The Karnataka police protest has taken a new turn with the state slapping a sedition case on Shashidhar Venugopal, the leader of the Akhila Karnataka Police Mahasangha.
On Thursday afternoon, Karnataka Director-General of Police Om Prakash said that the police constabulary had been convinced to withdraw their protest.
Since last week, the media has been reporting on a protest planned by the constabulary demanding better pay, a weekly day off and regular leave, and against harsh punishments meted out to them by the senior officers. Although no numbers are available, many constables across the state had applied for leave on 4 June. The protest now appears effectively quelled.
On Twitter and Facebook, the Bengaluru City Police (BCP) went on overdrive. The Twitter handle of Bengaluru Police Commission NS Megharik also said the police force should always be mindful of their duty and that “discipline comes first”.
The handling of the whole episode however, simply goes to prove that there is an urgent need to overhaul the entire police force. While the state government has for decades dilly-dallied on increasing recruitments, the cluelessness of the top police officers suggests a failure of the state intelligence in anticipating the magnitude of the grievance. The subsequent arrests of Shashidhar and Basavaraj indicates the high-handedness of the police in quashing any questioning of the senior officers.
Subbarao supported the demands of the police.
“They are supposed to maintain law and order. Instead, they are being made to wash the officers’ clothes, look after their kids. What is this?” says Subbarao, who has been a trade union leader for many decades.
Assistant Professor of Criminology and Socio-legal Studies at the University of Toronto, Beatrice Jauregui told The News Minute that police forces in India are prohibited from forming unions on which labour laws would be applicable. A quick search revealed that the central law came into force in Karnataka in November 1973.
Jauregui is currently researching police unions and political protests with specific reference to the 1973 uprising of sections of the Uttar Pradesh police. Many people were killed, injured, arrested or jailed, dismissed from service during that time. Forty years later, court cases are still dragging on, she says.
Developments in Karnataka echo those in Uttar Pradesh.
Speaking to TNM on Wednesday, Shashidar had said that they were strategizing on how to take the protest forward in the wake of the state government invoking the ESMA.
Subbarao recalled that in the 1980s, Shashidhar had once called the Bengaluru police control room. “He urged the constables to turn up in Cubbon Park for a protest. And people actually did.”
Writer and activist Shivsundar too supported the right of the police protest to demand an improvement of their working conditions.
However, he warned it was dangerous for groups who supported the protest to merely restrict the discourse to civil rights with regard to working conditions. “The question is: What direction should the protest take? If you only talk about giving the constabulary good working conditions without demanding institutional overhaul, then you will just make the police more efficient at helping the system be cruel.”
(This article has been published in collaboration with The News Minute. This copy has been edited for length)
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