FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Ajoy Tyagi
Goa, a tiny emerald land on the west coast of India has become a den for criminal activities and an all year round tropical paradise for goons. Rapes, gang-rapes, arms, ammunition, drugs, the crime list is unending. Once again, this problem of unknown extent is made worse by the silence that surrounds it.
There is no fear of law in Goa. There is no fear of police. News relating to crimes being committed in the State frequently hit the news headlines.
It’s more than 20 years!
2001: It was in the month of January 2001 , Karnail Singh DIG of Police, Goa and myself in my capacity as a lawyer were invited as panelists by a newspaper for their ‘Town Talk’ debate on the subject: “Why has there been an increase and spurt in criminal activities in Goa?”
2021: The situation hasn’t changed for the better and the question still remains unanswered.
A conspiracy of silence surrounds this issue.
Unfortunately, little is either said or done about the criminal activities in Goa because it’s a problem that by long tradition, most men and most governments, do not wish to know about, for it may affect Goa tourism.
Both police and politicians have defined and positive roles to play, because the issue is mainly whether they are part of the society which puts pleasure before duty, fun before work, ease before effort; or that of society that makes a supreme effort to live up to their high ideals to which they owe their origin.
The question as to why relations between police and politicians in India are so bad is obviously painful for them to answer. Politicians are critical of the police and the police are cynical about politicians.
Even after 75 years of Independence, the public distrusts the politicians and the policemen alike. If the police on the one side and the politicians on the other do not limit their areas of operation to their acknowledged fields, this nation cannot be kept safe for working in a democratic system of government. For establishment of democratic traditions, it is necessary that politicians and policemen understand to confine themselves to their respective roles and not to transgress each other’s role. The fall in professional standards of police performance hits the headlines with the media’s outcry against police failure and shoddy investigations.
With the dawn of freedom, the role of the Indian politicians underwent a dramatic change. After the decline of the national fever of the independence movement, the fact remains that political interference started in the functioning of the police and a normal relation between the politician and the police initially in the public interest degenerated into various forms of interference with malafide objectives. Police act at the behest of the party in power and not necessarily in the best interests of the public. With the gradual spectre of political interference appearing on the scene, police have become vulnerable to interference from politicians. Political interference in police affairs has produced injustices and weakened the morals of the police force. Many feel that upright police officers are put to humiliations. Some officers being denied their legitimate positions… others transferred too frequently. Many MLAs consider their constituencies as their empires and function as monarchs. Politics has tended to subvert the priorities for the police because instead of being concerned with the prevention and control of crime and, the police by necessity and to some extent, by choice, find themselves solely preoccupied with carrying the wishes of the rulers for which responsibility is diffused and accountability difficult to determine.
Why are policemen and politicians interfering in each other’s work so frequently and assuming each other’s role and becoming so much an object of public criticism, inner tension and strife? Broadly speaking, interference in each other’s work may stem from (a) an intention of genuine help (b) to show ones real or presumed skill or knowledge or (c) to impress the public that one can successfully interfere in each other persons work and elicit desired not necessarily desirable action. Politicians blaming the police and the police blaming the politicians for the present mess and state of affairs is well known. Correction and reformation of attitudes is essential as healthy contact and cooperation between police and politicians is a sine qua non for security, peace and progress in the society, and for the nation.
Ordinary mortals don’t expect the police and politicians to be better than any other people; all bodies of people will abuse power if it is unchecked. Abuses will become regular unless each serious allegation is disinterestedly investigated. Members of the public are generally unconcerned about police unless it is towards themselves, and when it is, they are often incapacitated by ignorance of their rights. Also a large section of the community do not recognise abuses of police power when they experience them, for educationalists and propagandists generally neglect to stimulate thought on the nature of proper police conduct and to spread knowledge of citizens rights. If the conduct of the police is to be improved, opposition to misconduct must be continuous and must be intensified. For betterment of the society, individuals should not fail to criticise freely but constructively every action that seems harmful to them. After all, individuals are the makers of civilizations, and just as modern civilizations must be judged in large measure by the way their police behave, so each individual must be judged by what he does to see that the police serve the cause of civil liberties.
The relationship between police and politicians has always been a paradigm of trust, but their direct relationship seems to be replaced by a far more complicated one. An inner tension seems to have developed in the system between the two and it has run into conflicts in their relations to the public.
(The author is an advocate, International Law Consultant and human rights activist)
