Working conditions are no better. Outside the metropolis, facilities in police stations are, at best, rudimentary. In rural areas — particularly in ill-governed states — the police operate out of structures that are often worse than cattle sheds. Here, a BPR&D study notes, “across the country... they are asked to put in consistently 16 to 18 hours of duty on a continuous basis”. In many police stations and posts, far from fighting the terrorists and insurgents they are routinely pitted against, policemen lack even the minimal capacities to defend themselves. Since a majority of constables retire at the rank at which they join, only a small proportion attains the rank of head constable; a miniscule number rises to the rank of sub-inspector or inspector. Career frustration adds to this deadly cocktail.

There is, moreover, a complete mismatch between the criteria of recruitment and training on the one hand, and the increasing complexity of the tasks a modern police force is required to handle. The minimum qualification for recruitment is a Class 10 pass; some states have pushed that up to 12; a few have reduced it to 8 so that “rural people have better chances of getting the job”. These barely literate recruits are variously pushed through around a year of “training” (this has, in at least one case, been reduced to six months) that principally consists of marching up and down on a parade ground, physical training, arms training (in many cases, comprising just a single field firing practice) and a few desultory lectures on police regulations and law.

... contd.