Day 34 - Anuradha Shankar

A LETTER FOR THE POLICE OF SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICS 

My dear sisters and brothers in uniform,

How have you been in this era of transition? I hope you have found some spare time to attend to your family amidst your gruelling duties.

I am your sister in arms, not the deadly mechanical toys of intimidation, but the part of our body used to embrace those we value. I hung my uniform in the corner of my wardrobe closet, gently touching my heirloom sarees, more than a year ago. I see her every day, she looks content and hopeful.

Our earliest predecessors in uniform were deliberate instruments of power before our nations gained independence from colonial rule or monarchy and chose to adopt a Constitution of the people, by the people, for the people. 

Before I talk about today and share my dreams of tomorrow, let us consider our past for a bit. Our past is like the old man on the shoulders of Sindbad the sailor, extremely tough to get off! 

We were conceived as tools of control by men who had total hegemonic power over lands which they had little relationship with. From the Maharaja of Nepal to the King of Britain, no monarch was even native to the soil. They intermingled within an unabashedly silk-stocking clan of cousins or caste and had nothing to lose even when their subjects lost everything. 

Within these endogamous groups they gathered a cohort of eager followers driven by a consuming passion for amassing wealth any which way. They decided that wealth is easiest gathered through power or proximity to it, and went about colonising those peoples who either had fault lines among themselves or were innocent of these nefarious colonisers’ games. 

Yet human beings are “free by nature” as Rousseau said, so they wouldn’t submit easily. Here came the “law enforcement”, aren’t the words self explanatory? What our police predecessors enforced as foot soldiers of oppressors, were arbitrary laws decreed without the consent of our peoples.

For a long time, through engineering poverty and deprivation, the rulers broke the confidence of our populations, pushing them into what Étienne de la Boétie calls “voluntary servitude”. That is how these rulers were able to recruit misguided locals to oppress their own kin. I do not need to enumerate the horrible massacres our own ancestors in colonial or monarchical uniforms participated in, you know them. 

Did you know that George Orwell, then Eric Arthur Blair, was an officer of Imperial Police in the British Raj? He could not stomach the inhumanity of colonial policing and resigned within a few years of his induction. He writes about his travails in Burmese Days, look it up whenever you have time, particularly Shooting an Elephant. 

Bit by painful bit, people raised their bowed heads, it took more than a century for their resistance to evolve from the violence of the French Revolution to the nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi. Every Independent nation crafted their Constitution through debates and consultation, dedicating it to their people. Though the residue of old laws remained, they were to be tested on the touchstone of Constitutional principles. People’s Rights were guaranteed, their participation in the political process was ensured and the duties of the State enshrined. The police became a part of the Executive and the most visible public service. Of course, there’s always many a slip between the cup and the lip. No Republic is even three centuries old, a blip in human history! 

How are we today? The Republics we are referring to are both similar and diverse. They have similar views on the sovereign nature of citizenship and the agency of the people for their inalienable rights to life and dignity secured through justiciable liberty and equality. They have the same values of public service in all branches of governance, in principle. In practice, however, they have interesting diversity informed by their historical experiences and social mores. 

In some new nations settled by immigrants at constant loggerheads with each other, they have chosen a warrior model of policing. The communities and those that are supposed to serve them as security personnel, have the right to carry weapons. This results in an adversarial relationship between master and servant. 

In some other nations the model is of guardianship. The presumption is that the citizens are either innocent of law or informed but rebellious adolescents. This results in a wide spectrum of police behaviour from genuine care to “spare the rod and spoil the child”. At best this police is the fastidious but manipulative Jeeves to the lackadaisical Wooster. At worst, an abusive self-righteous nanny, ready to kill for status quo. 
The third, mostly aspirational model, is the police as service. Many nations have adopted this approach under pressure from citizens aware of their fundamental rights and agency. It is a journey that must be made in societies evolving towards greater accountability and transparency. 

Whatever stage our policing is at, we will eventually evolve into an effective service. After all, it is our own people who fund us. As Prof. Manoj Jha, a member of India’s Parliament pointed out, public servants are paid by the poorest citizen who buys salt and soap. Nothing is not taxed in our economic model. On the other hand, with the fanning out of ubiquitous social media, awareness is rising exponentially. While we adopt body cameras with trepidation, there’s a lens looking at us through every smartphone. Simultaneously, tuitions at the WhatsApp university insidiously derail humanity through unsubstantiated narratives of division and paranoia. 

Shall we serve merely under obligation? Shall we be forced into transparency? Worse, shall we shoot the elephant who lost its way into human habitation to satisfy the delusional bloodlust of a misinformed mob, even after she has cowed down? 

The senior Gandhian, Rajagopal PV, says that the path from violence to nonviolence goes through active nonviolence. As upholders of law and maintainers of public order, we constantly use the mechanisms of active nonviolence without realising it. Do we not communicate with our citizens to learn about their lives and concerns? Do we not prepare in advance for large gatherings? Do we not keep a keen eye and our ears on the ground for disruptors of peace in a community? Do we not work more on preventing crimes than reacting with force? Do we not upskill constantly in these days of accelerated change in technology? These are so integral to our duties that nobody notices them until we fall short and the calm of our community is disturbed. 

The future I dream of is best expressed by Mahatma Gandhi, “The police of my conception will, however, be of a wholly different pattern from the present-day force. Its ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. They will be servants, not masters of the people. The people will instinctively render them any help, and through mutual co-operation they will easily deal with the ever-decreasing disturbances. The police force will have some kind of arms, but they will be rarely used, if at all. In fact the police men will be reformers.”

The Mahatma would be encouraged by the efforts we have made through introspective research, citizens’ feedback, contemporary training and commitment to democratic values. Admittedly, it’s a long road ahead, but we are conscious of our responsibilities. We will make it. 

Season’s greetings to you my dears.

With hope in my heart,

Your sister,

Anuradha 
(Anuradha Shankar, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India)