POLICE REFORM IN THE SUBCONTINENT

( This article was published in The Statesman in two parts on April 16 and 17, '07 as lead article under the caption Continental Police)

Police reform appears to be the flavour of the season across continents. A realisation was emerging, backed by popular demand, that police reforms were too important to neglect and too urgent to delay. Police was perceived as inefficient, highhanded and corrupt, a mere tool in the hands of the powers that be. A thorough overhauling was needed if the police agency was to be made into a professionally competent body accountable to law. In India the Supreme Court hands down a decision to implement the long awaited police reforms by the year end. Around the same time the President of Pakistan lists reforming the police as one of his major achievements. In Bangladesh UNDP persists in its campaign for giving the police a new friendly face.

Other Colonial Experiences
In Malaysia public concern is voiced regarding the process of implementation of the 2005 Royal Commission into policing. An opinion article appears in Kenya criticising the pace and effectiveness of police reform. In Trinidad and Tobago the Leader of Opposition pleads ignorance about the progress of government drafted and opposition supported police reform bill. In Northern Ireland the Police Oversight commissioner releases a report examining the state of police reforms in Northern Ireland. In Australia an opinion article discusses police corruption in light of the Police Integrity Commission. In UK British Conservative leader David Cameron releases details of police reform plan as Superintendents of County Police grapple with reform and modernisation at their annual meeting. In Guyana a tainted former New York City Police Commissioner is appointed to lead reform of Guyana police. There is call for greater police accountability. In Nigeria a 20-point recommendation is made in a white paper produced by the Presidential Committee on police reforms.

In Indonesia in 1999, that is, post-Suharto, police is separated form the military and is placed under the control of the President of the Republic. As part of the reform process the ethics and code of conduct are rewritten to capture the new civilian mission. There are several shortcomings but the agenda of reform is open and continuing. In Philippine too police is a part of the Department of National Defence until an Act of 1990 makes the Philippine National Police a civilian entity under the Department of Interior and Local Government, to be administered and controlled by the National Police Commission.


Sri Lanka
The setting up of the National Police Commission in Sri Lanka is a concession to the demands by the opposition. It is still at a nascent stage. It is supposed to be a totally independent body dealing exclusively with the members of the Police Department (about 75000 strong). Any person who interferes with the NPC is liable to a seven year imprisonment and fine. That notwithstanding, there are murmurings that politicians do try to interfere when police officers are transferred pending enquiries.

As far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned, dismantling the Indian Police Act of 1861 has proved a hard nut to crack. The motive behind the British masters giving India (as it was then) a police force patterned on the Irish Constabulary and not on Peel’s police is not difficult to guess. It did not bother them if the police machinery was inefficient and corrupt as long as it served their imperial interests. But that should not surprise us. After all, a colonial power has to safeguard its interests first. What is however disturbing that a similar mind set has continued half a century after the British made their exit leaving the subcontinent bifurcated. The same set of politicians in India and Pakistan who had been bitter critics of the colonial police chose to continue them in the same mould and use them as tools of the state power. Status quo continued even after Bangladesh, the third sibling, was born in 1971. Let us examine how police reforms have fared in the three countries of the Indian subcontinent.

Pakistan
In Pakistan demand for police reforms started being raised soon after its birth. It related to having a police commissionerate in the port-city of Karachi, like the one in Bombay. It was sabotaged time and again by vested interests among the bureaucrats and politicians. It was only years later that Karachi and the new capital of Islamabad got police commissioners. If we skip the sporadic tinkering with the police apparatus the first serious and composite attempt at reform was made with the setting up of the Police Committee in 1985. It recommended wholesale overhauling of the existing system. Several foreign missions to Pakistan also echoed the same sentiment. A British delegation visiting Pakistan in 1990 urged that the entire philosophy of policing be recast in the manner suggested by the Police Committee of 1985. Ironically, it was quite a volte-face for the onetime masters to pitch for a democratic police system which they had denied to the subcontinent in 1861. A team of experts form Japan expectedly emphasised the building of trust between citizens and the police. At core lay community policing for which Japan is famous.

As part of the early initiatives of the military government, which assumed power in October 1999, was the devolution of power down to a grassroots level. The assumption was that increasing accountability to the grassroots level would improve service delivery, including that of law and order as well as the dispensation of justice. The Police Order 2002 was a genuine attempt to address inter alia the problem of strengthening the internal organisation of police so that it could grow into a cohesive and effective force. The law provided necessary administrative powers to the police officers and put in place an effective command structure. It also ensured security of tenure to the officers in key field assignments. Along with these improved administrative powers, the role of police was redefined, making it more service-oriented. Stringent checks were built into the system to protect the people's rights. The police relationship with the political leadership was crafted and fine-tuned along with external checks to prevent political interference.

Unfortunately, this law was never implemented. The provincial governments created all kinds of impediments to frustrate the creation of an institution that would check their unfettered powers. They unleashed negative propaganda and created an impression that the new law gave vast powers to police that should be curtailed. The provinces were agitated at the idea of an independent police force that would refuse to let itself be used to intimidate and victimise political opponents, and would only function within the bounds of law; they wanted a pliant and docile police command that would carry out orders unquestioningly - whether to remove hoardings in the name of Islam, arrest and harassment of opposition politicians, to disrupt opposition parties public gatherings or to interfere in elections. Through an ordinance massive amendments had to be incorporated in the Police Order 2002 that, in addition to institutionalising political interference in policing, also struck at the command structure.

In 2004 the Asian Legal Resource Centre presented before the 60th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva a rather damaging critique of the situation in Pakistan. It says that the new Police Order of 2002 has failed to provide a framework for public accountability, de-politicisation of the institutions of justice and the provision of a people friendly policing system in the country. On the contrary, by giving accountability to district councils and political figures, the government has assured that the institutional controls of justice remain under the same privileged group as always. The Zila Nazim, a politician, records the annual Performance Evaluation Report of the District Police Officer, counterpart of our district SP, relating to all police functions including management of force, investigation and prosecution of cases for which the DPO is not responsible to him under the law. The first countersigning officer is not the DPO's immediate supervisory officer at the divisional level but the Provincial Police Officer (corresponding to our state DGP). The second countersigning officer is the Chief Minister who ensures total subservience of the DPO by personally recording his PER. With a Zila Nazim and the CM from the same political party, the PPO will also lose his relevance as commander of the force. The DPO, who now can only be posted with the Chief Minister’s approval, will willingly carry out even their illegal orders confident in the knowledge that a politicised Police Complaint Authority will protect him. There is a National Police Commission composed of 12 members, six of which are members of Parliament, with both parties equally represented. The bipartisan approach is meant to send a message that policing is not a politically driven issue.


Bangladesh
The Bangladesh experience has not been much happier. Other than renaming the Police Act as Police Rules nothing has changed for the police in form or substance. Since the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 half a dozen or more committees and commissions have submitted specific recommendations. However, scarce resources, vested interests and lack of political will prevented the reform agenda from being implemented. Police has felt overshadowed by the military. For many years army officers headed the police. Even today the chief of the Bangladesh police is designated as Inspector General and equates with Major General and that is a disadvantage in a country where the army predominates. It was after overcoming a stiff resistance from the army that the government allowed him to fly the flag on his car; no other police officer is permitted that. Lately the bete noire is the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) which has been charged with fake encounters and repeated human rights violations. Police is grossly understaffed with a police- public ratio of 1:1300 for the whole of Bangladesh while at the sub-district level it is as low as 1:8000. Most policemen are required to work for 13-14 hours a day and even on weekends and holidays. Most of the police budget is consumed by the armed wings but then things are not very different in India. Like in India the percentage of women in the force is small, barely 12%.

In January 2005 a far-reaching police reform project titled 'Strengthening Bangladesh Police' was launched to improve the law and order situation. The Ministry of Home Affairs launched the project yesterday in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UK Department for International Development. The programme aims at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Bangladesh Police by supporting key areas of access to justice; including crime prevention, investigations, police operations and prosecutions; human resource management and training; and, future directions, strategic capacity and oversight. The three-year project, involving $13 million, aims at improving performance and professionalism at all levels of the police force. It will focus on crime prevention through better engagement with the community, investigation, operation and prosecution, human resource management, training and strategy and oversight, including clear performance target. Acting British High Commissioner Robert Gibson expressed the hope that the project would help the police serve the public better and said, "A police force free from corruption and political interference will help renew public confidence". The project was designed on the basis of an assessment of police needs carried out by the ministry in cooperation with the UNDP in 2003.

India
India’s track record in carrying out police reform is no better. The Police Act of 1861 has remained unaltered till today. The Police Commission of 1902 was intended more to review the working of the Act after a 40-year run. Apart from some hierarchical changes, like adding the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police to accommodate the Indians, the structure of the Act remained untouched. Nothing happened for the next seventy-five years. The National Police Commission (1977-79), set up by a non-Congress government, for the first time made sweeping recommendations to make the police a professionally competent, people-friendly force free from political interference. The successor political dispensation found the report too strong to stomach and just sat over it till it died a natural death. Subsequent experience showed that, irrespective of the political hue, no government was prepared to let go of its stranglehold over the police. As a result the Police Act of 1861 still continues in its original form.

Lately the Supreme Court had been voicing its displeasure over the government’s reluctance in replacing/revising the outmoded Police Act of 1861. Sensing the mood of the Supreme Court the central government had set up the Soli Sorabjee committee to draft a model police bill to replace the existing Act. The committee has since submitted its report. It incorporates almost all the directives of the Supreme Court and some more. The Sorabjee Committee submitted a comprehensive draft report for a new Police Act, which aims to define the new responsibilities of the police force, especially the growth and spread of militancy and Maoist violence, and suggest measures for a new working methodology and the use of scientific investigation in view of the future trends of organised crime, including cyber crime, and technological advantages in the hands of the criminals. Concerns for human rights, weaker sections, women and people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have also been addressed. The draft bill also lists measures to improve the working conditions for policemen.

Some provisions of the draft may raise eye brows and prove difficult to implement. The draft stipulates that the rank of constabulary in the civil police be done away with. The argument that the civil police, as against the armed wing of the police, needs better-educated personnel to exercise discretionary powers in dealing with people and investigating cases may be very sound but it is going to cast a heavy financial burden on the states. The experiment may suit metros and large urban conglomerations and be a right step in the direction of community policing but for the far-flung rural areas we also need large numbers of police constables. Similarly, separation of investigation from law and order functions will involve substantial augmentation of police personnel at huge costs, besides the fact that the two cannot be divided into watertight compartments. The duality of command at the PS or even district level will be counterproductive. Then again there will be hardly any relief from political interference if the State Security commission has the CM as its Chairman and the DGP as its Secretary. Likewise if the Central Security Commission has to take orders from the Home Ministry, the political bosses’ will shall prevail. With the Panchayati Raj system taking roots in most states the Panchayat bodies at various levels will have to be inducted into the board which will debate and decide on police planning for the district. While it may reflect popular aspirations more forcefully, one hopes it will not degenerate into we vrs they and hamstring the functioning of the local police. Surely, all these and many other issues will get sorted out during the debates on the floor of the house.

The government might still have dragged its feet had the Supreme Court not dropped the bombshell by passing a historical judgment on September 22, 2006 on a PIL filed by retired IPS officer Prakash Singh to reform the existing criminal justice system with a view to establish better rule of law in the country. The apex court invoked the recommendations of the National Police Commission and the Sorabjee panel and ordered some revolutionary changes in the system with a view to making the Indian Police more accountable and free from any kind of political interference. The 7-point directive includes, inter alia, the separation of investigation from law and order duties at the police station level and a fixed tenure for all officers from the DGP to the SHO. Not leaving the central and the state governments any scope for prevarication the court ordered them to implement the changes within December, 06 and to send compliance report by January, 07.

Some hiccups were anticipated in carrying out the reforms as indicated by the Supreme Court. These surfaced when the Union Home Secretary, representing the Central Government, met the Chief Secretaries and DGPs, representing the views of their state governments, in Delhi on November 14. The reservations, states were not ‘objecting’ at this stage for fear of the wrath of the apex court, relate to the role of the centre in the appointment of the DGPs, security of tenure of police officers and the setting up of accountability commissions. The centre is wary that states are sensitive about any attempt at encroachment by the centre on matters relating to law and order which is a state subject under the constitution. Some legal dilly-dallying was therefore not unexpected. The dead line of 31 December set by the apex court is long past. With the central government and the states drafting and passing their own versions of the Police Act some minor variations may creep in; the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court will not permit major aberrations. The central government will also have to mollify the states if the police bill is to include a category of serious offences – to be termed ‘federal offences’ – that can be investigated by the centre rather than the ill-equipped state police forces.

Whatever forms the new central and state enactments may take one thing is for sure. These will make political interference a shade more difficult and, aided by the Right to Information Act, will usher in accountability and transparency in the working of the police department. Let us hope these will make the police everything they are not: efficient, professional, independent, accountable and representative of social diversity.

(Sudhir Kumar Jha)
(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)