DailyPost 1836
HAVE WE LOST POLICING ON THE WAY…
The quality of policing defines the quality of life of a nation. For long it has been a non-developmental head of account and it was presumed that there is no need for any major investment in it. Capital investment has not been forthcoming, so where was the scope of any worthwhile training at any level on a reasonably large scale, so that it could make a difference in the quality of policing. When you are starved of cash and development, the thought process also moves in the direction of the depraved. The only way you can prove your worth to the world was by getting the posting of your choice and make your presence felt in the social media, or pics at important locations, ceremonial functions or with VVIPs.
Professional handling could thus be proved only by numbers, and the commitment to investigation by SIT type mechanisms, court supervised investigations and enquiry etc. by judges. At the fall of the hat, central agencies are brought to the rescue of the state police. The lack of faith has reached the nadir. The political masters decide every single movement, leave aside the well-known story of transfers. That is the reason we have an ex Police Commissioner of the maximum city and his ex-Boss in the wild. But for Police everybody knows / does the investigation, thousands of TV channels to social media to home departments to anybody who can exercise some power and influence or both. There is not check on anybody, erosion of powers can keep happening. Seventy-five years could have been a long time to have reached the levels of best police forces and best policing experiences the world has to offer.
In between the eight reports of National Police Commission between 1979 and 1981, the Prakash Singh judgement in 2006 and the happenings in 2021, there is no doubt that not only those reforms and recommendations did not see the light of the day but on the contrary policing has taken a different trajectory. The ease with which policing changes with every political establishment has to be seen to be believed. The situation and challenges have kept on increasing over the years and with technology being a major handicap, the grass does not seem to be greener on the other side either.
Policing is a game of expertise, with a huge element of courage, grit and determination and the untiring zeal to deliver against all odds. Objectivity and conscience are two sides of their existence. It’s not as simple as that of law and order, investigation or traffic, it impacts every aspect of our lives; from drugs, to money laundering, to corruption to domestic violence, et al. Can a country prosper with a skewed policing system? Are concepts of ease of living and business not intertwined into it. Behind every single big policing failure or a tragic incident or crime we find a litany of policing woes leading to it. If the police belongs to the ruling dispensation, it does not belong to democracy. Lakhimpur Kheri provides another great challenge to it professional existence.
IF THE POLICING CANNOT STAND TALL ON ITS OWN FEET, THE HEIGHT OF THE COUNTRY NECESSARILY COMES DOWN.
Sanjay Sahay