Develop police as instrument of social change

We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.” This is the grudging refrain of police officers when they bear the brunt for zealously performing their duties. The murderous assault on a police party, resulting in an officer’s hand being chopped off, is one of the many instances when unlawful mavericks exhibit their contempt for a rigid enforcement of law and create chinks in the armour of the police — the conspicuous arm of the State.

During the coronavirus crisis, after some indisciplined officers wielded the baton indiscriminately, course correction took place. The same force, which was thought to be rash and reckless in its actions, came to be seen as Good Samaritans, who wouldn’t stop short of doing any good beyond their normal calling and reach.

Never before in recent history have we seen the police play such a comprehensive role as they are doing during this calamity. Day and night, one sees the ungrudging cop going the extra mile and yet be available on the beat, assisting other agencies of the State to perform their duties. They are, indeed, serving as the base of the pyramid.

The psyche of the average policeman gets geared for the worst when in public interest he is tasked to enforce an extraordinary measure, like a curfew. In his knee-jerk reaction to prove his efficacy, the cop finds such directions demanding maximum earnestness and accountability in his performance. Unless he establishes a total domination of the street, he feels there has been something derelict in his enforcement. It requires nerves of steel to maintain a rare sangfroid in such situations.

It also becomes highly important for supervisory officers to be available for advice in the execution of such extreme measures undertaken in public interest. It becomes all the more necessary that things do not become counterproductive due to faulty judgement or implementation.

This problem is generic to the basically preventive role of the police. When they assume a role which involves curtailing individual liberty and freedom, its implementation by force cannot be weighed on golden scales. Situations develop in an unpredictable manner. A storm in a teacup can develop into a major conflagration. Thus, the police always do a tightrope walk.

While measures like curfew prove their efficacy in times of communal riots and violent civil disorder, there is a variety of lesser options available to the police as well. Though desperate diseases need desperate remedies, police training promotes a graded response for what is called ‘crowd control and its dispersal’. In most cases, there is no need to invoke the drill of crowd dispersal if there is no violent disobedience from the other side.

After the realisation of danger to public health, the people themselves undertake a community role, as they did during the present crisis from village to village, enabling the police to withdraw for the difficult role of being active social agents. Never have the police been so publicly lauded in their role, which went far beyond the conventional law and order framework.

While there are numerous departments which constitute the government, each one, in such circumstances as these, is dependent on police support for them to be able to carry out their own duties. Frontline service providers like doctors and paramedics have, unfortunately, been made targets of attack by misguided mobs. It is the police who have once again come to the forefront to provide them security.

The omnibus role that the police are performing in this unique emergency goes to show that the public does not need to see the force as representative of a hidebound system. They are now perceived as a people-friendly tool of the welfare state.

The disproportionate dependence on the police, as in the present circumstances, will raise the appetite to have the police perform more and more tasks in future. The current model of blending the reactive and proactive roles has served ideally for the police force throughout the country in this extraordinary situation.

In normal times, it will have to show sufficient resilience to revert to the original role. In the words of Prof DH Bayley, a renowned US expert in criminal justice: “A police force is as good as the public thinks it is.”

Fortunately, the police have won accolades in the present public health emergency. They need to perpetuate this perception to continue to be acclaimed as a people-friendly force in the times to come. It is the police with a ‘human face’ that we have been craving for all these years. It has been possible to achieve it.

In order for the police to continue its efficiency, a lot more funds will have to be provided to increase their mobility, response and welfare. The constable, who is at the lowest rung of the hierarchy, will have to be more educated and self-dependent. Unless the cutting-edge police are developed as an instrument of social change, the force will continue to be dependent on directions from the senior echelons, which may not be available in all situations on the beat. A SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — analysis will have to be constantly carried out to equip the police to play an ever-changing role. Pragmatism is as important as the morale of the police.