THE image of the uniformed police in India, the largest democracy in the world, is increasingly becoming synonymous with repression rather than protection from injustice. The police are construed as a tool of the ruling classes, an arm of the state meant to protect the interests of the ruling classes; the use of force is part of its mandate. If the law is meant to be equal as given in our constitutional democracy, why is there such discrepancy in its application and less respect for it in the eyes of the public? A greater sophisticationin methods used by law-implementing agencies does not necessarily lead to a greater sensitivity among police personnel in dealing with people.
The Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2019, jointly authored by Common Cause and the Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, looks at some of these issues in the context of the Indian police system. It follows up on its report of 2018 by exploring new dimensions of the conditions of police work through the lenses of both police personnel and their family members.
While the first report was about the attitudes of people towards the police and the disproportionate presence of undertrials from Scheduled Castes (S.Cs), Scheduled Tribes (S.Ts) and sections of the minorities, the second SPIR is about the working conditions of the police, their attitudes towards the public and how their approach is affected by the lack of specific training (on how to deal with people). Most of the training, the report found, was reserved for the upper strata of the police force. Of the police personnel interviewed, only about 6 per cent who belonged to the lower rung of the hierarchy had received any training at all. Despite a positive correlation between the presence of women police personnel and the reporting of crimes against women, the fact remains that women constitute a meagre 7.28 per cent of the total police force.
This story is from the October 25, 2019 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the October 25, 2019 edition of FRONTLINE.
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