CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE

Politicians, criminals and the police-the troika that is taking

the country towards total chaos and ruin.

Organised violence is so much a part of Indian politics that all politics parties

have created youth and volunteer wings to accommodate young hoodlums as a fighting

and street-smart force to be used when violence is needed.

Those who sand out in courage and toughness rise fast and reach the top and

today a very high percentage of Ministers in the Indian Government are these people.

It is ironical that politicians, whose help criminals sought to save themselves

from the police, brought the police and criminals closer to each other, building a bridge

between them. The understanding reached between criminals and the police is to a great

degree responsible for criminalising Indian public life and blunting the effectiveness of

the police.

Though the nexus between criminals and the police is not a new phenomenon,

what was once an exception has now become the rule and what was the rule once has

become the exception. Today criminals on the one hand overawe a weak police force

with their connections with powerful politicians and lure the police with easy money and

comfort on the other, thus tilting the balance to their advantage.

POLITICAL MISHANDLING

Though criminals play their political cards with adroitness, their real aim is to

lessen the pressures of the police on themselves.

If some are born criminals, some choose the path of crime consciously and some

others are constrained to follow it. While faulty financial and social policies forged by

short-sighted politicians are responsible for forcing many helpless people to a life of

crime, these same policies often drive sensitive people to revolt and to embrace terrorism

and violence.

Naxalisim, Sikh terrorism, the ULFA movement, Kashmir separatism, Hindu and

Muslim militancy and even the sympathy in India for the LTTE cause are direct results

of political mishandling of national issues.

India has seen isolated political attempts in the past to save people from the

clutches of crime and to rehabilitate them. The famous Chambal experiment initiated by

the late Jaya Prakash Narayan had some success in spite of the machinations of certain

politicians in the area.

Not that politics is all bad. It is, by definition, governance of the State by popular

leadership. The malaise of today’s politics lies in its tilt to populism at the cost of
leadership and more dangerously, populism is being considered an investment to earn

returns in multiple proportions. Nothing, it appears, means as much to the Indian

electorate as money to prod them to cast their votes for a particular candidate.

VICIOUS CIRCLE

The history of independent India makes it clear that honesty, patriotism, quality,

service, excellence and even charisma have become casualties vis a vis money and

power on the Indian election stage. In this situation, political poser is equated with

electoral popularity, which in turn is equated with money and power, which can be had

only though political patronage.

The vicious circle has helped to create a class of extortionists who manipulate the

passive public. Politics too has its honest and patriotic people who are committed to the

welfare of society. But, sadly, they are caught up in a system which does not let them

come to prominence unless they come terms with it and adopt the venal proposition of

wining elections to make money to win the next election.

Only those who correctly grasp the inner dynamics of this and adapt to its

mechanics can hop to make any headway. Others are bound to sink. When the system

itself made the election a venal mechanism, corrupt practices that rope in criminals and

police are bound to follow.

 It can be categorically said that the business of crime cannot survive anywhere if

politicians and the police join hands to bring the crime world to heel. But alas, this is not

to be in a world of opportunist politicians and a corrupt, weak, police force both with an

eye on the spoils of the crime. The police force is the weak link in the troika of power-

brokers consisting of politicians, criminals and the police. It functions as an instrument

politicians use to bring criminals to them. The role of the police as a law-enforcing

agency and its hold over criminals makes it a handy instrument for politicians to use.

SAD COMMENTARY

The police is the executioner and odd-job boy of the Government. This image of

the police is effectively made use of by politicians for all conceivable personal and

official purposes. While low-ranking police are used as bodyguards, gunmen,

messengers, watchmen etc, high-ranking police officers are used for the same jobs at

higher levels.

It is a sad commentary on today’s police force that while low-ranking police do

these jobs as an unavoidable duty, high-ranking officers compete and fight among

themselves to attend to the odd jobs of their political masters. This they do, even when

they are fully aware of the criminal antecedents and police histories of some of their

benefactors.
 Jobs are judged for importance in the police force on their potentialities for illegal

money from crime. And jobs with potential for such gains are most sought after and are

often paid for in lakhs. This is considered an investment. which will earn many times

more in a short period of time.

Many other jobs, on the other hand are known as punishment postings and are

largely detested. These jobs have no potential for illegal earnings.

It goes without saying that judging jobs on the basis of the challenge or the

opportunity for service that they provide is a thing of the past. It is the crime world that

decides the importance or otherwise of different police jobs and in actual fact controls

the type and calibre of officers in each job.

In other words, it is criminals who invisibly control the police rather than the

police controlling the criminals. This reversal of function has a lot to do with the low

morale of the present Indian police.

Its members find themselves at the mercy of criminals whom they are supposed to

bring to book. The police is no longer confident that it is mentally and organisationally

equipped to do its job.

Increasingly powerful and modernised crime syndicates have made a farce of

crime control by the police. Many factors place the police at disadvantages. Its growth
has not kept pace with population growth. It is also at a disadvantage as far as

communication, transportation and weaponry are concerned as criminals have the best of

all these.

INCOMPETENT LEADERSHIP

Consequently, police fatalities in encounters with criminals and terrorist groups

are increasing. As a result the police in India is no longer keen to intrfere with the

activities of the underworld. The understanding between criminals and the police is that

both will confine themselves to their respective fields a and avoid embarrassing each

other.

The police is paid for its passiveness while stray troublemakers are silenced. The

Indian police is sane enough to quickly realise that its interests lie in silence while

entangling with the crime world may invite a host of complications.

The responsibility for the present state of the Indian police rests solely on its

incompetent leadership rather than on anything else. Unimaginative planning uninspiring

guidance and lack of leadership and conviction in the top police ranks has led to utter

chaos. Dangerously ineffective recruitment policies, poor training programmes, misuse

of the facilities of confidential assessment of subordinates and the degeneration of control

and supervision machinery have resulted.

 The present Indian police force is utterly unmotivated and police jobs are

considered only as devices that provide rank, power, social status, sundry comforts and a

pension. How can the people of India depend upon this sort of police force for security,

protection and law and order?.