A few months earlier, the police had faced the ire of the media and civil society organizations for alleged mishandling of communal riots in parts of Delhi. And before that anti-CAA protests in other states. A demographic youth bulge, increased rural-to-urban migration and widening inequality increases the probability of increased social tensions in the future, aggravated by the economic consequences of the lockdown. The police will need to manage public protests without egregious use of force that today’s social media communicates world-wide.

In conflict areas, the recent killing of 17 specially trained District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel in Chhattisgarh by Maoists is likely to retard plans to thin out the massive deployment of CAPFs, despite the overall drop in extremist violence. In Kashmir, there has been a reduction in militant violence following the security ‘lockdown’ since August 2019. Once this is lifted, there are concerns that Pakistan-based tanzeems will attempt to exploit perceived public anger over the changed political status of J & K state. Even prior to this, there was heavy deployment of central forces against an estimated 150-200 militants, the STFs of the state police have developed impressive capability for intelligence–led operations. Unless the security lock-down becomes the ‘new normal’, the state police will also need to manage any mass protests with appropriate force, so that this does not fuel a resurgence of militancy. In the North-East, anti-CAA protests in Assam echoed the mass movement against foreigners of the early 80’s. And found resonance in most states of the region equally concerned that migrants would outnumber local populations.

In addition to managing law & order and internal conflicts, the police in India have overwhelming responsibilities – the huge expansion of traffic to 250 million vehicles and network of national highways requires complex management -the annual death toll in road crashes is about 150,000. Providing personal protection to over 20,000 prominent individuals today commits a sizeable quantum of force. Cognizable crimes reported are over 5 million, and cases pending trial in different courts over 30 million, for which investigating officers have to appear repeatedly because of the tortuous judicial process. Other mandatory tasks include executing the huge volume of processes from courts to every corner of the country and undertaking multitudinous enquiries whether relating to passports or verification of antecedents. Emerging threats like cyber-crime and sophisticated white-collar global crime syndicates in a digital age target not just big financial institutions but the vulnerable ordinary citizen.

This diverse role perhaps unique in the world, is carried out by 1.5 million state police personnel, supported in conflict areas and (as needed) in riot situations by 1-million strong CAPFs. These central forces (except the CRPF) have other roles, such as guarding India’s 15,000 km of international borders or securing public sector plants and vulnerable installations. In most states the armed police are over-deployed and under-equipped, while the civil police are understaffed and thinly spread on the ground when measured against global benchmarks. Both the armed and civil police have severe deficiencies in training. Scientific research to upgrade policing methods is negligible. The National Police Mission is still to get off the block compared to similar schemes like the National Health Mission with an annual budget of Rs 35,000 crores. The Modernization of Police Fund (MPF) managed by MHA has a meagre annual budget of Rs 3000 crores. Even these limited funds are spent mostly by CAPFs not the states. Moreover, few states can spend even the limited allocations under the MPF, not just because of a cumbersome procurement process but a restrictive framework limited to infrastructure, mobility, and equipment. Modernization is a process of change, from older ideas, attitudes, methods, and technology to the more recent. Better communications, sophisticated weapons and more vehicles are necessary, but may not be sufficient.

While ‘policing and public order’ are indeed on the State’s list in the Constitution of India, training, research, and building up capacity for scientific crime investigation are on the Union List (Entry 65). Capacity building of the police is unequivocally a Central mandate. A review of state police deployed in public-order situations, more often than not, reveals them to be inadequately equipped and poorly trained. UN guidelines call for developing a range of weapons and ammunition that enable a “differentiated” use of force in varied situations, including less-lethal weapons to limit fatalities. SLRs or other combat firearms are not designed for dispersing mobs. Moreover, police personnel sent to disperse mobs need to be equipped with body-protectors. Without adequate training to function in formations and competent field-level leaders, it is unrealistic to expect controlled use of force. And it is only with better intelligence on the public mood and prior outreach to community leaders that peaceful protests can function as the safety valve so essential in a democratic polity.

So, what is the way forward? Despite constraints, police in India are called upon to make sacrifices that other components of civil government do not have to make. 35,000 have been killed in the line of duty in the past 60 years – the most telling image of recent times is of a lathi-wielding ASI Tukaram Omble killed while apprehending AK-toting terrorist Kasab in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Or Inspector Subodh Singh investigating a lynching case, killed by a mob in rural UP a couple of years ago. Even today, it is only COVID-warriors in khaki seen on the streets, often without adequate PPE (personal-protective-equipment) enforcing the lockdown. Besides the very real dangers of this dangerous infection to themselves and their families, at times they face the wrath of an irate public unable to tolerate the restrictions that a lockdown entails.

For the past 50 years the country has successfully built up CAPFs now well-trained and well-equipped. Training budgets (barely 0.5% of total national expenditure on policing) are mainly for training of CAPFs. Today we need a pivot back to state policing. In conflict areas, the state police must build up capacity so as to reduce support from central forces. And this has been successfully achieved in states like Andhra Pradesh.

Technology is a force multiplier. IIT Mumbai has set up National Centre of Excellence in Technology for Internal Security (NCETIS) funded with Rs 100 crores by the Central government. Its terms of reference are to explore technology applications to improve intelligence gathering, crime detection, law enforcement and forensic investigation. Whether ‘hard’  technology solutions like CCTV, less-lethal devices for riot control, BR vests, and ‘soft’ technology applications like threat-assessment tools, profiling to focus limited resources on high risk people and places, this can transform the capacity of state’s policing.  Crime-mapping, facial-recognition software or AI-supported monitoring can be a game-changer. In the West, concepts like Problem-Oriented-Policing and predictive analytics evolved through partnerships between police practitioners and academic scientists. For example, in cities across the US, 50% of the occurrence of crime was found concentrated in a limited number of city segments (3-4%). Imagine how this helped deploying scarce policing resources!

India aspires to become a USD $5 trillion economy. Multiple factors will determine whether this is achieved but a major requirement is improvement in Rule-of-law Index. Security is a major factor for big and middle-level investors, while small and micro enterprises flourish only when there is a sense of safety for the common man. As important as economy, a robust policing system is the first line of defence of national security in an age when adversaries use “proxy war”. The country owes its citizens a system in which policemen and women are trained and equipped to deal with contemporary challenges with every policeman is clear that they are “servants of the law and no one but the law”. Investing to transform the police is a national imperative. Neglecting to do so could lead to missteps in achieving our nation’s vision of greatness.

References

1. Ministry of Home affairs Annual Report 2017-18

2. https://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~karandi/talks/NCETIS

3. India Justice Report

4. Status of Policing in India 2019

5. Jayanto N. Choudhury, Indian Police Journal, Jan-March 2003

“Policing India in 2025: Challenges & Issues ahead”

6. Ibid. Strategic Year Book 2019, United Service Institution of India: “Reforming the Police; a necessary condition for robust national security”

Shri Jayanto Narayan Choudhary is a 1978 batch of IPS in Assam-Meghalaya cadre. He is an alumnus of the Delhi School of Economics and retired as Director General National Security Guard in May ’15 after 37 years in the Indian Police Service. Earlier he was Director General of Police of Assam, and in the Intelligence Bureau for over quarter a century. He is a specialist in improving Internal Security systems in conflict areas, application in Indian conditions of global policing best practices, and leadership in the Indian police; he  has written extensively on these subjects.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation that he belongs to or of the USI of India.