Human Rights

POLICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS–DOES END JUSTIFY MEANS?

A basic tool man devised to preserve his common rights is the police. It is an irony that most incidents of human rights violations have their roots in the police. This is an example of the fence grazing the crop.

The reasons are many. The most important lies in the police culture itself-its inability to look beyond certain barriers it raises around itself; its failure to see a human being as he; its incapacity to see its relevance to the common man outside the power structure; its inveterate indulgence with powerplay; its deviant interpretations of its role in the rule of law and, above all, its scant respect for means (in achieving the end) The result is the police siding with the wrong-doers in the clashes between individual and national or other social interests, leading to popular condemnation of the police.

Right thinking people are aware of the predicament

and sufferings of their

fellow-men. Thanks to the revolution in the communication sphere, human rights violations have become a highly sensitive issue, with the human rights commissions at the regional, national and international levels on their toes to detect, investigate, report and protest. The factual reports have embarrassed Governments and their police outfits. It is distressing to note that developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America prominently figure in these reports; and the record of the countries in the

Indian sub-continent, including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, is not inspiring either. India, in particular, must reread its recent human rights record.

The basic question is whether human rights violation is sine qua non with safeguarding national and the larger social interests.

The second is whether such

violations are justified in the cause of such interests. The third is what are the limits within which violations are confined, and who imposes these limits and by what mechanism. What would be the situation if the police who indulge in human rights violations to protect national, and social interests are thoroughly corrupt, immoral and unworthy of any trust? Answers are desperately needed.

India’s human rights record is particularly bad in Punjab and Kashmir. Its record has never been satisfactory in the North –East or with the naxalites.

Where does one draw the line between the larger interests of the country and the violation of human rights? Blame is shifted from one level to another whenever the police is pulled up for human rights violation during action. The top brass blames the field officers for excess while the latter blame the bosses for exerting pressures to show results without any guidelines to protect human rights.

The truth is that the police, at all levels, and its administrators are to be blamed, that none among the police and their administrators really bother about human rights and their violations, least of all during actions which expose them to tremendous risks. It is a

do-or-die situation. Once on a dangerous course of action, the sole aim of the police is to succeed in the operation by whatever means. Moral questions such as human rights violations and the public agitation likely to follow do not matter, considering the dangers they face in carrying out the task. It is a crisis and the tendency is to somehow overcome the situation irrespective of what the future might hold. The administrators know that excessive checks and moral fears blunt the killer instinct in the policeman and affect the chance of his success in the field. The authorities up the hierarchy also believe in succeeding somehow rather than play by the rules. This is the crux of the matter regarding human rights.

Human rights take precedence over national and social interests and transcend religious and moral issues. Human rights become a sensitive issue only when they clash inter se and invite a decision on basic issues. The question is who is to judge such basic issues. Certainly the decisions cannot be left to the whims and convenience of the police.

The human rights is the spine of policing must be made an integral part of the police culture. This is absolutely necessary. Only such emphasis restrain the police from indulging in violations.

NATURAL AND BASIC

Human rights are the natural rights of the human race as well as the laws that help make social life possible. This gives a legal slant to the issue. The legislature, in a

democracy, decides how much of such rights could be surrendered in common interest. The legislature by promulgating laws and the courts by interpreting them delineate what natural rights constitute inviolable human rights violations are an issue between the legislature and the judiciary on the one hand and the executive, which is the police, on the other. For the fear-struck citizens, it is an issue between the helpless them and the armtwisting Government. In simple terms, human rights violations involve violating the basic rights of life, liberty and human dignity beyond the limits of the law. The violations may be committed in the acts of execution, confinement or torture. It is basically the use of power beyond the scope of law for certain ends and is not committed for any noble end. Such violations are common in secret service operations; in emergent situations, say, when separatists or terrorists are active or dangerous operations of foreign agents are suspected.

The police indulge in human rights violations on suspected elements to bring the situation under control either by eliminating them or by forcing them to reveal their plans. Fake encounters were first contrived and staged by the Indian Police. Crime investigations account for a large share of human rights violations in the developing countries where third degree methods are employed in the interrogation of the people detained. Death, rape and torture in custody are common in many developing countries.

Are acts of human rights violation effective in crime investigation or in controlling a troubled situation? The answer is no. A temporary lull may be created, but in the world of organised crime, the illegalities of human rights violations have either

no impact or have just the opposite impact. The criminals are mentally and physically prepared to face any threat to their basic rights. Devising alternative plans to counter police action is only a minor diversion in their massive operations. In fact, they enjoy fighting the Government on equal terms with no legal or moral inhibitions. Their resolve to fight the Government with all the resource at their disposal is only strengthened. It becomes a no-hold barred fight

then onwards, the law-enforcers losing their initial

advantages and the edge of civility and decency.

Inhuman and outrageous acts perpetrated by established Government agencies have an electrifying impact on the common man whose sympathies are in favour of the victims. The legal and moral relevances become immaterial to the citizen. A well organised outfit actually contrives to create a situation to earn the sympathy of the public.

HARDENED CRIMINALS

Another reason why acts of human rights violation will not put an end to crimes is the criminals get hard and wish to take revenge and embarrass the establishment. This is how resistance grows. This is what happened in Punjab, in Kashmir and in Vietnam in the Sixties and the Seventies.

Another impact of the violation of human rights by the state is the loss of fear and respect for the authority of the state. Once subjected to third-degree methods during

interrogation, a petty criminal comes out as a hardened criminal. A government devoid of moral authority cannot rule at all.

Secret services indulge in dirty tricks involving human rights violation in national interests, though law and morality demand that such violations in any form and for reason are bad. Criminals have their own code of conduct. Secret service is a world apart and its dramatis personae are inveterate in criminal games, with the official sanction to play them. The danger lies in committing excesses that endanger the safety and the wellbeing of innocent people not involved in the game in any way. It is left to each state to draw the line depending on the sensitivity of each problem though it cannot openly declare that it is promoting and guiding the secret acts even remotely. Yet it is a cardinal duty it must perform.

Another dimension of human rights violations is its commission for personal ends in the garb of fighting a social cause. In the atmosphere of violence, individuals from enforcement agencies as well as terrorist outfits may take advantage of the situation and indulge in killings, extortions and rape. India saw it happen in Punjab and Kashmir and even in the North –East where personal scores wee settled.

The tragedy about Indian law –enforcers is that they are keen on the immediate show of results to earn the appreciation of the higherups, in the process relegating to the oblivion the need to find lasting solutions. That is why the violation of human rights is

on the rise as efficient and ingenious policing is less preferred. This is true about managing law and order issues as well as investigation of crimes.

Laws are formulated and promulgated by the government keeping in sight the needs of the country and the responsibilities of its enforcing machinery. The need to go lawless in order to enforce laws arises only when the law-enforcers perceive that the laws are inadequate or their abilities are inadequate to meet the challenges in the field. The laws being what they are, framed from time to time, to suit the needs of the field, the only conclusion one can draw from rampant human rights violations is that the enforcers are utterly devoid of professional skill and the instinct to do effective policing and hence resort to lawlessness as a short-cut-method.

The heart of police responsibilities is protection of rights, be it individual, corporate , organisational or social, or the rights of the nation for survival. Protection, prevention and investigation are the tools available for achieving these ends. Human rights make up the essence of the privileges man enjoys in the social setup. The police, entrusted with the responsibility of protecting rights, are doing a disservice to the profession and humanity in violating human rights in the discharge of peripheral duties.

But this is not unique to Indian police. The police and the governments of almost all the developing countries suffer from the syndrome, the problem being acute in nondemocratic countries.

The problem is laying the emphasis on results irrespective of the means. Committing an injustice in the name of justice cannot be called a service in the cause of justice. In policing, each means is an end by itself. Policing by its very nature, involves extreme measures such as detention, arrest, search, seizure, impounding, forced entry, taking possession, controlling movements and the use of weapons. These methods when not employed discreetly and moderately, do great harm to individuals and society. Perhaps in no other organisation is means as vital as in the police.