The two uniformed forces—the Army and the police—responsible for safety and security of common people are now pitted against each other. But an important point is getting drowned out by all this noise—the need for urgent, internal, people-centric police reform.
The frenzied social media posts about the Odisha police’s alleged mistreatment of an Army Officer and sexual harassment of his fiancée have led to anger and disappointment among the service fraternity. Retired service personnel are at the forefront, demanding reprisal against the erring police officials and writing very angry write-ups against police behaviour.
The incessant social media campaign by the Army has led to the police fraternity in Odisha also taking up cudgels in support of their colleagues suspended in the case.
That the common public readily believes the allegations of misbehaviour coming out of Odisha to be true is a sad reflection on the image of the police.
Perhaps this case is seen as credible and true because it involves an Army officer and his fiancée, who is the daughter of a retired Army officer. The fact that they had gone to file a complaint also plays a part. This privilege, unfortunately, is not available to a common citizen who avoids approaching the police unless inevitable.
But the truth can only be ascertained by holding an impartial enquiry. To their credit, the Odisha government has ordered an enquiry to be headed by a retired high court judge.
Irrespective of the result of the enquiry, the stories of police highhandedness are galore. Police personnel mistreating common people on the road and in police stations, custodial deaths and so-called encounter deaths are routine phenomena.
The ready availability of phone cameras helps record and publicise such acts of high-handedness. However, no amount of public condemnation of such misbehaviour appears to rectify things.
The treatment of the rich and empowered is different—as is exemplified by the case where a motorcyclist was killed by a car that was driving on the wrong side. The driver got bail immediately at the station level, despite not having a driver’s licence and having several pending challans related to driving on the wrong side.
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Soft skill training
In the case of Odisha, the police leaders need to engage with a basic question: Why did it turn into the couple vs police?
The couple had approached the police station as complainants. This status should not change even if they were drunk or unruly, as few have claimed.
The most disturbing aspect is that those in charge were not only clueless in tackling the couple, but they could not discipline the staff, including women police officers, who assaulted the couple.
This is an example of the lack of democratic solutions. The police rely on rigid, knee-jerk responses such as assualt, especially at the highest levels. This evil is rooted in the police training approach. This strict control is encouraged by those in power, police leadership and even privileged members of society in the name of discipline. It’s this mindset that leads to support for bulldozer/encounter policing from these groups, even while still they still crave police reforms.
The present episode is a grave reminder to police leadership to discard regimentation for democratisation.
Endless debates about police reforms by leadership have failed to address institutional flaws at the grassroots level. While the 2006 Prakash Singh & Others vs Union of India judgment of the Supreme Court addressed political interference in police functioning, that is only the beginning of reform. It is important to address the public relations of the police and the behaviour of the lowest police functionary.
The first and perhaps most important step is to revamp police training modules and include larger portions on soft skills and dealing with the public. Our police personnel must be trained to restrain people without escalating it to assault. If the police at Bharatpur station possessed this skill, they could have properly handled the aggressiveness of the woman—even if she was drunk and had slapped the police as per the police version—instead of losing patience and allegedly assaulting her.
Another reform that the police leadership should focus on is to ensure continual on-the-job training for those with public-facing positions.
If the police officers at Bharatpur were aware of the instructions issued by the Bureau of Police Research and Development, that a drunk person must not be kept in a police station for any length of time, they would have immediately taken the couple to a hospital. These aspects are part of the checklist prepared by the BPR&D for risk assessment of persons being taken into custody. However, the police functionaries at the station-level are either not aware of these instructions or tend to ignore them because of work pressure. The mental conditioning of treating everyone with aggression doesn’t help either.
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The soul of policing
The police is adopting modern technology in a big way. The Criminal and Crime Tracking Network System (CCTNS) is one very important and effective system acquired by the police.
However, most of these efforts are limited to acquiring swanky vehicles and communication equipment. The acquisition of technology should instead focus on ensuring that the lowest police functionary is made more accountable and that accusations against the police can be accurately verified. This can be achieved by ensuring that all police stations are equipped with functional CCTV cameras.
Why the CCTV cameras in Bharatpur were not functional is for the Odisha Police leadership to ascertain.
Similarly, equipment like bodycams will be very useful in protecting police personnel against false accusations and ensuring accountability.
Better personnel management is the next step. Ab initio India has had a lower police-to-population ratio as compared to other nations. This pool is further reduced because of VIP protection duties. Such demands are continually on the rise as the government readily concedes to these demands. So we have a large posse of policemen deployed to protect not only the lawmakers but also their many subordinates.
Instances like the recent directive of the Supreme Court directing the government to provide security to junior doctors at RG Kar Hospital, Kolkata further depletes the personnel available for normal policing.
While the instructions for instances quoted above come from the political executive, some aspects of personnel management are within the authority of police leadership to address. For example, they can rationalise the number of personnel deputed for security and administrative duties with them. The rationalisation of manpower as suggested above will go a long way in improving the work-life balance of police personnel.
Better work environment and living conditions will also help reduce their stress and improve their behaviour with the public.
The layout and working of a police station must also change. It should have a public area where people are received and attended to. The custody area must be separate and should not be accessible to the public, as the accused also has the right to privacy. An office area for officers to do their work and keep official records. And most importantly there should be a separate residential area with the barracks and restrooms, which must not be open to the public. Most police stations, especially in remote areas, lack these amenities leading to stress amongst police personnel.
The annual DGP conference, besides discussing issues of wider national importance, must devote time to discuss ways to improve police functioning. The problem with police leadership is that they don’t start their careers at police stations and do not understand its design and processes adopted. But the police station is the soul of policing and enough time and effort must be dedicated to it to improve its functioning.
“Brutality of criminals has increased. Similarly, the police is becoming more and more discourteous, brutal, and inefficient. It is a failure of the leadership of the organisation,” said a senior police acquaintance. He added that there is no need for the reform from the Prakash Singh case and that internal reforms are more important. “The leadership has to be sensitive, but it is becoming more and more insensitive. No one has any empathy for victims. They want more and more power without any accountability and responsibility. They are fully accountable and responsible to the powerful and rich but very cruel to poor or innocent citizens.”
The police leadership has to proactively supervise the facilities for police personnel and ensure that personnel under their jurisdiction are abreast of the latest instructions and best practices.
The leadership with their wide knowledge base and varied experience can help imbibe best practices among the personnel and thus improve their image among the masses.
This is how the police leadership can improve the functioning of the police and also help dispel the negative perceptions and prejudices that police face.
Sanjiv Krishan Sood is the BSF Additional Director General (Retd). He tweets @sood_2. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)