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Amidst the diverse functions the police perform, the plebeian identifies the police
with maintenance of law and order. He sees the police in uniform intervening the
incidents of his everyday life beginning from a simple street quarrel to mob violence. He
sees them conducting raids on vice dens and restricting his actions and movements in
the name of public interest. He sees their presence in well-nigh all state and public
gatherings, controlling crowd and maintaining order; in beats and villages, checking
history-sheeters. As a part of the law and order staff, traffic police in white uniform are
visible controlling and regulating traffic during rush hours. The hoi polloi have learnt to
see the law and order police as their saviours in hours of need malgre restrictions
involved in the latter’s methods. As far as public deals are concerned, help and support
of the law and order police have become sine qua non in the ambience of prolate fruad
and unruly tendencies in public life. Non obstante unvcivil methods and mouvais ton,
ordinary citizens consider the law and order police as a necessary evil and the pith of the
public order. It enjoys a special place in the psyche of the people as a hated saviour and
a constant compagnon in public life. The image of law and order police decides to them
the image of the police in general. The law and order police steeped in corruption makes
them believe that the police force en semble smell rammish and its good performances
earn their unqualified plaudit to the entire force. The strategic position of the law and
order police in crime scene is patent from the fact that it comes to picture right in time
of a crime to prevent its commission as the true strain of law and order policing while
other wings are involved either too early as in the case of security police or too late as in
the case of crime police. The strategic timing brings them to the centre-stage of crime
management in the eyes of common people and wins them their trust and confidence.
Furthermore, the law and order police provide a rare praxis of symbion with the law with
each limiting and protecting the other unlike security police ectogenic and crime police
subservient to it. There cannot be laws sans the law and order police and no law and
order police sans the laws. This is the ‘secret of the matchless relevance of the law and
Police stations are pillars of the law and order police reticulation with district
police offices in districts and police commissionerates in major cities at regional levels
Intermediary levels like circles, subdivisions and ranges coordinate the work
interterritorial. Armed forces are maintained as reserves at regional and state levels in
addition at the centre to assist the law and order police in highly disturbing situations.
These are striking forces, specially trained to handle serious lacunae of Indian law and
order police is that no special training facility is available for its staff for actually
dealing with the quotidian law and order issues. It is rather crude to expect the police to
depend on past experiences and untrained personal faculties to meet professional law and
order challenges. The lapse leads to arbitrary handling of law and order situations sans
sound and uniform policy save peripheral measures to be adopted before and during use
of weapons and opening fire. The only help available to an official on the field is the
general guidelines of his seniors who are equally illequipped to handle those situations.
This complicates situations during actual actions by depriving the elements of mutual
understanding among the police and the subjects as a natural and essential factor of
successful policing, and ipso factor creates chaos. The situation can hardly be called as
professional policing of law and order. The uncertainties of each law and order issue
added to it, make handling of law and order in India, a pure maelstrom.
Pulls and pressures are sine qua non in a democracy. Pressures of influential and
This is patent in the working of Indian police. Police as an agency that limits the liberty
of the people pro bono publico and discipline those who prevaricate, occupy a strategic
position in the interpersonal and public life of the citizens and makes success and failure
or life and death differences to them and their ventures. The strategic position of the
police is more pronounced in law and order policing. Sadly law and order policing in
India imprimis is management of pulls and pressures in the wilderness of rules and laws.
Law and order policing has become a contrivement of bending and interpreting rules
and laws to the convenience of rich and powerful who can pull strings at right places.
avatars and subject the police to serve public censure. Otherwise, it is a mute affair as
the police algate are on the vocal side of the rich and influential against dumb and
helpless plebeian with none to fight the latter’s cause against the risk of the wrath of the
police save isolated cases of courage and commitment. The situation is to the benefit of
the police as the shocks of possible disturbances by the prevarications are always
absorbed by the powerful on whose favour the police acted and the interests of the police
are safeguarded avec acharnement by them. This is a tacit arrangement between the
police and the powerful wherein the police are really lower partners in the high-stake
game played for the benefits of the powerful bloc. The police with their little statute and
easy contentment, trade off their high powers to the mighty people for the limited gains
of the easy process of policing, career promotions, peaceful life and and lucre. In the
The current abracadabra of Indian police in managing law and order issues is
letting sleeping wolves sleep and avoid further troubles. Who meet the requirement are
hailed as the best law and order hands. Sine dubio, management of law and order issues
anywhere requires handling situations without inviting gratuitous problems. But, the
indubitably a priority. But, this should not be in shape of a compromise, at the cost of
law and justice, at the cost of professional objectivity like in extant Indian law and order
machinery which believes in calm at all costs; those who are adequately insensate to go
to that length by placating powerful trouble-makers only win races for coveted law and
order posts in Indian ambience. The consequence of the apostasy is that the law and
order policing in India has become progressively a nest of playing favouritism with
utter contempt for professional character. Those with a sense of objectivity and
professional probity self foot the bill as their professional uprightness falls foul with
powerful lobbies who in tune with the thoughts and fears of the higher echelons of the
law and order police, create troubles to those who dared not to favour them. The sleight
leads to a vicious circle that perpetuates the wily interests of the powerful at the cost of
weak and dumb in the hands of the law and order police by hoisting corrupt and lither
elements in key law and order jobs. The conundrum is whether being a part of such a
vice system is as inevitable to the law and order police as it appears. The answer
little toughness and resolve to stand up to the challenges of the powerful certainly help to
solve the riddles. The real question is whether the law and order police really want a
solution to the riddles or is it contented with what is there as its own making. All
available data point to the fact that the law and order police of India enjoy what is there
INTOXICATING POWERS
checking the spread of vide dens, regulating meetings, processions, and other activities
in public places in the interests of the maintenance or order, controlling crowds, quelling
mob violence etc. The police are invested with a spectrum of powers which include
powers to arrest, detain, search seize impound, prosecute, levy collective fines, enter and
take possession of private places and buildings, use weapons to hurt and even kill to
force compliance etc. Most of these powers save in specified emergent circumstances are
circumscribed by the need of obtaining appropriate magisterial orders for exercise. The
maintenance of law and order in large cities is facilitated by investing the magisterial
powers with police commissioners, often delegated upto the level of DCPs in charge of
law and order. The powers enjoyed by the law and order police amate to their
enormous responsibilities and perhaps rank first in range and the width vis a vis other
wings of the police setup. Unfortunately, the importance and the width of powers of the
law and order police per se are its real bane. The dependence of the common man on
this wing of the police and the fear, the police inspire prompt him to gratiate the police
by all his means. The incessant rush of people on the doors of the law and order police
for patronage creates farthing power-centres at lower levels, giving an image of feudal
lords to the chiefs of police stations who dare to preside over and pass judgements on
small local disputes irrespective of their relevances to maintenance of order and other
police duties. Marriages made in Police Stations are not uncommon in states like
Karnataka and Tamilnad. Favouritism abounds and rules and laws are sidelined at will in
these arbitrary arbitrations. This in itself creates angry frustrations among wronged
people and leads to group rivalries and clashes. Thus the police are integrated as an
TOOLS OF PATRONAGE
Powers enjoyed by the police to control and contain vice dens and rowdy
activities provide a new dimension to the importance and manoeuvrability of the law and
order police. Powers are two-sided weapons employed for punishment as well as
patronage. Human nature being what it is, the police use its wide powers more as tools of
patronage than as tools to check rowdyism and vice dens in absence of professional
commitment and motivating factors to guide them on right lines. Organised crime
syndicates vie inter se for the favour and patronage of the police that ensure the smooth
sail of their anti-social activities and protection to the gang. The gang that gains upper
hand in the race rules the roast till the key figures in the police responsible for the
patronage remain in power with the tacit understanding that the gang operatates within
certain limits to save the police from undue embarrassments plus a subterranean
arrangement to share the res gestae. The importance of the police being what it is for the
survival of these organised crime syndicates, the importance of having right police
officials in key positions for these gangs cannot be overemphasised ; this leads to huge
amounts changing hands to ensure that particular police officials are posted to particular
law and order jobs. The end–result is happy and secure crime syndicates in highly
lucrative vice business under police patronage at the cost of unassuming citizens and a
contented and richer law and order police running the show without a fluster of major
law and order scene. The hoi polloi too are contented because there are no major
disturbances and crimes with the underworld crime lords on the right side of the police.
Only they do not know how they are looted ab intra and their unsuspecting character is
Any shakeup in key positions of the law and order police leads to the problems of
maladjustment among the crime syndicates for superiority and between the police and the
crime world with gang-wars and ascensive criminal activities creating real problems to
the police. Once the police come to terms with the crime gangs again, situation returns
to normalcy. Refusal by a four square official in a key law and order slot to cooperate
with crime syndicates invariably leads to further disturbances till the official is either
rather triste affaire of Indian police that the resolve or the killing instinct to go tough
with the crime syndicates that play the police by their little fingers is just not present
there. More distressing is how upright officials who choose to fight powerful crime
syndicates without yielding to the temptations of easy and comfortable life feel isolated
when seriously let down and compromised by their own organisation by denying support
at the behests of the powerful crime lords on the mendacious plea of maintaining peace.
In a case more than a decade old, a young Deputy Commissioner of Police in the port
city of Calcutta in West Bengal fell foul with a powerful crime syndicate operating from
the port area and patronised by a powerful politician in power in the state. He was lured
by the gang to pursue a criminal into the strongholds of the gang in the port area; caught,
horrendously tortured in captivity and later lynched. Though criminal cases were
registered later, nothing came out of the case. This way a living lesson to upright police
A major cause of law and order disturbances is the absence of objectivity, fairness
and sense of justice in the police in handling important issues. The police tend to favour
the rich and privileged few in interpretation and exercise of powers to the disadvantage
and outrage of the weak and dumb majority. This in the long run, leads to resentment and
breeds resistance against the establishment and the system which conspires to perpetuate
the weak and unprivileged position by denying just and legal dues. The lex non scripta
of the police that whatever the rich and powerful do is right convince the poor and
disadvantaged that the extant system is not for them. The situation prompts wronged
people to meet the system by its own coin by going rich and powerful by means outside
the system to force the system and its police crawl before their riches and power for their
pro-rich slant, en revanche. That is why the ranks of rowdy gangs and organised
crime syndicates surface almost everyday in India to go rich and powerful at the earliest.
They soon learn that riches and powers have no laws and morality and the police bought
with it have no weaker legal and moral authority; that the police patronage is pro rata to
the riches they earn and share. The notorious Chambal dacoits are the makings of the
social evils and the police patronage to its privileged perpetrators. The fact that Indian
electorate send ex-dacoits and criminals as their representatives so state assemblies and
parliament show the sympathies the criminals enjoy with the people who are in touch
with field situations and know how weak and helpless people perforce run away from the
society and go hors la loi by the outrageous acts of rich and powerful with the police
licking boots at their feet and letting loose brutality on whoever dare to oppose the feudal
lords. This by no means is justification of lawless life and meant only to show how
police by their greed and irresponsible handling of situations add to the growth of crime
and lawlessness in the society. Phoolan Devi and her associates from the Chambal valley
and UP and Bihar maifa gangs proved that criminality pays in India; it pays wealth and
fame as well as political power and love and respect of the people. If there is a reason
for this highly deplorable moral degringolade in the country, it is the highly irresponsible
and most detestable handling of the law and order situation by its corrupt police, which
the hoi polloi find worse than the Chambal dacoits and Bihar and UP mafia gangs.
POORLY ORGANISED
All said and analysed, the impact of Indian police on the management of law and
order scenario cannot be called satisfactory. The Indian scenario is based on a few age-
worn cliches devoid of professional expertise, academic input and creative genius; the
methods employed are rude at best and arrogantly provocative at the worst. The whole
range of law and order management techniques of Indian police can be formulated in a
few crude catch-words like mediations or warnings followed by use of force. Indian
police have no in-build advantages of researches to various types of law and order
situations, psychological variables of divergent law and order issues their social and
and communication with potential law –breakers, stratified use of police powers at
contrivances like effective use of weapons, strategies and tactics of operations and
techniques of mediation or warning. The riot control weapons used by Indian law and
order police are yet age-old lathi and tear-gas shells; such common weapons like water
jets and plastic bullets are beyond the reach of police in most parts of India. Nor is there
a perficient machinery to gather information and intelligence pertaining to law and order
issues. The district and police station level machinery devised for the purpose are
illequipped for the enormous job because of their limited size, resources, expertise and
professional training. The law and order police often depend on the state intelligence unit
which with a scope different from the local law and order needs, may fail the law and
order police. The intelligence failures of the law and order police contributed for
eruption and spread of law and order disturbances in many instances. A striking recent
example of such a failure of intelligence is the Veerappan case wherein the combined
forces of Karnataka and Tamilnad police failed to humble and bring to book the notorious
forest brigand Veerappan who operates from the forests bordering the two states.
Though the operations by no means are easy, the failure of the efforts for ten long years
speak volumes about the strengths and weaknesses of Indian law and order police.
The most precious aes triplex of a law and order police is its professional
impartiality and the sense of justness and fairness bred from such a professional
commitment endear the police to all including its friends and foes. The trust and respect
ensue from this, take the police along way to success in its professional endeavour and
protect it from enormous professional hazards and risks common to the job. Once this
trust and respect are breached by immoral and illegal slants in discharge of
responsibilities lucri causa and other selfish causes, the police are exposed to the
wraths of the public and the assaults of its foes and those crowds wronged by it. By
prevarications, the police are protecting neither their job interests nor the interest of the
country and its people; nor their personal interests are protected as no gains made at risk
to the life is worth the trouble. Indian police seld book so long and open eyes to look
around. Once they stop to shed their professional arrogance and see the mine-fields
underfoot, they realise the bevue they commit and may pursue a path befitting the