The Director General of Police (DGP) of Haryana, O.P. Singh, has implored police officers to be citizen-friendly. He has said they should never harass people. It is quite an admission of what is wrong with policing in India. It implies that the police have become a law unto themselves and act illegally. That is why a DGP has to plead with his force to act like the police should.

Of late, police forces across the country have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A medical doctor died by suicide in Maharashtra, alleging rape by a police officer. Her dying declaration indicated her extreme distress. The Deputy Inspector General H.S. Bhullar bribery case in Punjab has recently expanded and now includes 30 other officers. Police brutality and encounter killings have become routine in many parts of the country. Last month, two police officials in Haryana – Indian Police Service officer Y. Puran Kumar and Assistant Sub-Inspector, Sandeep Lather – died by suicide within a week of each other. Each of these incidents exposes what is wrong in policing in India.

While Kumar claimed in a note that he was taking his life because of harassment by seniors due to his being a Dalit, his Personal Security Officer had been arrested a few days earlier in a corruption case, and he perhaps anticipated that he would also be arrested. His family has demanded action against those who were named in his note. A week later, Lather, who was part of the team investigating Kumar’s alleged corruption, also died by suicide.

In a video and a note, Lather claimed that Kumar’s suicide was not due to caste harassment but because of the investigation of the corruption charge against him. He said that Kumar had agreed to clear gangster Rao Inderjit’s name in a murder case for a sum of Rs 50 crore – an extortion bid.

Also read: Dalit IPS Officer's Suicide: ASI Ends Life, Levels Corruption Allegations Against Y. Puran Kumar

These suicides were needless, given the options available to them to deal with whatever they were facing. Kumar could have continued to tackle the caste discrimination he faced and Lather could have exposed the corruption and proved his point. Suicides have made it difficult to disentangle the issues. Media has pointed to the many similarities in the two suicides, including how there were no eyewitnesses.

Policing, hafta and illegality

These episodes point to disturbing aspects of policing in Haryana and in the nation. Money being extorted is not uncommon. Police are known to offer protection from prosecution to the well-off. The powerful in the country commit a variety of illegalities for which they can be prosecuted. But this is averted by offering a bribe or, in the case of a continuing legal violation, a regular payment called ‘hafta’. The cash and assets seized from DIG Bhullar are only one recent example of the extent of wealth accumulated by the corrupt.

The hafta collected is shared right to the top. A retired secretary to the government told this author in 1998 that every new police station opened in Delhi means more crime since the post of Station House Officer is 'auctioned', and then the beat constables have to collect hafta by letting the violation of laws flourish.

Across the country, illegality is in plain sight. Houses are over-constructed, violating building and zoning bye-laws. In markets, shops spill out and pavement sellers squat in front of shops. Both pay the police and municipal authorities hafta. Commercial activity is carried on from residences. Eateries often operate in unhygienic conditions, employ child labour, overwork their workers, etc. Manufacturers violate labour laws, environmental laws, workers’ safety rules, fire safety norms and so on.

Businesses and the well-off complain that there are too many regulations and the regulators are corrupt and demand bribes to not prosecute them. This supposedly undermines ‘ease of doing business’, thereby dissuading businesses from doing more. The fact is that the causation runs the other way. Businesses do illegal acts to make a higher profit and they share a part of it with the authorities. Once corruption gets entrenched in the system, the honest are also forced to bribe just to avoid harassment and soon they, too, turn dishonest. It is often said that an honest business is a contradiction in terms.

In brief, there is widespread illegality in India that would be impossible without the police being an integral part of it.

Instrument of control

The police force is primarily an instrument of the state, helping it to maintain its authority. In India, it is a legacy from the British colonial rule, when it was used to subjugate and control people. It helped prevent the oppressed from revolting against the colonial oppressor. That role of the police has not changed post-independence. Now, the police serve the rulers. For a majority of people, it is still ‘mai-baap’, something to be feared.

There is an asymmetry of power and force between the police and the citizens. The police can use force against the citizens but citizens cannot counter it to protect themselves from it. However, since there are few checks to the arbitrary use of force by the police, it can coerce citizens and extort bribes.

How a police complaint is registered is a decision entirely in the hands of the police. It can register a weak case to enable someone to escape prosecution – or a strong case to trap someone. That is why, the common advice given in India is to, as far as possible, avoid going to police and settle matters mutually – whether after an accident or a dispute with a neighbour.

Also read: How Do We Make the Wheels of the Police and Criminal Justice System Run Faster?

For illegality to persist in the police force, the political masters have to acquiesce with it. They also need the police to serve their ends. For instance, they use police forces to suppress opposition and dissent. The police is increasingly being used to illegally coerce the minorities. Arrests and demolitions have, as a result, become partisan. Despite courts pronouncing against such arbitrariness, such actions persist because those in power want it to continue and do not hold the police to account.

Political misuse of policing and laws requires the rulers to then overlook transgressions by the police. The erosion of accountability of the rulers translates into growing non-accountability of the police.

Rising illegality

Honest police personnel are an exception, but one such person told this author that people like him face harassment and marginalisation within the police force. A largely compromised police force cannot perform its primary task of maintaining law and order and develops a vested interest in letting illegal acts proliferate. As the rulers get away with illegal acts, the citizens get disempowered and neither their interest nor that of society is served.

The motivation for committing economic illegalities is to make gains over and above what is allowed by law. For instance, building by-laws are violated to obtain additional space. Property owners save money and builders make extra profit. Such violations of by-laws lead to avoidable accidents, such as fires and building collapses. Corruption also results in poor quality of infrastructure, further resulting in factory accidents and higher logistic costs for industry, which weakens exports and causes inflation.

A measure of the growing illegality is the size of the black economy. It has, as a percentage of GDP, been expanding. The Kaldor Report pegged it at 4-5% in 1956, the Wanchoo Committee at 7% in 1970 and the NIPFP Report at 18-21% in 1981. This author estimated the black economy at 40% of the GDP in 1996 and 62% in 2012. Illegality has grown in step, resulting in policy failure and shortage of resources for development.

Government intervention and the public sector are seen as failures and this builds pressure for privatisation. The citizens suffer at every step – whether due to poor civic infrastructure or its absence, poor quality of education and health, harassment in doing official work, delays in the courts, etc. Life becomes inefficient and tense. Citizens not only give up resisting illegality but join it wherever they can, making law-breaking acceptable and enabling it to spread.

Reform?

One is bound to wonder, based on what is reported and heard, such as in Haryana recently. When there is widespread illegality in society and in the police force, why was action initiated against officer Y. Puran Kumar in the state? After all, what Kumar was supposedly doing was not unusual. Had some powerful forces turned against him because of counter pressures? Or was it simply that he was not sharing the money, the extorted hafta? The caste aspect may also have played a part in the action initiated against him. And, could it be that Lather was threatened by those whom Kumar was offering protection?

To reveal the truth, a high-level judicial enquiry with a wide mandate is required – not a police investigation. Without that, the wider illegality in the police force in India would not get exposed. Even the implementation of recommendations is not guaranteed. The Vohra Committee Report (1993) has not seen the light of day because those in power don’t want to expose their own illegalities. Wider reforms are needed to check illegality in the police and in society.

Arun Kumar is a retired professor of economics at JNU and the author of Black Economy in India, published in 1999, 2002 and 2017.

If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation maintains a list of telephone numbers they can call to speak in confidence. Icall, a counselling service run by TISS, has maintained a crowdsourced list of therapists across the country. You could also take them to the nearest hospital.

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