The Great Indian Police Constable

A huge and diverse country as India requires equally huge and diverse set of Police forces. Fortunately we do have diverse Police forces ( State Plice, CRPF, Railways Police, RAF, CID) but the size and ultimately the effectiveness of Police for the Mango Man is really questionable.

An official statement from our government, which can be read here is certainly not very encouraging. So as per this statement, we have 142 Police personnel per 100,000 of population. Please be ware that this is the sanctioned Police force. The actual statistics are much disappointing. As can be read in this another sarkari report, the actual figures are almost 30% lower across categories ( Police/Population, Police/Area). So we the mango man actually have roughly 100 mango policemen per 100,000 mangoes.

Unfortunately our dear state governments are least bothered about addressing this issue, infact they are trying their best to make the matters worse. Its an open secret that most of the Police constables in any district are on duty at the official, private residents of respective MLA, MP, Ward President. Some of them are busy purchasing vegetables free of cost for the senior police officers or perhaps picking and dropping the kids of other wealthy politicians and powerful bureaucrats, round the clock. So it is safe to assume that hardly 30-40 mango policemen are ultimately made available for 100,000 of we the mangoes.

So even if you don't understand the Special Theory of Relativity, dont worry, I am sure you can easily understand and comprehend how effective will our mango police be.

Let us try to guess the reason behind, 30% shortfall in the mango police force. Eureka, its all about the money, mango honey !!

A mango police constable gets anywhere between Rs.3000 to Rs.9000 ( after 5-8 years of experience) officially, legally. Dont trust me, read for yourself the pay scale for Constables and other officials at the CBI website here You might also like to read the advertisement of Uttaranchal Police or Kerala Police. These constables are hardly 10th pass and are given some basic training. Maids in my small town of Ajmer in Rajasthan charge anywhere between Rs.600-Rs.1000 per month for 1-1.5hrs of work per day. These maids are working in 6-8 houses at a time and cumulatively are able to earn Rs.6000- Rs.8000 per month.

So, with an average salary of Rs.5000 per month, how high morale will a constable have? He knows that even after working for another 10 years his salary might be still around Rs.10000 and adjusting to inflation his salary might actually decrease with time. So naturally these constables and head constables would like to make some decent money for themselves and for their families and will be inclined towards getting into arguments on street so as to make an additional of Rs.50-Rs.100 per day. Forget the high profile cases, how many cases of thefts, minor crimes are actually solved ever in India? They dont get performance related bonuses, they get recognition, they don't even get proper training to combat the smart crooks and bloody terrorists loaded with modern arms and ammunition.

Let us assume that some of Police Constables are really exceptional and genuinely intent to work for the betterment of society and country. But time and again they are being deputed to buy grocery for some minister's wife or for providing special protection to late night birthday party of rich kid. While puppeting around our mango Police Constable looses his self-respect and slowly unwillingly falls in the trap.

So, How can they be motivated to work for the mango people and tackle crime proactively? Instead they are literally pushed to the wall and start focusing their time and energies on collecting ransom money from road side hawkers and small shopkeepers.

To make matters worse, these mango Policemen don't even get weekly offs or annual paid vacations. They are woken up at wee hours to accompany the 'baba' to airport or pickup some high profile guest of a local vip.

I am not trying to justify the corrupt activities our mango police gets indulged into, but we all know that no strong laws will be of any good unless law enforcement and monitoring agencies are vigilant, effective, motivated and really care about their neighbourhood and city in general. No doubts that India has some of the very well trained, educated and qualified IPS officers and at senior level the quality of Police officers is really at par with world, but we the mango people come across and interact with constables and the general perception about India Police is created as a result of these interactions only. As statistics reveal there's no money, career progress, learning and growth opportunities (the reasons for which most of us work) for a constable and so definitely not many will be interested to become one.

The IB, CBI, NIA, CID can only reach a very small percentage of people and unless our sophisticated and high profile agencies learn to use the and not just abuse the Police machinery to monitor and gather intelligence the criminals will live and die in peace. They know that by merely giving Rs.500 a new passport, ration card or a new license and hence a new identity can be attained and with some money and political protection Police or any other agency will not be able to take any significant action against them. We cant expect to combat terrorism and gather information about cross border crimes without gathering information at fringes. We must involve the Police in issues pertaining national importance.

While researching a bit for this post, I came across a elaborate and fantastic report report prepared by Dr.Jay Prakash's Loksatta team. Several individuals have previously attempted for this cause and Human Rights Law Network too has done a fantastic job it this report.

So, who's stopping the reforms. A sitter of a question indeed, no-one and everyone. If you will ask this question with any of the state government, they will tell how important these reforms are but they are not getting support from opposition or central government and similar lame excuses will be given by central government, the prime one would - police is a state matter! The Political parties will loose the discretionary power, the protection, the aura and hence all the money they make by running illicit businesses in the backyard of their party headquarter, if they bring in these Police Reforms on table. Hence they make sure to form committees, generate reports after reports and blame lack of 'Political Will' behind all their failures to implement these much needed reforms.

I strongly believe that if Comprehensive Police reforms are implemented our democracy will be strengthened to a very large extent, crime and terrorism will fall sharply and if we complement the Police Reforms with Janlokpal, Judiciary reforms, India can definitely get rid of corruption in our lifetimes! Its high time we understand that if we want to live in safety, we must safeguard the interest of guardians of our safety and security !!

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Image source- BBC