Opinion Look within

In a remarkable act of introspection, three director-generals of police from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have drafted a report on the pervasive trust deficit between their forces and the Muslim community. It is an acknowledgement that police reform is not a socially neutral exercise, and necessarily involves deeper scrutiny of attitudes towards various groups. It directs the police force to pay attention to the roots of this mistrust and the daily ways in which it is perpetuated, rather than addressing them only when they erupt in communal violence.

The report admits to the disconnect between the police and minorities, and identifies reasons for it, including the lack of a consistent interface with the community and the low representation of Muslims in the force. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau show how, in nearly all the states, the proportion of Muslims in the police force is far lower than their share in the population. This has a bearing on the institutional hostility experienced by Muslims, their fear of arbitrary arrests and biased investigations. In cases of communal tension or terror, police attention is overwhelmingly directed at Muslims, including in states that have supposedly minority-friendly governments. This is a damaging cycle, as the report acknowledges. The failure to address the instances of bias means that even justifiable actions by the police are assumed to be communally motivated by many Muslims. This erosion of faith in impartial justice is dangerous. The report also tries to pre-empt and deal with communal violence in an even-handed way — to keep up with inflammatory rumours, to make sure that the activities of “rabid elements” are monitored and most importantly, to do this in a scrupulously neutral manner, through standard operating procedures that proactively attempt to be non-discriminatory.

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This self-correction must be an ongoing exercise. Police forces around the world grapple with the perception that they discriminate against minority groups. And perceptions are substantiated by statistical analysis. For instance, police forces in the US are asked to notice how they often use race as a proxy for criminal tendencies, disproportionately targeting African-Americans for petty crime, deepening the cynicism about them. In India, there is little doubt that Muslims in India have been targeted for terror cases, and in many cases, shoddy investigation and subversion of due process have been exposed by the courts. But the awareness of this widespread bias is a beginning. This report must be taken seriously by the Centre, and states must be urged to put its ideas into action.