“Running with the rabbit and hunting with the hounds”, Yes !Amir Khan Production, that has been running their show “Satymevjayte” on contemporary issues, did that. They had the practice of inviting those NGO representatives, to their show, especially those NGOs, that have been actively campaigning on the issues concerned, and assisted their show with the conclusions of their laborious research. But the episodes of “Police Reforms” exposed, the soft compromising underbelly of this production company, how it can be swayed by people and lobbies of vested interests. Amir Khan Production not only deprived the relevant organizations from participation in the programm, it did not even duly acknowledged their vital inputs and assistance. On the other hand for the first time, it not only portrayed all the culprits and perpetrators as martyrs but also donated all the support to the welfare fund of ITBP that is not even remotely connected to the issue of police reforms in the country. The basic difference between an Actor & an Activist, remains that, the Activist never compromises but an actor can compromise to any extent, Actor always pretend to live different characters and arouse emotions of people to make money, the money that he than spends on life style. But the activist, always struggle to catapult the cause and rally people behind it.
Field work members of Team AKP & Team Nishan
IPS did it again. We have come across numerous cases, In which IPS officers steal the credit and award their fraternity with gallantry medals and attribute success of investigations to their leadership, they do it just for their survival. Lest it is felt that their positions are irrelevant.
The IPS officers, bunch of whom were fierecely opposing the opinion of Aridaman Jit Singh, Director Nishan on existing police system, that is just a paramilitary structure and root cause of all the ills of corruption and crime, with no role & relevance to democratic requiremnts of the governance apparatus and the people and needs to be immediately demilitarised, decentralised, restructured and retrained; these very IPS officers appear to have accepted it as their destiny, after foreseeing its inevatbility and accepted their doom, since it can only be dealyed but can not be denied, so why not to endorse it, and take the credit diplomatically by pretending to be knowing of the pitfalls of existing system and cover own failure of not reforming it as the mere instinctual aversions. So, by doing it, they could deprive the organizations concerned from its achievements of research analysis and ensured that the concerned organizations and their campaign for democratization may not be strengthened.
In the Confrence organized by CHRI on 9/10 March 2014, majority of serving/retired IPS officers inculding their main protagonist Kamal Kumar, Ex-Director National Police Academy were too agitated to the opinion of Aridaman Jit Singh, Director Nishan, that the police existing structure is nothing but a local militia, trained as infantry combatants and needs to be immediately demilitarised, decentralised, restructured by flattening its bloated hiearchy in the ranks from SP to DGP. Amir Khan Production advanced the agenda of the vested interests of IPS lobby by turning the show into a IPS show and portraying them as victims and martyrs, where as fact remains that they are the biggest obstruction in India’s transition to democracy, they want very slow and gradual change, something that doesn’t bear fruit much after their retirement and death.
Anyway, It was really interesting to see all the issues being brought in to public domain from the platform of “Satymevjayte”, the particular words becoming part of vocabulary of police reforms campaign, that Team Nishan had been propagating since 2006.
Police needs to be demilitarised, decentralised, restructured and retrained to suit to the requirements of democracy. Every one needs to begin from entry level of constable and the current colonial power formation needs to be decimated.
It was surprising to hear that class of people speaking about organized corruption, who are themselves, responsible for the present state of police in the country.
The IPS leadership was cunningly admitting about its own failure for not reforming the system to democrtaize it, since it may strip them of their powers but the fact remains had they been so capable to know its pitfalls, they would have reformed it long back, their training, and expereince makes them so superfluous, that till day, majority of them just know how to state goals but how to achieve them, is beyond their capability and same is proved from Prakash Singh’s Police Reforms Campaign.
For the first time after 65 years IPS ledaership had to admit that their police organizations are basically, military with training, structure and discipline, that is retrogarde to police functioning.
All said and done, it was most disappointing that a person like Amir Khan also buckled under the pressure of police and did not invite even those organizations on the show that had assisted his team with vital inputs on the issues of policing.
so, this is the real face of “stymevjayte”. The inputs shared with his team members on their official email addresses and their acknowledgements are copy pasted below for the information of commonman to ensure that people know the true face of thugs, so that people know about the difference between actors and activists :-
Ritu Bhardwaj ritu@akpfilms.com
to: aridaman@nishanjustice.org
date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 5:32 PM
subject: Police Reforms
Dear sir,
First of all, thanks a lot for giving your precious time and suggestions on this issue. It was really a nice meeting yesterday with you. As per our conversation, We need your suggestions and opinions on following:
(1) Whats your opinion on Police Reforms in India?
(2) Whats your say on punishment postings of Police Officials just because they refused to toe the minister’s line, just because they did their job. If you can suggest some testimonies of senior officers being shunted from pillar to post.
(3) How recruitment procedures, transfers, promotions have been vitiated through political recommendations and corruption?
(4) Police as Criminals, Police as violators of human rights…
- Testimony of police officer on criminal activities of policemen.
- Testimony of victim’s family who was killed in a fake encounter.
(5) How lack of reforms is affecting crime prevention, crime detection and investigation?
(6) How lack of Police reforms is affecting the public order functions of the police?
(7) Police as an extortionist force.
(8) Failed history of police reforms. The SC judgement on police reforms…
Looking forward for another discussion on this topic soon.
Regards
Ritu Bhardwaj
Aridaman Jit Singh aridaman@nishanjustice.org
to: Ritu Bhardwaj ritu@akpfilms.com
bcc:Police Reforms police@nishanjustice.org
date:Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 7:16 PM
subject:Re: Police Reforms
mailed-by:nishanjustice.org
Dear Ms.Ritu,
we were occupied with J&K Police Bill 2013
it is a 76 page draconian document made by Police
Babus and if implemented that can setback Police
Reforms by another 150 years to the dark alleys
of colonial era, so I could not answer you as
I did not want to do just copy paste but include
what we have concluded with later inputs,
anyway, now I am hereby answering the first
questionWhats your opinion on Police Reforms in India?
The police in India needs to be completely restructured, demilitarized, and made locally accountable with citizens’ oversight to attract and sustain public cooperation, and make it public lead, to win over trust of people, the “public trust” that remains cornerstone of successful policing.
In today’s era of fundamental terrorism and phase of transition to democracy where insurgency movements have sprang up for the failure of constitutional mechanisms, no police can succeed in its fight against terrorism or insurgency, until it has won over the trust of public. The trust that cannot be won over by sheer authority or brutal police force but with transparency and stringent accountability and performance measures in the hands of public.
The community and political leadership of India should not forget that the existing policing practices and its work culture provokes conflicts and deepened the crisis, eroding trust of common man on politically elected governments and creates environments where terrorism can prosper. The existing work culture of police remains in conflict with Democratic aspirations of the citizens and turns the democratically elected governments into the adversary of public.
The existing hierarchical structure of police needs to be flattened to decentralize the power formation to make it performance oriented, pro-active, responsive not only to the local community needs but to the individual needs of citizens in distress and directly accountable to the people and the rule of law. The top cops who constitute merely 0.13% of the police force but vested with absolute authority over 99.87% of the police force without any direct accountability, lead police force not due to any specialization but absolute administrative and disciplinary power formation .
The 87% of police comprises of the constables who have no legal empowerment, training to act as an independent first respondent to the individual needs of citizens in distress and victims of violent crime. The constabulary that forms the bedrock of the police organizations across the world, have no incentive or career progression programs in India and they remain the most used and abused lot.
The investigation officers that form 12% of the police force and constitute middle rung also remain victims of ill management, flawed recruitment and training that is headed and supervised by IPS officers. In general, the half of the 12% of investigation officers come from the constabulary and thus render the 93% of the police force into the instruments of obedience and compliance on the instructions of the police leadership that remains far from practical policing.
The existing police in various states of India is nothing but Armed Militia under the command of a bunch of people whose flawed recruitment and training renders them lacking in leadership and professional policing for being far from transformative and comprehensive process that can turn them into professional police officers. In the mid-70s the Gore committee report made detailed observations on the flawed recruitment system that was responsible for intake of substandard material into the IPS and this conclusion was based on the feedback received from a large number of state police chiefs but the recommendations of Gore committee were never acted upon.
During my 30 years of field experience with various Central/State police organizations and my interaction with a large number of IPS officers, their working and their reactive decisions to particular situations and its results substantiated ,that they lacked not only in leadership and organizing abilities but also lacked in aptitude necessary for a police officer and completely lacked on practical experience of policing that has no substitute and with this they lacked confidence and suffered with low self esteem that bred arrogance and secretive working and denial of information sharing for improvement lest they get exposed.
All the positions of Indian police service officers starting from SP/SSP/DIG/IG/ADG/DG are all at the administrative positions with no role in the front-line policing. All these positions have no specific operational role, direct responsibility and accountability. The authoritative and ceremonial work culture with colonial legacy, deprives them of their practical participation in the day-to-day policing and thus turning their positions into reactive and far from grassroots realities. There lack of direct accountability for police failure and the lack of practical experience, leads to their taking decisions in accordance to their proximity to the political powers rather than the sound policing experience and leads to complete politicization and corruption. In existing police organizational structure from Constable to DGP is a strict chain of command without any scope for political interference but it is the political decisions of police leadership, emanating out of bad policing that get attributed to political leadership for being conspicuous. In existing paramilitary organizational and work model of police, the political leadership cannot take operational policing decisions.
The Ministry of home affairs that is cadre controlling authority of IPS, Bureau of Police Research and Development that is apex body on police research in India and various state police organizations have repeatedly failed in providing us information on the operational role responsibility and accountability of IPS officers in the existing police organizations. The Union Public Service Commission that is autonomous body and responsible for recruitment of IPS officers, finally admitted in writing to us that they have no specific examination through which they can judge essential competencies and aptitude necessary for a police officer.
The complete recruitment system of police in India needs to be redrafted with complete prohibition of lateral entries at the level of IPS/Dy.SP/Inspector/Sub Inspector/Assistant Sub Inspectors except for the specialized positions with specialized educational qualifications and experience. Everyone needs to begin from entry-level confined to Constable with aptitude and psychological tests and on the job of education in subjects that are relevant to policing and gradual career progression in specific branches in accordance to aptitude and competencies developed over a period of time through practical experience.
The complete training regime of policing in India needs to be reorganized by distancing it from militarization that has been preparing police officers into perverted infantry combatants with the sadistic/disciplinary indoctrination that turns them into inhuman brutes of but servile instruments of coercion who blindly obey and comply the orders of administrative authorities without even questioning the legality of such orders.
Turning an individual into a professional police officer is highly transformative and comprehensive process of human mind that is oriented through practical police working stretched across period of time and cannot be substituted by higher academic degrees of various streams or training capsules of any kind.
The only way to move forward is to begin the process of participation of all the stake holders and strengthen the political leadership with evidence based information and keep it alive as an ongoing process at city and town level by establishing independent citizens watchdog bodies that must monitor the limitations and challenges of existing system and simultaneously seek the reforms.
rest will follow in subsequent email
with best regards
sincerely
Aridaman Jit Singh
For Team Nishan
Acknowledgements by Svati Bhatkal, CoProducer and Head of Field Research Team, Amir Khan Production.
Svati Bhatkal svati@akpfilms.com
3/14/13
to me, Ritu, avinash
Dear Aridamanji,
Thank you very much for starting off on the work today. I am very grateful to your organization. May I request that after Jhajjhar, could you please put on priority, the following stories listed below.
Warm regards,
svati