Police file: when Mau burned

Six retired director generals of police from different states submitted in person a paper entitled, 8216;Communal riots must be accepted as...

Six retired director generals of police from different states submitted in person a paper entitled, 8216;Communal riots must be accepted as a failure of governance8217;, to the prime minister not so long ago. They argued that any communal disturbance can be 8220;effectively contained within a few hours8221;, if not prevented. Yet, Mau in Uttar Pradesh, burned for three days last week when riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out. The UP government transferred a few senior officers. But this does not absolve it of responsibility. The question it has to ask is: why did the administration fail? One of the most urgent tasks facing the Union home ministry today is to assess the extent to which the country8217;s police force has become communal because there can be no denying that today the police are an intrinsic part of the communal scenario. The experience of six retired DGPs is that 8220;firm and impartial police leadership, backed by political will8221; can control riots. The Mulayam Singh government did not measure up to this test.

More than a decade ago, a senior police officer from UP studied 10 major riots for a research project on the 8216;Perception of police neutrality during communal riots8217;. His study showed that no communal riot could carry on beyond 24 hours 8220;without the connivance of the authorities8221;. His conclusion was that in all the riots he analysed, the police 8220;did not act as a neutral law enforcement agency8221;. He also found there was a 8220;perceptible discrimination8221; in the use of the force, in the preventive arrests made, in the reporting of facts, in investigation and prosecution. An earlier study at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad highlighted that violence during the communal riots had 8220;increased in intensity8221; over the years, with rioters using weapons 8220;with the purpose of killing one another8221;.

The main complaint by the ex-DGPs to the prime minister is about the indifference the police display during the riots. Every commission of inquiry 8212; there have been nearly 30 since independence 8212; has highlighted the same phenomenon: the utter negligence and callousness of the local police. The mandatory supervision by senior officers for serious offences has been absent. For example, the two committees which went into the 1984 riots came to the conclusion that a large number of complaints made to the police were simply mentioned in case diaries of FIRs and considered as good as having been disposed of. No attempts were made to record evidence of witnesses, nor was there any identification of the accused.

The Gujarat rioting was worse. In fact, they were not riots but a pogrom. The cadre of a particular party indulged in looting, arson, and killing spree, and were allowed full immunity. According to the ex-DGPs, it represented 8220;a major failure of governance8221;. Two recommendations they have made are particularly relevant: one, the administration and its officers should be held accountable and, two, innocent victims of mob violence should be fully compensated as if they were insured 8212; with their homes and sources of livelihood fully restored to them.

The complicity of the state alienates large sections of the population and 8220;erodes their confidence in the commitment of the state to protect their lives and property8221;, say the ex-DGPs. They do not condone any act of police because of 8220;word from above8221;. They say that no amount of orders from political or executive authorities can absolve the police of their statutory duties to protect life and property. The IPC prescribes stringent punishment whenever the police are derelict in their duties, abet offences or shield offenders.

The ex-GDPs have commended the example of West Bengal 8220;where the unwavering commitment8221; by the government has almost eliminated communal riots. Bihar is at the other end of the fulcrum where the police have been used for all purposes, except law and order. The fact is that most states have not yet recovered from the misuse of police during the emergency 1975-77. The Shah Commission, which had gone into the excesses of this period, states: 8220;The government must seriously consider the feasibility and the desirability of insulating the police from the politics of the country and employing it scrupulously on duties for which alone it is by law intended. The policemen must also be made to realise that politicking by them is outside the sphere of their domain and the government would take a very serious view of it.8221;

The Janata government constituted the National Police Commission. By the time the commission submitted its three-volume report, Indira Gandhi 8212; the architect of the emergency 8212; returned to power and put the report on the home ministry8217;s back shelves, where it lay for years. During NDA rule, L.K. Advani, then deputy prime minister, spoke about the recommendations but did very little to implement them. The country continues to be governed by a police law which is more than a century old.

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I do not know how the police would react to the observation of the ex-DGPs because the force does not take criticism kindly. So far it has put all the blame for its lapses on 8220;political masters8221;. Indeed, the latter are to blame because they use the police to serve their own ends. But the police get away with this, because it is their men who tend to run amuck at the slightest provocation from the mob. This was also seen recently at Gohana, Haryana. Perhaps, the fault lies in police training institutions which do not shape the force along the right lines. Whatever the reason, the government should scrutinise the paper the ex-DGPs have submitted to the PM with seriousness.

It is exasperating to know that the paper has been referred to the home ministry which will now process it at the same speed with which it had examined the 25-year-old Police Commission8217;s recommendations! The home ministry is just too sluggish and too steeped in red tape to do anything new with urgency. The Hyderabad Academy could have been an engine of ideas, but it has got politicised. I wish the prime minister would entrust the job to his security advisor, M.K. Narayanan, who after all had retired as a top police officer and had an excellent record.