The brutal incident of rape in New Delhi, the death of the victim and the public response to the issue has brought to the forefront several vital issues plaguing India. Of primary concern were three aspects (i) the nature and frequency of violence, committed against the vulnerable sections of the society, most importantly women; (ii) the preparedness and the ability of the country’s justice apparatus, particularly that of the law enforcement agencies, to deal with such crimes; and (iii) the visible and appalling lack of appreciation by the political class in the country concerning equality in rights and freedoms sans gender, and other racial or ethnic identities.
Though during the initial phase of burning public anger there were loud and emphatic calls for harsh, immediate and crude forms of punishments suggested for the accused in sexual abuse cases, the public sentiment has started finding its right bearing now, that more and more people are demanding for police reforms as the first step in ensuring personal protection. Despite this, the political and religious elite continuing to demand crude forms of punishment for sexual offences, ranging from chemical castration, public hanging and capital punishment merely underlines the fact that this influential section of the Indian society has completely missed the point, or worse, do not want to address one of the root causes for high rate of crimes in India, that the law-enforcement agencies in India are not up to the mark.
It is clear that a substantial number of the political elite in the country lacks the basic knowledge that it is not the gravity of the punishment but the certainty of it that works as effective deterrent against all crimes. Any jurisdiction that has successfully reduced crimes stands proof to this fact.
The law-enforcement units in the country are synonymous with criminals in uniform. The sum of all fears, in India is the fact that every police officer, irrespective of the officer’s rank and station, symbolises lack of accountability and trust; corruption; nepotism; ineptitude; lack of respect to individual rights and freedoms; is a violator of justice, law and order; and considered a threat to the society than being viewed as its protector or guardian.
Even as of today, no police station is exception to the fact that officers discourage members of the pubic from making complaints. Even though the Criminal Procedure Code, 1974 lays down clear procedures regarding complaint making, registering and its investigation, the members of the general public are discouraged from approaching the police with complaints since they fear that the police would not appreciate the complaint process and further would do no good to the complainant and on the contrary is perpetually biased to political, financial and religious clout. If reforms should happen, it has to begin here.
Not a single police station is people friendly. Each police station epitomises the worst fear of an individual, with its faded paints; shoddily kept premises with confiscated articles; inhuman behaviour of the officers to the public that clearly lacks respect, sense of duty and accountability; badly lit interiors; absence of female officers to deal with female complainants and the fact that most officers are feared for using unwarranted brute force. In reality each one of India’s police station resembles a dungeon than a government office that welcomes members of the public. Police stations and officers are notorious for brute forms of human rights abuses in public and secret – most importantly for their widespread use of torture, extrajudicial executions, demanding bribes and for being most disrespectful to the public, irrespective of their status, as a complainant, witness or as an accused.
This fearsome and despicable reputation of the country’s police is not just due to the rouge nature of the police officers. The officers are often forced to maintain this socially and legally unacceptable image due to their work conditions. While it is common that the appointment, transfer, promotion and disciplinary actions against police officers are proceeded often at political will, where it is common for officers to pay bribes to political leaders for each one of the above counts, for officers who are appointed on merits, there is little chance for them to perform as the law warrants due to lack of training, resources and facilities. In a survey conducted by a leading daily during the past week in Kerala, it was revealed that most police stations in the state are ill equipped to deal with the service they offer through the “Women Helpline”. In most cases the officers could not respond to calls for help by women, since the officers did not either have the vehicles to travel to the scene of crime or the officers were not available at the police stations and in some cases they ignored the request for help.
Lack of facilities, unwarranted political servitude and the complete absence of accountability promote the possibility for the officers to collude with criminals. Additionally, that a considerable number of elected representatives in the state and central legislative bodies are those accused of crimes, promotes the culture of no accountability within the police.
Organisations like the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been for the past nine years repeatedly calling for police reforms in India. One of the primary steps in this direction would be the enactment of a proper and meaningful law against police torture. However this has been ignored by the government and largely by the civil society in India, but for a few exceptions. If the government is honest in meeting the public demand that police reforms is a must in India, it must perhaps start with enacting a proper law against police torture, while providing adequate resources and training for the police to undertake their job as expected in a democratic state.
If these two important steps are implemented immediately, within 12 months the crime rate in the country will drastically reduce. Instead, calling for crude forms of punishment and viewing the Delhi rape case just as incident of violence against women is failing to see the larger picture and barking up the wrong tree.
