Riots expose the true colour of the police

It is the police again in Gujarat. Is something wrong with police training in India? At a seminar of top police officials at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad I once posed a question: Why didn't you ever introspect to find out what went wrong during the emergency when you acted as mere instruments of tyranny in the hands of Indira Gandhi's regime?

No reply came forth. Instead, the Academy stopped inviting me. Still the answer is necessary for the force to be independent. K.F. Rustumji, a police top brass, has said after reaching Ahmedabad that he was not bothered about politicians but wanted to know why the police failed.

After the carnage in the state, it has become all the more necessary to find out why the police are always found wanting wherever a major riot takes place. The forces and its officers become a part of the rioters and their anti-minority bias comes to the fore.

Every time the elaborate network of intelligence fails whenever the riot takes the shape of a fight between the police and the Muslims.

This has become a pattern. The findings of practically all commissions of inquiry in the last 50 years confirm this.

The Justice Jagmohan Reddy commission, investigating the big Ahmedabad riot of 1969: "What could be expected from law enforcing and governmental agencies is a proper appreciation of the communal atmosphere prevailing in a state?

In our view on the facts disclosed by the government and other records already referred to, the law enforcing agencies could not have but known that the communal atmosphere in Ahmedabad had become tense."

Justice D.P. Madan commission of inquiry into the communal disturbances at Bhiwandi in May, 1970: "Several instances have been proved before the commission in which police officers and policemen either did not prevent Hindu rioters from indulging in rioting, looting or arson or showed communal discrimination in dealing with the rioting mobs or gave incorrect information to the control room or lodged incorrect FIRs to make out that the persons who had rioted or were responsible for looting or arson in particular incidents were Muslims rioters, not Hindu, or actively assisted Hindu rioters in burning and looting Muslim properties."

The NC Saxena Commission report on the Meerut riots in 1982: "The aggressiveness of the Hindus, unlawful activities of the Hindu communal group and police inaction prior to the murder of the pujari is not highlighted.

The conduct of the police included the arrests and brutally beating up of educated and well-placed Muslims in the days that followed. Right from the beginning the district administration saw the communal riot as instigated by the Muslims and the Hindu action as retaliation and therefore chose to take strict action against the Muslims only.

The orders from the senior officers in the district to the police could be summarised in one phrase - "Muslims must be taught a lesson." The Provincial Armed Constabulary and the police faithfully implemented this policy. Looting and arson, in this context, was considered legitimate and necessary and was, therefore, ignored."

The Justice Ranganath Mishra commission, which tried its best to shield the Congress government from the blame of Sikh killings in 1984, could not help severely censuring the police for not failing to control the violence. The commission found some instances of instigation and the creation of conditions for its spread and "for botching investigations afterwards."

The Srikrishna Commission report on the Mumbai riots (1992-1993) said: "The response of police to appeals from desperate victims, particularly Muslims, was cynical and utterly indifferent. On occasions, the response was that they were unavailable to leave the appointed post; on others, the attitude was that one Muslim killed was one Muslim less.

Police officers and men, particularly at the junior level, appeared to have an inbuilt bias against the Muslims which was evident in their treatment of the suspected Muslims and Muslim victims of riots."

In its 25-year-old report, the National Police Commission, appointed to suggest ways to reform the police, put its finger on it: "Police officers and policemen have shown an unmistakable bias against a particular community while dealing with communal situations."

All these reports accumulate dust in the government officers. The successive governments, including those believing in secularism have done little to punish the officers involved in the rioting.

Indeed, the answer to the question why the police fail translates into justice and is interjected into social institutions and public awareness. The government is too political, too insensitive to take any action. How can the instigation of communal frenzy and the commission of mass murders be ignored or excused?

The two recent examples are those of officers named in the Srikrishna report and involved in the 1984 Sikhs killings. In the first case the Shiv Sena government at Mumbai and the BJP-led coalition at the Centre did not allow any case to proceed for a long time.

With the change to the government at Mumbai, some slow progress has been made. The officers responsible for the 1984 killings were never prosecuted. A few who faced departmental action also got away with practically no punishment.

Come to think of it, no police officer has ever been treated in an open court for having acted as a predator instead of a protector. The reason is that it will expose the police thuggery and the link between the underworld and some of the rulers.

Their uncertainty is probably the main reason why no action takes place in fighting riots and in punishing those who do not perform. Politicians use the police for their nefarious activities and the force in turn has the licence to indulge in all types of illegal activities.

One other reason for the bad force is the absence of accountability. Police officers and the jawans can get away with the worst of crimes because they are answerable to none. They are not bothered about even their legal obligation, much less about being named in an inquiry report.

They and their subordinates know that the government is so dependent on them that nothing will happen to them. If the force is to be reformed, persons, who kill, burn or loot, engineer or conspire to arrange events have to be punished. Failure on either count has upset judicial norms and undermined the confidence of people.

Increasingly, there is a tendency to change loyalty with the change in the government. Tamil Nadu and UP are two blatant examples. During the Gujaral government, the Prime Minister had to ring up the then chief minister M Karunanidhi to stop what threatened to be bloodbath in the state before an election.

Mulayam Singh's regime is known for having used the specially recruited Yadav policemen for "fixing" the opponents.

Any police force worth its with the name has to be independent of political pressures. The National Police Commission made several suggestions to ensure that. One proposal was to have a fixed tenure for top officers.

Another was to form a security board, consisting of the chief minister, the home minister and the opposition leader to decide on transfers. Indira Gandhi rejected the