On 09th/10th March 2013,CHRI an Organization working in the field of Police Reforms since last 15 years, organized a confrence on Policing issues. The confrence had mix of participants from serving and retired police officers and civil society organizations. Team Nishan had opportunity to share its grassroot experience and the views of participants concluded that civil society organizations have a big role to play in democratization of India’s police organizations. Team Nishan was enlightened from the fact that CHRI that has been working with colonially trained Babus and at the forefront of raising bogey of political interference, considers all those NGOs as advesaries , that are striving to democratize the police system.
Nishan got information about this conference from our media friends and approached the programme coordinator to allow for participation and got enlightened about the impediments that are not only threatening the progress of India’s police reforms campaign but a very big threat to the core values of advocacy campaigns and the democracy. We realise that in spite of the very genuine intentions of working for a cause the wide chasm that divides the civil society organizations in their Approach to the common objectives can make the attainment of objectives impossible and defeat the very purpose of existence of such organizations that run on donors money, if they get confined to the top echelon, that has remained responsible for status quo.
The organizations that work with limited information from the grass root realities and revolve around the top policymakers to seek information on the root cause of the problem may keep proving detrimental to the real reforms that can address the fundamental issues and lead to justice .
Team Nishan began working on policing issues as recent as 2007 but within the first few months itself we had the realisation that getting the information about the root cause from top policymakers was the biggest impediment and very soon we reviewed the strategy to work with the front-line police officers and those members of the public, who were coming in contact with the police as victims of a crime. this strategy on one hand connected us with the front-line police officers and inspired their trust in us on the other hand we got first-hand information on the practical difficulties and challenges faced by front-line police officers in their day to day working and the vast gap between the grass root realities and the existing work culture and policies and the expectations of the top police leadership that remain in conflict with each other. In this approach, we didn’t get much support from the top police leadership . Those top cops, who have the reputation of being honest, upright have very quickly responded to our communications but the cops who are known to have the reputation of being corrupt, in general not only ignored our communications but even avoided the personal meetings during our visits. Supporting the frontline activism at ground zero of police reforms and acknowledged by the researchers from far and wide across the globe and CHRI’s co-operation of allowing us to be part of seminar ultimately acquainted us with the serious impediments on India’s journey for Democratic Reforms into its three million strong police organizations. The organizations and the leadership that has time and resources to address the fundamental issues that threaten the very basic core of Policing are working hard with perceptions having wide chasm that divides the grass root realities and these top think tanks. It appeared that the alleged top think tanks who reach those top positions in Police hiearchy, just due to structral flaws of recruitment, training and promotion system are devoid of real life practical experience on day today policing but vested with absolute powers of adminstrative and disciplinary authority that are further reinforced by police powers and their sense of fear of loosing power if system is democratized or reformed, they become biggest obstruction, in collussion with non Profit organizations like CHRI. They work in collusion to create illussions in the name of police reforms and proving biggest setback to the Police Reforms for turning colonial prarmilitary into democratic police.
The candid confessions of top police leadership on the failure of organisational leadership and the existing work culture made it clear that all the records that are maintained, data that is fed and information that is documented, is all but based on fallacies and rubbish. Some of the serving top cops, expressed their helplessness and appeared to be eager to come out of this imbroglio with the support of civil society organisations. The serving and retired top cops were unanimous on the issue of complete failure of organisational leadership in the management and planning of police operations and were sure that only way out was for civl society organisations to keep making noises to raise the issue to attract the attention and act as a pressure group.
The conference also had representatives of police complaints authorities for which CHRI is working as a secretariate.
The views expressed by director Nishan on the issue of restructuring of the complete police organisations by stopping lateral entries except for specialised positions and demilitarising it and promoting civilians oversight to act as watchdog with participation of civil society organisations from the grass roots was though taken note of but the idea of stopping the recruitment of IPS didn’t find favours from Mr. Kamal Kumar Ex-Director of National Police Academy, who had submitted a report to MHA in the past regarding enhancement of posts of IPS through direct recruitment. Kamal Kumar, agitated on stopping of all lateral entries and confining the recruitment only to the levels of Constable and argued that Constable in UK is equivalent to Lieutenant of British Army in Pay and allowances, However, in this era of information and technology, people can be mislead to advance the agenda of vested interests for a while but such misleading claims can be verified quickly to expose the fallacies that are retrograde to Police reforms.
Aridaman Jit singh,Director Nishan also highlighted about the observations of conference of IGs in mid sixties, that had categorically higlighted recruitment of substandard material in IPS and further authenticated by Gore Committee in mid seventies but no effort was made to redesign the recruitment procedures, that can select suitable candidates with leadership qualities and aptitude and thus attributed entire failure of Police system in India to the alleged Top cops who occupy ceremonial and authoritative positions and lead police organizations through administrative and disciplinary powers and not any kind of specialization. These views were appreciated only by Mr.Keki Daruwala, Ex-IPS and member Minority commission.
Mr. PS Bawa Ex-Director General of Police was very categorical in his expressions on the propaganda of political interference, he was sure that a professional police officer can perform and produce results, if one is willing to work.
One thing is for sure that civil society organisations have a big role to play in democratisation of the police in India. The police organisations in the country are the victims of the neglect of planning and management by supervisory police leadership due to the colonial workculture that is completely ceremonial and authoritative. The serving police leadership would never like to strip itself of the ceremonial and authoritative working and the only way left out is to strengthen the political leadership with evidence based information from empirical research and challenge the existing assumptions that are responsible for status quo.
Democratisation of security and justice sector, will remain a far cry until people are organised, educated to demand the change against antidemocratic policing practices.