THE ROLE OF POLICE IN A DEMOCRACY

Democracy stands for popular rule. Popular rule implies mass involvement of

people in the political process. Mass involvement of people necessitates rules and laws

and an agency to enforce it. Here lies the relevance of police in a democracy.

The seed of democracy is self-discipline. It involves responsibility to the interests

of the country and identifies self-interests with the national interest. In this sense, every

person is police for himself in a democracy. This being only an ideal situation, field

realities necessitate an external agency per procurationem of the government to enforce

rules and laws and police the national interests from the assaults of parochial and anti-

social interests lurking in shadows of a democratic rule. This is the police of a

democracy.

Police is a double-edged sword. Its front is national interests and safety and

security of the national life. Its one edge accounts for policing of the people; the other,

for policing the process of governance. Though the two functions towards the well-being

of the country appear intrenchant prima facie, they do make significant difference in the

actual process of policing. In one, police police the ruled from the side of the

government. In the other, police police the rules from the side of the people as true

power-wielders. While in one, it is the will of the rulers that prevails in driving the police

to police, in the other, it is the will of the people as expressed through the public media,
bind the police to police in a particular way. Police in a democracy are no more than a

system driven by the pulls and counterpulls of the government and the public opinion in

one hand, and the laws in force and the safety and security of the national life on the

other. For the infaust police, the diverse contradictory pulls and pressures only multiply

with the ascensive complexity of the national life. This situation of policing in a

democracy makes policing an infinitely more difficult task than otherwise by forcing

police to make decisions and take sides. This may be an opportunity for better service in

the circumstances of true professional work. It turns to grave mess-up in absence of

professionalism probity and genuine national interests.

The key of policing in a democracy is sensitivity; sensitivity to the needs of the

society and the nation. Policing in a democracy involves keeping eyes ears and even

olfactory organs open with an argute faculty of conceptualisation to understand the fast

changing dynamics neath the frontal layers of the society and an ability for fast responses

to handle emergent situations. No society is static. Changes are repaid in a democratic

atmosphere with group interests in constant conflict. The kaleidoscope of changing faces

of the society is best accounted by the media in diverse forms. Though government is

expected to be alert to the needs of the society, factors like inefficiency and corruption

more often than not work against social vectors and lead against social sensibilities.

Policing under such a government hardly fulfil the needs of the national well-being. An

avizefull police can always comprehend the complexity of situation through media and

judge the right course of action on its own wisdom. However, media in a democratic

ambience is not infallible. Public opinion is more an artificially created venal commodity
than a natural phenomenon in a democracy. Media has become a hi-tech business in the

age of power through elections. Most tools of creating and arousing public opinion are

instruments of propaganda. In the circumstances, blindly relying on opinions artificially

trumped-up by the media may not lead police anywhere. Rather, it may mislead police in

its pursuit of justice and well-being of the country. Ergo, perpetual pernoctation is the

watch-word of a democratic police while being sensitive to the needs of the government

au reste the ripples of the public opinion with the national interests and its well-being as

the litmus test.

Police is the ultimate weapon of the rule of law in a democracy. Government,

laws and police form a holy trinity in a democracy and each is sine qua non for the other

two in the system. The fact is that laws are mutable. They are enacted to meet the

challenges of the society from time to time. Laws are collective responses of the

legislators to a given situation. Chances are that laws in force are not adequate to handle

extant challenges in the field. It is a serious problem, police face. Policing is not exactly

like a football game wherein rules of the game are paramound and goals are scored selon

les regles. Laws are sine dubio paramount. Equally paramount is the safety and security

of the national life. Here lies the dilemma of the police. When the two paramount

objects refuse to go pari passu, police find themselves in the precarious position of

making a choice between the two as in national security decisions. Laws have to be

broken in the larger interests of the country while national interests cannot wait for the

enactment of requisite laws. The situation leads to human rights violations and popular

condemnation of police in some cases. Police have to bear the humiliation with dignity
in the interests of their professional objectives. The pith of the issue is that what

constitutes national interests and what not, and how far police to be trusted in deciding

where they can be given leeway to break laws in the presumed interests of the safety and

security of the national life. Even while laws provide for action, laws only speak what to

do; it is left to police how to do and how much to do. In the polluted atmosphere of

criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of police, neither the police nor the

political leadership as the highest layer of governance in a democracy is worthy of a trust

of such a magnitude. The need is a sensitive balance between the laws in force and the

safety and security of the national life. Police in a democracy need to be perpetually alert

to both the needs and find an aurea mediocritas to fine-tune its professional objectives.

Police enjoy tremendous leeway in governance in a democracy. The only limiting

factor that works on its is pulls and counterpulls. The contradictory pulls and pressures

are the clamour of the public for professional and honest policing on the hand and the call

of politicians and bureaucrats steeped in personal interests for work as their handmaids

on the other. The cardinal issue is where the loyalty of police should lie in the exercise of

leeway in pursuit of professional objectives in a democracy. Is it the convenience of the

government or the public interests? People in government claim that the first loyalty of

the police being to government is en regle. Their argument is based on the position that

police form a part of the government. Men and officers of the police force are appointed

by the government; they are subject to conduct rules, administration and superintendence

of the government. The other side claims that the police are responsible only to the laws

in force and for nothing else. Such a commitment by police is the foundation of the
administration of justice. This is the situation even in England from where India adopted

the gestalt of its democratic system. In the famous Blackburn case in England, Lord

Denning in reference to police, pronounced “,… is not the servant of anyone, save of the

law itself. No minister of the crown can tell him that the must or must not keep

observation on this place or that; or that he must or must not prosecute this man or that

one. Nor can any police authority tell him so. The responsibility for law enforcement lies

on him. He is answerable to the law and to the law alone”.

The responsibility of the police in a democracy is multifaceted. It must guarantee

justice and safety to all strata of people and ensure equitable enforcement of law sine ira

et studio. This implies special care and protection to weaker sections en face exploitation

from the powerful and involves contranatant stimuli. This is where the sphere of social

laws comes to picture. Police has to paramount role in social transformation in a

democracy. Resistance is inherent and conflict is inevitable in the world of changes.

Group dynamics make conflicts pronounced in a democracy. The role police play in

social conflicts have a major say in determining the futuristic pattern of society. The

importance necessitates police to be a thinker and a judge in addition to being a cutting-

edge executor. A thinking police is a special need of a democracy. Laws only say what

to do and what not to do; it is left to police to decide how to do and how much to do. It

decides where, when, how and how much invokes what laws. Only a thinking police can

handle the responsibility perficiently. It has to deal with a variety of situations of

different points of time in enforcement of laws. Failure cripples the evolution of social

system to social justice.

 A special feature of police in a democracy is involving people in policing. People

policing themselves is the leitmotiv of in involving people in policing in a democracy.

The regular police force is just a skeleton for the true policing efforts of a democracy

wherein every citizen is a policeman of his country. The regular police force is just a

reticulation with necessary structure, resources and expertise at its disposal towards that

end. The potentiality of the citizens to police themselves being fully exploited is an

essential ingredient of a successful democracy. No police orgnaisation can succeed in a

democracy without people being activity involved. The involvement can be either formal

or informal. In informal involvement, services of eligible citizens are enlisted for policing

under diverse categories of schemes provided by police Acts like Special police Officers,

Additional Police, Traffic Wardens, Village Police or even Home Guards as provided by

the Home Guards enactments. The citizens so enlisted help the regular police in various

police duties with special rights and privileges under the supervision and

superintendence of the police force. The services are normally voluntary. The skill of

the regular police lies in making the voluntary schemes attractive and popular and

enlisting enthusiastic citizens to its fold in large numbers. Not much is done in India in

this area. Nor real efforts are made to activate such voluntary schemes provided by the

law. The result is that Indian police sweat out without a mass base in a maelstrom and

bear impossible burdens on its weak frame to the point of breaking down.

The informal involvement covers the use of citizens during the policing. The help

the citizens render to police varies from being informers, witnesses and signatories to
various panchanamas in criminal cases to patrolling in groups in strife-stricken or

dacoity-infested areas at nights. These duties are principal to the success of policing.

The skill of the police in enlisting the cooperation of respectable citizens plays an

important role in making policing successful. Not much attention is given to this skill in

the present scheme of things in police. The result is poor policing for lack of

involvement of the people. Stock witnesses are the order of the day. Willing cooperation

of the public in policing is a rarity. Police are more hated, feared and distanced than

respected and helped.

Involvement breeds a sense of belonging. It brings police and the public closer.

This is a major step towards the relevance of police in a democracy. The sense of

participation in policing helps to appreciate the problems of the police and policing. It

enthuses citizens to partake in nation building and boosts patriotism.

The relevance of police in a democracy lies in the direct interaction between the

people and their police. Utility of police lies in its usefulness to the people and the

country. A two-way channel between the people and the police makes a democracy

really democratic. Periodical meetings between the public and the police at various levels

serve the purpose. People from all walks of life of a specific area interact with the police

officers of the area in formal meetings held periodically on policing issues. The exercise

helps the public and the police know each other better and appreciate mutual limitations

in right perspective. It makes better cooperation between the public and the police

possible. Informal contacts between the police and the public at different levels also help
the process. It boosts mutual confidence to the benefits of both the sides and makes

policing cost-effective and efficient The interactions develop a sense of belonging

between the two to the advantage of both the sides as an essential ingredient of good

policing in a true democracy.

Policing in a true democracy can be extended to a wider scope of experiment a la

the Goa Police Bill, 1995. The bill modelled on Singapore police, provides for creation

of auxiliary police force by owners of private establishments to safeguard life and

property in specified areas apart from being empowered to maintain law and order,

preserve public peace and prevent and detect crime within that area. The auxilliary

police force enjoys police powers and protections provided by law on par with the regular

police. It is a welcome experiment in India in democratising the police of a democracy,

provided every act of the auxilliary police force is subjected to effective control,

supervision and superintendence of the regular police force to avoid misuse of powers.

The idea of people policing the people should not degenerate to a situation where bigger

fishes gorge the smaller ones or the fittest only survive. Democracy is not a free-play of

powers. It is a balanced exercise of power wherein all people co-exist irrespective of

whether they are weak or powerful. Giving them policing powers to police themselves is

in line with the highest traditions of the democracy. In the circumstances of the corrupt

society, the vigil of the regular police as the symbol of the state power is absolutely

necessary to make the auxilliary police force behave within the parameters of the law.

The same thing can be said about provisions in the Bill to punish uncivilised conduct like

spitting, smoking, urinating, throwing garbage etc in public places. They are bound to be
appreciated in an enlightened democracy as a measure of cleansing their cities and

inculcating decent and healthy practices among them while in an unelightened democracy

like India, there is bound to be opposition to the provisions as an intrusion on their right

of doing what they want and irresponsible and sensation-mongering Indian media is

bound to linger on the protests as an event of national significance. Both sides are the

part of the democratic interplay of a democracy.

The options before the police in a democracy are often a bundle of nonoptions.

They find themselves in the precarious situation of neither taking a decision nor avoiding

it. It is like being caught between the devil and the deep sea. Democracy lets loose

contradictory forces to pounce on police from all sides. A police not steeped in

professional resolve gets seized in the melee and exposes itself to grievous errors. A

good example is the case of dreaded underworld don Arun Gawli of Mumbai. The world

knows that he is a dangerous criminal with scores of criminal cases pending against him.

Mumbai police obviously is helpless in containing his criminal activities. Large sections

of the people in Dagdi Chawi, Mumbai and Maharastra idolise and support the criminal.

Democracy dictates respect to the feelings and sensitivities of all sections of the society.

Shiva Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and his party called him as their answer to dreaded

underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and tried to promote him and his gangsters. He

become a respected figure to Mumbai police under Shiva Sena Chief Minister, once he

established his Akhila Bharatiya Sena (ABS) at Mumbai and other places of Maharastra,

he fell foul with Shiva Sena and its supremo and political parties like congress tried to

woo him and his muscle of labour orgnisations to their fold. Then Mubai police under
Shiva Sena government realised that Arun Gawli and his criminal activities are security

threat to the nation and he was arrested and detained under NSA for a couple of exttortion

cases and harbouring criminals. Nagapur Bench of Mumbai High Court declared the

arrest and detention under NSA as illegal. The episode explains all the maladies of

policing in a democracy in the ambience of criminsalisation of politics, politicisation of

police, lax judicia system, constricting group dynamics and the ability of criminal

elements to take advantage of the Achilles’ heel of a system. A flexible police is the

centre of all these malaises.

People, their group interests and concomitant conflicts are centrestage in a

democracy. Police are caught in the web of the dynamics of a democracy. In a situation

where government and power depend upon the vote banks of groups, the task of police

weaving through these groups to police them and bring wrong-doers to book pro bono

publico is an unenviable task demanding tact. In the notorious Shivani acid attack case of

Jaipur, a 17 year-old girl, Shivani Jadeja on way to school from her residence on April

12, 1997 was attacked with acid, allegedly by the son of the transport minister of the state

and his friends; the state police turned impervious to the statement of the victim, recorded

by them and her letter addressed to the Jaipur Superintendent of Police about the

involvement of the minister’s son in the offence. Even public protests and agitations by

women’s groups and the interest of the media in the case failed to deter the state police

from its inaction against the actual offenders. Even the state police chief gave evasive

answers to the media about action against the offenders named by Shivani. This is the

quantum of political pressure on policing. It was only after two representations from
socially concious organisations being treated as Public Interest Litigations that Rajastan

High Court directed the state government to withdraw the case from the state police and

get the investigation done by the CBI. This is the extent of the credibility of the police

under political pressure. Police just cannot do justice to justice under the extant

democratic pulls and pressures. Every interest group in a democracy is powerful with

scores of followers. Police by the very nature of their work cannot please every side and

therefore bound to work in an atmosphere of hatred and inimical feelings. In group

dynamics of Indian kind, law, justice and propriety make little sense.

Even criminals form a pollent group of considerable political manoeuvrability and

strength in a democracy. Any move against the interests of this group is bound to create

serious problems to police. A police officer with a commitment to crush crime

syndicates and their criminal activities on coming to power meets with dramatic rise in

crimes and law and order problems in his area to the extent that he soon realise that he

has no alternative to keep the underworld on right side were he to save his professional

reputation, his new position and peace in his area. A few fools who fail to read the

writings on the wall, get thrown out of their post and avoid any responsible job thereafter

on the charge of being incapable of controlling crimes and maintaining law and order.

Cooperation of the powerful criminal groups is conditio sine qua non for smooth policing

a democracy. The recent example is a state capital in India. Its new Police

Commissioner adopted a soft approach to powerful mafia gangs of the city and shut eyes

to the flourishing business of cabaret, live bands and night-clubs. The result was a

relatively crime-free tenure for him in the city. But, he rubbed the media on the wrong
side on the first day of his taking charge in the city. As a consequence, he had to bear an

unfavourable media throughout. The next Police Commissioner of the city was after

stopping the menace of cabaret, live bands and night clubs and containing organised

crimes in the city. The immediate response to the new Police Commissioner was

inordinate rise in crimes like chain-snatching , kidnapping, extoration, gang war, house-

breaking and dacoity and law and order disturbances. It was the crime syndicates

sending signals to come to terms with their existence and activities. The political

pressures the underworld weilds au reste the warning shots are capable of bringing a

practical police officer to his senses. He is forced to compromise his convictions to retain

his position. This is how police is under seize in a democracy. Police derive strength

byadhering to law and justice. Once off the track to aggrace political masters. Thus

develops a vicious circle that leads police to be perpetually under the beck and call of the

politicians in power. The beginning of the collision of politicians and the police in a

democracy is always for mutual benefits.

Police is a democracy’s spine, its conditio sine qua non. It is an instrument of

containment in the ambience of narrow interests trespassing on each other’s interest.

Success of a democracy entirely depends on the effectiveness of the police there. It is

the only instrument available to bring people to their senses and to the needs of the laws.

It is unlike other forms of government, wherein other forms are created to bring the

people to submission to the will of the rulers. Private armies in whatever name sans the

leash of law, operate as executors of the will of the rulers in nondemocracies. Indian

police these days with its deep politicisation is gradually approximating to the sad state.
Mass transfer of police officers at all levels with the change of government, use of

intelligence units for political manoeuvrings, use of investigating agencies to keep

political rivals in check etc are just the signs on the surface of this tragic malady. The

slant is not in the interests of democracy, for, the strength of democracy is pra rata to the

professional resolve of the police. A weakened and ineffective police is a sure sign of

crumbling democracy. A democracy just cannot stand up without the spine of the police,

especially while people are yet to realise their democratic responsibilities. Strengthening

the police is the foremost need of firming up democratic traditions. How soon India

realises this, so much good for the country.