Police
And Communal Riots
By Vibhuti Narain
Rai & Yoginder Sikand
07 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Vibhuti Narain Rai
is a senior Indian Police Service officer. He is the editor of a Hindi
literary magazine, 'Vartaman Sahitya'. He is a novelist, and his most
well-known book is 'Shahr Mai Curfew' (Hindi), which has been translated
and published in English as 'Curfew in the City'. He is also the author
of 'Combating Communal Conflicts--Perception of Police Neutrality During
Hindu-Muslim Riots in India'. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand
he talks about the role of the Indian police in handling communal riots.
Q: How did you decide to write a book on the subject of the
police in handling communal riots?
A: My book is the outcome of a one-year fellowship that I received from
the National Police Academy to study perception of police neutrality
during incidents of Hindu-Muslim violence. Basically, the study set
out to examine how Hindus and Muslims perceive the role of the police
in different ways in such situations. In the course of my study I discovered,
not surprisingly, that Hindu and Muslim perceptions of the police during
communal disturbances are diametrically opposed. This is basically what
I tried to show in my book.
Q: How do you account
for these different perceptions of the police by Hindus and Muslims?
A: In the course of my study
I found that in a normal situation an average Hindu does not necessarily
see the police as friendly or helpful but during communal riots he looks
upon the police as a helper and protector. On the other hand, Muslim
riot victims do not generally feel that they would get any protection
from the police, even when their lives and property are under threat.
I think one basic reason for this is the police themselves. After all,
an average policeman-and most policemen are Hindus-gets his value system
from his own society or community. And that is why the average policeman
often thinks of Muslims in very negative terms. Many policemen seem
to believe the standard stereotypical images of Muslims being 'dirty',
'untrustworthy', 'violent' and 'pro-Pakistani'. And this is what leads
to them thinking of Muslims as 'aggressors' who initiate riots. Now,
of course this is not true to say that most riots are started by Muslims.
But still, when I point out
to police officers that many more Muslims than Hindus lose their lives
in the riots and so it is improbable that they could be said to have
initiated them, they generally refuse to agree. They claim that Hindus
are, by nature, 'pious' and 'non-violent', and 'law abiding', and would,
therefore, never initiate violence themselves. This perception seems
to be deeply rooted in their psyche. My argument is that if you analyse
the history of various riots that have taken place in India since 1960
or so, you will find that there has probably been no single riot in
which less than 90% of those killed have been Muslims, but this point
is generally not accepted by the average policeman, although I am basing
my claim on official records. I am not surprised that many police officers
do not wish to recognise this fact. They , like an average Hindu , would
disbelieve these figures .But these are official figures and no government
on this earth would release false data which may show that minorities
are not safe under its territory. After all, even Hitler did not openly
admit the fact of the persecution of the Jewish minority in Germany,
and, claimed, instead that the Jews were the cause of all the troubles
in the country. In India, I must say, many of the so-called Hindu-Muslim
riots are nothing of the sort-they are simply clashes between Muslims
and the police.
Q: What do you feel
about the sort of training that is given to the police? Are they taught
to deal with incidents of communal violence in a neutral way?
A: Theoretically, such inputs
are given to the policemen when they undertake their training course.
However, the training period is only for nine months, and in this short
period you cannot completely disabuse them of the communal stereotypes
that they have imbibed from their family and society. The course is
sufficiently long to train a person only to handle a weapon. In any
case, in the course little attention is devoted to history, culture,
religion and other social issues. There is also no regular training
component after this initial period.. And then again there is this factor
of the infiltration of the police by the RSS, but this is difficult
to quantify. I think there must be periodic training sessions after
the initial course, where policemen should be thoroughly briefed on
a range of social issues, including respect for and knowledge of different
religions.
Q: Are there any
efforts being made to provide this sort of training input?
A: As far as I know, there
have been few organised or institutional initiatives undertaken in this
regard. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer is doing some useful work in this direction.
His institute arranges workshops with the Mumbai police to sensitise
them on a range of issues related to communalism.
Q: What, then, do
you think is the solution to the problem?
A: I think one major solution
is to institute reservation for the different minorities in the police
services, where they are now very poorly represented. And by minorities
I do not mean just Muslims but other religious minorities and even minority
ethnic groups in every state as well. Reservation for minorities should,
ideally, be in accordance with their share in the total population.
Now, some people, including police officers, will argue that reservations
in the police service for minorities would divide the police on communal
lines. They might argue that instead of reserving jobs for minorities
in the police services we should encourage the minorities to apply for
police jobs. But my reply to them is that ever since the independence
of India the government has sent out dozens of circulars, orders and
guidelines to recruitment boards asking for a fair recruitment of the
minorities in the police service, but this has not worked because it
has not been made mandatory but has! been left entirely to the discretion
of the boards. At times one notices a bias in the boards against recruiting
Muslims into the police. I've heard some police officers even arguing
that if Muslims are recruited they will run off with their weapons to
Pakistan or else use them to promote 'anti-national' activities. When
I was serving in Kashmir in BSF I used to hear this argument very often.
However, despite this I took the initiative of recruiting local Kashmiri
Muslims into the Force, and although there were a few stray cases of
desertions I think the decision was well worth taking.
But when I talk of representation
for minorities in the police service I also want to stress that this
should only be for the backward sections among them. Now, in the case
of Muslim , the Muslim elites or Ashraf do not want to recognise the
fact of caste differences in the Muslim community. They talk of Muslims
as a monolith, which is not the case. I think reservations for the Muslims
must be restricted to the backward sections or biraderis among them,
the so-called Ajlaf Muslims. The Ashraf are, on the whole, capable of
taking care of their own interests, while the Ajlaf are poverty-stricken
and they also suffer the most during communal riots. I am opposed to
the idea of reservations for Muslims as an entire community. If that
is done then the Ashraf are bound to occupy all the positions as they
are more educated and better-off than the other Muslims.
Q: Perhaps encouraging
Muslims to join the police services would be a less controversial way
of promoting Muslim representation in the services. What are your opinions
on this?
A: No, I don't quite agree,
because I think that many recruiting officers themselves have a bias
against Muslims and would not be happy to see Muslims join the police.
They will put up all sorts of flimsy excuses to see that this does not
happen. They will claim that Muslims simply do not apply, and if they
do apply they might dismiss their applications by claiming that they
are not physically fit, which might be totally wrong. I think that,
in fact, very little effort is needed to encourage Muslims to apply,
and if one is serious about it one can get numerous such applications.
After all, unemployment, even among the educated, is rampant among Muslims.
And then there is this feeling that wearing a police uniform is a matter
of prestige.
Q: How do you think
that increasing representation of minorities in the police services
through reservations will actually change things?
A: I think it will make a
tremendous impact, and will help increase the confidence of the minorities
in the police. It will also help undermine the communal stereotypes
which, as I mentioned, are quite deeply ingrained among many policemen
and police officers. If Muslim and Hindu policemen live and work together
it is bound to lead to a change in mutual perceptions and promote a
sense of understanding. In turn this will also lead to more responsible
handling of riot situations by the police.
Q: What do you feel
about the performance of Muslim police officers in handling riot situations?
A: Normally, Muslim police
officers are as good or as bad, as competent or incompetent, as other
officers. However, in situations of communal riots many Muslim officers
do not have the courage to get out of the police stations for fear of
being killed. Muslim officers might be reluctant to deal with Hindu
mobs for fear of being accused of being 'anti-Hindu'. They might feel
that they do not have the confidence of the police force, which is largely
Hindu. Just to cite an instance, in the recent violence in Gujarat a
Muslim police officer was mobbed by a group of Hindus and narrowly managed
to escape with his life.
Q: How do you look
at the phenomenon of communalism? How does it influence your writing?
A: I must confess that as
a youth I was associated with the RSS and even attended the local shakha.
Later, I came under the influence of Marxism, which is how I changed
my way of looking at the world. I believe that all forms of communalism
are dangerous. The communalism of the majority is more dangerous because
it is capable of capturing state power. At the same time minority communalism
must also be fought against, including by the minorities themselves,
for whom it poses a grave danger while deceptively appearing to champion
their interests.
Q: How has your book
on the police and communalism been received by police and other government
officials?
A: I must say that not many
people in the police or in government actually read my book, but from
those who did I got mixed responses. Some praised it, but many others
condemned it. They claimed that I was creating dissensions among the
police! They even alleged that findings and my conclusions were biased
because they could not believe that some Hindus, too, can be aggressive,
intolerant and violent. This, of course, itself suggests that prejudices
about other communities are very deeply rooted in our society, including
among government and police officials, who
ought to know better.