Vikash Narain Rai
Vikash Narain Rai
Former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad
Working on the ghar mein raho call of the Prime Minister, under the aegis of the Epidemic Disease Act of 1897 and the Disaster Management Act of 2005, the police have considered everyone venturing out of their homes a suspect. They have used their most familiar instrument, the lathi, freely. The concept, known as the law of the instrument, otherwise known as the law of the hammer, is a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool. As American psychologist Abraham Maslow said in 1966, ‘I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.’
The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Kaplan’s, a professor of philosophy, in 1964: ‘I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.’
During the present crisis, wherever the same police have been entrusted with the task of assisting in the relief work, their inbuilt traits of disciplined work and untiring efficiency have left a different impact altogether.
Like other government departments which were drawn to the forefront of the 21-day coronavirus Mahabharat, the police too did not realise that the Prime Minister’s sudden announcement on March 24 of a complete lockdown of a nation of 130 crore people had brought two emotionally distinguishable classes of the needy people scurrying on to the streets.
Apparently, the lockdown violators and victims are being dealt with by the overstretched police in the same rough manner that they thought was warranted to keep people indoors at all cost. It could not be that the police are just overwhelmed by the role thrust on them in the scheme of complete lockdown.
They are out to enforce law, but their own profile in sight is not that of a law-abiding body. That they lack a commensurate range in emotional training is obvious. Under which law are they meting out corporal punishment publicly in the name of effectively imposing the lockdown? Why even the exempt categories and the most needy ones are not being spared? No authority is raising these questions. No worthwhile political voices are being heard in dissent and no judicial intervention appears to be imminent on the legal horizon.
In the corona context, the allegations against the police from the near past, during the anti-CAA stir and the Delhi riots — of partisanship, excessive force or inaction — present no issues at all. The police are being seen by a considerable population as overzealous saviours against the deadly disease and impending disaster. The mistrust often thrust on them, when facing violent crowds, is missing this time. Though it is early days, there are noticeable warning signals as well — an occasional bid of extortion on the part of the police and at times a hint of desperate resistance on the part of the public.
The tragedy is unfolding at a fast pace and globally. The New York Police announced on March 29 that it lost three of its officers to active corona duty. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his monthly Mann Ki Baat address to the countrymen the same day, advocated the use of social media platforms extensively in the long fight against coronavirus, but omitted any comment on the style and stresses of policing being reflected in the social media. He again emphasised on the inevitability of the State monitoring of the social distancing protocols by containment of vast population within homes, including stoppage of large-scale foot migration.
While the chief minsters are seen vying with each other to announce relief measures, a couple of high courts have stepped in to entertain corresponding petitions. A judge of the Kerala High Court, Justice Devan Ramachandran, has written to DGP Kerala Loknath Behra to direct the police officers not to use force against the violators of lockdown unless it is absolutely essential and, even then, only to the extent necessary.
How is it all going to impact the course of policing? In the coming days and weeks, the police will be tested more on their ability to address the range of emotions sweeping the lockdown victims, in addition to the demands on their endurance by the lockdown violators. In his monthly address, the Prime Minister, a communicator par excellence that he is, suggested to the people to balance the bitter formula of social distancing with an individual equation of emotional closeness. It is expected that the demands on the budget will be met, but what about the demands on the policing?
As cabin fever and anxiety set in across America, a team of New Jersey police officers tried to restore a sense of calm through a town-favourite comfort food, pizza. Three police associations in Toms River, New Jersey, joined forces to purchase 300 pizzas for their community, which is under a statewide stay-at-home order to try to halt the spread of coronavirus. ‘Pizza is unique,’ officer Robertazzi told CNN. ‘A large pie can feed a family of four, potentially. It’s circular and brings everyone together to pull a slice off to eat.’ Amid the financial and emotional stress of the coronavirus pandemic, they hoped their Pizza Day would help families and businesses cope in uncertain times of social distancing. ‘For families, it gave them a sense of normality by getting out of the house and getting into their favourite pizza shop.’ And for the pizzerias, the officers hoped to offer the feeling of a regular workday.
The Telangana Today reported on March 28: ‘The men in khakhi are showing their human side too. The Rachakonda police are reaching out to people who are in need of assistance for travelling on medical emergencies or run out of essential commodities. Mahesh Bhagwat, Commissioner, Rachakonda, said the police were receiving many calls from people stranded due to the lockdown. He cited an example wherein a woman from the ECIL area called up the police and sought help in arranging medicine for her father who was suffering from a kidney ailment. ‘Immediately, we sent the vehicle of a traffic official and arranged the medicine from NIMS in Punjagutta. It was handed over at her doorstep.’
The roadmap initiative rests with the police leadership and the remedy cannot be sugarcoated beyond a point. The poverty of emotional quotient (EQ) training is writ large on their faces and to dust themselves off is up to them.
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