency in India after the country became independent,
crime investigation along with law and order duties was the mainstay of Indian
police from periods long before it. But, India never realized the importance of
crime investigation in national affairs until very recently. Nonetheless, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of Mr.Edgar J Hoover in the US showed to the
world around the time of Indias independence, what a powerful instrument an
investigation agency can be in national affairs and how resourceful chiefs of
investigation agencies can hold even the heads of governments of their countries
to ransom.
PLAYING SAFE
It is to the credit of Indian Police that the premier investigation agency of the
country, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) in states and union territories never harbored such ambitions

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till now. It is a different matter that in the recent years the CBI is forced by the
judiciary to proceed against ranking political leaders including former union
cabinet ministers and prime ministers, in discharge of its legitimate duties.
Otherwise, Indian investigation agencies, both at the Centre and in regions, kept
themselves away from interfering with the affairs of political leaders and their
kith and kin for most parts of the period in the last fifty years, save dictated for
limited actions by the ruling parties for political purpose as in the Classic
Computer case of 1993 in Karnataka or cases against Ms. Indira Gandhi and her
kin in 1977 for emergency excesses. Otherwise, they believed in the sanctity of
political leaders and their associates as beyond the laws of the country.
Criminal cases filed against those people invariably fell through for lack of
purposeful investigation and the trend led to the belief that powerful people are
beyond the reach of law. Recent judicial activism changed the myth and infused
a new vigor to the judicial and law-enforcing systems of the country. But, an
investigation agency doing its legitimate duties under the pressures of the judiciary
cannot be an adequate compensation for doing the same works with a
missionary zeal of professional commitment. Indian investigation agencies at
both the national as well as regional levels are far from any professional zeal and
investigating skill seen in internationally acclaimed investigation agencies like the
Scotland Yard of England that provided the model for the CBI and other
regional investigation agencies of the country.
Sadly, Indian counterparts adopted only the form and not the spirit of the
Scotland Yard and thought it best in its indigenous wisdom not to stir the hornets
nest by going active and radical after the FBI of the US
LACKLUSTRE PERFORMANCE
Some developments in the national crime scene of India like the CBI
investigating top political leaders of the country for involvement in various
scandals of national importance has not changed the situation of investigating
agencies of India. Crime investigations continue to be a factor of political
decisions, in spite of periodical judicial reviews of the investigation process
Investigation agencies enjoy tremendous leeway in carrying out investigations
in desired directions in spite of judicial scrutiny of the cases. Until investigation
agencies exhibit professional commitment and develop a passion to deracinate
evils from the society, exercises like judicial reviews of the investigation process
cannot really make substantial differences, either to investigation agencies or to
crime investigations.
Unlike spirited investigations of corrupt leaders in countries like Italy, Japan
and Korea in the recent past, Indian investigation agencies dither and drag their
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feet back to handle cases of political corruption in spite of judicial compulsions

on it. The professional and social commitments seen in those countries are a far
cry from Indian police of the independent vintage. There seems to be no scope
of Indian police catching up with the spirit in near future if the first half-century
of the democratic rule in India is any indication. Indian police leadership is too
steeped in slef-promotion to be bothered by the spirits pro bono publico.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true in the field
of Indian politics as well. It is significant that after the Supreme Court of India
took active interest in the investigation of crimes involving top leaders of the
country, a new trend has surfaced with the post of the CBI chief being invested
on somebody from the cadre of the state from which the chief executive of the
government hails, as if to counter the pressures of the judiciary on the
investigation agency. This was true in 1993 and again in 1996.
The new trend only makes clear that everything is not well in the
administration of the investigation agencies of the country and pressures and
counter-pressures have a great say in the process of investigations of those
investigation agencies.
JUDICIAL ACTIVISM
The recent judicial activism in the investigation of important crimes and
scandals of India is not confined to the Supreme Court of India; nor is it limited
to the cases investigated by the CBI. High courts and even session courts these
days are taking lead from the Supreme Court, as evident from the court
proceedings in cases under trial in lower courts like Lakhubhai Pathak cheating
case involving an ex-prime minister, anti-Sikh rioting case of 1984 and recent
cases of harboring notorious mafia leaders involving prominent political leaders
wherein the courts have taken tough stands either in summoning top leaders for
examination or in refusing bails.
The judicial activism of the Supreme Court on the other hand is not restricted
only to the cases investigated by the CBI. In a recent case of investigation of
medial seat scandal involving prominent political leaders in a state, the Supreme
Court directed that the chief of the state CID investigating the case should not
be transferred out form the CID without the permission of the court. The
Investigation was transferred to the CBI in 1996.
The basic issue is why judiciary should do the legitimate works of the heads
of investigation agencies in safeguarding the objectivity of the investigation
process. The very fact that there is the need of judicial interference in the legitimate
works of investigation agencies strongly suggests that the investigation agencies
are seriously ill. While investigation agencies honestly and professionally discharge
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their responsibilities towards fair investigations, no judiciary can even afford to

cross the sacred halls of their legitimate duties in violation of the sensitivities of
the investigation agencies and invite righteous wrath of the public opinion. The
investigation agencies and the public are aware of the extant situation in
investigation agencies and therefore the interferences of the judiciary in
investigations are not only tolerated, but also welcomed by all sections of the
people.
SYMPTOMS OF ATROPHY
The serious maladies witnessed in secret police and investigation agencies of
India are actually common symptoms of 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 affect the Indian police at all levels. It is not a rosy
picture to have of a police force that is more than a century old and is now
reaching 65-years mark of existence in a free country.
The deterioration of Indian police is steep after independence. Perhaps,
democratic rule in the country 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 this truth has been
realized by people in states like Bihar and UP it is eating up the vitals of the country
in other states too. The talk of private armies doing recent elections in UP and
Bihar is an indication of the confidence Indian police inspire in public after fifty
years of self-rule. Indian police in 1990s appears like a century old giant tree
rendered hollow by the termite of corruption. Unless something is done fast to
return the vitality of professional pride and commitment, Indian police may
irrevocably fail the country in leading it forth to the century-mark of Indias
independence.

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PROFESSIONAL PRIDE OF THE POLICE

The basic needs of police and policing are professional pride and a good
image. The police force capable of doing its duties is 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 that 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 are 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 others predicaments. The compulsions of being led deprive

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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, McGregors
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 are 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.
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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 that
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.

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PRECEPTS OF
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 police chief and his staff handle the levers of police
administration at lower levels 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 organizational
operations of all levels. In police, elements of administration are inherent at all
supervisory levels beginning from head constables upwards. Police stations as
grass root 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

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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 other where. This
renders police administration a specialized field to be handled by experts having
insight to and realization 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 fears and esoterically hates 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
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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 charge sheet 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 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 specialized field.

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A BALANCING ACT
Responsibilities of any administration are two fold-providing the body and
shapes required to fulfill 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 extraordinary nature of the organisation of the police and its working conditions
render the latter responsibility a sensitive field warranting specialized study and
application. The complex psychological factors involving policing in diverse
social conditions and social imperatives of a policemans life perforce require
dexterous 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 organizational policy imbued with specialized
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 servilities 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 breaking 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 specialized field requiring extraordinary 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 organizational 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

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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 is 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 centers 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
backbreaking 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
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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 organisation 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 that 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 selfimage and destroys its good public image by scrupleless and selfish interferences
in police affairs. Indian police administrators are too unenlightened to realize 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 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
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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 selfimage, 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 arrogance of the police administration. The
sweep of 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 has 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 latters 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 to 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
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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
latters 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 dovetailed to the depraved
home secretary against the sound judgment 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 others 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 peepal 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 increasingly pro rata to the heights in the
ladder of the police administration. 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 are an unknown concept McGregors
need hierarchy and such man-management concepts are nonexistent in their
vocabulary and thoughts. Efficient management of human resources is a fools
paradise to them. They find the greatest virtue of administration in ruthlessness.

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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, organizational 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 or 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. The government took no actions on
them. In the closing months of 1995, a mafia gang war 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 that 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 the government ignored his report on the matter. If anybody
was to be acted on a highest level 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
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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, colours 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 are 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 that 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.
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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.

364

KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM

Kidnapping per se is a crime. Kidnapping itself as an end, as in a child being
kidnapped by either of the estranged parents of the child from the custody of
the other or a minor beloved being kidnapped by a lover, is a crime known to
man from the inception of social living. Kidnapping as a means of other crimes
as in forcing governments to release prominent terrorist leaders in custody in
exchange or for procuring other illegal benefits is a more heinous form of the
crime and often led to cold-blooded murder of innocent people. The
worldwide rise in the incidence of kidnapping cases as a political tool in the
international crime scenario in 1970s is an important meith in the evolution of
kidnapping as a crime leverage. The next decade saw use of this tool by Mafioso
and criminal gangs as a convenient means of extortion in India in states like Bihar,
UP, Delhi and Assam. The criminal virus is now percolating to healthier parts of
Indian. The means which was once confined to criminal gangs of Bihar, UP and
Delhi and to terrorist outfits of North-East, Kashmir and Punjab regions as
means of meeting their respective criminal goals is now becoming an ambitious
adventure of resourceful street-hoodlums of big cities of India of making quick
easy money in oodles. The trend needs to be arrested quickly and fast a toute
hazard.
SELECTION OF RIGHT TARGET
Most cases of Kidnapping for ransom are never made public or reported to
police, Demands of the kidnappers are met posthaste and release of victims is
obtained. Reasons are many. Kidnappers who are after big money and
professionally operate, conduct more than adequate research about their target
to ensure that the target is not only capable of meeting their demands, but also
efficacious of coughing up them in private to secure the safe release. Secondly,
the strike is mostly against people stacked with unaccounted money, who
therefore dare not public scrutiny of their ill-gotten riches and prefer private
settlement. The low credibility of the police in respect of its competence and
commitment in handling such sensitive cases adds to the misease of the maledict
victim. Added to this is the fear of being forcibly led by the unenlightened police

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to commit insensitive acts that may endanger of safety and security of the
kidnapped persons.
UNEQUAL POLICE
In cases reported to police, the chance of kidnapped persons safely returning
home is tout court a matter of rare accident in the ambience of present health
of police competence in handling the cases. Public perception in this matter is
accurate. The criminals are generally a highly qualified and efficient group of
committed people operating on their own plans and convenience. Lots of
thought, analyses and money go to the plans, strategy and technique before acted
upon. Hi-tech facilities are employed to the best use. The success of police against
these tremendous odds in the absence of an elaborate strategy is a matter of pure
chance. Even in chance detection, endless investigation and trial generally end
with equital in extant judicial system. Even in the rarest of the rare convictions,
punishment awarded at a distant future nowhere amate to the promised fortunes
of a successful kidnapping case for ransom. The balance of advantage algate is
patently is favour of taking risk.
ROMANTIC IMAGE
In the age of high-money operation run through bank securities and other
banking channels, huge cash in hand is a rarity. This added to the age-old stigma,
makes conventional property offences like theft, HBT, robbery and dacoity lean
and nonglamorous crimes. On the other hand, crimes like bank robbery,
kidnapping for ransom and mega-fraud foot the bill as glamorous crimes in the
extant high-money world and yield enormous grists unheard of in other crimes
and make the criminals instant heroes. The elaborate plans, strategies and
efficiency involved in the crime give an intellectual slant and bring the elements
of adventure and thrill to the whole affair. The romantic combination prompts
adventurous and ambitious unemployed youths in drones to take to the crime.
CRIMINAL OUTFITS
Many criminals take to kidnapping for ransom as a means to sustain their
criminal outfits engaged in other major criminal activities. They kidnap rich
persons from the surroundings to meet their monetary besoin. Notorious forest
brigand, Veerappan, operating in forests bordering Karnataka and Tamilnadu
used to extort money from the owners of granite mines in the areas of his
operation. Any resistance was met with kidnappings for ransom. This forced
Karnataka Government to ban all mining operation in the area. ULFA activities
played the same trick in Assam with tea estates. The arrest of top officials of Tata
Tea Ltd in 1977 on the charges of sedition inter alia for providing huge funds

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and other services to banned ULFA terrorist outfit threw light on the going on
in Assam for years under the pall of the threat of kidnappings.
LURE OF QUICK MONEY
Other criminals take to kidnapping for ransom by the lure of the res gestae of
the crime and the easy money involved. These criminals with importable lure for
easy money spread like wildfire in Indian crime scenario and pose threat to the
fabric of safety and security of the country. Ambitious and der-doing
unemployed youths constitute the core of this group of criminals. Unlimited
riches around, unfulfilled besion, own frustrations, the thrill of violence and the
promise of belle vue offered by criminal life as seen in television, cinema and cheap
literature together spur faex populi to make it big at a single sway by taking
kidnapping for ransom.
SCOPE FOR INGENUITY
The crime provides ample scope for the bluette of ingenuity. It allows for
immense freedom of action and strategies depending on the mental calibre and
material resources of the criminals. Right strategies, efficient brass-tacks and
pernicketiness can make the crime a foolproof operation. This is an inviting
challenge to any resourceful and skeely criminal. Use of hi-tech communication,
transport and weaponry system makes the crime a highly sophisticated
operation. An elaborate and hi-tech kidnapping operation for ransom involves
huge money. In the circumstances of de trop riches and plush targets capable of
huge yields as res gastae of a kidnap effort around, intelligent and enterprising
criminals take it as a good investment. Liberal spending in the stage of reconnoitre
is the hallmark of criminals resorting to this crime. They hire safe houses at posh
areas at exorbitant rents, wear rich dresses and move in luxurious cars while
preparing for their strike. The criminals in Nirmal Jaipuria kidnap case of
Bangalore of 1977 who made a ransom demand of Rs.5 crores, hired a house
in Bangalore as the centre for their operations at a rent of Rs.1.5 lakh a month
for three months prior to their strike. An investment of a few lakhs of rupees is
more than worth in an operation that promises to yield Rs.5 crores in a single
sweep.
SPREADING THE CRIMINAL VIRUS
The crime as isolated adventures for quick money in unorganized sector
poses the greatest thread to the peace and health of the country. The youths in
the crime seek their targets far away from their home state to avoid detection and
other embarrassments. This is how youths of Delhi, Punjab and UP are found
operating in a southern city like Bangalore. The process helps the spread of the
criminal virus of a crime-infested region to healthier regions of the country.
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Medical and engineering colleges that offer seats to the sons of crime tainted and
black-money-plush parents on the strength of donations help the spread of
crime tendencies to other parts of the country. This is how the crime culture of
UP and Bihar is spreading to relatively crime-free areas.
Cases of kidnapping for ransom pose a tough gauntlet to the skill and
ingenuity of a police professional. His competence is openly on test while
criminals negotiate ransom with the victims. This is the stage in which the scelerate
ingenuity of the subdolous criminals is in excelsis while providing the real opening
to the police to catch the criminals red-handed. The incertitude of the situation
brings the true skill of the police to the acid test. It is a live challenge to the police
a climacteric. His single faux pas in the glidder path of his maneuvers may make
life and death difference to many. The knowledge makes him nervous. The
albatross gives him delitescent strength and drive to move him forward with a
resolution to succeed. This is the real moment of policing. The thrill of real
policing lies in such live moments and real joy in bringing relief to the people in
real distress.

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INVESTIGATION OF
ECONOMIC CRIMES
With liberalization, 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 six-decade-old sky of the Indian Republic, the Indian economy
is sweltering under the heat of economic crimes. Not those 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 are organized 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 liberalized economy.
The people who were inured to protected economy and state control cannot
easily adapt to liberalized 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 liberalization process having takenoff 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

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a long way in keeping away the extant maelstrom and making liberalization 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 liberalization. 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 liberalization 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 increase 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 specialized 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
scrutinize 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
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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 favors 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. Localized investigation leads to
unfair and partial justice. The aspect is popularly forgotten in the investigation of
scams and scandals in Indian environment. Localized investigation limited to the
main front man of the fraud is a simple job that can be completed in a short
duration to everybodys satisfaction including the clever criminals and the gullible
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 encourages 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 organizing 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.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

In an intelligently planned, organized and executed mega fraud, the big fish
always remains inconnu. It is only the little or sometimes middle-sized fishes that
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 iceberg. 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 megaeconomic 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 rivalry. The fear of impinging on the limits of
other agencies prevents free and concerted investigation. The result is shallow
and piecemeal 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
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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 an investigator of economic
crimes is leadership qualities, an ability to delegate and decentralize 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 ill-gotten 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 offset 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
jeopardizing 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 investigator from the rightful path of investigation are a natural phenomenon.
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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 favors 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 that 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 favors, 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 IDBIs
subsidiary CARE gifted the companys fixed deposit programme, CRB caps an
A+ rating in spite of the full knowledge of the liquidity problems and
deteriorating asset quality of the company after ICRA and CRISIL failed to
oblige the company. The auditors of the company ignored irregularities in the
companys 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 license as favour and even tolerated the company raising money for its
bank after the license 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
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Markets. Their involvement gives an added dimension of conspiracy to the case.

Law that 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 failures, 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. The CBI deferred arrest of public servants in Bihar fodder
scam some years back for the fear of creating law and order problems. A truly
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.
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Crimes are committed 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.

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IN ECONOMIC CRIMES
With the liberalization, the aboideau of scams and financial irregularities is
thrown open and the 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
in 1990s, the Indian economy is sweltering under the heat of economic crimes.
Not those 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 are organized 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 liberalized economy. The people who were inured to
protected economy and state control cannot easily adapt to liberalized 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.
Edwin H. Sutherland, renowned American criminologist in his propaedeutic
of white-collar crimes in his celebrated ouvrage Crime and Business preconises
the special nature of the crimes when he says, Since the crimes are generally
violations of trust, they create and extend feelings of distrust. Leadership against
white-collar crime is generally lacking, since most leaders come from the upper
socioeconomic class and since the persons in this class who do not participate
in white-collar crimes are generally reluctant to attack other members of their
own class. Economic crimes as another facet of the white-collar crimes with
its nonasuch etat in the caste hierarchy of crimes transcend the lesser crimes in

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gestalt and content as its raison detre in the tapestry of the civil society and ipso facto
grow ectogenesis to the normal reach of the societal leadership including the lawenforcing agencies. It is a tragedy of the criminal justice system.
DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF ECONOMIC CRIMES
For E.H.Sutherland, white-collar crime is a violation of trust. His view
emerges from his definition of the white-collar crime as a violation of criminal
law by a person of the upper socioeconomic class in the course of his
occupational activities. The trend of economic crimes has seen sea-change since
the ancien regime with more and more such violations being committed for the res
gestae by individuals or organized groups with or without inside cooperation and
raisonne exploitation of the weaknesses of the extant financial laws and
procedures, the financial institutions and the people who man them. In the
maelstrom, economic crimes can be defined simply as fraudulent financial
transactions for financial gain.
Popular realms of economic crimes these days include political and policymaking sector, government sector, financial sector, commerce and industry
sector and individual entrepreneurs and cover events and activities like deposits
fraud, shares and securities fraud, company regulations violation, fraud
concerning government funds, counterfeit, import and export fraud, foreign
exchange violation, telemarketing fraud, patent infringement, copyright violation
and piracy, tax evasion, smuggling, hoarding and black-marketing, adulteration,
drug-trafficking, insurance fraud, money laundering, high-sea fraud, telecom
and electricity fraud, computer manipulation, internet fraud, land deals fraud,
bribery, cheating, breach of trust and unauthorized commission to name just a
farthing of what actually exist and increasingly expand with the ingenuity of the
persons involved. Some of them like deposits fraud, company regulations
violation, fraud concerning government funds, import and export fraud, foreign
exchange violation, tax evasion, smuggling, hoarding and black-marketing,
adulteration, drug-trafficking, insurance fraud, high-sea fraud, bribery, breach of
trust and unauthorized commission are d accord with the definition by Sutherland
as committed in the course of occupational activities, while others like telecom
and electricity fraud, cheating, patent infringements, copyright violations and
piracy and counterfeit are ectogenesis. Commission of these crimes in
gargantuan scale sponte sua by individuals and organized groups extra-muros to the
occupational activities with or without the cooperation of the invisus insiders
constitutes the recent trend in economic crimes. Shares and securities fraud,
counterfeit cheques, telemarketing fraud, software piracy and patent
infringement, software copyright violation, computer manipulation, Internet
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fraud and land deals fraud in mammoth scale are relatively recent trend in the
field. High sea fraud, insurance fraud and money laundering also continue to be
periculous threats to the economic security of the country.
RECENT TRENDS
The flagitious security scam of 1992 involving Rs 8000 crores as the avant
coureur stirred the national conscience to the issue of the economic security and
showed how facilely it can be periclitated by the unscrupulous large-scale inside
trading and fraudulent stock manipulation. The supercherie run the corso from the
late Harshad Mehta case of 1992 to the ban on the high-profile fund manager,
Samir Arora from the capital markets by the SEBI in 2003 on the charge of inside
trading in securities. Why the security scam of 1992 failed to shut the aboideau in
the Indian security market in the last eleven years and why even successful and
high profile fund managers like Samir Arora prefer to resign their lucrative jobs
in companies like Alliance Capital Mutual Fund and resort to such violations? The
obvious answer is that the exposures are just the prevarications from the zeitgeist
and neither the concerned regulations are stringent enough nor the regulating
agencies like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) and the people manning them in their aidos are competent
to cleanse the capital market and protect the interests of the investors. Jucta est alea.
The occasional exposures are just eyewashes. Such frauds are bound to squeeze
Indian economy in years ahead.
Another facet of the incompetence of the regulating agencies in the capital
market is the malengine of floating apocryphal companies to fleece the public
in crores by offering shares and disappearing after defrauding the public. There
are hundreds of such flagrant cases reported in1990s with almost none booked
for the falsi crimen.
Another serious fraud of recent origin is the use of counterfeit cheques. The
use of stolen cheques and writing cheques on accounts either closed or having
insufficient fund to defraud is a vieux jeu in the business world. The computer
revolution has added a new dimension to it. Often software that can produce
legitimate checks is used to generate counterfeit checks with fictitious names and
account numbers to defraud in business dealings. Counterfeit is wide spread
these days in the shape of fake stamps scam of mammoth scale run in interstate
level with a highly organized plexus. Telemarketing is another genre of fraud that
is in rise that involves the so called boiler rooms or the telemarketing company
promoting sales of worthless goods through phone solicitation by promising
customers riches and gifts that never come. This form of fraud is already having
pollent foothold in big cities of India. Another fraud is floating teakwood or such
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plantation companies those mobilize funds from the public with the pollicitation
of distribution of the gain pro rata only to disappear before the climacteric
approaches. However, prompt response from the law-enforcing agencies
perficiently controlled the menace and the defalcation of this shape is in
degringolade sinsyne. The episode marks that prompt response from the lawenforcing agencies do have desired effect on the spread of the economic crimes.
Copyright violations and piracy are major threats to the book publishing,
cinema and audio and videocassette industries. Patent infringements are the
crimes those threaten new products. The computer revolution has brought
software to the ambit of such threats apart from functioning as a facilitator of
fraud and economic crimes by other means also. Fraudulent interference with
the software or programmes used for financial transactions is a convenient tool
to defraud companies and establishments in crores in a single stretch or di grado
in grado and do away with all evidence to the act. Lack of proper understanding
of the intricacies of the computer and its software and absence of due
pernoctation at higher levels contribute for such frauds being ascensive. A
byproduct of the computer revolution is the Internet fraud that has diverse
gestalt and international ramifications. Innovative Internet solicitation to part
with money for goods, schemes or services of fraudulent edge is the staple of
such frauds. Another aspect of the Internet fraud involves tampering with others
financial or establishment accounts by breaking into their passwords and copying
digital signatures to illegally siphon funds or other valuables to own account.
Innovative works of the hackers help the process.
A very disturbing fraud these days, concerns prime government or private
lands in the heart of big cities left unattended for various reasons. The quiddity
of the rite de passage here is the study of the system for weaknesses. Innovative
tregetours expiscate in poor laws, procedural loopholes, lack of coordination
among and incompetence of concerned government departments like the city
development authority, the city corporation, electricity and water supply bodies
and the land registration office, and the greed or indifference of the people who
man the government bodies an opportunity to gobble prime lands worth of
several crores of rupees. The ichnography involves obtaining false power of
attorney of the true owner of the land by impersonation from an unvigilant or
greedy notary and selling the land using it. In some other cases, the tricksters raise
buildings on such unattended lands after paying land taxes for those lands and
obtaining sanction for the building plan from the engineering wing of the city
corporation with the help of the tax records as proof of their ownership of the

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lands. Such gross anomalies are possible only because of the lack of coordination,
defective procedures and sheer lethargy, incompetence and greed in the
government bodies. The swindlers here secundum artem exploit the gross
weaknesses and failures of the government bodies to make colossal gains for
themselves. The res gestae involved in such frauds and the ease of the method
render it a potential mode of the economic crime of the future.
High-sea fraud involving disappearance of the whole ship or its cargo or
carrying false cargo and financial or insurance claims on the basis of mendacious
documents may become assez bien a popular means in days ahead to become rich
a pas de geant because such crimes seldom draw the avizefull attention of the public
and the fraud is limited to the concerned cloistered circles. Insurance fraud on
the other hand will re-emerge to the center-stage in the ambience of the
privatization of the insurance sector and its consequent proliferation. Money
laundering is the cleanser of all economic crimes and the means of salvation to
economic criminals; ergo, it is jus naturale that it re-emerges in various avatars
from time to time. Hawala transactions will continue to exist in different shapes
and forms. The secrecy code of the Swiss banks provides the requisite refuge to
the ill-gotten money of the swindlers among politicians, senior government
officials, industrialists, businessmen and enterprising individuals.
Export and import fraud of the recent origin involves false declaration of the
country of the origin to evade anti-dumping duties in addition to over-invoicing
of exports to fraudulently avail export incentives.
Cheating, breach of trust and embezzlement are common economic crimes
all over the world. A survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, an
accounting firm and Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, a law firm as reported in the
New York Times of July 13, 2003 states that more than a third of the American
firms surveyed in the last two years were found to be the victims of one or the
other kind of economic crimes like asset misappropriation and embezzlement.
The survey also suspected doubtful financial disclosures by more than half of the
companies surveyed. It is the case in India too. The external auditors tend to take
refuge under the plea that they audit only the documents provided to them by
the companies and sweep inconvenient facts under the carpet for quid pro quo. The
dictum, fraus est celare fraudem, is conveniently forgotten. It is on record that almost
no auditor is dealt till now for professional apostasy in independent India and
the organization responsible to oversee the auditors condones the professional
betrayal and becomes a partaker in the irregularity as per the dictum, chi tace
confessa.

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NATURE OF RECENT TRENDS

A careful study of the recent trends in the economic crimes brings out
interesting factors common to most of them. The most striking of them is the
growth of the economic crimes usaque ad nauseam to the status of an
entrepreneurship both in terms of respectability a la its description by Sutherland
and concomitant responsibility, its sheer volume, interstate or international
spread, highly organized operational plexus, hi-tech tools employed, highly
efficient division of labour with minions at the cutting-edge level as front
operators far removed from the main characters and the brain behind the
operation at concentric circles, resourceful big actors en arriere, detailed planning,
study and probouleusis prior to the operation, professional touch to the whole
operation and high risks and high profits involved.
The recent economic frauds are high-money soign scams running to multiple
crores. The materfamilias of all the scams of modern India namely the security
scam of 1992 involved Rs 8000 crores while the recent fake stamp scam allegedly
involves Rs 80,000 crores. The Indian Bank scam of the 1990s involved Rs 1300
crores while the fodder scam of Bihar ran to Rs 1500 crores. Other major scams
of lesser volume are the Bihar bitumen scandal of Rs 350 crores, Bofors scandal
of Rs 64 crores, HDW submarine scandal of Rs 64 crores, Bihar medical bills
scandal of Rs 60 crores, ayurved scam of Rs 32 crores, telecom scam of Rs 6
crores inter alia. However, the leading role in such embezzlements must go to the
banking sector that gobbled public money to the tune of Rs 1, 20,000 crores in
three years with the euphemism of non-performing assets or bad loans that in
most cases are advances paid to well-to-do favorites for consideration with the
understanding that the clause of the non-performing assets take care of that.
An important aspect of the modern economic frauds is that the brain behind
the operation who normally are the people, who remain incognito and far
removed from the cutting-edge operations by several levels and ensures that the
law-enforcing agencies never reach him under any circumstance and there
remains no evidence against him a la mode the Mafia and its leader, Al Capone.
This holds good for all recent major scams and the veracity of the person
identified in them as the el patron should be taken cum grano salis. These crimes au
fond are well-plexured conspiracies.
These economic crimes are marked by callida junctura. The cooperation of
right people inside and outside the target institution is bought a grands frais for use
at right time. This brings much needed aex triplex to the process and adds to the
plexus of the operation and brings the elements of corruption to the process.
Extra muros entrepreneurs mastermind these frauds as opus reticulatum after
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detailed study of the weaknesses and failures of the laws, procedures, institutions
and the men concerned and right and adequate preparations.
Free market economy in a poor, unenlightened and developing country like
India is like spreading delicious foods around a person dying of hunger with
injunctions to open the dishes only after performing an impossible feat. Imagine
the consequences. In a country like India where easy life and chaltha hai mindset
are the bedrock of life and hard work and commitment are anathema, where
merit and brilliance are looked down upon, where character, discipline and
integrity are belittled as the dernier ressort of weaklings, where criminals, swindlers
and murderers become popular political leaders, where democratic votes are
hostages to the riches you throw away, where the hapless hoi polloi is the prisoner
of the vagaries of the arriviste along the ladder across the political spectrum, where
imported isms rule the mindset in lieu of the genuine and holistic welfare-interests
to meet the besoin of the plebeian and the country, where mediocrity and
dishonesty reign supreme and the administration and the law-enforcing agencies
crawl before the criminal political masters and the mesquin and lowly higher-ups
lest their career interests are harmed, the free market economy turns an apollyon
like a pachyderm allowed a free-run in a plantain plantation. Free market
economy per se is not bad. It is best suited to the countries where it is born in the
ambience of enlightenment, civility and respect to law and societal mores where
apolaustic deviants are only exceptions. Other where, economic crimes are
bound to grow exponently with the disillusioned cleverer elements as the
provenance resorting to exploit the weaknesses of the financial laws, procedures
and the institutions and the niaiserie, greed and the lethargy of the people around
them. In the ambience of the survival of the fittest, it is hard to find fault with
such criminals. Necessitas non habet legem. It is the inadequate laws, nonpareil
institutions and the mediocre or greedy attercops in charge who inadvertently
lure the desperate people to intelligently exploit them for survival. For, survival
is the prime principle of life. And everything else is secondary to it. Exitus acta
probat. Add to it the fact that money is the blut und ehre that can buy anything from
respectability to the friendship of the people who matter, you have the right
recipe for the wild chorisis of the economic crimes limited only by the limits of
the creativity of an original mind thrown to infinite possibilities provided by the
inferior laws, procedures and the institutions created by the lesser minds of the
post-independent genre and equally poor manning of them. The trend for the
future can only be defined as unspeakable varieties of every conceivable hue that
is allowed by the financial laws and procedures, financial institutions and their
practices.
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INVESTIGATION OF
DOWRY DEATH CASES
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 sensitized to the menace.
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 eyewitnesses 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 girls 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 symbolized 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 that 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

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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 womens 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 sensitized to the menace of the offences with the unfortunate
swelchie of cruel practices and circumstances deliver an innocent girl at deaths
door. All institutions of society including the government, press, womens
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 supervise 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

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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 offenders are 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 realize the importance of noting the
profusion of bleeding or marks of inflammation in deciding whether wound is
ante mortal 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
girls death. There would be an absolute void in-between with no clues or

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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 polarized 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 does 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 relieve 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
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the accused persons subjected the victim to cruelty 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 girls 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 socializing. Per
case, the gentle and amenable character of the female breed exposes 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.

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THE DEADLY PRICE

OF POLICE COMPLACENCY
The complacency over peace in Punjab was shattered by the bomb blast that
killed Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in front of the Punjab and Haryana
secretariat building at Chandigarh on August 31, 1995. The assassination
vindicated the axiom that superficial calm in a situation of serious conflict can be
deceptive.
Complacency on the part of the general public is understandable;
complacency even on part of ordinary government functionaries can be
accepted. But how authorities responsible for security functions ignored the
prime tenets of internal security, and slackened their guard in respect of Punjab
terrorism is something difficult to answer.
Firstly, it is unreasonable to presume that the blaze of terrorism which raised
its head with the Akali-Nirankari clash of April 13, 1978, reached its crescendo
in 1985 and continued with undiminished vigor up to 1992, died down
immediately after an elected government came to power. A bomb blast near the
Indian Youth Congress office in Delhi on September 11, 1993 killed eight
persons though Youth Congress president M.S.Bitta survived the attempt and
the Khalistan Liberation Force kidnapped the son of Ram Niwas Mirdha.
A minor blast in a car in proximity to chief minister Beant Singh near
Dholewas Chowk in Ludhiana, the hub of previous terrorist activities, preceded
the more daring venture. Thirdly it is rather foolish to believe that a movement
that dug deep roots in countries like Pakistan, the USA, the UK and Canada
through committed cadres withered away just because an elected government
was restored, or militants were overpowered.
It was often claimed by political observers that terrorism in Punjab in general
and the activities of the Babbar Khalsa International in particular came to a virtual
end with the death of Babbar Khalsa leader, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, after being
caught at patiala in August 1992 Such assessments are far from ground realities.
No militancy having deep roots depends for its survival on a few leaders, the
fear of the government or the resolution of minor issues. Such developments

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may only bring about an ephemeral lull in their activities. It is simplistic to

presume that transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab and settlement of water and
territorial disputes of Punjab with Haryana and Rajasthan would have banished
militancy. Terrorism has its own cycles of rise and fall, before it finally withers
away with a loss in emotional fervor.
A lull in militancy for a few months or years should not lead to conclusion
that terrorism is out. Ironically, Beant Singh as chief minister knew this better than
anybody. He often spoke about the continued threat of militants and called for
a joint security zone to fight them.
The fact remains that there was no social base to militancy in Punjab even at
the best of times. The close family links of Sikhs and Hindus with often both
religions coexisting in a single home and family render the demand for Khalistan
rather unrealistic and shallow. Issues like Chandigarh and water and territorial
disputes with neighboring states scarcely arouse the passions of the hoi polloi
among Sikhs. Lives, finance and peace having been shattered by 15 years of
insurgency and insecurity, they are keen to establish themselves in an atmosphere
of peace. The murders, extortions and rapes, which the terrorists indulged in,
rubbed off the sheen of martyrdom from their names.
There are reports of a working relationship of late among the militants and
their Pakistani masters. Sukhdev Sing Babbar confessed during interrogation in
1992 to the total disillusion of Sikh militants about Pakistani intentions. The InterServices intelligence of Pakistan met its cul de sac in recruiting Sikhs after ant
insurgency operations were strengthened in 1992. Most of the top terrorist
leaders fled Punjab in fear. Prominent leaders like Pritam Singh Sekhon of the
Khalistan Liberation Force, Wadhawa Singh of the Babbar Khalsa International
and Wassam Singh Zafarwal of the Khalistan Commando Force are still hiding
in Pakistan. Some other leaders operate from the USA, the UK or Canada.
Pakistans efforts to persuade Khalistani leaders hiding there to resuscitate
terrorism in India failed badly. The ISI deputed Parmjit Singh Panjwar of the
Khalistan Commando Force to Punjab in 1994, to recruit youths from Ludhiana
and surrounding areas. The KCF leader made no headway in his efforts. In a
desperate bid, the ISI mobilized about 1,500 Sikh immigrants from Europe and
trained them, but the immigrants lacked the enthusiasm to carry out tasks in India
at the behest of the ISI.
This lull in terrorism cannot be presumed to be the end of terrorism, which
is the handiwork of a few activists who form a farthing part of the local
population. It is wrong to presume that these activities represent the aspirations
and fervor of the common people around them. This silent majority becomes
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a hostage under inevitable pressures. Once, the people of Punjab found that they
were not under terrorist pressures, they collected courage to express their
disinclination towards terrorism. It is a blunder to interpret this disinclination as
signs of terrorism being uprooted from Punjab.
To trained eyes, signs of terrorism lurking in shadows were already there.
There were no signs of Pakistan beating the retreat. Rather, there was every
indication of Pakistan going radical in rousing Sikh passions. Virulent attacks of
Pakistans government controlled electronic media on the Indian governments
alleged repression of minorities and popular movements, human rights
violations and its efforts to rouse Sikh sensibilities by its programmes on Sikh
traditions and culture give evidence of Pakistans dishonest intentions.
The continued terrorism after restoration f popular government in 1992,
though in reduced frequency, should have lead those in charge of anti-insurgency
operations to conclude that terrorism was alive and may come out of its shell.
Failures on the fronts of analysis, research and use of intelligence also
contributed to the complacency over Punjab. Indian security agencies did
intercept Sikh militants crossing the Indo-Pak border in 1994, and seized from
them a document called Policy paper of Punjab militants, wherein plans to
resuscitate terrorism were laid down in detail.
Intelligence agencies had information about plants to use human bombs to
eliminate those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and leaders like Beant Singh
and Bhajan Lal.
Sikh militants crossing over to India were arrested and subjected to
interrogation. Through this process, intelligence agencies should have possessed
vital information about the future of militancy. It is a dismal commentary on antiinsurgency operations that Indian security forces could derive no benefit from
it.
Beant singh being perceived as extremely valuable to terrorist strikes was
provided the highest grade of security cover availableZ plus. His security
arrangements were next only to that of the Prime Minister.
It is a shocking commentary on the security system that chauffeurs of such
heavily protected personages as Beant Singh used to drive his official cars to their
houses for lunch. His security chief was transferred out sans measures in advance
to expose the incumbent chief to existing security compulsions.
The new chief took charge of the post just the previous evening of the
assassination, after the post being vacant for a period, as the officer originally
transferred to the post was reluctant to hold charge and went on leave.

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These developments do not speak highly about administration in a security

apparatus. The very fact that the human bomb, a rank outsider in a police
constables uniform, could reach Beant Singh, speaks volumes about what really
our A plus security cover is.
Once terrorists strike, the police do make appreciable headway in
investigating and detecting the case. Indian police always do it; they did it in the
Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Indira Gandhi assassination case and the
Mahatma Gandhi assassination case. However, good investigations cannot
compensate the provision of adequate protection.

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INDIAN POLICE AND

SIXTY YEARS OF 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 that 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
sixty 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

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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 justification of 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 counterespionage services. We must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies
by cleverer, 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, molding 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, checkmating 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
featherweight 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
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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 make the RAW postings highly lucrative and
attract 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 view
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. Their approaches to security threats
are always short-term face-saving responses that 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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

(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 centers 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 Pakistans 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 because of the latters opposition
to the CIA-inspired Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and pro-peace overtures to
the Soviet Union. A positive aspect of Indias poor concern to security interests
is its clean slate as far as existence of secret parallel governments and clandestine
power-centers 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
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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 1950s. Its secret police is yet to make
perficient use of the countrys 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 utilize 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
These 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 increasingly 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, organizational 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 overriding 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.
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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 countrys security interests. It is public knowledge in India
howVIP 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 sign 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.
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INDIAN POLICE

The period saw no substantial progress in expansion and reorganization of

the district police. There are much to be done in the field, both in strengthening
the organisation 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 2000s appear like a century-old giant tree
rendered hollow ab intra by the termite 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 Indias
independence.

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INDIAN POLICE: COURSE AHEAD IN

THE 21st CENTURY
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. Reinterpretation 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
parameters 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

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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
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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
thereon 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 requires 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 oneupmanship.
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
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police force in the finest fettle in terms of organisation, manpower and

equipments and becoming a highly organized 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 overweight 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 detre 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 eavesdropping 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-aero planes
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.

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A cost-efficient manpower policy in future police administration will bring

motivation and commitment centre-stage. The extant diffident response of
maximum mobilization 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 postulated 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.

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ROLE OF POLICE IN
THE CAUSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Article 15 (1) of the Constitution of India lies down that The State shall not
discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place
of birth or any of them. Article 14 that speak about equality before the law or
the equal protection of the laws. Article 16 that speaks about the equality of
opportunity in matters of public employment and Article 17 that speaks about
abolition of untouchability are mere extensions and applications of the Article 15
(1). The Preamble of the Constitution identifies justice as social, economic and
political; and Equality as of status and opportunity. These declarations of the
Constitution provide the framework of social justice of the Sovereign Socialist
Secular Democratic Republic of India. The principle of equality enjoined by the
Constitution gains significance vis a vis the long tradition of discriminations and
exploitations in India on the basis of religion, race, caste and sex. Police is the tool.
Indian Constitution also seeks to establish economic equality. Economic and
social equality are inter-knitted with the cause of social justice for the reason that
economic status and opportunities more often than not decide the position of
religions, races, castes and sexes in society.
ROLE OF POLICE
Police are called social doctors. They examine, diagnose and treat misease in
the body of the society through the administration of laws and surgical
operations. Discriminations and exploitations are the deadly cancers that seize
and disintegrate a society. Police are duty-bound to keep these maladies under
check. Their fight against the evils of a long tradition and practices accepted by
the society as legitimate by the stamp of time is a protracted and frustrating
struggle against the convictions imbued deep into the psyche of the society. Their
role as the ultimate enforcers of social laws brings them centre stage in the cause
of social justice.
SENSITISATION AND SPECIAL SKILLS
Administration of social laws is a specialized task requiring sensitization to
social issues and social justice and special skills sine qua non for handling socially

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

sensitive cases. Police handling these cases have to be understanding and

circumspect though tenacious when circumstances warrant sans temulence of
power and surquedry. These operators should be kind and devoid of the
malfeasance of immane police methods, never forget that they are dealing with
distinct issues which are the outcome of historical reasons and special social
situations, that they are dealing with a wider social malady through the specific
symptoms in their hands for solution and ergo there are no villains in the real sense
of the term in the extant issues, that they are social doctors interested only in
excising cancerous growths from the society. They have to be sensitive to human
sufferings and committed to social justice. These characteristics thought to be
alien to police nature are not easy to come to police unless recruitment process
takes special care to draw men of appropriate mental makeup to the force and
their training process is programmed to reinforce the characteristics. The police
also require periodical programmes to sensitize them to the cause of social
equality and social justice.
NEED OF CIRCUMSPECTION
Social injustices of discrimination and exploitation are committed by the
pollent on their weaker counterparts. This makes witnesses to crimes reluctant
witnesses for the fear of reprisals. The natural resourcefulness of the police
comes to the fore in handling such obstacles. In a social situation where the
exigencies of survival, coexistence and security force rival parties to bury the
hatchet and the weaker of the two submit again to the tyranny of the pollent for
the sake of survival, commitment of the police to the goal of social justice plays
a crucial role in bringing offenders to the book and abstergent evils from the
body of the society. However discreetness and circumspection are the calves
here. In nonserious cases where possibility of exploitation in future is ruled out,
rehabilitation and compensation become important factors from the human
side of the issue and the need of a fair settlement gains ground. Police are required
to attend these problems with discreetness and circumspection in the best
interests of the society and justice. Ability to handle situations with creative ingine
is the core of the skill of handling socially sensitive cases.
LOCUS STANDI OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES
Discriminations and exploitations based on race and caste take myriad forms
and shapes in India of a million races and castes, each individually and in groups
discriminating against the other. The main strain of this discrimination is about
20% of the countrys population specified by the President as Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes under Articles 341 and 342 respectively of the Constitution
being discriminated against and exploited by forward communities.
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Discrimination against and exploitation of have-nots by the well to do is the elan

of all discriminations of race. Caste and sex practised in extant India. Power and
strength make all the differences in this world. Money, knowledge, mental ability,
political power and muscle power constitute real power and strength. Those
who have access to these powers and strength. Those who have access to these
powers and strengths come out successful irrespective of their race, caste and sex.
It is the weak and powerless irrespective of race, caste and sex are exploited most.
Weak and powerless sections of society in race, caste and sex are discriminated
against and exploited most. The police with their statutory powers, laws, arms
and weapons are in position to give spine to the weak and powerless in discharge
of duties towards social justice.
CONFIDENCE BUILDING
Police support to weaker sections can be physical and psychological. Physical
support covers aspects like providing protection, strict enforcement of social
laws and honest investigation to violations. Psyhological support implies carrying
out above responsibilities with an added objective of creating a sense of
confidence and well-being in the exploited sections of the society. Making
enforcements of social laws a showpiece of deterrence also helps. The
psychological aspect needs emphasis in policing against social evils. Enforcing
laws for its own sake does not help tackling social issues. Involvement and
participation of the police with a sympathetic commitment to social justice is the
clavis. The immane approach of the rich and powerful to their weaker
counterparts has to be countered with the strong-arm methods of the state
power through its tool of police.
CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT
Civil Rights Directorates au reste the executive police bear the responsibility
of protecting the interests of the exploited races and castes of the society. Police
endeavor to guarantee strict enforcement of the provisions of The Protection of
Civil Rights Act, 1995 and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 as amended from time to time and rules
thereunder, au reste keeping pernoctation on violations of constitutional
safeguards and protections to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Police
have responsibilities to give relief under rules and laws pertaining to bonded
labour, debt relief and land grants. They are duty-bound to trace the cases of
misrepresentation of castes to knock off the benefits given by the government
orders pertaining to reservations to these groups of the society. The
responsibilities of the police are to ensure that really weak and helpless among
these weaker sections get maximum benefits of the state protection and
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

benevolence. The discreetness and circumspection needed to make this task of

social justice possible cannot be indited in law and has to be exercised by the
police by its own commitment to the cause of social justice.
ATROCITIES AGAINST WOMEN
Rape, unnatural offences, dowry harassments, abduction, kidnapping,
outraging modesty, eves teasing, marriage offences, causing forcible miscarriage
and forcing to prostitution are the most common outrages committed against
women by the more powerful men. The discrimination and exploitation
accounts for about 50% of the population committing injustices against the other
50% and for this reason assumes serious dimensions as a social malady. Unlike
offences against weaker races and castes, most offences against women are
punishable under the Indian Penal Code; rape and unnatural offences come
under sections from 375 to 377, abduction and kidnapping under sections from
364 to 369, marriage offences under sections from 493 to 498, outraging the
modesty under section 354, insulting the modesty under section 509 and forcible
miscarriage under section 314. The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women
and Girls Act, 1956 and its amendment in 1986 with rules thereunder deal with
offences relating to immoral traffic in women and girls. The Dowry Prohibition
Act, 1961 with its amendments of 1984 and 1986 and rules thereunder deal with
dowry harassments and dowry deaths either by homicide or abetment to
commit suicide caused against young girls by their husbands, in-laws and their
associates. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1983 (No.43/83) and The
Criminal Law (2nd Amendment) Act, 1983 (No.46/83) brought further
safeguards to women during the investigation and trial of offences under
immoral traffic and dowry prohibition acts. Dowry death cases have become
sensational topical issues these days with the public being highly sensitized to the
menace of the crime that delivers an innocent girl at the deaths door. Each such
case outrages the patience of thinking people and rouses passion and outcry
against the perpetrators of the crime. The police must give special importance
to the prevention and investigation processes of these crimes.
Social justice is a glidder concept that changes its hues with time depending
on prevailing social norms and social values. No age has a right to preconise its
own norms and values as absolute and peremptory. In this sense, every social law
is passe and peregrine beyond its immediate time frame. The deciduous nature
of social laws necessitates circumspect approach in their enforcement for the
reason that mens rea in the sense it is used in conventional offences may be absent
in these cases. The change of the face of social justice brings new social laws with
it. Police must go pari passu with these developments and differentiate between
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INDIAN POLICE

justice and injustice selon les regles in force at the time. Effective enforcement of
social laws reinforces reigning social norms and values by giving them the teeth
of law. How it is done depends on the commitment of the police to the cause
of social justice and equality.

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ENFORCEMENT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social laws can be social laws only if they are of the society, from the society
and for the society. They have relevance in a society only if they are irrevocably
concinnous with everyday lives of its membersin terms of their ken of the laws
and its general acceptance. Social laws that are abstruse and unacceptable to the
plebeian are destined to atrophy because they lack en arriere the inherent
mechanism of compelling society to comply with their writ. It is in this sense, that
social laws which are lex non scripta are indited with the stamp of approbation of
the state by popular demand, though the process from the antipode can be
inchoated if their assimilation by the society is assured through active
propagation. The effectiveness of social laws depends entirely on their
assimilation by society and the strength of propagation and publicity that follows
the enactment of the laws. This need of the social laws being balked is the quiddity
of the serious setbacks faced in making certain social laws like the Dowry
Prohibition Act or the Child Marriage Act effective. The enactment of social laws
that are intended to accord primacy to social norms must be preceded by
intensive fieldwork to introduce the newell and make them acceptable to the
society and enactment should be resorted to only when the idea becomes ripe
enough to be assimilated by the society because the symbiosis of social norms
and social laws is inseparable. Haste brings definite waste in respect of the
enactment of social laws.
A kenspeckle feature noted in most social laws is the lack of perspicacity in
definition of the concepts involved. It is an understandable glitch when
commonsense concepts like dowry, labour, discrimination, practice of
untouchability, compensation or even marriage makes the quandary of the
commission or noncommission of an offence wafer-thin and often a matter of
opinion based on interpretation of the concepts involved. Though subsequent
amendments to the law based on field experience and interpretations of the
concepts by courts attempt to impale the concepts to a prim form, the inchoate
ambiguity continues to confound the issues in the popular mind, weakening the
credibility of the law itself. The louche spectrum of the impair interpretations of
a concept can turn an offence to innocence and more perniciously, an innocent

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person into a criminal according to the predilection of the investigating officer.

The subjectivity involved in understanding the law society. It is for this reason,
concepts in social laws must be formulated with utmost caution.
Another major hurdle in calling social change through law is the failure by the
authors of the laws to clearly comprehend and indite in them the causes and
mechanisms of the immane social evils they intended to contain through the laws
themselves. The abhorred social practices that manifest as social evils are only the
external symptoms of serious malady inveterate in the psyche of the society.
Attempts to strike at these skin-deep symptoms prove infructuous in reaching
the malady embedded in the vitals of the system. Often, the persons comminated
by the shallow social laws are simple innocent plebeians who are caught unawares
by the laws while they tread the path laid by their ancestors by wont or perform
acts they consider essential in the existing social circumstances. The external
symptoms, sine dubio, should be fittingly treated if the malady is to be deracinated
with all traces of its existence. However, such approaches are secondary to the
concerted attack on the ingrained malady that forms the cornucopia of those
symptoms. This exigency is generally balked in most social laws. Only a springe
mind with full grasp of the social problems in the circumstances of the existing
situation can indagate and handle levers sine prole to set in motion the laws that
can strike at the core of the social malady. This requires advanced study of these
immane practices and their social backgrounds involving psychological and
anthropological analysis apart from adequate public discussion within the
society. Unfortunately, no enactments of social laws are preceded by such
vigorous exercises and the impotency of the laws to excoriate the social evils are
inevitably consectaneous. The laws should provide the pollicitation of punishing
the prime perpetrators of the social injustices rather than catching secondary or
tertiary commis to the commission of the offences.
The glisk of undesirable social practices leading to painful hurtling of laws
often are the consequences of the existing social situations. A poor father of four
girls and a boy in the circumstances of prevalent admissibility of dowry in the
social psyche, non obstante the criminality of the act, cannot but accept dowry for
his son to assure a reasonability contented married life for his daughters even at
the risk of being immanacled as his conscience is clean about accepting the
dowry. A person living in a closed society in a village has no alternative but to
practice untouchability against his conscience to save himself from ostracism
unless he is a zealous social reformer prepared to sacrifice his own interests for
the cause. In a competitive business world involving child labour or meager
wages, an attempt by an individual to stand out in compliance to laws against
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

child labour and low wages is a sure way to close down his enterprise. The state,
in such circumstances, should tackle au fond the social situations that breed such
immane symptoms and the law to be kind and understanding in saving in
innocent people caught in the social clemency. The scope for corrective and
remedial action and rehabilitation must form an integral part of social laws to
avoid the impression about the social laws as indulging in supererogations to
catch trivial slips of everyday life and ergo popularly abhorred. Effectively
orchestrated public education and concomitant vigorous social service
programmes aimed at changing specific social situations that boost socially unjust
practices must form an integral part of every social law.
All social laws must have some postern features incorpsed to make them
effective as vehicles of positive social change in view of the delicate ground the
laws cover in their operation wherein people in their interpersonal relationships
are often involved in the hide and seek game of everyday life. The social offences
are both trivial and serious-trivial in the nature of the acts and serious in the nature
of its consequences. It is almost impossible to demarcate when an act in a given
social situation is trivial and when it attains serious proportions. Also, differences
in norms and values and varying sensitivity and moods further complicate the
issue. It is not possible to arrive at a uniform definition of concepts like
harassment, practice of untouchability or compensation as acceptable to all
situations. The laws warrant special accoutrements to counter the nonasuch
quailings e re nata as discussed in the ensuing paragraphs.
Social injustices are perforce committed by the pollent on weak and hapless
people. In the present argument-oriented judicial system where mother justice
takes sides on the basis of the kind of the lawyer being engaged on the strengths
of money and power, no social law can do justice to the weak and feckless gens
de peu who are misdight and nonpareil to their adversaries for the juste rencontre
except in rare obvious cases non obstante the state sponsored legal aid
programmes. The cabal of the versute gens de condition resorting to social evils
necessitates some sui generis safeguards to be inherent in social laws to make up
for the nether social position of the wronged person and checkmate the
malengine and pravity of the powerful. Appropriate amendments to the Indian
Evidence Act to incorpse provisions of sweeping presumptions in social laws
against the accused persons on whom a prime-facie case is made out, with
provisions to prove innocence laying with them, is likely to lessen the ineluctable
disabilities of the oppressed people. Though such presumptions are extant to
varying degrees now in some special laws, the presumptions must be made a toute
force in all social laws. Such presumptions save the wronged persons, from
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INDIAN POLICE

proving the wrong usually done at the convenience and terms of the powerful
guilty person sans evidences in the social situation under his prise.
The special laws must provide for vicarious liability that suspends over the
head of the social group concerned even though there is no evidence to involve
him with the offence. Such criminal liability on the el patron while it checks him
from encouraging or indirectly fomenting commission of such offences through
his acolytes in the social group, also drives him to prevent those injustices in his
group.
There should be mandatory minimum punishments prescribed in all social
laws so that the laws become inherently mordant, independent of the malicho
of the pollent guilty persons. The social laws should abnegate the behoofs of the
anticipatory bail unless the person against whom a prima facie case is made out
satisfies the court about his innocence. The present queasy trend of prompt
anticipatory bails to fugacious social offenders can be brought under control by
this measure.
Each social law must provide ample opportunity for compromise on mutuus
consensus with an in-built raisonne mechanism prescribed to ensure corrective and
remedial measures in fit cases not involving serious guilt where such a
compromise is certain to ameliorate the position of the wronged persons. The
penal sections of the social laws inter alia must provide for huge fines and
compensations with provisions to streamline the fines and compensations for
rehabilitation of the victims or their dependants.
The social nature of the offences in social laws makes witnesses to the offence
who are insiders of the society in most cases, reluctant witnesses for the fear of
reprisals from the society though injustice done to one of them turns their
clinamen against the guilty. A provision and concomitant device in social laws to
protect the interests of the witnesses helps investigation of the social offences.
It is rightly said that justice delayed is justice denied. It is strikingly so in social
situations where the exigencies of survival and coexistence and future interests
force the parties generally inter-related to apostatise and bury the past cicatrix,
leading to the weak and oppressed again submitting to the tyranny of the
powerful for the sake of survival. In the circumstances, each social law should
prescribe time limits for the continuation of the investigation and trial. The
possibility of summary trails for social offences also should be probed into and
employed as extensively as possible to ensure the galvanic trial of social offences.
The raison detre of social laws is the extirpation of social inequalities and the
establishment of a just society. The telos can be better achieved if the laws are
structured to effect compromises to rehabilitate the wronged persons,
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

preceding the invoking of penal sections in lost cases. The social laws true to their
intentions must seek a device by which every case of social wrong draws the
attention of the authority for frack intervention and on-the-spot solutions that
is statutorily binding on both the parties to avoid the crush of the penal sections.
The device can be made a reality by the constitution of Social Justice
Authorities at taluq levels under a judicial magistrate with a police officer, an
officer of the social welfare department, a prominent lawyer, a representative of
local womens organisations and a representative of the legal aid board as
members. The Authority must work as a team in the taluq to hear cases of socially
unjust practices on the spot and adjudicate them then and there without resorting
to judicial technicalities and adjournments. The Authority must have an office
with a multi-channel telephone working round the clock with a widely publicized
number by dialing which anybody without giving identification can report
socially unjust practices so that the Authority as a team reaches the destination
within twenty-four hours and passes orders on-the-spot on hearing the
concerned parties. The Authority must exercise pernoctation over the process of
the compliances to the orders and pass sentences in cases of default. In such a
system, the address and telephone number of the Authority being known in every
village in the taluq is the clavis of perficient chevisance because then anybody
wronged can readily lodge complaints for redressal. The approach of the
Authority in adjudication must be that of an adviser or well-wisher rather that
that of a government organisation steeped in technicalities. The Authority should
be able to reach every village in the taluq at least once a month. The leitmotiv
behind the set-up is to affect compromises and rehabilitate victims by levying
fines and compensations if necessary.
The administration of social laws is a specialized task requiring specialized
skills in the police force handling the job. The force has to be understanding and
circumspect in its approach though tenacious when circumstances warrant. It
should have the right ken of the social circumstances and their problems with a
deep sense of commitment to social justice. These operators should be kind and
devoid of the malfeasance of harsh police methods and should never forget that
they are dealing with distinct problems which are the outcome of historical
reasons and special social situations, that they are dealing with a wider social
malady through the individual symptoms in their hands for solution and ergo
there are no villains in real sense of the term, that they are social doctors interests
only excision of the cancerous growths from society. This special decession from
policing necessitates special care in recruitments to the job to draw people of
appropriate mental makeup and impart specialized training to reinforce that
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special attribution. The police also require periodical programmes of

sensitization for the cause of social justice with exhaustive theoretical inputs.
These officers should be au fait in social legislations that are proliferating in
geometrical proportion. This exigency necessitates the constitution of a special
police force to handle social laws, which may be called Social Police distinct
from the normal police in charge of regulatory and other police duties. The social
police should have its parallel organisations at all levels as per specific needs with
distinct recruitment, training and sensitization facilities. An extra-ordinary
commitment to the social cause and out-of-the normal alacrity in tackling social
problems should be the hallmarks of the social police.
Delayed trails of social offences are more a reality than an exception while
promptitude is a virtue de rigueur for tackling social offences. The inquietude of
delays is often caused by lack of commitment to social causes. The same can be
said about easy anticipatory bails and easy release of persons arrested for social
offences and light sentences to convicted persons or failure to appreciate
available evidences which leads to frequent acquittals. Such a predicament for
social offences when they are treated on par with conventional cases in courts is
natural because of the popular perception of the social offences as trivial social
problems. A judiciary sensitized it de regueur if the cause of social justice is to be
served in the trial stage. The establishment of social courts to try exclusively social
offences of al hues is en regle in the circumstances and should prove efficacious.
As distinct from conventional courts, a committed judiciary should be the
bedrock of these courts where handpicked magistrates or judges committed a
fond to social justice and specially sensitized to the social causes preside. The
courts, owing to their specialization in trying social offences would be in a better
position to appreciate the special circumstances of the offences and therefore
appreciate evidences in the right perspective and with sympathetic
understanding. The specialization also facilitates fast disposals while the
sensitization helps to see through the gravity of the offences so that unduly light
sentences are not pronounced and persons arrested for social offences are not
wantonly released on bail.
Similarly, specially handpicked lawyers should be posted as prosecutors to
the social courts. These prosecutors should be selected on the basis of their
commitment to social justice and undergo a course in sensitization to social
causes prior to their posting to handle social offences. A case of social offence
would be feracious in the hands of a prosecutor who is committed to social
justice and specially sensitized for social causes.

415

Praveen Kumar with his more than three decades of government service in
senior levels and as a poet of five published collections and as an author of two
volumes on matters of governance and public interests is a familiar face in Indian
intellectual circuits. His contributions on these topics to prominent national dailies
and periodicals of India and journals like The Indian Journal of Criminology and
Criminalistics of MHA, GOI, Delhi were very popular and often sensational by
their innovative unorthodox thoughts.
Born in Mangalore as the eldest son of Shree R.D. Suvarna and B. Sarojini,
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.
He lives in Bangalore with his wife, Smt. Jayashree and son Pratheek. He is a
familiar face in national seminars and TV networks in India as a Poet and thinker.
Stemming from his varied academic background, are the lively far-ranging
interests that have impelled him to write on subjects as diverse as matters of
public interest and poetry, striking the perfect balance between the pursuance of
vocation and avocation.
INDIAN POLICE is his fourth volume on police and policing.

417

INDEX
A
Abetment 378, 398
Abracadabra 39, 40, 126, 149, 341,
350
Academic 153, 210, 289, 305, 306,
307, 394
Academics 307
Academy 306
Accountability 12, 13, 33, 88, 106,
120, 126, 212, 275, 287, 288, 298,
393
Accountable 14, 42, 50, 59, 125, 279,
285, 286
ACR 13, 14, 49, 325, 326
Adjudication 272, 404
Administration 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 17, 18,
19, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 35, 36, 42,
47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 63, 64, 69,
72, 73, 74, 75, 82, 83, 84, 87, 97, 98,
99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107,
109, 111, 118, 120, 122, 124, 141,
157, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166,
172, 174, 175, 188, 191, 200, 202,
206, 209, 210, 211, 215, 220, 223,
227, 228, 232, 233, 235, 239, 244,
246, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271,
274, 277, 279, 281, 288, 289, 291,
292, 293, 297, 298, 299, 304, 319,
320, 327, 328, 329, 339, 341, 342,
343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349,
350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 360, 373,
382, 392, 394, 395, 404
Administrator 342, 348
Administrators 15, 16, 17, 19, 105,
107, 123, 161, 202, 211, 311, 341,
348, 349, 350, 352, 353
Adulteration 89, 368
Afghanistan 120, 135, 384
Africa 33, 41, 232, 310
Agricultural 204
Akali 158, 262
Akali-nirankari 379

Alcoholism 8
Alienation 326
Allahabad 125
America 33, 272, 284, 310
Amoral 46, 65, 66, 78, 175
Antecedents 111, 183, 239, 261
Anti-corruption 32, 34
Anti-dumping 371
Anti-exploitation 35
Anti-hijack 117
Anti-insurgency 381
Anti-sikh 55, 315, 330, 339, 381
Anti-social 112, 139, 150, 222, 238,
281
Anti-terrorist 117
Antisocial 76, 89, 90, 175, 242
Antisocials 88
Antithesis 12, 118, 168
Apocryphal 37, 89, 120, 287, 316,
348, 369, 386
Apolitical 43, 67, 138, 202, 387
Apostasy 39, 68, 149, 169, 200, 353,
371
Apostatise 403
Apparatchik 167, 293
Aptitude 82, 106, 136, 233, 243, 249,
250, 254, 385
Archaic 17, 347
Arm-twisting 311
Arrogance 16, 118, 154, 223, 227,
341, 350, 351
Arunachala 155
Asia 1, 33, 41, 232, 278, 310
Assam 196, 318, 355, 356, 357
Atmosphere 6, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
25, 39, 40, 50, 71, 79, 105, 112, 140,
141, 145, 185, 203, 205, 214, 215,
220, 225, 228, 239, 243, 245, 258,
284, 287, 313, 332, 350, 359, 360,
367, 380
Atrophy 24, 34, 67, 73, 93, 120, 124,
125, 130, 135, 166, 168, 173, 187,
198, 202, 203, 205, 326, 340, 359,
384, 389, 400
Attitude 15, 34, 55, 56, 73, 113, 128,
129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 155,
182, 212, 300, 301, 302, 304, 308,
329
Attitudes 8, 21, 128, 129, 133, 134,

171, 300, 301, 303, 305, 306, 307,

308, 337, 383
Attitudinal 11, 107, 128, 133, 134,
213, 224, 225, 231, 301, 302, 303,
305, 306, 308
Authority 14, 18, 22, 28, 42, 50, 51,
59, 61, 65, 74, 78, 108, 109, 112,
123, 141, 152, 162, 164, 169, 170,
171, 172, 185, 186, 192, 193, 200,
218, 226, 237, 238, 240, 245, 267,
271, 272, 286, 312, 313, 321, 325,
328, 329, 347, 370, 404
Avizefull 69, 88, 130, 140, 205, 252,
277, 284, 286, 296, 371, 391

B
Babbar 379, 380
Backbone 4, 5, 108, 161, 226, 240
Background 26, 41, 46, 53, 59, 63, 72,
137, 174, 191, 199, 250, 261, 362
Backgrounds 41, 232, 401
Backup 161, 255
Backups 256
Backward 38, 65, 335
Bail 55, 100, 227, 244, 331, 403, 405
Bails 119, 131, 266, 330, 339, 403,
405
Balance 82, 106, 111, 112, 141, 179,
195, 212, 227, 229, 233, 283, 288,
306, 356, 360, 374
Balkanisation 180
Balkanization 317
Balzac 88
Bangalore 13, 54, 90, 91, 108, 119,
158, 171, 183, 209, 214, 357
Bangladesh 120, 135, 384
Betgeri 205
Betrayal 57, 167, 371
Bhutan 135, 384
Bihar 119, 125, 152, 318, 340, 355,
358, 365, 372, 389
Birmingham 181, 318
Bjp 265
Black-marketing 94, 368
Blackmail 77, 177

Bloodcurdling 262
Bloodhounds 43, 201
Bollywood 90
Bomb 90, 379, 382
Bombay 90, 91, 119, 318, 365
Booth-capturing 317
Borders 23, 159, 220, 280
Bribe 61, 189, 306
Bribes 31, 167, 359, 367
Brigand 153, 159, 356
Britain 5, 135, 164, 383
British 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 25, 42, 43, 51,
53, 67, 111, 116, 129, 169, 200,
201, 202, 209, 215, 216, 217, 293,
299, 301, 304, 305, 337, 383
Brotherhood 190
Buddhas 11
Budget 120
Budgetary 30, 52
Bureau 13, 26, 31, 53, 65, 73, 167,
168, 265, 328, 335, 337
Bureaucracy 1, 2, 12, 13, 34, 36, 93,
126, 129
Bureaucratic 1, 11, 31, 86, 159, 241,
289, 297, 332, 394
Bureaucrats 31, 32, 34, 55, 88, 130,
141
Burma 135, 384
Business 1, 31, 32, 33, 48, 59, 61, 83,
88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 100, 118, 124,
140, 145, 151, 167, 175, 180, 182,
189, 192, 208, 212, 229, 234, 343,
353, 367, 369, 388, 401
Businessmen 48, 89, 208, 230, 318,
371

C
Cabals 19, 26, 162, 202
Cabinet 14, 50, 70, 74, 109, 156, 237,
240, 245, 265, 273, 286, 338
Cadaverous 23, 71, 220
Calcutta 151, 318
Canada 379, 380
Cancerous 19, 24, 203, 396, 404
Cancers 395

Cap-a-pie 12, 305, 351

Capital 16, 33, 91, 145, 334, 352, 364,
369
Career-life 111, 199, 215, 216, 304
Career-promotion 178
Caste 6, 61, 190, 367, 395, 396, 397
Caste-ridden 308
Castes 395, 396, 397, 398
Casualties 10, 75, 173, 175, 184, 198,
307
Cauvery 54
Cbi 66, 101, 102, 131, 145, 155, 156,
209, 266, 270, 319, 328, 329, 330,
331, 332, 337, 338, 339, 365
Center-stage 371
Centre-stage 2, 99, 147, 394
Chandigarh 379, 380
Chandraswamy 315
Charge-sheeted 336
Chessboard 79, 162, 185
Chitradurga 56
Chopra 1
IA 135, 136, 159, 383, 386
CIA-inspired 386
CIB 330
CID 209, 270, 319, 337, 339
CISF 155
Clandestine 117, 120, 135, 136, 137,
383, 384, 385, 386, 387
Climacteric 34, 296, 358, 370
Closely-knit 124, 126
Co-exist 143
Coexist 88
Coexistence 396, 403
Coexisting 380
Cohabitation 182
Cold-blooded 100, 181, 207, 318,
355
Collaboration 102, 158
Command-obedience 21, 133, 201,
215, 217, 308
Commandant-general 55
Commerce 136, 195, 368, 385
Commercial 25, 46, 173, 349, 361,
365
Commercialization 25
Commissioners 100, 150, 166, 244,
326
Commissions 31, 310, 342, 353, 361

Commitments 93, 170, 339, 384, 387,

388
Communal 25, 251, 259, 322, 390
Commune 175, 283, 326
Communication 85, 88, 90, 107, 108,
117, 153, 187, 191, 210, 213, 214,
236, 237, 243, 255, 279, 280, 281,
289, 291, 292, 293, 294, 297, 310,
342, 348, 357, 391, 392
Communities 135, 384, 396
Compatibility 164, 165, 269, 270
Competencies 27
Competition 33, 155, 186
Competitions 110, 238, 251
Confession 134, 308
Confidence 60, 65, 82, 89, 92, 111,
113, 114, 123, 125, 143, 147, 172,
178, 193, 196, 215, 219, 225, 227,
233, 242, 244, 248, 270, 272, 284,
287, 298, 304, 320, 340, 350, 363,
365, 389, 397
Configurations 345
Consequence 3, 14, 30, 39, 49, 56, 91,
99, 117, 128, 146, 149, 289, 301,
325, 326, 334, 350
Consequences 8, 33, 41, 57, 77, 176,
199, 373, 401, 402
Constituencies 74, 266
Constitution 8, 9, 20, 34, 53, 103, 116,
117, 129, 203, 243, 264, 265, 271,
286, 289, 300, 306, 320, 325, 328,
329, 332, 361, 363, 391, 394, 395,
396, 404, 405
Constitutional 164, 264, 267, 269,
289, 316, 394, 397
Construction 16, 91, 134, 308
Cooperation 15, 22, 89, 91, 101, 105,
114, 142, 143, 145, 155, 156, 157,
158, 159, 160, 177, 209, 211, 213,
218, 233, 280, 281, 285, 317, 319,
341, 348, 349, 360, 361, 362, 363,
368, 372, 375, 386
Coordination 17, 88, 120, 155, 156,
157, 158, 159, 160, 209, 210, 249,
270, 274, 319, 347, 362, 370, 371
Counter-intelligence 237
Counter-pressures 339
Counter-productive 231
Counterbalances 325, 359

Counterfeit 368, 369

Courteous 226
Courtesies 16, 38, 341, 342, 350, 351,
352
Courtesy 64, 131, 184, 188, 204, 301
Credibility 8, 29, 36, 42, 52, 69, 77, 83,
102, 103, 118, 145, 167, 169, 172,
177, 178, 200, 209, 222, 229, 234,
260, 276, 320, 328, 329, 330, 335,
355, 366, 400
Criminalisation 76, 176, 179
Criminality 10, 75, 152, 173, 180, 195,
205, 206, 207, 266, 272, 280, 299,
401
Criminalization 55, 141, 144, 316
Criminologist 367
CRPF 155
Cruelty 37, 38, 207, 295, 374, 376,
378
Cul-de-sac 261
Cultural 24, 25
Culture 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19, 20, 24,
33, 43, 44, 56, 63, 67, 99, 100, 107,
117, 122, 123, 124, 128, 133, 134,
155, 159, 160, 201, 202, 203, 216,
221, 265, 294, 300, 301, 303, 307,
308, 310, 311, 315, 345, 352, 358,
381
CVC 31
Cyber 281

D
Dacoities 160
Dacoits 152, 197
Dacoity 46, 47, 146, 205, 206, 209,
356
Dacoity-infested 142
Deadwood 280
Death-cum-retirements 251
Decision 60, 77, 100, 129, 137, 144,
172, 176, 194, 222, 265, 272, 276,
297, 311, 330, 364
Decisions 12, 17, 33, 36, 41, 59, 60,
63, 64, 65, 77, 100, 102, 120, 139,
140, 162, 164, 171, 172, 176, 188,

192, 193, 194, 199, 217, 258, 271,

272, 276, 286, 298, 311, 330, 338,
342, 343, 344, 345, 348, 350, 353,
386, 392
Definitions 374
Defraud 359, 364, 367, 369, 370
Defrauding 48, 79, 186, 217, 361,
369
Degeneration 6, 8, 56, 61, 73, 93, 170,
187, 190
Degringolade 11, 29, 39, 71, 101, 110,
152, 170, 220, 223, 238, 276, 290,
304, 316, 370, 394
Dehumanization 229
Demarcate 125, 402
Demarche 180, 276
Democracy 2, 3, 4, 10, 22, 24, 25, 26,
35, 41, 43, 46, 51, 72, 117, 135, 136,
139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145,
146, 148, 169, 175, 200, 218, 232,
266, 282, 311, 316, 360, 384, 385
Democratization 276
Demonetisations 266
Demoralised 34
Demoralization 8
Demotivate 82, 233
Demotivation 110
Desuetude 82, 191, 194, 233, 239
Detect 44, 143, 205, 249, 310
Detection 44, 72, 116, 117, 118, 119,
122, 205, 206, 209, 356, 357, 391
Detective 84, 235, 275, 276
Detention 144, 227, 244, 271, 314,
320
Deterioration 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 17, 36, 340,
389
Development 7, 13, 42, 56, 60, 65, 85,
94, 107, 108, 120, 136, 162, 171,
172, 193, 210, 212, 224, 230, 235,
242, 261, 272, 282, 285, 289, 306,
336, 370, 385
Developmental 4
Developments 29, 42, 47, 86, 105,
117, 137, 170, 181, 199, 206, 211,
222, 239, 241, 252, 255, 256, 281,
317, 319, 334, 338, 365, 379, 382,
386, 398
Dharwar 167, 205
Dignitaries 75, 174, 259, 323, 346,

388
Dignities 341, 350
Dignity 16, 22, 29, 30, 37, 38, 69, 71,
72, 75, 93, 113, 114, 140, 154, 170,
173, 174, 183, 216, 224, 225, 312,
326, 333, 334, 392
Dilemma 140, 175, 284
Diligence 93, 170
Diligent 109, 111, 238
Dimensions 13, 43, 67, 75, 173, 198,
201, 211, 247, 289, 292, 296, 297,
336, 366, 398
Diplomacy 180, 181, 317, 318
Diplomatic 182
Discipline 21, 29, 42, 43, 44, 52, 57,
59, 67, 76, 86, 111, 125, 130, 148,
174, 192, 199, 201, 210, 215, 217,
218, 246, 249, 294, 304, 345, 349,
361, 364, 365, 366, 373, 387
Discreet 57, 132, 302
Discretion 65, 172, 183, 193, 272
Discretions 227, 244
Discrimination 396, 397, 398, 400
Disgruntled 283
Disharmony 160
Dishonest 24, 53, 95, 99, 203, 381
Disillusion 37, 380
Disinformation 137, 387
Disloyalty 89
Displomacy 318
Drug-trafficking 368
Duty-bound 283, 395, 397
Dynamics 41, 54, 64, 65, 89, 122, 140,
142, 144, 145, 153, 176, 195, 232,
251, 256, 264, 280, 283, 306, 335,
360

E
E-governance 281
E-policing 281
Eavesdropping 393
Economic 1, 6, 7, 24, 26, 99, 105, 136,
197, 211, 251, 281, 282, 359, 360,
361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367,
368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 385,

390, 395, 396

Economics 7, 282
Economies 1
Economy 31, 33, 94, 135, 166, 196,
359, 360, 366, 367, 369, 373, 384
Efficacious 273, 355, 405
Efficiency 3, 4, 6, 8, 17, 21, 25, 28, 53,
54, 58, 60, 88, 113, 118, 123, 132,
136, 137, 190, 193, 215, 242, 250,
275, 279, 301, 333, 336, 343, 348,
349, 352, 354, 356, 385, 387, 391
Egalitarian 283
Ego-clashes 158
Election 31, 59, 65, 70, 74, 77, 172,
175, 176, 177, 179, 192, 245, 252,
266, 272, 317
Elections 14, 50, 66, 70, 74, 76, 140,
176, 266, 286, 340, 389
Electorate 77, 78, 152, 175, 176, 177,
178
Elegance 112, 221, 224, 225, 228
Emotional 7, 97, 230, 231, 316, 380
Enactments 142, 362, 392, 401
Encompassing 129, 300, 390
Encouragement 86, 241
End-result 151
Endeavor 22, 44, 60, 63, 85, 154, 194,
216, 217, 223, 241, 397
Energetic 328
Enforcement 22, 56, 80, 83, 84, 88,
101, 102, 104, 122, 128, 132, 141,
142, 150, 161, 163, 164, 186, 218,
229, 234, 268, 269, 278, 283, 286,
300, 302, 313, 360, 378, 392, 397,
398, 399, 400
Enforcements 284, 397
England 25, 141, 338
English 122, 291, 295, 348
Environment 20, 24, 34, 58, 97, 110,
111, 112, 125, 127, 130, 131, 133,
155, 156, 157, 160, 178, 203, 221,
222, 223, 224, 225, 228, 229, 230,
238, 239, 268, 279, 280, 296, 303,
308, 359, 361, 367, 390, 391, 392
Environmental 111, 224, 229, 231
Episode 144, 266, 370, 385
Ex-convict 47, 206
Ex-dacoits 152
Exigencies 396, 403

Exploitation 35, 141, 283, 284, 368,

396, 397, 398
Exploitations 35, 284, 395, 396
Extradition 90, 280
Extravaganza 11
Exuberances 112, 229

F
Fabric 11, 19, 24, 41, 46, 52, 75, 101,
104, 155, 166, 173, 175, 190, 196,
199, 203, 226, 232, 268, 278, 283,
284, 334, 357
Facade 218, 224
Face-lift 108, 243, 277
Face-saving 136, 385
Facets 46, 122, 167, 175, 225, 316
Fact-finding 28, 51
Factions 90, 91
Faculties 148, 256
Failures 10, 11, 118, 120, 153, 273,
286, 365, 371, 373, 381, 391
Fairplay 80, 98, 131, 289, 394
Faith 82, 86, 98, 135, 233, 239, 241,
264, 266, 333
Falsification 54, 350
Fatalities 187, 250
Favorites 167, 372
Favoritism 57, 149, 150, 325
FBI 328, 337, 338
Festinated 10, 171
Festination 392
Feudal 150, 152
Feuds 206
Fieldwork 400
Finance 33, 266, 359, 361, 365, 380
Financial 59, 70, 113, 173, 180, 193,
228, 242, 292, 296, 297, 298, 359,
360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366,
367, 368, 370, 371, 373
Flambeau 305
Flaws 83, 233
Foible 108, 240
Foibles 231
Fonctionnaire 120, 296, 308
Foreign 4, 6, 7, 26, 32, 33, 90, 91, 135,

136, 180, 181, 182, 195, 237, 251,

284, 312, 317, 318, 342, 348, 362,
368, 384, 385
Forensic 374, 376
Foresightedness 176, 252
Formally 91, 273
Fraction 89, 214
Fractured 10, 69, 74, 160, 170
Fragmentation 209, 270, 319
Frauds 118, 359, 361, 362, 364, 367,
369, 370, 371, 372
Freewill 97
French 122, 291
Fruad 147
Function 14, 23, 28, 36, 50, 51, 52, 57,
59, 72, 74, 79, 131, 157, 162, 163,
185, 195, 220, 235, 245, 247, 256,
285, 287, 294, 331, 332, 353
Functionally 124, 190, 276
Futuristic 84, 85, 86, 142, 235, 236,
239, 246

G
Gadgetry 214, 249, 251
Gadgets 62, 108, 191, 214, 236, 294,
297, 298
Galvanic 78, 85, 127, 185, 236, 403
Gamble 48, 208
Gambles 266
Gandhis 11
Gang-lords 151
Gangs 88, 91, 102, 145, 151, 152, 274,
319, 355
Gangsters 92, 144
Gawli 91, 144
GDP 31, 282
Geographical 24, 251
Geometric 87, 246
Geometrical 405
Germane 221
Globalisation 279, 280
Globalization 281, 284
Goldsmith 47, 206, 207
Governance 2, 7, 12, 13, 17, 19, 23,
61, 63, 98, 110, 118, 139, 141, 161,

162, 164, 175, 189, 191, 202, 220,

238, 269, 278, 279, 289, 344, 345,
394
Grass-root 294
Grassroot 276
Greenhorn 207
Greenhorns 181, 318
Gross 1, 12, 13, 93, 167, 170, 371,
387
Grossly 12, 31, 32
Groundwork 252
Group-work 360
Guidelines 128, 148, 198, 258, 259,
260, 300, 311, 322, 323

H
Habit 33, 60, 194, 335
Hafthas 186
Hard-to-crack 133
Harshad 369
Haryana 55, 379, 380
Hawala 55, 74, 89, 131, 315, 330, 371
Hawks 40, 130
Hbt 356
Hi-tech 10, 84, 90, 137, 140, 281, 293,
297, 298, 356, 357, 372, 387, 388,
391, 393
Hierarchical 18, 21, 27, 28, 36, 38, 44,
53, 60, 133, 189, 194, 201, 210,
215, 217, 231, 249, 255, 308, 345,
347
Hierarchy 49, 64, 76, 109, 112, 155,
174, 188, 192, 225, 228, 240, 288,
296, 304, 311, 325, 342, 351, 367,
390, 393, 394
High-calibre 272
High-money 356, 372
High-power 109, 256
High-tech 117, 234, 294
Hijacking 238, 321
History-sheeters 147
Hoover 328, 337, 384
Hostage 182, 381
Hostages 181, 182, 318, 373
Humanism 221, 222, 223, 231

Humanity 39, 221, 226, 274, 280, 281,

314
Humanized 222, 223, 224, 227, 230,
231
Humanizing 112, 223, 224, 226, 229,
230, 231
Humiliation 80, 140, 225, 374

I
IAS 6
Ibrahim 90, 91, 144
Ichnography 370
ICRA 364
IDBI 364
Idea 42, 97, 143, 169, 200, 299, 400
Ideal 56, 68, 74, 133, 139, 183, 190,
224, 264, 276, 277, 292, 296, 303
Ideologies 135, 137, 250, 384, 386
Ideology 42, 169, 196, 200, 247
Image-building 230
Image-salvaging 209
In-service 86, 107, 114, 133, 213, 230,
241, 276, 303, 307
Indira 32, 261, 266, 338, 382
Infrastructure 88, 106, 107, 120, 124,
191, 243, 258, 260, 279, 292, 297,
359
Infrastructures 85, 88, 223, 240, 298
Infusion 59, 192, 286
Inhibitions 196, 312
Injustice 103, 314, 399, 403
Injustices 104, 268, 283, 396, 398,
401, 402, 403
Insensitive 93, 111, 120, 170, 215,
304, 305, 356
Insensitivities 273
Insensitivity 118
Insubordination 115
Insurgency 380, 381
Integration 135, 279, 384
Integrity 16, 17, 34, 57, 61, 64, 65, 75,
80, 86, 93, 95, 109, 111, 138, 170,
174, 188, 189, 238, 241, 267, 289,
304, 305, 321, 335, 343, 351, 354,
373, 394

Intrigue 115, 219

Investment 33, 91, 175, 186, 189,
296, 298, 357
Investments 91, 166, 363

I
IPC 378
IPS 17, 109, 186, 240, 326
ISI 90, 137, 283, 380, 386
Islands 295
Israel 135, 136, 383, 386
ISRO 385
Italy 338
ITBP 155
ITC 365

J
Jadeja 145
Jain-hawala 102
Jaipur 145
Jaipuria 357
Jammu 155, 293
Japan 338
Jawaharalal 3
Jayalalitha 102
Jayaprakash 180
Jayendra 265
Jharkhand 265
Jinda 182
JKLF 181, 182, 318
JMM 102
JNN 330
Job-culture 20, 24, 203
Judgement 43
Judgements 323
Judiciary 7, 13, 28, 51, 55, 59, 63, 65,
88, 124, 129, 164, 165, 172, 191,
192, 227, 244, 267, 268, 269, 270,
272, 311, 328, 332, 338, 339, 340,
375, 405
Jurisdiction 124, 158, 207, 209, 270,

298, 319, 328, 329

Justification 44, 94, 152, 167, 205,
212, 384, 392

K
Kalam 278
Kaleidoscope 140
Kanchi 265
Kannada 248
Karachi 90
Karnataka 1, 13, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, 79,
150, 153, 158, 159, 167, 171, 186,
206, 248, 338, 356
Karunanidhi 93
Kashmir 119, 130, 135, 155, 158, 160,
180, 182, 196, 262, 293, 311, 312,
313, 317, 321, 355, 384
Kautilya 34
KCF 380
KEB 186
Khalistan 379, 380
Khalsa 379, 380
Khedda 100
Kickback 102
Kidnap-drama 180, 181, 317
Kluckhohm 224
Konanakunte 257
Koppal 206
Korea 338
KRS 248
KSPS 326

L
Laborers 284
Labour 110, 130, 144, 259, 275, 284,
294, 296, 322, 372, 390, 397, 400,
401, 402
Labyrinth 359
Lakhubhai 102, 330, 339
Large-scale 78, 89, 185, 361, 369
Latin 33, 72, 122, 310, 344

Law-and-order 252
Law-breakers 18, 44, 98, 127, 153,
158, 205, 249, 347
Law-breaking 153
Lawlessness 54, 56, 57, 102, 119, 122,
123, 124, 152, 183, 313
Leadership 2, 5, 11, 12, 17, 29, 40, 44,
49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 63, 69, 73, 74, 77,
79, 81, 88, 100, 105, 114, 115, 120,
121, 129, 133, 141, 160, 170, 175,
176, 185, 187, 190, 200, 210, 211,
217, 218, 222, 264, 265, 266, 279,
285, 286, 287, 288, 293, 295, 296,
297, 300, 301, 303, 308, 326, 339,
341, 345, 350, 363, 367, 368, 393
Leaderships 31, 306, 320
Legacies 43, 169, 201
Legislation 14, 49, 166, 287, 325, 375
Legislations 83, 84, 227, 229, 234,
244, 284, 320, 375, 378, 392, 405
Legislative 31, 83, 209, 229, 234, 264
Legislators 140
Legislature 59, 65, 164, 165, 171, 178,
192, 269, 270, 272, 311
Legislatures 391, 392
Legitimacy 84, 108, 226, 229, 234,
240
Legitimate 70, 74, 128, 137, 238, 300,
301, 322, 334, 338, 339, 340, 369,
386, 395
Leitmotiv 12, 142, 404
Liberalization 25, 359, 360, 367
Licenses 102
Life-and-death 41, 199
Life-fluid 201
Life-style 84, 90, 234, 348
Lifestyles 86, 245
Limitations 143, 221, 275
Line-system 110, 223, 238
Litigations 101, 145
Low-cost 279
Loyalties 69, 72, 73, 74, 88, 93, 128,
138, 170, 300, 301, 340, 388, 389
Loyalty 18, 42, 44, 53, 61, 69, 70, 72,
73, 74, 89, 97, 98, 137, 141, 169,
170, 183, 189, 190, 200, 217, 264,
306, 347
Ludhiana 379, 380
Lunatics 259, 322

M
Machinations 180
Machines 187, 190
Machtpolitic 286, 287
Macro-plan 258
Madhavan 331
Maelstrom 32, 103, 120, 142, 148,
160, 169, 201, 256, 275, 277, 294,
305, 360, 368, 383
Mafia 16, 55, 90, 91, 145, 152, 167,
181, 317, 319, 330, 339, 352, 372
Magisterial 150, 162, 163, 245, 293
Magistrate 206, 404
Magistrates 405
Maharastra 144
Mahatma 382
Maifa 152
Mainstream 35, 73, 80, 95, 333
Maladies 14, 50, 80, 85, 144, 187, 236,
245, 286, 340, 389, 395
Maladjustment 76, 151, 176
Maladministration 341, 347, 350
Malady 1, 12, 29, 42, 56, 58, 73, 86,
119, 146, 197, 200, 231, 241, 275,
295, 343, 354, 396, 398, 401, 404
Malaises 144, 272
Malengine 12, 180, 182, 229, 317,
369, 402
Malfeasance 38, 119, 305, 353, 396,
404
Malfeasances 132, 205, 272, 302
Malicho 210, 403
Man-hours 243, 295
Man-management 351
Management 4, 17, 37, 38, 49, 52, 53,
57, 60, 65, 86, 88, 100, 105, 106,
107, 110, 111, 115, 147, 148, 149,
153, 172, 189, 193, 211, 222, 223,
238, 241, 242, 243, 272, 274, 276,
287, 288, 291, 294, 295, 296, 326,
342, 344, 345, 346, 348, 351, 390
Managerial 83, 122, 123, 233, 291,
295, 344
Manpower 10, 11, 17, 18, 107, 137,
156, 190, 211, 247, 249, 250, 251,
253, 256, 260, 289, 291, 292, 294,
295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 323, 347,

348, 352, 362, 387, 391, 392, 393,

394
Manufacturers 353
Manufactures 343
Martyrdom 380
Maslow 394
Master-axle 25
Maximize 132, 170, 279, 295, 302
Mcgregor 112, 228, 230
Mcgregors 342, 351
Mediocrity 1, 10, 11, 14, 50, 245, 286,
335, 373
Mega-fraud 356
Mega-frauds 362
Mega-schemes 359, 367
Mendacious 67, 151, 202, 218, 260,
371
Mesalliance 255
Metamorphosis 43, 67, 201, 289, 290,
337, 378, 383, 394
Metropolitan 228, 236, 271, 320
Middle-income 282
Migrations 284
Militancy 180, 379, 380, 381
Militants 120, 181, 182, 318, 379, 380,
381
Millennium 106, 107, 243, 392, 393
Minefields 154
Misappropriation 54, 350, 371
Miscarriage 119, 375, 398
Misconceptions 73, 129, 133, 300,
303
Misfits 326
Misrepresentation 397
Misrepresentations 10
MLA 266
Mobilization 34, 248, 259, 260, 261,
322, 323, 394
Modalities 210
Modernisation 213
Modernization 53, 61, 106, 107, 108,
120, 190, 191, 214, 243, 247
Money-power 93, 170
Morale 13, 15, 17, 18, 53, 57, 93, 106,
108, 110, 114, 122, 123, 126, 170,
186, 219, 243, 292, 294, 295, 296,
308, 341, 347, 348, 349, 350
Mosaic 155, 156, 157, 160
Motivation 10, 12, 17, 18, 37, 60, 82,

88, 93, 94, 110, 124, 137, 171, 194,

225, 230, 232, 257, 275, 277, 292,
294, 295, 296, 347, 348, 350, 387,
394
Mulla 125
Multi-dimensional 233
Multifaceted 12, 141
Mumbai 144
Murphy 225
Murray 224
Muslim 180
Myopic 67, 171, 202
Mystery 77, 175, 177, 194

N
Nagapur 144
Narayan 180
Narcotics 26, 178
Nationhood 283
Navy 14, 50, 287, 325
Naxal 35
Naxalism 180, 196
Naxalites 119, 158, 262, 311
NCC 259, 322
NDA 265
Nehru 3
Nepal 135, 384
Nepotism 5, 6
Nerve-centre 7, 256
Network 289, 292, 342, 348, 391,
392
Networks 90, 210
Neutralized 27
Nexus 11, 34, 46, 55, 76, 77, 78, 81,
125, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179,
192, 195, 196, 315, 317, 334, 340,
389
Night-vision 393
Nitrogen 282
Nizamuddin 1
Non-cooperation 47, 207
Nonprofessionalism 30
North-east 80, 311, 313, 355
Northeast 160
NPA 155

NSA 136, 144, 386, 387

Nucleus 138, 387
Nutshell 259, 323

O
Obedience 29, 44, 52, 57, 162, 183,
315, 347
Obeisance 68, 70
Objectivity 13, 20, 21, 42, 43, 49, 53,
62, 67, 80, 97, 98, 106, 118, 131,
149, 152, 169, 191, 200, 201, 204,
212, 244, 265, 267, 268, 272, 288,
324, 326, 327, 334, 339
Obsession 136
Odd-job 28, 103, 172, 183
Odd-job-man 394
Officialdom 237, 321
Optimism 82, 233
Orderliness 81
Organization 162, 273, 300, 301, 326,
371
Organizations 1, 144, 274
Orientation 85, 123, 241
Overnight 43, 61, 64, 67, 188, 202,
337, 342, 353, 383
Overzeal 351
Oxygen 97, 268, 348

P
Pakistan 90, 135, 137, 283, 310, 379,
380, 381, 384, 386, 387
Pakistani 380
Panchanamas 142
Panjwar 380
Panpharmacon 260, 275, 323
Paper-pushers 6
Paralysis 340, 389
Parliament 9, 152
Parmjit 380
Parochial 5, 57, 67, 77, 99, 139, 176,
202, 329

Pathak 102, 330, 339

Patiala 379
Patriotic 175, 192, 220
Patriotism 76, 143, 175, 176, 251,
256
Patrolling 109, 142, 226, 240
Patronage 30, 31, 52, 75, 77, 78, 94,
103, 149, 150, 151, 152, 175, 177,
178, 179, 274, 315
Patronages 103
Patrons 103, 172, 179, 208
Pawn 328
Pawns 266
Peace-keeper 222
Piggyback 125
Pillar 206
Pillars 70, 123, 148, 266, 283, 291
Placements 69, 76, 79, 174, 185, 193
Plantation 370, 373
Polarization 98, 196, 231
Police-public 259, 322
Police-training 307
Policies 33, 42, 136, 137, 180, 200,
265, 385, 386, 391
Policing-centric 285
Politicial 316
Politician 29, 30, 151, 177, 179, 184,
185, 197, 266, 316, 334
Politician-master 78
Politicians 10, 14, 29, 32, 34, 46, 48,
50, 52, 55, 57, 59, 62, 68, 70, 73, 74,
75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 88, 90, 101, 103,
118, 125, 126, 130, 131, 141, 146,
156, 161, 162, 166, 172, 173, 174,
175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182,
183, 184, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192,
195, 196, 197, 208, 230, 245, 267,
286, 315, 316, 317, 318, 328, 329,
330, 331, 340, 371, 389
Politicisation 78, 178, 183
Politicization 141, 144, 146, 316
Politicized 6, 31
Politicking 162, 171
Politics 30, 46, 55, 68, 75, 76, 77, 141,
144, 162, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177,
179, 180, 195, 196, 198, 217, 266,
283, 315, 316, 320, 339
Politique 181, 212, 318
Polity 41, 122, 197, 232

Pollicitation 253, 287, 370, 401

Polling 77, 177
Polluted 141
Population 33, 57, 86, 105, 187, 211,
236, 244, 245, 246, 280, 380, 396,
398
Post-independent 10, 25, 34, 129,
162, 170, 217, 275, 293, 295, 301,
304, 373
Post-mortal 376
Power-baits 75
Power-games 78, 178
Powergame 315
Powerplay 316
Pricewaterhouse 371
Princely 3, 274
Pro-active 124
Pro-rich 152
Probationary 307
Probationers 307
Produce 13, 187, 278, 369
Production 33, 89, 91, 294
Productivity 278
Profession 29, 36, 39, 40, 52, 61, 68,
71, 72, 73, 94, 97, 110, 113, 122,
128, 129, 132, 133, 149, 153, 154,
168, 181, 189, 190, 201, 212, 240,
251, 264, 281, 300, 301, 302, 303,
314, 316, 318, 331, 335, 352, 365,
383
Professional 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 21,
27, 29, 30, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44,
52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
63, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 80,
83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95, 99,
103, 107, 120, 122, 123, 127, 128,
129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 136, 138,
139, 141, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149,
150, 153, 154, 155, 157, 162, 163,
164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172,
173, 174, 180, 181, 183, 187, 189,
190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 197, 200,
201, 202, 204, 206, 212, 213, 216,
234, 239, 240, 241, 265, 270, 271,
272, 284, 286, 288, 289, 293, 296,
300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 313, 315,
318, 328, 330, 331, 333, 334, 335,
338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 346, 347,
348, 349, 352, 353, 358, 364, 365,

366, 371, 372, 384, 388, 389, 390,

391, 394
Professional-law 17
Professionalism 4, 5, 6, 21, 27, 29, 58,
64, 68, 72, 83, 84, 86, 95, 96, 129,
130, 139, 159, 169, 178, 200, 204,
229, 234, 235, 239, 241, 272, 275,
276, 277, 286, 287, 328, 335
Professionals 5, 17, 40, 56, 58, 65, 68,
84, 85, 89, 103, 130, 172, 184, 204,
230, 235, 240, 241, 242, 251, 256,
335, 393
Prohibition 377, 398, 400
Propaganda 77, 80, 90, 140, 176
Protection 20, 27, 46, 53, 73, 81, 89,
91, 95, 105, 106, 122, 125, 126,
128, 138, 141, 151, 156, 158, 173,
177, 178, 179, 187, 203, 210, 212,
247, 258, 283, 284, 288, 300, 313,
316, 322, 382, 388, 390, 395, 397
Provenance 34, 265, 373
Provinces 130
Provincial 6, 116, 148
Punjab 100, 119, 125, 130, 160, 180,
196, 311, 312, 313, 317, 318, 321,
355, 357, 379, 380, 381
Purulia 385
Pythogenic 308

Q
Qualification 65, 251, 335
Qualify 329
Quantity 249, 262, 293, 297
Quarrel 46, 147, 205
Quitting 330

R
Race 11, 28, 51, 61, 67, 151, 166, 167,
308, 311, 330, 392, 395, 396, 397
Races 149, 395, 396, 397, 398
Racial 24, 283

Radical 158, 283, 294, 338, 381

Raids 80, 89, 102, 107, 147, 211
Rajan 35
Rajastan 145
Rajasthan 380
Rajiv 158, 252, 257, 258, 382
Rationalization 106, 212, 288
RAW 135, 136, 155, 178, 256, 384,
385
Rebellious 35
Recalcitrant 350
Recklessness 8
Reconstruction 1, 26, 51, 53, 54, 81,
134, 275, 309
Regulation 42, 116, 200
Regulations 25, 33, 114, 116, 195,
213, 360, 361, 362, 364, 368, 369
Rehabilitate 180, 403, 404
Rehabilitation 153, 396, 402, 403
Reign 162, 373
Rein-in 166
Reinforce 396, 404
Reinforcement 83, 234
Renaissance 197
Reorganisation 8, 212, 237
Reorganization 54, 389
Research 13, 26, 65, 73, 85, 120, 133,
135, 156, 157, 172, 193, 210, 241,
248, 249, 251, 252, 256, 260, 261,
272, 297, 303, 307, 355, 381, 384
Researches 82, 133, 153, 232, 282,
303
Reservation 7, 326
Reservations 6, 397
Resistance 40, 57, 141, 152, 163, 245,
262, 288, 289, 312, 318, 356, 387,
390
Resourcefulness 85, 181, 236, 257,
294, 317, 396
Resources 10, 11, 17, 25, 26, 37, 60,
65, 75, 76, 83, 84, 85, 86, 94, 107,
110, 111, 114, 120, 135, 137, 142,
153, 157, 164, 172, 173, 189, 193,
210, 211, 223, 224, 233, 235, 236,
238, 239, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250,
252, 253, 256, 257, 260, 269, 270,
272, 285, 289, 296, 319, 323, 345,
348, 349, 351, 352, 357, 384, 385,
387, 390, 392

Responsibilities 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 28,

29, 39, 49, 51, 52, 65, 72, 75, 82, 98,
99, 103, 104, 109, 112, 123, 125,
127, 128, 130, 137, 138, 146, 150,
154, 165, 168, 169, 170, 172, 174,
192, 200, 219, 226, 229, 233, 240,
244, 245, 250, 251, 268, 270, 273,
274, 276, 280, 286, 287, 288, 297,
300, 313, 325, 328, 331, 332, 334,
340, 341, 346, 347, 349, 385, 386,
387, 388, 391, 392, 393, 397
Responsibility 10, 18, 39, 51, 60, 64,
69, 71, 73, 82, 86, 92, 99, 114, 115,
116, 119, 139, 141, 142, 148, 164,
165, 172, 188, 193, 200, 226, 233,
240, 241, 242, 251, 255, 269, 272,
273, 274, 284, 286, 293, 294, 308,
313, 347, 365, 372, 391, 397
Result-orientation 86, 241
Retaliation 113, 115, 212, 219
Revolution 281, 310, 369, 370
Revolutionary 65, 172, 193, 272, 282,
283, 392
Reward-and-punishment 216
Rewards 22, 110, 123, 124, 126, 216,
223, 238, 306
Righteousness 20, 75, 174, 196, 204,
305
Robbery 182, 356
Role-play 183, 224, 230, 333
Ruthlessness 37, 38, 88, 346, 351,
391

S
Sabotage 103, 158, 159, 238, 247,
249, 250, 259, 260, 322, 323, 384
Sabotages 274
Sacrifice 59, 65, 149, 171, 192, 197,
251, 271, 330, 401
Sadism 205
Sadistic 38, 44
Safety-oriented 342
Salaries 59, 186, 193
Salary 89
Sangfroid 255

Satellite 137, 387

Scam 102, 330, 359, 361, 364, 365,
369, 372
Scams 359, 361, 363, 366, 367, 372
Scapegoat 16, 42, 199
Scenario 92, 153, 166, 282, 349, 355,
357
Scheme 142, 179, 221, 254, 259, 306,
322, 323
Schemers 126
Schemes 4, 17, 40, 77, 89, 106, 142,
177, 224, 243, 252, 254, 258, 259,
260, 283, 284, 295, 322, 323, 365,
370
Scheming 120
Science 43, 67, 82, 117, 136, 201, 232,
374, 376, 385, 393
Scientific 2, 83, 105, 106, 211, 213,
226, 233, 243, 247, 251, 291, 316
Scotland 338
SEBI 361, 364, 369
Secretive 250
Secretiveness 253
Security-operations 234
Security-oriented 255
Sedition 356
Self-contained 114, 213, 289, 394
Self-dependent 294
Self-disciplining 228
Self-esteem 15
Self-policing 122, 124, 125, 127
Self-promotion 40, 70, 183
Self-righteous 196
Self-sacrificing 349
Seniority 22, 32, 64, 68, 188, 216, 218,
276, 296
Sensationalize 119
Sensibilities 106, 111, 140, 212, 215,
287, 304, 305, 342, 346, 351, 381
Sensitisation 395
Sensitivities 144, 184, 256, 340, 346,
392
Sensitization 123, 131, 224, 395, 405
Service-front 112, 228
Service-oriented 221
Shakespeares 316
Shankaracharya 265
Shankararaman 266
Shenanigans 26

Shivani 145
Shortcomings 244, 271, 320
Sinecure 57, 208, 219
Sinecures 64, 188, 212
Singapore 143
Sivarasan 158, 182, 257, 262
Social-wrecker 39
Socioeconomic 367, 368
Soft-pedalling 364
Southern 8, 12, 27, 29, 38, 54, 65, 79,
217, 334, 357
Sovereign 24, 135, 383, 395
Sovereignty 72
Soviet 135, 383, 386
Speccialisations 287
Specialisation 233
Specialists 7, 285
Specialization 14, 49, 84, 108, 117,
230, 234, 235, 242, 287, 325, 405
Spectrum 98, 104, 122, 150, 161, 164,
268, 269, 326, 373, 375, 391, 400
Spinoza 221
Springboard 98, 230, 305, 344
Springboards 35
Srilanka 196
Sriperumbudur 252
Stagnation 1, 374
Standardization 333
Statecraft 7, 28, 51, 98, 122, 135, 161,
164, 269, 383, 391
Statecrafts 203
Statutorily 28, 31, 194, 274, 294, 307,
331, 404
Statutory 31, 243, 271, 273, 276, 320,
330, 331, 397
Steel 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 264
Steel-nerves 318
Stepping-stones 210
Strategic 82, 102, 147, 148, 158, 164,
233, 236, 252, 255, 269, 294, 298,
393
Strategies 46, 153, 173, 210, 252, 253,
254, 256, 258, 262, 356, 357, 394
Strategy 12, 65, 114, 159, 227, 242,
253, 257, 261, 262, 278, 300, 303,
304, 335, 356, 365
Street-fights 179
Street-hoodlums 355
Street-smart 179

Struck 67, 94, 103, 171, 202, 254, 364

Structural 288, 325, 390, 393
Structures 41, 232, 247, 257, 292, 293
Stuartpuram 206
Sub-continent 310
Subjugation 76, 174
Subordination 68, 76, 164, 165, 174,
269, 315, 333
Substructure 108, 226, 237, 240
Subterranean 151, 342, 353
Sukhadev 182
Surgeon 36, 37, 39, 224
Surgeons 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
Surgeries 37
Surgery 36, 37
Surgical 19, 24, 37, 203, 395
Sutherland 367, 368, 372
Sycophancy 44, 63, 217
Sycophants 19, 43, 201, 202
Symbion 147, 163, 167
Symbiosis 124, 157, 179, 360, 400
Symbiotic 182
Symbolic 3
Sympathies 91, 123, 124, 152, 312
Sympathy 21, 27, 103, 131, 172, 180,
215, 301, 312
Symptom 129
Symptomatic 169, 187, 197
Symptoms 56, 67, 119, 340, 376, 378,
389, 396, 401, 402, 404
Systematic 82, 107, 212, 232, 248,
279
Systems 3, 41, 82, 90, 100, 117, 136,
210, 213, 214, 232, 255, 282, 291,
292, 294, 297, 338

T
Tactical 15
Tactics 153, 394
Talent 8, 10, 28, 58, 75, 109, 174, 194,
306, 326
Tamil 73, 93, 135
Tamilnad 102, 150, 153, 158, 159,
265
Tamilnadu 356

Tamils 384
Tanwar 102
Taskmasters 98
Tata 356
Teakwood 369
Team 16, 91, 119, 361, 362, 363, 404
Teams 393
Teamwork 89
Technical 306, 390
Technicalities 404
Technique 90, 123, 315, 356
Techniques 46, 49, 60, 86, 107, 108,
119, 135, 153, 173, 190, 192, 194,
210, 211, 214, 222, 223, 226, 230,
241, 242, 247, 275, 277, 279, 281,
282, 291, 294, 295, 326, 383
Technological 281, 282
Technologies 279, 281, 282
Technology 43, 67, 82, 117, 136, 201,
232, 279, 281, 385, 393
Telecom 368, 372
Telecommunications 330
Tendencies 25, 44, 56, 57, 71, 79, 113,
124, 134, 147, 153, 181, 195, 205,
224, 228, 281, 282, 284, 309, 318,
336, 346, 351, 358
Tendency 4, 45, 49, 73, 128, 129, 130,
138, 157, 163, 182, 192, 196, 197,
300, 301, 311, 326, 335, 364, 376,
388, 394
Tension 198, 230, 336
Tension-producing 230
Terrorism 2, 101, 117, 119, 125, 180,
196, 238, 247, 248, 250, 281, 283,
297, 322, 379, 380, 381
Terrorism-oriented 253
Terrorist 108, 135, 158, 180, 181, 187,
214, 247, 248, 250, 252, 253, 254,
262, 313, 317, 355, 357, 379, 380,
381, 384
Terrorist-squads 26
Thackeray 144
Third-degree 44, 205, 312
Three-shift 294
Threshold 53
Thresholds 104, 268
Time-bound 239, 285
Top-brass 293
Top-heavy 188, 288, 393

Top-secret 258, 322

Top-wrung 11
Tormentors 13
Track-record 289, 394
Traditional 43, 67, 69, 74, 90, 137,
153, 201, 262, 283, 386
Tragedies 131
Tragedy 4, 15, 28, 37, 45, 46, 70, 97,
101, 111, 156, 175, 193, 198, 216,
222, 258, 275, 305, 313, 341, 345,
346, 349, 368
Trailblazer 244
Transactions 89, 359, 360, 362, 367,
368, 370, 371
Transportation 85, 187, 236, 279,
393
Trespassing 146
Tribes 396, 397
Tribulations 337, 383
Triple 255
Troika 46, 173, 175, 182, 196
Tyranny 19, 42, 169, 200, 202, 396,
403

U
UK 379, 380
ULFA 158, 180, 182, 262, 318, 356,
357
Unconstitutional 13
Under-cuttings 22
Under-utilization 260, 323
Undercover 252, 255, 257
Underground 173, 178
Undermine 26, 46, 89, 175
Underworld 76, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92,
144, 145, 146, 151, 174, 177, 316
Unholy 27, 46, 80
Unification 2, 3
Uniform 6, 29, 108, 114, 125, 126,
147, 148, 155, 161, 166, 227, 242,
305, 382, 402
Universal 38, 159, 195, 279, 282
Unlawful 123, 125, 126, 227, 244,
271, 320, 364
Unprofessional 8, 56, 128, 275, 301

Unscrupulous 10, 46, 193, 284, 341,

359, 367, 369
Untouchability 395, 400, 401, 402
Upmanship 156, 158, 392
Uprightness 27, 40, 67, 68, 149

V
Vacuum 94, 171, 333
Value 10, 33, 41, 53, 64, 97, 122, 162,
232, 239, 264, 289, 335, 337, 363,
383, 394
Values 3, 5, 6, 10, 16, 26, 29, 34, 35,
38, 39, 43, 52, 53, 56, 67, 68, 75, 87,
88, 99, 105, 110, 111, 117, 118,
122, 132, 135, 168, 170, 173, 174,
196, 198, 201, 211, 216, 223, 224,
238, 246, 264, 265, 279, 302, 305,
308, 333, 334, 335, 341, 350, 351,
384, 398, 399, 402
Vaulting 296, 308
Vectors 122, 123, 128, 140, 153, 291,
301
Veerappan 153, 159, 356
Vietnam 312
Vigilance 9, 31, 32, 66, 124, 172, 186,
272, 282
Villain 169, 200
Villains 396, 404
Violation 42, 88, 89, 94, 99, 157, 171,
195, 264, 271, 310, 311, 312, 313,
320, 321, 340, 361, 362, 368
Violations 122, 140, 310, 311, 312,
313, 364, 367, 368, 369, 370, 381,
391, 397

W
Wadhawa 380
Wages 401, 402
Wardens 114, 142, 213
Warfares 117
Warming-up 111, 215, 304

Wars 91, 92, 119, 135, 167, 179, 384

Wartime 259, 322
Wastage 11, 26, 106, 212, 288, 295,
348, 352, 394
Wastages 295
Watchdog 23, 25, 28, 51, 75, 162, 174,
220
Watchdogs 28, 51, 76, 174
Weaklings 11, 76, 174, 184, 373
Weakness 1, 5, 73, 77, 88, 130, 176,
374
Wealth 21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 46, 62, 75,
76, 77, 78, 88, 90, 102, 152, 166,
167, 173, 175, 177, 185, 186, 191,
196, 205, 282
Weapon 10, 76, 85, 140, 174, 184,
192, 236, 292
Weaponry 187, 213, 243, 251, 255,
258, 292, 294, 297, 357, 391
Welfare 83, 84, 113, 216, 234, 250,
404
Wherewithal 41, 110, 222, 224, 225,
227, 230, 232, 238, 242, 322
Wherewithals 223
Witnesses 36, 142, 143, 361, 374, 376,
377, 396, 403
Women 171, 271, 283, 284, 374, 375,
398
Work-culture 20, 24, 203
Work-ethics 65
Work-pressure 112, 119, 229
Work-pressures 111, 229, 392
Workloads 49, 325
World-class 137, 387

X
X-ray 393

Y
Yardstick 28
Yeoman 136, 386

Yield 13, 27, 81, 95, 180, 184, 317,

356, 357
Yields 184, 357
Youngsters 35, 45, 218
Youth 93, 170, 179, 379

Z
Zeal 39, 68, 70, 171, 338, 342, 349
Zealous 401
Zeitgeist 82, 232, 276, 284, 369