Police And Communal
Riots
By Vibhuti Narain
Rai & Yoginder Sikand
26 November, 2004
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.
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Vibhuti Narain Rai
can be contacted on [email protected]