The Mumbai Police force is once again in the dock. At a time when it was seriously believed that the force had recovered from all the adverse publicity it had suffered during and after the 26/11 attacks on the city, and greatly benefited from the generous assistance extended to it by the Union Home Ministry (MHA), the terrorist struck once again and exposed the chinks in its armour. An external agency like the MHA can do only so much. The rest of the exercise — upgrading skills and thereby performance during a crisis —can come only from within a police organisation. Political interference or sloth cannot explain all the faults of a modern force. There are areas in which it is still possible to overcome such handicaps, with the focus kept seriously on professionalism.
The crux of the problem is one of leadership. The force has had no external mentor or father figure — with the possible exception of Julio F. Ribeiro who had the much-needed clout and sufficient stakes to work hard to bring about a qualitative improvement to policing. This is a problem at a time when more strikes on Mumbai may seem easy enough even to a moderately competent militant group from across the seas.
Image hit
Even the greatest admirer of the Mumbai Police will admit that the force has not shown itself in good light by allowing the terrorist a free rein within just three years of the earlier foray that caused the greatest possible damage to the city's image as the financial capital of a country, whose economy is galloping. While there was a clinical post-mortem in the form of the Pradhan Committee report soon after 26/11, the politics in policing that has engulfed Maharashtra prevented a strict implementation of its recommendations. Ram Pradhan, and also V. Balachandran, the other member of the committee, went public, at separate points of time, to express their anguish over the outcome of their labours.
This is where the troubles of the Mumbai Police begin. The Maharashtra government's refusal to divulge portions of the report confirmed that transparency and police reform in the State were poles apart. How can you improve your performance if you are not willing to introspect and admit your mistakes?
I have been following the fortunes of the Mumbai Police since the 1960s. I had always admired the quality of its leadership and the freedom that police officers enjoyed in running the department, in the city and across the whole State. Many of the officers, competent and refreshingly honest, made a significant contribution to professionalising the force. They had varying degrees of success, but all of them did their work with the same zeal and seriousness of purpose. From all accounts, whatever they did was set at naught by a few of their successors. The perception of the public, and of some civil servants who retired from service during the past decade or so, is that there has of late been a decline in the calibre of the men and women chosen to populate the higher echelons of the force. The reasons for making some rank bad choices are many, including the need to placate regional interests.
Equipment purchases
Reports over the past few days speak of a failure on the part of the State government to place equipment whose purchase was approved at the disposal of the Mumbai Police. This is mentioned particularly with respect to the installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) systems. I am told that about a thousand of them had been sanctioned but not bought and installed. If red tape and vested interests are responsible, there is a need to get over them and quickly fill the lacunae. CCTV systems by themselves may not end terrorism totally. They could, however, inject sufficient deterrence into a system that has been devastated by negligence and indifference. Many of the mechanised patrol boats are said to be non-functional because the required technical personnel are yet to be recruited. If such a charge is true, there is something radically wrong with the whole exercise that was launched in the aftermath of 26/11.
In the ultimate analysis, however, a systemic change is far more important in the circumstances under which the Mumbai Police finds itself. Unfortunately, however, such a change demands an unprecedented level of political will to place the Mumbai Police under the greater supervision of the Union Home Ministry. Actually, in the context of the overall decline of the city in the past few years, there is a case to depoliticise its administration by making the whole city a Union Territory. This is the only way you can make it a world-class city, a status it once aspired for, and which is still achievable given some political sagacity. A world-class city requires professional policing devoid of the shortcomings that currently weigh down the Mumbai Police. I know what I am pleading for is unrealistic, given the deep morass which the Indian administration has generally got into. If I still venture to air such views, it is in the hope that there is somebody in the ruling class who is willing to listen and provide the much needed ignition to usher in a revolutionary change.
Of Kolkata and Chennai
One final thought. Kolkata and Chennai are two cities that have till now been spared by the terrorists. But I do not know for how long. The new Tamil Nadu government should take note of the problems that dog and damage a premier police force that Mumbai once was. The Chennai Police, with all its faults, still manages to present itself well even during acutely difficult times. It is difficult to speculate whether this is due to the spirit of the Chennai citizenry, or the fundamental strengths of the force.
There is no room, however, for complacence. It will be for the government to take due care to ensure that Chennai is not allowed to slip into a state of disarray, enabling the terrorist to easily accomplish his diabolical plans. This is only possible by keeping the street-level politician at bay and not allowing him to dictate terms to the policeman in the field. Police stations should be out-of-bounds for petty partymen seeking petty favours. The Director General of Police and the Commissioner of Police should be allowed to function with a lot of autonomy. They should know that they will be supported wholeheartedly for all their bona fide professional decisions, even if some of them turn out to be mistakes.
If Chennai and Kolkata also go the Mumbai way, that would be utterly harmful to a country that aspires to edge China out of the reckoning in major spheres of human activity.
(The writer is a former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation.)
