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| Hope for gender-sensitive policing? | | | Aruti Nayar | 4/24/2013 8:26:55 PM |
| Recently, a 17-year-old activist protesting against the rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi was slapped by an Assistant Commissioner of Police.
Increasing incidents of policemen resorting to force against women to quell protests compel us to ask: why is our police so gender-insensitive?
THE regularity
with which im
ages of police brutality towards women assault our senses is, indeed, worrisome. Sensitivity in the context of the police is an oxymoron. Rewind to almost a decade back. It was a shocker when armed with a host of ideas on gender-sensitive policing, one was interacting with a section of the policemen (attending a training course) at the Institute of Correctional Administration, Chandigarh. When they were asked as to what their response would be to a woman who came to them to lodge a complaint, one of them declared, without so much as a blink, "Madamji, main toh sochta hun jo aurat thane chalke aa gayi, woh aurat hi kharaab hai! (Madamji, I think, if a woman dares to come to a police station, she must be an ill-reputed one!)"
Police detain a supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party during a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. Angry crowds demonstrated in the Capital last week after a five-year-old girl was allegedly raped, tortured and kept in captivity for 40 hours. Reuters
Ten years on, very little seems to have changed. If anything, the police has now shed even the fig leaf of socially acceptable behaviour and displays arrogance and brute force while dealing with protesting citizens, more so with women. The gender bias, inherent in Indian society gets magnified many times over, when it comes to the functioning of the police force.
Cycle of violence
Is this a new phenomenon? Has this not always been the case? More incidents are being reported now and the media is documenting these episodes more carefully. Also, new devices such as having CCTV cameras in prominent places have helped in the increased reporting and documenting of incidents of violence.
Paromita Chakravarti, a senior academic, maintains that there is nothing new about the custodial rapes, women's crimes not being registered by the police or torture of women prisoners in jail. The Mathura rape case, the trigger for the crucial reforms in rape laws in India, started with a custodial rape. If gender-sensitive laws have to be implemented, women should, at least, be able to register a FIR. Where a mother of a minor girl who has been allegedly raped is beaten up by the police when she goes to register a FIR, what is the use of a law?
Need for gender sensitisation
The Haryana ADGP, Prisons, KP Singh, an ardent advocate for gender sensitisation of the force says: "Gender bias is writ large on the face of Indian community, the law and order machinery is no exception. It is visible in its worst form when the men and women in khaki are seen exhibiting insensitivity in their dealings with women and women-related issues."
The Indian police is insensitive to the common man, more so to women because of the socio-economic profile from where the large pool of the force is drawn from. To expect gender sensitive behaviour is unrealistic. Retired Director-General Police, Punjab, A.A. Siddiqui, whose doctoral thesis was on the subculture of police, is of the view that "the background of the police personnel moulds their behaviour." Prof S.L. Sharma, an eminent sociologist, adds that most of the police personnel come from the lower middle class and, therefore, lack socialisation skills. Add to this the training or the lack of it, because much of it is still in the colonial, authoritarian, patriarchal mould.
Colonial practices
It is a fact that in post-Independence India, there has virtually been no change from the way in which the adversarial role and function of the police was understood. In the colonial times, the police force represented might of the brutal State, which was meant to be exercised against the 'subjects'- the only way the people were either perceived or treated. Even after becoming citizens, the people continue to be treated as the subjects.
Mr K.P. Singh is right in his assessment when he says that police has been the strong arm of the state, a readily available tool of governance. It would remain so for few more decades until such times as we become a mature democracy. That is the reason the police is persisting with the colonial mindset.
Politicians rule
The police is not accountable to the citizens or society, but only to their political masters. They consider politicians as their overlords. The political class uses the police to assert power, settle scores and score brownie points over or undermine their political rivals. Siddiqui's thesis dealt with the changes in a policeman's attitude and behaviour when he becomes a part of the force. He maintains that the force is being used for all sorts of extraneous things, except maintaining security and looking after society, which is its primary function. There is a deep divide between the non-gazetted and gazetted officers and the rude behaviour experienced by the juniors is passed on to people.
Paradigm shift
The mindset of the agents of the criminal justice system needs an overhaul. A paradigm shift in our penal laws and procedures is also required. K.P. Singh maintains that policemen should be trained to deal with women who visit the police station as complainant, accused and witness. Their behaviour with them should always be courteous and dignified. It seems a far cry indeed, given that the present state where it is the victim who is labelled the culprit. It is not a seven-day training session, but a continuous process of sensitisation and attitudinal/behavioural change that is required.
Recruitment of more women in the police, especially at the higher level, will go a long way in sensitising the force. The representation of women police officers in the entire police force of the country is less than 4 per cent. Adherence to the Supreme Court directive in Prakash Singh’s case, will help to make the police accountable. The measures include setting up of a police complaints authority, a Security Commission and separation of law and order and investigative functions of the police.
No will to reform
There is no will in the political class to bring in the police reforms. It suits politicians to have a police force they can use, and sometimes abuse for their own purposes. This is a force whose self respect has been undermined by politicians (we often read about the policemen being slapped and insulted). The police are not even sure of their role vis-a-vis those they are really responsible to - the citizens of India.
As the police force is used as a tool of oppression, it passes on this oppression to the common man/woman, who obviously cannot hit back. The masses can only hit out when they become a mob, and it is in the face of this mob that the police often uses force because it knows no other way of dealing with an upsurge of protest.
Does it mean that there is no hope for gender-sensitive policing? Well, such a hope may stem largely from our readiness to give up the colonial practices, feudal mind-sets and patriarchal modes of governance.
If we succeed in creating a truly democratic and equitable society, backed by much-needed police reforms that treat people as citizens and not as subjects, police too, may have no choice but to change for the better.
Woman a soft target
In the last decade and a half, the State has systematically been using the police to beat up citizens democratically protesting against factories being set up on agricultural lands, coasts being ravaged by development projects, their livelihoods being destroyed without provisions of rehabilitation. In many of these movements, women and children have been kept in the frontline, to resist police brutalities and forceful eviction.
The argument has been that the police would not be able to use the same kind of force against women as they would use against men. Repeatedly this assumption has been proved wrong. Women have been dragged by the hair, raped and hit mercilessly by the police in many of these movements. The State has only encouraged the police to play this role against its own citizens. This has further given legitimacy to a new kind of police violence.
— Dr. Paromita Chakravarti, Joint-Director, School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
Police reforms
Successive governments have shown little interest in promoting police reforms because nobody wants to lose a useful tool. What is often described as police reforms is an exercise in revamping the administration. Reforms mean changing the soul and not merely the clothes. Police reforms should be people-centric and need based. Unfortunately, it has not happened. We need more educated people at the cutting-edge level in police. Criminal laws and procedures in India are of the men, for the men and by the men. Their application on women in the same form is the main reason behind insensitivity of all the organs of the criminal justice system towards women.
— KP Singh, ADGP, Prisons, Haryana
Trust-based policing
Moving from fear-based policing to trust-based policing requires a whole lot of changes in the organisational culture. Police must generate trust and respect in a free democratic society. There is a need to move from the crime statistics assessment of policing to one that is more responsive. Key performance indicators of police working need to be put in place. Pubblic feedback should be a part of performance assessment. Gender-sensitive policing requires constant training and public evaluation. The greater need for power makes it seem that being sensitive is perceived as being less macho and, consequently, less powerful. All wings of the criminal justice system reflect gender bias and insensitivity. Greater access to shelters, counselling and legal aid, improved presentation of evidence at trial, will help women. Measures to protect victims and witnesses will go a long way in providing justice to them.
— Dr. Upneet Lalli, Deputy Director, Institute of Correctional Administration, Chandigarh |
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