21st Century

INDIAN POLICE: WHAT COURSE TO PURSUE IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

With the accrescent demands for limited resources of the Earth and concomitant concours for survival in the world of the survival of the fittest, the advent of the new century is bound to herald ascensive economic bewilderments in the crucible of hotting up social complexities. Reintepretation of life in the complex environment of technical advancements, systemic and structural changes in society and spurts in criminal activities is likely to provide the paramenters of the coming age and determine the quality of life in the coming century. The police, as the custodians and enforcers of the safety of life and property, have to move pari passu with the time for perficient handling

of the

emerging situation. They cannot afford to adapt to challenges as and when they are posed as in vogue in government service. Assessment of situations ahead, defining the future challenges and deriving means to checkmate them in advance form the basic tenets of good policing and are sine qua non with the survival of the country and its peaceful life.

The piece de resistance of future policing has to be perficient performance with minimal visible presence. This means a far more professional organisation than now. This means far more skilled policing than now. This means better management of the police organisation, better equipped force, men of higher calibre and devotion to work and more contented people manning the police hierarchy.

20th Century saw the expansion of the utility of the police to every conceivable field of human activity in social and national life. Security duties are increasingly encompassing ceremonial objectives. Traffic and law and order police are more and more replayed to add grandeur and humour to private functions of the well-to-do and powerful. The presence of the police is becoming more a matter of prestige and social standing in society than an emergent need of protection. The police are now called to mediate and solve familial problems, labour disputes and case and communal differences. People call them now to intervene in their differences with others, expect them to handle rescue operations during natural accidental and man-made calamities. Their services are warranted to bring order wherever and whenever things go wrong at public as well as private events with unending number of acts, rules and their amendments passed every year by the legislatures. This wide use of the police in the vast spectrum of the statecraft rendered it jack of all and master of none. The transformation blunted the effectiveness of the police in handling its cardinal duties of providing security, maintenance of order and investigation of crimes.

Policing is presently seen as an unintellectual exercise with a flare for brawn, ruthlessness and derring-do. Reality is not very different from this image. The situation certainly does not do in the future complex societal network as the breeding ground for complicated criminal activities warranting skilled and intelligent policing. The Police of the 21st century have to be manned by highly intelligent and brainy species of men should it be feracious in meeting challenges

and showing results. The change, apart from

improving the quality of policing, will bring respect to the job in addition to the present awe and fear, the police inspire. An overhaul of selection and training policies to infuse and buildup mental and intellectual strains in the manpower of the police should be the bedrock of the efforts to snod the organisation to meet the challenges of the future.

The paramount need of the future police is a professional image tout au contraire to present image as a handmaid of rich and powerful. What is required is a perspicacious definition of police duties and responsibilities and relegating the force to perform the duties under the avizefull eyes of the constitution without

the distractions of

interferences ab extra. The police should have free hand to tackle and solve issues cropping up during the process of policing with concomitant responsibility for any failures squarely lying on its shoulders.

Hi-tech policing is another imperative of the 21st century. Police cannot afford to lose ground to criminals in the field of hi-tech. Efficiency of policing is pro rata to competence to perform in a given situation competence necessarily implies moving

in meeting challenges offered.

The

pari passu with the fast changing hi-tech

environment in the fields of transport, communication, weaponry and detection system. Police can ignore this need only at its own peril.

The growth of police in the 20th century is marked by its insulation from the intellectual explosions of the age. Police is seldom touched by the zeist geist. Policing methods and ideas remained stagnant throughout the century sans effective voice raised

to infuse new spirit to the body of the police. The century saw no concrete and concerted efforts to bring crime investigation on modern lines. The problem of human rights violations remained a major blot on the policing process throughout the century. Use of third degree methods in interrogations sullied the image of the police in a century which brought revolutionary changes in the concepts of human dignity, equality, justice for all and basic rights. The image of the police in the 20thcentury is that of a licensed criminal syndicate run by the government to checkmate unlicensed criminal activities.

Indian legislatures churn out new legislations and bring out amendments threeon in such numbers and festination that neither those legislatures nor the police who enforce them can afford to keep a track of the enactments and their provisions. This Achilles’ heel in the law enforcement machinery will perforce disappear in years ahead. A solution is creation of the Community Police as enforcers of the social legislations as distinct from the body police. The community Police require skills different from those in general policing owing to the special nature of the social legislations

and special

sensitivities of its enforcement. The huge share of the social legislations among new enactments and the gargantuan task of enforcing them is another justification for creating a separate community police wing out of the present police. The measure will relieve the body police from lots of work-pressures and provide it spare time and energy to concentrate on vital issues of the general policing.

Another

task ahead to attend tout de suite is sewing the investigating

responsibilities and the prosecution duties to a single whole. Inter-departmental co-

operation though specious in theory on paper, it is exceptions in field in the Indian environment of interdepartmental jealousy and rivalry. The police with the need of prompt responses and quick decisions vis a vis the complex nature of emerging crimes cannot do for long with the extant system of the police and the prosecution pulling apart From opposite directions in the race for one-upmanship.

The key to the success of the police is its response time, the speed with which it responds to the challenges of the crime. Where time is a precious commodity and a difference of a couple of seconds make the difference of success and failure of a police operation, persistent efforts to shorten response time will get the highest priority. The thrust of the police administration of the next millennium will be directed to bettering the response time as speed will be the mainstay of crimes and criminals of the coming age. Short response time implies improved communication and transport network and highly motivated human resources ever-ready to handle challenges. Outmoded communication and transport facilities in disrepair conditions most of the time have no relevance there and casual manpower is rather passe in that ambience. The millennium will see the police force in the finest fettle in terms of orgtanisation, manpower and equipments and becoming a highly organised efficient limb of the state apparatus.

The 21st century police will be required to shed to idee fixe for

the show of

strength in lieu of efficient policing. The stress in future will be on lean and fit policing. The structural deformity and oveweight caused by redundant posts, undefined jobs, lack of accountability, epinosic equation of rights and responsibilities, top-heavy structure,

erratic span of control, demotivating factors, nonprofessional ambience and uninspiring leadership will become a matter of the past with the police going perforce competitive en face gargantuan challenges from criminals posing threat to the raison d’etre of the police and its relevance to the extant society.

Going hi-tech to match the gauntlets of the crime world is another possibility open for the police of the 21st century. The age will see the needs of investigation process expanding the horizons of science and technology rather than the other way round. Gene tests will become a strategic and commonly employed tool of investigation against crimes relating to bodily harm, paternity and even bodily associations. Laser guns will come handy

in handling violent law and order issues. Night-vision

instruments will become an essential part of the investigation and security operations kits to be handled by every policeman. The age may see police using eaves-dropping instruments to overhear unsuspecting people from distance. “X-ray eyes’ aid viewing across walls or closed doors. Computers will become an integral part of the routine as well as special police works and police stations. Police may see software devised to guide investigating officers in investigating every kind of crime at every level. Helicopters and mini-aeroplanes will become

common mode of transportation for

carrying investigating teams, deployment of security staff and airlifting armed forces to disturbed places as time becomes precious and criminals become ingenious in dodging the police.

An important possibility of the next millennium is the police becoming an elite force with

even its bottom levels being manned by highly qualified, skilled and

enlightened professionals as a result of the pampering ahead for the police in the administrative hierarchy. Constabulary will be spruced to striking forces and manual works without policing powers.

With it, may go the pernicious misuse

of the

constabulary as household assistants. Single-point recruitment will come to vogue with linear promotions from the lowest to the highest ranks on the basis of merit and actual performances

in the field as assessed by a panel of distinguished public figures,

constituted for the purpose.

A cost-efficient manpower policy in future police administration will bring motivation and commitment centre-stage. The extant diffident response of maximum mobilisation or raising of new units under every new challenge will give

way to

perficient strategies and tactics. The present tendency of doing minimum required in a given situation unless otherwise

compelled by the situation amounts to criminal

wastage of manpower. The 21st century will require every single policeman straining his best with a sense of motivation and commitment in the interests of superior policing.

Motivation and commitment are derivatives of self-actualisation in the need hierarchy postualted by Maslow. Pride of performance can be a reality only while lower physical, security and social needs cease to be issues. Indian police planners have no alternatives to grooming the police manpower of the next century to this level of sans souci. This means good living conditions, job security and sound social status. The

police must find a respectable place in the hierarchy of state administration and shed away the extant obnoxious image of odd-job-man of the government as well as political leaders to inspire awe and respect in the hoi polloi. The transformation is sine qua non with the new age.

Creating a self-contained police machinery in place of the present mere nuts and bolts of the administration is cardinal need ahead. The nasty political and bureaucratic interferences in professional policing have done no good to the country and its police in the last five decades. Insulating the police from the vice prise of ectogenetic pressures and influences needs to be a reality in the coming decades should the police have relevance in the governance of the country. This is possible only by the metamorphosis of the police to an independent body with goals and objectives perspicuously defined and laid down. The new police have to be responsible only to the constitution through a suitable machinery of checks and counterchecks exercised by constitutional bodies manned by people of proven track-record in matters of integrity, competence and other mental attributes and chosen from academic, bureaucratic and political fields as well as public life. The change may bring a semblance of justice and fairplay to administration and ipso facto infuse a value system to Indian public life and bring the fear of god to force strict adherence to probity and the rule of law in public life. India has no alternative to this metamorphosis should the country survive the moral crisis and degringolade of national spirit, it witnessed since independence.