From Bombay to Mumbai

The city in which I was born 92 years ago was named Bombay. It has changed its name to Mumbai to conform to the vernacular pronunciation of the name by the common man. But it is not only the name that has changed. Many are the changes the city has seen, including the way the law is enforced.

If I was told three or even two decades ago that a Police Commissioner of my city would be in cahoots with the state’s Home Minister to allow law-breakers to prosper and thereby spread disrespect for the law of the land, I would question my interlocutor’s sanity. But the steady deterioration in morality and values in what was once a premier service makes me shudder.

I joined the IPS in 1953. I spent my first 15 working years in the districts before winding my way to the metropolis. In 1968-69, when I was placed in charge of a zone in Mumbai City that stretched from Dadar to Mulund in the eastern suburbs, the phenomenon called the Shiv Sena had begun taking root in the city. Its leader Balasaheb Thackeray had channelled the frustrations of the local Maharashtrians, mostly natives of the Konkan, and escalated political violence to a scale not witnessed in the city earlier.

Till the Shiv Sena replaced the communists as the ruling Congress’s main opponents in the city, the police had to contend with morchas, rallies and other political demonstrations. The police were able to deal with such opposition fairly easily. Since maintenance of order on the streets was the paramount concern of the colonial administration, the police were geared up for such tasks.

This changed when Thackeray organised the Sena’s cadres on paramilitary lines, with shakha pramukhs leading bands of lumpen elements for skirmishes with the police. In 1968, the city saw the first major conflagration with Sainiks emerging from every chawl and basti taking on the might of the state. They demanded white-collar jobs for the locals and to a noticeable extent the demand was conceded and the Sena did manage to make a dent in the political landscape. It is now a major player in Maharashtra.

Rapid migration of rural have-nots into urban cities following the slow demise of the joint family system and the rising assertion of the Dalits against the oppression of the caste system in village life are other major factors that have defined the change in the complexion of policing, not only in Mumbai, but also other cities and big towns in the state. As aspirations rise, the quest for upward mobility of the marginalised and the lower middle classes often manifests itself in violence.

Our judicial process system is slowly grinding to a halt. Criminal trials take ages to even start hearings. The plethora of adjournments granted at the request of lawyers leads to a stage where people encourage vigilantism and shortcuts for getting justice. There is an inherent danger in resorting to instant justice. If police officers are encouraged to investigate, prosecute, try and execute the sentence, they will turn into criminals in uniform!

It is important to restore post-colonial efficiency. As a young law student, I used to watch trials in Sessions Courts. Day-to-day hearings were the norm. Trials used to finish within three days, on an average, and cases were decided within a year of the commission of the offences. The expectation of being found guilty and punished was sufficient to deter those who were inclined to err. Since that fear has been obliterated, crimes have risen.

The stranglehold of elected politicians on every aspect of the judicial process system has to be loosened for the system to be put back on the rails. The appointment of top police officers, the supervision of prosecutors and the selection of judges need the attention of the thinking public. The political class should not be allowed to play ducks and drakes with appointments and transfers. They have a responsibility to the people who have elected them to high office.

The recent case of Mumbai’s Commissioner of Police reacting like a sour puss to his transfer from that coveted position to a nondescript job typifies the rot that has set in the country’s police force. He accused the Home Minister of summoning subordinate officers and demanding that they collect a hundred crores a month from law-breakers and deposit the monies with him! This he disclosed after he was shifted!

Stories of the minister ordering transfers for cash had been doing the rounds of police circles for some time. An earlier Home Minister of the same party, the NCP had been accused of this insidious practice a decade or more ago. I had written about him in the newspapers of the time. But this time all lines have been crossed.

The Union Home Ministry resorted to a subterfuge to get the allegations investigated by one of its own agencies, the NIA. But since the cause was a good one, activists did not complain. But our enthusiasm was dampened when we realised that the NIA and its political masters are going to nail only the state’s Home Minister, the BJP’s political opponent, and not the other essential partner in crime without whose connivance the scam could not have been conceived. I am referring to the puppeteer pulling the strings that made encounter specialist Waze and other police officers of the subordinate level dance to an agreed tune. Waze was the chief’s right-hand man. He had been under suspension for nearly two decades facing a murder charge. Why was he reinstated, and by whom? Can an investigative agency worth its salt exculpate one of the two main players in a crime? In this case the entire force knows who was playing what part in the drama. If they find that one of the main culprits has got off by cozying up to one group of politicians intent on spiting the other, the politician-police-criminal nexus that is clouding the security scenario will continue to function at the cost of the safety of the common man.