Shownotes

“Policing is a service to the citizen, when citizen needs the policemen, the policemen should be there at the police station. This is the responsibility of a democratically elected government, this is a guarantee given under the constitution to protect the life and property of every citizen.”

Maintaining law and order is a state subject in India. This means that each of India’s 28 states has the responsibility to ensure an effective and efficient police force that ensures the safety and security of all. Though all states have their own laws all of them are modelled on the Police Act of 1861. This was designed to: control a subject population; isolate the police from the public and obey the orders of the rulers of the day rather than protect the rule of law. 

The question is, is this the model we want to keep 75 years after independence and if not what can be done to change it.

√ Public perception of police is at an all time low

√ Police forces in India (both central and state) are short staffed

√ India, the second-most populous nation in the world, has amongst the lowest global police to population ratios at 158 for 100,000. This is inadequate when compared to UN recommendations on 222 personnel per lakh

√ Police personnel work long hours without weekly offs, heavy work load, inadequate training

√ Constables constitute 86% of the police forces and they are generally promoted only once in their career resulting in lack of motivation

There is a difference between the police that we have and the police we need. Experts are clear that policing has to change from merely maintaining law and order and preventing crime to being one that is a first responder in creating a public environment in which all can enjoy every right to the fullest within the framework of rule of law. 

In the 4th episode of the podcast Jacob Punnose ex-DGP and State Police Chief of Kerala and Jayanto Choudhury ex-DG NSG and ex-DGP Assam Police talk about the systemic issues that ail India policing - the conditions of work; budgets; internal culture; accountability; public perception ……..

Memorable passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Well that's a very interesting subject you brought up, and I think we'll take it one by one. And you have listed several questions, let us first start with working conditions. In most states, you have the armed police and you have the civil police. The armed police is over deployed and it's under equipped, they normally have to handle public order situations, and the civil police are understaffed and very thinly spread, in most states. There are some states like Tamil Nadu which have a very, very good spread of police stations, but most states and maybe Kerala as well, but most states, and I'm talking by my experience in the east, whether it's Bengal or whether it's a Assam, that is the situation.

👉🏾 Now hygiene factors are poor, the police to population ratio is inadequate and accommodation provided to police personnel again, there's a shortage and it's substandard. Now if you can improve these and ensure off duty time, you will actually reduce the stressors that impact on behaviour of individuals in the police force. Burnout and even post traumatic stress disorder, these are occupational hazards in field policing. 

👉🏾 You know a 14, 16 hour day without a weekly off, is quite normal, and working on festivals and holidays is a must. In terms of structure, I'm only now looking at civil police, because they are the people in the police stations, theres one civil police, for every 14 to 1500 of the population; that's against 1 is to 500 in the U S. And in India, the role of the police is far, far wider than what is expected from a police officer in western countries. In the US they spend about 350 USD, US dollars per capita on police. In India, we spend about US dollar one, and we still continue with the cheap model of a colonial policing. You must remember that when we were a colony, naturally, the rulers didn't want to spend too much on police, their interest was revenue, so they didn't spend much on the police and they expected the police by and large to live off the land.

👉🏾 Now, 80% of the police or more, are the constabulary, and they have a very basic entry level training in most states. Again, as I said India has many states, some states are better than others, but Mr Punnoose comes from a state that is way up there. I have served in states that are way down there. So I will go to the lowest common so to speak factor and he'll probably speak of the more advanced states. Now, most states have no career progression to speak of, the HR, human resource policies are quite outdated. And what's been happening in the past 40/50 years, is whenever there has been a problem of policing, the solution found is to expand and spend more resources on central armed police forces or central police organisations.

👉🏾 Perhaps the perception is that central forces and agencies are less subject to local pressures, that they are better organised and professionally more capable. But if citizens centric policing is indeed an objective, a pivot back to states policing is needed. And if you recall this was envisaged in the constitution. If there are weaknesses in the state policing, remedies must be explored and capabilities upgraded, with central support. 

👉🏾 Sudha I agree with whatever Jayanto has just now said. These are big problems for all the police forces in India. If you want to have good policing, the primary prerequisite is that policemen must be enabled to do good policing. Just calling a man a policeman, he cannot make a good policeman. You have to ensure that he's backed up with the necessary resources to do good policing.

👉🏾 Now, as Jayanto just now outlined, the primary problem is gross under-staffing of India's police stations. If I may share the figures, last year we had about. 2.2 million policemen in all the states put together, that's a fairly large number. But if you take the actual number working in police stations. For example the state of Delhi has got almost 75,000 policemen, but how many of them are working police station? if you just take the count, you will find that all over India, less than 5.5 lakh persons working in police stations. Most of the police personnel are working either in on the police units, or in special units, or with regard to VIP security or in crime branch or intelligence, something like that.

👉🏾 Now, basic policing, ensuring the security of the people, responding to the needs of the people or, all this are happening in the police station. And there, we are grossly understaffed. Even now, there are many police stations in India, where the strength in the police station is only 10 or 15. It is here that we need to increase our strength. In colonial priority was to ensure that the people do not rebel and therefore lot of stress was on that order policing. Policing is a service to the citizen, when citizen needs the policemen, the policemen should be there at the police station. This is the responsibility of a democratically elected government, this is a guarantee given under the constitution to protect the life and property of every citizen.

👉🏾 So when the citizens seeks the aid of a police station, for protecting his life, dignity or property, there must be policeman there. In this matter that we have sometimes not been up to the mark. So increasing the strength of the police station. I've experimented with this and we have been able to ensure that almost 50% of Kerala's total police person, are in police stations, that makes a lot of difference. For example, instead of keeping women police in the Mahila battalions. But if you put even half that number in police stations, that improves the quality of policing. So when women and children come to the police station, the presence of women in the police station makes a lot of difference, and to the culture of service that prevails in the police station. So this is very, very important. 

👉🏾 And the other things that Jayanto pointed out, very, very important. When you don't have enough number of policemen in the police station, you cannot give them the rest, they have to put in the 16 hours of duty, and often they are not given any weekly off for months together. They don't spend time with their family, their physical health, their mental health, all this is nobody's concern. You expect policemen to behave, well how can they behave if they're constantly under such stress, they have to attend to a variety of jobs. None of these matters gets enough attention or gets any priority in any dispensation. As Jayanto rightly pointed out, if you consider the expenditure on policing by the states of India as a fraction of the gross domestic product or the per capita income of a citizen, you will find it is so minuscule. If you compare it with any developed country and then compare the share that the citizen gives to the police out of his per capita income, it is just a small amount. When you buy the cheapest model, you get the worst tool. That's what is happening. You don't spend money on the police.

👉🏾 In fact, I recently calculated that even in Kerala where our budget it is a reasonably good, I have calculated and found that the total amount of money spent by the people of Kerala on subscribing to Kerala's newspapers in an year, are less than the money that the government spends on police. More money is spent on reading about the police rather than on giving the police the necessary resources with which they can work. So this is a distortion, this has to be seriously corrected. I'm very thankful to Jayanto for pointing out this huge gulf, which exists between our expectations from the police and our ability to xxxxxxxxxx resources and place it at the police station, so that the police can serve the citizens better.

👉🏾 About duty time, about leave, about their training, about their career advancement. This is a very important matter. So 95%, of this 24 Lakha police personnel, 75% of them are constables. Perhaps 20% better head constables, so the balance is 5%. In that 5%, the assistant sub inspector, they may come to about 3% or 4%.

👉🏾 And the top from the DGP to the DySP or or the assistant commissioner, as he's called, that portion will do only less than 1% of the total strength of Indias police force. Now, if you want to refer a charge sheet in court, if you want to investigate their case, if you want anything done, then some sub inspector has to do it.

👉🏾 And how many sub inspectors do we have? So therefore we are limiting our ability to investigate cases by limiting the number of sub inspectors that we have. I had a personal experience, when I joined as an assistant superintendent police in 1977 in Thalassery, after finishing my training, I had an assistant. That person had completed 37 years of service, he had joined the Malabar special police at the age of 17 1/2 or something, and when he was retiring after the 37 years of service, he was still a constable. 

👉🏾 That is the kind of career progression that we speak of in the police, the policeman has nothing to look forward to. So you are expecting much, you're looking forward to a policeman who personally has nothing to look forward. So how can you improve anything? So in Kerala, we have done several things to improve this now. Now every single policeman who gets into Kerala's police services can aspire to retire at least as a sub inspector. And if he has joined, rising to the rank of an inspector of police is a great thing for a person who has joined us. Now that keeps him motivated. If he is to rot in the department for 30 years as a constable, you can't teach him anything, he is not enthusiastic about learning anything, he's not committed to acquiring more skills or technology, nothing. Therefore another great reform that must happen is to ensure that the percentage of constabulary, that means the head constable and constable in India's police forces, are brought down 50%. The other 50% must be assistant sub inspectors, sub inspectors, inspectors and DGPs and all. So this is not happening. The minute we do this, we will have a motivated, police force which has got high degree of motivation to rise up in the ranks. 

👉🏾 The most important thing is the Supreme court....... everybody is improving the service condition, of the DGP, how he should be selected.......... but DGPs don't really matter. What matters is the constables and the head constables who deliver 95% of the services delivered by the police.

👉🏾 We have implemented most of the Supreme court directives, but I have my reservations about the effective Supreme court directives in improving police. Because Supreme court has not addressed the basic problem of who we bell the cat. So the cat is seen as the politician in government. Now as long as the cat is there and the cat has got the power, belling the cat is a difficult proposition. So political interference in the working of the police cannot be stopped by ensuring that the DGP has a tenure. Because now what is happening is that DGPs are selected so carefully that the most amiable, amenable and accommodating person gets the chance to serve in that particular office. This is uniformly happening all over India. 

👉🏾 If you look at the selection process of the DGPs in all the states, including all the stems, post-2006, particularly after 2014, after which the supreme court has been stricter in ensuring that the DGP selection is done in a very very systematic manner, you will find that the most amenable ones have been selected. It has not made any difference to the quality of policing. Because ultimately the problem is what I said earlier, what is happening at the police station level? The Supreme Court has forgotten about the police station. Improving the police station functioning, ensuring that that has better service delivery, insisting that better resources are placed for the police. These things are never looked into. 

👉🏾 So Kerala has done much to improve policing at the police station level. So I would like to dissociate from the concept that the great good can result from getting out the Supreme court directives. Because those for example, one directive is with regard to separation of law and order from investigation. Now, separation of law and order from investigation, everybody will in principle agree, there's not a single soul in India who will oppose that. But if you want to implement that, in the field and the police station level, you have to at least double the strength of police available in the police station, then only that separation is possible. The Supreme court directives are silent on that, and there is no mechanism, no means by which this can be ensured. So, if you suggest something that this may be done is a good thing, but unless these things are supported with the means to do it, it will fail. Then again about tenure system. Because it does not answer the question, if there is a misdemeanour on the part of the sub inspector, if there's a misdemeanour on the part of the deputies from the police, what is the mechanism to be adopted? So the benefit of the Supreme court directives have not been actually received by the citizenry.

👉🏾 Most states have implemented it. Kerala also has implemented it. And another of them the experiment has been the state security commission. The state security commission there has been a coming together of the leader of opposition, by the chief minister, so many of the high court et cetera. 

👉🏾 But the attitude, the attitude about policing with regard to the state security commission is not a very positive one, this is what I have found. It is to be used constructively, that was the intention. When the state security commission was suggested that there will be a meeting of minds, that there will be a common purpose to attain excellence in policing. So generally the point is everybody's keen to point out the faults of policing particularly to make the ruling party appear in a bad light. And therefore there is aversion on the part of the ruling parties also to give a major role to the state security commission or to pack the state security commission with people favourable to them Now, the springboard, what is a sublingual directive and practically all the states have safe security commission now, but it is not functioning in a very desirable way. 

👉🏾 Because ultimately the problem is, resources for the police, conditions of service of the police and accountability of the police. This is the most important. You should have a strong mechanism for police inaction, overzealous police action and police and atrocities. These three activities of the police, they must be made accountable for that and such accountability mechanisms have to be been strengthened. And supreme court has given that directive also. Unfortunately, most of the states are not very strong on the accountability mechanisms and police department is also not very keen about accountability measures. 

👉🏾 Now, policing is actually contextual. If you look at Sir Robert Peel's Met in the UK, that was a need that was thrown up by the early sprawl that grew after the industrial revolution in England. Now, if you look at in the U S, in the 1920s August Vollmer's reforms that led to professional policing, these were triggered by the economic growth in the U S after the first world war, technological innovations, like the telephone, the wireless, the motorcar and the emergence of organised crime. Even the other eras of reform in the U S in the 1960s and in the 1990s, that increased support of the federal government for improving capabilities of local centric, law enforcement in the US is local centric, and the engagement of academia with policing practice. 

👉🏾 More recently, say in president Obama's time, there was a US president's task force on 21st century policing that called for a return to greater engagement with the community and a change for the trend of increasing militarisation of the police, after the 9/11 terror attacks, Now in the UK, the police reforms and social accountability act of 2011 gave authority to elected police and crime commissioners to get directions regarding priorities to the chief constables of counties and to hold them accountable for performance. Of course, the Home Office continues to identify strategic policing...