That the police is one of the most unpopular institutions in our land cannot be disputed. Even policemen and their leaders will have to admit this. One of the reasons why the ordinary citizen fears and dislikes the police is that the police has been assigned a role that is intrinsically deprivational. But the main reason for the poor image is that the police through the length and breadth of the country has ceased to be professional. They are now politicised to a degree that can only be termed alarming.

Complaints of indifference to suffering and injustice, unhelpful attitudes, bad behaviour and runaway corruption make one wonder what has gone wrong with its leadership. The plain answer is that the leadership has allowed itself to be manipulated by a political class that has misused the power of appointments and transfers to patronise weak or corrupt officers for their own selfish ends at the cost of public interest.

If the country and its people want a more responsive police force, they need to understand that the force needs good leaders who will serve the people and not themselves. There is no dearth of good men in the IPS from where the senior leadership is drawn. But such leaders are usually sidelined. They are summoned to the ramparts only when the State is in real trouble.

Selfish politicians choose the wrong persons for the top jobs because the corrupt or the ineffective are willing to carry out the dictates and wishes of their political masters for their own survival. It is a classic case of two persons scratching each other’s backs.

... contd.