Oh! Calcutta

 

In West Bengal, West Bengal Police and Calcutta Police are almost worlds apart. They have separate Police Regulations, separate hierarchies and permeability only at the IPS level. I spent around three and half years in Calcutta Police as a Deputy Commissioner.

There is a vast stretch of vacant land in front of Victoria Memorial which is called the Maidan. In 1756, Siraj ud-Daulah had overrun the original Fort William, the English bastion (located at the present GPO, Dalhousie Square). Learning from that lesson, Britishers subsequently kept the area around the new Fort William vacant so that there was clear line of fire, a tradition that continues to this day. No permanent structure is allowed to come up in that area. Even the football clubs have temporary stands. This is also the only breathing space in the crowded city so people go there for morning walks, jogs, political rallies and just getting together.

When I was Deputy Commissioner, one day, a retired Chief Secretary, Mr. Gokul Dasgupta, had gone there for a walk and, probably tired, sat down on a vacant bench. Immediately, two Constables materialized and told him to get lost. When he tried to reason with them, they told him that no one was allowed to sit on that particular bench and that they were deployed just to prevent such a calamity. That would have been the end of the matter but Mr. Dasgupta had been Chief Secretary of the state and was very hurt (‘heart’ as we Calcuttans pronounce it). He called up the Commissioner of Police to enquire why he could not sit on a vacant bench in a vacant land which was open to public access. The Commissioner of Police asked the Additional Commissioner of Police who asked the Joint Commissioner of Police and so on down the line until it was verified that the concerned Police Station, Hastings, had indeed detailed two policemen that day to prevent anyone sitting on that bench. Since it was not clear why, the duty chart of the Constables was checked. This is a chart which details the duty of each Constable each day. It was found that every day, two constables were detailed for that particular duty. The practice dated back to pre-Independence days. Apparently, one day in the mists of time, that bench had been painted afresh and the local police station was requested to detail two policemen to guard it till the paint dried over. Since then, till that fateful accident of Mr. Dasgupta’s “heart”, Calcutta Police had carried out the onerous duty every single day with unflinching dedication, devotion and courage.

Just a few days after this “incident”, I was visiting Victoria Memorial with my wife. After a stroll, we sat down on a bench – a different one. Immediately, one guy in plainclothes popped up demanding to know why I was doing such nongrami (bad behaviour). When I couldn’t figure out what nongrami, he demanded to know why I was going around with a female. I politely informed him that I had every right to go anywhere with my wife. He further demanded to know what proof I had that she was my wife. The conversation was rapidly escalating towards economics, i.e., demand and supply of money when my security guard who was at a distance came running and shouting at this chap in Hindi, “Tujhe pata nahin, kisse baat kar raha hai…” Seeing my security guard, my tormentor promptly came to attention. I checked where he was posted. It turned out that he was not even a cop. He had been a Constable in Reserve Force of Calcutta Police but had been dismissed for such activity. However, he had continued with the “activity.”  

I also had the opportunity (burden?) of performing election duty in a very sensitive constituency thrice. This duty essentially involves going from booth to booth with a contingent of force and checking against any disturbance or malpractice outside the booths. (Police is not allowed inside the booth unless called by the Presiding Officer.) Every round, I was asking what percentage of votes had been cast. It was steadily going up – 10%, 12%, 15% and so on. By around 12.30, the poll percentage was about 30% across the booths. I ordered that, barring a small standby force, we should all have lunch and resume after half an hour. I resumed patrolling at 1 PM and to my horror, in all the booths, the polling percentage had dramatically climbed to 60 – 70 %. Not only had certain political “managers” figured out by then exactly who all had not voted, they had also monitored my movements and realized that that was the best window to stuff the ballot boxes. No violence, no disturbance on the surface; just a “scientific temper” and “dedicated” Presiding Officers.

The second time, I dispensed with a general lunch break, made everyone eat dry food in the vehicles, and have non-stop patrolling. At the end of a very tiring day, my officers and I were sitting at the Police Station, congratulating each other on an incident-free day of free and fair polling and awaiting the order to stand down. One Inspector who resided in the area rang up his home to check regarding voting by his family members and by the end of the phone call, his face fell. His wife told him that she, along with 40 other families in the colony, had gone to cast their votes but already some others had cast the votes in their place.

The third time, we tried to guard against these problems as best as we could. However, we had not accounted for the advancing scientific temper of the political “managers.” At the end of the day, we realized that, mysteriously, all the lifts in all the buildings had gone out of order. The area is full of skyscrapers and naturally, a large number of genuine voters in the higher floors could not come to vote. The beauty of the scheme was that, in those pre-cell-phone, unconnected times, every one thought that this was the case in his building only so there was no complaint to the police or anyone. The poll percentage remained high at 70 %. Since then, during every election in Calcutta, cops tended to be posted at the lifts of many high-rises since the previous evening.

Calcutta is now Kolkata. Calcutta Police is now Kolkata Police. May be, things are much different now.

[Calcutta traffic police in the 1920s – a portrait]

 

                                                                                                      [Names changed to protect identities]