Police, not army

The revamping of internal security management in Assam and Nagaland after the recent terrorist attacks and the induction of more army troops is a necessary but short term and ad hoc response to the crisis. The steps now being taken only emphasise the complacency that had obviously become the norm at the cost of even minimum levels of efficient administration. While complacency must be shaken off, and shaken off fast before other violent acts take more precious lives, we must also try seriously to understand what has gone wrong and take steps to rectify the situation. It is not enough to simply ask for good governance, but to understand what good governance requires in the area of internal security.

It is very obvious that when the Indian army is called out to undertake internal security duties, it is an implicit recognition, however unpalatable, that the central police forces have proved to be inadequate to the task for which they exist. And when the central police forces are called out, it is a clear admission that the state police have failed. When we start relying on the army and the central police forces, we are declaring to everyone that our state police forces are a handicap rather than an asset in policing the country and ensuring the rule of law. But why should it be so when the human material from which all these personnel emerge is the same? Police reforms have received a great deal of attention but there has been little forward movement. A sad state of affairs for a country that seeks to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The core of the malaise is known. But there is fresh evidence to remind us that the tree of governance is dying because disease threatens its very roots: the recruitment to the police services. As this newspaper reported recently, nearly ten per cent of the police recruits in Jharkhand 8212; sent for initial training to the the training establishments of the Punjab Police 8212; have been found to be unfit within the first four weeks. Many of the men were medically unfit 8212; a condition that should have disqualified them at the preliminary stage of recruitment itself. An autonomous police recruitment system, insulated from political nepotism and corruption, is the key to improving police performance and internal security management. Instead of deploying the army everywhere, perhaps what we should consider urgently is to hand over the recruitment of the central and state police personnel to the Indian army. If this is unpalatable to the police establishment, at least it should adopt the army8217;s system of recruitment and training to improve the quality of policing in the country.