MAN MANAGEMENT IN POLICE

Man management is the point d’ appui around which all organisations revolve.

Among man, material, machine and money, it is man with his skill and creative ingine,

with his wisdom and capacity for ceaseless labour, with his thinking faculty and

intelligence, manifests in excelsis in any organisation structure as its real spine. The

strength, vitality, quality and real test of any organisation depend upon its human stuff

and the process of its man management. For, man in an organisation stands for totality of

his motivation to the organisational objectives and totality of motivation a toute force

depends upon the grade of man management in the organisation. Ergo, man management

is the fulcrum of any organisation’s process of survival. This is more so in a police

organisation where policing a fond is a human resources orientated profession with

boundless need of motivation for successful operation and therefore substructured tout a

fait on the merits of man management. A police organisation sans right man

management policy is bound to crumble in a welter of discontentment and demotivation.

Salient parameters of a sound man management policy in police organisation though vary

e re nata, more prominent of them can be discussed to lay the matter in right perspective.

HIGH MORALE

The present Indian environment of ruthless competitions impleached with the

degringolade of values made human resources management a farce in India. The

Wherewithal of human resources management like recruitment, promotions, transfers,

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rewards, punishment etc, is no more employed for the maximum benefit of the

organisation. Self- interests have undermined quality and character and organisational

interests are subordinated to personal behoofs. Though this proclivity is prevalent in all

fields in India of late, its adverse effects are kenspeckle in police organisation as the line-

system of the organisation makes the ingenuity of human resources management, a

factor having direct bearing on the quality of the policing. While is becoming a dynamic

part of the governance in urban areas, with the rise of urban pockets, the damage done by

egregious management of human resources in the police cannot be exaggerated. The

declension may go patulous with the passage of time if frack measures to arrest the

depravation in human resources management are ignored.

Diligent efforts at the highest level in the organisation to create a force

characterised by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost need of a

police organisation of the coming age. The prevalency of police administration over the

general administration in the survival of a nation as a democratic and orderly country

may necessitate future changes in recruitment and service condition rules to attract the

very best talents of the country to the police organisation with extraordinary care to

ensure that anything less than the best with clean antecedents does not step into the

organisation.

WARMING-UP PROCESS

The period of initiation is the most important and impressionable period in the career-life

of fresh recruits to the police department. The process of warming-up is based on the
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psychological needs of human nature. New entrants must be handled with utmost care to

give them confidence and a feeling of belonging at the incipient stage itself. A sense of

confidence and belonging to the organisation and an ingenerate love and respect for the

higher –ups are the substruction on which discipline grows. Efforts to inculcate

disicipline in a void a like waiting for rain from the autumn sky. Indian police

impresarios failed to understand such finer nuances of administration when they copied

the system of the British Indian police. And so we now have a police system where

discipline is insisted on subordinates sans the conditions requisite for the discipline. The

recruits who enter the fold with open sensibilities and high expectations, wither after

braving for a while the brusque and insensitive conduct of their higher ranks. These

recruits continue thereafter to be constant enemies of the higher ranks and the department

for which they must continue to work for the next three to four decades. A police

department constituted of such members, thanks to the shabby approach of the insensitive

higher ranks in this most impressioanble period of the former’s carrier-life, cannot turn

out eximious work. It is a tragedy that India neither spawned a police force of its ain

superior values nor copied the police force of the British vintage in its entirety with its

finer points, but cultivated instead a burlesque of the rough and mediocre aspects of both.

WORK PRESSURE

All creations in their fraicheur and the nature’s bounty are kind and tender and

elegant. The strains of the environment cause inquietude in nature’s balance and leads to

the obfuscation of a few precious sheens from its innards. It manifests in loss of human
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factors in man and his mental space turns intenible of human qualities by environmental

strains such as work-pressures.

The Indian police is weighed down with an impossible quantum of

responsibilities and tasks. This work-pressure adversely affects the mental balance apart

from depriving those tasks from the due attention. It is impossible to expect a man

bogged down with responsibilities and tasks to spare his time for the niceties of human

qualities.

An important measure in humanising the police is to scale down the work-

pressure on it to a bearable level. An element of lightness in work makes the work

environment dulcet and provides an adequate mental space to devolve on the exuberances

of human comportations.

HUMAN ASPECTS

The human aspects is the fulcrum of policing. Human comportment teethed with

authority to compesce the human mass forms the essence of police activities. Policing

essentially is human interaction, latitant in unending luctation to smite criminal and anti-

social elements. It is the human quality in the force that determines its effectiveness and

vitality. Therefore, human resource policy in a police organisation needs careful and

gritty handling at the highest possible level. People can afford the luxury of humaneness

when they are insulated from the quotidian diversions of their occupational hazards. A
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delectable service atmosphere mellows their responses to those around them. They begin

to see the world in a better light, in conformity with the atmosphere around them and try

to share these pleasant feelings with those they come in contact with. The levity of the

environment and the absence of strains from the service-front facilitate their opening-up

to give vent to their latitant human contents. An effort to humanise the police cannot

ignore the need to improve service conditions to make the police proud to be enraced in

the vocation. The sense of contentment generated by the service atmosphere devolves to

the public that interacts with the police. In addition, the public learns to hold the police

in esteem in conformity with its improved service conditions and sophistication. The

interaction between the police and the public can be a sound substruction for humane

policing.

GOOD LIVING CONDITION

A resonably good standard of living helps the police to rise above the physical

and security need-levels to social and higher need-levels in the need-hierachy outlined by

McGregor and have the mental space for wider intersts like human concerns of kindness,

tenderness, elegance and civility. A low living standard retards the police image and

esteem in society.

The police organisation functions effectively only when a reasonably good living

standard is made affordable to all ranks, so that they can deal with anti-social elements

from a level of strength and confidence sans the lure of easy booty, thrown en revanche
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to a let-off. A low living standard retards the police image and esteem in society, that are

the essentials of successful policing. It is more so in future while more and more of the

so-called elite jump into the fray of criminal activities in an increasingly complicated

society. It is necessary to make the police financially bein by adequately compensating

for the risks and hazard factors of their jobs to attract the best men to its fold apart from

securing them against financial distractions. A feeling of condign compensation and

contentment is certain to raise the police above physical and security need levels to give

free expression to natural human tendencies. It may be necessary to make police officers

financially bein in comparision to their counterparts in other services with risk allowance

and hazard allowance to compensate job factors. This helps to attract the best to the fold

of the police organisation, apart from protecting them from financial distractions. A

feeling of condign compensation is certain to boost the commitment and efficiency of the

police.

HOUSING

Policing is a risky profession that draws antagonism and hatred by its very nature.

It involves round the clock duties, often at odd hours, at odd places in odd circumstances.

Retaliation by criminals is a constant risk under which policemen live. Their work

constantly exposes them to danger. The very nature of their duties necessitates their being

treated on a different footing to others in the government. The security of housing and

other facilities being genersously available to them is de rigueur. Indeed the spirit of the

ancien regime remains undisturbed in matters of housing facilities for the police.
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However, a much more liberal attitude in providing housing and other facilities to the

police is necessary to strengthen the Indian police and make policing more effective.

WELFARE ACTIVITIES

Police forces administer welfare funds for the benefit of their members. The

current approach of disbursing money from these funds to needy applicants needs to

arouse a sense of pride and dignity even in receiving help from the establishment. Much

thought has to go into this aspect to make the welfare funds useful to them without

giving the impression of charity. If the funds go to them as their rightful share, they

would be put to better use than as a charitable contribution. A newly structured police

for the new age certainly requires a fresh approach to the utilisation of police welfare

funds.

TOUGHNESS

The Indian police is not paying sufficient attention to the need for physical

prowess, sturdiness and skill in martial art. The need for attention to these factors during

recruitment, basic training and in –service challenges is tout a fait ignored. A healthy and

sturdy police requires healthy and sturdy men and officers, capable of taking up gauntlets

and defending themselves when exposed to comminations. The need can be sidelined

only at the risk of weakening the organisation. The police is often required to defend
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itself in circumstances when unarmed and undefended. Policing involves performance

of tough and physically trying jobs that can only be performed when policemen and

police officers are physically and mentally fit. The police, aspiring to a bright future,

must attend to this need for its own good health with genuine seriousness.

UNIFORM

A change in the existing police uniform is an issue to be deeply probed into the

improve the police image. The present khaki uniform of police inspires resentment as it

is psychologically associated with repression and violence. A change of police uniform

to white or pleasant colours may prove to be a measure for the better in removing the

negative image of the police. The overall strategy in selecting a new police uniform

should be to infuse a sense of oneness and quality among the ranks of police and

inspiring a psychological disposition of friendliness, confidence, dignity, respect and

healthy fear in the public with a compulsion to see the police as their own people, but

invested with the responsibility of a noble task.

HUMAN RESOURCES FROM THE PUBLIC

The performance of the Indian police in utilising the services of the public is far

from desirable. Most parts of the country are yet to avail of the services of the people as

special police officers, as is provided by police regulations to assist in policing.

Wherever the services are availed, the potential is not made use of to the full. The system
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of village police officers also is yet to fledge to take off. The use of people as traffic

wardens to assist traffic police is limited to major cities of India. No police can be tout a

fait self-contained. Involving the public and obtaining its cooperation in policing is a

necessary art which needs to be carefully cultivated for making policing a success story

in India. There is no shortage of people among the public who would volunteer their

services. Only, the police must open its doors to such services and organise a system to

make such services really effective and useful.

WEAK LEADERSHIP

A factor that seriously affects the morale of a disciplined force like the police is

weak leadership, often affected by disorders of inferiority complex, in posts from where

it can affect the career of subordinates. This is a very serious situation wherein weak and

insecure leadership holds reins of the career of thousands of subordinates with many at

very senior levels. The feeling of insecurity in them colour their interpretation of normal

conduct of subordinates from their pusillanimous standpoint to interpret foursquare

qualities of subordinates as surquedry; normal reporting or explanation appears like an

intrigue and tough posture appears like insubordination. A desire to teach a lesson to the

forthright subordinates who make the leadership feel inferior is a natural outcome of this.

This makes retaliation an ever pensile threat to the career of the subordinates. And the

threat, sine prole is true in the police. This makes people of sound mind, a must in

responsible positions in the police. For an organisation like the police, the need of sound

mind is more basic than any other faculty. Should the prodigies of virtues like
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sufferance, intrepidity and four-square qualities in face of odds constitute the bedrock of

the police organisation, the force make meaningful impact on the society.

The basic tenets of man management in police organisation discussed above are

that a person happy, contented and proud of himself makes his work situation happy,

contentful and something to be proud of, and ipso facto enriches his work and himself;

that man au fond is good natured, trustworthy and tends to take responsibility and if he is

treated as such, he certainly turns out his best work that if he is convinced that fairness is

the rule of the game, he is the easiest social animal to be handled. It is left to the police

leaders to infuse these tenets in their man management policy to get most out of the

human stuff under their charges. But the conundrum is that the police leaders need to be

motivated towards the end, and who is to motivate these police leaders to the task by own

man management programmes.?