The Hindu Business Line : Chidambaram's signal service

"It is a matter of deep regret that many police officers have been reduced to a football, to be kicked here and there, from one post to another, without regard to the damage done to the job as well as the officer.Is it not your duty, as the head of the state police, to raise your voice not only on behalf of your officers but also on behalf of the people that you are duty bound to protect? As one famous judge said, `When there is a duty to speak, silence is culpable'."

- Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, addressing a meet of police chiefs.

Dear Home Minister:

Bravo, Sir! Not a day too soon! Your clarion call becomes all the more poignant when read with the following lines of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat: "The ball no question makes of `ayes' and `noes', But right or left, as strikes the player goes; But He who tossed thee down into the field, He knows about it all, He knows, He knows!" Read Chief Minister of any State (who is usually in charge of the police) for `He' with a capital H!

Your tongue-lashing to State governments was, in fact, long overdue. You have done a signal service in springing to the help of the police. The practice of playing football not only with police officers, but government officials in general is rampant in all the States and needs to be curbed. It is particularly pernicious in the case of police officers because the harm they can do, and have done, by being in cahoots with self-serving politicians is incalculable. Your exhortation, however, Sir, that they should `raise their voice' to protest against whimsical transfers and postings and your warning to hold them `culpable' if they fail to do so, is a bit much. Police officers find themselves hemmed in by the ingrained culture of instant obedience with clicked heels to the merest wishes of departmental and political bosses.

Hence, safeguards against the ruling political class using the police for self-aggrandisement or furthering party interests have to be institutionalised. It is the culpability of silence of the Home Ministry in not addressing this issue effectively that has been responsible for the rot that has set in everywhere in the functioning of the police.

SPECIAL ANTI-CORRUPTION BUREAU

The solution is to set up Security Commissions and Establishment Boards which the National Police Commission strongly recommended as early as in 1979. The former will insulate the investigative and prosecuting agencies from any kind of political interference, and the latter will take away the powers of determining career prospects of officers from Ministers. You are in a much more unassailable position than police officers to thump the table and tell the State governments to put those mechanisms in place without any further delay.

You have to be vigilant on one thing, though. The choice of members of those Commissions and Boards is of crucial importance. Wily powers-that-be will lose no time in packing them with pliant and venal cronies and stooges. It is for you to make sure that persons selected are known for their eminence, experience of public affairs, knowledge of working of governments and integrity. In all surveys, police is close to the top in corruption. Side by side with these reforms, there is vital need for setting up a special central bureau for prevention of corruption in police composed of investigative and prosecuting personnel brought in from outside the police to undertake a vigorous drive all the year round, especially focusing on senior levels.

With high regards:

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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