Inside India

Praveen Kumar

PublishAmerica
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

PUBLISHED WORKS OF 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

PREFACE
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. This content is also the theme of this volume, Inside India.
The cause of the malady is analysed and remedies are suggested in the article,
The Crumbling Steelframe of Inda of this volume. The deterioration is a postindependence phenomenon. The once steelframe of Indian bureaucracy of the
British vintage gradually crumbled to its extant putridity under the sad auspice
of its corrupt and incompetent el patron, the 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. Inside India is the story of
this fast rottening situation.
The story in Inside India is by an insider, insider in India as wll as in Indian
bureaucracy for more than thirty-one years at a senior position. 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 as a senior police officer for nearly
three decades. However, this makes no difference to the over all picture of
India as situation is not much different elsewhere.
In spite of well-known notorieties of the like Nizamuddin, Chopra and of
similar ilk in Karnataka police, situation is better there than some of the more
notorious state police organizations of India. Their core weakness there lies in
sweepingly conforming to the rotten 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 a rottening 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. This volume, Inside India is a small
attempt towards this beginning.
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.
I fondly thank M/S PublishAmerica, Maryland, USA who publish this
volume and its staff members including Ms. Kristine, M/S. Jeannette. editors,
book and cover designers, printers, publicity staff, stockists, sellers, buyers,
readers and all others who contribute to make this volume a success by their
devotion, contribution and labour.
June 6, 2009

- PK

CONTENTS
CRISIS OF RIGHT LEADERSHIP IN INDIA ....................................... 13
RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA ........................................................... 17
RIGHT ORIENTATION IN GOVERNMENT SERVICE ...................... 22
VALUE SYSTEM IN INDIAN BUREAUCRACY ............................... 27
REQUISITES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE ............................................ 33
INDIA AND ALL INDIA SERVICES ..................................................... 40
NEED OF LEAN AND MEAN CIVIL SERVICES ............................... 44
CORRUPTION IN INDIA ...................................................................... 49
RECENT TRENDS IN ECONOMIC CRIMES ...................................... 54
INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT ................................................ 62
DEMOCRACY FOR WHOM? ................................................................ 66
REVAMPING THE INVESTIGATION MACHINERY ......................... 73
COORDINATED APPROACH TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM . 77
INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES IN POLICING ...................................... 85
THE CORE OF POLICE PROBLEMS ................................................... 88
VISION FOR POLICE 2010 AND POLICE 2020 ........................... 93
EVOLUTION OF NORMS FOR MANPOWER AND LOGISTICS
REQUIREMENTS AT POLICE STATION, SUB-DIVISION AND
DISTRICT LEVELS ........................................................................ 106
TRAINING STRATEGY TO AFFECT BEHAVIOURAL AND
ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN THE POLICE PERSONNEL ..... 115
HOME GUARDS TRAINING ............................................................... 125
RELIGION IN POLITICS ..................................................................... 128
CORE ISSUE AND THE CORE OF INDIAS NATIONHOOD ......... 132
IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE ......................................................... 137
INDIAN POLICE AT A CROSSROADS: WHICH WAY TO TAKE? 141
INDIAN POLICE: TIME TO TAKE TOUGH DECISIONS ............... 146
NEED TO LIBERATE LAW ENFORCERS FROM
UNHOLY ALLIANCES .................................................................. 151
ROLE OF POLICE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA ......... 156
POLICE UNPROFESSIONAL .............................................................. 161
WHAT AILS PROFESSIONAL POLICING IN INDIA ...................... 164
NEED OF COMPETENT BRASS IN POLICE ................................... 168

RAT-RACE AT TOP AFFECTS POLICING ......................................... 172

WHERE THEIR LOYALTIES LIE ................................................... 177
INDIAN POLICE NEED HEALTHY JOB CULTURE ....................... 180
POLICE AS SOCIAL SURGEONS ....................................................... 188
LAW AND JUSTICE ............................................................................. 193
POLICE MORALE ERODED BY POOR ADMINISTRATION ........ 196
THE INDIAN POLICE: MALADIES AND REMEDIES .................... 200
CRIME, POLITICS AND THE POLICE .............................................. 205
CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE ....................................................... 215
TIME TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF CIVIL SERVICE ............. 219
TOWARDS SANE SERVICE ................................................................ 226
STATUS OF WOMEN IN EMERGING INDIA ................................... 230
QUOTA SYSTEM CAN WEAKEN CIVIL SERVICE ........................ 235
HOW CRIME AFFECTS NATIONAL LIFE ........................................ 237
POLICE AND HUMAN RIGHTSDOES END JUSTIFY MEANS?241
INTERNAL SECURITYCHALLENGES AND APPROACH ........ 246
POLITICAL CRIMES AND SECURITY ............................................. 251
POLICING UNDER POLITICAL PATRONAGE ................................ 261
CHALLENGES OF THE POLICE SETUP .......................................... 269
POLICE AND THE UNDERWORLD .................................................. 275
CAUGHT IN THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CORRUPTION ............... 280
POLICE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ......................... 284
POLICE STRUCTURE NEEDS THE MANAGEMENT TOUCH ..... 292
MAN MANAGEMENT IN POLICE .................................................... 298
WHERE INDIAN POLICE IS HEADING ........................................... 305
POLICING THE POLICE ..................................................................... 311
NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN POLICE ............................. 317
WHAT AILS THE INDIAN SECRET POLICE ................................... 324
THE ROLE OF POLICE IN A DEMOCRACY ................................... 332
LAW AND ORDER POLICING IN INDIA ......................................... 341
CHALLENGES OF COORDINATION IN INDIAN POLICE ........... 349
POLICE AND ADMINISTRATION ..................................................... 355
CORRUPTION: Indian Police Scenario ................................................. 360

Bb

CRISIS OF RIGHT LEADERSHIP

IN INDIA
If leadership is the soul of democracy, right leadership is the soul of right
democracy. Leadership is adjectives to the language of the democracy. It
decides the nature and the quality of the democracy. There can be right or
wrong democracy depending on the nature and content of the leadership to
carry the democracy forward. None can doubt the success of the experiment
of democracy in India. However, none can swear on the quality of the
democracy India has grown in its backyard. The problem lies in the quality of
its leadership.
LEADERSHIP CULTURE
It is rather facile to contend that people in a democracy get the leadership
they deserve. It is specious in theory, but need not be necessarily true.
Leadership of a country sorienter distinct from its people and perforce creates
the leadership culture. It is true about the USA, it is true about the success
stories of democracy in European countries and it is true about India. Though
sittlichkeit, patriotism and intellectual calibre of the people do have a bearing
on such matters, it is the leadership culture that mostly decides the nature of
the leadership that emerges. People are just prisoners of this pernicious
limitation. Their will makes little difference in a preordained setup and given
system. India sadly lost in this vital department while building the edifice of its
democracy.
MULTIDIMENSIONAL LEADERSHIP
Leadership in a social milieu is necessarily multitudinous and
multidimensional. Political leadership is its only one dimension though most
important one and in that statutorily incorporated to the body of a democratic
institution. Six most important leadership segments of a democratic milieu
come from political, media, nongovernmental organisations, and popular,
intellectual and administrative fields in that order of effectiveness. Popular

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

segment covers miscellaneous fields including films, cricket, other sports,

industries, science and research and similar professions. Leadership basically
functions as creators of the public opinion and ideally expected to lead from the
front. These segments in a healthy democracy spawn a mechanism of checks
and counter-balances. USA showed it; major European countries lived it. An
egregious Watergate scandal pulling down the flamboyant presidency of
Richard Nixon can happen only in the USA. An organised evolution of a
written constitution leading to the establishment of a democratic institution
under the very nose of the royalty can take place only in a European country
like Britain. These are examples of right leadership evolving right democracy.
India of the first half of the 20th century too showed right leadership in
liberating the country from the foreign rule. It was the combined thrust of the
Indian leadership in different segments like political, local media,
nongovernmental organisations, popular fields, intellectuals and patriotic
elements in the administration working in tandem made independence to India
possible earlier than otherwise.
Leadership in Independent India
Independence made Indian leadership taste money, power and the luxuries
of serving the people and the endless possibilities its diverse permutations and
combinations provide. Nothing is like a mammoth lure and nothing is like a
gargantuan greed. Leadership in India appeared like an endless foison of
opportunities to rob and grab. Those who had the sinew and mental sturdiness
to exploit jumped to the wagon in streams and created a new set of leadership
for India at the cost of the ancien regime inspired by lofty ideals and guided by
the motto of service. Corrupt and ruthless to the core, the new leadership easily
cornered the scrupulous old order in opportunistic political games of money,
power and muscle gained in the process. Leadership in the milieu became
nothing more than a daring massive investment for multifold returns, a pure
commercial venture. Crime paid. Deception and flamboyancy became sine
qua non for leadership. That is why leadership became a dirty word in India.
And Indians as they are, accepted the reality to the extent that they now think
twice before accepting anybody without the merit of a criminal past as their
leader. It is more so in the leader of the leaders segment of the politics. That
is how Phoolan Devi or Pappu Yadav succeed as leaders and Veerappans
dream their glory in political leadership. Criminals constitute the spine of the
political leadership in states like Bihar and Uttara Pradesh.

14

INSIDE INDIA

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards he sets for himself.

Integrity is the most valuable and respected quality of leadership says Brian
Tracey. The prime role of a leader is to offer an example of courage and
sacrifice says Regis Debray. This is rarely to be a case in the Indian
leadership in whatever field. The reason is that the fall in the political leadership
perforce percolated into lesser fields and binged their leaderships with similar
mesquinerie and base pursuits. It is true of media, non-governmental bodies,
intellectuals, popular figures or administrators. Greed and pressures both
worked in the process. Though sparks of freedom and true leadership surfaced
from time to time in all these fields in the last six decades, they are far inbetween to a country of Indias size and diversity and mere isolated initiatives
like fishes out of water and soon died down literally and figuratively. The
fallacy lies in apostasy, either for greed, or poor leadership material going for
sensationalism in selfish or commercial pursuit, or more accurately both
reinforcing each other as models from one generation to the other. However,
true attempts at right leadership do exist here and there in all fields and they
are succeeding. This is important. This gives the hope of regeneration in the
future.
RIGHT LEADERSHIP
According to Dr.John C.Maxwell, a leader is one who knows the way, goes
the way and shows the way. He is the guide and philosopher to those below
him. A leader is the personification of trust to his followers. He is their hope
and future. It is sin to let them down to seek own ends. A leader is a dealer
in hope said Napoleon Bonaparte. W.H.Auden says, No person can be a
great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the success of those under him.
Right leadership is integrity, conviction, sacrifice, commitment to people and
values, and ability to blend with their dreams. Right leadership is ability to guide
and lead people in right path. Leaders are models to others. Self-seekers and
criminals have no place in its scheme. Commercial angle has nothing to do with
it. Sensationalism, claptrap and partisan approach never feed leadership
qualities. Leadership qualities flourish in right values, right decisions and right
actions. Concern to those below is its main mantra. All these key factors of the
right leadership are thrown to winds in India after independence.
The celebrated Chinese Philosopher of the 6th century BC, Lao Tzu opines,
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people
obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. Leadership is service
au fond and exposure comes only as a derivative. It is just the opposite in the
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

extant Indian leadership where service is a front and tool for exposures, selfaggrandizement, further boost upwards and attainment of selfish ends. It is
neither right leadership nor is it even leadership. It is a travesty of leadership.
It is making fun of leadership. Indian leadership has degenerated to that at all
fronts. It no way fit in to the frame laid down by Harold J.Seymour for a true
leader when he says, Leaders are the ones who keep faith with the past, keep
step with the present, and keep the promise to prosperity. Extant variety of
Indian leadership has neither a past nor a future and only has a greedy present.
Ca ira. No aberrations last in perpetuum. India eagerly awaits to prepon.

16

RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA
India is the land of spirituality. Love and pursuit of knowledge and higher
values are the essence of its nature. This foundation gives India a unique
character and inner strength unseen in the community of nations of the world
and makes it a world leader in spiritual life. The depth gained by this commands
other nations of the world to see India with awe and respect even in the extant
commercial ambience of the present world. Its great sons like Gauthama
Buddha, Mahavir, Ashoka and Mohandas Gandhi are unique gifts of India to
the world of sublime thoughts in practice. India could spawn such gems
because the mien of life here supported them and their ideals. This was true
upto the first half of the 20th century. What followed was an apostasy from the
radicate path.
The second half of the 20th century saw the caduac of gross
commercialization of the Indian mindset and consectaneous degringolade of its
ingenerate higher values. The contabescence is so endemic in its spread that
all walks and strata of life in the country saw the sweeping metabasis and the
concomitant atrophy. Indian politics, bureaucracy, business, professions,
intellectuals, literature, media, art and cultural movements, and you name the
field, that saw the fall. A pusillanimous India at the aurora of its independence
like fish out of water lost its soul in pursuit of the material carrion that was
inebriating the world in the midst of the prolate commercialization. It was a
triste trade-off. It was a distressing relegation of higher values and inner
strength to oblivion. Developed countries became its ideal. Japan and USA
became its models. Wealth and power became its Gods. Rich and powerful
became its heartthrobs. India began to see the dream of becoming a world
power. Multi-nationals and stock exchanges became its peremptory saviors.
Nothing is wrong in that per se. But at what cost and for what end? A dead
India was too occupied with the glorification of its carcass to think of it.
The fall was ominous. It was of the people and their spirit. It was their ideals
and their values. It was their attitude and the focus of life. They forgot their
legacy and its strengths that sustained them through all the convolutions of the
history. They lost the pristine adaptability that saw them move pari passu with

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

the changing time while retaining the core of their higher values. The Indian
National Congress that held high the spiritual flambeau of the nation for nearly
a century turned a corrupt and power-hungry body and swept away principles
that sustained it till then under the carpet of political expediency. Jana Sangh
and its later avatar that came to existence to preserve Indian values and culture
turned the most visible icon of the Indian values and the leitmotiv of its spiritual
lumiere, Shree Rama, into a most hated name by its inhuman and unprincipled
political misadventures.
India always stood for the cardinal values of truth, simplicity and a value
based system of life and always absorbed the zeitgeist within these parameters
to enrich itself. The hallmark of India is its confidence in itself and its values
and it sustained it through all the travails of its long history. It never lost its soul
and never found the need to blindly mimic the specious coups of the world
around. It algate stood on its own feet and proved the strengths of its
fundamentals even in worst scenarios. Extant India looks far from that proud
and confident India.
Present Indias democracy is a misnomer. It is a soulless process in the
body of a democratic form, or better, a feudal rule bought over by money,
muscle and deceit. India is deluding itself by calling itself as a great democracy
of the world and dreaming to be a world power. Compages do not make
vibrating structures inter se. They require inner strengths as their spine to stand
erect to stand out in the world. Present India lacks that little potion that in the
past was Indias essence passim.
The malady is prolate. From politics to familial relationships, from
bureaucratic attitudes to intellectual manoeuvres and from commercial world
to cultural fields, its footprints are deeply etched to emaciate the country ab
intra. All higher values are thrown to winds in pursuit of specious material
bonanza and the life has become a no-holds-barred utter trade-off. The
environment is poisoned, and isolated struggles to inhere to time-tested pristine
values are stifled to evanescence in midst of the reign of mesquinerie. The
claves of the changed attitude are shortcuts and reaching desired end by any
means. This with the concomitant degringolade of the leadership qualities of
the democratic vintage spawned a dangerous broth of fawn, deceit and muscle
power. The pristine values like excellence, patience, pride, grace and dignity
are relegated as impotent to the dustbin of the history. Hero worship and
opportunism became the ticket to clamber the ladder of the self-promotion in
the mien of the undermined merit. Money and power built a mutually serving
vicious circle and became inviolable ends and means of any meaningful life.
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INSIDE INDIA

Quantity overtook quality. Respect lost its halo. Crime paid. Corruption,
protests and violence gained currency as the only tools of success. Grab and
rob became the mantra of survival. Who could not rise to the levels became
misfits. This is extant India.
Ex-Prime Minister Charan Singh as the Chief Executive of the country
once rightly claimed that corruption imbues from above. It is true of all modes
of corruption and decay of standards. Its manifestation in the fall of higher
values in governance of India of the democratic vintage shook the very
foundation of the highly developed value system of the country existing till then.
Both ruling party and opposition parties found their salvation in winning the next
election non obstante means and found money, muscle power and garish
display of strength pay in the process. Indian public life restructured itself to
these needs sinsyne. Everything is forgotten in the pursuit of power, and
governance became subservient to this end. With the fall in the ideals of the
governance and the Government system, that in the people was not far away.
Instinct for survival preceded everything else. The trend corroded confidence
in higher nuances of the value system. Greedy politicians, self-seeking media,
demoralized bureaucracy and hapless hoi polloi, all added to the mux. And India
prepared a poisonous broth in which it boils jusqu au bout unless it reverses the
process by sheer deux ex machina.
Indian culture is a sublime edifice of the best absorbed from all sources it
came in contact with and built on the foundation of the pollent values of simple,
honest and healthy practices. India always went for sound practices with both
material and spiritual dimensions to it. The tragedy of the present India is that
it continued the process of the adoption sans the ingredient of the adaptation
to its rich heritage of spiritual and enduring values and practices. It has become
just a copycat of whatever appeals to its senses and fancy. The need of appeal
to deeper realms like reason and insight is tout a fait forgotten. Often, mere
compages are gone for without as much as thoughts for its inherent soul or
underlying foundation. A striking instance is Indias version of the democracy
where deception and criminal record constitute the provenance of political
leadership en face that practiced in the USA and other western countries
where merit and personal probity constitute the bedrock of the successful
public life. It is this sheer perversion of the democratic ideals and the
concomitant deception and criminality that India calls as the greatest
democratic experiment in the world.
Nothing that is not honest and truly sincere ever succeeds. Indian
democracy just is not that. Compare extant democratic India with the present
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

China or the resilience shown by Japan and Germany after the Second World
War or the progress seen in countries like Singapore. Honesty and true
sincerity in the political leadership is the only allee that leads to the true bonanza
of a nation. Indian democracy as practised today is an antithesis a toute force
of this cardinal need.
Another striking manifestation of present India is its narrow vision. Indian
intellectuals and Indian media lead the field stripped of independent and original
thinking. Rather than leading the country from the front in the restricted couloir
of right thinking and higher values, they fish in popular trends and perceptions
to boost their commercial gains. Often, popular catchwords like socialism and
economic reforms or nationalism and globalisation become claves of attitudes
without as much as going to the depths of the social dynamics and relevance
to India. This again is an expression of the prevailing contumely to excellence
and creative originality apart from the prevailing commercialization of the
intellectual and media fields. Accrescently Indian media now relies on sexual
appeal on its pages to catch readership or viewership. It is absurd to expect high
public sittlichkeit or high ideals from such a provenance. Lack of true
commitment or pride for the own ab intra is another serious Achilles heel.
Fall of individual pride ironically is another depravity of the Indian version
of the democracy and its political stirrings. Apotheosis of political figures for
self-promotion is the order of the day. Character and merit are relegated to
oblivion in this mad rush. Sycophancy and glorification of dynastic rule are its
inevitable offshoots. Personalities gained currency over values and principles
and personality-cult gained tremendous boost. Recent event is attempts to
protect a religious leader from criminal charges at the cost of the values of a
sacred religious seat he holds. This trend expresses itself in sprouting of myriad
statues of political leaders often of dubious repute at public places a grands
frais. Those with money and power have become virtual Gods even for
intellectuals and media in this whilom land of spirituality. High character and
true merit have become grossly irrelevant. Contrast this with the USA where
key Government posts go to those from the academic field and even a minor
strain on character or private life is enough to bar a candidate from winning the
Presidential election.
Violence truly pays in Indian democracy. Reasons, fairness, honesty, law
or gentle persuasion has no place here. That is why protests and violence have
become the order of the day. People cannot be blamed for that. Those in
politics and bureaucracy in India sit so high in their ivory towers of insensitive
power and exclusiveness that nothing reach and move them unless a message
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INSIDE INDIA

is packed with blood and violence to comminate their secure power base.
Otherwise their responses to the plight of the nation and the common man is
Neronian or lukewarm al piu. Contrast this with the USA Governments
mammoth response in creating a new Homeland Security Department after
the 11/9/2001 militant attack on its land and its concern for the security of its
citizens. Everything of the public domain in present maledict India is acted only
on political compulsions or lobbying of the rich and powerful. This is democracy
for India.
Every country has its own tournure along the corso of its life. India sine
dubio finds itself at its cafard in its post-independent days. A half century is too
short a period in the life of a country to resile to its pristine soul and India may
need to boil in its own ephemeral materialistic broth before it begins de
noueveau in right course. India did see umpteen ups and downs along the
course of its long history and algate resiled to its pristine soul amain. The
present one perhaps is one of such an aberration and has no encheason to be
different from that.

21

RIGHT ORIENTATION IN
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
Government service in a democracy is the service of the people by the
people for the people within the reticulation of the rules and procedures in
force. It is the core service of the governance and implements the will of the
people expressed through the collective political leadership. It is the tool that
really manages the country on the tapestry of the adopted policy by exercising
all the wherewithal of a management tool-box like planning, organizing,
execution and control by its ubiquitous presence. Right orientation is sine qua
non for the self-management through own representatives under the political
leadership in the government. People au naturel are unifocal in self-interests
au fond. An orientation of the right kind to lift them in the direction of the larger
interests of the largest part of the population is the raison detre of any
government service. It is this higher direction that ideally differentiates those
in government service from the hoi polloi. Reality is different in the field. The
reasons for that are as diverse as wrong orientation and wrong people in the
service.
OPTIONS
The choice is bifocal to redeem the situation: either select only the people
of right orientation of larger interests in heart or inculcate the right orientation
by right training, right practices and right job culture on those who are selected.
The process of selecting the people of right orientation to the behemoth of
government service of Indian dimension is easier said than done. The Indian
institutions constituted for the purpose are too ill-equipped for the job and too
steeped in inefficiency, corruption and lack of positive approach for any
perficient performance even in responsibilities of far lesser magnitude. India
has no alternative but to go for the latter option of inculcating the right
orientation.
The second option at best is a weak shadow of the first. Its tools are directed
towards attitudinal change. The tools are too weak for the immanent changes

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INSIDE INDIA

warranted even if presumed that right training, right practices and right job
culture to bring about the new avatar exist at all. Human nature is too complex
for such an easy metabasis. Right tools are becoming ascensively far afar to
find in the extant power-hungry milieu of the present government service. The
legacy of the colonial rule in power-centric governance continues even after
more than five decades of the independence. The prise of the powerorientation in preference to service-orientation is accrescently going tenacious
in government service. Combined with the fact that lesser mortals are now
joining the fray of the government service courtesy selection institutions
nonpareil to the job, the situation can only be imagined. People of all kinds join
the service and indulge in all kinds of loots and sins. People accustomed to long
colonial rule are taking umbrage under the Karmic Law as the misdeeds in
name of governance by their own people are found to be the ineluctable reality
of life. They take epinosic satisfaction by the facts that the situation is worse
in neighbouring and African countries. We are taught to be patriotic and
committed to the country and the government which sins against us. We are
perorated with such inutile plangent phrases as ours is the biggest democracy
in the world and we are a nuclear power ad manum to be a super power of the
world that signify nothing to most Indians weighed down with misrule. Only
right orientation in government service can save the country from the
entoilment and spread a new entrainement in the people.
LARGER INTERESTS
The raison detre of the government service is its orientation towards larger
interests en face the extant tournure of the narrow interests critical to human
nature. Larger interests imply a sense of right and wrong, sensitivity to others
sufferings and a genuine love for the human kind. Even after presuming the
exiguity of such noble qualities in the ambience around, the standards existing
in the extant Indian government service is far from satisfactory and horrific
tout court by any standards. It is just perversion drunk by the temulence of
power. It is erratic to say the least. It is insulsity at best and perversion at the
worst. It is twisting rules and procedures to meet self-interests al piu. What is
striking is the fact that it has become the culture of the governance of free
India. India has become free perchance to let its government service to have
a dissolute culture of its own choice sans interference ab extra. This seems the
ground reality of the last five decades of the Indian independence. An example
illustrates assez bien the degringolade of the government service and those
who man it.
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

WRONG MODEL
A Mathematics lecturer from a college joined government service four
decades back. His fastus from the sudden rise perforce cost him his seniority
in preference to a junior during the training. His unpopularity among the public
got him an entry as immature in ACR. He got an important posting on
promotion where he betrayed gratuitous harshness that cost him the post in less
than a year to be posted to head a training institute.
This is where the crunch of running the government service comes to the
fore and exposes itself in puris naturalibus. A training institute is the first point
of tryst of a recruit with his future service and its head his true model to
become. Hundreds of young recruits passed out as officers in the next three
years from the institute with its head as a model binged in them. Later, many
a precious careers withered under the peise of the wrong model. The wrong
orientations received during the training make inveterate and lasting impact
that cannot be easily deracinated. Wrong models unwanted other-where
heading training institutions is the first symptom of a grave malady the
government service is suffering with.
The officer was denied decent postings promotion after promotion. He was
sent on deputation to head a middle sized state undertaking. His misconduct
there led to a state-wide agitation of its staff in 1985. Later, he was deputed
to head the state prisons department. His stewardship there witnessed an
unprecedented mafia gang war within the four walls of a prison resulting in
murder of an egregious inmate in 1995. An enquiry by the Home Secretary
arraigned the officer for serious lapses.
MISCONCEPTION
The officer headed his department for five months before retirement. This
is another post where the fonctionnaire serves as a model to the subordinates.
His appointment to the post was opposed by some on the grounds of merit. This
gave rise to two groups in his favour and against in the department. The new
chief in excelsis in his career acted avec acharnement against those belonging
to the opposite camp by sending them to insignificant posts in god-forsaken
corners of the state. He, drunk in the fulgour of his new status, unreasonably
acted on some others assuming the role of a soi disant motivation specialist and
brought gratuitous sufferings to them. A nave officer with complete fide et
fiducia on the new chief sought transfer back to the state capital to any of the
umpteen vacant posts existing. The new chief promised an immediate posting
and consented for the subordinate going on leave pending the transfer.
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INSIDE INDIA

Thereafter, the chief went on delaying the transfer by encouraging the

pianissimo subordinate to extend the leave for the next four months until
himself retired. The subordinate au desespoir approached the State Chief
Secretary only to find that the latter was advised by the chief not to meet the
subordinate. The Chief Secretary did just that. This speaks volumes about
present administration. The achilles heel lies in the mediocrity and the inability
of those in higher levels of the government service in this star-stricken land to
comprehend what really constitute administration and misconceive it as a show
of ruthlessness and cruelty. The justification of the chief for his queer and
perverted conduct oblivious of the sufferings and agony caused was that he
was doing all those things as a motivation specialist to help the subordinate in
his career! His preposterous motivation skills ens rationis was really a cloak
to his native sadism that cost the enfested subordinate his faculty of trusting
anybody. This is a case of pure schadenfreude en pure perte.
SERVICE
The core of right orientation in government service is an understanding of
the sufferings of others and willingness to mitigate it through the accepted
means of rules, laws and procedures. Power is only the subsidiary of the
process and comes to play as a tool in aid of making service to the people
possible. There is no place for fastus, show of power, schadenfreude and
playing with the lives of others in the scheme. It is humility and a gemutlich
sense of service to others that is fundamental to it. Any government manned
by the people without these essential ingredients is bound to be a heath of
tyranny and face the wrath of the plebeian in rerum natura. That is why the
manning of the government service warrants utmost care and expertise in
running the government. The edifice of the right governance stands on the terra
firma of the right orientation. The governance is just nonexistent or leads to a
welter of tyranny of the people in the skein of wrong orientations.
RIGHT PLACES
The right orientation can be either inborn or acquired. In absence of
appropriate tools to trace inborn orientations with certitude, only the process
of acquiring the right orientations can be depended upon. Right models have
tremendous impact on the process as do wrong models. It is the models and
the precedents that determine and festinate the orientation of the future.
Models in right places have tremendous impacts in enracing right orientations
in the body of the government service. Head of an institution that trains recruits
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

exercises powerful influence on the recruits. So also the head of the

department. Right orientation in government service can be made a reality by
manning these key posts with right persons.
Another tool towards this end is encouraging right orientation by the
reguerdon of good postings. The objective is bifarious: it inspires the adoption
of the right course; also, rewards to the right people a natura rei act as a
stimulant to create the right job culture. Such a stimulant is briller par son
absence in Indian ambience. It is the reason why government service now is
not what it should be in a democracy.
POWER
The nature of the government service now is power-oriented; that is, the
exercise of power for the sake of power. It has become an ide fixe. There
is not even a tinge of service orientation in the extant government service. Even
the pretence is left to the care of the political leadership that must depend on
the hoi polloi for survival. Those in government service need not even pretend
to that as they have a secure tenure of service and go impervious to the
plebeian. The accrescent falsidical sense in government service now is that
they are meant to implement the wishes of the political leadership without any
commitment to the ordinary people. The falsetto must be replaced with a sense
of service to the people. There is no deliverance to the country without it.
The power-orientation of the government service is the seed of all ills of the
country. Power corrupts. So, any government service erected on the pillars of
power cannot be anything but corrupt. A corrupt government corrupts the
country and a country under seize and caught in the tourbillon of corruption
cannot be anything but tyrannic. This is the maelstrom India finds itself with
now. The country can be saved from the avernus and a stage for the
risorgimento can be set only by giving right orientation to its government
service. It is a gargantuan task. The path of corruption is easy, but retracting
the course back is difficile and almost impossible. But it is a job that has to be
attended to on priority in national interests. If not a pas de geant, the problem
has to be approached in farthing-steps. Relief from the temulence of power
cries for the priority attention. Once the cobweb is removed, the space will be
free for the inculcation of service-orientation within the limits of the policy and
the rules and procedures in force. Right placement of the right models is crucial
to the process. That brings the apollyon of the government service to heels to
ultimately wipe out of the system and dawn a new era of a healthy government
service in the country.
26

VALUE SYSTEM IN
INDIAN BUREAUCRACY
The word value from the French root valoir suggests a sense of worth as
rising from the innards of the conscience. The perception of a given value
varies with the variae lectiones of the amoebic milieu. The dependence of the
value structure on milieu is the source of all the corrida de toros of the human
world. The value system of an individual and an organization of which he
consciously or by compulsion is a part are rarely identical. This basically is the
source of all human conflicts. This is more so in the present age of accrescent
entoilment of human activities. Nowhere in the extant world, the conflict of
value systems is found as obvious as in the behemoth of the Indian
bureaucracy. That is why people with a strong conscience find themselves in
cul-de-sac in government service unless they adapt personal value structures
to the needs of the bureaucracy that is mediocre at the best and criminal at the
worst.
CONTRARIOUS VALUES
The value system in bureaucracy is bifarious: inherent values and survivaloriented values. The two facets of the same value system further
metagrobolise the complexity of the value system of the bureaucracy ab intra.
Add apocryphal elements in the garb of values natural to the Indian
bureaucracy to the broth, the field is ready for all the dramas of this world.
A persons locus standi in the affairs of his life is subject to his position in
the mlange of these often contrarious values at diverse ambiences.
Adamantine commitment to a value has no place here. Skeely manoeuvring of
positions from time to time, unfortunately, decides the success in life. If value
is understood by its true definition, the extant formula of flexibility for success
is nothing but refutation of the concept of values per se. This is the ineluctable
fact of life to which human activities have devolved themselves. An illustration
suffices to make the point clear.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

A young officer in 1960s began his career in a South Indian state with
commitment to the high values of public service laced with strictness and
discipline of very high order au naturel to his age and the nascent stage of his
career. He was a terror to wrong-doers in 1970s as a district level executive
officer and proved very successful in his work. His unimpeachable integrity as
also no-nonsense mien rendered him unpopular among both subordinates and
superiors. He was removed from his district posting in less than a year on the
pressures of the vested interests and never found a responsible posting sinsyne
with a profile in official records as immature inter alia. His failure lay in his
individual value system not being attuned to what the bureaucracy expected
of him.
SURVIVAL INSTINCT
Being enervated by the developments and angst-ridden, he realized that he
has no future in the career with his own convictions and values. This turned
him so much inward that he became proficient in psychology and soon got
doctorate in the subject. He did everything to reconcile his traits and nature to
the imperatives of the bureaucratic values. He went out of his way to please
everybody and made it his habit. The changes found favour with none with the
aura popularis yet defying him and he went on losing mainstream postings as
rose in rank and even remained without posting for nearly a year in 1990s at
a very high rank on the suspicion of gross negligence in discharge of duties
leading to a serious disaster as a consequence of his newly acquired traits of
casualness. With the ablet, his nature saw the affret of enthusiasm to please
the political leadership of the state a toute force as he approached the
benchmark of the selection to the post of the head of the department. As the
popular perception continued to be against him as a candidate for the coveted
post, the energumen began to play the caste card with the political leadership
a corps perdu. His efforts to undermine the chances of a senior backfired as
the latter after retirement as the head of the department filed cases against the
former succeeding him as the departmental chief. The point is that the officer
succeeded in heading the department as the altaltissimo of his career though
for a short period by the surgery he performed on his persona, convictions and
innate values. Though flexibility paid, one wonders whether the quid pro quo
was worth the surgery and could not he be a person more in harmony with
himself if he had continued with his pristine value system avec acharnement.
His predecessor is another example of the same process but for that that after
finding failures of the new values to provide the aex triplex he needed, he took
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INSIDE INDIA

recourse back to his innate values and won court battles to head the
department.
CRISIS OF VALUES
The tragedy of the officer was that the process of the changes found him
shedding away truly noble values innate to him. His integrity became a disaster
in the process. His name as the Managing Director of the states Tourist
Development Corporation in 1980s was linked to his young PA after he was
noticed spending long hours with her under locked doors and irregularly
elevating her to officers rank to the consternation of the entire staff that went
on state-wide strike against the Managing Director. He was also suspected of
wrong-doings in purchase of hundreds of cars by the Tourist Development
Corporation to run as tourist cars.
It clearly is a case of honest besoin to adapt to the imperatives of the
bureaucracy for survival going awry. The attempts are justifiable on the
grounds of the survival instinct basic to human nature, because the
bureaucracy as it is has no value for anything extra muros. It recognizes only
its values and remains adamantine to anything ectogenesis. Therefore, the
choice for a principled officer is between an unsuccessful career for adhering
to ones own values and convictions or quitting. Good jobs are difficult to come.
Ergo, ordinary mortals survival instincts lead to sacrifice his values and
principles to adapt to the requirements of the bureaucracy at any cost to the
self and its convictions. Everybody cannot be a saint. Thus the need to adapt
own values to the bureaucratic imperatives is ineluctable until Indian
bureaucracy grows to be mature enough to accept and absorb higher values
ab extra.
XENOPHOBIA
A process of ossification has set-in in Indian bureaucracy in absence of real
growth and evolution after independence. The political leadership find the
development to its advantage. The bureaucracy found itself as fish out of water
when its leading guides returned to Britain after independence. Those who
handled the higher bureaucracy sinsyne followed from where the British left
with their own mediocre interpretations of an ideal bureaucratic setup. The
result is the extant bureaucracy of India devoid of creativity, initiative,
understanding and a sense of public service. This reduced the definition of the
public administration to mean use of rules and procedures to delay or obstruct
decisions or actions just for the purpose of proving existence. The new setup
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

developed a queer xenophobia towards deviations from the set patterns as a

threat to the very existence of the bureaucracy. The mindset evolved to a
pernoctation against any fresh breeze ab extra and a tendency to deracinate
any move to that end in the bud itself. Nothing fresh can leak-in to such a
bureaucracy a huis clos.
BUREAUCRATIC CULTURE
The indifference is limited to the values ectogenesis to the home-grown
value system. The three factors that exercise true prise on Indian bureaucracy
beyond the limits are caste affiliations, political patronage and money power.
They have become pollent values inter se. You can buy practically anything
from the present Indian bureaucracy with them en arriere. And you find what
virtually is hell on the Earth without these factors to back you.
The bureaucracy of India in the last five decades has become a law to itself
with an opus musivum of a ribald culture spreading tentacles of a reticulation
of rights and wrongs beyond the reach of any known precepts of decent human
conduct. Here, power is the supreme deity that absterges all sins, reasons and
feelings. That naturally renders the rank in bureaucracy the highest virtue and
age, merit, character and human dignity eat dust in the milieu. Such a
bureaucracy is a perfect ground for the growth of all types of evils and human
weaknesses. There was a Sanskrit scholar with moderate successes as a
writer in a provincial language holding a very senior post in the bureaucracy
of a South Indian state. He held huge functions for the release of his books by
dignitaries including the state Chief Minister. A junior who became
distinguished as a poet and as a writer decided to release his book through the
Governor of the state. The senior in the bureaucracy out of sheer jealousy
spread canards and exercised his personal weight to ensure that the function
was cancelled just twenty-four hours before the release of the book by the
Governor of the state. This is Indian bureaucracy after independence in puris
naturalibus.
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
The cardinal question is why the Indian political leadership tolerated such
an obstructionist bureaucracy for all these years. The reason is that the political
leadership finds itself comfortable with the ossified and unenlightened
bureaucracy. There is no danger of an enlightened bureaucracy overshadowing it and taking all the limelight for positive performances. On the other
hand, an inert and unenlightened bureaucracy is a handy tool to bear the
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burdens of all failures. An ineffectual bureaucracy naturally brings higher

stature to the political leadership in public perception. It has become a fashion
in India to blame the political leadership for all evils of the country. The true
blame for the maelstrom the country finds itself with, must lay on the threshold
of the crippled bureaucracy and its blotched value system. Sine dubio, Indian
political leadership now is more enlightened than its bureaucracy. The edge of
the bureaucracy seen in pre-independent era is no more evident now. The
reason is that the political leadership kept its doors open for fresh air and
updated its value system from time to time unlike the bureaucracy. While the
bureaucracy rarely looks beyond the edges of its desk and never outside the
window, it is the political leadership that navigated India through diverse
innovative phases like NAM, mixed economy, socialistic pattern of society,
social control and now economic reforms. Even the recent Agra Summit to
bring peace to the South-Asia region is a fine example of an innovative political
leadership.
An enlightened bureaucracy with a noble value structure is a great blessing
to any country. Unfortunately, Indian bureaucracy at all levels flourish on the
ruses like falling on each other to lick the boots of the rich and powerful and
bending double over to please the political leadership or play the caste card.
These ruses always payed a natura rei in the ambience of the Indian
bureaucracy after independence courtesy the tendency of the political
leadership to play the bureaucratic minions against each other. This prevented
the evolution of higher value system in Indian bureaucracy.
Every setup strictly has its own culture and value system. An individual
perforce reconciles his personal values with that of an organization when he
chooses to be its part. He is required to sacrifice his own convictions and values
in the service of the larger interests of the organization. The predicament is
perficiently brought out by William Butler Yeats in two lines of the poem, An
Irish Airman Foresees His Death when the airman sings,
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
Such a situation is common while organizational objectives and values take
precedence over individual objectives and values. The conundrum of such a
reconciliation lies in resorting to the adaptations while the organization as in
Indian bureaucracy suffered degringolade in its value structure en face the
higher value structure of the individual. The ambience necessitates the
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

individual lower himself to the lower world to fit-in for survival with the full
knowledge that he is becoming a lesser human being in the process. That is the
true challenge on the fresh recruits to the government service in India who
enter the services with starry eyes and true commitment to the public service
inspired ab imo pectore and soon end-up perforce in the quagmire of conflicting
values.

32

REQUISITES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE

Governance is steering and guiding the country in its course by right policies,
decisions and actions and the apparatus invested with the responsibility is
government. A government may have different gestalts, colours and priorities
depending on the needs and circumstances of the country at the time. Steering
the rudder in proper direction through all weathers constitutes the core of the
governance. Those holding and attending the rudder decide the destiny of the
country. Their character, attitudes and competence determine the tournure of
the future of the country and its people.
TWO TIERS
Governance in a democracy is a bifarious exercise with the political rung
controlling the policy and decision-making apparatus while the administrative
rung handling the decision and action apparatus of the governance. The
political and administrative faces are the two sides of the same coin of the
governance. The political rung represents the will and aspirations of the people.
People get the politicians they deserve. Any expectations and manipulations
about the will of the people are undemocratic au fond and unconstitutional
even. The case is tout a fait different with the administrative rung which
functions as an interface between the policies and its implementation and
between the political rulers and the hoi polloi in the matter of governance. While
political leadership is ephemeral VVIP guest-component in the arena, the civil
servants are the abiding framework of rules and procedures within which the
minutiae of the governance are conceived and built brick by brick. It is these
civil servants at diverse ranks, levels and fields that really hold the rudder of
the governance to steer the country in whatever course their composite
character and competence permit. The true governance depends on their
abilities and attitudes.
CIVIL SERVANTS
They are professionals in the field of governance unlike the political leaders
who handle governance ens per accidens. They are career administrators and

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

specialists eo nomine by choice all their lives and constitute more than 99% of
the manpower in the field of governance. It is they who by their conduct and
attributes decide the nature of the governance in the country and constitute the
mainstay of the government irrespective of what party comes to power and
who control the reigns of power. Karunanidhi as CM heaping corruption cases
against and putting former CM Jayalalitha behind bars and Jayalalitha
reciprocating by the same coin when she comes to power or Bofors gun case
of the Congress and Tehelka tape case of the NDA in the centre are all dramas
of gratuitous media hype of little significance to the future of the country until
the character of the administrative rung remains unchanged. The political face
can make really little change to the country. It makes little difference to Bihar
who heads the government until the civil servants there change their character
and mindset. It is unrealistic and too simplistic to presume that the political
leadership provides model to the administration down the line. The
bureaucracy of India is too hardboiled a unit for such a quick change of colours.
The reality is the other way round. The political leaders who come to power
have no alternative but go d accord with the demands of the bureaucracy or
perish. Politicians as they are, do adapt to their survival instincts and barter their
visions for possible quid pro quo in power. The bureaucracy in India really
enjoys a commanding position in the governance of the country.
WRONG ATTITUDES
The tragedy of India is that their position and importance is not amated by
requisite qualities, merit, passion and commitment for effective and good
governance. The Indian bureaucracy is seized with wrong attitudes and evils
that waste it away ab intra. Competence has become a disaster. Wrong people
in wrong jobs is a serious malady enervating the public administration of the
day. Political heads are wrongly blamed for the havoc. It is the bureaucracy
for its own parochial ends at the cost of the bureaucratic integrity and ideals
that invite the trouble and guide the political leadership in the evil path.
HUMAN ELEMENTS
The extant bureaucracy ensemble is marked by lack of human concerns
and empathy for the fellow men. Being as rigid as rules and procedures of
which those in the bureaucracy are custodians of is wrongly accepted as en
regle for those in the bureaucracy. 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 governance. This has
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deprived the elements of brain and intellect from the corpus of the public
administrative system. The result is a deadweight-bureaucracy 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.
INTEGRITY
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. Bureaucratic 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 selfinterests. Power sans accountability rendered governance in India an evil per
se.
INSENSITIVITY
The evils of governance need not always be 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 who joined government service 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. Once the job is accomplished, his lost
seniority was to be restored a few years before retirement.
ATROCITIES
He was denied promotions following the meretricious career plan year
after year till his junior colleagues became senior to him by two ranks. 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 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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

unconstitutional stance until the officer condescends 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 a corps perdu. His
morale remained en bon point and high throughout non obstante serious
humiliations and endless grief. He aequo animo sought refuge in other fields
and won nonpareil accolades from everybody by sheer talents. His tormentors
tout de suite 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 a contre coeur two
manuscripts of the officer in sheer desperation a natura rei expressing
helplessness en face the police interferences.
TRANSPARENCY
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 en pure
perte. Lack of transparency makes such etourdi atrocities possible and permits
its practice for decades en pantoufles as in the case study.
PUBLIC CAUSE
The case is an eye-opener to how merit, talent and character of very high
order meted out by the mediocrity of the governance in the Indian milieu.
Jealousy is common. Anybody junior receiving limelight is seen with
resentment and suspicion. The major achilles heel of the governance in India
is its inability to understand others predicaments. Governance in quiddity is
safeguarding national interests and the welfare of the people. These factors
perforce involve empathy with the people and sensitivity to their interests.
These are the springboards of good governance. No governance worth the
name can render meaningful public service sans the spirit of building bridges
to the hoi polloi in whose service it draws sustenance and what constitutes its
raison d etre. Good governance must be built on the terra firma of human
concerns and sensitivity to others predicaments.

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ACCOUNTABILITY
Another requisite of good governance is accountability. It gives sanctity to
power and makes it meaningful and relevant in the scheme of governance.
Power is a raw energy. Accountability gives it sophistication and purpose.
Governance sans accountability has the tendency of hijacking the country to
the pit of evils that power breeds. Checks and counterchecks serve the
purpose of good governance by rendering itself to the litmus test of
accountability, ipso facto bringing in the elements of responsibility to the field
of governance. In the ambience of civil servants functioning in the shadow of
the political leadership, the former mastered the art of evading accountability
and responsibility. The successes boldened them to the derring-does of larger
dimensions. The recent US-64 debacle is the point. India can ill-afford repeat
performances of that dimension and must save from such disasters in future
through an uneluctable parameter of accountability that alone can dawn an era
of responsible governance in the country.
OBJECTIVITY
A cardinal principle of good governance is objectivity and fair play. The
governance as public administration is inevitably circumvented by pulls and
counter-pulls of diverse kinds to influence decisions and actions. The
compulsions for yielding to either side are enormous and it reduce the
governance to a mere play or dynamics of lobbyists and influence-pedlars. A
good governance must stand up to the pressures. This requires tremendous
inner strength and singular commitment to the public cause. It is easier said
than done. However, this commitment is sine qua non for good governance.
While accountability is an apparatus to protect the governance from the
indulgences of the fonctionnaire ab intra like greed, irresponsibility and love for
easy life, the shield of objectivity protects it from the ectogenous onslaughts of
pressures, temptations and threats. While accountability must evolve as an
external mechanism ingrained in the body of the governance, objectivity is an
inner faculty either inborn or acquired as the fond of good governance.
IMBALANCES
Good governance should have its powers and responsibilities amated and
evenly distributed in the fabric of the governance. This ensures smooth
governance d accord with the principles of democracy. Another factor core
to good governance is a balance of powers and responsibilities propped up with
transparency in state affairs. Responsibilities sans powers end up with failures
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

in performance and powers non compris responsibilities breed undue morgue

and lead to harassment of the public. Governance sans transparency is at the
root of all evils and goes tout au contraire to the very rationale of the
democracy. It can neither be fair nor earn the trust of the people.
OPEN MIND
No governance is worth the salt without a passion for developmental and
welfare activities in national interests. The passion widens the horizons of the
mind as against that circummured by isms of theoretical hang that can never
provide a good and open governance. A passion pure and clear for the welfare
and development of the nation and its people by any means is a prerequisite for
good governance. Only that keeps mind open for all developments worldwide
and absorb really the best for the country.
VISION
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 course. It provides a
break from the quotidian plod in preference to innovative strides to fulfil 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 a grandeur and a proportion to the process. No
governance can be good and complete without a vision to steer ahead and a
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 en arriere to back, it is easy
to put the pluses and minuses to conceive a strategy towards the end.
Otherwise, governance is nothing more than mechanical motions.
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 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
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extant India is the evolution of a collective will to have a good governance.

People must pool their energies to force a 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 a reason 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 for the country.

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INDIA AND ALL INDIA SERVICES

Aux grands maux, les grands remedes. Timely remedy is best. But, belated
remedy is better than no remedy at all. Perhaps the greatest among the legacies
of the British rule that caught with free-India was its steelframe of the All India
Services. Fortunate to India, the Indian political leaders of that vintage in their
best wisdom in an age of honesty, humility, integrity and other higher values
decided to continue with the All India Services legacy of the British with minor
adaptations in spite of the inchoate mad rave to indigenise everything and
obliterate all traces of the foreign rule. Kudos to the leaders for their wisdom
in keeping an efficient tool of administration intact. But, alas, the euphoria
proved to be ephemeral. The rapid degringolade of values and passion for
excellence and efficiency in India of the post-independent vintage was to
progressively obliterate all the advantages of the sound judgement of the
whilom leaders. The deterioration was to be complete in the next five decades
and we now stand exactly in that compita. The situation calls for les grands
remedes.
DISPENSABILITY
The fall was ominous. Every system is bifacial; external structure and
internal character daccord constitute a true system. The advantages of the
gestalt of the All India Services of the British vintage was to be bientot frittered
away by the falling values and rising material aspirations of India of the sixties
and sinsyne. The All India Services of the post-independent vintage dearly lost
in the battle for internal character. Negative selections and recruitment,
deviant values and aspirations of its members thus selected and recruited and
mismanagement of the All India Services in governmental realms because of
its obvious dispensability in terms of excellence and strength of character
all badly contributed for the extant triste state of affairs in the realms of the All
India Services.
A major advantage of the All India Services is its all India nature; its
members as a plexus from all over India carrying out administrative functions
at senior levels throughout the length and breadth of the country give it a sense

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of oneness and belonging. Another advantage inhere in the concept is the belief
that the best minds chosen from all over the country are entrusted with the
prime function of the nation-building through the structure of the All India
Services. They are commendable concepts indeed and worked to perfection
during the British era and perhaps for a decade thereafter. It is distressing to
note that the same advantages turned to acute disadvantages in the last five
decades in our own hands proving what Churchill said about natives ruling
India.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
If a single reason for the steep fall is to be accounted, the albatross can be
found squarely fitting in on the lap of the fast disappearance of the ancien
regime of pristine values and the accrescently valid concept of the survival of
the fittest gaining ground at all levels in the last half century, it be in politics,
administration, professions and even social service. Pristine values of grace,
integrity, humility, fairness and humane approach are increasingly at a
premium. Reaching top by any means is the motto. The gestalt of the All India
Services was conceived and designed to overcome exactly this milieu. But,
alas, it proved no match to the sweeping sleight of the Indian talent.
CRISIS OF MATERIAL
The primacy of the katabasis necessarily goes to the crisis of material, it be
in the members of the All India Services or the selecting and recruiting agency
for the services or the governments that manage the services. Right people are
not in right positions. None can contend that a vast country like India does not
have people of right fortitude, strength of character and creative talent who can
withstand the lure of survival instinct at the cost of their conscience, however
bad be the milieu around. India does have people of such calibre in its fold even
now as it was always. The tragedy is that the agency charged with the sacred
responsibility of identifying such talents and selecting, in the deviant
intelligence of its equally mediocre human material that lacks creative depth,
is failing the country by doing just the opposite by filtering such talents away
as incompatible with the present political dynamics and thereby perpetuating
the rotten state of affairs in the country. What India needs at this juncture are
men and women who can stand for their conscience nec cupias nec metuas.

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PRAVEEN KUMAR

VICIOUS CIRCLE
Politics being the art of possible, it is to the credit of the Indian politicians
that they did job extraordinaire in taking full advantage of the pusillanimous All
India Services of the post-independent vintage in the last half century to
promote the interests of their own, their political parties and the political field
in general though at mammoth cost to the interests of the country, its public
morale and its people. The situation has spawned a vicious circle to the
advantage of the political masters wherein the All India Services are seized
with a crisis of confidence in the popular mind as far as its superior merit,
integrity and competence are concerned and in that further helped the
politicians to corner the whilom superior services. No state or union territory
now needs them. They prefer local talents. Those forced on them by the
Central government are sidelined to insignificant jobs unless there are special
reasons involving quid pro quo. The situation only can add to the parochial and
regional sentiments in the country and boost divisive tendencies rather than
working as a unifying factor.
The All India Services are fast losing the sheen of their all India nature
because of the inadequacies of the agency that makes selections to the
services; there is undoubtedly wild demand for superior merit, integrity,
efficiency and excellence in running the country and the rare virtues do prove
the aex triplex of the services. No sane political leader can ignore the need of
such rare talents helping in running the country. Sadly, the All India Services
not to be that in free India.
STRENGTH OF CHARACTER
Excellence and courage to stand up to conscience go together. It is these
that made the All India Services of the British vintage the steelframe of India.
If anything, the extant All India Services lack both. There is nothing like a steep
fall. None know it better now than the members of the All India Services. They
must double bend to the dictates of criminal nuances of their political masters
for survival or face sidelining. Most condescend and rise to glory while a
handful resist and perish. The situation needs strength of character kat
exochem to stand up and cleanse the system and can be met only by diligent
selections and support by men of true calibre. Sadly India is dearly lacking in
this department.

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VIRTUS POST NUMNOS

Situation is extremely bad in public administration even in best of the states
of India. A cut of 10% to the concerned minister from every fund released, it
be for developmental works or a special law and order programme, is a normal
affair and treated as a legitimate cut. It would be followed with other cuts down
the line. Any resistance is invitation to be shunted out and sidelined as an
inconvenient and problematic candidate. Either you connive in the crime or
perish. There is no third choice. It is the case with plump postings also. It is
virtus post numnos. Either you bribe and connive in criminal activities with
those who count or waste your entire career in insignificant posts. There is no
other choice. Most in the extant All India Services willingly oblige and see the
glory of their career. They are in majority and call themselves practical. But,
practical at what cost? The trend grievously belies the very raison detre of the
All India Services.
How the situation can be saved and the tide reversed? The only way out
is restoring the All India Services to its whilom glory of excellence and strength
of character. This involves right selection. Excellence and strength of
character once around, naturally rally efficiency and integrity around and
perforce compel political bosses to see reason and follow the rule of law.
Political leaders as zoon politikon, what really they are, are nothing if not
chameleonic to the milieu around as a professional compulsion. It is left to the
senior civil servants at the All India Services rank as a group to create right
atmosphere as a model of the public service. Political leaders have no option
but to fit in to the frame. This is why once the All India Services was called
the steelframe of India. Indian constitution makers did provide a right gestalt
for that. It is left to us to infuse right character to the system before it is too
late.

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NEED OF LEAN AND MEAN CIVIL

SERVICES
Civil services are the pillars on which the gestalt of a nation stands and
structure is built. Pillars need strength and height to make an edifice stable and
meaningful. So also are civil services. Civil service is a mammoth plexus of
complex interfaces spliced together to facilitate the governance of the country
pro bono publico. It is not a decorative piece of the public administration. It has
to be purposive and focused and deliver goods efficiently without proving a
burden to the structure. It should be lean and mean and feracious. Inefficient
and bloated civil service only tends to be furacious.
Indian national leaders by 1947 had come to appreciate the advantages of
having a highly qualified and institutionalized administration in place a la the
elite Indian Civil Service and allied services of the colonial British Raj
especially at a time when social tensions threatened national unity and public
order. Indian Constitution established the Indian Administrative Service and
other civil services to replace the colonial Indian Civil Service and allied
services and ensure uniform and impartial standards of administration and
promote effective coordination in social and economic development.
Although the elite public services continue to command great prestige, their
social status declined in the decades after independence. Indias crme de la
crme are increasingly attracted to private-sector employment where salaries
are substantially higher. Public opinion of civil servants has also been lowered
by popular perceptions that bureaucrats are unresponsive to public needs and
corrupt. Corruption has become a growing problem as civil servants have
become subject to intense political pressures.
The Indian civil service system has followed the classical Weberian model
and tends to be conformist in the process of cooperating with the politicians.
The public perceives the Indian civil service system as the no-change agents.
It lacks innovativeness, initiative, empathy, and drive for change. The
Government of India and its 25 provincial governments spend about 3.5% of

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the GDP on its civil servants. They employ about eight million in the civil
service, which is 50% of the employment provided in the organised sector.
The Fifth Pay Commission in its report submitted in January 1997 had
suggested a 30% downsizing of the civil service across the board. According
to the Ferrel Heady configuration, the Indian civil service system has a
majority-party responsiveness. The sense of mission held by it is a mixed bag
of compliance, cooperation, policy-responsiveness, constitutional responsiveness, and guidance. Though the configuration of Philip Morgan identifies the
Indian civil service system as the principal agent of the state, some of the
characteristics of the patrimonial state still pervade the country and to that
extent its civil service system.
Vishnugupta of the Mauryan period authored a treatise known as
Kautilyas Arthashastra around 313 BC wherein he laid down the
qualifications of the civil servants for appointment to the court. He opined
therein that loyalty and sincerity should be the main qualifications in a person
to be appointed as a civil servant and recommended a system of checks and
balances in the appointment of civil servants covering clearance by the
vigilance department, a continuous watch on their performances and quotidian
performance report to the king on each key civil servant. The
recommendations hold relevance even today after 23 centuries in a democratic
setup. The civil service contrived by Akbar, the Great had welfare and a
regulatory-orientation. The British model of the civil service in the earlier stage
were far away from the common people and never tried to mix with and
impress upon the people. They had least interest in the transformation of the
Indian society. The British government set up the Indian civil service in 1911
to strengthen the British administration and its colonial base in India. The
independence of the country posed new challenges to the civil servants.
Welfare of the people and the internal peace and security became the prime
tasks of the civil services.
The onset of economic planning in India in 1951 with the First Five-Year
Plan enjoined on the Indian civil services the role of development
administration covering the administration of public enterprises, regulation of
the private sector, formulation of socio-economic and political policies,
elimination of poverty, development of rural areas, combating inflation,
effective monetary management, reduction of gender gap, elimination of social
inequity inter alia. India encountered severe resource crunch in early 1980s
that further deepened by the end of the decade leading to a new economic
policy in 1991 that saw a rollback of the economic activities to liberalisation and
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privatisation at macro and micro levels in the changed global environment.

While civil servants acted as personal servants of rulers in ancient India, they
became state servants in the medieval age and acquired the complexion of
public servants in the British India. The ethos of the civil services changed to
development-orientation in 1950s and to a facilitators role in the 1990s to meet
the challenges of the democratic needs of the teeming millions. The point here
is that the civil services is and has to be a nebulous body sans its own agenda,
commitments and ideologies in a democracy and function subordinate to the
national needs and policy prioritized by the political leaders. Indian civil
services of the British vintage worked so and the civil services of the
democratic vintage nolens volens must follow tout de suite. That is the
democracy India consciously opted for and obliged to follow.
In his letter dated October 15, 1948 to the Constituent Assembly,
Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Prime Minister opined, an efficient, disciplined
and contented service assured of its prospects as a result of diligent and honest
work is a sine qua non of sound administration under a democratic regime even
more than under an authoritarian rule. The service must be above party and
we should ensure that political considerations either in its recruitment or in its
discipline and control are reduced to the minimum, if not eliminated altogether.
These are truly prophetic words relevant to the present India that penetrate the
conundrums of its civil service issues. The emphasis is on an efficient and
neutral civil service. However, the problem here is the undue extension of the
concept to conceive two power-centers between political policy-makers and
civil service executives. Justice M.P.Thakkar while hearing a Special Leave
Petition of a senior civil servant, Jagdish Chander Jetli in Supreme Court in
1988 observed inter alia, The appointment of the Secretary to Government of
India is not on the basis of a competitive examination where a candidate who
secures 99 per cent of marks has to be appointed. Even when a person appoints
a cook or a watchman, he looks for a person in whom he has faith. How can
Government of India appoint any person as Secretary in whom it has no faith?
and the SLP was dismissed by the Supreme Court. The two contrarious
observations sum up the ground realities and the predicament of the civil
services of India in a democratic milieu. It must maintain its integrity and
independence, and en attendant earn acceptability and faith of the political
leadership. This calls for a tact and skill kat exochem. A civil service sans that
cadeau crumbles to be the handmaid of the political leadership for survival and
sycophancy reaches new heights every passing day to the level of suspending

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an acolyte from service for spelling wrongly the name of the daughter of the
materfamilias of the party in power while sending an invitation.
Struggle between survival and dignity is as old as human history is. Going
for dignity and right values ignoring survival factors is not everybodys staple.
It takes tremendous inner strength and resolve. It is this rare calibre that is the
indigence of the extant civil services of India. It is this rara avis that must
constitute the pillars on which the plexus of the civil services must rest. These
powerful pillars perforce must be limited in number to avoid degradation by
mass mlange and absorption of anyone of some pull and money power and
safeguard standards in excelsis. Indeed the best does not come for peanuts.
Whatever goes for is far more worth of it. Secondly, a perficient, resourceful
and workaholic lean civil services replacing extant sedent and inefficient bulk
of workforce certainly provide a solution to the evils of the administrative
overhead apportioning the major part of the public expenditures of the
Government.
Efficient and small is always effective. Right selection and steadfast
upkeep of high standards are easier while size is small. A plexus of civil
services built on this bedrock can do wonders to the country. What India needs
now is a lean and mean civil services imbued with industry, talent, honesty and
commitment extraordinaire to its responsibilities. A beginning can be made in
creation of a new lean and mean superior service above the present Indian
Administrative Service with liberal perks and service benefits even after
retirement to attract the crme de la crme. A specially constituted board of
professionals and experts free from political obligations must handle selection
and the management of the new Service. Its selection and recruitment must
be a multi-polar strategy devised with a passion to enroll the best from
whatever source, field or age group sans extraneous obligations like
reservations in this nonesuch Service. The guiding principle here is maximum
yield out of maximal talent, integrity, commitment, industry, and responsibilities
en revanche of extraordinary benefits in service and outside. Such a top-brass
guiding administration by personal example at the helm provides a new job
culture down the stream and helps trimming the civil services as a body to be
a lean and mean force, again well compensated, running the administration of
the country, ipso facto drastically cutting down administrative and
establishment expenditures on account of the lean workforce while
tremendously increasing its efficiency and perficient output. A conventional
assessment is that an efficient and hardworking workforce of 10% of the
present size in India should conveniently be able to handle the affairs of the
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country better and more effectively at a farthing of the present administrative

overhead. This is what India needs now.
Insulation of the civil services from the temptations of money and power
is a major challenge. Making its members free from all major needs of life once
they joined the service would be the cheapest strategy open to achieve this
telos. The lean civil services instituted for the country should be made a highly
contented and respected entity while its job and responsibilities are made
equally challenging and trying. This is a give and take policy with provisions for
ruthless extraction of those who fail to stand up to the challenges in hand. A
major need of such a civil services is absolutely professional recruitment and
management of the services at all levels under the close purview of a
professional body responsible to the Chief Justice of the country. Even indirect
political pull even from the highest levels in recruitment or management
perforce pollutes the civil services tout a fait. A clear bifurcation of the
responsibilities of the political and administrative wings of the Government as
policy and decision makers and as advisors and executives is sine qua non for
the advent of such a refrain in running the Government. Any attempt at
overstepping the other should be viewed as a serious violation of the code of
Governmental procedures.
The suggestions made here are easier said than done. For one, it needs
amendments to the Constitution. For the other, politics being the art of possible,
the political leadership would never compromise with any effort to make away
flaccid civil services that has come to its prise from a hard struggle that is halfa-century long. Yet, this is the besoin India now cries avec acharnement for.

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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 seld 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 politicised 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.

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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 cognisance 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 officer 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 institutionalised 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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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 otherwhere. 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 a 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
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massive 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
Arthashaastra. 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 to is its suppression and creating an environment wherein it
becomes less lucrative and more dangerous than it is now. The deed warrants
mobilisation of the increasingly depleting forces of integrity and probity in high
places in Government and public life to fight the environment favourable to
corruption. It is easier said than done. The temptation of the easy money is too
pollent to breakthrough 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 anticorruption bodies really powerful bodies with extra-ordinary powers and
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unperstringed independence to tackle corruption cases of any kind and doing

away with 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 mobilise forces and fight the evils that one day
definitely destroy India.
If kingship is a single-point exploitation, democracy is a licence for
countless exploitations 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 indicium 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
falling out of the mainstream of the national life to join rebellious antiexploitation organisations like the Naxal Movement and sacrificing their
precious life to police bullets as occurred in Chikmagalur district of Karnataka
on 6th of February is unavoidable. India can be a true democracy only when
it succeeds in bringing corruption in its public life under control.

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RECENT TRENDS IN
ECONOMIC CRIMES
I begin this paper with the exordium of the article, Investigation of
Economic Crimes from my recent book on policing, Policing the Police
published in 2000 (NPA Library 001 Accession No. 65724 & 65725) wherein
discussing the impact of liberalisation on Indian economy and economic
crimes, I said, With the liberalisation, 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 that 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 organised 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 liberalised economy. The
people who were inured to protected economy and state control cannot easily
adapt to liberalised 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

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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 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 law-enforcing 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 accrescently
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
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PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 organised 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 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
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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
anadyomene in a different sancy 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 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 law-enforcing 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
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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 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 reemerges 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
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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.
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 nonperforming assets or bad loans that in most cases are advances paid to wellto-do favourites for consideration with the understanding that the clause of the
non-performing assets take care of that.
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An important aspect of the modern economic frauds is that the brain behind
the operation who normally are the people of procerity remains 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 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 higherups 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. Otherwhere, 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
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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 choresis 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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INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
Infrastructure is a network of facilitating structures for a process, be it
poverty eradication programmes, economic growth process or any other
programme of human endeavour. It is a labyrinth of relevant and useful
facilities created to enable human endeavour realize a process. Infrastructure
is process relevant. The infrastructure needed in a rural area is different from
that needed in an urban area. They are different things crying for different
means. A Government is meant to go for general infrastructures required for
all sectors and ensure on priority benefits for maximum numbers. After all,
salus populi suprema lex est.
INDUSTRIAL SECTOR IN DELICIIS
Democracy is feudal in reality involving stiff competitions between diverse
sectors and interest groups to gobble the res gestae available from the State.
Power begets power and money begets money. So, it is powerful sectors that
succeed and corner infrastructure development programmes of the State to
their advantage when the State sleeps and forgets its responsibilities. It is what
is happening in recent India about the powerful industrial sector in deliciis.
Slogan oriented Indian media and pneumatic Indian economists are devoted
tout a fait to its shallow cause. The devotion has gone to the extent of a few
publications recently warning some Indian cities to develop infrastructures to
the satisfaction of the IT and other industries, or else.
PRIORITIES IN INFRASTRUCTURE
Women in villages in India die during delivery for lack of motorable roads
to take them in time to taluq hospitals and women here walk miles for a pot of
water. This is the extent of the lack of infrastructure in India. Infrastructure
is essential. Basic needs and amenities of the plebeian should be its priority.
Next in order come the needs of decent living like good roads, bridges, effective
communication system, uninterrupted power supply, decent health and
education system and so on. Major projects like dams and irrigation systems,
mining and steel plants, railways and highways networks are also required to

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bring about the general economic growth of the country. Commune bonum is
its litmus test. The desirability of an infrastructure depends on who are its focus
and how desperately is it needed. A country has no right to waste its exiguous
fund on exclusive prodigal schemes to benefit a narrow sector like the industry
under the fig leaf of the economic growth. The perverted argument provided
in support of the industry is that Indian industrial products should be made
competitive in the world market and that economic growth itself functions as
an infrastructure for the well being of the common man and therefore all public
expenditures for the industry is justified as a vehicle of the economic growth.
The argument is perforce distal from the field reality in the ambience of the
homo homini lupus. Industry is commerce au fond. And therefore profit and
self-indulgence is its ultimate stimuli. State protection to an uncompetitive
industry at the cost of poor mans advantages is a misplaced priority. Any
benefit accrues to the public from this is minor and irrelevant to the quantum
of the public expenditure.
PAMPERING THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR
Often, exports and foreign exchanges, and employment opportunities are
advanced as reasons for pampering the industrial sector at the cost of the
common man. Foreign exchanges basically serve big industries for imports and
foreign tours and those who have excess money to indulge in. India can earn
more than adequate foreign exchanges to meet its essential needs including in
defence and science and research without pampering big industries and
without undercutting the minimum needs of the plebian. And creating
eurhythmic employment opportunities by flooding the industrial sector with
huge public funds and special and costly favours is a myth created by intelligent
industrialists, and naive economists and media lacking in depth and blinded by
serious myopia.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Economic growth is necessary. It is basically future looking. Making India
an economic super power in 25 years is a noble dream. But, people come first
and reality of today is more important than the dream of 25 years sinsyne.
Tomorrow can wait, but not today. Only those who suffer it can know the pain
of poverty and want. It is sheer sin to ignore their sufferings and divest funds
that rightfully belong to their welfare to the accounts of the well-to-do
industrialists behind the deceptive and elusive slogans of economic super
power and the future prosperity. No Singapore, South Korea or China of the
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21st century vintage can be built on the carcass of the suffering common man.
Ameliorate his life standards to a reasonable level and bring the economic
growth through him. That is true economic growth of a democratic milieu. That
should be the policy of a democratic State. Otherwise, it would not be different
from that of the egregious Khmer Rogue regime of Pol Pot in1970s in
Cambodia that tried to bring forcible Communist glory to that country over the
carcass of the Phnom Penh citizenry.
TASTE OF THE FREE SPOILS
The argument is not at all against industries, economic growth or even
infrastructures, but about emphasis and priority. All those are necessary for the
balanced growth and survival of the country. The issue here is undue zeal and
unintelligent championing of the cause of the rich industries at the cost of the
hoi polloi as India witnesses today.
Broad concrete roads, flyovers, uninterrupted power supply, efficient
energy network, and excellent communication systems are welcome as pro
bono publico initiatives. But, when they come as facilitators of rich industries,
parameters of the projects are adapted to the needs of the latter at prohibitive
costs to the public exchequer. The infrastructures, industries demand and got
include acres of prime lands in and around metropolitan cities at ludicrously low
throw away prices for non-operational and often ostentatious purposes, special
tax exemptions running for multiple crores of rupees, exclusive cyber or
electronic or similar industry oriented parks with ultra modern facilities,
concessional bank loans, specially constructed access roads to their
headquarters and so runs the endless list. Some state Chief Ministers easily
obliged them in oodles for their own personal, party and political reasons and
lost next elections. L appetit vient en mangeant. As the industries got the taste
of the free spoils from the Government, their greed grew and recently went to
the extent of threatening the Governments of shifting to other states if their
further demands were not met. Bonded media also added its mite to this silly
threat. So goes the game in this maledict India.
What India needs are a holistic approach to its infrastructure developments
rather than lopsided favours to the powerful and their cronies who cry wolf
under misleading claims and slogans. A nation belongs to all and must serve
the interests of all sections of the people including the rich and the poor, and
the industrialists and the farmers and protect who are weak and powerless. In
the circumstances of exiguous resources crunch, a fair policy of eurhythmic
division of what is available is called for. This cardinal need is algate forgotten
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in India, and Palman qui meruit ferat with the active support of influential
cronies in right placespoliticians, bureaucrats, economists and media here.
And the common man is a tragic loser in this triste game. The State policy
should be people oriented in a democracy and it must endeavour to enrich their
life. All growths including economic growth must emanate from this
foundation. Only such growths endure and make the country prosperous. No
foreign exchanges and exports, no palatial glass edifices of industrial houses,
no seven-figure salaries for a few, no wanton gambling in shares and stocks
inter se really make India an economic giant. Singapore, South Korea, Japan
and China from Asia and European countries and the USA built their economic
edifices on the bedrock of its peoples general prosperity and strengths. A few
Everests do not make India a highland. Going for flowers at the cost of roots
is a negative trend fuelled by shallow understanding of the issues.
Infrastructure being the soul of any development, right focus on its priorities
is what India needs now and sine qua non for its onward march.

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DEMOCRACY FOR WHOM?

Democracy in puris naturalibus is the rule of the powerful, by the powerful,
for the powerful. It is a concept popularised by the powerful of the West for
their own advantages all over the world though the concept as a a priori theory
as the rule by the people is based on sound principles and noble intentions. The
second chapter of the democracy namely liberalisation is another instance of
a noble concept based on the sound principle of free dynamics of human forces
going awry as a policy of the powerful, by the powerful, for the powerful.
Again, the powerful of the West are found pushing through the agenda of
popularising the concept a toute force as a state policy all over the world for
their own advantages. The result is that the world is increasingly becoming a
haven for the rich and powerful at the cost of the hoi polloi.
FAILED HOPE
India valiantly fought against foreign rule for more than a century with the
hope of bringing deliverance to the country and eutaxy for its people. The halfcentury of the democracy sinsyne proved the mendacity of the hope and
enthusiasm. The situation can be described in following two stanzas of the
poem, To A Conscript Of 1940" by Herbert Read:
We think we gave in vain. The world was not renewed.
There was hope in the homestead and anger in the streets
But the old world was restored and we returned
To the dreary field and workshop, and the immemorial feud
Of rich and poor. Our victory was our defeat.
Power was retained where power had been misused
And youth was left to sweep away
The ashes that the fire had strewn beneath our feet.

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EXPLOITERS
The only difference India saw in democracy is the shift in exploiters from
the foreign rulers to the rich and powerful among the natives. While the foreign
exploiters were circumspect and scrupulous in their exploitations for the fear
of the world opinion and their native moral scruples, the native exploiters threw
their conscia mens recti to the wind and turned ruthless in their greed and
heartless in their exploitations of the poor and unenlightened mass of the copatriots. They have neither the moral scruples nor the fear of the world opinion.
Nor the supremacy of the hoi polloi in a democracy fluster them. For, their
native intelligence is too pollent to be caught by such foolish concepts. They
learnt the tricks of the trade assez bien early. They know how their side of the
bread can be buttered and why there is nothing on the face of the Earth
including votes and status that they cant purchase with their money and
power. That was the doom of Indias democracy and its people.
BRITISH RULE
India under the British was not worse than the present India if not better.
Those who lived in both the ages speak una voce and hold testimonies for the
irrefutable fact as far as common man is concerned. Life was easy and quiet.
There was a feeling of security everywhere. The air was pregnant with a sense
of morality and respect for higher values. The public life was clean. There was
no violence around except for the oragious political struggle. There was no
tourbillion of corruption as it is now. Merit always counted. Not every thing was
venal as of now. Life always moved on expected lines and people could plan
their life and future.
AN EVIL PROP
The degringolade of India subsequent to its democracy is often blamed on
its population explosion in geometric progression and the accrescent
complexity of the life pattern of the present world. It is partially true. The
complete truth lies in the plurisie of the evils of the democracy that contributed
to the descent as an evil prop to the rich and powerful.
UNFAIR JUDGMENT
Elders who lived in both the era and independent and sagacious enough not
to be clouded by pseudo-idealism and concepts of foreign origin swear that the
British really ruled India well non obstante tremendous odds of the freedom
struggle and the alien nature of their rule. The progress India saw during the
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period was immense and the country could move pari passu with the world in
the matter of progress and modernity. India saw large-scale developments
during the period in all fields including social, cultural and administrative
spheres courtesy the initiatives and the active encouragement of the British
rulers. Disparaging the measures as moves of administrative convenience or
as moves to strengthen their prise over the country is a malengine tout court
on the plebeian and a mal-propaganda natural to our native evil ingine to cover
up our mal-administration in the democratic ambience. Administrative
convenience begetting precedence in the unending schedule of priorities is a
common administrative practice anywhere in the world. A major move like
introduction of the railways in India in the 19th century was misprised as a move
to help British entrepreneurs in India. Such an unfair reclame goes against the
spirit of a balanced view and betrays our flair for tilted judgements. The
priorities of the British administrators certainly were more objective and
accountable in administration en face what we encounter by our own rulers
now around: selfish to the core a fond.
DEMOCRATIC INDIA
India under democracy has become a playground of the rich and powerful
and a field of their unethical manoeuvres and consectaneous mega scams. Yet,
they are not satisfied with the opportunities a la main. They found their
opportunity in an extension of democracy namely liberalisation which is
vigorously marketed these days by the Western powers to meet their own
interests. Thus, the powers of the West and the powerful of the country are
now joining hands to further undermine the interests of the poor, weak and the
ordinary. It will lead to a situation where only strong become stronger and
perforce weak, weaker. Democracy is not just freedom. It is the rule of the
people comprising rich and poor, weak and strong, powerful and powerless,
competent and incompetent, able and unable, hopeful and hopeless and the
ordinary people. Democracy in its extant gestalt and liberalisation by its very
concept promote the interests of only the rich, strong, powerful, competent,
able and hopeful few. It is not democracy at all in true sense of the noble
concept.
DEMOCRATIC RULERS
India of the democratic vintage has its rich and powerful either indulging in
criminal acts or being in nexus with criminals to further promote their personal
agenda of becoming richer and more powerful. In the process, criminals are
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becoming real power-centres and criminality is gaining in respectability in the

country. This made life in the country unsafe and violence, a daily matter. Merit
lost its primus. Personal competence has become secondary or tertiary to
money and power in its ability to boost fortunes. Status and social position have
become the custodies of the rich and the powerful. Election as a democratic
apparatus being money-centric rendered money the centre for power. This
brought money and power closer. Big money being less than a dream sans
resorting to illegal activities in the circumstances of extant rules and laws
rendered criminality prolate and commonplace in India and an ineluctable
ladder to gain power and position in the democratic government. This led to a
strange situation of lawmakers leading the gang of law-breakers to ensure
power and position in the next election. Can these rulers who perforce break
their own laws provide honest governance to the country? How can the
country and its people depend on such democratic rulers for their security and
welfare? India is facing such a conundrum now.
FEUDAL NATURE
Democracy made India a feudal nation with innumerable political parties
swearing against each other for the sake of political power. It made the country
a divided house with each faction going for the blood of the others and turning
the country ensemble to a huge factious village. Hatred and opposition have
become the leitmotiv of the public life. Violence and intrigues have become the
accepted means of ascendancy. Democratic practices undermined the
foundation of peace, harmony and unity of the nation and weakened the fabric
of the moral values and ethical practices in the public life of the nation. The
crme de la crme of the country opted out of the endless strife for power and
position and politics became the dernier ressort of scoundrels in India as
popular saying goes. What can be the character and merits of the rule provided
by such people at the helm? It is where democracy brought India to.
REAL TRAGEDY
Democracy in India brought real changes to the rich, powerful and the
political class at the cost of its infima species. It removed all the hurdles from
their path to become richer, more powerful and establish political dynasties.
British were too moral conscious to allow such things to happen during their
rule. They maintained certain minimal values in public life that ensured some
degree of equal opportunity in all fields depending on merit. Democracy
removed the hurdle for the native rich and powerful and they found their
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deliverance in symbiosis and synergy. That is the tragedy of the democracy for
the weak and the ordinary of the country.
SPECIAL PREMIUM
The advent of democracy is marked by accrescent tax burden on the people
in the name of developmental and welfare activities. The wealth so extracted
was frittered away by inefficiency, corruption or sheer wastage. The benefits
meant for the people seldom reached them thanks to inefficiency, corruption
and the pestilent middlemen who act as the conduits of democracy. The toil of
the people was looted as taxes to provide for the security and luxuries of the
soi disant aristocracy of the democratic vtntage who assumed special premium
for their own lives.
UNEQUAL COMPETITION
More and more prop of liberalisation is provided to democracy these days
to make the latter further pro-rich and powerful. That provides the upper strata
of the society more elbow-space for manoeuvres and deceptions to put their
money and power to better use and renders the poor and weak hors concours.
Scams of the dimension of US-64 in the UTI are possible only in such an
ambience. Competition is the clavis of the concept of liberalisation.
Competition among the unequal in a nation where nearly half of the population
lives below the poverty line and less than 1% can be credited to be rich and
powerful is nothing more than a mockery of the principle of an equitable society
as well as of the vaulting intentions of democratic principles like the rule of the
common man and welfare of all.
DEMOCRATIC FOCUS
Liberalisation per se is not bad as is democracy. It is its concept of suum
cuique as opposed to the concept of social responsibility and the unjust
practices that poison the atmosphere. It is a matter of focus of the democratic
leadership at the helm of the governance. Liberalisation as a policy is discussed
in India for more than a decade now in the ambience of protecting the interests
of the lesser rich of the country from the competition of the more rich of the
world. The plebeian has no place in the scheme of things of a policy of that
dimension. This cant happen in a true rule of the people, by the people, for the
people where poor and weak constitute more than 95% of the people.

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A CONSCIOUS POLICY
An ideal rule in quiddity is a rule pro bono publico that protects the interests
of all sections of the people including rich, poor and weak. But the policy
initiatives for the purposes have to be pro rata to the numerical strengths of the
respective sections. It is not the case in Indias democratic environment. Here,
the rich and powerful rule the roost and the state policy au mieux is directed
to their protection as a conscious policy while the poor and powerless are left
to their own fate to meet both the ends. Because, it is the rich and powerful
who count in the democratic schemes of the country to keep power while the
hapless poor and the weak can wait endlessly in the state priorities. This is
Indian democracy.
HUMAN NATURE
The achilles heel lies in the human nature of seeking power, wealth and
opportunities and those who possess it. Present Indian rulers are not a rebours
to this nature nor those others manning the peripherals of a democratic
institution in India like the media and the intellectuals as opinion makers of the
country. They save some exceptions tend to be sensational-centric and prefer
to move with the lee tide in lieu of going to the stark truths. They are proved
more prone to be affected by concerted propaganda and twisted rationale than
the ordinary man. That is why an evil like unrestrained liberalisation is accepted
as a deliverance by them una voce; that is why political leaders in India are
glorified in magazines and newspapers as great heroes sans consideration to
their values, merit, performance and ethical standing in public life. It is their
power and status ex consequenti that count over the merits of great performers
who are relegated to the inconspicuous corners of the pages. The common
man himself gives precedence to power and mammon over merit at his own
cost. That is the prise of money and power on the human kind tout a fait.
ELEMENTARY NEEDS
Democracy, sine dubio, is an ideal concept. The concept presupposes
certain elementary needs essential for the success of the concept in practice.
Equality among the majority of the population leading to equal opportunities en
principe is centric to the concept. This is not the case in India. Ergo, the failure.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy is a bad form of government, but
it is the best among the available. Coming from a politician of the democratic
dispensation, the faire bonne mine should be taken with a pinch of salt. Is there
no deliverance to a poor nation like India and other nations of its ilk in Asia,
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Africa and South America apart from democracy that does not behove to the
diversities of their populations?
What is the besoin of these nations is a system of government wherein
around forty select people of sound attributes of heart and head as a team rule
the country a la present day cabinet and general assembly in one with another
team of around forty responsible people functioning as an accountability team
to keep pernoctation over the governance with the present institution of the
President mutatis mutandis responsible for both the teams. Both teams
function as permanent bodies with 25% of the teams retiring once in every
three years without an opportunity for reappointment and together on their own
wisdom decide the replacements ex quocunque capite for both the teams from
the people of proven abilities, integrity and character. The teams together
structure the new teams ex mero motu once every three years after each
replacement of the 25% of the teams. The clavis of the new gestalt is selection
of the right people of proven attributes of heart and head ex professo. The
teams together can remove a member of the either team ex concessis when
proved indign for the position and task. Indeed, the ebauche needs myriad
details of immense intricacies to be efficacious. The effort is worth a try in the
interests of a billion Indians.

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REVAMPING THE INVESTIGATION

MACHINERY
Indian Constitution makes Criminal Justice System a Rhadamanthine
steelframe 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 peopleoriented 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

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Schedule under Article 246, ipso facto rendering it within the constitutional
limits 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 postliminary 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
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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,
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 accrescently 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. Il faut
de l argent in politics. 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.

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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 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 symbolise effective
administration of justice more than courts and prosecution department together

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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.
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 organisational 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 enjoys or suffers 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 itself 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

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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 of the executive, spreads its
role above the scope of the judiciary. Ergo, the police is a government agency
that performs functions both within and above the scope of the executive and
judiciary as well as the legislature. The police is a 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 au reste. What is required is the
realisation 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 terrotory 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.

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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.
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
colour.
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
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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 and standout in foro conscientiae. A working
arrangement is to be devised by which the Authority becomes 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 as the infima species of the kind in the world 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
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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 emphasise that crime never pays and criminality never
succeeds. While investigation involves indagation of facts and adjudication
involves interpretation of laws, prosecution is involved in the hard creativity and
commitment of rendering the facts d accord with the right interpretation as
facilitator of the criminal justice system. In this sense, prosecution is the
syndesis of the process and needs really high-calibre 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
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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 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 in this deus avertat
country. 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

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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 presupposes 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

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the present Indian Police is that the investigation ingredient of the policing is
accrescently palliated by apparently more important policing pressures. The
prevarication is a major factor in the degringolade of the police and policing
standards in India postliminary to independence.
Indian police can cover the achilles heel by carrying out a separate
detective cadre upto 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 ncessiates perforce the creation of
investigation centres parallel to the police stations in the process of the division
of policing responsibilities at the grassroot 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 amblical 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
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requirement. The process helps the democratisation of the policing at the

grassroot 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 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
well-nigh impossibel to breach complacency. Ergo, if anything, it must be at
lower levels. And the grassroot 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 grassroot
level are dealt in brachys 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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THE CORE OF POLICE PROBLEMS

A Country begets the Police it deserves. The Police is 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 double-edged 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 lai, powerful and rich criminals, the lure of
money, the constraints of democracy, legal hurdles, fragile system, fractured
organisation, professional constraints, accrescently 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

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constitute execuses for inefficiency, nonperformance and failures. The

challenge is to accept the reality and show results. The burden is on those at
the top-wrung of the Police. It is their failures to adequately plan, organise,
execute and control that toppled the Indian Police of the democratic vintage
from its high pedastal. 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 unsavoury rat-race among officials to
reach the top-wrung, and consequent race to double-bend before the politcal
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 lai 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
is over-indulged 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 nonoperational 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 clamour 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 hi-tech 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 man-power 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 remould the system and the organisation. It must
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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 specialised job and no outsider can
have a keek to the intricacies of the Police and policing job.
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 turning
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 selfinterests. Power sans accountability rendered police in India an evil per se.
The evils of policing need not always be 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 who 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
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popular among the seniors and prevent him from reaching higher levels. A twopronged 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. Once the job
is accomplished, his lost seniority was to be restored a few years before
retirement.
He was denied promotions with the connivance of the UPSC following the
meretricious career plan year after year till his junior colleagues became senior
to him by two ranks. 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 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 officer
condescends 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 of academic interests by the State Governor in 2000
was ensured stalled in the last minute.
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 characterises the
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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, specialisation 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. The Authority must be headed by a Supreme Court
Judge 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.

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VISION FOR POLICE 2010

AND POLICE 2020
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 couloir. 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 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.

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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.
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.
6TECHNOLOGY & 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 VALUESActivation 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.

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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 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 globalised with its own
advantages and disadvantages. The shift certainly renders policing a trans95

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border phenomenon touching humanity tout ensemble. With crimes and

criminality essorant and accrescently transcending national borders, policing
no more will remain an intra-border 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
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
globalisation. 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 saviour 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.

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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 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 lend
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.
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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.
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.
India-Pakistan 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
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accrescently 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 strength
in 2020 from 58 millions in 2010 and 51 millions in 2006. This section of the
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 a 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.
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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 labourers, 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.
VISION FOR THE INDIAN POLICE 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 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
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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 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.

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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 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 is must for all those who have police interests in their hearts.
SPECCIALISATIONS
If policing is to be effective in the years ahead, specialisation is crucial. The
year 2020 must see three distinct police services with separate recruitment and
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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 organisational plan and the foresight to assess future demands,
haphazard growth has resulted. Organisational 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. By
2020, police administration should be able to see the vestigial retrorsum from
the prolate conspurcation.
Rationalisation 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
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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 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 orgtanisation, manpower and equipments and the force becoming a highly
organised and efficient limb of the state apparatus.

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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 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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MANPOWER AND LOGISTICS
REQUIREMENTS AT POLICE STATION,
SUB-DIVISION AND DISTRICT LEVELS
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

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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 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
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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.
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 centres 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.

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NIDUS OF POLICE FUNCTIONS

Pollent Police Stations as the centers of police functions justifies fewer
police stations around and irrationalise 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
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
self-dependent 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.

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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 moulded 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 radicis of all the maelstrom in man
management 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 overworked 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
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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
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 MANPOWER
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 goes 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.
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None realises 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 realises 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 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.
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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.
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 ne
obliviscaris this crucial need that considerably contributes to the success of
police operations.

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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.
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 ascensively 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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TRAINING STRATEGY TO AFFECT

BEHAVIOURAL AND ATTITUDINAL
CHANGE IN THE POLICE PERSONNEL
I begin the paper with the first paragraph of the article, NEED OF
ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN INDIAN POLICE from my book
POLICING THE POLICE, published in 2000. There I said, 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 moulding 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
moulding professional attitude as required by the ideals of the profession.
Wrong attitudes inveterate in extant practices and procedures of policing are
shaped by self-interests, misconceptions, ignorance and tendency to pursue
easy and shortcut methods: they are hard to be broken and survive under most

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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 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 selfinterests 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-arounds 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 cashin 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 moulding job
culture a la immanent attitude in the job. The result is a pollent hold of attitude

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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 civilised
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
realisation is rarely found in the present police. It operates laws for laws sake
by relegating organisational 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
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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 maximise professional goals. The shift must see
police taking risks in the interests of the profession and doing intelligent policing
rather than indulging in manoeuvres of personal security. The process
warrants massive exercise in attitudinal change.
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 relevances, 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 centres
and research projects on the issues of policing. These attempts provide both
inputs and insight to the behavioural 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.

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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, 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
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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 higherups are the substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate
disicipline 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. 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 impressioanble period of the formers
carrier-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.
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 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, otherwhere
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
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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-emphasised 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
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
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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 number 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 in policing. A wrong trainer at this stage, and a career
wanze. 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.
INSERVICE 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.

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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 the services of
both eligible police officers and nonpolice academics from the relevant fields.
Every higher police training institute of the country should have an exclusive
department for research and producing text books 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 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
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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 honours, 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 organisational 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 realisation that something
is wrong in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of the
construction. Once the realisation 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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HOME GUARDS TRAINING

I am asked to write this article on a specific subject, Home Guards Training.
Rather than resorting to repetitions of what is already known and codified in
Home Guards Manuals, I venture here to touch upon the place of a holistic
training programme in Home Guards setup.
The backdrop of the voluntary nature and uncertain tenure of service in the
Home Guards necessiates its training programmes to be capsuled in short-term
courses, ranging from five days to a month to avoid long absences of the
volunteers from their homes. The short-term nature of the training underlines
the need of repeated training courses in Home Guards as a device of a stratified
and stepped-up training plan. A holistic training scheme needs to be
programmed to these short-term courses. I do not go here to the brasstacks
of a training programme in Home Guards for obvious reasons, and restrict
myself to the scope of the training programmes to make it holistic and
complete.
The two facts of a holistic training programme are internal and external
orientations, which in final analysis, complement each other to creat a complete
training programme.
INTERNAL ORIENTATION
Internal Orientation is the most neglected facet of a training programme in
the present world. The basic configuration of internal orientation is founded on
right motivation, professional attitude and creation of a truly committed
persona. The voluntary nature of Home Guards services renders the internal
orientation more basic to Home Guards Training rather than the other way
round. The ephemeral nature and uncertain tenure of the Home Guards
service necessiate a strong foundation of the internal orientation to sustain
interest in the service. Its absence manifests in low turnout of volunteers when
called for service and poor performance. Unlike career services, there is no
adhesive of financial guarantee and perks, and job security in Home Guards
service to bind the volunteers irrevocably to the Home Guards Service. The
absence renders the need of internal orientation all the more important in Home

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Guards organisation. The need of internal!sat ion of Maslows need hierarchy

comes to play here as the internal orientation spurs the need of internal!sat ion.
Sans internal orientation. Home Guards service is hollow, and Home Guards
service sans internal orientation is directionless, Human nature being what it
is, the spark of voluntary service, once ignited, needs to be consistently stoked
and sustained to harness the maximum out of it. This need can be met only by
liberal dose of internal orientation in the training programme. Home Guards can
ignore the need only at its own peril. The fact is that extant Home Guards
training programmes nowhere in India have internal orientation incorporated
in its agenda. This shortfall has arrested the growth of Home Guards
movement in India.
EXTERNAL ORIENTATION
Present Home Guards braining basically is external orientation
programmes. External Orientation is constituted. of Knowledge Orientation
and skill orientation. Present training programmes identify knowledge
orientation with indoor classes and skill orientation with outdoor classes. Here
also training contents in both programmes in extant Home Guards training are
rather passe and do not meet the operational needs in the field. The need of
updating training contents is largely forgotten. I round off this discussion with
the observation that the knowledge orientation programmes in a purposeful
training plan should include topics like history of Home Guards, its
organizational structures, case studies of model operations, principles of time
and space management, basics of inter-person relationship and courteous
conduct in addition to what is already there. And skill orientation programme
in a utility based training plan should cover latest researches and tools of rescue
operations including medical aid, handling of computers and information
technology gadgets, driving, methods of identififation and defusing of
sophisticated bombs, basics of electric wirings in addition to present topics. The
skill oriented training programme must create real skills unlike being an eyewash as at present, as the skill is meant to save lives and bring order.Further,
the skill oriented training programme in Home Guards can be either physical
or strategic in nature. Physical skill needs are addressed by parade and
physical training. Strategic skills useful in Home Guards operations, are
addressed by outdoor demonstrations and rehearsals. The strategic skills can
be either managerial or operational in nature. The managerial skill is required
to address organisational matters including planning, communication

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transportation and control that are central to Home Guards operations whij^e
operational skill comes to force and useful during actual operations.
INTERLINKED
The two facets of Home Guards Training, namely internal and external
orientations are not distinct and independent entities, removed from each other.
They are interlinked and constitute a holistic training programme. An external
orientation like physical skill harnessed in the parade ground positively
contributes to reinforce the internal orientation of a professional attitude like
discipline. Acquiring stratigic skills contribute to strengthen right professional
attitude and motivation. Similarly, the knowledge of Home Guards history, its
objectives and case studies add to motivation towards Home Guards service.
Home Guards being an organisation of voluntary service, there is a need of
making its training programme a pleasure-event to attract more and more
volunteers to partake in the programme. It is training that differentiates a Home
Guard from who is not. Therefore, the success of Home Guard setup depends
on the success-story of its training programmes.

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RELIGION IN POLITICS
The introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest
politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true
religion. said Lord Quintin McGarel Hogg Hallsham. According to Benjamin
Disraeli there is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is
not capable; for in politics there is no honour; in politics nothing is contemptible.
It is in this context Mahatma Gandhi said that religion and politics are
inextricably blended and their separation tantamounts to the separation of
blood and body and called politics without religion a dirty game. For, he also said
in another occasion, Most religious men Ive met are politicians in disguise,
I however wear the guise of a politician but am at heart a religious man. He
clearly contrasts here two facets of the religion, religion as politics in disguise
per contra religion at heart in politics. His contempt for the former is obvious.
He sees the latter face of the religion having ethical and spiritual nuances a la
religion of Emperor Ashoka in the state affairs as inexorably blended to a
healthy politics.
POLES APART
According to Otto Von Bismarck, politics is the art of the possible. It
imprimis is opportunism and deception. It is hic et nunc and ergo ephemeral
unlike religion which seeks divinity and eternity through the principles of
Rhadamanthine sittlichkeit and truth. Politics is selfish au fond while religion
is love and sacrifice. Politics seeks power and excitement while religion seeks
peace and salvation. They are poles apart in their means and ends and
therefore can not bodily blend. However, they can certainly complement each
other as the two faces of basic human activities and enrich human life.
WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON
Jay Demerath, professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and Karen Straight, doing research there, in A Bridging of Faiths, coauthored by them in 1992 (Princeton University Press), opine that about 1979
things began to change and religion took on a new political importance. Since

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then, worldwide, the volatile-and often violent-combination of a religious state

with religious politics is on the rise. The period in India saw the rise of violent
Sikh nationalist sentiments and later Hindu fundamentalism.
Deception and destruction are the two trusted hands of the body of the
politics all along its long history. It was politics at its best at deception that
created Israel and politics at its horrid at destruction that is devastating en
revanche peace and security of the Middle East in the last six decades. Israel
like Pakistan came to existence from the emotional shemozzle of the religion.
RELIGION DIVIDES
The machtpolitik between the Western world represented by the USA and
Britain and the Muslim world epitomized by the Afghan war and the aggression
on Iraq in 2003 deep down symbolizes the clash of Christian and Islam
civilizations. Islam inherently is a fiery and aggressive religion with a political
agenda imbued in its soul. It is an abnormal conflict wherein the political leaders
of the West took on the extremist religious elements of the Islam. Iraq is only
an accidental mactation in the process. However, it is to the credit of the top
Christian religious leaders world over that they refused to involve themselves
in the political conflict and went to the extent of condemning the American
brutality and initiatives. It reflects their maturity and true religiosity.
Religion as politics is a world phenomenon these days. Buddhism is deeply
rooted in the politics of Sri Lanka. The demand for a homeland in Ireland was
based on the rift between Protestants and Catholics in the Christianity. Muslim
countries are deeply divided world over on lines of their Sunni and Shia
affiliations.
RELIGION IN INDIA
The love and hate relationship between religion and politics is not new to
India. Vedas and Puranas have references to the corso in oodles. The
mythological references to the conflict between Brahmanism and Kshatriyas
as symbolized by the annihilation of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama indubitably
throw light on the age long struggle for supremacy between religion
represented by the Brahmanism and politics represented by the Kshatriyas of
the ancient India. Ultimately, religion accepted its limitations in the temporal
world of power and deceptions and yielded the field to politics while retaining
its divine supremacy in human affairs and activities. The concept of Raja Guru
and Raja Rshis and the respect they commanded from the king and the royalty
spawned from this ausgleich.
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Both Gouthama Buddha and Mahavir are rare cases of political

personalities from the royal family finding their solace in religion daccord with
the spiritual disposition of India. Emperor Asoka was a rara avis of another kind
who brought the soul of religion to the governance. The concept of Rama Rajya
of Mahatma Gandhi is an extension of what Emperor Asoka brought to bear
on the administration.
RELIGION AS POLITICS IN INDIA
Religion as politics in India began to take shape in a big way during the
Muslim rule with Jazia and other religious taxes, forcible conversions and other
types of persecutions of non-Muslims under the state patronage. The Maratha
and Vijayanagar empires are considered as the Hindu reactions to the
persecutions. Muslim zealots like Aurangzeb made his rule a religious cause.
Portuguese in Goa followed the suit.
Serious political disturbances in Kashmir have religious emotions working
en arriere. So were whilom Punjab and the Operation Bluestar that led to the
killing of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. India has political parties wedded to the
cause of important religions of the country. There is nothing wrong in that and
the Indian Constitution no way bars them from politicking. What is
reprehensible is the misuse of religion and religious passions to political ends
and the misuse of politics and political deceptions for selfish and nonreligious
ends of the religion.
ANTI-RELIGIOUS POLITICKING
Protection of ones religion and culture is a sacred duty and a serious need
of the hour. But, God by whatever name belongs to all and His abode in
whatever form is sacred to all. Dividing people and bloodletting in the name of
religion is the worst form of anti-religious politicking. Ignoring the soul of a
religion to protect its criminal elements for political ends is tantamount to
violating and annihilating the religion. Pseudo-secularism is anther shape of the
misuse of religion in politics to gain power from the other extremity. Healthy
politics should keep both forms at arms-length. And religion should keep its
sanctity by keeping away from the unholy politics.
Swami Vivekananda considered religion as the core of politics. American
President, George Washington in his Farewell Address of September 17, 1796
said, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can
prevail in exclusion of religious principle. The religion and politics relationship
poses no threat to a countrys polity as long as politics does not use religion and
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vice versa. Unfortunately this is not the case anywhere. This wisdom
compelled the First Amendment of The Constitution of the United States of
America to lay down, Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Separating
religion from politics and state affairs is not tantamount to going anti-religious;
it only means preventing the use of religious passions to political ends and
preventing the use of political deceptions to misuse the institutions of the
religion. The moral and spiritual face of the religion has nothing to do with the
division. Indeed, ideally, as Mahatma Gandhi said, that face should be the blood
of the body of the politics; but religion not as politics in disguise, for it terminally
poisons both the body of the politics and the blood of the religion. Both do well
to limit to their own realms and contribute to each others enrichmentpolitics
wedded to the moral and spiritual views of the religion and religion wedded to
give emotional support to politics in its rightful process.

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CORE ISSUE AND THE CORE OF

INDIAS NATIONHOOD
The achilles heel of the present day politics is its unwillingness to
comprehend reality in full force and devise strategies ex consequenti. It may
often be an intentional demarche en face an impossible situation to defer
impending disasters or etourderie tout court in comprehending the intricacies
of the reality. In either case, the dimensions of an issue further entoil to an issue
of higher complexities. It is what happened about Kashmir in the last fifty-five
years and continues to happen now.
IRRELEVANT ISSUES
The reality is that neither the history nor the religion nor the constitutional
provisions nor the will of the majority constitute a right to a region to be a part
of this or that country in politics either now or at any time in the past in any part
of the world. Neither it can be now for obvious reasons. History is a matter of
flux en train. No point of time can be selected as a reference point in the
continuum of the sempiternal timeframe to decide the future of that
significance. Religion never gained currency anywhere in the world as a factor
of nationhood. It is more so in the present enlightened world where religion as
a factional entity is dmod in public life. Constitutional provisions are temporal
and subject to amendments. The will of the people of a region in the vast
tapestry of the nation is just irrelevant even in a democracy as far as deciding
the nationhood is concerned as otherwise every village in a country will turn
to an independent nation and sink the human race in a maelstrom of
disorganisation.
KASHMIR AND THE PAST
India as a nation is a new concept. The concept has no root in history.
Maurya, Gupta and Moghal emperors inter alios ruled vast parts of the present
India and regions outstretching up to Central Asia and present day Iran at
various times before the advent of the British. Kashmir was part of the empires

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and of smaller kingdoms under Punjab rulers at different times. Pakistan was
carved out of India as a political compulsion. The history does not support either
the claim of India or of Pakistan on Kashmir or the claim of some for the
independence of Kashmir.
RELIGION IS PASSE
India as a secular country is daccord with the zeitgeist of the present
enlightened world with the people of all religions in symbiosis here. Seeing any
issue through the glass of religion is tout au contraire to the very spirit India
stands for. Islam being the raison detre of Pakistan is its own albatross and
does not give it any special claim on regions anywhere in the world eo nomine.
Further, religion being a factor of politics goes e contrario to the extant
international spirit and rationale. It is so also about Kashmir.
NATIONHOOD
Nor Kashmir being incorporated in Indian constitution as a part of India
gives India any special claim on Kashmir for the simple reason that any
constitution is the product of the nationhood and not vice versa. India basing
its claims on Kashmir on its constitutional provisions is misleading. On the other
hand, if the will of the people of a region is given liberty in deciding the
nationality, neither India nor Pakistan nor any other country in the world survive
as a nation for long. Such a will has no sanctity in a nationhood. Ergo, it is neither
the cover of the constitutional provisions nor the ruse of the will of the people
that provide the justification for the claims on Kashmir with certitude.
NATIONAL INTERESTS
There are myriad talks about the Maharaja of Kashmir signing the
instrumentation of annexation with India with a provision for plebiscite while
invaded by the Pakistan army a la derobee as tribals in 1947 and India under
Jawaharlal Nehru referring Kashmir dispute to the UNO and the
consectaneous UNO resolution going against the interests of India. Real polity
has no place for idealism. Idealism goes idle en face national interests. The
instrumentation of annexation or plebiscite or UNO resolution has relevance
in real polity only until they serve national objectives. It is true of both India and
Pakistan. They truly are meant to serve only as tools to score points in official
talks en pure perte and as propaganda means. There is no way these factors
ectogenous to the national interests have any say in determining the future of
Kashmir.
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REALITY OF KASHMIR
It is an established fact that India was not really interested about Kashmir
in the initial stages. Recorded history shows how India a travers its iron man
and the then Union Home Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel offered to Pakistan
bartering Kashmir for Hyderabad. India thought that Kashmir was expendable
to its interests. India ignored Kashmir altogether until the Maharaja of Kashmir
signed the instrumentation of annexation with India and Kashmir became an
integral part of India. In real polity stripped of all clichs and polished phrases,
plebiscite or no plebiscite, the only reality in the process is that Kashmir had
become a part of India and the only factor acceptable to the real polity that can
reverse the process is use of force. Real polity nowhere in the world
understands any other language even in a civilised world. The process of
annexation alone made Indias claim on Kashmir absolute and res judicata. It
is a fait accompli in real polity until it is forced away from the Indian Union.
THE GLITCHES GALORE
The cause of the failure of India in Kashmir non obstante the annexation
lies in its glitches galore en suite in the last fifty five years en face the
commitment of Pakistan and its immaculate works to the cause beyond its
abilities and resources that brought it almost on par with India as far as Kashmir
and military might are concerned. Indias glitches galore begin with the greed
of its aging political leaders agreeing in hurry to divide the country on communal
basis lest they may lose the opportunity of ruling the country in their lifetime.
The ceasefire in Kashmir on the call of the UNO while the Indian army was
on a winning spree patently betrays the inexperience and lack of toughness in
our political leadership of the time and all of Indias troubles in Kashmir can
be traced to this single bevue. Indias response to Pakistans challenges in
Kashmir throughout sinsyne was casual and disorganised and diplomatic a
fond unlike Pakistans concerted efforts beyond its means covering all
strategic needs required to stand up to India about Kashmir. Even its Afghan
policy was Kashmir and India-centric. Its prime intelligence behemoth, the ISI
with its committed cadres, was created basically to counter India. Indias
response to the ISI in form of the RAW with much larger resources at disposal
is yet to stand up to its counterpart in Pakistan either in efficiency, commitment
or sheer performance. Kargil intrusion of 1999 is a clear indicator of the
strengths and efficiency of the ISI. The extent of the penetration of the ISI in
India is yet to be matched by the RAW in Pakistan. The single target of the
Pakistan military build-up including nuclear arsenal and missile technology is
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India. The commitment and spirit of the Pakistan army against India is in no
way amated by the fighting spirit of the Indian army. This is how Pakistan
prepared itself against India in the last fifty-five years for the cause of
Kashmir. It left nothing to chance and succeeded in breeding and feeding antiIndia campaign in the valley of Kashmir. The repeated military takeovers in
Pakistan represent the passion of the Pakistan army to stall any compromise
by its political leadership with India on the Kashmir issue. It is how Pakistan
prepared itself for the cause of Kashmir.
CORE OF NATIONHOOD
Pakistan believes that the agenda of the birth of its nationhood is incomplete
without Kashmir. Its military forces are fully en arriere of the cause. Unless
Pakistans military might is brought to the knees a toute force, its Kashmir
adventures are unlikely to abate. Pakistan by no stretch of imagination will
settle for anything less than Kashmir tout a fait at its control as it has become
a matter of national pride to the country en face Indias superior prowess. India
in its part condescend to anything less than as of now only at its own peril as
yielding to Pakistan in anyway about Kashmir now is nothing short of surrender
in real polity. It will be nothing short of the surrender of Pakistan in Bangladesh
war. In this sense, Kashmir has become the core of Indias nationhood while
it certainly is a core issue to Pakistan.
CAUGHT IN A LOGJAM
With the ultimate positions of both India and Pakistan being defined with
perspicacity and certitude, what latitude can there be for any rapprochement
between the two warring neighbours? All the talks of settlements and summits
are mere diplomatic platitudes meant to satisfy the inner and outer
constituencies of the respective countries. Both the countries know fully well
that nothing other than the present situation is possible except for minor
adjustments along the line of control as in Siachin glacier and such strategic
points. In the circumstances, Pakistan is trying its luck by appealing to the
religious sentiments of the Kashmiris to lure them away from India in one hand
and resorting to terrorism in Kashmir by supporting jehadi groups on the other
hand in the hope that one day Kashmir perchance may fall on its lap. It perforce
will continue with the strategy unless it is mortally brought to its knees and good
senses.
The only solution to a problem of the nature of Kashmirs in real polity is
the use of force. Pakistan knows it. India knows it. Pakistan also knows that
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it can never subdue India militarily. India knows that a nuclear Pakistan is a
dangerous adversary and it is now too late to bring the country to its knees.
India has to choose between tolerating its mischief in Kashmir and inducing
mortal fear of India pro rata to its size and resources a tout prix. There is no
third option open. This is the hard truth. India cant afford the luxury of the
wishful thinking that it can fool Pakistan from its stance and bring it around to
the fact that Kashmir from the day of its annexation to India is the core of its
nationhood or economic and other compulsions ab intra or foreign pressures
force Pakistan to shy away from its commitment to the Kashmir issue. No talks
and summits can really make any difference to the issue in the circumstances.
It is true until Pakistan learns by hard way to recognise the reality that Kashmir
is an Indian territory and it can do nothing about it until the unlikely event of it
outgrowing India in military might and physically snatching Kashmir out of
India. The army and fundamentalists are too pollent a force in Pakistan to let
sensible voices surface. This is the single most damaging factor in the life of
Pakistan.

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IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
Excellence stands for quality in excelsis unlike the quantity of the
commercial and the material morass though excellence in no way represents
the antithesis of the mass commercial ventures. It basically is an attitude
reinforced with focused and dedicated strivings for perfection. It is the
katabasis of this attitude and passion in everyday life en face the race with time
in the milieu of manipulative competitions of commercial edge that makes life
less dignified in the world we live in. Excellence gives value to life.
Excellence is a measure of the height scaled in achievement. Only the bests
can reach that height. Excellence signifies a superior human worth. Its
disappearance suggests mediocrity encompassing all walks of life and
complacency engrossing it.
WHAT IS EXCELLENCE?
According to Booker T. Washington, Excellence is to do a common thing
in an uncommon way. Perry Paxton says, Existence is in the details. Give
attention to the details and excellence will come. But, the credit of the most
promising peroration on the nature of excellence must go to Sun-Tzu (Wu), a
Chinese military strategist (535 BC-228 BC) when he figuratively declares in
his celebrated book, der Unsterbliche, The Art of War, supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemys resistance without fighting. Excellence is an
edge over and something extra in value addition. It is the positive outcome of
persistent and relentless focus of talent over time to rise above the mediocrity
and make a rare break in standards. It is not easy to come. Focused talent,
persistent hard work, infrangible spirit, endless patience and consistent passion
for excellence as the inviolable hallmarks constitute the bedrock of the process
of excellence. Excellence is an outcome of superior spirit.
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Superior spirits
autograph their works with excellence. It takes a long time to bring excellence
to maturity. Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
Vera incessu patuit dea. Excellence is the outer dazzle of the inner lumiere. It
needs to be cultivated; it needs to be imbued and perfected by endless

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endeavour. It is not for feeble minded and broken spirits. Excellence comes
only out of excellence.
MOTHER OF ALL BREAKTHROUGHS
Excellence is the mother of all breakthroughs. It is the tool that takes life
to its limits to open up a new vista of possibilities and constitutes the building
blocks of the history of the human evolution, it be in science, technology,
research, politics, governance, professions, arts, trade, commerce, industry,
war strategies or big or small performances of individuals or groups or nations.
It is the abracadabra of the forward thrust of the human evolution. The present
technological advancements of the West, the past philosophical supremacy of
the East and India, the present competitive edge of Japan, South Korea and
China in industrial output and Singapore in public administration in the East,
stunning achievements of the USA in the field of space research, the superb
works of the Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the field of
education and research, the watch industry of Switzerland, each is nonasuch
paragon of supreme excellence in human endeavour and accomplishment.
India too had and has its share of excellence. Its Vedas and Sanskrit
language, its Buddhism as a religion, its Nalanda University as a centre of
learning, its progress in astronomy, mathematics and other fields of science are
classical examples of supreme excellence of the ancien regime. It can boast
attempts at excellence in certain fields even in this dark age of moral
degradation and pure commercialization of the human spirit; Indian Institutes
of Technology, a few institutions like the Missionaries of Charity, a handful of
national and regional newspapers and journals inter alia showed commendable
commitment towards excellence contranatant to the reigning zeitgeist namely
commercialism and sensational moorings and withstood its temptations.
PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE
Excellence is not easy to come. It is limited by umpteen obstacles immanent
to human nature like greed, complacency, and commercial tendencies,
manipulative competition, corrupt practices, parochial indulgences, lure of
quick returns and primarily, the chaltha hai mindset that distract focus away
from excellence. Lack of passion for excellence is the underlying cause. Also,
the ambience of poverty and survival instinct, the pulls and pressures of the
democratic politics and the race with time of the extant commercial world add
to the problem. After all, necessitas non habet legem. Survival is the foremost
instinct. It is true for all, it be artists, politicians, professionals, industrialists or
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a plebeian. In a commercial world where time is money, the brooding leisure

needed for the pursuit and appreciation of excellence and perfection is hard to
come and perforce seen in a milieu lacking in passion for excellence as a waste
of precious time and opportunity. It is true of India and most of the developing
countries of the world.
Indeed, wider competitions ensued from the liberalisation and globalization
do render excellence sine qua non for survival in the open market. The need
of competing in the ambience of the welt geist of excellence is bound to have
salubrious impact on the passion for excellence in the Indian mindset. It is a
saving grace of the globalization in disguise.
THREE DIMENSIONAL
Excellence is three-dimensional; while ultimate performance is its exoteric
face, it is the value system and the thoughts and the planning that go for the
chevisance that really lay the foundation for the excellence. A performance,
however brilliant be, does not constitute excellence per se. Right sittlichkeit
holds its own place in the scheme. Coming to the national scene, committed
economic reforms covering liberalisation, privatization and globalization for the
economic growth of the country are great. But, the efforts with all its
intellectual content en arriere can never apportion the title of excellence until
the measure takes the hardships of the hoi polloi in the process and the needs
of the time in to account and decide. After all, it is salus populi suprema lex est.
It is so also with the Hindutva and the need of protecting the religion and its
culture from the onslaught of the time. Any thoughtless measure at the cost of
the humanity at large and the rightful processes of other institutions is bound
to be counterproductive. Such things have nothing to do with excellence. In
history, brilliant military strategy and organizational skills and superb leadership
qualities of Adolph Hitler only led him to doom because his historic
accomplishments for Germany had perverted values of revenge, aggression
and spine-chilling holocaust as its bedrock and he lost a rare historical
opportunity of bringing about unparalleled organizational and leadership
excellence into being, because of his tragically negative objects and emotions.
So also the extant USA by its aggression on Iraq. India relegated excellence
to oblivion under its self-rule. Even constitutional bodies created to promote
excellence in government services have become rule and procedure enforcing
bodies in native hands rather than going proactive to promote excellence. It is
a triste affaire.

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The noblest search is the search for excellence. Laborare est orare
wherever there is search for excellence. Charles C.Krulack says, Excellence
just doesnt happen; it must be forged, tested and usedit must be woven in
to the very fabric of our soul until it becomes our nature. Excellence is the
gradual result of always striving to do better. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
preconises, Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labour
of a life time; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price. Excellence is in brass
tacks; excellence is in wholeness; excellence is there in the interdependence
between the brass tacks and the wholeness. Excellence is in cause and
excellence is in accomplishment; excellence is there in the values those inspire
the acts. Excellence is a life long mission of a committed soul and an attainment
of a steadfast spirit. Perhaps keeping this truth in mind, John W. Gardner
(1912-2002), a US official and a writer proclaimed in his work on Excellence,
Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence
thrust upon them. Such a rara avis is excellence to pursue and achieve.

140

INDIAN POLICE AT A CROSSROADS:

WHICH WAY TO TAKE?
Policing, being a specialised 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 has got what it deserves-a 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 realised that self-rule does not mean fraud and
tyranny and that the cabals of compatriots are no less pernicious than that of
the aliens. Forty eight years is a long enough period to realise 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

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to search, 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 jobculture 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. This, unfortunately, is accepted by all strata
of people. The Indian police never recognises 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
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passionate genre deserve the passionate approach. Others must remain

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 is 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 are 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 fo 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

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with the pride of belonging creates a happy atmosphere in the organisation and
improves efficiency and output.
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, all its 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
endeavour 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 recognised. 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 inspires 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 fear
is a necessary constituent in policing is not based on the right understanding of
human psychology. The police does 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 is not the enemy of the people,
especially in democracy. Policing involves enforcement of order for the good
of many which 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 does now will help to create this image. It is time serious
efforts were made in this direction.
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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 the police atmosphere, set wrong precedents, encouraged selfindulgence 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 watch dog. 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 recognised. 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?

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INDIAN POLICE: TIME TO TAKE

TOUGH DECISIONS
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 fragile is its policing.
The fact that the police systems in a few neighbouring 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 which
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 is 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 has become soft humble and easy
going. Pressure from all directions has deprived it of its vitality. The police has
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 police men.
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 realise 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 which 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
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individual, a family, a party or an ideology amounts to violation of professional

ethics. The police, in a democracy is 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 inveterated.
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 calibre. 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 court above men of probity is a
dangerous situations. 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
work-relationship 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

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uphold the rule of law and justice in line with its professional ethics in such a
situation?
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 endeavour 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 organisational 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 judgement 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 foce
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, independent and ask questions.
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A subtle hatred for superior qualities of the subordinates in 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 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 finds 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.
It is indeed a crucial juncture for the Indian police.

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NEED TO LIBERATE LAW ENFORCERS

FROM 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 the act was committed by his illegitimate son 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

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and the case was pursued with an ex-convict being picked up and shown as
the accused. Arrest, recovery and chargesheet 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 neighbouring 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 Sub-Inspectors 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

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are common these days. The trend is adversely affecting the organisation by
weakening its cause for fairness, law and justice.
How subordinates are brought around is another story. A young sub
divisional 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 patronised by prominent people of the town.
The officer rounded up more than 50 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 gambling den was patronised by the Superintendent of
Police of the district and the Deputy Inspector General of the range 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 antagonised 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 who 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 to face trial for defrauding the public and a
spastic society in whose name he sold(charity) entertainment tickets. It is a
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different story that the officer managed to silence the social worker who
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. These problems can be overcome only by efficient
police leadership at all levels and only if a semblance of objectivity
reasonableness and good judgement 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,
rationalising 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 characterises 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,
specialisation 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
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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 th President of India at
the national level with the regional Police Boards in States as independent
bodies should be created. The Authority must be headed by a Supreme Court
judge 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 THE

RECONSTRUCTION OF INDIA
The police is 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 is 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 watchdog 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 bickerings. Often, these
aspects of the police are happily forgotten in India.

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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 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 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
organisational 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 recognised 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
deeprooted 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
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into oblivion. Personal interests have gained precedence over organisational

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 organisations credibility.
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 modernisation 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 police causing decline in its organisational
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.

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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 as the expense of the public. The
trend of the police being committed to political leadership has continued.
It is an irony that the political leadership which is supposed to take the lead
in the reconstruction of India is colluding with the police, which is 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
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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 oneman committee for him, supposedly to examine and advice on the
reorganisation of the police setup fo the State, but actually to provide him
creature comforts at Governmetn expense.
A case of cheating, forgery, falsification of records and misappropriation
of over Rs.35 lakhs 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 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 Haryna, 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 criminalisation of politics are found to have their effects.

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POLICE UNPROFESSIONAL
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 16 years ago in Chitradurga district of
Karnataka will illustrate the kind of professional commitment Indian police
pursue. A gambling den was raided by the police and the owner spoke lowly
of the DIGP whom he said was taking mamools from him every month. The
matter was reported by a local newspaper. 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 news paper 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-

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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 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 organisational 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
organisational matters. Under the cover of discipline and the need of tacit
obedience, the game of favouritism is wilfully played on the one hand and any
resistance is ruthlessly crushed on the other. Organisational 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 higherups 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 higherups and the
state Home Secretary for the removal of a functionary of the college from his
important postion. 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) made sure that the commandant of the college faced the
consequences for recommending action on their favourite official. His vehicle
was withdrawn, telephones were disconnected, his personal staff was
harassed and his subordinates were encouraged to disobey. This continued
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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.
Professional pride is the panacea for the malady of self-interest in
professionals. Greating 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
both are important to create a conducive environment 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
organised 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.

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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 calibre and quality who 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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Those who are empowered to assess subordinates and their work must be
made answerable to prevent misuse of this responsibility. The creation of a
high-power 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-calibre workers on the hierarchical ladder. This
can be rectified by arranging motivation courses for police officers who must
be taught about the work they are required to perform, its importance and how
to discharge their duties. Policemen generally distance themselves from all
mental activities. Training must endeavour 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.
The organisation has become top-heavy. In States where there were only
two officers of the rank of Inspector General for say 40,000 men and officers
about ten years ago, there are now nearly 20 officers of and above that rank
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for say, a force of 50,000. What are these people at the top policing apart from
being a drain on the state revenue and a nuisance to officers down the ladder
by issuing conflicting instructions?
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 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 a 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 the 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
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command. This is one of the main factors for the slow degeneration of the
police.
The police is 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 modernisation projects have resulted in its losing the
race with organised crime and syndicates. Modern equipment are bought, but
the 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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NEED OF COMPETENT
BRASS IN POLICE
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 bedevilling 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 involutes 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 life-lines 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 endeavour to provide a fresh lease of life for effective policing.
How deeply the police is self-centred 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 increscently 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

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thousand men and officers about 20 years back, there are now nearly 30
officers of and above the rank of Inspector General of Police, for say 80,000
men and officers; thereby the last 20 years account for 100% expansion in the
lower levels against 1500% 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 realises
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 de jure 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 upto 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 is 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 who can be
menoeuvred to required moulds through the juste milieu of pelf and position are
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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 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, 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 which 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

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bias may bring revolutionary changes by committing the police to its workethics 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 sidelined in his career as an inefficient person and degenerate
habitual drunkard was given a fresh leash of lefe in career a Iimproviste 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 an 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 organisational character of the police

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setup. The symptoms are deeper at higher ranks and reach their saturation at
the rank of the chiefs where political selections are crucial in appointments to
the levels. Except in rarest of the rare cases, every police officer ascensively
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 who are generally meek and very popular with
politicians of any colour and succeed in getting favourable postings which ever
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 mark 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
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values and ethics. His apostasy astounded the police officers attending the
conference who trusted him to up hold the values of his profession till the end.
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, who can be win 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
organisational 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
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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 ascensively brought under the direct
control of the chief executive of the government from its traditional field of the
Home Department and as a consectary, intelligence chiefs are accrescently
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, lllegalities 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 lead 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 intelligent officer and camped in Delhi for several
days to help his political masters manoeuvre for the Prime Ministership during
the turbulent weeks of unstability 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
pillers of the state police setup namely the state intelligence chief and the Police
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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 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
The situation can be salvaged by clearing the cobwebs from the entrails of
the Indian police. 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 post-democratic 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 side-lined 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.

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WHERE THEIR LOYALTIES LIE

The primary duty of the police is to maintain order which would include
enforcing the law and the prevention and detection ofcrime. The police ought
to be concerned about the interests ofthe 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 profesionalism 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.
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

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of the police. This may not take long to happen if the present goings on are 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-pedlars 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. Their relevance to the country is more abiding than that of the
politicians 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 organisational
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objectives and they ought to work towards meeting their objectives. But
misplaced loyalties 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 potentiallity 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 lies and who twist policemen around their little
fingers.
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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 syndetic 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

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nature being as it is, the emerging atmosphere of commercialisation and

material comforts vis a vis accrescent concours for limited resources of the
Earth, makes man increasingly self-centered 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 bickerings 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. Liberalisation 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 comes to the picture to control the situation
and save the democracy from its own vices.
The police in a democracy is 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-centred people of the present
commercial world, a machinery to show people their limits and punish devious
elements in sine qua non. The police forms 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 be 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 20th and 21st centuries unified world, like all other social and
administrative apparatus, Indian police too have most of its external patterns
modelled 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 modelled
Indian police on the patterns of their own police back in England. In postindependent 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
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appearances from the field realities, the ideas and models are algate modelled
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 otherwhere 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
moulded 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 organised 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 a 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
servilitude 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 indicia of threat to the
perceived security? Any brilliance of new concepts or interpretations about the
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functioning of the police? Lo, most heads come together and join hands in
scrupleless cabals to undermine the source of brilliance. The reason is selfinterests. 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 organisational
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 neutralised.
Though courts of law can theoretically protect against such harassments,
expenses, time and uncertainties involved and the history of court judgements
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 and poet of outstanding calibre
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 four-square 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. His
creditable works as a poet and reputation as a no-nonsense intellectual sperred
their manoeuvrability to achieve this end. They did what they could.
Unfounded abuses and lies were heaped upon him and recorded in his annual
confidential reports year after year. His appeals against the reports were
prevented from reaching government. He was year after year denied decent
postings. Mendacity was spread in words of mouth that he could not manage
responsible posts while actually he was never given a change and tested in
holding such a position. To top it all, he was consistently denied promotion from
1990 for the next ten years and scores of his mediocre juniors were brought
over him in the career ladder sinsyne. To add salt to the injury, his colleague
thus given promotion in 1990 was brought over him as his senior in 1995 just
to humiliate the upright officer. The officer withstood all these insults in good
stead because of his natural superior qualities, proven reputation and the
strength of personality. He refused the advice of sympathetic superiors to
approach the court of law against the repression as there was no guarantee of
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redressal from the courts even after a time-consuming legal battle. On the
other hand, the accurst police officer addressed the Chief Secretary of the
state government in 1995 and explained the situation with a request to institute
an enquiry against him which if found him culpable of committing any major
or minor wrong at any time in his career or life or if anywhere found inefficient
in discharging his official duties, he could be removed from police service. Even
this extreme step failed to draw any response from the government. 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 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.
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-calibre workers on the hierarchical ladder.
A yardstick to measure an orgnaistion 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
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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 is 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 not only the
arms, legs, eyes, ears and noses of the administration, but the very tool of the
countrys well being and survival. The police is 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 itself available
for use and rather preposterous to expect rulers to shut their eyes while the
police willingly offers 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 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 seperately 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
subserve 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
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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 weakend 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 afer, 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 recognised 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 impacable. 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 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 Commissioners was seen meekly begging the
politician to pardon him. The incident made headlines in newspapers. The
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 do have an adequately large and sturdy framework for the
police apparatus in terms of organisational 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 organisational strength
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and liberal budgetary provisions available for the police setup is clear caract
of the willing political patronage to the apparatus; it sine dubio proves that the
rulers recognised 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 focussed 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.

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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
witness 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

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hopeless when the whole setup is run by similarly profligate surgeons and the
precept that birds of the same feather flock together operates to hold them in
syndesis 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, enrivon 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 centrestage 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
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concept in the police. The result sees motivation becoming a casualty in the
bedlamish system.
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 is 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
englightened 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 self-respect 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
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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 at the helm of the was just a front to
save the skin of the people at the helm of the organisation. Advice from wellmeaning 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 recognise 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
recognised as social surgeons. It is position in which they are held while
recognised 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 is 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 weild. In some
parts of the country, even the rear is glidder after the pelbeian 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 calibre, 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
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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 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.

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LAW AND JUSTICE

Justice begotten at a cost is justice lost. The fact is lost sight of by present
administration of justice. Justice necessitates an integral vision. It cannot be
isolated from its environment, past, present, future, diverse issues, people
involved and related events. It means delving into the heart of an issue and
delivering justice taking into account 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 under scrutiny in the context of
their part in the investigation of crimes and maintenance of law and order.
The police play umpteen roles as executors at the grassroots level. 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 policemen is akin to waiting for rain
drops to fall from bright white clouds. The policemen perform their duties with
normal flair and loyalty while put in service of justice. Only they lean towards
the rich and the powerful.
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.
Individual loyalty in the service of the administration of justice is self-defeating.
The achilles heel lies in loyalty, basically faith, a blind faith, sans stirrings in the
conscience. The only loyalty desirable for those in the service of the
administration of justice in addition to the loyalty to the cause of justice and
other virtues is loyalty to conscience, freedom of thought and independent
judgement. A policeman with his loyalty can do an exemplary job in the
administration of justice.
The police, as the cutting-edge of governance, enjoys enormous powers.
They can prevent, check, prohibit, restrain, regulate, confine or arrest erring
people. They can forcibly break-open, enter, search and seize when the need
arises. They may use weapons to hurt and kill. These extraordinary powers are

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tools of the police in serving the interests of justice. The police, as the means
of justice, is exempted from the process of justice by the law itself. The
relevance of the police in the administration of justice is two-fold: one, fair
exercise of their powers to ensure that no harm is done to the process of justice.
There is virtually no way to force them to comply with the needs of objectivity
and fairplay in work save their own interpretations of laws and actions.
Interference of the court often is to little, too late to be meaningful. The lack
of a sound mechanism of supervision and the poor position of the policeman
in society, mediocre education and a deviant job culture inhibit the police from
performing at levels commensurate with their responsibilities. They have no
organisational pride. Field orientations distract them from high human values.
A weak economic position and opportunities to make easy money render them
prone to corrupt practices. There is nothing tangible in their service to inspire
a commitment to the noble cause.
Shallow policing is responsible for all the mishaps and turbulence of the first
half century of independent India. Another factor is the exercise of their
special powers without going against justice. The police is a fence which, with
its extra-ordinary powers, however, can ruin the crop it is asked to protect. The
enormous powers confer special responsibilities on it to protect innocent
people from a rash exercise of powers.
Every person thinks he is right and every criminal is just in his own
assessment. Every act of a human being has its own logic, reasons and
justifications. This is true of the police too. Every encounter, every lockup
death, every third-degree method, every wrongful confinement, every illegal
arrest and every excess committed by the police has its own justification. It is
irrelevant how the justifications appear to outsiders. You seldom find a
policeman confessing to a wrong or an excess committed. Commissioners
have explained away the gunning down of innocent citizens by subordinates in
broad daylight as a case of mistaken identity. We have any number of cases
of senior police officers colluding with subordinates in destroying evidence of
lock-up death cases.
The cause of failure of the police lies more in the systems failure, the
character of its main players, deviant job culture and wrong leadership than in
the concept of policing. Police in an inappropriate milieu may turn into a
monster.
These days the executive heads of government opt for their own men in the
police force to head premier investigation agencies; political rivals are
investigated and charge-sheeted on flimsy grounds while cases of national
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significance drag on. The police is reduced to the state of a tool of political
revenge in this power game. In the process, the police loses its credibility as
a nonpartisan player and an infallible tool of establishing justice.
Making justice a costly affair gives another dimension to the issue.
Effectiveness of the police lies in its ability to make justice an easily and cheaply
dispensable commodity. The police is the first line of defence. Courts come on
the scene only in a far later stage. Most cases of dispute never go beyond the
police stations. Good police certainly symbolises effective administration of
justice more than courts and prosecution department together do.

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POLICE MORALE ERODED BY

POOR ADMINISTRATION
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 realise 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 suffer 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 now 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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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 gangwar 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 who 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 atleast
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 who 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, codes of conduct, moral values, natural courtesies and human
diginity.
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 his 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
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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 material. This infuriated the police chief so
much so that the Deputy Commissioner was not selected for the vital All-India
Service, not only that hear, but also in the next ten years while his juniors
superseded him. 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 report 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 specialised 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
organisational 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 nil.
Threats and suppression form the essence of manpower management .
Waste of human resources and mandays 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.
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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 specialised field to be
handled 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 to fulfil 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 specialised 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 organisational policy imbued with
specialised skills and insight of the highest order to inspire, motivate and get the
most out of the manpower at disposal. The 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.

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THE INDIAN POLICE:

MALADIES AND REMEDIES
Crime, politics and the police are the 3 sides of the vicious triangle within
which democratic India and its free people are inexorably caught today.
Though wealthy industrial and commercial houses form the 4th dimension of
this unfortunate situation, their manipulative strategies are as yet limited to
trying to influence politicians in pursuit of their interests.
It is their wealth that operates as a catalyst in reducing the normal life of
free citizens to a welter of uncertainties and unending hardships. However,
their role is rather distant and indirect, unlike that of criminals, politicians and
the police.
Politicians protect criminals from the law while criminals reciprocate by
acting as their henchmen in handling underground activities. The police goes
to the politicians for job protection while at the same time it strikes an
understanding with criminals. Thus works this nexus of vile power brokers who
prey on innocent people and suck the blood of the hapless masses.
The trio of criminal, political and police manipulators is a dangerous force
to reckon with, in the Indian democratic situation. A tight-knit power-bloc, they
have permeated into all conceivable facets of Indian public life with the sole
intention of garnering all the benefits of an inefficient public administration. The
tragedy here is that this evil is perpetrated by those whom the public trust as
their benefactors and protectors.
The amoral side of this operation does not seen to have affected either the
police or the politicians in any way and the vile cabal against, the Indian public
works on indifferent to everything except its own self-interest. It seems that
all the actors in this tragic drama think that the Indian democracy is a free-forall, where they should try to grab all that they can in a world where each person
has to look after himself.
This approach is certain to undermine not only the democratic set-up of the
nation, but also its social fabric. The blame for this sad state of affairs should
be squarely borne by the ugly troika of politicians, criminals and the police.

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All the maladies of the police today emanate from the politicians who are
only concerned with winning the next election. Until it extricates itself from
their grip, it cannot hope to rise above its present mediocre level.
An immediate need is to streamline the organisation. At present, the growth
of the police department is not really much more than a spasmodic reaction to
various stimuli and as a result it lacks the benefits of an integrated approach.
Operational facilities, counter-balances and counter-checks are inadequate.
The constitution of a permanent cell of organisational 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 identifying and eliminating
redundant posts, by rationalising workloads and preventing their duplication
and by redefining duties and procedures and thus the rights and responsibilities
at each level. As a consequence, police functioning would be made more costeffective and efficient.
UNATTRACTIVE SERVICE
The accusation that no talent breeds and grows in the wilderness of the
police set-up cannot be easily gainsaid. The Indian Police Service continues to
be an intellectually poor and unattractive service in the spectrum of the AllIndia services with only misfits opting for its.
The constabulary, which forms the bulk of the service, is largely constituted
of people from the lower stratum of society who are psychologically
handicapped when it comes to exercising their police powers against the more
enlightened people in society.
A tendency to sideline superior intellect and excellence, a general
reluctance to adopt modern techniques of policing and management, a
dogmatic approach to personnel and public relations and a lack of insight into
human nature are other factors responsible for the unfortunate state of affairs
in the force.
These problems can be overcome only by capable police leadership at all
levels. The organisation is bound to experience a glissade until objectivity,
reasonableness and good judgement become a part of the police
administration.
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. Many therefore believe that the department would be better off
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without this pernicious evaluation process that encourages corruption and

favouritism in the force.
It must, however, be said that the evils of the ACR are not inherent in the
process itself, but stem rather from the calibre of those who write them at
various levels. What characterises 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 the settlement of personal
scores.
Servility is its inevitable consequence and it would not be wrong to say that
eliminating the ACR altogether would certainly be a step towards commune
bonum in the police force.
A Deputy Inspector General of Police in a range wanted a young Deputy
Superintendent of Police to marry a girl close to him. The self-respecting DSP
chose to marry a girl of his own choice. This antagonised the Deputy Inspector
General. His next annual confidential report showed the junior as a liability to
the police department.
The senior officer also prevailed year after year upon other officers to
incorporate adverse remarks in the confidential reports of the junior. Most of
them obliged and this bright junior officer ended up with a series of
unsubstantiated adverse remarks in his confidential reports.
All his appeals were ignored by the Government. As a result, the young
officer was denied selection to the IPS for the next 9 years while his far less
competent colleagues superseded him on the career ladder, though there is
nothing in his career to justify such treatment.
Undeterred by the humiliation and career setbacks intentionally heaped on
him he then requested the Chief Secretary of the Government not to consider
him any more for the IPS. He took this measure to show his utter contempt of
the corrupt departmental heads who sit above him to decide his fate.
There are numerous instances of unhealthy practices at the highest levels
in the Indian police. Karnataka produced a police chief who, together with his
wife, was taken to court on the eve of his retirement, from service by a
prominent social worker for allegedly defrauding the public and a spastic
society by siphoning off huge amounts of money, collected for the spastics.
It is a different story that the officer concerned succeeded in silencing the
social worker through police pressure and ensured that the case fell through
for lack of evidence. The incident betrays the levels to which occupying high
positions in the Indian police stoop to make a few bucks.

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In such an atmosphere with the maintenance of law and order in the hands
of unprincipled police personnel. Queer things take place. Long ago, a dacoity
was reported in the house of a person of doubtful character in Dharwad district
in Karnataka.
The dacoity was actually committed by the illegitimate son of the concerned
person after a serious quarrel. The complainant later settled his feud with the
illegitimate son and decided to settle the case of dacoity to save his family
name.
He successfully arranged for an ex-convict of Stuartpuram to be picked up
and shown as the accused. A mangalasutra recast from the gold recovered in
some other case was shown as property seized from the criminal !
Such developments make a mockery of criminal justice. What a serious
breach of public trust it is for the police to involve a person, albeit an ex-convict,
in a crime which they knew he did not commit. The incident reveals the levels
of criminality to which the Indian police has sunk.
INHUMAN TORTURE
In another instance in 1981, police officials in charge of Koppal sub-division
in Karnataka picked up a poor goldsmith from Gadag in a neighbouring district
for interrogation about receiving stolen property. They subjected him to
inhuman torture in the Gadag tourist bungalow for 2 nights to make the innocent
goldsmith confess to crimes which he had not committed.
The wife and children of the goldsmith, who found him in the tourist
bungalow after endless running from pillar to post, were chased away from the
place though they could hear his agonised shrieks. The goldsmith succumbed
to the torture on the second night.
The news of the lock-up death, as such deaths are popularly called, was
splashed in local and other newspapers. The wife of the goldsmith filed a
complaint before the local court about the cold-blooded murder of her husband.
The district Superintendent of Police and the Range Deputy Inspector
General of Police, whose protg the sub-divisional police officer was, rose to
the occasion to save him.
They visited Gadag and entrusted the investigation of the case to the
compliant Deputy Superintendent of Police of a neighbouring sub-division with
oral directions to finalise the case as not proved before the magistrate, who
had received the wifes complaint and taken cognisance of the plaint.
The Deputy Superintendent of Police complied with these directions and
sent his investigation report to the court for action u/s 210 of the Cr.PC. Thus
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ended the case of cold-blooded torture and culpable homicide of an innocent

goldsmith.
Such stories of cruelty and criminality make the police appear like demons.
What right has the police to investigate and prosecute criminals while it
protects its own killers?
Though it is difficult to extricate the police machinery from the clutches of
the politicians, it is an important measure that has to be undertaken at al costs
in the overall interests of the country
If policing is to be effective in the years ahead, specialisation is crucial.
Three distinct police services with separate recruitment and training are
needed. These are:
Regulatory police or uniformed police in charge of law and order
And other regulatory duties.
Mainstay police in charge of crime investigation, crime prevention,
Security and intelligence operation.
Social police in charge of prevention and investigation of all social
Offences and implementation of social legislation.
All the 3 wings should have their own individual organisations up to the
district level with independent superintendents and staff as required. They
should function in tandem in much the same way as the army, navy and air
force do.
At the apex could be a specially constituted body called the State police
authority with police chiefs of all the 3 wings as members and the Chief
Secretary to the Government as its Chairman.
A PANACEA
Creation of an all-India police authority at the Centre, responsible only to
the President of India, with regional police authorities in each State as
subordinate bodies, may prove to be a panacea to most of the extant maladies
of the Indian police.
The all-India police authority may be headed by a Supreme Court judge with
the Union Home Secretary and Central Cabinet Secretary as members and the
senior most police officer of the country as the member-secretary.
The arrangement is likely to bring to an end the undue interference by
politicians in police affairs, thus enabling the police to function in an
independent atmosphere. The Indian police may hope to function well in the
new age if these measures are implemented.

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CRIME, POLITICS AND THE POLICE

In a blinkered system like ours, where power and wealth are the ultimate
virtues and where power and wealth in themselves stimulate mutual growth,
to the exclusion of all other dimensions of life it is no wonder that 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 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.
JUSTICE, A CASUALTY
In the process, justice and morality become casualties. Criminality too
raises its ugly head as an instrument to achieve otherwise impossible
objectives. This is how politics and crime knit together in the fabric of Indian
public life.
The story of the police is somewhat different. As an important part of the
nations administration, the police enjoy tremendous power over vast fields of
human activities with responsibilities towards the 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 law without the police on its side as an executioner
and loyal watch dog. This is why politicians in their activities feel the need for
wooing the police to their side.
The police of independent India have become, by reason of their failing
strength of character and talent, easy prey to the power baits of smart
politicians.
Their greed, unsound social background, lack of commitment to good
values and failure to comprehend police virtues in the right perspective, make

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them willing partners in whatever politicians do, or intend to do. They refuse
to look beyond their political masters and their dispensations of job favours.
So law, justice, righteousness, professional ethics, morality decency, human
dignity, the common good of people, national interests and even conscienceotherwise common to any human being-have become invalid nonsense to them
The police, sans sound character and personal integrity, are no more than
country dogs. This is what the Indian police have become in free India. The
politicians, inebriated with new power, smartly brought these weaklings to
absolute submission and held them on a tight-leash to be their personal watch
dogs and personal gendarmes-in-requital for favourable job placements, undue
promotions and other largesse from time to time.
Nothing is valued higher than this largesse and its dispensers by the new
police of India. It is how the police were involuted in the conspiracy against
decent public life of India.
It was a hop and skip for the police from the ugly world of politics to the
mysterious world of crime and the underworld. The police have become a
weapon of politicians to bring about the subjugation of the crime world to use
its resources for political ends.
FALL OF CHARACTER
Politicians, thus, made good use of the decreasing strength of character of
the police in forging a nexus between the police and criminals in the furtherance
of their own ends.
With a weak spine and no principles in the face of odds, the police are only
too pleased to follow in the footsteps of their political masters.
In these changed circumstances, discipline and subordination, which form
the basic connecting link of the police hierarchy, have lost all meaning, and are
interpreted as blind subservience to those who have power to serve personal
interests.
And politicians easily led the police to the despicable cul-de-sac of the
nexus with criminals-the very people who are supposed to be controlled and
brought to book for antisocial activities.
With politicians as the custodians of power en arriere to support, the police
plunged lock, stock and barrel into the lucrative crime world; the resulting
wealth and comforts were in no way less sweet than the hard earned money
of law-abiding society.
This is how one nexus between the police and crime world was established.

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Whom should we blame for this hapless position? Certainly not the
politicians or their auxiliaries like criminals and police who are the unfortunate
by-products of the grind. They are created by the situation arising from a
system which misfits the people for whom it was devised.
The blame lies either on the Indian people who are unresponsive to the
democratic system evolved for them. Because of their unenlightened and
venal conscience, which is so insensitive that virtues like honesty, service,
patriotism, quality and excellence can make no dent in it at all; or it lies with the
political system devised for them. It failed to take their psychological make-up
into account, and ispo 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.
IMMATURE ELECTORATE
It is these people who win elections and rule this country. It is these people
whom the Indian electorate prefers to vest with powers to safeguard their
interests!
Obviously, the Indian electorate lacks the far sightedness 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 parochial outlook continue to be the driving force of all its actions
and decisionson the matters of national importance or personal concern.
In most parts of India, it is money, arrack, sari, threat, fear of landlords or
the blazening propaganda of a candidate that influence its decision 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
hearth of violence and manipulative extortions, with the instruments meant to
protect them mowing the field. Saner elements in politics, who found survival
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difficult, have left the field, giving way to elements which are more suited to
the field.
It is how politics, from a class of dedicated and virtuous leaders, has become
a pit of junk. 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.
The percentage of the electorate that takes the trouble of going to polling
booths so 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 5 years. And how he
reaps the wealth, comfort and power is again 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.
The unhealthy nexus often leads to and facilitates other forms of crime.
Cases of rioting, assault, kidnapping, rape and blackmail, involving the
supporters or relatives of politicians, criminals and police in futherance of a
political cabal are other usual forms of crime that result from the vicious nexus.
Often, criminals and police are employed to create disturbance or inspire
sensational crimes in furtherance of political goals. The losses of life and
property involved in the wily schemes seldom touch the conscience of either
the politicians, the criminals or the police who are responsible for these
dastardly acts.
The political patronage and the nexus with police desensitise criminals to
the process of law and justice. They are emboldened to commit more daring
and ruthless crimes that endanger the life and property of the plebeians.
The police, in their links with politicians on the one hand and with criminals
on the other, are in their new avatar-the protectors of vested interests with no
more commitment and passion for law and justice.
They have become a discredited force, a willing instrument of power
brokers in the ruthless and violent cabal of power-games with no heart for the
common man and common cause.
This is the requital the Indian electorate gets for letting by its nonchalance
and irresponsibility-the political system putrefy.

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POLITICISATION OF CRIME
What we see today is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more things
hidden in the latter than are seen.
This is soon realised by the opportunist Indian politicians who seize the first
available instance to enlist the support of criminals and underground operators
for their nefarious designs.
This, in turn, is a god-sent opportunity 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
ensure 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 in the wreaking
of personal vendettas.
The experience and professionalism of criminals come in handy to
politicians to execute their nasty operations without attracting the stigma
attached to them.
The vast army of criminals has become ready resource for them to 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
become their most trusted lieutenants, even getting elected to legislature 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 vortex 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 organised crime in small and big cities
anywhere in the world can survive even for a day without political patronage.
Ergo, all syndicates of organised crime and their menace are the direct
outcome of the nexus between politicians and criminals, with the police as
bystanders.
No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running his
crime syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses, narcotics
dealers or plain hoodlums, the only way to survive is to have comfortable
political protection at the right levels.

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MUTUAL ADVANTAGE
The crime syndicate, in return, 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 gaining power with the help of a criminal, ever
let down the criminal? This symbiosis of politicians and criminals which 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 reputation 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 2 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.
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
they be free from the interference of the politicians.
It is not surprising that hungry politicians grab more and more powers that
are legally and traditionally invested with the police department when the top
brass lack strength of character and conviction.
The 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 other words, the police sans effective leadership is becoming more a
handmaid of politicians by moving away from its sacred role as the guardian
of law and justice and the protector of the common man.
The credit of bringing the police from their height of power to the present
level of absolute submission should go to the superior strength of personality
of wily politicians who have bent the police on their own terms with the
selective use of stick and carrot.
The police is not the real police and what is does is not policing in the proud
sense of the term.

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CHANGED ROLE
With the increasing involvement of the police with crass politicians, the
conception of the police about their own role has undergone a large-scale
change. No more do the police look at crime control and maintenance of order
as their first duty.
With this, the concern for crime control has 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 which 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 realised that criminals, particularly those
from organised syndicates, are personal friends of their political masters and
they are 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 high-profile criminals
who are too high for the small stature of the police.
It is unfortunate that the police of today have never realised their infinite
stature as law-enforcing agents vis--vis all others including criminals and
politicians whom they are empowered to search, arrest and take to court if they
deviate from rightful path.
Sadly, the trifling wealth and the concomitant big-man image of others
appear to the present police as more appealing than their own awful police
authority.
On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living beings are
criminals in varying degrees. 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, reinforce the inner restraint to prevent the committing of crime.

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However, as the force of external restraints weakens for diverse reasons,

and the proporation of gain to be made in committing a crime outweighs the
risks involved in the balance sheet of the operation, the lure of crime increases
and the deed is accomplished.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE
It is the social situation which controls the external restraints to make
committing a crime an asset or a liability. It thereby decides the proliferation
or suppression of crime, 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 more 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-selection 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 civilised 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 and the social standing of the criminals remains
unaffected. Government servants too come under this category of criminals
because of rampant corruption in public life.
It is a fact that Indian public life is a vast field of criminal activities and
politicians and police, though the custodians and protectors of Indian public life,
from 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.
CRIME AND NATIONAL ECONOMY
A word about the effect of the nasty nexus between politics, crime and
police on the national economy.
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Unity gives strength. It is true about this nasty nexus also.

The only telos of the nexus is gain by synergy, which 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 is illegal gain and the incidence of crime
is directly related to increase in black money in the national economy, the
proliferation of crime invariably results in inflation and the weakening of the
national economy.
More dangerously, it results in polarisation of the society into criminal rich
and honest poor, and destroys the countrys moral fabric.
The increasing incidence of easy money, material comforts and political
power of the criminal rich ultimately leads to internal strife and popular
terrorism.
The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularises 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
proliferation of crime.
While decent life becomes impossible by honest methods, the need of
survival forces honest citizens 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, buildings 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 gets
power, comfort and everything. In the crush, the honest man is lost forever.
The ocean of criminal wealth around him, which 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 have seen in Punjab, Kashmir,
Assam, in faraway Sri Lanka or even in Naxalism, where it is disguised as
political ideology.
It is an irony that politicians and the police, who create the demons, fall to
the bullets of the grievously hurt, self-righteous, once innocent people. It is said
that even the dacoits in Chambal are symptomatic of this social and economic
malady.
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It is true that crime cannot be eliminated from any society as the tendency
to commit crime is ingrained in human nature. However, crime can be
suppressed by appropriate restraints. What restraints 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 very 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: Will the inveterate vested interests let these
sacrifices bear fruit? Let us hope for the best.

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CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE
Organised violence is so much a part of Indian politics that all politics parties
have created youth and volunteer wings to accommodate young hoodlums as
a fighting and street-smart force to be used when violence is needed.
Those who sand out in courage and toughness rise fast and reach the top
and today a very high percentage of Ministers in the Indian Government are
these people.
It is ironical that politicians, whose help criminals sought to save themselves
from the police, brought the police and criminals closer to each other, building
a bridge between them. The understanding reached between criminals and the
police is to a great degree responsible for criminalising Indian public life and
blunting the effectiveness of the police.
Though the nexus between criminals and the police is not a new
phenomenon, what was once an exception has now become the rule and what
was the rule once has become the exception. Today criminals on the one hand
overawe a weak police force with their connections with powerful politicians
and lure the police with easy money and comfort on the other, thus tilting the
balance to their advantage.
POLITICAL MISHANDLING
Though criminals play their political cards with adroitness, their real aim is
to lessen the pressures of the police on themselves.
If some are born criminals, some choose the path of crime consciously and
some others are constrained to follow it. While faulty financial and social
policies forged by short-sighted politicians are responsible for forcing many
helpless people to a life of crime, these same policies often drive sensitive
people to revolt and to embrace terrorism and violence.
Naxalisim, Sikh terrorism, the ULFA movement, Kashmir separatism,
Hindu and Muslim militancy and even the sympathy in India for the LTTE
cause are direct results of political mishandling of national issues.
India has seen isolated political attempts in the past to save people from the
clutches of crime and to rehabilitate them. The famous Chambal experiment

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initiated by the late Jaya Prakash Narayan had some success in spite of the
machinations of certain politicians in the area.
Not that politics is all bad. It is, by definition, governance of the State by
popular leadership. The malaise of todays politics lies in its tilt to populism at
the cost of leadership and more dangerously, populism is being considered an
investment to earn returns in multiple proportions. Nothing, it appears, means
as much to the Indian electorate as money to prod them to cast their votes for
a particular candidate.
VICIOUS CIRCLE
The history of independent India makes it clear 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, political
poser is equated with electoral popularity, which in turn is equated with money
and power, which can be had only though political patronage.
The vicious circle has helped to create a class of extortionists who
manipulate the passive public. Politics too has its honest and patriotic people
who are committed to the welfare of society. But, sadly, they are caught up
in a system which does not let them come to prominence unless they come
terms with it and adopt the venal proposition of wining 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 hop to make any headway. Others are bound to sink. When the
system itself made the election a venal mechanism, corrupt practices that rope
in criminals and police are bound to follow.
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.
But alas, this is not to be in a world of opportunist politicians and a corrupt,
weak, police force both with an eye on the spoils of the crime. The police force
is the weak link in the troika of power-brokers consisting of politicians,
criminals and the police. It functions as an instrument politicians use to bring
criminals to them. The role of the police as a law-enforcing agency and its hold
over criminals makes it a handy instrument for politicians to use.
SAD COMMENTARY
The police is the executioner and odd-job boy of the Government. This
image of the police is effectively made use of by politicians for all conceivable
personal and official purposes. While low-ranking police are used as
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bodyguards, gunmen, messengers, watchmen etc, high-ranking police officers

are used for the same jobs at higher levels.
It is a sad commentary on todays police force that while low-ranking police
do these jobs as an unavoidable duty, high-ranking officers compete and fight
among themselves to attend to the odd jobs of their political masters. This they
do, even when they are fully aware of the criminal antecedents and police
histories of some of their benefactors.
Jobs are judged for importance in the police force on their potentialities for
illegal money from crime. And jobs with potential for such gains are most
sought after and are often paid for in lakhs. This is considered an investment.
which will earn many times more in a short period of time.
Many other jobs, on the other hand are known as punishment postings and
are largely detested. These jobs have no potential for illegal earnings.
It goes without saying that judging jobs on the basis of the challenge or the
opportunity for service that they provide is a thing of the past. It is the crime
world that decides the importance or otherwise of different police jobs and in
actual fact controls the type and calibre of officers in each job.
In other words, it is criminals who invisibly control the police rather than the
police controlling the criminals. This reversal of function has a lot 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 bring to book. The police is no longer confident that it is mentally
and organisationally equipped to do its job.
Increasingly powerful and modernised crime syndicates have made a farce
of crime control by the police. Many factors place the police at disadvantages.
Its growth has not kept pace with population growth. It is also at a disadvantage
as far as communication, transportation and weaponry are concerned as
criminals have the best of all these.
INCOMPETENT LEADERSHIP
Consequently, police fatalities in encounters with criminals and terrorist
groups are increasing. As a result the police in India is no longer keen to intrfere
with the activities of the underworld. The understanding between criminals and
the police is that both will confine themselves to their respective fields a and
avoid embarrassing each other.
The police is paid for its passiveness while stray troublemakers are
silenced. The Indian police is sane enough to quickly realise that its interests

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lie in silence while entangling with the crime world may invite a host of
complications.
The responsibility for the present state of the Indian police rests solely on
its incompetent leadership rather than on anything else. Unimaginative
planning uninspiring guidance and lack of leadership and conviction in the top
police ranks has led to utter chaos. Dangerously ineffective recruitment
policies, poor training programmes, misuse of the facilities of confidential
assessment of subordinates and the degeneration of control and supervision
machinery have resulted.
The present Indian police force is utterly unmotivated and police jobs are
considered only as devices that provide rank, power, social status, sundry
comforts and a pension. How can the people of India depend upon this sort of
police force for security, protection and law and order?

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TIME TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF

CIVIL SERVICE
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 form-the 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

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in terms of intellectual 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 realise the importance
of maintaining its Steel Frame and improving upon it, but 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 recognise 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.

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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
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 calibre. 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
calibre 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.

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REASONS FOR DETERIORATION

The grand structure of British rule was to be mercilessly demolished later
by independent India. Unimaginative and messy selection and recruitment
procedures, which were poorly conceived and unskilfully 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 character
itself.
As the selection of members of the UPSC became politicised, 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 a
degeneration.
The degeneration is manifeast 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 specialised services, whether at the subdivisional or provincial level or at the highest levels of Central Government. The
degeneration is uniform everywhere.
Whether it be in creative genius, intellectual heights, strength of character,
moral values, width of human interests or noble qualities, the Civil Service of
the post-Independence 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

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and mindless approvers of reports incompetently prepared by subordinates

down the line.
Imagine people of such calibre 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
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 realise 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.
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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
evento the brightest among the new recruits, unlike present training
programmes 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, 3 promising officers from the State cadre of a southern
State of India, were denied selection by the UPSC to an All India Service for
no obvious reason for 10 years from 1990, while their juniors were elevated.
The acute frustration and demoralisation caused by this led to the break-up of
the family 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 led to his
conviction. 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 calibre. He weathered the

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frustration of the 9 years 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 unprofessionalism 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 people become Members and Chairman of the organisation
and remain in the saddle only as long as they retain their moral and professional
calibre.
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.

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TOWARDS SANE SERVICE

It is a historical fact that India which is characterised by its unity in diversity
was never a single nation at any time in its long course of history of several
millenniums, till the feat was achieved in the 20th century.
Neither Asoka Mourya or Samudra Gupta or Chandra Gupta nor Akbar or
Aurangzeb of Mughul dynasty in Indian history can boast of binding all the
regions stretching between Cape Camorin and Karakorampass, and Rann of
Kutch and Arunachal Pradesh under a single rule to give meaning to the
concept of a single nation.
No military strength, no religion, no cultural similarities, no unity of
civilisation, no linguistic resemblances nor geographical proximities at any time
before succeeded in forging a single nation out of the vast land masses south
of the Himalayas.
If India is a single nation today, though in its rather moth-eaten form, the
credit should go to its distinguished civil service of early and middle 20th century
vintage which was rightly called as the steel-frame of Indian unity.
Should India continue as a single nation, it has to be through the grit, strength
and quality of its civil service alone.
Any tampering with the quality of the civil service and doing anything that
may mangle the steel-frame grade of Indian civil service certainly go fatal
to the very existence of India as a single nation.
The worst curse on India and its people is the classification and stratification
of humanity on the basis of births and adoption of rigid codes of social conduct
to rule the relationship between those in different strata.
The lower strata being condemned to be treated less than street dogs and
denied equality and any opportunity of growth and decent life.
This curse for several millenniums permanently handicapped certain
accurst social groups from breaking away from primitive way of life.
This cancer in Indian social life develops a major moral responsibility on
India not only to get rid of the nasty disease, but also to rehabilitate the victims
of the age-old social bevue.

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Post-independent India, as welfare state, took innumerable measures, both

constitutional and legislative, towards absterging the sins perpetrated by its
past practices of ages on the unfortunate sections of the society.
The removal of untouchability, prevention of atrocities, reservations, in jobs
and educational opportunities to quote but a few.
Sine dubio, such special treatments alone can somewhat remedy the
inhuman treatment and delour meted out to some without an iota of fellowfeeling and kindness for generations after generations.
Such measures on special footing are not only compensations India must
pay for having deprived some of its children of their growth opportunities for
so long, though belated and inadequate as they are.
They are also a kind of remorse the country suffers for its past sins.
But the cardinal question is the direction such measures must take.
Wrong policies in such matters may not only fail to make the measures
efficacious, but may also block the existing opportunities too.
It may also further weaken the social fabric of the country and ipso facto
pose real threat to the very existence of India as a country.
The apollyon in question is the policy of job reservation in civil service which
may eat up the quality and steel-frame toughness of the setup to disintegrate
and balkanise India sans its only binding force namely a sound civil service to
keep the country united in its diversities.
The victims of the age-old stratified class system actually deserve many
more special privileges than delivered to them at present.
The necessarily need easier access to educational opportunities to prepare
them for higher slots in life.
Hence, the need of reservations in educational institutions.
Perhaps, institution of an apex development bank with branches in all
districts or taluks of the country, exclusively for their financial needs of
nonconsumptive nature at nominal rate of interest a la rural or agricultural
banks may prove a significant step in this direction.
Institution of liberal scholarships, concession in or exemption from,
application fee for jobs, wider network or board and lodging facilities for
students, free higher studies, special vocational training for men and women,
concessional hostel facilities for working men and women, easy housing
schemes, free advanced medical treatment facilities, etc are other welfare
schemes for the unprivileged classes that may help to bring them on par with
others.

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This will wipe out the achilles heel from the face of Indian social structure
to make Indian society civilised without affecting the quality of its governance
and parameters of survival.
It was Winston Churchill who said democracy is the worst type of
governance except for all other types of governance. Basically, democracy
signifies rule of common man and rule of mediocrity and ergo, more
dangerously the rule of hoi polloi or mob.
This definition applies principally to the political system of the democratic
governance and not to the civil service system which is expected to be the
subtle spine of the democratic rule. A sound civil service as amicus curiae
draws the metes and bounds of governance within which the democratic
system must function and also inspire a sense of moderation, discipline,
fairness, legality and reasonableness in the political leadership of the system.
It absorbs the jerks and shocks of the political follies and helps the political
leadership in taking sound and intelligent decisions at right times.
In this sense, a sound civil service structure is sine qua non for running a
democracy and the strength of the democracy depends entirely on its
soundness and quality. A democracy without sound civil service slumps like a
mass of flesh without a spine to support it.
The well being of the repressed class of India depends solely upon the
survival of India as a single nation and therefore on the quality and soundness
of the civil service.
If there is anything scanty in the present world, it is high quality and
excellence. They are such a rare commodity that even slight distractions in the
swink to cultivate them end up in their disappearing in thin air. Excellence has
a distinct tendency of light from mediocrity and regrouping otherwise at its own
level. This tendency renders maintenance of the tempo of high quality and
excellence a difficult task. Any allowance to mediocrity leads to a sustained
flight of quality and excellence till mediocrity completely takes over. This is
what is feared about present Indian civil service thanks to reservation policy.
The fear that the steel-frame civil service of the pre-independent India
vintage have crumbled into a mediocre setup now by wrong policies of
selection and recruitment in independent India needs serious attention it
deserves.
Several opinion polls point to the diminishing attraction of the civil service
to crme de la crme of the Indian youth in preference to foreign and private
industrial houses and banks as job opportunities.

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This trend deserves deeper concern than at present in those who are
interested in the survival of India as a nation and democracy. The interest of
the country lies in marshalling the best talents of the country in service of
maintaining the country as a nation and democracy and that need must get the
first priority over all other issues including developmental and welfare vintage.
Unfortunately, it is not happening in India now.
Civil Service is the trunk of the tree of democratic governance and breaking
the trunk itself is self-defeating for all national goals including justice for all. By
the policy of job reservation to civil service, India is venturing to the folly of
cutting its own s trunk. Stracient damage has already been done by this in the
last five decades. No distraction like reservation of any kind must deter the
criterion of genuine merit and competence in civil service.
Real merit and competence emerge from exemplary unity of diverse
human faculties like sound character, strong intellect right attitude,
commitment and devotion to work. Doing anything to subvert these virtues in
civil service in tantamount to wrecking the interests of the country.
It is not that somebody wants to subvert the interests of the country by
hoisting job reservation policy on civil service. The intentions of reservation is
beyond reproach . The fault lies in its pursuance.
Reservation of any kind in civil service clearly proves to be wrong means
to reach the right end. How early India realises this fact, so fast is served
Indias best interests.

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STATUS OF WOMEN IN
EMERGING INDIA
Indian culture treats women with utmost reverence. Woman is identified
with Adi Shakti or the primordial energy; she is considered as the prikriti or
the basic nature; she is compared with the mother earth. Womans avatar as
mother is treated as the highest manifestation of human relationships. It is
mother who gets precedence over all other principles of life including father
and god in importance. She is considered as the moving force of life. It is
presumed that there is a woman behind every great event of the world. Indian
scriptures state that where women are revered, god resides there. Great epics
of India like Ramayana and Mahabharata revolve around female characters
like Sita and Draupadi. This is only an illustration of the status of women in
India, the honour and reverence with which they are held from time
immemorial, the importance given to them in the scheme of the history and
affairs of human life. Nobody can gainsay these factors in the scheme of Indian
life. However, these are conceptual realities. In a country and culture where
a sacrificial animal is treated as sacred and worshipped before slaughtered,
conceptual realties remain far removed from ground realities and may even
symbolise dangers ahead as ground realities. It is particularly true about the
status of women in India.
Nature created women different from men with a definite purpose.
Balance is stillness and stagnation; imbalance is motion and progress. Nature
designed life and motion 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 and humiliations,
women suffered all along the centuries with patience and in silence. This part
of woman is symbolised 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 which renders her less fit for survival

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than man. She must live with 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
age such as this, people in public life are sufficiently sensitized to this issue and
more and more legislations 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, 1993 (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 of 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.
Sensitization of the people and the government in the recent past to the
ground-realities has brought sea-changes in the status of women. Rise in
female education as noticed in the first decades of the present century opened
up the aboideau of the resistance to sexual discrimination. Though the process
was very slow in principio, it gradually picked up pace as decades passed by.
Nineteen-seventies is a watermark in the process. The advent of Mrs. Indira
Gandhi in 1966 and the grit and strength displayed by her as the Prime Minister
of India and as the only real woman among the parliamentarians of the time,
revolutionised the concept of womanhood in India. It became a fashion even
in tiny villages of India to comfort while a female baby was born, that who
knows, the child may also become a Prime Minister or somebody big like her.
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Though India have innumerable valiant queens in its history who led huge
armies against formidable armies and fought jusqu au bout, they were outof-turn phenomena at their respective times and seldom touched the chords of
the women among the commoners. But, Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a product of
the time, of the process of the awakening of the women, and in turn, as a
phenomenon, she greatly contributed for the advancement of the process.
The Indira Gandhi phenomenon helped to improve the status of women in
India in another way. It crumbled male chauvinism. It humbled male pride. The
historical cowerings of great leaders of India of the time before Mrs.Indira
Gandhi exposed the halo of the male superiority as hollow. It made it patent that
it is the power one weilds that makes the difference, not the sex of the person
who weilds it. Indeed, these are subtle realisantions that shook the thoughts of
the people though none said it in so many words to them. Rise of Mrs. Indira
Gandhi, sine dubio, will remain as a meith in ameliorating the status of women
in the annals of Indian history.
The trend of women going for jobs and pursuing professions started far
before the advent of Indira Gandhi at the centre-stage. Her advent
revolutionised the trend. After Indira Gandhi, women in jobs became more a
rule than an exception and they looked for progressively higher slots and sought
fields where never before women stepped into. As a result, more and more
fields and higher and higher slots opened up for them. As time passed by, the
reservations towards recruiting or promoting women thinned and ultimately
disappeared. As a result, sexual discrimination in jobs is a matter of past now.
More and more people realise that is skill and other abilities that count in doing
a job well and not the sex of the performer. As far as jobs are concerned.,
sexual equality is a reality already.
Economic strength generated by jobs has successfully boosted the selfImage of women in India. Economic liberation is the touch-stone of all other
liberations. The power, status and influence generated from the jobs add to the
solidification of the status of women in emerging India. Evils like dowry are
bound to be wiped out of the earth of India in the emerging atmosphere. Being
an evil, inveterate in Indian soil from millenniums, a historical process like
deracinating the assuetude of dowry cannot take place overnight. Such a
historical process takes its own time. And emerging India happily is on the road.
It is only a matter of time before India is free from the prise of this shameful
menace.
Dowry death cases have become sensational topical issues these days with
the public being highly sensitised to the menace of the offences with the
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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 the passion and outcry against the perpetraters of the offence. The
police too give special importance to the investigation of these cases and
closely supervises the investigation process.
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 woman who is delicate in nature rather than the man, who is
selected for this difficile gauntlet of transformation in the process of familial
socialising. Percase, the gentle and amenable caractere of the female breed
expose hers 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.
The emerging sexual equality has another happy face vis a vis the
conceptual reality of the reverence and importance given to women in India
and Indian culture from times immemorial. The equality of man and woman on
the field certainly tilts the balance of advantage in favour of woman because
of the favour with which she is accustomed to be seen. This tilt of balance is
not a forced one on the man, but one volunteered hors de combat because of
the natural attributes of a womans characteristics . This tilt is already in
evidence. Given equal chances, woman is favoured in recruitments and
promotions because of her natural sincerity, honesty and devotion to work. In
this sense, women are overtaking men. The process is on. They are in limine.
It is a happy development. It is civilisation. It is culture. It is good for the future
of the humanity. Humanity can survive only if women with their far superior
attributes, lead men en face in addition to being driving forces en arriere. Man
sans woman is not only incomplete, but also lightless and lifeless
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Not that woman and man are really equal. Nature meant them to be unequal
for its own purposes and process. Basically, they are in-comparable quantums,
separate entities by themselves. If to be compared at all, woman has an edge
over man. Often the reality is distorted by man by his brutish physical strength
as against the gentle mental and spiritual attributes of woman and he forcibly
cornered all opportunities of growth. If women are opened up to their de jure
opportunities, women as nature designed it for them, go ahead of men and lead
them to a far better world then existing now. A cultured and civilized world
must provide this natural opportunity to its women-folk for its own good. This
is what is happening in emerging India.

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QUOTA SYSTEM CAN WEAKEN

CIVIL SERVICE
It is a historical fact that India was never a single nation at any time till the
20th century. Neither Asoka of the Maurya dynasty nor Samudra Gupta or
Chandra Gupta of the Gupta dynasty nor Akbar or Aurangzeb of the Mughul
dynasth could boast of binding al the regions stretching from Kanyakumari to
the Karakoram pass, and from the Rann of Kutch to Arunachal Pradesh under
a single rule. If India is a single nation today the credit should go to a large extent
to its distinguished civil service of the early and middle 20th century which was
rightly called the steel frame of India unity. Should India continue as a single
nation, it has to be again mainly through the grit, strength and quality of its civil
service.
The worst curse for India is the classification of people on the basis of birth
with the lower strata being denied equality of opportunity for growth and a
decent life. Post-independent India, as a welfare state, took a number of
measures, both constitutional and legislative, to erase the sins perpetrated on
the unfortunate sections of society, like removal of untouchability, prevention
of atrocities, reservations in jobs and providing educational opportunities. Such
measures are not only the compensation India must pay for having deprived
some of its children of their growth opportunities, they are also a kind of
remorse the country suffers for its past sins.
But the cardinal question is the direction such measures must take. Wrong
policies in such matters may not only fail to make the measures efficacious;
but may also block the existing opportunities. It may weaken the countrys
social fabric and pose a real threat to even the existence of India as a country.
The policy of job reservation in civil service carries the danger of undermining
the quality of the steel frame and deprive India of its main binding force.
The victims of the age-old stratified class system deserve many more
special privileges. They need easier access to educational opportunities to
prepare them for higher slots in life. Hence, the need for reservations in
educational institutions. To remove their poverty for which Indian society is

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historically responsible, they have to be provided with easy finance, whether

for higher studies or business ventures. Perhaps, an apex development bank
with branches in all districts exclusively for their financial needs of a nonconsumptive nature has to be set up to provide funds at a nominal rate of
interest. Liberal scholarships, concession in or exemption from application fees
for jobs, a wider network of board and lodging facilities for students, special
vocational training for men and women, concessional hostel facilities for
working men and women, easy housing schemes, free advanced medical
treatment, etc are other schemes for the underprivileged that may help to bring
them on par with the rest of society, without in the process affecting the quality
of its governance.
Basically, democracy signifies the rule of the common man. But this
definition applies principally to the political system and not to the civil service
which is expected to be the spine of democratic rule. A sound civil service
draws the boundaries of governance within which the democratic system must
function and also inspires a sense of moderation, discipline, fairness, legality
and reasonableness in the political leadership. It absorbs the shocks of political
follies and helps the political leadership in taking sound and intelligent decisions.
The well-being of the repressed classes of the India depends upon the
survival of India as a single nation and therefore on the quality and soundness
of the civil service. Measures like job reservation are bound to be counterproductive by weakening the civil service structure. Quality and excellence are
inseparable from pride. Any allowance to mediocrity leads to flight of quality
and excellence till mediocrity completely takes over. This is what is feared
about the present India civil service thanks to the reservation policy.
The apprehension that the steel frame of pre-independent India has
crumbled into a mediocre set-up because of wrong policies of selection and
recruitment needs serious attention. Several opinion polls point to the
diminishing attraction of the civil service for the Indian youth who prefer jobs
in foreign and private industrial houses and banks. This trend deserves to be
noted by those who are interested in the survival of India as a nation and a
democracy, The interest of the country lies in marshalling the best talents of
the country to run its administrative services.

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HOW CRIME AFFECTS NATIONAL LIFE

No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running his
crime syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses, narcotics
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 which has emerged from
the extant Indian political system is the root cause of all the complications.
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 tow 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.
UNIVERSALITY OF CRIME
On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living being are
criminals in varying degrees. 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 reinforce 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 social situation which 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

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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 civilised 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 field 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 which makes public life a nasty affair and nourishes it.
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 which
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, a part from affecting the quality of crime by opening up
new avenues for operation. As the ultimate end of all crimes in 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 polarisation of the society into criminal rich
and honest poor and destroys the countrys moral fabric. This increscent
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incidence of easy money, material comforts and political power of the criminal
rich ultimately leads to internal strife, emeute and popular terrorism.
POLITICISATION OF CRIME
The overworld is just the tip of the real, raw world. There are more things
hidden in this world than that are seen. This is soon realised by opportunist
Indian politicians who seize the first available instance to enlist the support of
criminals and underground operators for their nefarious designs. This is 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 hasty 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 become their most trusted lieutenants even getting
elected to legislature 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 organised crime in small and big cities anywhere
in the world can survive even for a day without political patronage. Ergo, all
syndicates of organised crime and their menace are the direct outcome of the
internchant nexus between politicians and criminals, indeed with the police as
bystanders.
SOCIAL POLARISATION
The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularises 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
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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 gets power,
comfort and everything. In the crush, honest man is lost forever. The ocean
of criminal wealth around him which 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 saw 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 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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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 itselfits 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 powerplay; 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 is 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 is the spine of policing must be made an integral part of
the police culture. This is absolutely necessary. Only such emphasis restrain
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
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fear-struck citizens, it is an issue between the helpless them and the armtwisting Government. In 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 organised 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 relevances become immaterial
to the citizen. A well organised 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.

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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
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 higherups, 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, organisational or social, or the rights of the nation for survival.
Protection, prevention and investigation are the tools available for achieving
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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 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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INTERNAL SECURITY
CHALLENGES AND APPROACH
In an age of sabotage and terrorism, no man, no place and no structure is
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 the limited
resources of the world, the kettle of human life Is spilling over with organised
hatred and violence. Terrorism has become an international phenomenon.
Accrescent unemployment makes terrorism popular by giving the unemployed
youth a raison detre for life and an ideology to pursue. The lopsided material
growth of 20th century life at the cost of contentment and inner peace have
endeared to man the thrills and adventures of the life that fills 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. The rise in hatred and violence, compounded
with mans dangerous power to wreak vengeance, has made internal security
an unsure field. It has become the primary challenge for the police force,
replacing its hitherto main functions of crime control and maintenance of law
and order.
The threat to internal security is posed by highly trained and motivated
volunteers belonging to highly organised and resourceful terrorist outfits. The
unenviable task of providing protection to men, places and structures from
these committed zealots with the 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. Even in the advanced countries the police find it difficult to cope with
the problem. The police should have led in modernisation techniques with the
antipode marching to keep pace. Unfortunately, it is not so in the Indian
situation.
The reaction of the police to terrorist threats is desperate mobbing and
covering the target at best and diffident immobilisation at the worst. Their

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inability to penetrate terrorist organisations has put it at a costly disadvantage.

Their failure to draw up detailed long-term plans to meet terrorist challenges
handicaps them in their operations. Internal security cannot be guaranteed
sans a sound knowledge of the terrorists way of functioning.
SPASMODIC APPROACH
An internal security machinery working in a void often gives rise to
ludicrous security reactions. Anonymous calls or letters in most unlikely
situations are attended to with a desperate mobilisation of men and machinery
without scrutinising the call or the letter, and everything ends up as a hoax. An
anonymous Kannada letter claimed to have been written by the LTTE was
received in Mysore with the threat of blowing up the KRS dam on the
intervening right of August 14 and 15, in 1991 and was later followed with
similar threats of blowing up the Vidhana Soudha on the same night. Somebody
wellversed with the LTTE objectives, expertise and method of operation would
have dismissed the calls and the letters as a non-even. But the Karnataka
police had to be prepared for an emergency because it was not equipped to
handle internal security problems with courage and confidence. It is not wrong
to be ready to meet threats but, the action should be subtle without fanfare and
unnecessary show of strength. Desperate reaction may prompt mischievous
elements to shoot similar missives almost daily. Can the police react to all those
letters similarly? It is subtle planning and low-key operation that make security
possible. All security arrangements must be preceded by through research and
detailed plans. This is completely forgotten in the Indian situation.
Not many are involved in an expertly drawn-up operational plan of
sabotage. It is quality that counts and not quantity in both sabotage and security
operations. Those who really execute the sabotage are highly motivated
trained and competent individuals. The larger the number, the smaller the
chances of success because of human nature, coordination problems and
higher chances of leakage. Also it involves the problem of providing security
and escape routes for more men in the post-operational period. No number of
policemen can stop a highly motivated and trained man from sneaking up to his
target and destroying it. What is required is 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 reliable intelligence
inputs about the objects and operational plans of the adversary. Everything
except these salient features is present in the responses of the Indian police to
security challenges.
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Indian security plans ignore the cardinal principle of a good reticulation,

namely providing security without coming in the way of the normal life of the
target except where unavoidable. The essence of security buildup is protection
with minimum inconvenience to the concerned. But Indian security sleuths feel
otherwise. They believe in taking charge of the target, be it a place, an
installation, or a person and dictating terms as though the security is given in
exchange for freedom of movement and action. And all this for inadequate
security. But even national leaders have traded their image and popularity for
this supposed safety.
It is argued that the Indian security system is effective in discouraging the
less resourceful terrorist outfits from attempting strikes and preventing halfhearted attacks. The argument is not convincing for the simple reason all
terrorist outfits worth the name are extremely resourceful with objectives,
plans and strategies and a complete commitment to carry out their operational
plans. No target is out of their reach. If a target is not struck for a long time,
the reasons can be only three, a) the outfit has not really intended to strike, b)
the outfit is yet to equip itself c) that security sleuths could be exclusively
covering the target making a strike impossible.
India should reach a stage where the third reason which is an exception now
becomes the rule. The failure to capture Sivarasan and Subha, suspects in the
Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, is a recent event. The chance intelligence, as
early as in August, 1991, that both extremists were holed up with others in a
ramshackle house at Konanakunte in Karnataka did not enable the Indian
security forces to catch them alive with all the time, resources and the element
of surprise at their disposal.
This reflects on the serious loopholes in the field of security planning in
India. Instead of inventing an undercover strategy to draw the extremists out
or entering their den as friends with the help of undercover agents, the police
failed to surprise the suspects and surrounded them. What happened was not
only the suicide of the extremists which was expected but the operation to nab
the culprits virtually ended there.
The reason for such bungling is that Indian security operation does not go
much beyond the multiple crack forces-Black Cats, National Security Guards,
Special Protection Group and so on. Indeed, these crack forces are important
but they are only the ammunition and not the weapon. 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.
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PROBLEMS
The problems of security are manifold. First is intelligence collection.
Often, true and false information are so much entwined that it is impossible to
distinguish one from the other. Even if a piece of information is identified as
true, it loses its value standing in the midst of useless material. That isolated
piece of information is removed from the adversarys action plan and when
pursued leads to wrong conclusions and dangerous situations. Continued
research is a must to utilise the information in action . 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 pressure
of time because of the proximity of the threat. Both intelligence and its source
must be kept a closely guarded secret. Any leak may prompt an adversary to
modify his plan which will annul the security operation. This creates problems
of mobilisation 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 Indian Indira Gandhi.
The briefing of security operations about their job itself poses a 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 too long. The timing of briefing and development
must be decided at high levels to ensure perfect secrecy. And, how much can
be told? Security operation basically involves the creative initiative of the
operator. His success depends upon the ability to assess the situation and
pursue a better course of action without loss of time. Success also depends on
how much briefing must be made to operators at various 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 comprehensive plan of operation with flexibility
to meet contingencies.
Timing is an essential ingredient of security planning and decides the
success or failure of an operation. It lends the element of surprise.
Not that everything traditional is irrelevant today. For instance, the strategy
of quadruple deployment-static guards, armed pickets, mobile patrols and
striking forces for a static target. Standing guards, personal security officer,
inner cordon, outer cordon and striking force are deployed for a human target
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while for a mobile target a security officer, escort, piloting and striking force
will form the skeleton of the system. 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 counter strategies are ever-growing
phenomena. An effective strategy must foresee challenges and arm itself in
advance. The country faces challenges from the Kashmiri separatist
movement in the North, the Akali separatist movement in the West, the ULFA
in the East, the LTTE in the South and the naxalites in the Centre. The number
of new security outfits coming up is an indication of Indias concern but then
the accent is misplaced on quantity in the form of a new security outfit every
time a serious security breach shakes the country, rather than on improving the
quality. Until the country learns the basic lessons of modern security, tragic
deaths and destruction are bound to continue.

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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 colour 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

criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime. Politics imprimis being
a powergame and an art of possible, Shakespeares characterisation 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
powergame, 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 powergame in extremis
like war and decides the degringolade or steep rise of those involuted 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. Afterall, being
suicidal is not a virtue; nor faulting the art of possible bring 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
understand politics in a civilised system like democracy as a powergame 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
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protection. For this, he keeps the police at his side. This is easily done by
intervening in police postings and helping to get early promitons for favoured
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 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 realisation 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 balkanisation of India policy adopted by some foreign
countries, made political kidnapping an ubiquitious 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 reclame 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 a fashion to initiate a terrorist outfit with a
kidnapping operation. The chevisance in the inchoate drama proves the
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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 futue of the organisation, a part form the advantages of the
ransom money and the 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 VERSUS DISPLOMACY
Political kidnapping and murder is tout court the most heinuous crime that
often involves cold-blooded murder of absolutely innocent people for political
ends. The mental agony and postliminary 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
realisation 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 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 off-shoot 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
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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 reistance of organised 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 and even smaller places. Ascensive
anfractuosity of egregious mafia gangs in these operations is 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 has 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 is 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 unity. 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
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union terrotory 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 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 colour,
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 outre 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 seniormost 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.

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HUMAN RIGHTS CELLS

Political crimes whether it be 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 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 intelligene 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 reorganise 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
he 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 an unified intelligence authority with the chiefs of all intelligence organisation
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 modernise its methods to raise it to a few
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degrees closer to the international standards. The interferences of offficialdom

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 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 are 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 which have become irrelevant in postliminary
periods. Though these model schemes are expected to be updated from time
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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 a 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, mobilisation 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 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 which deals with aspects of security for dignitaries, political compulsions
helped to update them as more and more dignitaries fell to the bullets of
exremists. 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 securiy 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
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other circumstances of the challenge. It is too simplistic to imagine that a

common formula, however exhaustive it be, 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 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 mobilisation. This works an a
panpharmacon to the under-utilisation of precious security tools by
unintelligent routine deployment.
Political crimes call for special skills in police in handling them as the crimes
involute political leaders and ergo, sensitive in nature. Such crimes are often
of national importance and draws the glare of pubic attention with all hues of
judgements passed by all kinds of people. There would be pulls and
counterpulls 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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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 is 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 watch-dog. This is why politicians felt the need for
wooing police to their side in their activities. The police of independent India
has 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 partners
in whatever politicians do or intend to do. They refuse to look beyond their
political masters with their dispensations of job favours; and so law, justice,
righteousness, professional ethics, morality, decency, human dignity, common
good of people, national interests and even conscience, otherwise common to

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any human being, have become invalid nonsense to them. The police, sans
sound character and personal integrity, is no more than a country dog which
is what the Indian police has 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 favourable 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 involuted 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 byproducts of the grind. They are created by the situation arising from a system
which 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
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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 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
prefer 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 be 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 avenir 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,
who found survival difficile, have left the field, giving way to the elements
which 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.

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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 either the politicians, the
criminals or the police 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,
is 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 powergames 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 which are tolerated by politicians are no more crimes.
The self-image of the police as a fearless arbiter of crime is changed to a
solicious 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 has more and more realised
that criminals, particularly those from organised 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.
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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 realised its infinit stature as a lawenforcing 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.
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 is 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 is
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 infamous for his epinosic and corrupt
activities in 1982 while holding charge of Eastern Range in Davangere in
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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 antagonised 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 subdivisional 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
while his far less competent colleagues have superated him on the career
ladder and the young officer was successively denied important postings
though there was not a single thing in his career to justify such a treatment.
Undeterred by the unjust scorn heaped of him by refusing promotion in
preference to his less qualified and less competent juniors, he later addressed
the chief secretary of the state government not to consider him any more for
the promotion. He took this unprecedented autophagous decision in utter
contempt of the corrupt and immoral departmental heads and government
functionaries who crushed his career prospects.
There is a case of a Director General of Police in charge of Crimes and
Special Units in 1987 in a Southern State in India who as head of the Food and
Civil Supplies Enforcement cell of the state 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. The new Director of the
organisation in 1987 in the rank of Superintendent of Police failed the Director
General of Police by his principled stand in this regard. 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 raid 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
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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 state headquarters through another
route that night. It is of interest to note that the Director General of Police who
stopped so law in his police career was posted as an advisor to the Governor
of North-East state during Presidents rule after a few years, postliminary to
his retirement from police service. This is the calibre 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 and uncertainties involved and the history of court
judgements 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 which supposed to take the lead
of reconstructing India is colluding for mutual selfish ends with the police which
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
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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.

268

CHALLENGES OF THE POLICE SETUP

The hazard of the Indian police lies in immobility of its organisational
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, particularly while the nascent democracy lounder the policing
system of India remis velisque, quite obvious of the futuristic kiaugh. 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
politicial 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 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
reinforced with external motive factors that can be infused to the organisation
e ra nata. Thirdly, the system should be organised so as to generate optimism
and confidence ex propriis to excudit the magical entrainement. Another
important aspect that should weigh lourd 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 an independent field

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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 ween a police officer as being
able to handle all aspects of policing though at different times. Hence, the need
of specialisation-oriented policing. The present managerial world is
increasingly realising the importance of human resources as organisational
inputs. Unless all-out 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 tanato 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 ineffectivensess 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 hiatus valde deflendus to have a featous police setup,
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 ween the police as being able to
enforce them all. The stupendous task of enforcing these legilsations 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 legilsatioons
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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 social policing system as a professional enforcement agency of
the social welfare ministry can do an effective job in enforcing progressive
social legilsations 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, proffessionally or organisationally. This
measure will exeme the police organisation from unwarranted pressures and
enhance 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 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 specialisation 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 specialisation, 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 specialised 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
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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, have the will or the
resources to divert to crime investigation while the crime rate in the country
is assuming dangerous proportions.
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 organisational 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 hair-raising organisational accuracy overawe the police, pitted against
them in the course of their criminal operations. The present police stationoriented policing is incomeptent to meet the challenges of the urban criminals
either in resources or in organisational ingine. Further complacency in re own
procinct may stifle the very policing system of India.
Unity, resoursefulness and speed form the spine of urban policing. The
control room-centered policing in urban centres 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.
The chief cause of policing never being a profession in India the
ineffectiveness of its training facilities. In spite of adequate infrastructures
available for training police officials of various ranks these centres 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
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character is inevitable to keep the Indian police excubant to future challenges.

The training facilities should be made centres 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
endeavour 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 which are herded to handle police training centres 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 centres 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 centres 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 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 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
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part of civil living, policing must prepare itself to amate the increasing
complexities of modern life by modifying its organisational 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 analyse 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 concern for fellow men. It
would be a fight for survival with less competent and skeigh gentlemen going
belive hors de combat. The kenspeckle pejoration had already set in from the
early sixties. 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 si high time now that we prepare out police organisation and administration
for the future challenges.

274

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 organised 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 a 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 bring 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 netherland is between success and imminent death.
Though underworld and open world coexist on the surface of the Earth, their

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objectives, values and norms of action render them worlds apart. It is only the
police from the open world keep avizefull eyes on the underworld. They are
the bridge between 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, cabret, bars, massage parlours 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 bread-winner 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.
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In cases of genuine raids by greenhorns, underworld fautors are alerted in

advance ab intra. 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
knowledge does not constitute evidence in court of law. All cares are taken to
cover anything that constitutes valid evidence to crimes committed. Cut-outs
is 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 harbouring 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 fastuous 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
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scandals, outrageous adventures etc. tend to fool the hoi polloi to remanticise
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 filmworld in the taut prise of the easy funds from the
underworld help the latter to manipulate the filmworld to its advantage. In the
ensuing publicity blitz, guillible 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 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 filmworld 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 gangwars 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 gangwars 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
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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 waitiing 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 ganster to leave the place immediately as
they had come to arrest him. The ganster immediately drove away from the
place. The police team formally conducted search of the place and reported
back that the gangster was not traced there. This is species of what happens
in most actions against mafioso and the underworld. In most gangwars 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 gangsers 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.

279

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. Organisational
objectives have been completely lost sight of. Shift in diligence helped to build
money-power while shift in loyalties facilitated proximity to power-brokers.
The degeneration spread rapidly with the passage of time as organisational
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 organisational goals and show results is
a clear manifestation of the fall in professional pride. The police, which once

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was proud to enforce law, to maintain order and to ensure peace and security,
have 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 organisational
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
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people involved. On the one hand, illicit business carried out with police
patronage or tacit support make huge grists in which the police naturally have
a huge share. On 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 mached 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 achronisms. 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 in also not uncommon. Though courts of law can theoretically protect
officers against such harassment, expenses, time and uncertainties involved
and the history of court judgements 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
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to further his prospects before he retires in a few months. As the date of

retirement 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.

283

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 have 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 grassroot executors. They are basically
performers, actual doers in the field. Passion in 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 rain drops 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.

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Loyalty is a binding, strong in that, an emotional binding by volition, but a binding

nevertheless; there is no independence in it. It is a mortgage of the self. Loyalty
denotes polarisation 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 judgement. 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 judgement. A police man 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 task-masters 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 is 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
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interpretations of laws and actions. Postliminary intereferences of courts are

too little, too late to be 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 to thereafter help only partial recovery from the damage.
Innocent people would already have been arrested, chargesheeted 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 polli, 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
organisational 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
himself. 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
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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 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 revelled 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 dramatise 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 organisational 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 specialised 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 favours, 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
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to be chargesheeted, 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, 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 manoeuvres. 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 cognisance of the situation and
convinced about the need of their intereference 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, chargesheet 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 elert 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,
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and in 1990s with the use of investigation agencies for manoeuvring

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 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 terrorising
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
manoeuvred to net-in strategic political rivals on filmsy evidences.Rs.133
crore 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 enquries 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
manoeuvrings 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 chargesheeted 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
powergame. 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 lee-way 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 favours during maintenance of law are
common and aplenty in policing. It be raids on vice dens, issue of licences, or
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action on rowdy gangs, decisions of police about whom, when and how, play
important role in political gameplan. 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 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 partonages ectogenous to political manoeuvres in form of
crosspolitical 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 hand-maid of
politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisatioon 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 wellbeing 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 can
not take it far in absence of credibility, respect and sympathy of the public.
Once the police lose their usefulness in political and power gameplans
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.
Paralysed 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
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mendacity. Inordinate delays in the process of investigations is one. Bartering

justice is another. Subjecting justice to the terms of quid pro quo is one more.
Inefficient and shallow policing add 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 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 symbolise 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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POLICE STRUCTURE NEEDS 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
crime-free 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

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frustrations caused by erratic measurement of work and policing qualities,

wherein a few mealy-mouthed smart guys always corner accolades at the cost
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 organisational 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 modernisation schemes without
creating the infrastructure for their operation or analysing 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 organisational plan and the foresight to assess future
demands, haphazard growth has resulted. Organisational 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

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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.
Rationalisation 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, 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. Computerisation is also a
possibility not far away.
Professional knowledge is vital in the field of policing too. What is at issue
is not only the knowledge of law and procedures but 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 inservice 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
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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 modernisation 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
force to be equipped with helicopters as an aide in emergencies. A genuine and
effective effort to achieve modernisation 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 modernisation is not met with an intellectual analysis of the
needs for modernisation. The result is spasmodic efforts without the logistic
support to sustain modernistion. This has resulted in enormous wasteful
expenditure towards the acquisition of gadgets. Indian is yet to develop a
system to assess the needs of modernisation 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, computerisation 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 modernisation programmes which
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 modernisation 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

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occasional press statements when actually image development has become a

highly advanced. Field of specialisation.
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 workes 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.
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. Constables up to the level of Assistant SubInspectors of Police should be limited to the duties of assistants without police
powers and responsibilities. This will require a huge army of subinspectors
while the contabulary stands to be severely spruced in strength.
With the removal of the constabulary from the hierarchy, the subinspectors 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
characterised 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
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attractive, though not to districts directly. And dual recruitments as in vogue

now, has 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 organisational 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 organisations 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 substructured 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 organisational 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

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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
characterised by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost
need of a police organisation of the coming age. The prevalency 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 higherups are the substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate
disicipline 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 impressioanble period of the formers
carrier-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.

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WORK PRESSURE
All creations in their fraicheur 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.
The Indian police is 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 humanising 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 comportations.
HUMAN ASPECTS
The human aspects is the fulcrum of policing. Human comportment teethed
with authority to compesce 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. 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 humanise 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.

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GOOD LIVING CONDITION

A resonably good standard of living helps the police to rise above the
physical and security need-levels to social and higher need-levels in the needhierachy outlined by McGregor and have the mental space for wider intersts
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 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 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 comparision 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
genersously 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.

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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 utilisation of police welfare funds.
TOUGHNESS
The Indian police is 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 is often required to defend itself 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 into
the 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.

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HUMAN RESOURCES FROM THE PUBLIC

The performance of the Indian police in utilising 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 which
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 organise 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 subordinates with many at very senior levels. The
feeling of insecurity in them colour 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 four-square 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,
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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 thatit
is expendient to reorganise 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 a 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 centrestage 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 interests of a colonial
police is the perpetuation of the colonial rule wherein matters ectogeneous 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.

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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 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 organisational 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 world-wide
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 world-wide 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, organising 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 securityis the Indian
manifestation of the new security consciousness. World-wide rise in terrorism
gave way for specalisation in anti-terrorist operations all over the world.
Crack-forces became the spine of the security police. Anti-hijack squads were
organised as an elite force of the police. Advances in science and technology
made national security a high-tech field. Satellites, modern communication
systems, high resolution photographics, laser beams, night vision systems,
computer technology etc made national security highly advanced and comlex
operations. The international developments only marginally touched Indian
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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 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 illgotten 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 themsleves 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
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lucrative business. Governance was commercialised 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 commonman. This spread
unrest and protests and violent agitations became the order of the day. The
people and the police found 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, gangawars
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 is 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 chargesheeted according to
political conveniences. Bails, arrests, searches, pace of investigation and
timings of the chargesheet 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 chargesheeting political heavyweights were declared to media before legal
compulsions of such a sensitive act was met. Cases of political significance
were chargesheeted on filmsy grounds and later equitted by the court. Inaction
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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 misdemeanour, the media of the country fished
in the troubled water to sensationalise the issue; the apex court was
constrained 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, cooridnation, direction,
execution, control or research and development mechanism. The cause of
atrophy lies more in negative schemings than in lack of a positive face.
Haphazard organisational 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 modernisation 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 mischiefs 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
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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 disorganised police force. Right leadership at the
top can be the lever de rideau to bring the system to its professional senses.
Such a 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 law-abiding 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 has 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 organisational culture and the managerial dynamics of the
police setup. Its value system, objectives, means pursued to achieve them,

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attainments, strengths and weaknesses, the reticulation of human relationship,

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 consuetudes within the bounds of law, justice
and popular acceptability. Their sensitivity to their image and reputation helps
to strain every fibre 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 organisational 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 techinique. 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
sensitisation to the threats of unlawful and criminal activities ab intra.
Criminal and other unlawful activities of the law-enforcers destabilise 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 sensitising the top brass of the force about
the need of policing the police too make policing meaningful and purposeful.
An extension of this sensitisation 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
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of external pressures to extricate from impending disciplinary proceedings.

Police is a part of the world outside and cannot exist in complete isolation from
it. Their close interdependance 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 are 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
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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 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 organised 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 self-policing. The point is that the same goal could be achieved with better
self-policing 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 otherwhere.
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 colour of office is largely misused. No proper mechanism is evolved
to demarcate what to what degree constitute acts done under the colour of
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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
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 render 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 have 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
outiside should deter the process, so that the feeling of security that one can
save himself from whatever irresponsible and unlawful act by bringing
pressure from outside remains no more available to schemers and worngdoers.
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 illgotten 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
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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.
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
lie in its numerical strength or the arms it weilds. 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 lawbreakers. They are feared, loved, respected and patronised 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 moulding 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-arounds 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 cashin 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 orgnisation. Practices and
procedures being the primary vehicle of attitude, they help moulding job culture

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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.
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
moulding professional attitude as required by the ideals of the profession.
Wrong attitudes inveterate in extant practices and procedures of policing are
shaped by self-interests, 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 realisation 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 calibre
and merit occupied key government posts. This happended 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 maximising selfinterests 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 realise 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
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of immanent servilitude and lack of spine than anything else. Present Indian
police lack of hardihood of professionalism and the self-confidence ensues
from it. 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 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 servilitude of police officers in India is 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 servilitude 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
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vintage. Risk-taking which 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 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 coldstored 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
gameplan. 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 chargesheeted 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 chargesheet. Sensitisation 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

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and chargesheeting, 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 civilised
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 in their constraint.
Objectives are primary Rules and laws must follow them only as tools to that
end. The realisation is rarely found in the present police. It operates laws for
laws sake by relegating organisational 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 off-spring 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
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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 maximise professional goals. The shift must see
police taking risks in the interests of the profession and doing intelligent policing
rather than indulging in manoeuvres 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 relevances, pressures, policing environment, psychological
aspects of policing etc. The exercise have 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 eight 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 centres and research projects on
the issues of policing. These attempts provide both inputs and insight to the
behavioural 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
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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
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 honours, 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 need 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 realisation that something
is wrong in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of the
construction. Once the realisation 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 to
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 recognised 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, moulding and controlling the affairs of
neighbours 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

324

INSIDE INDIA

economy. Another reason is the moral atrophy experienced by the police after
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 which 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 specialised skills, Ignoring this need
means compromising and betraying the organisations 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 which 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
325

PRAVEEN KUMAR

formulate their national security interests. Most developed countries have

created their own systems to mastermind matters touching national security
with the power to 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 centres 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 centres. 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 which 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 utilise 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 which 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, organisational
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.
326

INSIDE INDIA

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
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.
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
327

PRAVEEN KUMAR

operations for national security. Covert operation blossomed as a full-fledged

institution and was recognised 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, moulding and controlling the affairs of
neighbours 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
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 which 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.

328

INSIDE INDIA

LACK OF PERSPECTIVE
Clandestine operations require highly specialised skills, Ignoring this need
means compromising and betraying the organisations 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 which 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 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 centres 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.

329

PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 centres. 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 which 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 utilise 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 which 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, organisational
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
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.
330

INSIDE INDIA

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.

331

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 counterpulls 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

332

INSIDE INDIA

professional work. It turns to grave mess-up in absence of professionalism

probity and genuine national interests.
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 conceptualisation to
understand the fast changing dynamics neath the frontal layers of the society
and an 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 fulfil 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 watch-word 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 paramound 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
333

PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 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 criminalisation of politics and the politicisation 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 its is pulls and counterpulls. The contradictory pulls
and pressures are the clamour 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 being to government is en regle. Their argument is based
on the position that police form a part of the government. Men and officers of
the police force are appointed by the government; 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
334

INSIDE INDIA

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 and conflict is inevitable in the world of changes. Group
dynamics make conflicts pronounced in a democracy. The role 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 is 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 orgnaisation 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
335

PRAVEEN KUMAR

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
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 modelled 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 auxilliary police force enjoys
police powers and protections provided by law on par with the regular police.
It is a welcome experiment in India in democratising the police of a democracy,
provided every act of the auxilliary 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
336

INSIDE INDIA

to a situation where bigger fishes gorge the smaller ones or the fittest only
survive. Democracy is not a free-play 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 of the state power is
absolutely necessary to make the auxilliary police force behave within the
parameters of the law. The same thing can be said about provisions in the Bill
to punish uncivilised 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 unelightened 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 sensation-mongering 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 lets 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 is helpless in containing his criminal activities. Large sections
of the people in Dagdi Chawi, Mumbai and Maharastra idolise and support the
criminal. Democracy dictates respect to the feelings and sensitivities of all
sections of the society. Shiva Sena supremo 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, he fell foul
with Shiva Sena and its supremo and political parties like congress tried to woo
him and his muscle of labour orgnisations to their fold. Then Mubai police under
Shiva Sena government realised 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 exttortion cases and harbouring criminals. Nagapur Bench of
Mumbai High Court declared the arrest and detention under NSA as illegal.
337

PRAVEEN KUMAR

The episode explains all the maladies of policing in a democracy in the

ambience of criminsalisation of politics, politicisation of police, lax judicia
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 centrestage in
a democracy. Police are caught in the web of the dynamics of a democracy.
In a 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 wrong-doers 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
concious 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
manoeuvrability 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 realise 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
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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
night-clubs. 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 the city. As a consequence, he had to bear an unfavourable media
throughout. The next Police Commissioner of the city was after stopping the
menace of cabaret, live bands and night clubs and containing organised crimes
in the city. The immediate response to the new Police Commissioner was
inordinate rise in crimes like chain-snatching, kidnapping, extoration, gang war,
house-breaking 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 weilds 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 byadhering 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 nondemocracies. Indian police these days
with its deep politicisation 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 manoeuvrings, 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 pra rata to the professional resolve of the police. A weakened
and ineffective police is a sure sign of crumbling democracy. A democracy just
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cannot stand up without the spine of the police, especially while people are yet
to realise their democratic responsibilities. Strengthening the police is the
foremost need of firming up democratic traditions. How soon India realises
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 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 saviours in hours of need malgre 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 unvcivil
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 saviour 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

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of the matchless relevance of the law and order police to the orderly life of the
country.
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 interterritorial. 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 illequipped 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 is 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
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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 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 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 are 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 favouritism 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
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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.
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
upto 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-centres at lower levels,
giving an image of feudal lords to the chiefs of police stations who dare to
preside over and pass judgements on small local disputes irrespective of their
relevances to maintenance of order and other police duties. Marriages made
in Police Stations are not uncommon in states like Karnataka and Tamilnad.
Favouritism 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.
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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 manoeuvrability 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. Organised crime syndicates vie inter se for the
favour and patronage of the police that ensure the smooth sail of their antisocial activities 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
operatates 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 organised crime syndicates,
the importance of having right police officials in key positions for these gangs
cannot be overemphasised ; 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
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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 patronised 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 later, nothing came out of the case. This way
a living lesson to upright police officers who 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 which 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 organised 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
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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.
POORLY ORGANISED
All said and analysed, 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 cliches 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 catch-words 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 illequipped 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 which 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 recent example of such a failure of
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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 operates from the forests bordering the two states.
Though the operations by no means are easy, the failure of the efforts for ten
long years 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 respect ensue from this, take the police along way to success in
its professional endeavour 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 their personal interests are protected as no gains made at
risk to the life is 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 mine-fields underfoot, they realise 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 has its independent police force. A host of central police
agencies like CBI, IB, SIBs, RAW, CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, SPG, BPRD,
NPA, NICFS 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 Gujarath to
Arunachala Pradesh enjoy divergent ethos, environment and professional
attitude in spite and uniform police structure and goals. They are manned at
lower and middle levels of the hierarchy by the people of the concerned regions
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 monopolise 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,

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security and law and order, leading 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 one-upmanship 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 is 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 neighbours. 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. Organisational goal is the
raison detre and has to be reached by all means and resources. Every failed
opportunity lost to do better signifies 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.
And each looking shilpit and weak sans mutual support in the process.
Lack of coordination is not just an inter-organisational challenge. It is an
intra-organisational problem too. In the mosaic of state police force under a
single police chief, myraid subordnate units pull apart from different sides and
defy the compulsions of cooperation and coordination inter se, required in the
interests of the organisational 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 recognised 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 organisational objectives in the present
environment of Indian police. The remedy lies in restoring organisational
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 make 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
neighbouring police units are rare to the extent of being unheard of.
Resentment to take advantage of the specialised 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.
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The reason is that the utility of these forces in 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-organisational 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
one-upmanship. 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 assit the law-breakers 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, Karnataka in general and Bangalore in
particular is used by them 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 assist 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 neighbourhood 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.
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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 against forest brigand Veerappan is a point. Nine years of combined
operations yielded no results. Lack of coordination among 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 neighbouring 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 are called
for 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 assests 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 organisational
goals is the root cause of the problem. Absence of an institutional machinery
for affecting coordination and efforts to define the scope of such a 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 an 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.
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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
police. Careful overhaul of the selection process to absorb right people and a
training programme devised to strengthen the characteristics of coopertion and
coordination will go a long way in building an environment of cooperation and
coordination in Indian police. Work curlture in police force must encourage it.
Leadership qualities that realise cooperative and coordinated efforts into
reality and pave the 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 North-East. Dacoities are rampant.
Threat to peaceful and orderly life is prolate. Security is shaky. Crimes and
steadily accrescent. Commitment to professional policing is fractured. 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 realise 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 AND ADMINISTRATION

The police basically is a backup force of the state administration. Its
primary functions are from en arriere. It is the backbone of the state
administration. The police is the enforcer of the rules and laws of the land and
safeguards 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 is 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 forms
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
precedes and succeeds the law enforcement process and ipso facto
encompasses 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 recognised 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. The 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,

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worked only to the detriment of the police organisation. The propinquity to

pamper the police while helped the growth and expansion of the organisation,
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
chess-board 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, which 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 finds 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, this 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
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denies it any job, related with administrative decisions and assessments. The
police is 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 force and other enforcement activities. This is the backdrop of
magisterial powers being denied to the police except where police
commissionerates are organised. 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 which 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 more trustworthy. The resistance of the civil administration to
the demands of the police for the magisterial powers is justified to that extent.
The police commissionerates 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 requiries 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
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police functions nor the administrative control of the police force by the civil
authorities come 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 organisational 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
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 organisational 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 enjoys or suffers 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
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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 sings of the government. It is a string
that binds disparate wings and organs of the government together and give it
a sense of oneness and belonging while itself 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 represents 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 is a government
agency that performs functions both within and above the scope of the
executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police is a government
agency that performs functions both within and above the scope of the
executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police is 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
realisation 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, the 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 profferings 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 which is morally and professionally bound to
protect the public from the vice of corruption is 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 take disparate forms in diverse circumstances, but all leading to the

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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 favourites 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 fightings 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 ratrace 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 illgotten 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 those
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 legalised mafia.
Karnataka had a Superintendent of Police in northern district in 1980 who
openly encouraged those down the line to take bribes and shared the booty. He
used to insist 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. A 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, never to return to the state sinsyne.
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. And police wireless and departmental transport
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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 who
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 victimised 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-eing 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 for
investigation. The investigation made out a case for chargesheet against the
retired judge and five other persons including his wife, son, two daughters and
another person The chief 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 investagation to its logical end. But,
arrests in the case were prevented and chargesheet was unduly delayed from
above. The insistence of the Superintendent of Police, to chargesheet 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 chargesheet for more than 1 years
sinsyne till the IGP was transferred out of the organisation in 1993. The case
was later chargesheeted in March 1994 with the retired judge and his two
daughters dropped from the chargesheet on the basis of the evidences
tampered at later stages. The dropped names were later included in the
chargesheet on the orders of the judge trying the case. The IGP who tried to

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stall the wheel of the legal process subsequently succeeded in gaining entry to
a sensitive police organisation like the CBI and held the job till 1997.
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
sysptomatic 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 is 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 inveterated. 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

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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 those
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 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 judical 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. Organisational objectives
were completely lost sight of. Shifts in diligence helped to build money-power
while shifts in loyalties moulded proximity to power-brokers in efforts to
maximise individual behoofs after throwing professional ideals to dogs. The
degeneration spread in leaps and buonds with the passage of time as the
organisational 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.
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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
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 organisational 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 accrescently tools of political convenience. The development
shattered the professional pride of the police and struck a blow to their
motivation towards the organisational 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 organisational 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 neighbouring state of Karnataka. The couple were 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 were traced in Bangalore and were 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.

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STRUCTURAL 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 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 hand-maid of
politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisaion 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 can not take it far in the absence of credibility, respect and
sympathy of the public. Once the police lose their usefulness in political and
power gameplans consequent to losing public credibility, their political patrons
will discard them like used condoms. The best bet for the police is to be
366

INSIDE INDIA

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.

367

INDEX

A
Accountability 35, 36, 37, 51, 72, 85,
90, 91, 103, 104, 114, 275, 293,
309, 315
Accountable 68, 92, 94, 101, 102,
147, 155, 164, 314
Adolph 139
Adulteration 55, 276
Africa 51, 72, 146, 241
African 23
Agricultural 227
Akbar 45, 226, 235
America 3, 51, 72, 82, 99, 131, 241
American 54, 58, 112, 129, 130
Andhra 160, 254
Anti-corruption 50
Anti-dumping 58
Anti-hijack 306
Anti-religious 130, 131
Anti-sikh 160, 251
Anti-social 96, 300, 332
Anti-terrorist 306
Antinational 276, 278
Antisocial 206, 262, 276, 278
Antisocials 275
Antithesis 20, 34, 90, 137, 307, 362
Apocryphal 27, 56, 102, 189, 252,
276, 309
Apoliticism 148, 172
Apostasy 15, 17, 59, 174, 191, 343,
363
Apotheosis 20
Apotropaic 90, 191, 310
Apparatchik 108, 361
Aptitude 269, 293, 325, 328
Aristocracy 70
Arthashaastra 52
Arthashastra 45
Arunachal 226, 235
Arunachala 349
Asoka 130, 226, 235
Assassination 248, 267
Astronomy 138

Atmosphere 43, 54, 70, 92, 99, 100,

102, 142, 143, 144, 145, 155, 176,
180, 181, 191, 192, 203, 204, 210,
222, 232, 244, 265, 292, 300, 333,
334, 338
Attitude 17, 18, 52, 115, 116, 117,
118, 119, 123, 124, 125, 127, 137,
160, 162, 178, 196, 229, 301, 317,
318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 349
Attitudes 18, 20, 33, 34, 115, 116,
118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124,
143, 224, 317, 318, 322, 323, 365
Attitudinal 11, 22, 89, 115, 116, 118,
120, 121, 124, 294, 317, 322, 323
Auditor 59, 81, 164, 170, 366
Aurangzeb 130, 226, 235
Authorities 54, 76, 80, 197, 204, 242,
326, 330, 356, 357, 358
Autophagous 266
Ayurved 59

B
Backbone 220, 221, 296, 355
Backbones 85
Backdrop 125, 357
Balkanisation 253
Baltimore 2, 3
Bangalore 159, 277, 278, 295, 308,
352, 365
Bangladesh 135, 309, 324, 328
Bank 50, 56, 59, 64, 227, 236
Behavioural 115, 118, 322
Benjamin 128
Bhutan 324, 328
Birmingham 254
Bismarck 128
Black-mark 308
Black-marketing 55, 281
Blackmail 208, 264
Bombay 255, 277, 278, 308
Bombs 126, 252
Bonaparte 15
Booth-capturing 253
Buddha 17, 130
Buddhas 89

Buddhism 129, 138

Budget 309
Budgetary 157, 186, 187
Bureaucracy 8, 9, 10, 17, 19, 20, 27,
28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 52, 90, 91,
188, 280, 315, 318
Bureaucratic 8, 18, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34,
35, 49, 89, 105, 113, 273, 353
Bureaucrats 44, 49, 50, 52, 65, 160,
275, 319, 334
Burma 324, 328

C
Cabal 172, 200, 208, 264, 266
Cabals 141, 183, 356
Cabinet 72, 74, 82, 92, 102, 155, 175,
179, 204, 297, 350
Cambodia 64
Cambridge 138
Cancerous 141, 180
Capone 60
Career-ladder 192
Career-promotion 209, 239
Caste-ridden 123
Cataclysmic 271
Chambal 213, 215, 240, 346, 347
Chandraswamy 251
Charan 19
Chauvinism 232
Chikmagalur 53
China 20, 63, 65, 138
Chinese 15, 137
Chitradurga 161
Citizenry 64, 212, 238, 240, 285
Civilian 356, 357
Civilisation 226, 233
Civility 60, 243, 301
Civilizations 38, 105, 129
Civilized 234
Climacteric 52, 57, 111
Co-operation 86, 270
Co-ordination 79, 94, 255
Command-obedience 124, 143, 323
Commercialisation 181
Commercialization 17, 20, 138

Communication 62, 64, 94, 95, 96,

97, 104, 106, 107, 109, 112, 113,
126, 217, 241, 272, 275, 277, 295,
306, 347
Communist 64, 98
Constitutional 45, 73, 74, 76, 78, 105,
132, 133, 139, 227, 235, 252, 358
Constitutionally-elected 326, 329
Cost-effective 154, 336
Counter-balances 14, 201
Counter-checks 201
Counterfeit 55, 56, 57
Counterproductive 139
Counterpulls 260, 332, 334
Credibility 86, 147, 157, 158, 174,
186, 188, 195, 208, 209, 224, 225,
239, 257, 263, 270, 289, 290, 307,
308, 338, 361, 363, 366
Crime-prevention 162
Criminalisation 11, 160, 215, 252,
262, 334
Criminality 19, 69, 75, 82, 88, 96, 114,
203, 204, 205, 212, 238, 261, 347
Criminsalisation 338
Cul-de-sac 27, 206
Culture 8, 9, 13, 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, 30,
31, 47, 51, 74, 88, 90, 109, 115, 116,
118, 123, 124, 130, 139, 141, 142,
148, 149, 161, 168, 172, 180, 194,
199, 230, 233, 241, 242, 251, 286,
287, 294, 306, 311, 312, 313, 317,
322, 323, 349, 353
Cvc 49
Cyber 64, 96

D
Dacoity-infested 336
Davangere 265
Dawood 277, 278, 337
Deadweight-bureaucracy 35
Deadweight-police 90
Decision-making 33, 94
Democracy 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 26, 33, 37, 38, 46, 53, 62, 65, 66,
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 88, 97,

132, 144, 146, 148, 151, 156, 177,

180, 181, 182, 200, 219, 220, 228,
229, 236, 242, 252, 269, 306, 324,
325, 328, 329, 332, 333, 334, 335,
336, 337, 338, 339, 342, 343, 363
Democratic 13, 14, 18, 19, 45, 46, 50,
53, 60, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 86, 87,
89, 92, 101, 102, 121, 138, 147,
149, 151, 155, 156, 157, 158, 163,
168, 185, 186, 200, 207, 219, 223,
228, 229, 236, 252, 262, 280, 289,
296, 299, 305, 306, 312, 332, 333,
334, 336, 337, 338, 340, 342, 356,
360, 363, 365
Demonetisations 75
Demoralised 52
Demotivating 104
Demotivation 298
Devaluation 174, 175
Development 10, 29, 38, 39, 44, 45,
58, 62, 65, 81, 97, 101, 105, 121,
147, 162, 165, 170, 223, 227, 233,
236, 249, 272, 281, 294, 295, 296,
309, 325, 329, 356, 365, 366
Developments 28, 38, 64, 68, 96, 147,
152, 186, 203, 253, 255, 273, 292,
306, 326, 329, 364
Dharwad 203
Diginity 197
Digital 57
Dignity 9, 18, 30, 47, 144, 174, 176,
177, 186, 189, 190, 205, 206, 243,
261, 280, 302, 334, 348, 364
Dimension 13, 22, 37, 38, 39, 57, 70,
93, 96, 105, 117, 146, 151, 156,
195, 200, 244, 253, 291, 321, 345,
351
Disinformation 327, 330
Disraeli 128
Dowry 231, 232, 233, 362
Drug-trafficking 55
Dynamic 80, 94, 97, 257, 299
Dynamics 20, 37, 41, 66, 73, 95, 98,
121, 146, 159, 169, 170, 212, 216,
238, 276, 311, 333, 335, 338, 347
Dynastic 20
Dynasties 69
Dynasty 226, 235

E
E-governance 97
E-policing 97
Economic 8, 10, 20, 31, 44, 45, 54, 55,
56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65,
96, 97, 98, 136, 139, 180, 182, 194,
213, 222, 223, 232, 240, 286, 292,
325, 329
Economics 97, 223
Economy 31, 49, 51, 54, 56, 60, 212,
213, 238, 281, 325, 328, 360
Election 19, 20, 49, 69, 75, 81, 164,
170, 175, 179, 201, 207, 208, 210,
216, 237, 253, 263, 366
Elections 64, 75, 92, 101, 155, 171,
175, 179, 207, 216, 263, 333
Electoral 216
Electorate 207, 208, 216, 263, 264,
346
Electronic 64
Embarrassments 345
Embezzlement 58, 59
Embezzlements 59
Emperor 128, 130
Emperors 132
Empire 219
Empires 130, 132
Employment 44, 45, 63, 224, 274,
293, 316
Equality 71, 142, 226, 232, 233, 235,
285
Eurhythmic 63, 64, 110
Evolution 14, 29, 31, 39, 95, 105, 106,
119, 138, 168, 306, 335
Evolutions 120
Exchequer 64, 354
Exploitation 53, 55, 99, 335
Exploitations 53, 67, 99
Explosion 67
Explosions 96, 109, 113
Extremism 98
Extremist 98, 129, 259
Extremists 248, 354

F
Fabric 37, 69, 78, 89, 94, 98, 100, 140,
141, 146, 151, 157, 180, 200, 205,
213, 227, 235, 238, 261, 289, 291,
349, 360
Face-saving 325, 329
Favouritism 162, 202, 343, 344
Feudal 18, 62, 69, 344, 347
Fonctionnaire 24, 37, 111, 123, 309
Frauds 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 307
Fraudulently 58
Free-play 337
Freedom 15, 67, 68, 99, 117, 188,
193, 248, 285, 305, 321, 356
French 27, 106, 311
Functional 103, 149, 156, 169, 184,
293, 306, 351
Functionary 162, 271, 355
Fundamentalism 129
Fundamentalists 136
Futuristic 269, 271, 272, 274, 335

G
Gadag 203
Gambling 65, 153, 161, 209, 237, 276,
281, 361
Gameplan 290, 320
Gameplans 290, 366
Gandhian 324, 328
Gandhis 89
Gang-lords 345
Gangawars 308
Gangster 279
Gangsters 337
Gangwar 197
Gangwars 278, 279
Gauthama 17
Gawli 278, 337
Geographical 180, 226
Germany 20, 139, 324, 328
Glacier 135
Globalisation 20, 94, 95, 96

Globalised 95
Globalization 100, 139
Goa 73, 130, 336
Goalpost 142
Goldsmith 152, 203, 204
Goondas 207, 263
Gouthama 130
Governance 10, 19, 22, 23, 25, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44, 69, 70, 72, 78,
90, 91, 93, 94, 105, 130, 138, 141,
145, 166, 168, 193, 198, 216, 223,
228, 229, 236, 285, 299, 308, 332,
334, 355, 356, 358
Greenhorns 254, 277
Guidelines 115, 242, 259, 260, 317,
342
Gujarath 349

H
Haryna 160
Hawala 58, 160, 179, 251, 276, 320
Hdw 59
Hi-tech 59, 88, 89, 97, 109, 112, 113,
114, 271, 277, 326, 330, 333
Hierarchical 124, 143, 149, 158, 165,
183, 184, 188, 190, 199, 323
Hierarchy 55, 104, 111, 119, 126, 154,
169, 201, 206, 242, 262, 296, 349
High-money 59
High-tech 109, 306
Hijacking 37, 258
Himalayas 226
Hindu 129, 130, 215
Hindutva 139
Holocaust 139
Humanising 300
Humanity 84, 95, 96, 139, 192, 226,
233, 245
Humiliations 36, 91, 183, 196, 224,
230, 267, 282
Humility 25, 40, 41, 120, 144
Hyderabad 134

I
IAS 222
Ibrahim 277, 278, 337
Ideologies 46, 324, 326, 328, 330
Ideology 148, 213, 240, 246, 363
Ignominy 310
Ill-conceived 54, 124, 323, 327, 330
Ill-equipped 22, 251, 326, 330
Illegitimate 151, 203, 360, 361
Illequipped 342, 347
Immunity 76
Independent 14, 20, 49, 59, 67, 79,
81, 82, 85, 86, 92, 102, 103, 105,
107, 109, 114, 127, 132, 141, 147,
148, 149, 153, 155, 158, 164, 170,
179, 181, 188, 193, 194, 197, 204,
205, 216, 220, 221, 222, 223, 228,
255, 261, 265, 269, 270, 271, 272,
275, 285, 286, 288, 305, 349, 350,
363, 364, 365, 366
India-centric 134
Indignity 189
Indira 50, 75, 130, 231, 232, 249
Industrial 62, 63, 65, 138, 151, 200,
228, 236
Industrialists 58, 63, 64, 138, 255
Infrastructure 10, 62, 63, 64, 65, 94,
107, 112, 275, 293, 295, 309
Infrastructures 62, 64, 113, 272, 275
Integrity 15, 28, 29, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42,
43, 46, 47, 52, 60, 72, 76, 105, 119,
120, 162, 166, 169, 170, 197, 198,
206, 257, 262, 267, 273, 280, 282,
296, 299, 327, 330, 364
Intellect 35, 90, 154, 201, 229
Intellectual 9, 13, 18, 20, 110, 119,
139, 149, 157, 183, 186, 220, 221,
222, 224, 270, 286, 295
Intellectuals 14, 15, 17, 20, 71
Intelligence 36, 41, 67, 91, 92, 96,
103, 108, 113, 134, 155, 159, 162,
169, 170, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179,
182, 204, 247, 248, 249, 251, 255,
257, 258, 270, 271, 273, 282, 288,
294, 296, 298, 299, 324, 326, 327,
328, 329, 330, 339, 347, 348, 349,
350, 352, 353, 365

Intelligene 257
Internal 40, 45, 93, 98, 125, 126, 127,
146, 156, 162, 184, 185, 213, 239,
246, 247, 248, 252, 257, 258, 259,
260, 311, 326, 330
International 49, 57, 59, 96, 101, 133,
219, 241, 246, 253, 254, 255, 257,
258, 295, 306, 307, 324, 328
Intra-organisational 351
Iran 132
Iraq 129, 139
Ireland 129
Irish 31
Irony 159, 213, 233, 240, 241, 267,
287, 343
Irresponsible 36, 91, 207, 224, 225,
263, 315, 337, 347
Islam 129, 133
ITBP 349

J
Jadeja 338
Jagdish 46
Jain-hawala 289
Jaipur 338
Jammu 108, 349
Jawaharalal 219
Jawaharlal 133
Jaya 216
Jayalalitha 34, 289
Jayendra 75
Jazia 130
Jharkhand 74
JKLF 254
JMM 289
Job-culture 142, 180
Johnson 140
Judgement 40, 149, 154, 193, 201,
285
Judgements 68, 183, 260, 267, 282,
344
Judiciary 36, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 91,
156, 160, 164, 168, 170, 184, 185,
223, 233, 242, 275, 313, 314, 318,
358, 359, 366

K
Kalam 93
Kaleidoscope 333
Kanchi 75
Kannada 247
Kanyakumari 235
Karachi 277
Karakoram 235
Karen 128
Kargil 134
Karnataka 8, 9, 53, 152, 160, 161, 202,
203, 247, 248, 266, 344, 348, 352,
353, 361, 365
Karnataka-tamilnad 353
Karunanidhi 34, 280
Kashmir 108, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136, 213, 215, 240, 242, 243, 244,
253, 257, 308, 319, 324, 328, 349,
352, 354
Kashmiri 250, 310
Kashmiris 135
Kautilya 52
Kerala 349
Khedda 287
Khmer 64
Kidnap 254, 255, 264
Kidnappings 254, 255, 276
Konanakunte 248
Koppal 203
Korea 63, 65, 138
Krs 247
Kshatriyas 129
Kutch 226, 235

L
Labour 59, 85, 100, 110, 111, 140,
259, 298, 319, 337
Labourers 100
Labyrinth 62
Laissez-faire 54

Lakhubhai 289
Landlords 207, 263
Lanka 129, 213, 241, 324, 328
Law-abiding 86, 96, 199, 206, 262,
275, 311
Law-breakers 69, 149, 199, 285, 347,
352
Law-enforcers 243, 244, 257, 312
Law-enforcing 55, 57, 60, 211, 216,
312
Lawlessness 159, 161, 162, 244, 290,
308, 311, 312, 313, 347
Leadership 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20,
22, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 46,
48, 55, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 89, 90, 94,
100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 109, 110,
111, 112, 113, 116, 118, 123, 134,
135, 139, 149, 154, 156, 157, 158,
159, 168, 174, 178, 179, 185, 192,
194, 198, 201, 207, 210, 216, 217,
218, 221, 228, 236, 263, 265, 267,
275, 287, 292, 303, 310, 318, 322,
323, 334, 354, 364
Legislation 92, 103, 155, 204, 360
Legislations 100, 231, 233, 256, 270
Legislators 333
Legislature 78, 79, 81, 164, 170, 209,
239, 242, 358, 359, 366
Legitimate 43, 57, 115, 116, 175, 179,
258, 317, 326, 329, 330
Liberalisation 45, 54, 66, 68, 70, 71,
139, 181
Liberalised 54
Liberation 232, 309, 324, 328
Liberations 232
Liberty 82, 133, 243, 287, 342
Licence 53
Licences 289
Life-style 271, 277
Lifestyles 273
Line-system 298
Logjam 135
Loyalties 115, 116, 174, 177, 178, 179,
275, 280, 317, 327, 331, 364
Loyalty 45, 73, 121, 147, 149, 158,
166, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 193,
199, 276, 284, 285, 326, 330, 334,
363, 364
Lucrative 52, 56, 206, 262, 277, 308,

325, 328, 345

M
Machinery 50, 52, 73, 75, 76, 78, 89,
99, 105, 156, 181, 182, 185, 198,
204, 218, 244, 246, 247, 275, 307,
310, 315, 343, 347, 353, 357, 358,
361, 365
Machtpolitic 102
Machtpolitik 129
Macro-plan 248
Maelstrom 26, 31, 50, 55, 85, 87, 110,
120, 132, 290, 310, 335, 342, 354,
364
Mafioso 277, 278, 279
Magisterial 108, 344, 356, 357, 358
Magistrate 203
Mahabharata 230
Maharaja 133, 134
Maharastra 337
Mahatma 128, 130, 131
Mahavir 17, 130
Maifa 347
Mainstream 28, 53, 178, 267, 282
Maintenance 77, 113, 114, 115, 142,
151, 193, 203, 211, 221, 228, 246,
255, 258, 264, 271, 284, 285, 286,
287, 288, 289, 291, 292, 294, 306,
317, 341, 344
Majority 43, 51, 71, 86, 100, 132, 252,
346
Mal-administration 68
Maladies 11, 92, 101, 155, 200, 201,
204, 267, 272, 338
Maladjustment 207, 263, 345
Malady 8, 18, 24, 34, 35, 85, 90, 110,
147, 161, 163, 178, 186, 213, 240,
273, 308, 339
Malfeasance 121, 190, 308
Malfeasances 82, 117, 321
Man-hours 110
Man-power 89
Management 11, 22, 45, 47, 48, 81,
83, 86, 103, 104, 106, 109, 110,
111, 112, 126, 154, 157, 158, 162,

165, 170, 189, 190, 198, 201, 220,

273, 275, 287, 292, 293, 294, 298,
299, 303, 304, 341, 342, 343, 347,
366
Managerial 106, 110, 126, 270, 311,
312
Managers 56, 273, 295
Mangalasutra 203
Manpower 10, 34, 88, 89, 104, 106,
107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 198,
199, 246, 260, 294, 326, 330, 350
Maratha 130
Massachusetts 128
Master-axle 181
Maurya 132, 235
Mauryan 45
Maxwell 15
Mechanism 14, 37, 79, 82, 119, 121,
194, 216, 221, 241, 255, 269, 286,
288, 309, 314, 316, 350
Mechanisms 85, 246, 309
Mega-schemes 54
Metamorphosis 105, 148, 172, 233
Metropolitan 64, 80, 257
Milestone 324, 328
Militancy 215
Millennium 293, 295
Millenniums 226, 232
Mine-fields 348
Models 15, 17, 24, 25, 26, 110, 118,
121, 157, 162, 177, 182, 185, 322
Moderate 30, 159, 273
Moderation 228, 236
Modernisation 158, 167, 246, 293,
295, 309
Moghal 132
Morality 67, 130, 205, 206, 213, 240,
244, 261, 346
Motivation 24, 25, 85, 87, 88, 90, 107,
110, 112, 125, 127, 165, 190, 198,
199, 269, 275, 280, 281, 298, 313,
326, 330, 365
Motivational 294
Motive 119, 269
Mourya 226
Multi-dimensional 270
Multi-nationals 17
Multi-polar 47
Multidimensional 13

Multifaceted 35, 90, 334

Muslim 129, 130, 215
Mutiny 305
Myopic 172, 365

Offficialdom 258
Organizational 31, 49, 85, 94, 97, 113,
126, 139
Ossification 29
Outlaws 275, 312
Oxford 138
Oxygen 77, 284

N
Nagapur 337
Nalanda 138
Napoleon 15
Narayan 216
Narcotics 182, 209, 237
Nation-building 41
Nationalism 20
Navy 92, 103, 155, 204
Naxal 53
Naxalism 213, 240
Nepal 324, 328
Nerve-centre 223
Night-watch 295
Nitrogen 97
No-nonsense 28, 176, 183
Non-cooperation 152
Non-corrupt 283
Non-democratic 245
Non-existent 309
Non-governmental 15
Nonconformists 50
North-east 242, 244, 267, 354
NPA 54, 349
NSA 325, 329, 337
Nuclear 23, 134, 136

O
Oasis 9
Obedience 149, 157, 162, 185, 251,
356
Obeisance 173, 176
Offence 73, 120, 152, 171, 190, 233,
281, 338
Offences 74, 92, 103, 115, 155, 182,
204, 231, 232, 306, 317

P
Pakistan 129, 133, 134, 135, 136, 241,
277, 324, 326, 328, 329, 330
Parasurama 129
Parliament 225, 346
Parliamentarians 231
Parochial 34, 42, 138, 162, 172, 207,
221, 263, 286, 332
Patriotic 14, 23, 216
Patriotism 207, 216, 263, 336
Patronage 30, 49, 83, 130, 157, 187,
208, 209, 216, 237, 239, 251, 261,
264, 282, 290, 344, 345, 346
Petroleum 276
Philip 45
Phoolan 14, 347
Polarisation 213, 238, 239, 285
Police-public 259
Policing-centric 101
Politician 71, 75, 128, 186, 210, 214,
237, 240, 252, 346
Politician-master 211, 264
Politicians 19, 33, 34, 42, 44, 50, 52,
58, 65, 76, 88, 92, 101, 102, 128,
138, 151, 153, 155, 157, 160, 162,
164, 167, 173, 175, 178, 179, 185,
200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208,
209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215,
216, 237, 238, 239, 240, 251, 252,
253, 255, 261, 262, 264, 265, 275,
277, 288, 290, 307, 314, 315, 319,
320, 334, 339, 350, 355, 356, 360,
366
Politicking 130, 356, 365
Politics 14, 17, 18, 20, 41, 42, 48, 69,
75, 98, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132,
133, 138, 151, 160, 173, 187, 200,

205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212, 215,

216, 237, 238, 251, 252, 257, 261,
262, 263, 334, 338, 356
Politikon 43
Politique 254
Polity 130, 133, 134, 135, 146, 214,
240, 311
Portuguese 130
Post-democratic 145, 176
Post-independence 222
Poverty 45, 51, 52, 62, 63, 70, 97, 138,
235
Power-bloc 200
Power-block 151
Power-brokers 148, 151, 172, 216,
264, 280, 364
Power-centers 46
Power-centre 246
Power-centres 69, 344
Power-centric 23
Power-games 208
Power-hungry 18, 23
Power-wielders 332
Prikriti 230
Princeton 128
Principled 29, 266
Principles 18, 20, 29, 37, 66, 70, 78,
103, 106, 126, 128, 149, 162, 177,
189, 206, 230, 273, 293, 294, 319,
357, 358
Private-sector 44
Privatisation 46
Privatization 58, 139
Pro-active 313
Pro-rich 70, 346
Profesionalism 177
Profession 73, 96, 115, 116, 117, 118,
157, 166, 167, 174, 176, 177, 178,
186, 188, 192, 245, 252, 254, 272,
281, 284, 298, 301, 311, 317, 318,
322, 343, 348, 362
Professionalism 82, 85, 86, 87, 101,
103, 143, 163, 169, 173, 184, 185,
209, 220, 221, 222, 239, 270, 271,
273, 282, 283, 319, 333, 353, 363
Proliferation 58, 212, 213, 237, 238,
239, 251, 270
Pseudo-idealism 67
Pseudo-secularism 130

Psychology 28, 144, 273

Q
Qualification 170
Qualifications 45
Quantum 63, 83, 300, 338
Quintessential 223
Quintin 128

R
Raid 153, 266
Raids 266, 276, 277, 289, 294, 341
Rails 81, 147, 178, 320, 363, 364, 366
Rajastan 338
Rama-rajya 93
Rat-race 89, 123, 172
Reconstruction 9, 10, 17, 85, 124,
156, 158, 159, 182, 267, 323
Regeneration 15
Regulations 51, 55, 56, 181, 212, 238,
303, 305
Rehabilitation 347
Renaissance 214, 240
Reorganisation 160, 225
Research 14, 63, 81, 113, 118, 123,
128, 138, 170, 178, 182, 247, 249,
273, 309, 322, 324, 328, 350, 351,
366
Researches 97, 118, 126, 269, 322,
347
Resource 45, 209, 239, 243, 300, 325,
329
Resourceful 47, 59, 246, 248
Resourcefulness 109, 254
Resources 64, 78, 79, 81, 88, 89, 101,
104, 112, 134, 136, 165, 170, 181,
182, 189, 198, 205, 206, 246, 248,
255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 270, 272,
274, 281, 294, 298, 299, 303, 309,
324, 326, 328, 330, 335, 347, 351,
358, 366

Responsibilities 22, 37, 38, 47, 48, 62,

77, 79, 83, 84, 86, 89, 95, 101, 103,
104, 112, 115, 154, 156, 157, 170,
177, 184, 185, 186, 191, 194, 196,
199, 201, 205, 220, 224, 244, 261,
269, 285, 286, 290, 291, 296, 300,
312, 314, 316, 317, 319, 326, 327,
329, 331, 340, 344, 348, 359, 362,
364, 367
Responsibility 33, 37, 41, 59, 70, 78,
79, 81, 83, 84, 88, 99, 101, 108, 110,
123, 156, 165, 169, 174, 176, 178,
191, 199, 218, 226, 245, 269, 273,
279, 286, 302, 303, 305, 308, 332,
334, 335, 342, 358, 359, 366
Responsiveness 45
Restructuring 85, 198, 270, 316
Revolutionary 81, 97, 99, 171, 366
Righteous 120

S
Sanskrit 30, 138
Secularism 324, 328
Self-defeating 193, 229, 285
Self-management 22
Self-motivated 145, 176
Self-policing 311, 313, 314, 316
Self-promotion 18, 20, 175, 192
Self-respect 190
Sensational-centric 71
Sensationalism 15
Sensibilities 103, 119, 120, 293, 299,
333
Sensitisation 312, 320
Service-orientation 23, 26
Shankaracharya 75
Shankararaman 75
Socialism 20
Socio-economic 45
Socioeconomic 55
Sovereign 180, 324, 327
Sovereignty 177
Soviet 324, 328
Specalisation 306
Speccialisations 102

Specialisation 92, 102, 154, 204, 271,

296
Specialists 34, 101, 223
Springboard 120, 285
Springboards 36, 53
Steel-frame 226, 227, 228
Steel-nerves 255
Steelframe 8, 40, 42, 43, 73
Strategic 78, 109, 114, 126, 134, 135,
269, 289, 341, 342, 352, 358
Stratification 226
Strife-stricken 336
Stuartpuram 203
Sun-tzu 137
Surgeon 188, 189, 191, 192
Surgeons 11, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192
Surgeries 189
Surgery 28, 188, 189
Sycophancy 20, 46, 149, 168
Sycophants 141, 148
Symbion 341, 358, 361
Symbiosis 70, 133, 210, 237, 313, 351
Symptomatic 213, 240
Syndrome 245, 318, 319, 320
Synergy 70, 78, 84, 189, 213, 238, 253,
257, 271, 350, 351, 358
Systemic 87, 104, 113

T
Tamil 178, 280, 324, 328
Tamilnad 75, 289, 344, 348, 353
Taxation 51
Techinique 312
Technologies 94, 97
Technology 94, 96, 97, 126, 134, 138,
148, 172, 269, 306, 325, 329
Tehelka 34
Telemarketing 55, 56, 57
Tendencies 42, 96, 97, 99, 124, 138,
149, 162, 176, 181, 212, 238, 254,
265, 301, 313, 323, 341, 347
Tendency 30, 31, 37, 115, 116, 150,
154, 177, 201, 213, 214, 220, 228,
240, 242, 317, 318, 319, 327, 331,
351, 357

Terrorist-squads 182
Terrorists 243, 247, 253, 254, 258,
272, 352
Thackeray 337
Thakkar 46
Third-degree 149, 194, 244
Top-brass 47, 89, 109, 287, 309, 318,
323
Top-heavy 104, 165
Top-wrung 89
Transformation 45, 233, 270, 335
Tribals 133
Tyranny 25, 141, 147, 363
Tzu 15

U
ULFA 215, 250, 254, 352
Unaccounted 325, 328
Unconstitutional 33, 36, 91
Undemocratic 33
Under-utilisation 260
Undercover 248
Underprivileged 236
Underworld 206, 217, 252, 262, 275,
276, 277, 278, 279, 337, 338, 339,
345
Unemployment 110, 246
Unethical 68, 175
Unholy 130, 151, 184, 267
Unification 9, 219
Unifocal 22
Universal 95, 97, 190, 211, 237, 353
Unlawful 80, 256, 312, 315
Unproductive 260
Unprofessional 10, 85, 116, 161, 317
Unprofessionalism 225
Uprightness 172, 173, 183, 192, 343
UPSC 8, 9, 89, 91, 92, 102, 198, 222,
224, 225
Urban 62, 109, 114, 272, 299
USA 9, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 50, 65,
112, 129, 138, 139
Utility 111, 126, 156, 182, 278, 310,
336, 352

V
Vacancies 166, 169
Vacuum 281, 365
Veerappan 348, 353
Venkatesh 159
Verification 80, 257, 258
Vibrant 94, 97
Vicissitudes 96, 274
Vietnam 243
Vigilance 45, 49, 50, 81, 97, 171, 225,
313, 366
Vigilant 97
Vijayanagar 130
Violation 48, 55, 56, 73, 80, 148, 212,
238, 241, 242, 243, 244, 257, 275,
276, 281, 286, 351, 365
Violence 19, 20, 21, 67, 69, 98, 159,
207, 213, 215, 240, 244, 246, 256,
263, 302, 308, 341, 344
Vishnugupta 45
Vivekananda 130
Vulnerability 76
Vulnerable 209, 239, 281

W
Warming-up 119, 299
Wars 324, 328, 361
Wartime 259
Washington 130, 137
Watchdog 156, 181, 184, 185, 356,
357
Watermark 231
Wavelength 354
Weaponry 107, 109, 113, 217
Weberian 44
Welfare-interests 60
Western 19, 51, 68, 99, 129
Wherewithal 22, 146, 258, 298
Winston 71, 228
Witch-hunt 288
Womanhood 189, 231

Work-culture 142, 180

Work-ethic 180
Work-ethics 366
Work-pressure 300, 308
Work-pressures 300
Work-relationship 148
Workaholic 47
World-class 326, 330
Would-be-terrorists 253

X
Xenophobia 29, 30

Y
Yadav 14
Yeats 31
Youngsters 53, 150
Youth 66, 215, 228, 236, 246, 280,
364

Z
Zealots 130, 246
Zeitgeist 18, 56, 87, 99, 133, 138, 269