People often complain about the colonial approach of the Indian police. The truth is that it is not just the relationship between the police and the citizen that bears a colonial imprint. The relationship between the state and the police remains colonial. The state at its highest levels regards the police as simply an instrument of state authority and not as an institution whose primary responsibility is to uphold the law without fear or favour. The Police Act of 1861 and the Police Regulations that emanate from it reflect this mindset.

What also needs to change is the sheer neglect of police infrastructure. A nation that can afford its nukes and submarines, new metros and airports and expressways can surely devote resources for systematic investment in improving police infrastructure. A federal structure cannot be held as a justification for allowing the state governments to get away with simultaneous impoverishment and abuse of the police machinery.

What also needs to be re-examined is the hold of two powerful trade unions, namely the IAS and the IPS, over the Indian state and their internal struggles for supremacy over the cutting edge police apparatus. For many in the IAS, the police are another tool of state patronage in their control. For the IPS the police are a fiefdom created for their personal comfort whose favours they share on a give and take basis with other powerful players in the state. In many states police reform is a forgotten footnote in the saga of IAS-IPS rivalry.

... contd.