Sarabjit Singh: Execution by Murder

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

In the end, Sarabjit Singh was executed not by a hangman but by Pakistan’s famed ‘non-state’ actors – his fellow prisoners on death row – who are believed to have been put up to the job of bludgeoning him into a lifeless pulp by ‘state’ actors (jail officials). Of course, instead of someone pulling the hangman’s lever, in Sarabjit’s case it was the proverbial plug being pulled on the life support machines by ‘state’ doctors. Regardless of what spin is put on his death by the Pakistani authorities, it is quite clear that it was a political decision taken by them to put a closure to the entire drama surrounding Sarabjit.

The entire Sarabjit saga is a tale of clinical solutions being used by Pakistani authorities against him: his arrest – he was a convenient scapegoat for the Pakistani security forces who needed someone to blame for a series of bomb blasts; his conviction – all evidence proving that he was not the person responsible was disregarded, and fake and tutored witnesses were produced (some of whom later retracted their testimony) to procure a guilty verdict and have him sentenced him to death; his murder – get already condemned prisoners to beat him to death (their punishment can’t get any worse but they will be able to earn ‘sawab’ or rewards in the after-life for having killed a despicable infidel) and pre-empt any possible reprieve or release for him, in addition to getting even with the ‘hated Hindus’ for executing two soldiers of Islam (Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru) and sending a strong signal to Infidel India; and finally his execution – carried out by doctors who switched off his life support systems because it was too expensive for to keep him alive indefinitely and it was not politically possible to send him to India.

Even after Sarabjit was reduced into a vegetable as a result of the brutal beating he was subjected to, the Pakistani bloodlust wasn’t satisfied. It was almost as though the only thing that would satisfy the talibanised Pakistani mindset was stringing Sarabjit’s comatose body on the gallows! Having committed the terrible wrong of outsourcing his execution to ‘non-state’ actors, the Pakistanis could still have done the right thing by sending a lifeless but still alive Sarabjit back to his country and his family. For anyone to argue that the interim government in Pakistan was not empowered to take a decision on releasing even a comatose Sarabjit is complete nonsense. If it wanted, the caretaker government was fully competent to have advised the President to grant him clemency him and repatriate him to India on humanitarian grounds. That it chose not to, suggests that it is either scared of a right-wing reaction or else subscribe to the extremist mindset.

Having blown this opportunity, the Pakistanis should be prepared for a blowback of hostility, if not from an effete Indian government then at least from an incensed public opinion in India. The murder of Sarabjit will certainly add bitterness in relations and serve as a setback to efforts to promote people-to-people ties between the two countries. Perhaps, this is exactly what those who conspired to murder Sarabjit were aiming for. But to say that Indian people should not play into the hands of enemies of peace by giving in to their emotions over the brutal killing of Sarabjit is to miss the point.

If indeed peace is such a desirable objective and is in the interest of peoples of both countries, then is the onus for peace only on India? Doesn’t Pakistan also have a responsibility to rein in these enemies of peace? Didn’t Pakistan understand the sensitivities attached to Sarabjit’s case and how any untoward incident could embitter an already tenuous state of relations? And if it did, why didn’t they take precautions of the type India took with Ajmal Kasab to safeguard Sarabjit from any assault? Or is it that they didn’t care a whit for the sentiments and emotions of Indians? If so, then what is this people-to-people relation that is being promoted and incessantly parroted by apologists for Pakistan? Isn’t it therefore time that we re-evaluate the state of relations and re-examine the assumptions that are guiding India’s policy on Pakistan? Of course, if we want to prove Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time – correct, then we are on the right track. Otherwise, there needs to be a new approach adopted towards Pakistan, one that sheds the shibboleths of the past.

When the Periphery becomes Peripheral : Perils And Pitfalls of India's Neighbourhood Policy

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, best articulated the sentiment sweeping through large parts of India in the recent months. Reacting to the resolution of the Pakistan National Assembly on Kashmir and Afzal Guru’s hanging, Jaitley said that “if India can be kicked around in this manner, there is something seriously wrong about our external policy”.If it were only Pakistan, once again resorting to its incorrigible irredentism on Kashmir, it could have been explained away. But what has added to the sense of disquiet about the drift in India’s neighbourhood policy is the glaring inability of the incumbent government to play an effective role in India’s own backyard. From Maldives to Myanmar, from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, from Sri Lanka to Pakistan and Nepal, India almost appears to be a mute bystander, watching events unfold from the sidelines, events that have a serious bearing on India’s own security.

Despite India looming large in the region, not just because of its physical size and population but also its economic power and military strength, it has not been able to translate this into effective power on the ground. What is worse, India seems to have taken the fairy tale of non-interference and non-intervention, especially of the unsolicited or uninvited kind, in the affairs of other countries so seriously that it has even refused to exercise its natural influence in many of the countries of the region. While the lament that India doesn’t have or hasn’t developed sufficient leverages and pressure points that will allow it to use its influence in the neighbouring countries is often voiced, the tragedy is that India seems chary of using even the leverages that exist.

Like the perception in Pakistan of the US being behind every leaf that moves in that country, there is also a perception among some of India’s neighbours that nothing moves in their countries without India’s concurrence. A successful diplomacy would be one that exploits this perception and uses it as an asset in order to influence the course of events without being seen to be either interfering or intervening in the domestic affairs of any country. Instead, India goes overboard in trying to dispel this perception by adopting a hands-off approach. Worse, India expects all other countries to do the same.

Politics, whether domestic or international, however, abhors vacuum. Thus it is that India’s failure to use its considerable influence in Nepal to sort out the political mess there has resulted in China moving into Nepal in a big way. Consequently, India’s influence is withering away at an alarming rate. There was a time not long back when countries like the US and UK expected India to take the lead in Nepal. But after India’s failure to act in a meaningful way despite the bulk of Nepalese political players looking towards India, created a situation where Nepal is fast spiralling out of India’s sphere of influence. For India to now crib and complain about the inroads made by the Chinese is puerile.

In Nepal, a lot of the blame must rest on the cluelessness in the Indian foreign office about the enormous changes in the Nepalese polity. India’s Special Envoy, who had served as Ambassador in Nepal, failed to understand that the Twin Pillar policy – King plus multi-party democracy – had run its course. By continuing to support this anachronism, India only shot itself in the foot. The situation could have been retrieved subsequently, but only if India had a clear and coherent idea on what exactly served its interests in Nepal and how it planned to achieve its policy objective. But in the absence of this clarity, the easiest thing to do was mouth slogans and do nothing, except react and respond to situations as they developed.

Forget about Nepal, even in Sri Lanka, India seems hell bent on making a hash of things. Effectively, India seems to have reduced its Sri Lanka policy to a single point agenda – the state of Tamils in Sri Lanka. This is of course partly because of political compulsions of the government in New Delhi and the pressure being put on it by crucial allies in Tamil Nadu. But when emotionalism starts holding all other critical national interests hostage, then failure of foreign policy is a natural outcome. While even the Lankans understand India’s interest in the Tamil issue and are willing to engage with India in finding a solution, surely passing resolutions in the Indian Parliament or supporting Human Rights resolutions against Sri Lanka at the UN is hardly any way of conducting relations with a friendly country in which India has important economic and strategic interests. Moreover, India’s carping over Lanka asking the Chinese to develop ports is completely disingenuous. Since the 1950’s, whether it was on the Trincomalee oil depot, the Radio Ceylon frequency, or in recent years the Hambantota port and Colombo port expansion, the Lankan’s have always given the first offer to India. Only after India refused to participate in the project was it given elsewhere. After first rejecting the Lankan proposal and then complaining when the Lankans farm it out to someone else, India only invites ridicule.

Over the years, in the region, India has gained the dubious reputation where its friends have no faith in it and its adversaries do not fear it. According to a former chief of the Indian external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), this is because the policy framework (for whatever it is worth) is geared towards appearing as nice guys who are respected out of love and not out of fear. While repeatedly mouthing inanities like ‘friendly, historical, cultural and civilizational relations’, India seems to have actually internalised this tripe, and in the process forgotten the basic dictum of international diplomacy that nations have ‘permanent interests’ which should guide their foreign policy.

As for standing solidly behind friends, the words of a top Pakistani politician come to mind. Interacting with him as part of the back channel diplomacy, his Indian interlocutors tried to impress upon him the benefits of opening up to India. This Pakistani politician didn’t really need any convincing on this score. But his counter question to his Indian interlocutors stumped them. He asked “will India stand by me if I face trouble at home because of reaching out to India?” Sure enough, once he landed in trouble with the Pakistani ‘deep state’, India simply forgot about him, until he once again made a comeback when the same short-sighted Indian establishment started scurrying to curry his favour. But the damage had been done.

What happened with this Pakistani politician is something that has happened with innumerable well-wishers and friends of India in the neighbourhood. The result: no one really trusts India’s word anymore and only someone really crazy will go out on a limb for India. Some of this we are today witnessing with the deposed president of Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed. Beguiled by the approach and promises of the current President Waheed, the Indians let Nasheed hang out to dry and soon realised that they had been led up the garden path by the Islamist leaning Waheed and his cohorts. In a deliberate move, Waheed threw out the Indian company building the Male airport, has been openly bad-mouthing India in China, has been hobnobbing with Islamists (including the Pakistani terrorist group Jamaatud Dawa / Lashkar-e-Taiba), has allowed China to build infrastructure that could become part of the ‘string of pearls’ encircling India. And what has India done apart from twiddling its thumbs?

Instead of ‘winning friends and influencing people’, India seems to have perfected the art of ‘how to lose friends and alienate people’ in its neighbourhood. If the enormous time, treasure and thought wasted on trying to normalise what is an utterly fruitless relationship with Pakistan had been invested on the other countries of the region, perhaps India would a lot more to show for its labours. Of course, while it would be unfair to heap all the blame for this developing disaster of foreign policy only on the present government, the current political leadership – it is actually a travesty to use the word ‘leadership’ in the context of the current Prime Minister – must bear its share of responsibility for foisting a befuddled foreign minister on the country and not providing any sort of clear political direction to the bureaucracy.

But asides of the sheer absence of even a modicum of statecraft in the incumbents – quite natural for a technocrat-led government of the babu, by the babu, for the babu (and one daresay, baba) – there are other equally serious problems that have brought India to such a pass. There are structural and systemic issues, political compulsions, lack of practical policy making experience and even intellectual capacity and understanding in academia (think-tanks and universities), and a serious attention deficit syndrome (not just in the media but also in the policy making and political establishment) which have also contributed to the inability of the Indian state in playing a robust role in shaping developments in the neighbourhood.

The Ministry of External Affairs is sorely underequipped and understaffed, not to mention, overburdened (actually deluged) by routine matters that the officials just don’t have the time to do long term planning and strategising. The Perspective Planning Division which was supposed to do some of this work is essentially a dumping ground for officers. Perhaps, if there was synergy between the officials and academia (think-tanks and universities) some of this could have been outsourced. But partly because official India is more bothered about protecting its turf than protecting national interest, partly because of a certain superciliousness that characterises people who manage to pass the civil services exam and partly because of the generally poor intellectual capacity and wooly headed and theoretical approach of academia which is so often completely divorced from the hard and harsh realities of international politics and power, there is practically hardly any input in policy making from outside the government. Another huge problem is the tendency both among officials and non-officials to tow the line which they think the political master wants to hear. Sycophancy is a pervasive phenomenon in the system and hence no one is ready to make a dispassionate analysis or recommendation because it might jeopardise the post-retirement prospects of the bureaucrat. Actually, the re-employment industry that has been opened by this government for never letting pliable and fawning (if also foolish and incompetent) officers retire, is to a large extent responsible for the faulty policies on the neighbourhood.

Then there is the problem of a lack of specialisation even within the government on the region. Officials are regarded as experts on a country because they happen to have served there. But most of them don’t know the local language, don’t know the sociology of the place, don’t have any idea of political complexities, and have only a perfunctory knowledge of the economy. In any case, for most officials a posting in the neighbourhood is often a fate worse than death. Like in the IAS, where a young officer thinks his life has come to an end if he is allotted a North-East cadre, many IFS officers would rather serve as irrelevant third world diplomat in Europe or America than as a relevant diplomat in the neighbourhood. But why blame only the bureaucracy. Statecraft has been reduced to the misuse and abuse of CBI to arm twist political allies and rivals. The Central Government is unable to factor in the growing influence of border states in formulation of foreign policy. While there is no constitutional requirement to consult states or even parliament on issues of foreign policy, there is a political argument in favour of doing this. This means evolving a mechanism to engage with states not only through a regular liaison with state governments but also a public outreach for explaining foreign policy imperatives. Otherwise, be ready for fiascos like the Teesta water agreement and the current uproar over the Tamil question in Sri Lanka.

The media too must share part of the blame. Quite simply, for the media the neighbourhood isn’t sexy enough to cover on a regular basis. How much column space or air time has been devoted to the incredible Shahbagh movement in Bangladesh? And would the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka have got so much coverage if it wasn’t for its repercussions on domestic politics? The media indulges in parachute journalism in the neighbourhood and there is practically no specialisation on any of the neighbouring countries. Apart from one or two newspapers, how many media outfits have bureaus in the neighbouring countries? Having a stringer isn’t quite the same thing as posting one or more correspondents in countries which have such critical bearing on India’s national security. The think-tanks are no better. Most of them are nothing more than glorified event managers, spending large sums of money in hosting generally pointless track-II meetings and seminars. But ask them to send a researcher for a couple of months to a neighbouring country, and they will balk. The Americans on the other hand encourage and finance young researchers to spend even a couple of years in the country of their interest.

If India has to pull its weight in the international community, it must first be able to use its influence in its own backyard and shape the region in way that it advances India’s interests. But for this to happen, India must first know what it wants. Then, it must forge the instruments for achieving its objectives. This will require investment – of time, money and intellect. Without this, India will not just see a whittling down of its influence, but worse, face serious destabilisation in its periphery which cannot but have a severe impact on India’s own security and stability. If however the periphery remains peripheral for the policy and opinion makers in this country, then it will only be at the cost of India’s own well-being.

Pakistan’s Lame Lawmakers’ Resolution on Kashmir a Challenge for India

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

The highly provocative, extremely offensive, and utterly reprehensible resolution passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan condemning Indian ‘state sponsored brutalities’ and demanding the handing over the body of executed terrorist Afzal Guru to his family, allowing people to freely practise their religion (this coming from a state where an open season has been declared on Shias, Hindu girls are abducted and forcibly converted and Christians are subjected to the worst sort of Islamofascism), pulling out of security forces from Kashmir and repealing all ‘black laws’ in the Indian state, release of all ‘political prisoners’, implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions, and promising political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris, has predictably enough raised the hackles in India.

While on the one hand the resolution has given an indication of the direction in which things are likely to move as far as Pakistan's export of terrorism in Kashmir is concerned, on the other hand it has exposed all the manufactured bonhomie and double-talk being indulged by the Pakistani politicians who tried to beguile Indian policy makers into believing that there was a political consensus in Pakistan in favour of normalisation of relations with India. Since around 1997, India has been sold the nonsense that neither Kashmir nor India is any longer an issue in Pakistani elections. The real reason why India and Kashmir didn’t figure as an election issue was that there was a broad based political consensus in Pakistan in favour of exporting jihad and delivering a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ to India. Since no one opposed this policy there was no gain to be made by raking this issue at the hustings.

Over the last few years, however, an impression had gained ground that the political consensus inside Pakistan in favour of export of jihad was breaking down. Not surprisingly, some political players smelled an opportunity to agitate on this issue to increase their vote bank. But the moment one player tries to exploit this issue, all others start falling over each other to swear their commitment to snatching Kashmir from India. The unanimous passage of this resolution bears out that no one in Pakistan is willing to question, much less stand up against, the Jihadist policy of the State. What this does to the policy of appeasement towards Pakistan being followed by the Manmohan Singh government and to the expressed desire of the Indian Prime Minister who had declared that he would think he had done his job well if he managed to normalise relations with Pakistan can well be imagined.

Apologists for Pakistan in India will of course argue that too much should not be read into this resolution which has been made for purely political reasons by legislators who are about to go in for fresh elections. After all, notwithstanding all the hyperbole of this National Assembly having made the ‘historic achievement’ of completing it term, the fact remains that in many ways it was an effete and powerless collection of people whose resolutions were not worth the paper they were written on because these resolutions were observed more in their violation. What is more, these ‘elected representatives’ of the people of Pakistan are perhaps the meekest and weakest part of the Pakistani state and are treated with contempt by the overbearing judiciary, meddling military and self-righteous media. And yet, this is a resolution that cannot and should not be ignored, both because it reflects the unremitting hostility towards India of the political class in Pakistan, as well as for what this resolution portends in terms of another upsurge in export of jihadi terrorism to India.

To the extent that this resolution is a mea culpa on part of the Pakistani state for its involvement in the dastardly attack on the Indian Parliament, it needs to be welcomed. Pakistan, it seems, has finally officially taken ownership of Afzal Guru and his terrorist action and accepted that he was a Pakistani agent working at the behest of his Pakistani masters to attack the Indian Parliament. The resolution is a tacit acknowledgement of Guru’s links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, one of the terrorist outfits involved in the Parliament attack. The mover of the resolution, Maulana Fazlur Rehman (better known as Maulana Diesel for his involvement in Diesel smuggling) is a Deobandi cleric who shares fraternal links with Deobandi terror groups like the JeM, Harkatul Mujahideen, Sipah-e-Sahaba, not to mention the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Rehman also happens to be the Chairman of the Kashmir Committee of the Pakistani Parliament, which is basically an organisation for providing foreign junkets to Pakistani politicians at the expense of the bankrupt government of Pakistan.

The Maulana, who also happens to be leading an effort to effect a rapprochement between the Pakistani authorities and the TTP, probably intends to use this resolution not only to cement his credentials as a dyed-in-wool jihadist who stands firm on the so-called ‘Kashmir cause’, but also to appease terror groups like TTP which have been threatening retaliation against India for the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The same Maulana had in 2001-02 issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Americans and the notoriety as well as popularity he gained catapulted him to the position of Leader of Opposition (he was actually more of a lap dog of the Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf) in the National Assembly that came into existence after the 2002 elections. The Maulana’s party, Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-F) also formed governments in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which were used to promote Talibanisation in both these provinces.

Perhaps, a similar game is once again being played by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, only this time it isn’t the US but India which is being targeted. In the process, the Maulana, who has been a frequent visitor to India where he has tried to convince his Indian interlocutors of his bonafides and his intense and sincere desire to play a role in improving Indo-Pak relations, has more or less burnt his bridges with India. He is unlikely to be welcome anymore in this country. He has only proved his detractors, who pointed to the undesirable company he kept and his links with extremist and terrorist groups, right. For the sake of playing to the gallery back home in the hope of winning some brownie points and perhaps a few extra votes, he has effectively become a persona non grata in India.

But if people like Fazlur Rehman are becoming an anathema for India, their acceptability is growing among the Americans. If anything, the Americans seem to have given a free hand to Pakistani Islamists as part of their plan to exit from the region. Just recently, the US Ambassador to Islamabad held a meeting with Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Subsequently, the US envoy told the Pakistani media that the situation in Terror Central (North Waziristan) was something that Pakistan had to sort out domestically, thereby indicating that the US was willing to turn a blind eye to a terrorist safe haven in return for Maulana Fazlur Rehman using his influence and contacts to push forward with the ‘reconciliation process’ in Afghanistan. Worse, with two utterly clueless apologists for Pakistan now at the helm of affairs at the State Department and Pentagon, the US policy on Islamist terrorism is likely to undergo a major transformation with appeasement of Pakistan and turning a blind eye to its use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy becoming the order of the day as a quid pro quo for safe passage out of Afghanistan for Western troops. The result is an emboldening of Pakistan, and its natural corollary is the political and military adventurism that is being seen on Kashmir and the recent acts of terrorism in other parts of India.

India cannot afford to let this challenge to go unanswered. Not only does India need to disabuse the Pakistanis and the Americans of the notion that they can trifle with India for their own ends, but more importantly, the political class in India, especially the Manmohanistas need to disabuse themselves of the notion that Pakistan is genuinely interested in normalisation of relations with India. Instead of formulating policy on the basis of the sweet-talk coming from Pakistani politicians who neither control any wing of the ISI nor command a single division of the Pakistan army (comprising of jihadis, some in uniform, others in mufti), India would be better served by seeing action on the ground by the Pakistanis to prove their bonafides. The unanimous resolution passed by the Lok Sabha is the first right step in this direction. This needs to be followed up by setting metrics on the basis of which Pakistan’s intentions will be judged. Equally important, India needs to stop giving the unnecessary and unwarranted importance to the mythical Pakistani civil society which is nothing more than a powerless, if also vocal, fringe group comprising around 500 (and if you want to be very charitable, 5000) people. Most of all, India needs to stop depending on the US for pulling its chestnuts out of the fire. The US will do what is in its interest and if this means sacrificing India’s interests, then so be it. India, therefore, needs to prepare itself for the coming wave of terrorism and develop capabilities to counter this scourge as well as pay back the adversary in more than equal measure.

Failing on Terror Yet Again

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

Hyderabad is bloodied again by terrorism, exposing once more our failure to marshal the political will, the legal instruments, the organizational structure and the required technical skills and manpower resources to combat this grave threat to the nation.

Admittedly, combating terrorism is extraordinarily difficult because a few individuals armed with rage, rudimentary bomb making techniques and the most ordinary means of “delivery” like tiffin boxes and bicycles can cause mayhem in crowded localities in our overpopulated and disorganized cities when they choose.

More importantly, terrorism has a vast international dimension outside not only India’s control but also of countries more powerful, resourceful and determined to fight terrorism than us. At its centre is the sense of grievance nourished in Islamic circles against the enemies of Islam and the moral legitimacy accorded by religious texts as interpreted by them to the act of killing innocent people haphazardly as redressal.

Contrast

While it would be unrealistic to expect the government to provide total protection to the public against any possible terrorist attack, the people can legitimately expect credible and comprehensive steps to secure their lives against such deadly violence, without being necessarily able to emulate the US success in this regard. The US is oceans away from the epicenter of terror; its neighbours cooperate fully to shield North America from terrorism; by drawing its frontline against terrorism thousands of miles away from its shores the US has given itself vast protective geographical depth.

India has no such cushions. Our neighbour has used terrorism as a weapon against us for almost 30 years now. Having long judged our weak response, Pakistan can fine tune the timing, periodicity and degree of its provocations to suit its political needs. It knows that deniability is important to create space for doubt about its culpability so that an immediate Indian riposte is deflected and the risk of being declared a terrorist state is avoided. For that it has raised jihadi groups to attack India, whose violence is then politically justified as being driven by the unresolved Kashmir question. As international scrutiny of its terrorist links grows, Pakistan has also outsourced terrorism to extremist groups in India by mobilizing them through pan-Islamist ideologies on the back of local grievances.

Pakistan also has a class of politicians, diplomats and members of civil society that come across as educated, modern, articulate and rational and they counter with finesse accusations that it is promoting terrorism. The rise of domestic terrorism, although an offshoot of the complicity of state organizations with jihadi groups, gives them an added argument to deny Pakistan’s terrorist affiliations.

Additionally, the rampant belief in conspiracy theories in Pakistan about the West, Israel and India conniving at slandering Islam creates a sense of victimhood, precluding self-introspection about its own failings as a society. In this narrative, Islam is the embodiment of peace and justice and terrorism is alien to it. If Islamic groups commit acts of terrorism, it is because of manipulation by hidden hands. The other defence is that either those guilty are not true Muslims, or that the entire community should not be tarnished because of the misdeeds of a few with no proper understanding of Islamic tenets. This explains the widespread belief that the 9/11 attacks against America was a Jewish conspiracy. The remarks in Delhi by Pakistan’s interior minister alleging an external hand behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks is part of this syndrome.

Pakistan

Iran and North Korea are castigated for terrorism, as was Libya earlier, even if what is attributed to them has no parallel in scale and scope to Pakistan’s involvement with such activity. Pakistan is spared the same ignominy because its relationship with the West is not one of unalloyed hostility. Its attitude to western demands, even on terrorism, is both compliant and defiant. In any case, a non-Nato US ally, receiving substantial American arms and economic assistance and geopolitically vital for extricating the US from Afghanistan, can hardly be declared a terrorist state. This western ambivalence towards Pakistan severely limits the extent to which India can bilaterally and multilaterally make Pakistan more accountable for its terrorist misdeeds. A nuclearized Pakistan makes the problem even more complex to handle.

India’s democratic system, its openness, its internal watchdogs such as the independent judiciary and the press, the accountability of the instruments of force in the hands of the executive in a constitutional system, do not allow India to use the instrument of terrorism against Pakistan as a deterrent.

Mistakes

While all these difficulties and handicaps are understandable, what is not is the absence of a coherent national strategy to combat terrorism despite repeated assaults. We have made matters worse for ourselves by diluting the centrality of terrorism in our dialogue with Pakistan; we have accorded Pakistan the status of a terrorism stricken state just like us; we have lowered the heat on Pakistan by conceding the amplitude of our problem of home grown terrorism; we have weakened our position by equating a few isolated terrorist attacks by Hindus with scores of such attacks over two decades by jihadi groups; further harm has been done by the Home Minister accusing the main opposition party of training Hindu terrorists; we have politicized the terrorism issue for electoral reasons so much that any corrective action will be interpreted with political bias; the disproportionate sympathy in sections of our intelligentsia for Afzal Guru shows the soft belly of any potential resolve to combat terrorism without quarter.

No wonder that all we can do when a terrorist attack occurs is to call it “dastardly” and vow that the “perpetrators” will not go unpunished, and repeat the same clichés when innocent Indian citizens are bloodied again by jihadi groups. 

The Politicisation of Criminal Justice

Dr M N Buch 

(Visiting Fellow, VIF)

Afzal Guru masterminded the attack on Parliament in 2001, which left nine security and parliament staff dead, with five attackers also being killed. He was arrested and tried for his crimes, sentenced to death by the Sessions Court and his conviction and sentence were upheld by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. For several years after sentencing Afzal Guru’s fate hung in the balance because his mercy petition to the President remained pending. Government obviously hesitated to take a decision lest it trigger a violent reaction in the Kashmir Valley. All sorts of excuses were trotted out for the delay, including examination of the case by the NCT of Delhi Government, Home Ministry, Law Ministry, the President and so on. In 2009, the then Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, said publicly that there were a number of such petitions in the queue and Afzal Guru would have to await his turn. Even at a railway booking office a queue moves on as tickets are issued. In the MHA booking office obviously no tickets were being issued as the clerks either slept or dithered and the queue remained static.

In India all systems are selective in operation. At Tirumala-Tirupati there is a queue of devotees, but VIPs jump the queue. In crime, too, there seems to be a similar procedure, because suddenly Ajmal Kasab came on the scene and though he was at the bottom of the queue he was made to jump it and was hung before any one else. May be because he was a foreigner, a Pakistani, a different queue was formed for him as there is for foreigners at immigration counters. But surprise of surprises, the next was Afzal Guru, who happens to be Indian despite separatist efforts by the Hurriyat and its Indian quisling supporters to change the status of Kashmir. How has this happened and how does this reconcile with Chidambaram’s averment in 2009? The Congress spokesman, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, fields all questions on this by blaming BJP (NDA) for not hanging Afzal Guru when it was in power. Perhaps he has forgotten that by the time NDA demitted power in mid-2004 the entire legal process in the Afzal Guru case had not been exhausted. In any case BJP has been consistent in its demand that the sentence be carried out, not because Afzal Guru was Muslim but because the attack on Parliament was a vile crime. In Indian law, murder is the worst offence that can be committed because it deprives a person of his life and this is irreversible. Therefore, under section 302 IPC a person who commits a murder faces only one of two sentences, death or imprisonment for life. Under section 109 IPC if a person abets an offence he would be liable to the same penalty as is provided in the main office. If the offence is of murder then the abettor is liable to the same penalty of death or imprisonment for life as the person actually commits the offence. Under section 120B IPC if a person is part of a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence and that offence is punishable with death or imprisonment for life, then the conspirator is liable to the same penalty as the main offender. Under section 34 IPC if there is a common intention to commit an offence, then every person who does a criminal act in furtherance of the common intention is liable to the same penalty as if the act was done by him alone. Afzal Guru was part of a conspiracy to attack Parliament, which amounts to an offence under sections 121 and 121A IPC. Afzal Guru was part of a conspiracy, both to commit murder and to wage war against the Government of India and joined with others in the common intention of attacking parliamentarians and murdering them. Once the offence had been proved in a fair trial there is no sentence which could be awarded to him other than death because this case went beyond the rarest of rare cases and jeopardised the governance itself. Suppose the conspiracy had been successful and several hundreds of parliamentarians had been killed would the President have had any other option but to declare a state of Emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution, thus temporarily establishing authoritarian rule in the country in order to tide over the crisis?

The seriousness of the offence is such that for BJP to demand that the sentence of death be carried out without any delay is fully justified. If anything, it is the UPA government headed by the Congress Party, which could be accused of playing politics by delaying the decision on the mercy petition of Afzal Guru. Chapters XXVII and XXVIII, Cr.P.C. give trial courts the exclusive right to deliver judgment in a criminal trial and to the High Court to confirm a death sentence There is provision of appeal, remission and review, but that is all within the judicial system. Sections 432 and 435, Cr.P.C. give the State Governments and Central Government the power to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of a person convicted of an offence. In this, however, the opinion of the presiding judge of the court which convicted the offender should be sought, which means that the right of suspension, remission or commutation of sentence given to the appropriate government by Chapter. XXXII, Part E has to be exercised judiciously. Government cannot be capricious in this behalf. In addition to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure we have Article 72 of the Constitution in which the President has the power to grant pardon and to suspend, remit or commute a sentence in certain cases. These relate to punishment awarded by a court martial, by a court in a case under a law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the Union extends and in all cases where the sentence is death. Under Article 161 the Governor of a State has similar powers in a matter to which the executive power of the State extends. Let it be clearly understood that this power, whether under the Code of Criminal Procedure or under the Constitution, would be in exercise of an executive function and not a judicial function, despite the fact that the power has to be exercised judiciously.

The scheme of the Indian Constitution clearly divides the State into three separate but equal constituents, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. Undoubtedly the Constitution also provides for the points of contact between the three organs of the State, but essentially the investigation of criminal offences is an executive function performed by the Police. The trial, conviction or acquittal which follows investigation are purely judicial functions. Chapter II, Cr.P.C. constitutes criminal courts in which under the High Court there are the courts of session and the courts of Judicial Magistrates. In addition there are the courts of Executive Magistrates. Under Chapter III, Cr. P.C. a court of session can try any class of cases and pass any sentence, including death, subject to confirmation of a death sentence by the High Court. A Judicial Magistrate, First Class can try a case and award a sentence of upto three years of imprisonment, with a Chief Judicial Magistrate or a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate having the power to pass a sentence upto seven years of imprisonment. No executive authority has the power to try cases which fall within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary. Functions exercisable by an Executive Magistrate are generally confined to administrative or executive matters, except in certain States and Union Territories in which the Act makes a special provision.

In the normal course of things it is for a judge or magistrate to decide whether the prosecution has succeeded in proving its case beyond any reasonable doubt that the accused has not been able to counter this and that on the basis of evidence the accused should be convicted and sentenced. In this the executive has no role to play and certainly the provisions of Cr.P.C. and the Constitution about remission, etc., of sentences have to be read in the context of the role of the judiciary in determining the guilt or otherwise of a person accused of a crime. I am prepared to concede, though reluctantly, that there may be some rare circumstances which could not be taken into consideration in a judicial trial but which may, at some later stage, merit an executive decision about holding a person prisoner or not, but that has to be truly rare, exceptional and based on arguments and evidence which both are irrefutable. A person convicted of a heinous offence and given the death penalty may have a commutation of sentence if, for example, government is contemplating legislation on the abolition of death penalty itself. Sometimes the relations between two sovereign States may call for reconsideration of a sentence awarded to a convicted person. Such instances, however, would be extraordinary and certainly the exercise of executive power in this behalf cannot be done in order to negate or reverse a judicial decision. Normally the decisions of the courts have to be considered as final and the executive should have nothing whatsoever to do with the quantum of punishment awarded by a court.

Neither the Code of Criminal Procedure nor the Constitution lay down any time limit for processing of a mercy petition. In fact under Chapter XXXII of Cr.P.C. the execution of a sentence is, in the case of sentence of death, the responsibility of the Court of Session which will issue a warrant of execution after all due process of law has been exhausted by the accused and the sentence is confirmed by the High Court and, if there is an appeal, by the Supreme Court. If there is levy of fine the court may issue a warrant to the Collector of the district, who will then be authorised to recover the fine as an arrear of land revenue. Under section 425 Cr.P.C. for every other sentence the warrant of execution will be issued by the judge or magistrate who passed the sentence. A convicted person may make an application under section 432 Cr.P.C. to the appropriate government for suspension or remission of sentence and the government will then by general rules or special orders deal with the matter. One presumes that a similar procedure would apply in the case of exercise the power by the President under Article 72 of the Constitution and by the Governor under Article 161.

Unfortunately at present there is no legal provision about the time limit within which any application made in this behalf may be disposed of, which is why government takes its own sweet time in deciding such matters. In the absence of general or special orders, or rules framed in this behalf, government can and does act arbitrarily in deciding such matters. This has been evidenced in the case of all those persons who face the death penalty, which has not been executed as yet. The entire process of trial is judicial and is prescribed by law. Should not a post trial power also be governed by law? Can a judicial process be reversed or adversely affected by executive action or lack thereof? These are very important questions of law and must be answered, perhaps by the Supreme Court.

The Eight Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:- “ Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fine imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted”. This means that the medieval punishments of being sawn in half, impalement, being hung, drawn and quartered or being crushed beneath the foot of an elephant cannot be given in the United States. In India Article 21 of the Constitution which guarantees life and liberty except through due process of law can also be read as the equivalent of the Eighth Amendment of the American Constitution. The Preamble of the Constitution which calls upon our republic to secure for all citizen fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual also rules out all cruel or unusual punishment. But cruelty need not be only physical, because mental cruelty can sometimes be more harsh than the purely physical. Imagine how a person sentenced to death must feel when he is awaiting execution of sentence. Every day when he wakes up he must wonder whether he will see another day and in such conditions he must die a little every day. It is unfair to keep a person hanging under the sword of execution. Let the judicial process be totally fair, as it is in India, let the courts be extremely conservative in awarding the death penalty, but once it is awarded let the process of appeal be fast and if an executive decision is for commutation or pardon, let that come within the shortest time possible after the judicial process if completed. There is no reason why it should take more than three months for the President or Governor to receive the advice of the Council of Ministers and to take a decision in the matter. If a man is to die let him die quickly, if he is to live let this be communicated quickly. It is my submission that any delay in this matter is tantamount to cruelty. If a convicted criminal has the right to dignity as an individual he should not be mentally tortured when awaiting execution.

It is alleged and widely believed that Afzal Guru’s execution was delayed partly because there was fear of reaction in the Kashmir Valley, but partly because the ruling party was playing politics on whether Afzal Guru should live or die and what should be the appropriate time for taking a decision in this behalf. There is a school of thought that till the Congress Party saw the emerging and looming shadow of a revitalised BJP, which was demanding swift justice, it did not act. Perhaps the unfortunate remarks of the Home Minister about saffron terror caused some tremors in the Congress because it feared that this could have an electoral backlash because Hindus would be annoyed at such a tactless remark. Perhaps the ruling party thought that its anti terrorism credentials were under threat and that it should show itself as a strong party by executing Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. This has only raised further questions about why the assassins of Rajiv Gandhi and of Beant Singh have not been executed. My unhappiness abut this whole episode is that Afzal Guru was a living human being and entitled to the dignity which the Preamble predicates. He did a criminal act of which he was found guilty and for which he has paid the ultimate price. The tragedy is that people feel that he was made a pawn on the chess board of politics as played by the Congress Party. No one, not even the worst of convicted criminals, can have his life depending upon what suits a party in power at a particular time. His conviction was justified, as was his death. What is not justified was the manner in which the execution was decided on, not because of his guilt but because it suited government to take action. This has left a dirty taste in one’s mouth.

India’s Compass on Terror is Faulty

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

Afzal Guru’s hanging shows the ineptness with which our political system deals with the grave problem of terrorism.The biggest challenge to our security, and indeed that of countries all over the world that are caught in the cross currents of religious extremism, is terrorism.

Traditional military threats can be assessed on the basis of the size of the armed forces, equipment and logistics available to the adversary. A militarily weak country would normally hesitate to attack a stronger one as defeat is never honourable and the price could be loss of territory. A casus belli has to be established to negate any charge of unprovoked aggression; the laws of war are applicable. The international community can intervene through the UN or otherwise against a state resorting to military aggression.

Challenge

Terrorism has a different logic. It is asymmetric warfare by non-state actors outside any law. The numbers involved are small and the targets are unsuspecting and unprepared individuals in the street, in public transport, hotels or restaurants or peaceful public spaces. Suicide bombers and car bombs can cause substantial casualties indiscriminately. Shadowy groups with leaders in hiding orchestrate these attacks. The involvement of state institutions through groups nurtured by them is on the basis of the practiced art of deniability. The international community cannot even agree on the definition of terrorism. The extraordinary challenge that terrorism poses to societies has to be dealt with exceptional levels of alertness, discipline, training of personnel, technical capacity, policing and organisational response.

India’s problem with externally supported terrorism is amongst the severest that any country faces. Our next door neighbour has been long using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Even if some countries like Libya were accused of supporting terrorism, the acts imputed to them were not so blatant, wide-spread and persistent as those of Pakistan-based terrorists against India. North Korea has been accused of sporadic terrorist acts and Iran has supposedly targetted political opponents abroad and supported terrorist groups attacking Israel, but the Israeli-Arab confrontation has no parallel with the reasons for Pakistan’s animosity towards India and North Korea and Iran have no territorial claims that they seek to advance through terrorism. Pakistan supports terrorism to destabilize India, to make governance in Kashmir as difficult as possible, to nourish separatism there, to cause a communal divide in India. It is also a consequence of the deepening Islamisation of its society.

To meet the enormity of such a threat India needs political consensus and cohesion within the country. We have, instead, political bickering and confused thinking in the civil society and sections of the media. Afzal Guru was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, his review petition was rejected by the same court and yet the government took well over 6 years to decide on his mercy petition. To claim that this delay was not political in character is being disingenuous. Because the delay was motivated by political considerations, the decision to hang him is being inevitably attributed to political calculations. Action against terrorists should not be vitiated by competition between government and the opposition for political or electoral advantage. With those responsible for killing Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh escaping hanging so far, the question of selective decisions arises. Sections of our mainstream press consider it appropriate to present Afzal Guru as a victim of the Indian judicial and political system rather than a brutal terrorist deserving condign punishment.

Travesty

The dictum “better late than never” would have provided adequate social catharsis if the delay in hanging was actually for reasons beyond government’s control. If some members of the National Advisory Council could plead with the President to save Kasab- a Pakistani who personally killed hapless, innocent Indians- from the gallows, one can imagine the resistance within the system to hang Afzal Guru. If the milk of human kindness flows within our society for terrorists like Kasab, who were actually waging a proxy war by Pakistan against us, it is hard to imagine how we can steel our will and hone our organizational responses to combat terrorism zealously.

Blunder

We have voluntarily confused the debate over Pakistan’s culpability for terrorism against us by declaring that both countries are victims of terrorism. We have damaged our case further by not resisting Pakistan’s attempts to equate the Mumbai terror attack with the attack on the Samjhauta Express. By playing up of disclosures about terrorist attacks by right wing Hindu extremists we are bracketting Pakistani abetted terrorist attacks in India and local acts of terrorism that have nothing to do with Pakistani territory. The previous Home Minister blurred the focus on externally supported terrorism by highlighting domestic religious extremism. His successor has scored a self-goal by speaking of Hindu terrorism and RSS/BJP run training camps. The External Affairs Minister, whose words have more echo outside because of his position, has endorsed the Home Minister’s accusation, no doubt adding to the confusion abroad about the ground realities.

There is no parallel between the highly deplorable but isolated terrorist activity of vengeful Hindus and the terrorist industry in Pakistan and the Islamic world sustained by oil wealth and pernicious religious thinking. There are no NGOs or Hindu preachers in India publicly advocating religious violence against Pakistan on the basis of religious texts. There is no state support for such activities. If we think our domestic jockeying for political advantage can be insulated from the external dimension of the terrorist threat facing us, we are committing a costly error. We let the Kashmiri separatists, who are de facto political accomplices of the terrorists, travel to Pakistan to meet even the Army and ISI chiefs there without reaction. Our compass on terrorism is faulty.

The Police, Too, Have a Case: Need for Police Reforms

Dr M N Buch 

(Visiting Fellow, VIF)

Coming from the pen of a retired IAS officer this paper may appear to be a little strange, but as a young officer in the districts I have interacted with the police in happy times and in times of stress. I have witnessed the strength and the weakness of the police, observed its shortcomings, but also experienced the difficult duty of a policeman, his loneliness, his devotion and his willingness to take even those risks which endanger his life. Therefore, despite all the salvoes of abuse that a police man has to face from so-called civil society, I thought it deem and proper to try and present a policeman’s perspective also --- just to set the record right.

Do we need the police? That question was answered for me about 53 years ago when I was a young Assistant Collector in Morena, then the very epicenter of dacoity in India. This was the land of Man Singh, Lakhan, Rupa, Gabbar, Amritlal and Putli, all dacoits of ill-famous renown or notoriety. There is a remote police station at Birpur (now in Sheopour District) which formed the constant focus of complaints by the local MLA, one Nawal Kishore. Every complaint had been inquired into, including through a magisterial enquiry conducted by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and all had been found to be exaggerated, false or worse.

The MLA obviously wanted to dominate the police and the complaints continued. One morning E.B. Reinboth, the D.C. and D. M., who was my boss, told me to sit in his jeep and we drove off for Birpur, about 180 kms from the district headquarter. On reaching Birpur Police Station, he sent for the MLA, who again launched into a tirade against the Station Officer. Hearing him out Reinboth told the Inspector, “Thanedar Saheb, it is obvious that you and your men are not welcome in Birpur. Therefore, I am ordering the police station to be closed. You and your men should pack your things and report to the Police Lines in Morena. Meanwhile, you should announce by beat of drum in all the villages in your jurisdiction that the D. M. has closed the police station and now Birpur will have no police presence. When it sank into the MLA that Reinboth was really serious, he said that this was an open invitation for dacoits to pour in to Birpur because there would be no police presence there. He then virtually fell at Reinboth’s feet and begged him not to shut the police station. The drama ended only when Nawal Kishore promised never again to make false complaints. But for me the lesson become indelibly printed in my mind --- civilised society needs the police. The question is does society realise this?

The recent rape and murder of a 23 year old girl in a bus in Delhi has, very rightly, aroused anger, focused attention on the fate of women, on sexual offences and the feeling of insecurity in our towns and villages and the extreme callousness of large sections of society towards women and disregard for their dignity. Sexual crime is symptomatic of a deep rooted malaise, of disregard of law and the rapid growth of a feeling that we can do what ever we want, free of both a sense of guilt at wrongdoing or fear of dire consequences for misdemeanor and worse. Where sin does not invite retribution how does one build a society of laws? Anger has spilt on to the streets and government has been forced to take action. Whether the anger will last and action will be sustained remains to be seen.

Almost coterminous with the rape case was the ambushing of a routine army patrol on the LoC in the Mendhar sector of J and K and the killing of two jawans by Pakistani troops. The body of one soldier was mutilated and one corpse was beheaded and the head taken away in an act of barbarity which one could attribute to Genghis Khan’s Mongols, but not a 21st century army which accepts the Geneva Convention. Naturally the nation was outraged and up in arms to an extent that it would have supported government if it decided to go to war on this issue. Even the usually reticent Manmohan Singh gave a strong message to Pakistan and we put further confidence building measures on hold. One felt happy that India stood behind its soldiers. Even activists from so called civil society, except for a few who have always put India in the dock and have advocated abject surrender by us on all issues, expressed their horror.

However, one did note four discordant notes. When Parliament was attacked by terrorists and nine persons, including five policemen, were killed in defence of parliament, the accused who masterminded the attack were arrested, tried and sentenced. Afzal Guru, the ringleader, was awarded the death penalty, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. Activists led by Arundhati Roy mounted a campaign to save Afzal Guru and he has not been executed to date. This shrill campaign on behalf of a convicted terrorist had not one word of remorse, neither condolence, nor sympathy, nor compassion for the policemen who died defending parliament or for their widows and children. 76 CRPF men were killed in Bastar in a single ambush by Naxalites. Did civil society activists sympathise with the victims? One of them had the nerve to tell me that policemen should know that when they join the police they are inviting death. It is only because the gentleman was a guest in my house that I refrained from strangling him.

No act of barbarity is acceptable and one against a soldier doubly so. But what about the recent killings of 11 C.R.P.F jawans in Latehar District of Jharkhand? Their bodies were booby trapped and when the relief force picked up one it exploded, injuring many jawans. In one case the stomach of a corpse was cut open, stuffed with explosives and re-stitched. The body was sent for post mortem examination and but for the alertness of a doctor who noticed the tampering of the body and notified the police the body would have exploded in hospital and more people would have been killed or wounded. Is what the Naxalites did to bodies of the slain policemen not an act of vandalism and barbarism at par with what the Pakistanis did to the jawans murdered near the LoC? But our civil society members did not bat an eyelid and they certainly did not utter a word of sympathy.

The fourth incident besides the three cases stated above is of the brutal murder of two policemen deputed for the security of the Collector of Sukma when he was abducted by Naxalites. One was a Muslim and the other a tribal. I am sure they must have had families and loved ones who must have survived on the wages of these two men. Do they not bleed when they are cut, feel the cold in the winter and heat in the summer? Are they not human? My stomach turns with revulsion at the utter callousness of our activists, who look on the policemen as Untermenschen, or lesser beings.

Why is the police looked upon this way? I have already given an example of how much people really need the police for their own protection from anti-social elements. Therefore, the police must introspect on why so many people are either indifferent to the police or positively dislike it. There is a general perception that a police station is an unfriendly place, policemen are rude and corrupt and that they torture people. Starting with the negatives, I agree that many police stations are best avoided. Let me give a personal example from 1979, when I was head of the Delhi Development Authority and was, therefore, a man of some consequence and authority in Delhi. On an evening walk near Tuglakh Road Police Station I found a person lying in a gutter. Not knowing the state of the person I walked into the Police Station and went to the desk of the Head Constable Moharrir, or station writer. I reported the matter to him and requested him to send someone to find out if the man was dead, drunk or otherwise incapacitated and to render necessary aid. The policemen’s reply was, “Tu ney mara hoga” (You must have hit him.) I was furious at this and shouted at the man.

Hearing the commotion the Station Officer came out to see what was happening and, recognizing me, asked how he could help. I narrated the Head Constable Moharrir’s behaviour and told the Inspector that if this is how his officers behaved how he could ever expect people to help the police. Of course, the Station Officer was apologetic, sent a constable to look at the man in the gutter, who reported that he was a drunkard and that the police would look after him. The fact remains that not only are Police Stations places to be avoided, but also that there is a command failure because senior officers do not educate their subordinates about how they should behave with citizens. More on this later.

The cutting edge level of the police is the police station. Under Chapter XII Cr.P.C. the entire scheme of investigation of offences centers around the police station. The Station Officer is the most visible symbol of the police, which is why the Thanedar, or Station Officer, is so feared, especially by wrong doers. The Thanedar is the backbone of the Police, just as the Tehsildar is of general and revenue administration. One example will illustrate the point. The place of landing of the ten Pakistani terrorists who held Bombay to ransom in 2008 was in the jurisdiction of the Colaba Police Station. The terrorists were sighted by a fisherman, but being unchallenged they dispersed to their designated destinations, resulting in 166 deaths and several hundreds of injuries. Had the Colaba Police Station been adequately manned, trained and equipped with transport and communication facilities, with proper modern weapons and a proper beat system, the terrorists would probably have been seen and questioned by the beat constable. Sensing something suspicious he would have called up the police station which, if it had responded swiftly, could have brought the terrorists to encounter at or near the place of landing. The history of 26.11.2008 would then have been different. Our neglect of Colaba Police Station, of all police stations throughout India, cost us dear then and costs us even more now. It is only Andhra Pradesh which fortified its police stations in Naxalite areas, which is why a successful attack on a police station there is a rarity and Naxalism has been brought under control.

Behaviour apart, the Police has to face a really critical shortage of manpower. Even against existing vacancies there are approximately 4.5 lakh posts which have to be filled. Internationally, perhaps the standard strength of the police is approximately one policeman for 160 people. Delhi is the only city in India which has an approximate strength of one policeman for 168 people. In Madhya Pradesh the proportion is approximately one policeman for 834 citizens. The total strength of the Madhya Pradesh Police is about 89,000 whereas if we were to aim at one policeman for every 250 citizens the State would need a Force of approximately three lakh policemen. The cities of Indore and Bhopal should have police strength of 8,000 each, whereas there are just about 3,000 personnel per city. The position in most States is that the Police Force just does not have the numbers to provide for adequate policing. Rural India, by and large, is still peaceful, which is why in a State such as Madhya Pradesh a police station can look after approximately 100 villages with a standard strength of one Station Officer, two Head Constables and twelve Constables. Nevertheless, whether it be a city, a town, a cluster of villages, there is hardly any police presence. Without an adequate force the district head of police cannot organise proper beat patrols, manage traffic, have men posted to sensitive or critical locations and patrol the public transport system with sufficient manpower in order to deter crime.

The question is not that rapes, dacoities and murders take place. The question really is why the number of heinous crime is still manageable despite the fact that there is inadequate police presence. I can think of two reasons, the first of which is that by and large we are a law abiding nation. The second, equally important reason is that our police is a great deal more efficient than civil society credits it to be. To quote just one case, in 1963 when I was D.M. Betul, a lad of about nineteen years made some indecent advances at a teenaged girl, who was the daughter of a leading local advocate, as she was returning home from school. A passing Constable immediately caught him and brought him to the police station. The Station Officer, a wise experienced officer, saw to it that the challan was put up within twenty-four hours and the Magistrate remanded the man to judicial custody. Three days later, without any provocation, a local trouble maker tried to foment an agitation in which he roped in the students of a college. The Superintendent of Police and I were sitting in my house having a cup of tea when we heard that there was trouble in the bazaar and shop keepers were downing their shutters. We immediately rushed to the site and what we saw greatly reassured us. There was a menacing crowd of about 300 people being confronted by a single unarmed Head Constable. He warned the crowd to stay put and angrily told the ring leaders that if they advanced one more step he personally would break their heads. No one dared to advance because this single jawan, confident in his moral and legal authority, stood like a rock.

Today the position is that we have systematically engendered disobedience of laws, contempt for laws and constant disempowerment of the forces of law and order. In section 188 of the Model Police Bill drafted by the Soli Sorabji Committee the following words have been used, “The State Government shall take effective steps to ensure that the average hours of duty of a police officer do not normally exceed eight hours a day provided that in exceptional situations the duty hours of a police officer may extend upto twelve hours or beyond. In such cases adequate compensation and facilities shall be provided to the police personnel”. What is the ground reality? In 1978 there was an unusually heavy monsoon in Delhi and there was fear that there would be large scale flooding. I was head of DDA and the Lieutenant Governor asked me to take charge of large parts of Delhi, especially East Delhi. Near the DDA headquarters (then at Vikas Minar) a Constable stood on duty at the crossroads from where one moved towards the IP Bridge. The Constable stopped my vehicle and requested information about the flood situation in Kingsway Camp Police Lines where his family lived. He told me that he had been continuously on duty for forty-eight hours, without food and in the wet clothes that he wore and he was completely out of touch with his family. I told my own security personnel to take the man to my office, let him have a shower, give him change of clothing and feed him, whilst deputing one of the policemen with the DDA to take over the man’s duty. His officers had not bothered about him and I told the Police Commissioner the story later on. However, this dedicated officer stood at his post regardless of the fact that he had neither eaten nor had news of his family. That is a picture of a policeman that the activists refuse to see or acknowledge.

If the police force is woefully short of requirements policemen will have to work long hours. On law and order duty when men have to stand around virtually waiting for something to happen they are bound to become tired, hungry and irritated. Rameshwar Nikhra, a Member of Parliament who had been Chairman of the State Bar Council, once told me that as a student leader in Jabalpur he frequently led student agitations, to control which the police was deployed. On one occasion when the students became violent the police had to use force to disperse them. One of the lathi wielding policemen was laying about him with gusto, shouting, “Because of you I have been standing here, thirsty and hungry, for the last three days. Now let me teach you a lesson”. Nikhra said that at that time he was naturally upset with the police, but on introspection he realised that the policeman had a point. I state this story not because I appreciate or condone brutality by the police, but we would be foolish to overlook the stress and tension under which our policemen operate. Society does nothing to make life easier for a policeman. The Soli Sorabji Committee has recommended that a police station should be neat and clean, with a comfortable room for visitors. There should be separate toilets for men and women, a women and child protection desk, separation of normal police duties and investigation of crimes. All this is possible only if the police strength is sufficient to deploy the manpower for performing all these separate functions. The fact is that adequate manpower is not available and, therefore, the average policeman, especially below the gazetted ranks, will always be under immense pressure and will have to function in an environment in which he will never have adequate facilities. Till this is remedied the police will not function in the manner in which a good police force does.

I stated earlier that there is a command failure. When the Central Reserve Police mutinied some years ago one officer of the rank of DIG from the Madhya Pradesh Cadre tried to reason with the men at Neemuch, where the Force was created by the British. The men told him that they personally respected him but requested him to step aside because they said that he could not in any way help the men and, therefore, they had decided that they would confront government. In other words, the men have lost their faith in their officers and this can only happen when there is failure of command. There are many reasons why this has happened, the first of which is that in appointment of the State DGP every Chief Minister opts for a pliable officer rather than an efficient one. Obviously a pliable officer will take orders from politicians even in matters where under law he is the only person who has the mandate. For example, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, in the matter of investigation it is only the Police who have the authority, which has to be exercised under judicial supervision. The Executive has absolutely no authority in this behalf, but whether it is Delhi Special Police Establishment (CBI) or the State Police it is a well known fact that investigation is definitely influenced by politics and politicians. If the DG Police will not resist how can the investigating officer at police station level show independence? In fact in all departments of government there is the ever increasing malaise of officers operating not according to law but according to whims of politicians. A law is framed by the Legislature and every person involved with implementation of law has a legal mandate. Despite this in the current political scenario officers take orders, including illegal ones, from politicians without pointing out to them why a particular thing cannot be done in law. Our answer to political interference is the setting up of committees and framing of Model Police Acts. For example, the model law drafted by the Soli Sorabji Committee, in section 6 speaks of the selection of the Director General of Police from three senior most officers empanelled by the State Police Board, with the DG being given a minimum tenure of two years. Let us compare this with how Vice Chancellors of universities are selected. In Madhya Pradesh (this system prevails throughout the country) the Vice Chancellor is selected from a panel of two or three persons whom a high powered search committee has identified and recommended. The Search Committee consists of a representative each of the Chancellor, the Executive Council of the University and the University Grants Commission, all three completely different and independent authorities. Despite this some of the worst persons one can think of are empanelled as Vice Chancellors, are appointed as such and have a tenure of four to five years. At least in Madhya Pradesh some of the worst scoundrels have been appointed as Vice Chancellors. That does not mean that we should not introduce complete honesty in the selection of the DG Police, but till we take drastic steps to rid the All India Services of deadwood and dishonest officers we shall not have the best people being promoted to head the police.

One major cause of breakdown of command is the almost total disempowerment of senior police officers by the politicians. In any organisation, but especially in a uniformed service, the hierarchical structure has to be clearly defined and the disciplinary authorities have to be given sufficient power to maintain discipline. Now even in the matter of postings and transfers even the D.Gs.P. have been left at the mercy of politicians. In Madhya Pradesh Arjun Singh centralised all transfers and Digvijay Singh gave all powers of transfer of even the lowliest functionary to the Minister in charge of a district. In all departments, particularly in the police, officers suddenly found that they had lost control over their subordinates. When policemen found that the S.P. and other superior officers could no longer shift them, even on compassionate grounds, they naturally sought political patronage and this absolutely destroyed the command hierarchy. Under these circumstances, there was bound to be a command failure and this has put paid to effective policing. It is in the interest of the police, of people at large and of the nation that senior officers are once again empowered, command restored to them and then they are held accountable for effective, honest, citizen friendly policing.

We have to find a way of creating more K.F. Rustomjis and totally eliminate the Rathores of Haryana ill-fame from the Service. In this behalf I would strongly suggest to the IPS Association, Central and in each State, to understand that they are one of the three foremost Services in India and that no one has a greater responsibility than they themselves to cleanse their ranks of the corrupt, the inefficient and those who use flattery to promote themselves.

A person who has achieved a level of command has the onerous task of actually commanding. A Superintendent of Police who takes a bribe from his Sub Inspectors cannot be expected to either lead the Force or to motivate it to truly serve the citizens. An IG or DGP who has achieved the rank through political manoeuvring can neither expect the respect of his Force nor can he command and guide the Force to serve the people. That makes it all the more important that the Force should cleanse itself at its own initiative.

Unlike the so-called civil society I like policemen and I admire the fact that they perform very difficult tasks under daunting circumstances and are the guardians of the security of the nation. There are more Ombleys in the Police than civil society gives credit for. Let us honour the policemen who dedicate their lives to our security. Let us not constantly attack the police as being anti people, but let us try and understand why the police image has taken such a beating. It is the duty of society to create an environment in which the police can do its duty. Once that happens I am for hanging rogue policemen, but I am not prepared to collectively call the Police rogues.