Sometime in the '90s, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) IAS officers, on the initiative of a couple of their members, conducted a secret poll to identify the 'five most corrupt officers' in the UP cadre. Whether this was the best method to expose wrong-doing could be debated; it could be argued with some meit that such condemnation was possibly unfair on those voted corrupt; the fact is, this method was pursued. Indeed, five officers were identified as the 'most corrupt', and much publicity was given to this event. If my memory serves me right, the exercise was repeated four or five years later. The very fact that all members of the service from a state, comprising five hundred or so in number, dared to discuss the issue of corruption amidst their own group in an open manner to identify a handful of wrongdoers, is a remarkable event. One has not heard of such temerity, indeed courage, among any other group or professional class, in India or elsewhere, who have beamed the searchlight on themselves, and were bold enough to acknowledge the weak links; this speaks volumes about the standards they have set for themselves. This is probably the clearest indication that many or most of the members of the service are men of integrity, at least in the financial sense. It can be surmised that there is enormous talent even now available in the country, honest, straight-forward and public-spirited, which can be harnessed in the service of the public, if indeed reforms are desired by the ruling class.
The failure to properly utilise the administrative machinery has resulted in poor governance. This is manifested by the fact that even sixty years after Independence, we continue to be one of the poorest, most corrupt, least healthy, and very lowly in the Human Development Index (HDI), among the countries of the world, despite having high quality human raw material as well as a top rate civil service. The machinery may be creaking – but it is still capable of great performance. The best people in the country, through a strong open competitive process, still find their way into the civil services. While many of them lose their youthful innocence or go astray somewhere down the path, a large number of them (a majority I would like to think) still remain unsullied, and can be galvanised into productive endeavour.
Police Reforms
In a civilised society, the policeman is the custodian of law and order at the local level. He represents the people's desire for good civil behaviour, peaceful conduct of activity in public places, freedom to the citizenry for moving about safely and securely in all parts of the city or rural areas, and generally maintain peace. He is respected by the society, appears fair and impartial and is looked up to for guidance and support of the citizens when some trouble befalls him. He is generally seen as a benevolent but tough guardian of the citizenry. This is true in most civilised societies. Is it by and large true in India?
Can a single lady boldly walk alone in most parts of cities and towns, without fear? Can a resident or visitor freely take taxis and transport at airports and railway stations without a tinge of trepidation. There are stretches of national highways and state highways, where only the heavens can help you if your car breaks down in the night, and is rendered immobile on the side of the road – it does not matter if traffic is heavy on that road – nobody is likely to stop to help you, nor will the local badmash element likely to lose the opportunity for one more killing. Many people do not even bother to report small thefts, for fear of getting caught in the machinery, and having to waste precious time. One recalls the notes left behind by Col Sleeman, who spent forty years in civilian service in the middle of the nineteenth century – his postings mainly included fairly rough terrain, places like Jabalpur, Kanpur, Meerut and East UP. During that period, most Englishmen who served in interior stations as civilian officers, or were stationed in peace-time military centres, had their wives or sisters visiting them periodically from the UK. The visiting lady would land at a port town, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Madras (now Chennai), or Bombay (now Mumbai), and travel through the country on palanquins carried by runners through long distances. On most occasions, her husband or brother, as the case may be, could not go to the port town to receive or escort them to the interior station. Most of the transit took place alone for these ladies, who would be in the hands of the transport group, for each journey lasting fifteen to twenty days or more. Sleeman notes in his diary, since published, that during all the forty years or so he had never come across, or heard of a single instance when the visiting lady was molested or attacked or harmed in any way – all this in the toughest parts of India! Can a single woman now confidently move about in Delhi or Noida in the night – what odds would you give for her safe return?
The best way to combat crime is to prevent or pre-empt it. When a crime is committed, the citizens expect the culprit to be identified rapidly, investigated thoroughly, and brought up to the judicial machinery for quick prosecution and punishment. We have seen elsewhere in the book the current state of affairs. Naxalites are rampant in about one-third of the country's territory – in many pockets of the Naxal areas, civil administration is not in the hands of the state government. In 2008 alone, there were forty-eight terrorist attacks, resulting in over two thousand deaths, and countless injured.
Many years back, I used to go to Manila for some work in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and elsewhere. One used to be invited for dinner to so-called 'gated colonies', which were located in relatively more affluent areas, where the hoi polloi could not disturb the pleasant life of the residents. Each colony was occupied by the 'upper crust' and was 'gated'; access was possible only after identification was given to the guards, who ensured that the ordinary citizen did not 'trespass'. When I asked for an explanation, my host told me that law and order was not so good in the city, and that it was necessary for citizens living in the locality to organise themselves and create barriers against entry of miscreants. This was in the early '80s during the time of Marcos. One wondered at that time how in a civilised society, citizens were allowed to barricade themselves and let certain parts of the city to be declared 'off limits' to other citizens. Alas! twenty years later, today in many metros of India, one can see the same phenomenon. Iron gates with guards have sprung up in many localities, especially where the more affluent are housed; closed townships within cities are slowly getting created. This is not only in Delhi, but also in other metros including Chennai, deemed hitherto to be relatively peaceful. Clearly there are parts of the city not available for the use of all, much like the fortresses of yore, where only approved tradesman and domestic help can enter with permits. That is a measure of 'law and order' in our cities. One is told that in many major cities of China, citizens from moffusil areas need special permits to enter the city limits; those entering without valid approval, would be jailed or 'deported'. In the democracy that is India, with income disparities so high, the affluent now have to create fortresses, to protect their own security – just as in the early days of the French or British in India or in the Mughal period.
The Profile of a Policeman – the by-stander, with outstretched palm . . .
The average picture of the policeman turns out to be one of a lazy, apathetic, demoralised, corrupt, inept parasite, whose main job is to extract 'safety money' from petty businesses, and use the checkpost to stop every motorcycle to scrounge two to three hundred rupees each time; to harass the victim, who comes to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) and make him part with large sums of money, muck up every criminal investigation entrusted to him since he goes by the guidelines of highest bidder, occasionally rape women who come to police stations in the night complaining of some crime or the other – these are the images that come to the common man. We should search our hearts to see if this picture is generally true or not. Obviously there are large exceptions to the above sordid picture.
In state after state, large-scale recruitments to the police force has taken place in recent years. About ten years back, my barber was in tears, as he told me of his young nephew having been selected, but asked to bring Rs 60,000 before he can be formally given the letter of appointment. Inflation has set in since then; I a
m told that in many states, the 'going rate', is Rs 2,00,000 for each appointment. In general to ensure 'clean selection', a special recruitment drive is organised directly by the chief minister or home minister's office, by-passing the normal machinery; the physical and medical tests are administered under the supervision of a team consisting of a senior 'hand picked' police officer, medical officer and legal expert, all of whom report directly to the politician. All these precautions are ostensibly taken to ensure that the process is pure, unsullied and on merits! The real purpose of course, is to tightly control the process, using carefully-constructed firewalls, to ensure that substantial proceeds go to the 'party'.
Imagine the plight of a young man, from a rural background, coming from an agricultural or labourer family, having suddenly to raise Rs 2,00,000, within five or six days, if he has to avail of the opportunity of a lifetime. He scrambles to beg or borrow the money from whoever he can, forgets family fights and feuds to fall on the feet of a rich cousin to borrow Rs 50,000 from him and collects the money at usurious rates of interest, so that he can join the force. After six months or so of training, when he is let loose on society, one can imagine what his psychology will be. He will have to return the loan, manifold with interest, within a year or two; in other words, at a very young age he has to locate victims and extort money from them. What he does as a necessity rapidly becomes a habit, and in due course, second nature. Tragically, we have trained the young guardian of the law to be a blood-sucker from the very beginning – what do we logically expect? Imagine his approach and attitude fifteen years down the line – he is a trained vampire, who sees his primary job as to extort money in whatever way he can, and not get caught. His brotherhood will not let him down since most are in the same boat. This is the tragic anatomy of the beat constable or village sub-inspector.
Up until the '70s, the superintendent of police (SP) used to work under the broad direction of the district magistrate in maintenance of law and order. However, he was totally in-charge of supervising the work of the fifteen or twenty or so police stations in his charge. The diligent SP, those days, had full and total control of the destiny of the policemen under his charge. He would, with a hawk-eye, look into the quality of investigation, see if the policemen acted fairly, promptly and adequately in this or that local dispute, rapidly investigate any corruption charge and deliver ready local judgement, and punishment; make sure that the right inspector and police staff is posted in the right place; keep a special eye on the 'lucrative' posts within the districts; the SP was generally fully on top of law and order in the area entrusted to him. The odd SP, really an exception, may not be quite so strict, turn a blind eye when a lucrative post is exploited (while ensuring his share is received through a local intermediary), and also occasionally indulge in postings and transfers within the districts for monetary considerations; as I said this was a rare exception. In such cases, either the district magistrate or the police hierarchy – the deputy inspector general (DIG) or the inspector general (IG) would get scent sooner or later, and the errant officer would be transferred out to an innocuous posting, or dealt with more harshly if so considered necessary.
A number of commissions have given recommendations on reform of the police, the oldest one dating to the '60s. Clearly, the deterioration in standards in the force has been steady over the decades; even though the decline in the last ten years has been sharper and steeper. Starting from the Dharma Vira Commission, at least four national committees/commissions have given recommendations on police reforms. These have related to recruitment, training, specialisation, allowing the force to have freedom of action and to keep the force outside political control and political influence. None of these recommendations has ever been accepted by the government, except one or two marginal ones, for implementation. The critical recommendations were related to security of tenure of SPs and more senior police officials, and to leave transfers and postings of police officials in the hands of the police hierarchy. This recommendation was akin or identical to similar recommendations relating to postings of DMs and senior secretariat officials at the Centre and at the state. This was one of the critical aspects which has fallen on the deaf ears of the political executive, for reasons that have been analysed elsewhere in this book. The collaboration, collusion, support and direct involvement of the field-level policeman or the investigating officer, with the politician at the appropriate level is, simply put, an indispensable requirement of the politician to subvert the system to obtain his ends. Thus absolute control over the police force in all matters relating to postings, transfers, and other service conditions is a sine qua non for the political class.
Elsewhere, there is mention about the need of the Central Government to have a pliant Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director and an agency which, in critical political matters, 'will play ball'. Similarly the vigilance directorates in state governments are fully under the direct control of the chief minister of the day, who ensures that action is pursued only against those who are opposed to him. In any case, the most corrupt officials manage to get any adverse evidence against them tampered with or obliterated to pre-empt any future discomfiture – through political intervention at high levels. In short, the police has to remain a pliant instrument, to achieve the selfish ends of the political class, and for this, the freedom to engineer their transfers and postings at will, and to have full control over their career prospects is essential. Unless this fundamental is recognised, any talk of police reform will be akin to a pipe dream.
Prakash Singh, an ex-DG of police from UP, had approached the apex court with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) asking for police reforms and suggesting specific measures. After about ten years' delay, sometime in 2006, the apex court did indeed issue final orders vindicating Prakash Singh's stand and directing major reforms in police administration. These include establishment of a Police Commission in each state, to inter-alia supervise the postings and transfers of police officials at all levels, as well as a number of other reforms. As of last count, no serious action has been taken by any state nor has the Centre issued any directives in this regards. Simply put, the ministers and senior politicians will be bereft of major weaponry in looking after themselves, if they are deprived of the ability to control the police force. The selfish need of the political class is directly the loss of the public. Much of the ills of poor policing in India can be traced to this basic factor. Unless this is addressed and the control over policemen at all levels is relinquished by the political class, we should accept the present situation, which includes a further steady and sharp decline in policing standards in India. This picture is true, more or less, in most of the states.
We have elsewhere also seen the pathetic state of the police force, in general, in the country. We have also analysed the reasons therefore. There is no doubt, that if some of the major recommendations already made available to the government, are implemented strictly and effectively, the police force can rise again to be a guardian of the public, as envisaged originally. Sometime in 2008, the TV cameras caught a scene in Chennai city, where in full public view, with ten armed police officers standing by within ten feet and watching with amused interest, a student mob was beating up two other students from a dissident gang, flogging them mercilessly to near death. One does not know what action was taken against these policemen; all one read in the newspapers was that a court had expressed the view that the presentation of the scene in TV was 'inhuman' and 'depressing'. Perhaps the implication is that it is permissible for one group of students to flog another group to death; it is also permissible for policemen to watch this with curiosity and savoir faire; but the scene should not be broadcast! 'Kill the messenger,' is the message.
Technology, Modernisation and Training – for a ha'penny worth of tar . . .
During the Mumbai terror attacks, the public had a first-hand account, courtesy the TV media, of the high quality role played by the National Security Guard (NSG); at great risk to their lives, they
charged relentlessly till the last terrorist was destroyed. This evoked great admiration from the general public. We should remember that the NSG is only a small representative of the police force. Precisely because of the reasons mentioned above, the NSG comes under unified command and is not directly responsible to any politician. Its morale is high and it is well-trained; it is an honest, courageous, strike force of exemplary quality. One should remember that recruitment to NSG is done from the police and army jawans displaying highest potential. After their induction, they are totally insulated from the political influences mentioned above, much like the army is immunised from politics.
Goverment In India Page 15
