If eye-witness accounts and independent news reports are to be believed "Aatankwadiyon ko bahar nikalo" (bring the terrorists out) seemed to be the alleged mission of the Mumbra police led by ACP Amit Kale when over 200 of them, descended, much like the "German brownshirts " in a mid-night combing operation in Rashid Compound in the Kausa area of Mumbra, which is a suburb in Thane, nearly 30kms away from 'cosmopolitan' Mumbai. Was the mission's stated motive at all tempered by the fact that 80 per cent of the 9 lakh people living in Mumbra are Muslims is a matter for us to delve upon candidly. Would the police have adopted the same approach while raiding colonies of non-Muslims? There are legitimate questions being thrown up in response to the controversial modus operandi adopted by the local police on that fateful night.
The answers will be neither convenient nor pleasant for the Home Ministry led by R.R Patil, a gentleman who would like all of us to believe that he is a strong proponent of the idea of secularism, which entails the dispensation of executive functions without any bias for or against any religious community or group. How the search for two men of Balochi descent, involved in petty chain snatching, warranted the herding and illegal detention of 80 innocent, law abiding Indian citizens some as old as 75 years , who bear no resemblance to the persons of interest is indeed intriguing. Were all the standard operating procedures (SOPs) with regard to such raids followed by the local police? That the cops needed seven big police vans (including a few smaller ones) to round up just two men also raises questions about the real motive behind this operation. Was it as innocent as we are being made to believe? That such police high-handedness and excesses continue to happen so blatantly, without regard to the law and constitutional guarantees protecting Right to Life and Personal Liberty, is disheartening though not very surprising.
After filing a petition with the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Minorities to probe the incident on the grounds that the fundamental human rights of a section of Indian citizens were grossly violated, I have been given to understand that the Thane police has apparently sent the concerned officer Amit Kale on a compulsory leave and promised to have an enquiry. But it seems unlikely that anything less than an independent probe would be able to establish the failure at the highest levels of the police and political establishment.
To view this incident as a one-off, isolated case would be a grave folly. It is neither my case that such an arbitrary use of police power has happened for the first time nor is it my contention that many other disenfranchised communities - women, juveniles, gays and lesbians, sex workers, etc don't face equally appalling treatment at the hands of the police, whether in Maharashtra or elsewhere. But the fact that police brutality is inclined towards minority groups especially Muslims is borne out by cold, hard facts- be it the disproportionately higher number of Muslim under trials relative to their final conviction rate or the alarmingly high proportion of Muslims figuring in extra-judicial killings also called "fake encounters" in popular parlance.
The level of interaction between minorities and the police is much higher given the overwhelming presence of cops in the urbane, ghettoized, slum like inhabitations of Muslims. This can be confirmed by a visit to the nearest slum with significant Muslim population whether in Mumbai or Ahmedabad. (Given their poor economic condition and backwardness coupled with unique social circumstances Muslims are forced to live in urban slums). The volatile cocktail of distrust and fear of the "other" actually builds up a fence of insecurity between those policing and those being policed rather than making the community feel secure. That such a communal predisposition of the police towards minorities is a national reality across many states, irrespective of the ideological moorings of the party in power controlling the Home department (in this case the "secular" NCP) suggests that in practice there is very little to choose in terms of qualitative secular leadership that is provided by various parties whilst they hold that office.
Now, the causes for police excesses are quite deep seated and usually indicate a larger failure at policy formulation and implementation level. It has everything to do with the politico-structural orientation of the police force- from being conceived by an archaic legislation of imperial origin dating to the 1860s, designed to establish total subservience of "subjects" rather than to secure co-operation of citizens, to the scope it leaves for unhealthy political intervention in police affairs that render it to be incompetent, impotent, corrupt and inefficient. Policing in India had ceased to become about investigations and law & order long time ago. At best the police seems to be operating as uniformed mercenaries, owing allegiance to local and regional power brokers in every state that offer them patronage of various kinds. Neither there is little reward or scope to be professional nor is there any screening mechanism that filters out the corrupt and communal elements from operating within the police. Instead of training the cop to be immune from crude socio-political and societal tendencies and impulses that hamper his/her professional approach, the current system of policing exposes the cop to its worst manifestations. It makes him a product of the very same forces that we intend for him to fight against using his danda (baton)! I, for one, would not be very surprised if an independent probe were to reveal that this "Mumbra combing operation" isn't the only case of high handedness by ACP Amit Kale towards Muslims. Amit Kale or his wrongful actions are a symptom of a disease. The malaise, that we need to fight, is the system that allows for Amit Kale to function in a biased manner and go unpunished for it.
The entire cop-citizen relationship paradigm in India today is hinged on an adversarial rather than a co-operative plane. The normal reaction of an average, well-to-do citizen on seeing a policeman borders on fear and pessimism. So you can well imagine how impoverished communities grappling with their debilitating socio-economic realities would perceive cops. When incidents like the Mumbra combing operation take place, they add to the sense of insecurity and alienation. Now, this in turn can have very grave implications. The idea of enlisting the co operation of citizenry isn't just a function of civilized policing but one of intelligent policing which aims at enlisting citizens to become the "eyes and ears" in maintaining law and order, fighting crime and terror.
Professional policing is the only answer to incidents such as the one that took place on 13th March. For that, it is necessary that we as citizens demand reforms in the entire policing system. Too many forged cheques have been issued to Muslims in the name of secularism. What we need urgently as a community and more so as a citizenry is an instant cash payout on the issue of police reforms. Political parties won't go beyond paying lip service to this. Frankly, even the media won't champion the cause of police reforms as it is considered to be a rather dull political agenda and requires a basic level of IQ and seriousness which most in the tribe of shoot & scoot, byte-collection journalism lack. Most bright lights of journalism seem to remember (and sanctimoniously tweet on) this issue only when Amir Khan dedicates a Satyameva Jayate episode to it! The rest of the time they go around lionising and celebrating the exploits of so-called "encounter specialists"! I haven't heard of any civilised people who feel proud about how their cops short-circuit the legal route and carry out unauthorised executions at will. We in India make films about such cops! That being said, only an informed and aware citizenry can put this important issue on the front burner of the poll agenda in the forthcoming general elections. I hope that the residents of Mumbra who have been put through this ordeal and others who are similarly situated, will vote on this important issue lest they wish that police comes looking for the "Aatankwadi" amongst them once again!
I liked the article by Shehzad Poonawala.
ReplyDeleteIf only we had more people like him.
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