Lonely man with lathi

Why are constables the victims of public anger against the state? Because politics is often irresponsible

While training for the IPS, probationers undergo mandatory district training for about nine months in a designated district. During that period we are required to spend a week as a beat constable living and working in the same conditions as an ordinary police constable. That was my first and best introduction to policing as it is practised across most of the cow belt and indeed the rest of the country. You go through that and come out with a semblance of dignity and mental equilibrium intact, and you have what it takes to be a police officer. This rite of passage remains with you and keeps resurfacing at the most unexpected moments of your career.

Earlier this week The Indian Express carried a lead story on the constables who were lynched by a mob agitating for the Gurjjar community8217;s right to be treated as a Scheduled Tribe. It did not bring tears to my eyes because after 10 years in the police service I am beyond expressing that level of rage and anguish. For what it is worth, it remains the most eloquent tribute to the trials and tribulations of

being a police constable that I have read in recent times. The irony of the situation is that Dungar Singh and Babu Lal were lynched by a mob that wanted nothing more than to be like them, in government service.

The mob was essentially arguing for the right to be poorly educated, for the right to be recruited for a job requiring low qualifications the norm for constables is still 10th pass in most states and 12th in some, low pay the Fifth Pay Commission classified a constable as semi-skilled labour for the purpose of pay fixation, hopefully the Sixth Pay Commission will not downgrade that, poor quality of training, and some of the most degrading and inhuman working conditions that can be humanly inflicted, in one of the most volatile and unpredictable

societies in the world.

Too bad Dungar Singh and Babu Lal got in the way of the promised land of economic advancement on the back of the inevitable ill-gotten gains and social status that are the real attraction of government service not just for Colonel Retd Kirori Singh Bainsla and his men but for every political leader with a credible vote bank to his credit. Had the hapless constables been given a chance to explain to the mob the reality of this promised land, would they have been spared? I doubt it.

It is to the credit of the Government of Rajasthan that in the aftermath of the agitation they have deviated from the script in such incidents. Normally what happens when the police opens fire on a violent mob? At the very least the station officer of the area and in some cases the DSP will be suspended, a case of murder would be registered against the SHO and his men who had fired on the spot for killing innocent civilians, compensation in cash and kind to the victims of police firing would be announced, a judicial inquiry would be ordered and the SP would be transferred out to a non-descript assignment.

The government of the day would survive the furore in the state assembly and business would go on as usual until the next time. The people who formed part of the mob and the people responsible for instigating them in the first place usually get away in the wider national interest read cynical realpolitik. The police personnel involved in the incident would spend a few weeks in jail on murder charges, then come out on bail after ensuring a hearing from a 8216;sympathetic8217; judge, spend a few more months under suspension and then use political influence or money to be reinstated in service so that they and their families too can recover from the trauma and rebuild some semblance of a normal life. That the script hasn8217;t quite played out to the time-tested formula is an encouraging sign, although not for the families of the two lynched constables.

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What Dungar Singh and Babu Lal faced was an extreme situation but it is a situation that increasingly has become the norm for the constable on his beat. Today he has become a convenient lightning rod that attracts the charged fury of our so-called civil society not merely for the real and perceived grievances against the police but also for the wider sense of injustice and indignities, again both real and perceived, against the Indian state. The police constable is no longer a symbol of state authority and the rule of law, rather he is the scapegoat for all the failures of the Indian state. There is no water, let us destroy the beat box; there is no electricity let us set fire to the police outpost and destroy their vehicles; there is no reservation, let us lynch the constables. If nothing else it will create a few vacancies in the police department.

I don8217;t claim that the police in this country are innocent lambs led to the slaughter. In many cases the violent situations they face are a direct creation of their failures by way of their commission and omission. But ultimately to blame the police for the deaths in Rajasthan and in other such instances would be to mistake the symptoms for the disease of irresponsible political discourse and mindless mobilisation of public resentment that afflict the body politic of India in its diamond jubilee of Independence.

The writer is SSP, Haridwar