Delhi Police's Shahdara Protest Exposes a Crisis of Command and Accountability

In a delicious twist of irony, Delhi found its law enforcers themselves violating Section 163 BNSS imposed by themselves. The Delhi Police violated their own order banning protests that was imposed only a few days ago — though unsuccessfully — when Gen Z and the entire opposition wanted to protest against the Election Commission and alleged manipulation of votes. The police personnel raised slogans and blocked traffic for long period in spite of appeals from their superiors for restraint.What caused the protests was the transfer of the Assistant Commissioner of Police and Station House Officer Shahdara in the wake of an alleged scuffle with lawyers in Shahdara. While what transpired at the police station has to be investigated by concerned agencies, the question arises: was the transfer an appropriate reason for the policemen to go on strike? 'Don't Behave Like Protesters': Delhi Police Officers Protest Against TransfersIn so far as the transfer is concerned it, it is a routine event in the life of a government servant and therefore, is not an appropriate or a reasonable cause for open protest like an ordinary citizen. The aggrieved police persons should have followed the official channels and filed a representation. They should have joined the new place of posting and then taken up the case with the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).However, there appears to be something more serious to the episode. That all the police personnel rallied behind the ACP and the SHO points to two facts. First, all police personnel deployed under the ACP and SHO felt that the transfer was not justified. They felt that both the transferred officials were not at fault and had been wrongly punished by the superiors in the police hierarchy under the pressure of lawyer lobby. Second, the fact that even though the remaining police personnel were not impacted by the transfer of these two and yet they rallied in their support speaks of the leadership qualities of the ACP and SHO. This is a rare quality amongst the superior officers in the police who consider themselves to be more of a manager than the leader. The caveat here is that while the ACP might be a good leader, he displayed total immaturity and propensity to play to the galleries by the type of sloganeering that he indulged in during the protest in front of the police headquarters. The second question that needs consideration is whether it is legally and morally right for the police personnel to publically protest in this manner? There are divided opinions on this issue. The general consensus is that while the Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech to everyone, the government can and has imposed reasonable restrictions on the uniformed forces including the defence forces, central armed forces as well as the police to air their grievances publically.Legal luminaries point to the provision of The Police Forces (Restrictions of Rights) Act, 1966 Section 3 which denies police the right to protest. Any violation of this rule is punishable. Reference also is made to Delhi Police Act, 1978, Section 24 which indirectly restricts the right of police persons to protest as they are considered always to be on duty. Irrespective of the above, the protests point toward wider issue of service related grievances of police personnel. There doesn’t appear to be one existing. Police personnel put long hours of duty and can be called for duty at any point of time, totally disturbing their work-life balance. The police hierarchy likes to talk about police reforms at every level but the reforms that they talk of relate only to the exercise of control over the force. The police leadership laments ceaselessly about the political interference in police functioning yet they themselves are the ones to succumb to wrong directives from politicians to curry favours for personal gains. They apparently display no interest in ground level reforms viz. taking up strongly to fill the vacant posts or improving working conditions and infrastructure for policemen. There is no evidence that they focus even on the reforms within their own authority viz. improving training standards or focussing on inculcating basic soft skills amongst policemen. Another cause of disaffection amongst the lower police functionaries is that while senior IPS leadership gets elevated to higher ranks very quickly, the lower functionaries keep stagnating for decades, thus resulting in demotivation. The police leadership doesn’t appear to be focussing on these important issues.Another aspect that this episode brings out is the unionised and aggressive behaviour of the lawyer fraternity. Earlier in November 2019 a similar protest by thousands of policemen and their families had taken place after two incidents of scuffles with the lawyers. Two days ago on 5 November the lawyers behaved with similar aggression to storm and vandalise the office of DM Bijnore.Earlier in January this year lawyers had vandalised a toll plaza in Barabanki district resulting in strictures from the Supreme Court against the Barabanki bar association. The recent incident of vandalisation of the chamber of a High Court Justice at Allahabad is another example of the aggressive behaviour by lawyers. The court has ordered the filing of criminal charges against the erring lawyers. Being well versed with legal matters, lawyers are expected to assist courts in dispensing justice and not themselves behave in a manner unbecoming of officers of the Court.When the Police Serve Power, Who Protects the Citizen?The police also needs to introspect whether the use of excessive force including pellet guns against the peaceful protesters was right. Who ordered such excessive force to be used? Were they verbal orders from the top? If so, why didn’t the leadership deem it proper to ask the orders to be given in writing. The police all over India, and especially in Delhi, has normalised the culture of unrestricted force through sheer submissiveness to the top leadership. One is yet to find out as to who is to be blamed for the farces in Shahdara Police Station, however, it becomes extremely difficult to expect the same force to suddenly exercise restraint when dealing with lawyers. The line between “authorised firmness” and excess blurs. What followed was almost inevitable. The result is that there are protesting police personnel on one side and protesting lawyers on the other. This episode, like the one in November 2019, has laid bare the collapse of the command structure in Delhi Police. When unlawful orders are issued in the first place discipline and accountability get eroded. The culture of the force cannot be switched on and off selectively.I would like to draw attention to something profound that the suspended ACP Manasvi Vashishta told his bosses to their faces. He said words to the effect of “Hum log sau me se ninyanbe baar napunskta chun rahe hai par ek baar paurush chun liya to dikkat ho gayee?” Which roughly translates to “we chose to be cowards on ninety-nine occasions but on the one occasion we chose to be brave, it has become problematic.”The bigger message in the statement is obvious to the discerning that the police succumbs and fails to perform its duties when faced with powerful people or influential groups like the lawyers in this case. The inference is that the police often fails to protect the interests of poor and powerless. The police must contemplate and carry out brainstorming in order to refurbish its image as a law-abiding people-friendly organisation.(The author retired from the BSF as an additional director-general. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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