POLICING THE POLICE

The work police or policing is derived from the Greek roots polis means city
and politeia, Latin politia and French police means polity; its English root is “policy”
means statecraft, plan or course of action especially in statecraft or administering
the laws. The spectrum of the meanings of the word ‘police’ and ‘policing’ swings
from ‘city’ in one extremity to ‘statecraft’ and administering the laws in the other.
Police and policing imply administering the laws of the country in the process of
the statecraft. Police deal with laws as part of the administration in shape of its
enforcement and detection and investigation of its violations. Policing the police
is administering laws to police and bringing violators to book selon les regles. It is
a measure of fencing the fences to prevent them from themselves looting the
crop. The vectors of policing the police rely on the moral convictions of the
police force and pro rata decide the effectiveness of policing outside. A law-
abiding police is a boon to the country, its administration and policing system as
well.
The very concept of policing the police is pregnant with the suggestion that
police do not necessarily limit themselves to the bounds of the laws, therefore
require policing. A protector, guardian and enforcer in one have two facets: he
is a master as well as a servant at the same time. This is what is expected of police
in regard to laws. The issue is whether police serve the laws in the capacities. They
do act as masters in enforcing them. But their role as servants of laws needs
deeper probe about how far they are subject to and guided by the laws in force.
Policing the police involves self-policing. Internal vigil against lawlessness
within in the form of prevention, investigation, enforcement and protection
motivated by a sense of commitment to law and justice is its pith. Such
commitment presupposes professional pride, conditioned by high morale
spawned by clean professional culture of high values, sound reputation and
standing of the profession in society and the sense of achievement and
recognition, the profession induces. The elements of policing the police are
embedded in the organizational culture and the managerial dynamics of the
police setup. Its value system, objectives, means pursued to achieve them,
attainments, strengths and weaknesses, the reticulation of human relationship,

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public image, efficiency of managerial vectors, sense of fairness in assessing

performance and granting recognition determine the orientation of a police
organisation to rein in itself to the consuetude within the bounds of law, justice
and popular acceptability. Their sensitivity to their image and reputation helps to
strain every fiber to keep up to public expectations and avoid unfair practices.
This is au reste the individual pride in the force about being a worthy member of
a worthy institution. The individual and organizational prides interact to create
an ambience of high morale and great professional pride to serve as the greatest
tool of policing the police from within.
Creation of a distinct arm within the police setup to police the organisation
a la military police in army is another technique. This is gratuitous in police for
the simple reason that police organisation is capable of handling police
responsibilities within as effectively as outside. The only block to the process is
natural fellow feeling and sympathies to erring colleagues. The issue can be
handled through appropriate administrative measures au reste adequate
sensitization to the threats of unlawful and criminal activities ab intra.
Criminal and other unlawful activities of the law-enforcers destabilize the
democratic foundation as well as the judicial system of the country. Police hors
la loi while act as harbourers and pillars of support to outside criminals and create
havoc in the law-enforcing system, no meaningful policing is possible. They
boost the confidence of criminals and help the spread of criminal activities. A true
effort to arrest lawlessness in the country must begin with pernoctation against
outlaws within the police and drastic measures to snap their connections with
outside criminals. This brings the need of policing the police to the forefront.
Efforts at policing the police must begin with right recruitment policy to
ensure that only right people enter the job. Next important stage is right training.
Third stage is creation of right ambience of job culture within the service. Fourth
factor is institution of a right system of rewards and punishments on the basis
of actual performance. Fifth is sensitizing the top brass of the force about the
need of policing the police too make policing meaningful and purposeful. An
extension of this sensitization is willingness of the police administrators to track
down unlawful and criminal elements within the force and efforts to deracinate
hem from the system as fast as possible. It is easier said than done in actual
practice.
Obstacles to policing the police are numerous, ranging from clever use of
loopholes in the system and laws to circumvent the arm of legal authority to use
of external pressures to extricate from impending disciplinary proceedings.
Police is a part of the world outside and cannot exist in complete isolation from

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it. Their close interdependence and symbiosis make them sine qua non for each.
In the circumstances, they mutually influence and the lawlessness and criminal
tendencies of the society outside seep into the police system to allay its resolve
for self-policing, and corrode the process. This allay reflects in recruitment,
training, job culture, system of rewards and punishments and resolve to cleanse
the system. Concomitantly police lose moral right to policing anywhere.
Vigilance organisation does keep tab on all government organisations
including the police. The arrangement is simply inadequate to meet the needs of
policing the police for the simple reason that the scope of a vigilance organisation
is more or less limited to activities related to corruption and that its jurisdiction
is so widely spread on all government organisations that it can hardly do any
meaningful work to cleanse the police even on the single agenda of rooting out
corruption. The pith of such a vigilance organisation being constituted of police
personnel, chances of sympathies for criminal colleagues are more than
incidental. That is why, vigilance organisation can hardly be an answer for the
problem of policing the police.
Service and conduct rules that guide the conduct and activities of government
servants is too weak an instrument to meet the needs of policing the police. Rules
therein couched in procedural hurdles and usual governmental loopholes can
scarcely be effective in providing the vigorous drive needed for the efforts of
policing the police. It is a fact that these rules achieve no more than keeping the
government business going. They are not meant either to inculcate true fear or
induce motivation towards any end. Police cannot look to them for sustenance
of its need of policing the police.
An outside agency that can substitute for the lack of self-regulation in police
is judiciary. Both are closely-knit in the cause of the administration of law and
justice. Police organisation is functionally subject and subordinate to the
directions of the judiciary in the dispensation of justice and the rule of law. The
ethos of judiciary prevents it from close and day to day scrutiny of the police
functions unless it resorts itself to pro-active mode in select cases when warranted
by the atrophy set in as in extant India. Judiciary is a disinterested and uninvolved
observer of the field trends unless it is forced to interfere in the overall interests
of justice. Its ethos prevent it from being an effective tool of policing the police
save in rare and far-between circumstances like the recent ones wherein handling
of investigations of politically sensitive cases came to public scrutiny and popular
condemnation. Further, judiciary lacks the infrastructure required to perficiently
police the police. Judiciary is best suited to give jolts once in a way on selective

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basis. This is just about to remind police about what is right and what is expected
of them rather than effectively policing the police.
Bihar is a distinct example of how police, putrid at the core, add to the
atrophy of the public life rather than bringing a sense of discipline there. Police
organisation is not only ineffective there; it foots the bill of being a setup of
criminals in uniform. The claim of justice Mulla of the Allahabad High Court in
1968 that if there was an organized force of criminals in India, it went by the name
of police, perfectly suits the police setup of some major states of North India
like Bihar and U.P. Though Punjab police did commendable job in containing
terrorism in Punjab the police in the job there at the time were almost sans self-
policing. The point is that the same goal could be achieved with better self-
policing in part of the Punjab police. Nexus of criminals and police in Bihar is
too striking to be ignored. The police of U.P do not lag behind much. The
misease is a common phenomenon in India. Politicians hold criminals and police
together from above for obvious reasons. In the circumstances, policing the
police from below becomes meaningless and purposeless even in the unlikely
even of efforts of self-policing within the police. The true clavis of policing the
police lies in breaking the noxious nexus.
Policing must begin from within and spread outward. Self-policing is the
primus of the responsibilities of any effective policing setup. It needs higher
commitment and resolve as a foundation to meaningful policing other where.
Self-policing must constitute the core of activities of a police organisation worth
the name. As only a flame within can shed light outside and only a conviction
within can spread confidence outside, a clean environment inside only gives
strength to cleanse the world around. The conundrum is how to bring it about.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Police as the arm of the
state power structure, enjoy enormous powers. Incidence of corruption is
natural in the circumstances. Corruption of police badly affects the hoi polloi and
their trust in police, judicial system and honesty of the government. A corrupt and
lawless police makes lives of plebeian a hell. Policing by a lawless and corrupt
police is just a mockery played on hapless people.
A cardinal measure in policing the police is making the unlimited power of
police accountable. The present provision of protection given for acts done
under the colours of office is largely misused. No proper mechanism is evolved
to demarcate what to what degree constitute acts done under the colours of
office. Anything done in performance of official duties including unlawful acts
and often those done outside the ambit of official duties too are carried
piggyback under the clause of official protection unless the acts draw the public

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scrutiny and become too hot to be defended by the birds of the same flock in
uniform and their godfathers above in government. Police being a closely-knit
organisation, its members rarely let down each other as any of them may find
himself in a similar situation at any time in the prevailing prolate disregard for law
in police. Also, the usefulness of police renders them protected for their
misdeeds by the bureaucracy and the politicians. The outcome is a police force
with unlimited powers and protection against its misuse without any purposeful
accountability. No organisation with such powers, protection and lack of
accountability can develop any respect for law. The foremost need is forcing
police out of this protection to bring it en plein jour to accountability for every
evil committed by it. Protection has to be an exception rather than a rule for
actions done in honest discharge of official duties. A suitable machinery manned
by disinterested persons of high standing can be instituted to oversee the benefit
of official protection is justifiable. Leaving the matter to official superiors from
the same flock may only serve the travesty of justice.
An important safeguard to strengthen the process of policing the police is
insulation of disciplinary and rewards system from outside influences. A sense
of exactitude and promptitude has to be injected to the system and objectively
is made the abracadabra of the process. A sense of certitude about penal action
for a given failure has to develop in the organisation. Punishment has to be pro
rata to the gravity of the mens rea and adequate to deflect others in the organisation
from pursuing the path in future. More important, nothing from outside should
deter the process, so that the feeling of security that one can save him from
whatever irresponsible and unlawful act by bringing pressure from outside
remains no more available to schemers and wrongdoers.
There are informal measures too, like transfers and selections of police
personnel for medals and other rewards. Presently these measures are careened
towards money and political clout one enjoys which is earned always by corrupt,
immoral and illegal means. Once weightage is given to right people in the
organisation in posting to rewarding jobs and selection for medals and other
rewards instead of those with ill-gotten money and political clout, the measure
itself works as an enormous boost to the morale of the police force and brings
its members on right and lawful tracks. The first step here is bringing an end to
the present policy in favour of money and political powers. This step itself helps
police force enormously in weakening the prise of money and political clout on
the police force. The positive step of encouraging right personnel by proper
transfer and rewards policy adds to the benefit. These subtle measures can do
wonders to the efforts of policing the police.

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Intelligent employment of conventional stick and carrot method can certainly

cleanse the police setup and make policing purposive, meaningful and effective.
What is required is willingness to police the police to make the organisation
condign of policing responsibilities. The power of police does not lay in its
numerical strength or the arms it wields. The real power of police is its moral
strength and the image it presents to the outside world. A clean, honest and
professional police have galvanic effect on the public as well as law-breakers.
They are feared, loved, respected and patronized by everybody. This is an
environment, most conducive for perficient policing. Clean and professional
police help the cause. A clean and professional police is possible only with an
effective tool of policing the police. The major task in reforming and building
a new police force to India is restructuring it with an inbuilt mechanism of
effective self-policing. How fast it is done, so much easier for the country to build
a healthier nation by the time India will celebrate the centenary of its
independence.

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 NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE
IN POLICE

The major problem that confronts extant police is its attitude to work,
responsibilities, profession, organisation, government and the public. It is
confounded about its goals, objectives, loyalties, professional ethos, job culture,
procedures and practices that carry it forward in the field in attending
professional duties. In the wilderness of undefined roads, Indian police grope
for perspicacious directions to reach professional ends. Popular phrases like
maintenance of order, enforcement of law, prevention of crime, investigation of
offences, protection of security interests etc are too generic terms to carry any
meaning and significance during the process of actual policing. Perficient policing
is possible only in the ambience of well-rounded and clearly defined specific
guidelines for action that help molding professional attitude in the organisation.
Police develop wrong attitudes in its absence by erroneous interpretation of the
situation around. This is what happens to Indian police now: wrong attitudes and
concomitant confusion about performing legitimate duties.
A profession like police naturally has its own goals, objectives and ideals to
pursue. They get clouded in the smog of practical turn-around in the field and
ultimately lose their edge in the spin of attitudinal aberrations. The consequence
is clashes of loyalties, adoption of immodest vectors in policing, the issue of
excesses and inactions, tendency to bend rules and laws to achieve perceived ends
in the hour of need of upholding the rule of law, urge to cash-in on the ignorance
and weaknesses of the ignorant people around and indulgences in unprofessional
works in the name of discharging legitimate police duties. Performance of any
profession depends upon three factors: professional ideals, job culture and actual
practices and procedures. Job culture is spawned of constant interaction of
professional ideals and actual practices and procedures in the field. Though
basically is a product of the past, it considerably affects the future performance
of an organisation. Practices and procedures being the primary vehicle of
attitude, they help molding job culture a la immanent attitude in the job. The result
is a pollent hold of attitude in deciding the direction of an organisation. A

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profession loses its raison d’etre while attitude in the job prevaricates from
professional ideals.
Professional ideals of police are rooted in the terra firma of the rule of law,
justice, order and the security of the country and its citizens. Police organisation
is basically responsible to the constitution of the country and the government
constituted and the laws enacted in accordance with the constitution. Police lose
its relevance to the country when its professional attitude goes against the cardinal
ideals of the profession. The challenge of a police organisation lies in molding
professional attitude as required by the ideals of the profession. Wrong attitudes
inveterate in extant practices and procedures of policing are shaped by self-
interests, misconceptions, ignorance and tendency to pursue easy and shortcut
methods: they are hard to be broken and survive under most odds. Only
efficient, honest and highly motivated leadership alone can crack the etui
encompassing it. Once it is done, building a new set of right professional attitudes
is relatively a simpler job to a committed leadership. Basic to these efforts is a
realization among the top brass about what constitute right and wrong attitudes.
The crux of the problem of Indian police lies here. It is distressing to note that
the top leadership of post-independent Indian police is responsible for the
prevarication of the organisation from its professional attitude of absolute
commitment to public order and safety, justice and rule of law to easy and
shortcut avenues of selfish interests. The change percolated downwards. In the
rush of Indians replacing the British to sensitive government positions on the eve
of independence, men of inadequate caliber and merit occupied key government
posts. This happened in police as in other government departments. The result
was happened in police as in other government departments. The result was
corrosion in leadership qualities, traits of excellence and high personal merits, so
essential to run public and national affairs at the top. It was during this period
that Indian police lost its track in professional policing and exposed itself to the
luxury of dancing to the easy and soft tunes of convenience by yielding to
pressures of political and other vested interests. Policing powers served as a tool
of maximizing self-interests and personal comforts at the cost of professional
policing. In the process, the country suffered and police lost its face.
A major handicap of the extant Indian police is its dependence syndrome. No
more, Indian police realize itself as a master sui juris. For every piece of work
under its sphere of decision, it looks for advice, guidance and direction from the
political leadership, bureaucracy or the judiciary. It is more a symptom of
immanent servilities and lack of spine than anything else. Present Indian police
lack of hardihood of professionalism and the self-confidence ensues from it.

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Policing is not a job dependant on outsiders like politicians and bureaucrats. For
one, the latter are not professionals and their advice, guidance and directions in
re policing are unlikely to be sound. Secondly, subjecting policing to their advice,
guidance and direction while they themselves are subjects to policing discipline
is unlikely to be in the best interest of the professional policing. Not that police
officers do not know of these facts. They lack the professional resolve to uphold
the purity of the principles of policing au reste being unsure of themselves.
Tendency is to avoid risky responsibilities of policing while hawks outside are
avizefull to make the maximum out of the weakness of the police and pledge
policing responsibilities to those who sit above them in exchange for secure
career prospects. That is shy meekness and servilities of police officers in India
are pro rata to the importance of the posts they hold. Somebody cornered or
placed in an insignificant slot has nothing to lose by standing up to his superior
and no need to go servile to anybody unlike somebody in a coveted spot and
therefore not required to protect his position coute que coute. It is impossible for
an upright officer to land in key jobs like chiefs of police forces in states or the
centre save in disturbed provinces like Punjab and Kashmir. The result is
downward slide in professionalism and perpetuation of servilities and
dependence. Policing worth the name is possumus only while the glissade in
professional resolve is arrested. But, the vice in which Indian police is caught is
too pollent to be breached. The dependence syndrome has to be replaced by
professional resolve. This requires change of attitude. The change is not easy to
come in present vicious circumstances. Without it coming soon, Indian police has
no deliverance.
A serious handicap of present Indian police is its noncommittal and causal
reliance on mechanical procedures sans passion for professional objectives.
Tendency is to show the amount of labour put to a job rather than showing
results. There is no true passion to reach goals and achieve professional objectives
of safety, security, justice and the rule of law. Every attempt is to do minimum
required so that the chances of being caught committing mistakes are minimal.
Procedures and practices form the staple and there is no spark for creative
policing. Policing has become a mechanical process sans substance. It is the
minimum common denominator that counts in present policing environment.
The passion natural for those in police for public security and order, rule of law
and justice is seldom felt in Indian police of the present vintage. Risk-taking that
is a common trait of good policing has become a rarity and a scarce commodity.
The problem lies in wrong attitude. The atrophy set in, in the field of committed

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policing has become the mainstay of the Indian police. Reversing the trend is the
first priority to bring Indian police on the right rails.
A manifestation of this wrong attitude is evident in investigation of crimes.
The reason for the problem lies in the environment in which investigators
function. They are prosecutors of another kind in real terms in Indian police
environment and work to collect evidence of whatever merit to prove that the
persons accused of crime had committed the crime rather than unearthing truth.
Persons under investigation are treated as criminals and harassed. When sound
evidences are not available, anything that goes for evidence is trumped up. The
infamous Jain Hawala case is a case in point. The case was cold-stored for years.
The dependence syndrome of the premier investigation agency of the country
prevented it from investigating the case sans clearance from political masters.
Once polictical bigwigs calculated that investigation of the case was in their
interests, CBI proceeded full-steam to prove the case. When direct evidence was
not available, CBI probed for circumstantial evidences. When circumstantial
evidence failed to prove anything, CBI went for anything available to feed its
fanciful interpretations. Need of corroboration was thrown to the wind. Political
leaders were tried on the basis of initials and numbers entered in a diary. Court
of law exonerated the politicians for lack of evidence. In the process, many heads
rolled on the block of the political game plan. Professional attitude to
investigation with a passion for fairplay, objectivity, truth and justice would have
saved the country from the quite unnecessary hardships. Politically sensitive cases
are taken up for investigation only when people in power decide in favour, and
investigated with a particular end in sight and charge sheeted on the basis of
whatever little could be gathered in the name of evidence. Professional
investigation is not meant to proceed in this fashion where possibility of a prima
facie case and quality of evidences precede every thing else and decide the course
and pace of the investigation process and charge sheet. Sensitization to fairplay,
objectivity, truth and justice is the foundation of the professional policing.
Professional police display extraordinary scruple in exercise of policing powers
like arrests, bails, searches, seizures, interrogations etc so that law bites only the
hors la loi and innocent citizens go absolutely unharmed. It is not the case in Indian
police now. Investigation has become a one-way track of somehow raising
evidences and charge sheeting, truth and justice become tragedies in the process.
This basically is a problem of wrong attitude.
People caught in the web of criminal laws deserve sympathy and kindness
until they are proved guilty beyond doubts. They need to be treated with
gentleness and courtesy that behoves to interpresonal relationship in a civilized

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society while the process of investigation continues with all efficiency and ruthless
exactitude. Police as investigator is not invested with powers to punish for the
crimes committed. Fair chance to persons under investigation to prove their
innocence goes a long way in unearthing truth and solving crimes justly. This has
to be the attitude of the police during crime investigation. Truth and justice have
to be their goal. Indian police lack the maturity and poise.
A serious Achilles’ heel of Indian police is its perverted attitude towards rules
and laws. Bending rules and laws to suit self-interests is one dimension of the
spiel. Another dimension is its blind application sans sense of proportion and
discreetness while self-interest is not an issue. It is seen in enforcing laws and
maintaining order. Police forget that rules and laws are just tools in the larger
cause of peace and order of the society and sadly handle laws for law’s sake. Rules
and laws are invested on police like weapons as the dernier ressort while all other
avenues are shut. Discreetness is their constraint. Objectives are primary Rules
and laws must follow them only as tools to that end. The realization is rarely
found in the present police. It operates laws for law’s sake by relegating
organizational objectives to oblivion. Professional objectives suffer and police
become an object of detestation consequential to this perverted attitude.
Mechanical enforcement of gratuitous rules and laws constrict the freedom of
people for no specific purpose and weaves an unnecessary web of constraints
around them for nobody’s good. The attitude is fatal to fair and professional
policing practices and needs to be corrected on priority to make application of
rules and laws need-based in reaching professional targets.
Another field where police need to change its attitude is its contempt for
human values. Policing is just an instrument to the cause of protecting human
values. Police oblivious to this fact, subject human values to immane policing
methods in the name of policing. Third degree methods are the point.
Malfeasances do not behove to the cause of human values. Means are as
important as ends in policing. Pursuing unjust means for the cause of justice is
the spiel of the Frankenstein, the story of an offspring eating its creator. Inviolable
commitment to human values and rights is the foundation of good policing.
Human touch is sine qua non for professional policing. Human concern is the
raison d’etre of good policing. The shift in attitude needs to be from blind and
blanket policing for the policing’s sake to discreet and enlightened policing to
reach professional objectives. The shift has to be from the use of policing powers
to maximize professional goals. The shift must see police taking risks in the
interests of the profession and doing intelligent policing rather than indulging in

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maneuvers of personal security. The process warrants massive exercise in

attitudinal change.
What constitutes perficient exercises of attitudinal change in a massive
organisation like the police? Police organisation is a tough and hard-to-crack
candidate for any manipulations. It is a no nonsense outfit. The only way to bring
it to senses is intensive and extensive appeal to its reason and emotion to convince
about the need of change. Police rely on past practices and procedures. It looks
for the job culture to aemule. Forcing police away from vicious practices and
procedures and undesirable job culture through the attitudinal change is an
arduous and time-consuming exercise even for experts in the field. The exercise
has to be a multi-pronged attack on inveterate misconceptions and wrong
notions in extant policing by extensive exposures to talks, discussions, seminars,
briefings, studies, researches and in-service training involving analyses of policing,
its ideals, objectives, methods, means and ends, social relevance, pressures,
policing environment, psychological aspects of policing etc. The exercise has to
be intended to provoke police personnel to think about their profession without
dogma and arrive at desirable conclusions about professional policing and
impress them on the ingredients of good policing by constant exposure. A few
ideal cases as models have tremendous impact on the cause of creating right
attitudes. Studies and researches on policing and policing methods provide a
sound foundation to these exercises. A police organisation interested in
improving its quality and performance cannot go without sound study centers
and research projects on the issues of policing. These attempts provide both
inputs and insight to the behavioral pattern of the police in field under different
situations and stress patterns as differentiated from what are desired. They bring
both gestalts to contrast in terms of their perficiency, professional needs and
relevance to the environment of policing to affect attitudinal change in right
direction by way of conviction. The immediate need is inducing doubts about
the soundness of existing attitudes to encourage discussion on the topic.
Deliberate guiding through structured mental exercises to desirable end forms
the latter part of the task. Indeed, the whole exercise has to be planned and
executed in detail by highly efficient leadership in the police. The conundrum is
who behoves to handle the highly responsible job while the leadership of the
police itself is mired in wrong attitudes to the job of policing.
Problem of attitude basically is a problem felt at higher-wrungs in top brass
of the force. The stiff hierarchical order and command-obedience pattern of
functioning make the lower-wrungs irrelevant in matters of job attitude. Those
down the ladder are loyal followers and obedient operators in the path and

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policy laid above them. Their attitudes change shape from case to case to meet
the demands trickle from above. When the demand is to let out a rich and
powerful criminal with royal honors, those down the level do just that with
vengeance; when the demand from above is to frame an innocent man and
obtain his confession by subjecting to torture, they just do that with dedication
for the sake of a well earned pat of their omniscient superiors. It is again a
question of ill-conceived job culture and attitude, which needs to be corrected,
as it is tangible to the standards of policing as all organisational matters are. The
primary target of attitudinal change is the higher-wrungs and the top brass.
Others follow and fall to place. The key lies in the realization that something is
wrong in the present mode of policing. Demolition is the beginning of the
construction. Once the realization of wrong dawns upon, reconstruction
becomes possible. Police being an extrovert and action-oriented outfit, self-
analyses and inward-looking tendencies do not come easily. While things go
wrong, introversion becomes sine qua non for healthy growth. This is what is
required in Indian police now.

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