criminal is at ion
TRANSCRIPT
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CRIMINALISATION OF POLICE
Politicians, criminals and the police-the troika that is taking
the country towards total chaos and ruin.
Organised violence is so much a part of Indian politics that all politics parties
have created youth and volunteer wings to accommodate young hoodlums as a fighting
and street-smart force to be used when violence is needed.
Those who sand out in courage and toughness rise fast and reach the top and
today a very high percentage of Ministers in the Indian Government are these people.
It is ironical that politicians, whose help criminals sought to save themselves
from the police, brought the police and criminals closer to each other, building a bridge
between them. The understanding reached between criminals and the police is to a great
degree responsible for criminalising Indian public life and blunting the effectiveness of
the police.
Though the nexus between criminals and the police is not a new phenomenon,
what was once an exception has now become the rule and what was the rule once has
become the exception. Today criminals on the one hand overawe a weak police force
with their connections with powerful politicians and lure the police with easy money and
comfort on the other, thus tilting the balance to their advantage.
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POLITICAL MISHANDLING
Though criminals play their political cards with adroitness, their real aim is to
lessen the pressures of the police on themselves.
If some are born criminals, some choose the path of crime consciously and some
others are constrained to follow it. While faulty financial and social policies forged by
short-sighted politicians are responsible for forcing many helpless people to a life of
crime, these same policies often drive sensitive people to revolt and to embrace terrorism
and violence.
Naxalisim, Sikh terrorism, the ULFA movement, Kashmir separatism, Hindu and
Muslim militancy and even the sympathy in India for the LTTE cause are direct results
of political mishandling of national issues.
India has seen isolated political attempts in the past to save people from the
clutches of crime and to rehabilitate them. The famous Chambal experiment initiated by
the late Jaya Prakash Narayan had some success in spite of the machinations of certain
politicians in the area.
Not that politics is all bad. It is, by definition, governance of the State by popular
leadership. The malaise of todays politics lies in its tilt to populism at the cost of
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leadership and more dangerously, populism is being considered an investment to earn
returns in multiple proportions. Nothing, it appears, means as much to the Indian
electorate as money to prod them to cast their votes for a particular candidate.
VICIOUS CIRCLE
The history of independent India makes it clear that honesty, patriotism, quality,
service, excellence and even charisma have become casualties vis a vis money and
power on the Indian election stage. In this situation, political poser is equated with
electoral popularity, which in turn is equated with money and power, which can be had
only though political patronage.
The vicious circle has helped to create a class of extortionists who manipulate the
passive public. Politics too has its honest and patriotic people who are committed to the
welfare of society. But, sadly, they are caught up in a system which does not let them
come to prominence unless they come terms with it and adopt the venal proposition of
wining elections to make money to win the next election.
Only those who correctly grasp the inner dynamics of this and adapt to its
mechanics can hop to make any headway. Others are bound to sink. When the system
itself made the election a venal mechanism, corrupt practices that rope in criminals and
police are bound to follow.
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It can be categorically said that the business of crime cannot survive anywhere if
politicians and the police join hands to bring the crime world to heel. But alas, this is not
to be in a world of opportunist politicians and a corrupt, weak, police force both with an
eye on the spoils of the crime. The police force is the weak link in the troika of power-
brokers consisting of politicians, criminals and the police. It functions as an instrument
politicians use to bring criminals to them. The role of the police as a law-enforcing
agency and its hold over criminals makes it a handy instrument for politicians to use.
SAD COMMENTARY
The police is the executioner and odd-job boy of the Government. This image of
the police is effectively made use of by politicians for all conceivable personal and
official purposes. While low-ranking police are used as bodyguards, gunmen,
messengers, watchmen etc, high-ranking police officers are used for the same jobs at
higher levels.
It is a sad commentary on todays police force that while low-ranking police do
these jobs as an unavoidable duty, high-ranking officers compete and fight among
themselves to attend to the odd jobs of their political masters. This they do, even when
they are fully aware of the criminal antecedents and police histories of some of their
benefactors.
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Jobs are judged for importance in the police force on their potentialities for illegal
money from crime. And jobs with potential for such gains are most sought after and are
often paid for in lakhs. This is considered an investment. which will earn many times
more in a short period of time.
Many other jobs, on the other hand are known as punishment postings and are
largely detested. These jobs have no potential for illegal earnings.
It goes without saying that judging jobs on the basis of the challenge or the
opportunity for service that they provide is a thing of the past. It is the crime world that
decides the importance or otherwise of different police jobs and in actual fact controls
the type and calibre of officers in each job.
In other words, it is criminals who invisibly control the police rather than the
police controlling the criminals. This reversal of function has a lot to do with the low
morale of the present Indian police.
Its members find themselves at the mercy of criminals whom they are supposed to
bring to book. The police is no longer confident that it is mentally and organisationally
equipped to do its job.
Increasingly powerful and modernised crime syndicates have made a farce of
crime control by the police. Many factors place the police at disadvantages. Its growth
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has not kept pace with population growth. It is also at a disadvantage as far as
communication, transportation and weaponry are concerned as criminals have the best of
all these.
INCOMPETENT LEADERSHIP
Consequently, police fatalities in encounters with criminals and terrorist groups
are increasing. As a result the police in India is no longer keen to intrfere with the
activities of the underworld. The understanding between criminals and the police is that
both will confine themselves to their respective fields a and avoid embarrassing each
other.
The police is paid for its passiveness while stray troublemakers are silenced. The
Indian police is sane enough to quickly realise that its interests lie in silence while
entangling with the crime world may invite a host of complications.
The responsibility for the present state of the Indian police rests solely on its
incompetent leadership rather than on anything else. Unimaginative planning uninspiring
guidance and lack of leadership and conviction in the top police ranks has led to utter
chaos. Dangerously ineffective recruitment policies, poor training programmes, misuse
of the facilities of confidential assessment of subordinates and the degeneration of control
and supervision machinery have resulted.
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The present Indian police force is utterly unmotivated and police jobs are
considered only as devices that provide rank, power, social status, sundry comforts and a
pension. How can the people of India depend upon this sort of police force for security,
protection and law and order?.