NEED OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN POLICE

The major problem that confronts extant police is its attitude to work,

responsibilities, profession, organisation, government and the public. It is confounded

about its goals, objectives, loyalties, professional ethos, job culture, procedures and

practices that carry it forward in the field in attending professional duties. In the

wilderness of undefined roads, Indian police grope for perspicacious directions to reach

professional ends. Popular phrases like maintenance of order, enforcement of law,

prevention of crime, investigation of offences, protection of security interests etc are too

generic terms to carry any meaning and significance during the process of actual policing.

Perficient policing is possible only in the ambience of well-rounded and clearly defined

specific guidelines for action that help moulding professional attitude in the

organisation. Police develop wrong attitudes in its absence by erroneous interpretation of

the situation around. This is what happens to Indian police now: wrong attitudes and

concomitant confusion about performing legitimate duties.

A profession like police naturally has its own goals, objectives and ideals to

pursue. They get clouded in the smog of practical turn-arounds in the field and ultimately

lose their edge in the spin of attitudinal aberrations. The consequence is clashes of

loyalties, adoption of immodest vectors in policing, the issue of excesses and inactions,

tendency to bend rules and laws to achieve perceived ends in the hour of need of

upholding the rule of law, urge to cash-in on the ignorance and weaknesses of the

ignorant people around and indulgences in unprofessional works in the name of

discharging legitimate police duties. Performance of any profession depends upon three

factors: professional ideals, job culture and actual practices and procedures. Job culture

is spawned of constant interaction of professional ideals and actual practices and

procedures in the field. Though basically is a product of the past, it considerably affects

the future performance of an orgnisation. Practices and procedures being the primary

vehicle of attitude, they help moulding job culture a la immanent attitude in the job. The

result is a pollent hold of attitude in deciding the direction of an organisation. A

profession loses its raison d’etre while attitude in the job prevaricates from professional

ideals.

Professional ideals of police are rooted in the terra firma of the rule of law,

justice, order and the security of the country and its citizens. Police organisation is

basically responsible to the constitution of the country and the government constituted

and the laws enacted in accordance with the constitution. Police lose its relevance to the

country when its professional attitude goes against the cardinal ideals of the profession.

The challenge of a police organisation lies in moulding professional attitude as required

by the ideals of the profession. Wrong attitudes inveterate in extant practices and

procedures of policing are shaped by self-interests, misconceptions, ignorance and

tendency to pursue easy and shortcut methods: they are hard to be broken and survive

under most odds. Only efficient, honest and highly motivated leadership alone can crack

the etui encompassing it. Once it is done, building a new set of right professional

attitudes is relatively a simpler job to a committed leadership. Basic to these efforts is a

realisation among the top-brass about what constitute right and wrong attitudes. The crux
of the problem of Indian police lies here. It is distressing to note that the top leadership

of post-independent Indian police is responsible for the prevarication of the organisation

from its professional attitude of absolute commitment to public order and safety, justice

and rule of law to easy and shortcut avenues of selfish interests. The change percolated

downwards. In the rush of Indians replacing the British to sensitive government positions

on the eve of independence, men of inadequate calibre and merit occupied key

government posts. This happended in police as in other government departments. The

result was happened in police as in other government departments. The result was

corrosion in leadership qualities, traits of excellence and high personal merits, so

essential to run public and national affairs at the top. It was during this period that Indian

police lost its track in professional policing and exposed itself to the luxury of dancing to

the easy and soft tunes of convenience by yielding to pressures of political and other

vested interests. Policing powers served as a tool of maximising self-interests and

personal comforts at the cost of professional policing. In the process, the country

suffered and police lost its face.

A major handicap of the extant Indian police is its dependence syndrome. No

more, Indian police realise itself as a master sui juris. For every piece of work under its

sphere of decision, it looks for advice, guidance and direction from the political

leadership, bureaucracy or the judiciary. It is more a symptom of immanent servilitude

and lack of spine than anything else. Present Indian police lack of hardihood of

professionalism and the self-confidence ensues from it. Policing is not a job dependant

on outsiders like politicians and bureaucrats. For one, the latter are not professionals and
their advice, guidance and directions in re policing are unlikely to be sound. Secondly,

subjecting policing to their advice, guidance and direction while they themselves are

subjects to policing discipline is unlikely to be in the best interest of the professional

policing. Not that police officers do not know these facts. They lack the professional

resolve to uphold the purity of the principles of policing au reste being unsure of

themselves. Tendency is to avoid risky responsibilities of policing while hawks outside

are avizefull to make the maximum out of the weakness of the police and pledge policing

responsibilities to those who sit above them in exchange for secure career prospects.

That is shy meekness and servilitude of police officers in India is pro rata to the

importance of the posts they hold. Somebody cornered or placed in an insignificant slot

has nothing to lose by standing up to his superior and no need to go servile to anybody

unlike somebody in a coveted spot and therefore not required to protect his position coute

que coute. It is impossible for an upright officer to land in key jobs like chiefs of police

forces in states or the centre save in disturbed provinces like Punjab and Kashmir. The

result is downward slide in professionalism and perpetuation of servilitude and

dependence. Policing worth the name is possumus only while the glissade in

professional resolve is arrested. But, the vice in which Indian police is caught is too

pollent to be breached. The dependence syndrome has to be replaced by professional

resolve. This requires change of attitude. The change is not easy to come in present

vicious circumstances. Without it coming soon, Indian police has no deliverance.

A serious handicap of present Indian police is its noncommittal and causal

reliance on mechanical procedures sans passion for professional objectives. Tendency is

to show the amount of labour put to a job rather than showing results. There is no true

passion to reach goals and achieve professional objectives of safety, security, justice and

the rule of law. Every attempt is to do minimum required so that the chances of being

caught committing mistakes are minimal. Procedures and practices form the staple and

there is no spark for creative policing. Policing has become a mechanical process sans

substance. It is the minimum common denominator that counts in present policing

environment. The passion natural for those in police for public security and order, rule of

law and justice is seldom felt in Indian police of the present vintage. Risk-taking which is

a common trait of good policing has become a rarity and a scarce commodity. The

problem lies in wrong attitude. The atrophy set in, in the field of committed policing has

become the mainstay of the Indian police. Reversing the trend is the first priority to bring

Indian police on the right rails.

A manifestation of this wrong attitude is evident in investigation of crimes. The

reason for the problem lies in the environment in which investigators function. They are

prosecutors of another kind in real terms in Indian police environment and work to collect

evidence of whatever merit to prove that the persons accused of crime had committed the

crime rather than unearthing truth. Persons under investigation are treated as criminals

and harassed. When sound evidences are not available, anything that goes for evidence is

trumped up. The infamous Jain Hawala case is a case in point. The case was cold-stored

for years. The dependence syndrome of the premier investigation agency of the country

prevented it from investigating the case sans clearance from political masters. Once

polictical bigwigs calculated that investigation of the case was in their interests, CBI
proceeded full-steam to prove the case. When direct evidence was not available, CBI

probed for circumstantial evidences. When circumstantial evidence failed to prove

anything, CBI went for anything available to feed its fanciful interpretations. Need of

corroboration was thrown to the wind. Political leaders were tried on the basis of initials

and numbers entered in a diary. Court of law exonerated the politicians for lack of

evidence. In the process, many heads rolled on the block of the political gameplan.

Professional attitude to investigation with a passion for fairplay, objectivity, truth and

justice would have saved the country from the quite unnecessary hardships. Politically

sensitive cases are taken up for investigation only when people in power decide in favour,

and investigated with a particular end in sight and chargesheeted on the basis of

whatever little could be gathered in the name of evidence. Professional investigation is

not meant to proceed in this fashion where possibility of a prima facie case and quality

of evidences precede every thing else and decide the course and pace of the investigation

process and chargesheet. Sensitisation to fairplay, objectivity, truth and justice is the

foundation of the professional policing. Professional police display extraordinary scruple

in exercise of policing powers like arrests, bails, searches, seizures, interrogations etc so

that law bites only the hors la loi and innocent citizens go absolutely unharmed. It is not

the case in Indian police now. Investigation has become a one-way track of somehow

raising evidences and chargesheeting, truth and justice become tragedies in the process.

This basically is a problem of wrong attitude.

People caught in the web of criminal laws deserve sympathy and kindness until

they are proved guilty beyond doubts. They need to be treated with gentleness and
courtesy that behoves to interpresonal relationship in a civilised society while the

process of investigation continues with all efficiency and ruthless exactitude. Police as

investigator is not invested with powers to punish for the crimes committed. Fair chance

to persons under investigation to prove their innocence goes a long way in unearthing

truth and solving crimes justly. This has to be the attitude of the police during crime

investigation. Truth and justice have to be their goal. Indian police lack the maturity

and poise.

A serious Achilles’ heel of Indian police is its perverted attitude towards rules and

laws. Bending rules and laws to suit self interests is one dimension of the spiel. Another

dimension is its blind application sans sense of proportion and discreetness while self-

interest is not an issue. It is seen in enforcing laws and maintaining order. Police forget

that rules and laws are just tools in the larger cause of peace and order of the society and

sadly handle laws for law’s sake. Rules and laws are invested on police like weapons as

the dernier ressort while all other avenues are shut. Discreetness in their constraint.

Objectives are primary Rules and laws must follow them only as tools to that end. The

realisation is rarely found in the present police. It operates laws for law’s sake by

relegating organisational objectives to oblivion. Professional objectives suffer and police

become an object of detestation consequential to this perverted attitude. Mechanical

enforcement of gratuitous rules and laws constrict the freedom of people for no specific

purpose and weaves an unnecessary web of constraints around them for nobody’s good.

The attitude is fatal to fair and professional policing practices and needs to be corrected
on priority to make application of rules and laws need-based in reaching professional

targets.

Another field where police need to change its attitude is its contempt for human

values. Policing is just an instrument to the cause of protecting human values. Police

oblivious to this fact, subject human values to immane policing methods in the name of

policing. Third degree methods are the point. Malfeasances do not behove to the cause

of human values. Means are as important as ends in policing. Pursuing unjust means for

the cause of justice is the spiel of the frankenstein, the story of an off-spring eating its

creator. Inviolable commitment to human values and rights is the foundation of good

policing. Human touch is sine qua non for professional policing. Human concern is the

raison d’etre of good policing. The shift in attitude needs to be from blind and blanket-

policing for the policing’s sake to discreet and enlightened policing to reach professional

objectives. The shift has to be from the use of policing powers to maximise professional

goals. The shift must see police taking risks in the interests of the profession and doing

intelligent policing rather than indulging in manoeuvres of personal security. The

process warrants massive exercise in attitudinal change.

What constitutes perficient exercises of attitudinal change in a massive

organisation like the police? Police organisation is a tough and hard-to-crack candidate

for any manipulations. It is a no nonsense outfit. The only way to bring it to senses is

intensive and extensive appeal to its reason and emotion to convince about the need of

change. Police rely on past practices and procedures. It looks for the job culture to
aemule. Forcing police away from vicious practices and procedures and undesirable job

culture through the attitudinal change is an arduous and time consuming exercise even

for experts in the field. The exercise has to be a multi-pronged attack on inveterate

misconceptions and wrong notions in extant policing by extensive exposures to talks,

discussions, seminars, briefings, studies, researches and in-service training involving

analyses of policing, its ideals, objectives, methods, means and ends, social relevances,

pressures, policing environment, psychological aspects of policing etc. The exercise

have to be intended to provoke police personnel to think about their profession without

dogma and arrive at desirable conclusions about professional policing and impress them

on the ingredients of good policing by constant exposure. A few ideal cases as models

have tremendous impact on the cause of creating eight attitudes, Studies and researches

on policing and policing methods provide a sound foundation to these exercises. A police

organisation interested in improving its quality and performance cannot go without sound

study centres and research projects on the issues of policing. These attempts provide both

inputs and insight to the behavioural pattern of the police in field under different

situations and stress patterns as differentiated from what are desired. They bring both

gestalts to contrast in terms of their perficiency, professional needs and relevance to the

environment of policing to affect attitudinal change in right direction by way of

conviction. The immediate need is inducing doubts about the soundness of existing

attitudes to encourage discussion on the topic. Deliberate guiding through structured

mental exercises to desirable end forms the latter part of the task. Indeed, the whole

exercise has to be planned and executed in detail by highly efficient leadership in the

police. The conundrum is who behoves to handle the highly responsible job while the
leadership of the police itself is mired in wrong attitudes to the job of policing.

Problem of attitude basically is a problem felt at higher wrungs in top-brass of the

force. The stiff hierarchical order and command-obedience pattern of functioning make

the lower wrungs irrelevant in matters of job attitude. Those down the ladder are loyal

followers and obedient operators in the path and policy laid above them. Their attitudes

change shape from case to case to meet the demands trickle from above. When the

demand is to let out a rich and powerful criminal with royal honours, those down the

level do just that with vengeance; when the demand from above is to frame an innocent

man and obtain his confession by subjecting to torture, they just do that with dedication

for the sake of a well-earned pat of their omniscient superiors. It is again a question of ill-

conceived job culture and attitude which need to be corrected as it is tangible to the

standards of policing as all organisational matters are. The primary target of attitudinal

change is the higher wrungs and the top-brass. Others follow and fall to place. The key

lies in the realisation that something is wrong in the present mode of policing.

Demolition is the beginning of the construction. Once the realisation of wrong dawns

upon, reconstruction becomes possible. Police being an extrovert and action-oriented

outfit, self-analyses and inward-looking tendencies do not come easily. While things to

wrong, introversion becomes sine qua non for healthy growth. This is what is required in

Indian police now.