No public system in India has perhaps been so critically discussed and evaluated as the Police. It is true we do not have the ideal policeman; someone akin or somewhat close to the fabled London Bobby. But we certainly have a large number of uniformed guardians of peace who have done us proud, like the martyrs of 26/11 who saved so many lives in the financial capital of the country. Also those who held their own and successfully foiled the terrorists who tried to barge into the sanctum sanctorum of our democracy, the Union Parliament, on December 13, 2001. There are many more unsung and unwept policemen, such as those in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand who lost their lives fighting the Maoists. We also have numerous instances where policemen had teamed up with the Army to organize commendable relief work for those hit by natural calamities in different parts of the country.
The point I am labouring here is that our police forces are not all that inefficient or unprofessional as the media sometimes makes them out to be. They are basically a mixed bag of both good and bad apples, a majority of whom rise to the occasion when needed. This is the message that a serious reader gleans from the clinically written memoirs of C.V.Narasimhan (CVN) which was released recently.
A distinguished policeman, who retired three decades ago after 35 years of fruitful service to government and the community, CVN was under pressure for quite some time from his family and admirers like me to put out down his reflections on his career. The self-effacing and traditional policeman that he was, CVN was averse to the idea of trumpeting his achievements. After years of resistance I am happy that he has at last chosen to chronicle his days in the police, that too in a tone so typical of him; objective, dignified and subdued.
After a brilliant academic career — first class first in Mathematics Honours from the Loyola College, Madras — CVN had the distinction of standing first among those recruited to join the first batch of the newly created Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1948. He never looked back and topped every activity of policing the country in the multitude of assignments given to him. He held charge of several Districts in the then Madras State. The toughest of them was Ramnad, a hot bed of crime and caste conflict. CVN handled the situation there adroitly and laid the foundation for what was to be a life-long reputation for objective policing. No surprise that the CBI (then known as the Special Police Establishment) picked him up early in his career for onerous assignments. His performance in the CBI further enhanced his image as an uncompromising fighter against public servant corruption.
After being Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry (MHA) — a position normally not given to an IPS officer in the 1970s — at a difficult time, viz., the Emergency (1975-76), CVN was soon the natural choice to head the CBI. This unfortunately proved to be a brief interlude. It was cut short by circumstances other than professional.
Some of us alone know why CVN was shifted from the CBI abruptly — he does not put this down — even before he had completed a year. This was sequel to happenings surrounding the arrest (October 1977) of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by the CBI in connection with the purchase and supply of jeeps by a private company for her electioneering. When she was produced before a Delhi Magistrate — after overnight detention at the Kingsway Police Camp — Ms.Gandhi was released unconditionally by the Magistrate, presumably because the CBI had not specifically demanded that she be remanded in custody and it had only sought Court orders on such custody. According to CVN, Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s earlier direction to CBI was that Ms.Gandhi be arrested only if she declined to go out on bail. Thus, CBI specifically seeking her custody, after producing her before the Magistrate would have been contrary to government directions. The Magistrate’s order releasing Indira Gandhi was undeniably an act of nitpicking on technicalities by the lower judiciary that was most unwarranted. In all this the victim was CVN, because the then Home Minister Chaudhry Charan Singh was not exactly pleased at the former PM’s release. He had earlier been determined to see that she was jailed at least for a while, and the court outcome infuriated him.
Exit from the CBI was a loss not merely of CVN. It was that of the CBI as well, because the organisation had so much to gain from a leader with the vision and zeal for putting anti-corruption work on firm footing at the national level. This was something which CVN was to accomplish later in Tamil Nadu as the head of the Vigilance Directorate, a position from which he retired in 1983. He gave vigilance work the much needed professionalism and structure.
CVN should normally have been bitter after the event that cost him the coveted leadership of the CBI. His current reflections do not however betray a trace of it. Many others as much wronged as CVN have not been so magnanimous while penning their memoirs. CVN is actually graceful in acknowledging the finer qualities of Charan Singh. (“I have not seen any politician more sincerely and fully committed to anti-corruption work.”)
CVN’s final innings at the Centre was the most meaningful phase of his career. This was as Member-Secretary of the National Police Commission (NPC) headed by former Cabinet Secretary Dharam Vira, an outstanding civil servant. It is people like me who have used the eight volumes of the NPC Report as a Bible would know how praiseworthy were his labours in documenting procedures that should regulate police investigation and public order maintenance. CVN spent his time at the NPC giving a matchless sense of direction to much needed police reforms. It is however a matter for lament that the NPC recommendations got bogged down in crass party politics. The NPC was a creation of the Janata government elected to office in 1977. It became an ‘untouchable’ at the hands of Ms. Gandhi when she came back to power in 1980. The Congress government however claimed that the NPC recommendations were not spurned or jettisoned and were only being fine tuned. This clever stance was purely for public consumption. It was nothing but mere posturing and lip service to a vital cause. It did not also hoodwink many in the police and society who wanted major reforms in the police but were sore that the NPC recommendations had become an exercise in futility.
The really interesting parts of the book relate to CVN’s perceptions of how former Chief Ministers Rajaji and Kamaraj made police professionalism possible while reacting to difficult situations. Rajaji comes in for praise for the firmness with which he put down the unfortunate strike by sections of the Constabulary in Madras City Police in early 1953. Kamaraj’s extraordinary common sense, his empathy with the common man and his dislike of cronyism all come out vividly in the chapter devoted exclusively to him. CVN fondly recalls how Kamaraj had a word of praise for the police whenever the latter did good work under trying circumstances.
In sum, what we have on hand is an account of a life lived well, one based on values that current and future generations may not fully comprehend. CVN stood for objective and non-partisan policing, something that has sadly become a rare commodity these days. This memoirs should be read by police officers at all levels — if need be by translating it into regional languages — so that a majority of policemen in India understand that policing is too sacred a profession to be frittered away and permitted to be tinkered with by street-level politicians for whom the police are only a tool to subjugate and humiliate their political adversaries.
