MINORITIES AND POLICE IN INDIA

Abstract

The essays are written by human rights activists, academics and retired senior policemen. The contributors see police prejudice not only in terms of the treatment of different communities at die times of violence, but in die tardy investigations of killings and in dieir frequendy callous attitudes to riot victims.

MINORITIES AND POLICE IN INDIA. Edited by Asghar Ali Engineer andAmarjitS. Narang. New Delhi: Manohar, 2006. 226pp. (Tables.) US$13.95, cloth. ISBN 81-7304-678-6.

This volume grew out of a seminar in New Delhi organized joindy by the Human Rights Education Programme of Indira Gandhi National Open University and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. The essays are written by human rights activists, academics and retired senior policemen. There are resulting variations in style, particularly widi regard to referencing. Careful editing might not only have addressed this unevenness, but prevented repetition arising from verbatim quotations from the same commissions of enquiry in a number of the chapters. It is a great pity diat the volume is not more tightly focused as it deals widi an immensely important subject for understanding large-scale communal violence.

The contributors consider police behaviour in communal riots from the 1960s until the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Particular attention is devoted to the events in Gujarat following the Godhra incident of 27 February 2002 and to the attacks on Sikhs in Delhi after Indira Gandhi's assassination. The essays draw heavily on the government commissions and citizens' enquiries into police complicity in violence. Vrinda Grover's contribution on the 1984 Delhi Riots is based on the affidavit she filed before the Justice Nanavati Commission of Enquiry. The contributors share an understanding diat the ordinary constabulary is heavily prejudiced against the Muslim minority community. This is rooted in stereotypes perpetuated by Hindu nationalists. They draw especially on the memory of Partition and the existence of Pakistan as a hostile "other" dirough which to demonize the Muslim population. Poorly paid and lacking in professional training, policemen vent their frustrations and enmity on innocent victims in riot-torn situations. The essays argue diat these actions can be undertaken widi impunity. Officers share the prejudices of their men. Moreover, they are under political pressure when riots occur. Those officers who seek to act impartially are liable to transfers and may have dieir careers blighted. The contributors see police prejudice not only in terms of the treatment of different communities at die times of violence, but in die tardy investigations of killings and in dieir frequendy callous attitudes to riot victims. Failure to prosecute known perpetrators, especially when tiiey are political figures, reinforces the sense of impunity.

Anodier dieme which runs dirough die volume is the need for police reform. The point is made diat die colonial attitude of die police as upholders of state audiority, radier tiian as servants of die citizenry, has been maintained. Failure to introduce reform is laid at die door of politicians who seek to use police power to uphold their vested interests. A number of essayists point to die militarization as well as political interference in policing. There are also calls for greater minority representation at all levels of die police force. It is accepted that educational programmes can break down prejudices at the time of recruitment, but that they will have only a limited impact without wider reform.

The volume usefully contributes to understandings of communal violence in India. Compelling evidence is provided diat large-scale outbreaks are not spontaneous outpourings of primordial hostilities. They are organized assaults on minority populations, made possible by police quiescence. The contributors understand diis as a development dating to the 1960s. There are in fact clear parallels between such events as the 1984 Delhi Riots and die 2002 Gujarat pogrom and die widespread partition-related violence in North India.