 |
| Human in Khaki by Ashok Kumar |
As a developing country struggling to emerge from its
colonial past, in the arena of public services, there is much that needs
improvements in India. One of these is policing. An insidious practice has
developed in India to demand long and inhumane working hours from the force.
This had led to poor physical and psychological health as well as poor family
life of Indian policemen. Such a force cannot be expected to provide quality
service to public. While many suggestions for improving the police force have
been put forth by individuals and institutions in India, few have been followed
up. However, yesterday the High Court at Nainital passed a judgment that is a key
element of police reforms in India.
It has been mentioned in a companion blog, https://nainitalgoddess.blogspot.com how the
Lovely Himalayan Town of Nainital built around the lake of the goddess Naini
has been at forefront of many changes not just in India but also the world
since its inception in mid nineteenth century. The present police reforms adds
another feather in its cap
This author’s interest in the matter
Emerging from a rich life experience and international
education, I have contributed many ideas in my blogs with a hope that they
would lead to improvements in various areas of human activity. These were areas
in which I had personal experience and interests. Policing was not one of them
until 2009. At that time I had joined an educational institute in Nainital
district as its Director. On my joining, a dear former student, Ashok Kumar, who had joined
the Indian police service read about it in the local newspaper and immediately
called me. He came to visit me with his wife the very next day. Inspector
General Ashok Kumar, was the senior most police functionary not just of Nainital
District but the entire Kumaon region, of which Nainital is a part, at that
time. He has become more senior since and moved to the State Capital. Inspired
by many conversations with him in that period as also a book - Human in Khaki –
that he wrote around that time in Nainital, I began to ponder over how policing
might be improved in India. The book by
Ashok Kumar can be found here,
As fate would have it my neighbor at that time was the
senior most police official of Nainital District under Ashok Kumar and his wife
a fellow board member of another Educational Institute in Nainital District,
the Birla Institute at Bhimtal. Soon after I wrote a public note containing six
suggestions on how policing may be improved in India. I have sent links of this
note to the highest authorities in India but little was done since. Even when a
service is in need of improvements, there are vested interests that benefit
from the deficiency. Sadly the will and energy of these latter persons far
exceeds the will of those who might bring about changes for better. Therefore
shortcomings persist for decades on ends. That note can be found here
However, the Nainital High Court, on the PIL of Arun Kumar Bahdauria of
Uttarakhand, has now ordered one
of the suggestions of this note –Humane working hours. It imposed humane
working hours, not exceeding eight hours per day of duty along with a slew of
other humane measures for police personnel in the hill state of Uttarakhand of India.
It is expected that citing this judgment, this change will soon spread through
other states and union territories of India through similar court orders when
interested persons approach them. There could be some modifications of this
judgment in other states or on appeals to the Supreme Court of India but it is
not possible that conditions will revert back to earlier inhumane hours since
that is a violation of basic human rights and right to life. A newspaper report
on the matter can be found here,
Comments