Corruption in the police and how I deal with it

It has been an odd story for cops here the last few months. Suddenly, we are saddled by a department full of civilians who do not understand policing but are divinely ordained by "gawd" to ensure public safety, tranquility and maintenance of law and order.

Throw WhatsApp into the mix and we don't know what is happening around here. Suddenly attendance of officers, data regarding work done, photos of Intensive Explosive Device (IED) recovered, congratulatory messages, inappropriate English admonitions have been flying about like untended chicken in a coop where a wolf just walks in looking for a snack.

It flustered most of the cops; a quite un-flusterable lot, I must say unless they are at the higher grade pay. The really lower ranks have the thick hides of rhinos only to be pierced by .303 bullets characterised by pay held over orders. Sometimes even that is not a deterrent.

Drill and discipline has been the cornerstone of policing. Perhaps that has been inculcated into the service because of the uncontrollable chaos that pervades in the society. However, being part of the society, the police itself has been inoculated with little doses of that chaos from time to time.

There are cops who have been arrested from carefully planned out crimes committed to rob people at gunpoint. There are cops who blackmail using MMS made by loose women on their roll. There are cops who regularly extort money for simply doing what they are duty bound to do: investigation or verification.

Why is it that there is no way to put an end to this? Is it part of being in the human spectrum? Or is it that policing makes a new stream in society? I am no expert on integrity and honesty; yet what I have learnt is that you cannot change 50-year-old cops who have been taking money over, under and by the side of their tables. You can only control them by your own example of not indulging in such behavior; once again not all the way, maybe by just about 80 per cent.

As I tried to delve deep into these aspects of human behaviour, quite unexpectedly, I also became privy to human psychological growth in raising my child. I believe the answer is in our upbringing. Lying is not considered wrong in Indian society. It is almost revered and encouraged.

Initially a child tries out a lie as a measure to check boundaries with the parent. In time, a teenager lies to cover up, a young adult lies under pressure. Eventually lying becomes a habit, one that the liar is also unable to keep track of.

Facts are bent, contorted and stretched so far and wide that none of us even knows what is real. I started out with the naïve belief that everyone is good until they do something otherwise. Boy, was I in for a shock!

Someone was leaking negative stories to the media.

To flush him out, I slipped a few stories that sounded like alarming news due to the failure of the police. Of course, I was smart enough to say different things to different people. Reading the regional vernacular newspaper the next day, I figured out the mole.

Of course, I counselled him and that was the end of it.

The same year, I came to know about a junior who ran trucks that pilferred rice from the Food Corporation of India (FCI). That was my wake up call. Now I do not trust anyone until they prove to be honest. Yes I have changed as a person, policing does that to you.

Everyday, there is one more person trying to sell you one more white lie. Like this constable, who cried wolf by requesting a leave on the occasion of his brother's marriage three times in one year. A background check revealed he had none. Poor fellow came again to ask for a leave: this time his own!

On the other end of this very broad spectrum are those type of cops who will answer, "yes sir, let me get that right away sir" and walk out of the room even if the senior asks him to fetch the moon and a handful of stars (quite literally!). This essentially means that there are senior cops who have the habit of asking for undue favours.

So, one winter morning, I went out for a search operation with my staff. We were walking back around 11am. The officer in charge of the police station, a fifty-plus man with more than 20 years of policing experience suddenly received a phone call.

He did something I had never see before. He picked up the phone, said hello and kept on saying hello about ten more times in ascending notes. Then he hung up and removed the battery from his phone.

Quickly he came up to me and said, "Ma'am you will now get a call from a so-and-so IGP, please say that we are in an ambush during a counter-insurgency op. The officer in charge is with me. It will take us more than six hours to return."

Before he could finish explaining, my cell phone started to ring insistently. I looked into the old man's eyes and he kept mouthing: please, I will explain. Please say that.

The call had come from the police station. The constable informed me that so-and-so IGP has come to the police station and wants to speak with the officer in charge and as he could not get through to him, he wishes to speak to me. Saying so, the phone was handed over to IGP so-and-so.

In my most deferential whisper (by then I had learnt how to make such a lie seem like the truth), I wished him a good morning. He enquired why I was whispering and then commenced on a diatribe against the officer in charge, his inefficiency, his avoidance of seniors, his lack of respect and his ineptitude.

Finally, after a few minutes, I was able to loudly whisper and tell him that both the officer in charge and I were in a counter-insurgency operation and waiting in ambush. I nearly dropped my phone from what happened next. The officer in charge took out his pistol and started firing in the air.

The IGP asked me what was that and I told him: firing. He immediately hung up. Later when we reached the police station, the constables on duty said that the IGP had rushed out in a tearing hurry.

The officer in charge explained to me that the IGP concerned had spent most of his years asking for undue favours from juniors. In fact, ever since he was posted here, the concerned IGP was asking for a variety of rice that was grown somewhere in the jurisdiction.

My lie helped him to avoid the trouble of "gifting" this time. He had shot those rounds to make the story seem more authentic and genuine.

I confess, I have also met the IGP-kind of officers. Just for kicks, sometimes, I would buy the cheapest product with my own money and send it to the creeps. Sometimes I would send the bill along with the product. I think, over the years now, most people who are in such a habit of asking have stopped looking at me as a probable candidate.

These days, the pressures are different. Old papers are being dug out to see if there is any dirt that they can find on me.