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In April 1993, a young black man was stabbed to death on the streets of London. By 1998, the British government formed a public inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, headed by a retired High Court Judge, Sir William Macpherson. The subsequent review of a range of policy and operational elements of the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard) led to the sweeping reforms of the organisation, bringing it up to speed with modern-day policing challenges. A few days ago, the British yet again undertook a much larger review of all law-enforcement agencies considering the deaths of 39 illegal immigrants in the back of a truck.
A review is an urgent requirement — if not on a regular basis, certainly in the aftermath of major events. It is not just for dramatic incidents, reviews of HR policies, tendering processes, mostly very mundane practices, are carried out to ensure they are up to date and legally watertight. The purpose of a review is not to apportion blame; it is to reform policies and practices. In many instances, leaders who have been subjected to review often emerge as heroes that championed reform by adopting the recommendations of the review. Such reviews are rare in ‘Naya Bharat’.
A few major events of the past year or so offer plenty of scope for review. From the Pulwama and Pathankot attacks, the annual Mumbai flooding debacle, bridge collapses in Kolkata, to children dying in borewells, the latter despite both State- and national-level disaster management personnel being on scene. All these incidents require deep introspection to identify procedural faults so that we may improve as a nation. Why did it take the Indian Army four hours to travel the four kilometres from Fort William to Posta when the flyover collapsed? It certainly was not traffic; it was red tape between Delhi and Kolkata. Why were repeated requests for air transport ignored by the Home Ministry, leading to the deaths in Pulwama? Why are Kolkata’s streets washed away every monsoon, then repaired, only to be washed away again the following year? Why are so many elephants killed every year by trains in the Dooars? Why can’t any Kolkata Police Commissioner compel bus and autorickshaw drivers to behave themselves?
The Grenfell fire in the summer of 2017 led to 72 deaths. A review ordered by then Prime Minister Theresa May released its findings over the last week. One of the key findings of the report was the lack of high-rise firefighting equipment available to the London Fire Brigade, a gap which the government will now close. Living on the 40 th floor of a 45-storey building in Kolkata, the only option for me is to take sanctuary in a fire refuge until the fire extinguishes itself as the Kolkata Fire services have no equipment to reach me. A review is needed here to close the gap, pun not intended, between those of us in high-rise buildings — the number of which are increasing — and the capability of our emergency services to rescue us.
If we are to keep pace with an ever-changing and ever-modernising new world, we need greater thought put into every aspect of our lives, and that thought needs to be probing, proactive and strategic in nature.
There is a distinction between a ‘Judicial Review’ and an ordinary review. The former will include scooping for legislative changes and is headed by a member of the judiciary, retired or serving. The latter need not be so wide-ranging, perhaps just policy and operational matters, as is being carried out by the previous Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Craig Mackey, who has been charged with looking at all policing services in the UK, as well as interlinked units such as the National Crime Agency (the UK’s version of the FBI). Mackey will, most likely, suggest both organisational, funding and structural reforms, and he might even branch into legislative, which would then be taken up by a Judicial Review, if there were enough material for it.
With incidents of trapped miners, children in borewells and major natural disasters such as flooding increasing due to population increases and climate changes, India would do well to reflect on our state of readiness for such events. Appointing a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ IAS or IPS officer with a Geography degree as head of a counter-terrorism or disaster-management unit is not prudent or sustainable. It adds little value to an organisation if babus are satisfied with simply displaying a plaque on their office wall certifying that they have been on a ‘foreign’ course (usually to Israel) to bolster their credentials. Kolkata is questioning just about every bridge and flyover in the city, with frantic repairs and debilitating shutdowns with IIT professors hovering, whereas nobody is asking what is procedurally wrong with either the design, tender or even the construction policy.
We Indians are world-famous for our ‘ juggad ’ or makeshift approach to problem-solving. We need to understand how to solve a problem before it becomes one, so that applying band-aid fixes when something goes wrong is not all we are capable of. If we are to keep pace with an ever-changing and ever-modernising new world, we need greater thought put into every aspect of our lives, and that thought needs to be probing, proactive and strategic in nature.
