In a current incident in Bhubaneswar, a younger lady accompanied by her fiancé was allegedly subjected to brutal bodily violence and profound humiliation by police personnel. Her fault? She remonstrated with responsibility personnel in a police station for not registering a grievance.
Such an incident is unlikely to shock the typical citizen as a result of he/she is used to the impolite and heavy-handed behaviour of the police in addition to frequent situations of complainants or “victims” being subjected to violence and branded “perpetrators”. The reason being that the Indian policeman has retained the mentality of a colonial oppressor, the one distinction being that whereas earlier he wielded the lathi on the behest of our British rulers, he does so now for his present political masters.
So, the place is the management of our police forces, which ought to present supervision and steering to the constabulary within the efficiency of its prescribed duties? Though regulation and order is a state topic, officers of two central cadres — the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) — play a key position in state police operations. Authority over the police pressure is held by the state’s chief secretary, an IAS officer, and the pressure is headed by a director common of police (DGP) assisted by a number of further DGPs, all belonging to the IPS.
It’s these functionaries who ought to be main and managing the police rank and file within the environment friendly discharge of policing capabilities, specifically, upkeep of regulation and order, prevention and detecting of crime, site visitors administration, and making certain public security. Sadly, the efficiency of the police forces in all these features stays dismal. So low is the arrogance in our police personnel and so belligerent their behaviour, that the abnormal citizen hesitates to strategy a constable or the police station for assist.
The Bhubaneswar incident has one other equally disturbing side, which impinges on the armed forces. The lady’s male escort, a serving officer of the Indian Military, was additionally, allegedly, manhandled, humiliated and illegally detained by the Odisha police. The rising indifference and disrespect being proven by civilian authorities in the direction of members of the nation’s army is trigger for critical concern, which requires a deeper probe and remedial motion.
The roots of the extant civil-military relations could be traced to the obsessive worry within the thoughts of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, of a army takeover of the fledgling State. This led to a downgrading of the highest army management whereas the standing and pay of each civil servants and the police noticed a pointy enhance after Independence. Whereas this was par for a brand new democracy, one other act of omission that contributed to the regular decline within the army’s standing within the State’s hierarchy was the failure of post-Independence governments to accord formal recognition to the nation’s armed forces.
Aside from 49 Group A Providers inherited from the British that represent the massive authorities paperwork, three new All India Providers — IAS, IPS, and the Indian Forest Service — have been created by Article 312 of the Structure. Nonetheless, the capabilities, duties and standing of the armed forces, their chiefs and senior management, discovered no point out anyplace within the Structure, in an act of Parliament or within the authorities’s Guidelines of Enterprise. This lack of an outlined standing has been utilized by the paperwork, with tacit political approval, to downgrade the standing of India’s army.
Successive pay commissions, utilizing arbitrary equivalences, in addition to a devious stratagem, termed non-functional upgradation — accorded to the civil companies, however denied to the army — have steadily depressed the army’s emoluments, relative to the opposite companies. Since emoluments kind the premise for deciding seniority within the authorities’s pecking order, army officers have discovered themselves, repeatedly, outmoded by civilian and police personnel, who have been, earlier, equal or junior to them in rank/priority with penalties in public picture/status.
One other supply of concern for the army has been the progressive blurring of traces between them and the house ministry’s seven central armed police forces (CAPF). Rising steadily in energy, the CAPF as we speak are 1.1 million sturdy. As within the state police forces, the management of six of the seven CAPF has additionally been garnered by IPS officers, who use army rank badges. Because the CAPF constables put on camouflage uniforms, they’re indistinguishable from the army and each are sometimes clubbed collectively as safety forces.
The previous decade has seen the final vestiges of the Nehruvian legacy swept away. Main coverage shifts appeared to carry a sharper deal with defence issues. Amongst important developments have been the 2016 and 2019 cross-border retaliatory strikes on Pakistani territory, the 2020 structure of the Chief of Defence Employees, and the creation of a division of army affairs. The expectation that the final two would result in an enchancment within the army’s standing/standing has, up to now, been belied. On the identical time, whereas political mileage is extracted from the army’s achievements, the MoD relentlessly wages authorized battles in opposition to veterans and widows.
There are different points, too, impacting the army’s public picture and its vanity. Whereas disregarding the seniority precept in promotions, and dangling post-retirement carrots could assure a compliant army management, this should be weighed in opposition to sure drawbacks: One, a army chief beholden to the institution for promotion, loses credibility inside the service; two, the standard of his recommendation turns into suspect; and three, high-level army selections could also be skewed to please these shelling out favours.
The Bhubaneswar episode is simply the newest occasion in a widespread phenomenon whereby army personnel are handled with disrespect by unsympathetic civil authorities. In the present day, the query uppermost within the thoughts of each jawan might be, if a commissioned officer could be slapped round and locked up by a police constable, what can occur to me, my household or my outdated mother and father, again within the village?
The politician and paperwork should take pressing and pragmatic steps to revive the arrogance of the army that their uniform and selfless service might be accorded respect and regard by civilian authorities. Something that undermines the elan and esprit de corps of our army can solely be detrimental to the nation’s safety.
Arun Prakash is a former chief of Indian Navy. The views expressed are private
