Is Policing a Thankless Job?

–Kakali Das |

Apart from the fact that there is severe political interference with the workings of the Police, their investigation, appointments, transfers and the promotions in the sector, also ineffectiveness, the lack of infrastructure with some biases as well, we have also recovered a severe lack of management within the policing system. The Police staffs are overworked and often very unhealthy. As a reference to that, a lot of the police personnel have lost their lives to Covid19 because of their health and working conditions. All across the country, the Police sector functioned at around 77% of its sanctioned strength in 2019 and only 6.4% of those serving have received in-service training.

On asked if policing is a thankless job, Meeran Chadha Borwankar, Former Commissioner of Police, Pune said, “Policing isn’t a thankless job; it’s a very challenging job but the issue is of the vacancies i.e., about 25% in all the states in the country and it’s really unfortunate. Government, in this regard, I feel have exploited the Police Sector. When the Police is the first to respond to the distress of citizens, instead of investing in their recruitment and training, the government disregards the ground issues of the sector; and not one particular State but the issue prevails across the entire country. In the different reports prepared by the police departments all over the country we have highlighted these problems, since it’s better that the citizens know what we go through when they curse us, which is quite often. They should be aware that each Police person is carrying the load of another Police person, as they work for 14 hours a day due to the lack of enough manpower”.

Vipul Mudgal, Director and Chief Executive of Common said, “The State governments are not spending enough either on recruitments or training. For 10 years, CAG of India has been bringing out audit reports in which it says that there are 71% of under-utilisation of budget in Bihar, more than 40% in Uttar Pradesh, 32% in Assam, 88% under-utilisation of funds in Maharashtra. In some states there are 99% Police Constables of lower ranks who don’t have proper housing facilities. Between 2012 and 2017 there were 22% vacancies in the sector; in 2019 it has gone down by merely about 2-4%”.

He further said, “The vacancies which aren’t been filled are of women at the lowest level and of the reserved categories, let alone the minorities as the government has stopped sharing the data of what the dismal state of minorities in the Police force is. I feel that there are some people who wants to keep the police backward; there is a lack of political will there. We don’t want our resources to be used for militarising the police, we don’t want armoured vehicles, we don’t want 20 different types of weapons to threaten our public, we want training of NCTVT, we want efficient and accountable Policemen. I have this feeling that the States are intentionally keeping the Police backward and not spending money on it”.

This actually affects the diversity of the Police Sector. The police should be a reflection of the society. The common mass is of the view that the Police profession isn’t a respectable profession in today’s time. When we compare this profession to any other services there seems to be a disconnect of appreciation for the work the Police are doing, may be due to the lack of faith building amongst citizens for the Police. The purpose of the Police is to make people feel safe, but most of us, in fact, are scared of them.

“The political leadership as well as the bureaucratic leadership have immense power over the Police by confirming the budget. Most of the states, barring a few, do not have sufficient funds for any other activity other than paying salaries. Once the DGP pays salaries to the staff, then very little money is left for any other activity. Even, it’s merely one or two states like Delhi that have substantial training budget but most of the states have an average of about 1.7% of the overall budget for training; in North India many of them have much less than 1% of the total budget of police training”, N. Ramachandran, President, Indian Police Foundation & Institute said, when asked on the budget allocated by the government to the Police sector.

When policemen on the constable level are hired, they are given a physical training test; around 200-250 young people competes for one position. And the person who gets hired, by the time he/she becomes 50, grows pot belly, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, invariably may have anxiety and stress related mental health conditions as well. It’s because of their working conditions and that they are overworked and not given enough time to look after themselves they are pot-bellied. So the next time someone witness a pot-bellied policeman, kindly empathise rather than laughing at him.

On being asked about the bad working conditions that have led to the kind of health problems in the police services, Meeran Borwankar said, “The nutrition of policemen and women is worse; because of the irregular erratic timings they end up eating ‘Vada Pau’ at lunch at 4 in the evening or they leave their houses for work having an early breakfast with huge gaps in between. As a result of which we have lost many of them to the virus. Women constables don’t have proper places to change in and out of their Uniforms in some Police Stations with no proper toilets. Health conditions are so worse that 37% of the Police persons have reported about resigning from the job”.

We, as a sensible society should find ways to look after or enquire about the wellbeing of our Policemen, the ones who at least are serving at the nearest police-station, a little better. We should show an interest in knowing who they are, what they are doing, who the Police Commissioner in our city is and the media should write more about the Police, the work that have been done so far, the transfers that are happening etc.; the problems should be highlighted for the citizens to form better opinions about them. It’s not merely about chasing after a story but actually tracking this on a daily and weekly basis – on the quality of life the police leads, the quality of investigation they do, the kind of pressure they are under and on the amount of political interference upon their life and work.