DGPs from all over the country have currently gathered for an annual conference in Gwalior, and significantly, the PM would be participating.
Despite the importance given, significant police reforms hasn’t caught up.
What is needed?
There are about 24,000 police stations and outposts across the country, and the total strength of the state police forces is nearly 2.26 million.
Manpower and infrastructure shortages and lack of functional autonomy are the major challenges, and calculated structural changes are needed.
The force needs to modernize and become accommodative of the democratic aspirations of the people.
The country’s democratic structure and economic progress is largely reliant on neutrality and efficiency of the police forces, which needs to be preserved.
What is the current situation?
After Supreme Court’s directives, union government piloted the draft of a “Model Police Act” for reforming the force in 2006, but it was never legislated.
While more than a decade has passed and SC’s monitoing of the case has cooled off, the states continue to drag their feet in this issue.
Due to the absence of a model law, most states issued directives that ensured status quo in violation of the spririt of Supreme Court’s 2006 directives.
This result is utter confusion at the ground level as most state governments had issued executive orders and passed laws that weren’t very different.
Resultantly, the internal security situation continues to be grim and the police performance leaves are also very low.
While the current PM has been regularly engaging with police leaders, initiatives to reform the colonial police structure has been lacking.
Notably, steps that are absolutely essential to strengthen the security apparatus are not being taken and only cosmetic improvements are made.
How has the recognition for policing been?
Despite constrains, police forces had significant succeeses in the past.
Notable among them is the crushing of multiple insurgencies on Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura and the Terai regions.
While police duties is tough in any country, India is an exceptional case as more policemen die on the line of duty here than in the entire of Europe.
Yet, there has been a lack of recognition for these efforts, which is demoralising and severely constrains their performance.
If the police force is to meet expectations in upholding law and order, it must be insulated from external pressures and rewarded accordingly for its work.
What are the challenges?
The failures of police reforms has largely been attributed to “law & order” falling under the state list.
As tremendous changes has take place in the domain of internal security, a concurrent role for the Centre in police matters has arisen.
Hence, a constitutional arrangement in this regard has to be pushed through for better centre-state coordination in policing.
