All army units undergo pre-induction training at corps battle schools. The most important of which is the simplest lesson of all: to fight a guerilla, think like a guerilla. The same logic then applies to urban terrorism, and the need to think at the level of bicycles and ball bearings. His methods are simple enough to understand. What is not, however, is the antidote to his simplicity. At the kindest possible level it can be said that there is a paralysis of police performance.

In colloquial Rajasthani is an adage that recounts a time when the SHO would know who was carrying whose child. He would be the fulcrum for the implementation of law, and the collection of information. His connection with society would be so deep, and sincere, that the most confidential of information could be made available. That made him the most important of all police appointments. Not for today’s policing, alas, where parades and power point presentations are the key to “good” appointments. The decline of beat policing is directly proportional to the proliferation of higher ranks, which in turn mirrors the rising graph.

A 19th-century, imperial police structure cannot confront the challenge of a 21st-century war by other means. The ineptitude of the higher police hierarchy and an interfering polity pooled together to corrode a vital national institution. The SP of a district does not have enough constables for basic policing, coupled with the fact that the SHO is almost always a patronage case, so there is obviously little chance of getting to know that a mid-20s male stranger has bought many bicycles simultaneously. It doesn’t take rocket science to comprehend the basics of why terrorists succeed while the state continues to wring its hands. His brain is ticking like his timers while that of the police is just not allowed to. He keeps it simple while the police can’t get beyond pretensions.

... contd.