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In a blinkered system like ours, where power and wealth are the ultimate virtues,
where power and wealth in themselves stimulate mutual growth to the exclusion of all
other dimensions of life, it is no wonder, the people of this poor country succumb to the
trappings of power and wealth at the cost of all virtues, values, pride, dignity and human
decency. In an increasingly competitive and complex world where every day more
mouths are added to share limited resources, where the principle of the survival of the
fittest operates to its immane logical end and where the basic needs of survival and
decency can be assured only with power and wealth, people naturally go all out to ramp
the ladder of power and wealth by whatever means and cost. In the process, justice and
morality become casualties and criminality raises its ugly head as an instrument to
achieve otherwise impossible objects. This is how politics and crime knit together in the
The story of the police is somewhat different. As the catchpole of the nation’s
administration, the police enjoy tremendous power over vast fields of human activities
with responsibilities to life and death of the hoi polloi as well as dignitaries. In this
sense, the police is the cutting edge of the state power and its ultimate bearer. No power
can be its own sans the police on its side as an executioner and loyal watch-dog. This is
why politicians felt the need for wooing police to their side in their activities. The police
of independent India has become an easy prey to the power-baits of smarter politicians by
the reason of their failing strength of character and talent. Their greed, unsound social
politicians do or intend to do. They refuse to look beyond their political masters with
their dispensations of job favours; and so law, justice, righteousness, professional ethics,
morality, decency, human dignity, common good of people, national interests and even
conscience, otherwise common to any human being, have become invalid nonsense to
them. The police, sans sound character and personal integrity, is no more than a country
dog which is what the Indian police has become in free India. The politicians,
inebriated with new power, smartly brought these weaklings to absolute submission and
hold them on a tight leash to be their personal watchdogs and personal gendarmes in
requital for favourable job placements, undue promotions and other largition from time to
time. Nothing is valued higher than this largess and its dispensers by the new police of
India. It is how the police was involuted in the conspiracy against decent public life of
India.
It was a hop and skip for the police from the plangent world of politics to the
mysterious world of crime and the underworld. The police became a weapon of
politicians to bring about the subjugation of the crime world to prise their resources for
the political ends. They thus made good use of the decreasing strength of character of
the police in forging a nexus between the police and criminals in furtherance of their own
telos. With a week spine to hold itself and hapless in the face of odds, the police is only
too pleased to follow the footsteps of its political masters as the cardinal principle of
policing. In changed circumstances, discipline and subordination which form the basic
connecting link of the police hierarchy, lost all their shades of meaning and are
interpreted as dunny and blind subservience to those who have power, seeking personal
interests. And politicians easily led the police to the despicable cul de sac of the nexus
with criminals, the very people whom both are supposed to control and bring to book for
antisocial activities. With politicians as the custodians of power en arrier to the hilt to
support, the police plunged lock, stock and barrel into the lucrative crime world; the
consectaneous wealth and comforts were in no way less sweet than the hard earned
money of law–abiding society. This is how the nexus between the police and crime
CRIMINALISATION OF POLITICS.
Whom should we blame for this hapless position? Certainly not the politicians or
their auxiliaries like criminals and police who are unfortunate by-products of the grind.
They are created by the situation arising from a system which is misfit to the people to
whom it was devised. The blame lies either on the Indian people who are impair to the
democratic system evolved for them, because of their unenlightened and venal
consciences which is so dim-witted that virtues like honesty, service, patriotism, quality
and excellence can make no dent on is at all, or it lies with the political system devised
for them which failed to take their psychological makeup into account and ipso facto led
to the problem of maladjustment in national life. Otherwise, how can we explain
criminals and goondas winning elections with impunity even while rioting and murders
were committed at their behest on the eve of elections itself. The fact is that the chance
of winning an election often is pro rata to the aura of a tough image built around the
candidate. It is these people whom the Indian electorate prefer to invest with powers to
safeguard their interests. Obviously, the Indian electorate lacks of foresight and vision to
understand the consequences of its irresponsible decision. It is yet too immature to take
decisions about the interests of the nation and see how national interests are closely
linked to its personal interests. It is yet to broaden its perspective to include the life of
the nation as an integral part of its own. Long term and rational decisions are alien to its
nature. Immediate selfish interests and a parochial outlook continue to be the driving
force of all its actions and decisions, whether it be on the matters of national importance
or personal concern. In most parts of India, it is money, arrack, sari, threat, fear of
whom to vote for. How can the avenir of this country be safe in the hands of such an
electorate and its elected leaders? How can an indifferent and irresponsible electorate
provide honest and efficient leadership to the nation? This weakness of the electorate has
ultimately left Indian politics in the heath of violence and manipulative extortions, with
the instruments meant to protect them mowing the field. Saner elements in politics, who
found survival difficile, have left the field, giving way to the elements which are more
suited to what is required in the field. It is how politics has become a pit of junk from a
class of dedicated and virtuous leaders. The credibility which is the pith of any political
life is the biggest casualty political institutions and the percentage of the electorate that
takes the trouble of going to polling booths to cast votes is steadily decreasing from
invest money to reap wealth, comfort and power for the next five years. And how he
reaps the wealth, comfort and power again is not a mystery at all. It is corruption and
misuse of public money. If he is ambitious and intends to promote his career interests,
there is no way out in the existing system but to resort to pulling strings and pursuing
other more deadly methods, often with the active collusion of the officious criminals and
police.
POLITICAL PATRONAGE
The unhealthy nexus often leads to and facilitates other forms of crime. Cases of
rioting assault, kidnap, rap and blackmail, involving the supporters or relatives of
politicians, criminals and police in furtherance of a political cabal are other usual forms
of crime that result from the vicious nexus. Often, criminals and police are employed to
losses of life and property involved in the wily schemes seld touch the conscience of
either the politicians, the criminals or the police who are responsible for these dastardly
acts. The political patronage and the nexus with police desensitize criminals to the
process of law and justice; they are thus emboldened to commit more daring and ruthless
crimes that endanger the life and property of the plebeians. The police, in its links with
politicians on one hand and with criminals on the other, is in its new avatar as the
protector of vested interests with no more commitment and passion for law and justice. It
This is the requital, the Indian electorate gets for letting its political system putrefy by its
CHANGED ROLE:
With the increscent involution of the police with glidder politicians, the
conception of the police about its own role has undergone a large-scale change. No more
does it look at crime control and maintenance of order as its first duty. With this, the
concern for crime control received a setback and crime control and investigation have
receded to the last priority except when politicians are interested in them for a specific
purpose. Only crimes that disturb politicians foment police to galvanic and meaningful
action. Other crimes receive no priority . The very definition of the gravity of crime is
adapted to suit the new concept. Those crimes which are tolerated by politicians are no
more crimes. The self-image of the police as ‘ a fearless arbiter of crime’ is changed to a
crime card of the police has made it less awe-inspiring and less deserving of respect from
the criminals. The police has more and more realised that criminals, particularly those
from organised syndicates are personal friends of its political masters and it is no match
for the criminals in terms of wealth, influence and social standing. The men of the
police see those criminals on equal footing with their political masters and learn to treat
them with awe. They find it absurd to act with authority against the immarcescible
criminals who are too high for the small stature of the police. It is unfortunate that the
police of the present days has never realised its infinit stature as a law-enforcing agent vis
a vis all others including criminals and politicians whom it is empowered to search, arrest
and take to court if they deviate from their rightful path. Sadly, the trifling wealth and
the concomitant “big-man” image of others appear to the present police as more
POLITICISATION OF POLICE:
The extant system of selecting the police chief is erratic at best and motivatedly
A police chief in a state was taken to court with his wife after retirement in 1990
February for defrauding the public and a spastic society by sale of charity tickets in name
of the spastic society and pocketing huge amount of money. This is the standard of
people who are chosen by politicians to lead post independent Indian police.
A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT:
In an atmosphere where placements and transfers are decided by the needs and
wishes of self-seeking politicians, no police can efficiently function nor can it be free
from the vice prise of the politicians. It is not surprising that power-esurient politicians
more and more grab powers that are legally and traditionally invested with the police
department when the top brass lack the strength of character and conviction. This leads
move their pieces to checkmate their adversaries and win the political game in their
favour. In other words, the police sans effective leadership is becoming more a
handmaid of politicians by moving away from its sacred role as the guardian of law and
justice and protector of the society and the common man. The credit of bringing the
police from its height of power to the present level of absolute submission should go to
the superior strength of personality of wily politicians who bent the police on their own
terms with selective use of stick and carrot. This police is not the police and what it does
CRIMINAL TENDENCIES:
A Deputy Inspector General of Police infamous for his epinosic and corrupt
desired a young Deputy Superintendent of Police, under him marry a girl from the family
of a rich arrack contractor of his range. The parents of the young officer fearing undue
pressure got their son married in desperation to a girl of their choice. This antagonised
the Deputy Inspector General. His next annual confidential report of young officer
showed the junior as a liability to the police department and misfit as a subdivisional
police officer. He also prevailed year after year upon other officers who wrote
confidential reports of the young officer to incorpse similar or more deadly remarks.
Most of them obliged and this bright junior officer ended up with a series of
unsubstantiated adverse remarks repeated time and again in his annual confidential
reports. All his appeals were never allowed to reach the government. It is to the credit
of the young officer that he remained unbroken and continues in police service while his
far less competent colleagues have superated him on the career ladder and the young
officer was successively denied important postings though there was not a single thing in
his career to justify such a treatment. Undeterred by the unjust scorn heaped of him by
refusing promotion in preference to his less qualified and less competent juniors, he later
addressed the chief secretary of the state government not to consider him any more for
the promotion. He took this unprecedented autophagous decision in utter contempt of the
corrupt and immoral departmental heads and government functionaries who crushed his
career prospects.
Units in 1987 in a Southern State in India who as head of the Food and Civil Supplies
Enforcement cell of the state under a Director was accustomed to getting free supply of
quality rice, sugar, pulses and other commodities from traders to his house through the
latter organisation. The new Director of the organisation in 1987 in the rank of
Superintendent of Police failed the Director General of Police by his principled stand in
this regard. This enraged the latter to the extent of hounding the young Superintendent of
Police and seeking opportunity to publicly humiliate him. He followed the young officer
wherever the latter went for raid hoping that he would get some opportunity to fix the
latter. When all the efforts failed, the Director General of Police decided as the dernier
ressort to play a drama of searching the Superintendent of Police in public before invited
press and public in an induced case of trapping on suspicion while the latter was
returning from raids in northern parts of the state, depending his calculations entirely on
the humiliation engendered by the publicity of such suspicions and searches by a very
senior officer coram populo. However, the cabal of the senior officer came to nought and
the Superintendent of Police, was saved from the gratuitous humiliation in public while
inscience of the welcome set for him on the way by his senior. The Superintendent of
Police reached back state headquarters through another route that night. It is of interest
to note that the Director General of Police who stopped so law in his police career was
posted as an advisor to the Governor of North-East state during President’s rule after a
few years, postliminary to his retirement from police service. This is the calibre and
integrity of extant Indian Police Service. This is the reason why Indian society prefer
tolerating social maladies to approaching police manned by such people, devoid of any
As corruption takes control and spreads to all strata of the force, upright elements
in the force become a minority and also forfeit coveted positions in the organisation as
inconvenient candidates. They are scorned as removed from ground realities and
detested and avoided as moles in the mainstream. Their honest and professional
approach becomes a disaster and unpopular everywhere. Their courage in face of odds
loses character amidst popular sound ad fury of the misinformed. Vested interests inside
and outside the police let loose false propaganda and spread distorted versions of events
against such officers and suborn character assassination to keep own reputations on right
sides. The Situation becomes really distressing when superior officers partake in the
game on the side of vested interested for consideration and join hands in an unholy
alliance to bend and silence the upright among them. Taking recourse to unfair and illegal
means to crush upright officers is also not uncommon. Though courts of law can
theoretically protect against such harassments, expenses, time and uncertainties involved
and the history of court judgements being dodged or rendered ineffective by
administrative sleight, render the protection meaningless and force the upright officer to
face all humiliations and losses in silence or yield to the pressures. It is to the credit of
Indian police that it has great officers who withstood all slights without yielding to
pressures.
It is an irony that the political leadership which supposed to take the lead of
reconstructing India is colluding for mutual selfish ends with the police which is
supposed to be the tool of the reconstruction and thereby strike at the foundation of the
strength and orderliness of the country. Every passing year sees a new phase and a new
trend in this nasty connection between the important players of the national
reconstruction to take the country by some miracle at the last moment. As the people
become more and more attuned to the nefarious nexus and resign to the assuefaction, the
players become more and more bold with the passing years and go with their nasty
collusion at the cost of the nation’s interest with impunity for mutual relief and benefits
by subornation.