By Patricia Mukhim
It is a travesty that the Police in this country still follow the Indian Police Act, 1860. No amount of push for reforms have succeeded. Hence the police continue to remain adversarial to the people and serve the political class with servility. Recently the country observed the birth anniversary of its first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel commonly known as the Iron man of India. Speaking about the Police at a time when India had just emerged as a fledgling nation, Sardar Patel said “It is the responsibility of the police to maintain the prestige of government and to protect the honour of citizens. It is not good enough if you only detect crime and bring offenders to book.” He further stated that the police must also try to win the affection of the people for they are no longer the ruled but the rulers. Such was the vision of this statesman. Alas! The political class has never allowed Sardar Patel’s vision to materialise. The colonial legacy remains embedded deep inside the police psyche even today. This is evident from the body language of the police and their mannerisms when dealing with ordinary citizens. Its is when they speak to their political bosses that they become supine and tame.
Since Independence several Commissions have been formed to bring about police reforms. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has pushed for police reforms but the resistance to any kind of change remains the only constant in the police force. Even the Supreme Court directives following a petition by former DGP, Prakash Singh remain on paper only. The State Security Commissions if in place functions in the breach.
In Meghalaya, a Police Reforms Committee was set up by former Home Minister (Late) RG Lyngdoh. Substantive recommendations were made by the Committee of which this writer was a member. But the next government that came in hardly gave any importance to the recommendations. It has remained a paper tiger. Police prefer to function rather loosely and there are too few to point out these functional problems. For instance, transfer of policemen within districts is the brief of the Superintendent of Police (SP); transfers within the range is that of the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) and within the state that of the Director General of Police. But this protocol has hardly been followed. Constables and officers are posted and transferred according to political convenience and it happens when a particular officer executes his/her duty according to the rule book. In Meghalaya in the past four years the most pliable officers and men who would safeguard the illegal transportation of coal from all the coal mining areas of the state were given choice postings. They had to simply close their eyes to the crime committed day in and day pout under their noses. Meghalaya might as well not have a police force rather than have one that is indulging in daylight crime. For, it is not possible under any circumstances for coal trucks by the hundreds to ply when coal mining had come to a stop in 2014 and the coal already mined had been transported. The very fact that the Ksan mining tragedy happened in November 2018 is a enough evidence that mining was happening despite the ban. But other than the media no one really bothered to blow the whistle. Too many people had a stake in illegal coal mining and it goes right up to the police and political echelons.
In the police there are also attachments where police are brought from one district to another for emergency law and order purposes only. In Meghalaya the attachment happens regularly for those who have political godfathers. Hence such police officials serve in one district even while they draw their salaries from another district. And as far as transfers and postings of cops is concerned it happens in a very arbitrary manner leading to heartburns among those that cannot pull strings or pay money to affect a transfer.
Very few police officers, and mainly those drawn from the IPS actually stand on their idealism. What happens is that IPS officers coming from other states are distrusted by local politicians for they will generally not carry out the bidding of the politicos. Politicians see police as a tool to be used to serve their purpose; not to serve the country and people which is the vow that a police officer swears by. This is visible in Meghalaya where IPS officers are posted to the periphery while the state service officers who earn their IPS because of seniority are all posted within the state capital. Naturally, beyond a point, IPS officers also feel that if they cannot beat the system they might as well join it; become pliant and do the politician’s bidding.
The tragedy there is that the police is a hierarchy. Senior officers who get their command from politicians will tell their subordinate officers to carry out the diktat and the subordinate officer will tell the constable and so on.
Mr Shashi Kant former DGP Punjab stated in an article that police forces in some states have been politicised to the point that Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors can pull strings to get supervisory officers of their choice. Naturally the supervisory officers dance to the tune of their subordinates. And if we dig deeper we will discover that those subordinates work as henchmen of politicians. It is no surprise therefore that politicians prefer state cadre officers to hold important posts.
The Meghalaya Police fell from grace when the SF-10 an elite force trained to tackle insurgency abandoned their posts on August 15, 2021 and allowed protestors who took out a procession to protest the killing of Cheristerfield Thangkhiew (former general secretary of the HNLC in a police encounter), to take away their weapons. The State Chief Minister made it worse by telling those gun-snatchers to return them quietly and no action would be taken against them. I don’t recall any such thing happening anywhere in the country. Snatching weapons from a policeman is punishable under the IPC because it amounts to obstruction of a public servant from discharging his duty. Things have been further compounded when a tainted cop, who is also physically and medically unfit and has never been in a single operation, is posted as the Commandant of the elite force SF-10 that is meant to be used in operations. It would appear that the political establishment wants to disable the SF-10 completely.
That there has been corruption in the Meghalaya Police in the past is de rigeur. This time however, the scale of the corruption was such that it was bound to blow up on the face of the person who committed it. But did the officer concerned operate as a lone ranger? Was there no one that aided and abetted in the crimes that have surfaced thus far? That all the scheming for purchase of SUVs happened in the Police Headquarters (PHQ) and that a motor dealer is regularly seen frequenting the PHQ is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg.
Those in the know say that if a vehicle is required by an SP of a district, the AIG (Administration) would purchase a new vehicle but allot an old one for the district on all kinds of pretexts.
Much has been written about how the police were caught unawares on October 28 when the melee happened – when a protest rally was marching through town. These are all signs of a demoralised police force. It is not the purpose of this article to castigate the entire police force for that would be patently unfair. It is because some cops are still tied to their idealism that policing is not in the pits as yet. We can only hope that the arrest of a bad apple that has crippled the moral fibre of the State Police will send a crisp message that corruption within the police ranks will not be tolerated.