In his new book, former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh writes about his long struggle to implement police reforms in India

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Singh fought a decade-long battle in the Supreme Court (SC) before it issued specific directions for police reforms in September 2006. In a detailed order, the SC said its order must be followed until all states and the Centre pass new police acts incorporating its guidelines. The new acts were ordered with an aim to bring police forces in tune with the times and make them people-centric rather than ruler-centric. India still follows the Police Act, 1861, framed by the British as a reaction the 1857 uprising, largely with an aim to crush dissent.

The SC’s directions included establishing a State Security Commission (SSC) as a watchdog with members from the government, judiciary and the civil society. The commission was supposed to frame policies which make sure that “state government does not exercise unwarranted influence or pressure on the state police”. The order asked for the tenure of DGP and field officers to be fixed at two years. A police establishment board, instead of the government, would deal with transfers. It also asked for separation of investigation and law and order units for speedy probes.

Singh’s book records in detail the decade-long struggle to get the SC to issue the directions, which were based on the National Police Commission recommendations of 1979-80, and the struggle since to get the Centre and the states to implement the same. Despite multiple petitions in the SC and subsequent directions from the apex court, no state or union territory has fully implemented the directives. As many as 17 states have passed police acts, while 12 states have issued executive orders following the SC verdict, but they neither conform to the SC directives nor the Model Police Act. Singh has, in fact, concluded that the efforts of the states and even the Centre has largely been to come up with legislations or orders that circumvent the directives of the SC.

The book is full of interesting anecdotes on what happened in the time between the filing of his petition in the Supreme Court in 1996 till now. Singh narrates the story of his removal as UP DGP at the peak of the Ram Temple movement during the Kalyan Singh government. He says that he was removed because he refused to dilute police presence around the disputed site. Interestingly, he was brought back as the state DGP once the Babri Mosque was demolished.

In another tale capturing the reluctance of the Centre to implement reforms, Singh narrates how a commitee under the chairmanship of Justice KT Thomas, set up to implement the SC orders, moved at very slow pace and eventually did not elicit results. Singh blames this on IAS officer Dharmendra Sharma, a member of the committee, who, he says, had been deliberately planted by the bureaucracy“to ensure that it did not disturb the status quo in any significant manner”. In the book, Singh has argued that there was reluctance and opposition to the reforms not just from the political class, but even from the bureaucracy and sections of senior police officers who benefitted from political patronage.

In another anecdote, Singh recalls trying to meet PM Manmohan Singh to push the Ministry for Home Affairs and the states to implement the SC orders but his meeting request was shot down by the then National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan. Even the current NSA Ajit Doval, who once heaped praise on Singh for his crusade, had done little for police reforms, Singh writes. ”The problem with the NSAs of police background has been that, notwithstanding their brilliance and tremendous contribution to national security, they never understood the angst of the police, having served all their lives in the Intelligence Bureau. Another reason could be that they were perhaps not prepared to risk the displeasure of their political bosses,” Singh writes.

Singh notes the decline in policing beginning from the Indira Gandhi era when commitment to the administration was rewarded over merit. “In the first phase, while they appreciated the honest officer, they transferred him when he became inconvenient, but sent him to places which were as prestigious. In the second phase, the politicians maltreated the officers who would not toe their line and saw to it that they were dumped in insignificant assignments. In the third and the current phase, we find officers taking a stand against the politicians being hounded; they may be suspended, framed in cases and their pension may be stopped. This political culture is causing havoc,” Singh writes.

Singh’s meticulous detailing of the roadblocks put in the path of the reforms is a telling commentary on the state of India’s institutions and throws light on the reasons behind all that the police is criticised for today. The only criticism of the book could be that while Singh has talked about how lack of police reforms were responsible for excesses of the Emergency, 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Babri Mosque demolition or even the 2002 Gujarat riots, he has steered clear of contemporary events in which police actions across the country have been criticised for not following due process. While he has made a mention of some recent incidents in Maharashtra and West Bengal, he has not touched upon police actions in UP, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Assam or actions of certain central agencies which have been criticised for being “politically motivated” in the past few years. His contention that police reforms be removed from state list and put in the concurrent list may also be considered problematic by some at a time when the Centre is seen as exerting its power over police services in Opposition-ruled states.

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