New Delhi: In September 1992, Prakash Singh got a call from the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s office requesting his presence immediately. When he arrived, the Principal Secretary (Home) to then CM Kalyan Singh handed over an envelope to him. At that moment, Singh knew it would be the end of his innings as the state’s Director General of Police.
UP was vibrating with tension over Babri Masjid. Around three months after this incident, it was demolished on 6 December 1992. But Singh was clear about his duty: as long as he was in khaki, enforcing the rule of law was the “highest religion”.
“I did that. And for that, I paid a very heavy price,” said Singh, while releasing his memoir, Unforgettable Chapters: Memoirs of a Top Cop, a Rupa Publications book, at Delhi’s India International Centre in early September.
The Kalyan Singh government gave him only an hour to wind up. “It was an atrocious direction. Ayodhya placed me in a terrible dilemma. Night after night, I couldn’t sleep properly,” the former UP DGP recalled.
Bringing police reform in India
Unforgettable Chapters is about the valour of a top cop who survived four attempts on his life. It also details the major events that occurred during his tenure – from insurgencies in the Northeast and the 1984 riots to the separatist movement in Jammu and Kashmir.
“It was a good feeling that I was not only a witness, but a participant in some of the very major events which have shaped and defined Indian history in the last six decades,” he said.
The launch saw several top bureaucrats, former cops and senior officials – including Singh’s son, the Deputy National Security Advisor Pankaj Singh – in attendance. And all the panellists–former Supreme Court judge Madan Lokur, Indian Police Foundation’s executive committee member SP Singh, Director and Chief Executive of Common Cause NGO Vipul Mudgal, Ex-UP DGP Vikram Singh, and Central University of Kashmir Chancellor Syed Ata Hasnain–acknowledged Singh as a “legendary crusader” for police reform.
The Supreme Court’s landmark 2006 judgment on postings and transfer, based on a PIL by Singh, is considered to be a watershed moment in the history of police reform in India. Through seven main directives, it aimed to enable the police to perform its duties without political interference.
“His [Singh’s] contribution has been enormous. But It’s been about 18 years, and the judgment has been implemented in parts but not in letter and not in spirit, which is very unfortunate,” said Lokur.
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‘Better to be a dead lion than a living dog’
During his three decades of service, Prakash Singh got two mantras from two very distinguished police officers – BN Mullik and JN Chaturvedi.
The pragmatic advice from Mullik, who was a cop before he became Intelligence Bureau Director, came in handy the day Singh was asked to step down as DGP: If you want to be a successful police officer, always carry a resignation letter in your pocket. And Chaturvedi offered him this nugget of wisdom: It is better to be a dead lion than a living dog. Singh mixed these mantras and made another one: Sar par kafan, jeb mein istifa (Shroud on the head, resignation in the pocket).
“It is about the dignity of service, espousing that it is better to be a dead lion than a living dog,” said SP Singh.
When Lokur pointed out that people – whether they are from the police or civil services – often succumb to political pressure, Singh turned back to these mantras. Today, it is very very important to follow them, he stressed.
Slice of contemporary history
Prakash Singh recalled that when he retired in 1994, several people urged him to write a memoir. He demurred. “I have no illusions of greatness,” he said.
However, 30 years after his retirement, Singh changed his mind and wrote an account of the major events of his life.
“Prakash Singh is one of the most brilliant professionals that Indian Police has ever produced,” wrote Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor, in the blurb.
At the event, Singh recalled his time in UP. There, he frequently heard from his colleagues about dealing with terror in the state’s Terai region.
The team finished terrorism from the areas bordering Terai in a year-and-a-quarter, he said, but it didn’t leave a legacy as “bitter” as Punjab. Singh was the Additional DG and Inspector General of the Border Security Force (BSF) in Punjab from 1987 to 1991.
Mudgal said that Singh’s memoir is not just a book but a slice of the contemporary history of India.
“When he did things, the message went down that the top is incorruptible.”
But Singh’s forthrightness often saw him butt heads with chief ministers and top politicians from Kalyan Singh to Charan Singh.
“Policemen dabbling in politics would be a disaster. Politicians meddling in police matters would be the death knell of democracy,” he wrote in his book.
Even today, Singh’s colleagues remember how tough an officer he was. “When I got a call from him, my hands were shaking,” said Vikram Singh, adding that “officers will come and officers will go but there will be none like Padma Shri Prakash Singh”.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)