Why India’s Policing System Is Failing Its Citizens

In some imaginations, India is marching towards viksit (developed) Bharat status. But when it comes to police and policing, even the admirers of vikas will admit that there remains a distinct medieval touch to the system as it functions in India. The civil police is anything but civil, and the various armed police formations have a military touch which is distinctively menacing to the average citizen. As a result, public trust in the police is very low. A peculiar feature of our system is that while civil police, which is needed to secure the lives of citizens, is starved of manpower and funds, its militarised cousin, the central armed police forces continue to grow.

Actually, notwithstanding the horrific terror attack in Pahalgam in April, violence in Jammu & Kashmir has been declining steadily. The once alarming Maoist movement in central India is a pale shadow of itself and is on its last legs. As for the North-east, there is an uneasy calm with most insurgent groups inactive or disbanded.

In J&K, incidents of killings came down from over 1,000 in the period 2000-2005 to less than 100 after 2023, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) . The number of security forces killed was down from a peak of 628 in 2001 to 26 in 2024.

As far as the Maoist insurgency is concerned, the portal notes that the incidents of killings came down from a peak of 481 in 2010 to 160 in 2024, but the more telling statistic was that the number of security personnel killed was down from 267 to 21 in the same period. As is well known, in 2024 and 2025, the Maoists have suffered severe reverses with 296 (as per the portal) killed in 2024 and so far 264 have been killed this year till July 15.

Yet, this month, the government approved the raising of 20,000 additional personnel for 20 battalions of the CRPF. In fact, even before the Pahalgam terror attack and amidst the ongoing offensive against the Maoists, the force was seeking to add another 35,000 personnel to its holdings..

As of August 2024, the Central Reserve Police Force is the largest force of its kind in India, if not the world, with a personnel strength of 298,000. It has a set of sister forces involved in specialised duties such as the Assam Rifles (63,000) Border Security Force (256,000), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (90,000), the Central Industrial Security Force (152,000) and the Shashtra Seema Bal (91,000). Counting the National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force and the Railway Protection Force, this totals some 1 million strong of what are called the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs). Of these the BSF, ITBP and the SSB are purely border guarding forces now.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs' annual report, the total size of the CAPFs was around 429,000 in 1988, it rose to 568,000 in ten years by 1998. By 2004, which can roughly be seen as the peak of the Kashmir insurgency, it had risen to 672,000. But as is obvious, they seem to be still growing – especially their internal security component. One explanation is that this reflects the desire of the Union government to establish its control over the law and order machinery across the country, though this is from the point of view of the Constitution, a state subject.

A small but significant example of this was visible last year when the Central Industrial Security Force took over the task of looking after the security of most parts of parliament, replacing the Parliament Security Service, which functions under the Parliament Secretariat and was a symbol of the independence of the parliament from the government.

What we have been witnessing is the continuing perturbation in civil law and order – murders, rapes, assaults, fraud and so on – requiring effective civil policing. But instead of getting this, what we are experiencing is the continuing instances of police torture, custodial killing and corruption

In comparison to the million or so strong CAPFs, who are a militarised force which in itself tells us a lot about policing in the country, the size of the civil police force is just about 2.1 million – about 0.5 million short of its sanctioned strength as of 2020. Even here, roughly half the civil police force comprises armed police of various kinds.

The ratio of police to the population of the country was 152 per 100,000 citizens whereas the UN recommendation is for 222 to 100,000. But figures across states vary. The figure for UP was 134, for Gujarat 128, Bihar 75 and West Bengal 98. So, where we are clearly over-policed in terms of the CAPF, we are grossly under-policed when it comes to the average citizen.

A measure of how the police deal with crime is the rise in custodial deaths. According to the response to a parliament question, custodial deaths in police custody totalled 136 in 2018-19 and rose to 164 in 2022-23.

The annual report of the police in UP in 2024 has laid out its activities and declared proudly that since the coming of the Yogi Adityanath government in 2017, the police has killed 217 alleged criminals in various “encounters” and injured 7,799. It is not anyone’s case that the police have railroaded innocent citizens, but the issue is whether they have upheld the law of the country. The police assumed the rights of being the judge, the jury and the executioner in a country that has elaborate laws and a legal system where the death penalty is extremely rare.

The report details the crackdown on gangs, mafias, drug pushers, seizure of property of the “bad guys.” It also lists its modernisation efforts such as establishing over 1 million CCTV cameras and special activities for women’s protection. But it is obvious that this is with a heavy hand.

Certainly, there is no provision in the laws of the country to bulldoze properties of alleged criminals for various infractions or establishing so-called “anti-Romeo” squads in the name of protecting women. By their own figures as part of the anti-Romeo squad activity, 24,647,923 people had been checked between April 2022-December 2024. In the same period, checking was carried out in over 7 million places and some 39 million 'suspicious people' were checked.

The government itself admits that police reforms have been on the agenda of the government for more than 50 years. The basic framework of the police was made in 1861 with little change thereafter. There have been several committees and recommendations – the National Police commission (1978-82), the Padmanabhaiah committee of 2000 and the Malimath Committee on reforms in Criminal Justice System (2002-2003). A committee headed by Julio Ribeiro was constituted in 1998 at the instance of the Supreme court to suggest ways of implementing existing recommendations.

A model Police Act was submitted to replace the 1861 statute and circulated to the various states. In September 2006, the Supreme Court passed a judgement on a petition by Prakash Singh on issues relating to police reforms. It issued a set of directives for the states and the Union government but the matter is still ongoing. These directives were related to separating law and order and investigative roles, establishing fixed tenures, forming Police Complaints Authorities (PCA) and so on. But implementation has been incomplete.

Only 17 states have set up PCAs so far and even those do not meet the requirements set out by the court. District-level PCAs are virtually non-existent. The normal way of dealing with complaints is internal inquiry and oversight lacks teeth. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that third degree methods continue to be used by the police.

In 2023, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita(BNS) was set up and introduced stricter procedures and timelines. There have been successes in modernising parts of the system such as the creation of the CCTNS or use of CCTV but implementation remains patchy.

The India Justice Report points out that since 1969-70 states have been eligible for conditional financial aid for modernisation. But over just one year the central government’s share of modernisation grant witnessed a drop from Rs 683 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 562 crore in 2021-22. Twelve states, among them Andhra, Arunachal, Bihar, Jharkhand got no modernisation funds in 2020-21. While states like Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Goa got grants but reported zero expenditure.

Overall, the picture is one of severe under-staffing of civil police and massive gaps in infrastructure. The institutions for accountability remain weak and political interference is the order of the day. There is limited investment in training and poor capacity for specialised activity like forensics. Half the sanctioned posts across the country remain vacant and the lack of forensic support plays into weak investigations, delayed trials, wrongful acquittals and even wrongful convictions.

There is, of course, a chain that links our laws, its guardians, the judicial system and prisons. There are problems in each of those links. Progressive laws are regularly enacted, but their implementation is poor. We have detailed the problems with policing above. As for the judicial system, it is well known that it is clogged with cases and this is a major factor in prisons being overcrowded by undertrials to the extent of 76%. Of course, indiscriminate arrests play their own role here, as do barriers to bail. The inevitable result is that they breed criminals, not reform them.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.

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