Who runs the country?

 

There is a lot of debate in the social media, often polarized, as to how good or bad the Prime Minister or a Chief Minister or particular politician or political party is. All this is under the notion that politicians run the country. However, the Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister series had a different take on it regarding the Westminster system that we inherited/adopted. In those classics, Sir Humphrey, the great philosopher cleverly disguised as a civil servant opined that periodic elections were just a minor inconvenience to decide which bunch would try (unsuccessfully) to interfere with the business of government actually carried out by the bureaucrats. He also felt all government policies were nonsense, but frightfully well carried out. 

His Prime Minister had an even more scathing opinion about the opinion makers, i.e., the newspaper readers:

“I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is. Sun readers don't care who runs the country as long as (the rest deleted).”

 

Replace the newspapers with the raucous TV channels and the description can well fit today’s scenario. 

If Sir Humphrey was right, it’s amazing to see that our country has actually been run by an IPS officer for much of its post-Independence history. 

I don’t think many people outside Police circles would’ve heard of a person called B.N. Mullik. Yet, a foreign head of state visiting India at the time had remarked, “The two most powerful men in India are Nehru and B.N. Mullik ... not necessarily in that order.” He was an I.P. officer (I.P., first called Indian Imperial Police and later, Imperial Police) who ruled the roost from 1950 to 1964 as Director of Intelligence Bureau. While there may be debates about the rights and wrongs of what he did and didn’t do, there is no gainsaying the fact that almost all major events of India during that period, political and non-political, were referred to him for substantive decision-making inputs. Like all powerful civil servants, he maintained an extremely low profile and, unlike them, disappeared into the Himalayas after his retirement. He was occasionally sighted in his later life as Kinkar Vishwananda pursuing a spiritual path. Review of a book on him was being published in the Illustrated Weekly of India. Try as he might, the editor, Khushwant Singh couldn’t lay his hands on a suitable photograph of his so he collected a photo of a young B.N. Mullik and asked his photographer to age the photograph about 30 years so that it could be published along with the review.

 

A post of National Security Advisor (NSA) was created in 1998 by the government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Brajesh Mishra was the first incumbent. He used to boast to even very senior Ministers, “You can tell and persuade the PM about anything for any amount of time, I just have to whisper in his ears just before he goes into the critical meeting for the same and carry the day.” That was no empty boast.

 

In the UPA era, this very (actually, most) powerful post was split into two. The foreign aspects were handled by former Foreign Secretary, Mr. J.N. Dixit and the internal aspects were handled by Mr. M.K. Narayanan, a retired IPS officer. After the demise of the former in 2005, the offices were again merged and Mr. Narayanan became the single NSA. With great responsibility came great power and he was the real power for a long five years, until 2010. The Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement was only one of the big-ticket events which carried his substantive footprints.

 

Since 2014, Mr. Ajit Doval, former Director, IB and superannuated from the IPS has been the NSA. Many of the spectacular actions in recent years, surgical strike, cross-border Balakot airstrike, the Doklam standoff resolution, etc. have been attributed to him. True to his self-effacing ethos, Mr. Doval hasn’t said a word about them. However, a few things have been visible to all through the electronic media. In the thick of the Delhi riots, his visit to the affected areas rapidly cooled down the panic and the tensions. It was widely reported that his intervention brought the serious faultlines around a COVID-19 superspreader problem to a resolution. In Pakistani channels, there are very loud and heated arguments by the panelists regarding many India-centric things but, invariably, all panelists agree on one thing. If there is one person whose professional capabilities the Pakistani establishment is scared of, it’s Mr. Doval and they don’t have anyone to match him. He has been at the helm for eight years now, and counting.

 

So, at least 27 years out of a post-Independence history of 75 years. Not bad for a service which is only one out of 30-odd Group A civil services of India!

Something (more) about West Bengal cadre

 

These chronicles will not be complete without mentioning an officer named B.B. Biswas (now deceased). He was from the State Police Service. When I first met him, he was Additional Superintendent of Police in the adjacent district of Coochbehar. In Police, when a law and order situation develops, it is communicated urgently on the wireless. This being a one-to-many communication, all important officials and stations get to hear it simultaneously and take action, as required. Whenever there was any such situation reported on the wireless in Coochebehar district or any district where B.B. Biswas was posted, such a message was almost immediately followed by a message that the Additional SP (i.e., Biswas) had rushed to the spot. However, someone did some research and found that although there were numerous reports of B.B. Biswas having started off immediately for all the trouble spots, there never was any report or evidence of his EVER having reached any of them. All the SHOs of all those Police Station areas are still awaiting his arrival. 

When the post of Additional SP, South 24 Parganas was falling vacant, B.B. Biswas moved heaven and earth to get posted there. That was not because the jurisdiction was huge or because it was close to Calcutta. One reason he was desperate to be posted there was that he had three wives belonging to three different Police Station areas of the concerned zone. It was a logistical nightmare for him to coordinate his domestic arrangements from a remote posting. The second reason, as stated by him, was that there were 19 Police Stations in the zone so if each one contributed at least Rs. 2,000 per month, he could keep his assorted wives in relative comfort. His logic and his efforts to achieve the outcome became widely known. However, unfortunately for him, I got posted in the zone instead. This sent him into depression but when someone was trying to commiserate with him, he replied that he was almost posted there but at the last minute, the typist made a mistake and typed out B.B. Dash instead of B.B. Biswas. May his soul rest in peace.

 

In Bengal, no one used to attend office before 11 A.M.. On the other hand, there was a rush to leave office at around 5 PM. In one of the offices, in a fit of idiotic insanity, I thought there should be more discipline and asked the Bodo Babu (Section Officer) as to what actually was the government-mandated office time. He hemmed and hawed and scratched his head and indicated that he had never come across any order specifying it. I set him and others to search for the order but to no avail. One day, I just walked into the office at 9.30 AM and marked everyone absent for the day. People started rolling in at 11 AM as usual and were horrified. By 11.05 AM, all the relevant orders pertaining to attendance magically appeared on my table.

 

The actual office timing turned out to be 10 AM to 5.30 PM. Later on, while I made it a point to land up in office at 10 AM, I generally deferred to the local custom of 11 AM start to the office by the others. When I was IG (Admn), sitting at Writers’ Buildings, the bastion of state administration and also then the bastion of militant unionism, one day, a Section Officer turned up casually at around noon. There was something important to be dealt with and I was upset and made known my displeasure at his tardiness although as per his calculations, he was late by only one hour. The same evening, I was discussing a file with him and immediately after 5 PM, he kept looking at his watch pointedly. I was annoyed, pointed out that he had come inordinately late in the morning and asked why then was he looking at his watch at 5 PM? He said, “Dekhen Sir, Sakale ek baar late hoychhilam; eki dine dubaar late hote pari naa.” [See Sir, in the morning, I was late once (arriving); can’t afford to be late twice (while leaving also) in one single day.]

 

To go with the militant trade unionism of the subordinate staff, we also had a fairly militant IPS association, albeit without the rights of industrial action. One particular year, there was a hotly contested election between two groups of officers who openly branded themselves as “the haves” vs the “the have-nots.” The “haves” were further divided into “grass-eaters” and “man-eaters” but that’s for a later blog. The “haves” took the floor first and held forth on how they will transform the cadre by increasing the cadre strength, creating extra posts at the senior levels, etc.. The “have-nots” talked about district assignments for all, reducing arbitrariness in posting, and so forth. Meanwhile, a senior officer, known for his excessive militancy, wanted to have his say and rushed towards the microphone. Many other senior officers tried to grab and restrain him because with him at the mike, anything could happen. Somehow, he managed to escape all the clutching hands and shouted into the mike, “All these big things are bunkum. Tell me what you’re going to do about medical reimbursements.” When everyone was surprised at the question, he added, “I still haven’t been reimbursed for my wife’s first delivery. The child is now grown up and about to get married …”

 

In the state Intelligence Branch, two officers of the same batch were posted as Addl Director General. One of them was heading the Branch and the other one was holding another important post. There was constant struggle for establishing supremacy. Things came to a head when the second officer landed up in the office early one day and parked his car under a portico leading to the offices. Traditionally, the car of the head of the Branch used to be parked there and there never was any trouble earlier because the other officers in the Branch were always either junior or from junior batches. When the big chief arrived, he was aghast to see that “his” spot was taken. The other officer refused to get his car moved. Things escalated through the Home Secretary, the Chief Secretary and finally to the Chief Minister. After a lot of heated discussion, it was finally resolved that the car of one of the officers will occupy that space for three days in the week and the car of the other officer, the remaining two days. Why the cars couldn’t drop off the officers and be parked elsewhere is a question that was never asked.

[Names changed to protect identities]

#HimToo

 

A few short years back, someone died in Kolkata. Let’s call him Koustuv Paul. He had retired from the IPS just a month earlier. The guy died by slitting his wrist. His wife found him in a pool of blood when she returned from outside. He had left behind a six-page suicide note.

 

Koustuv was a year or two junior to me in college but a batch senior to me in the IPS. I didn’t know him in college but met him first in the National Police Academy. We used to have a sandwich programme of basic training then. Called ‘sandwich’ because we used to have a Phase I of about a year, then go for district training in our allotted state cadres and return to the Academy for Phase II of three months. Two batches used to intermingle during the Phase II of the senior batch. That word ‘sandwich’ has had very unfortunate connotations for Koustuv.

 

In the Academy, we used to be extremely jealous of him. He was very good looking, an athlete par excellence (this is rated important by IPS guys, especially in the Academy days) and was always surrounded by a bevy of girls. During training, any type of leave is a strict no – no but Koustuv used to manage his leave easily because he was very popular with all the lady wives of the faculty.

 

In the cadre, he gave us more reasons to be jealous. He was very, very ambitious and managed the best first posting, SDPO of a sub division close to Calcutta. For the guys likely to reach the very top in the IPS, i.e., DGP, Director CBI, etc., certain posting points are indicative and Koustuv ticked them all during his first 6/7 postings. For the powers that be, he was the ultimate “bhalo chhele,” (golden boy), the man who could never set a foot wrong. Plus, he had pedigree – his father, Mr. Sujit Paul was a celebrated IPS officer of the cadre and was a Padma Shri awardee. But all this jealousy on our part was never very bitter because Koustuv was one of the friendliest souls on the planet and pleasant to a fault.

 

I had my first inkling that there was more than met the eye when I got posted to North 24 Parganas where he had just been transferred from. I heard tales of how he kept listening to and monitoring the Police wireless right up to the minute he reached his wedding venue, how he went for his honeymoon to Jalpaiguri, stayed in a colleague’s house and the colleague and his house got constantly rattled by his wife’s banging the doors all the time, how he would be visiting Police stations from 10 AM to 10 PM every day, mostly without reason, and so on. I put it down to (extreme) workaholism and consequent marital discord.

 

His career flourished. He continued to be a pet of the Chief Minister, the Police Minister, the stalwarts in the ruling Party and went from celebrated posting to celebrated posting, as SP of coveted districts. We did not know much about his personal life except that he had had a son and both husband and wife used to run minithons and subsist on some fancy salad diet. Suddenly, there was a divorce petition by the wife and the newspapers went to town. In the petition, the wife had detailed all her problems in the marriage, the chief one being that Koustuv had no business marrying her despite having a different sexual orientation.

 

The name, Koustuv, went into local Bengali expressions – “are you normal or Koustuv?,” and so on. We all had to rejig our past envy, etc. – all that ladies’ man bit being blown to the winds, the world started revolving again for mere mortals like us. The divorce came through but the career continued to flourish.

 

Disaster struck when there was the first, and so far possibly the only, allegation of sexual harassment of its kind lodged with the Human Rights Commission. The alleged predator was Koustuv Paul. And the victim was a Constable. Male. Soon the tales started tumbling out. How he used to spot young male recruits and “attach” them to his house on various pretexts, how he had ruined the marital lives of several young Constables, and so on. In the investigation that followed, Koustuv tried to show that he was on leave and out of station on the relevant dates. Unfortunately, he had signed and sanctioned leave to some of those same Constables on the dates concerned. He was found guilty and the Human Rights Commission imposed punishment which also led to suspension and Departmental Enquiry against him. Subsequently, there was another Departmental Enquiry against him for gross financial irregularities. Ever since 2009, he was put on “compulsory waiting,” i.e., no assignment.

 

I knew the story thus far when I left the cadre for my second deputation. When I came back after six years, I heard that Koustuv had been languishing without a posting for all these years and the Departmental Enquiries were still going on. He had adopted a spiritual path, called himself Yogi Brindeswar Paritran and was attached to a Math. Plus, he had married again. To a female – yeah, another Yogini!

 

Well, there you have it. A really tortured soul, sandwiched between overwhelming ambition and desire for acceptance on the one hand and, on the other hand, the extreme difficulty and loneliness of having a different sexual orientation, especially in a high – visibility job like the Police. He brought a few of the misfortunes upon himself but all these enquiries should have had a sunset clause rather than dragging on for a decade. He should have been punished and paid whatever remained due, if anything, at least after retirement – his suicide note talked about dues of more than Rs. 55 lacs but the government stated that all dues had been paid.

 

A very, very unfortunate and tragic end. I tell it to you because stories of despondency and despair should also be told. Also because, I feel, despite Koustuv’s misfortune and foibles, the preciousness of life should have somehow found a way to triumph over the desolation of death.

  

[Names, places and a few details have been altered to protect identities.]

KK

 

For me, he is always KK – the name is K. Karunakaran Shukla. Going by the surname, I thought he was from up North somewhere. Turned out, he was from Tamil Nadu. Actual name was Karunakaran K. By adding Shukla, he got the benefit of some reservation. First, he became the first boy from his village to complete Matriculation. Then he became the first boy from his Taluk to finish graduation. And when he became the first boy from his district to join the IPS, he felt all that agony of a South Indian body and soul wrapped inside a North Indian name had been worth it. 

He was Additional S.P. in a district called Murshidabad with a very well–connected and very powerful S.P. called Manas Rakshit. The S.P. was very successful, very ambitious and very in with the ruling Party. His only complaint, expressed in private to many people – “Out of all the S.P.s in the whole state, why did KK have to happen to ME?” One day he rang up someone high up in the ruling party and poured his heart out regarding his Additional S.P. and pleaded with folded telephonic hands to kindly remove him – “Ek lo, ek Additional S.P. muft mein doonga!” Unfortunately, at that time, there was a lot of cross-connection. KK got a parallel connection and heard through the whole conversation. Next day, bright and early, KK was in the office of the S.P. in his crisp Khaki with a crisp salute. The conversation:

 

KK: “Sir, I heard you are not happy with my work.”

 

S.P.: “No, no, who told you? You tackled that riot situation well. Crime is coming down.”

 

KK: “Still Sir, I believe, you don’t like me.”

 

S.P.: “Who is spreading these rumours? Why should I dislike you?”

 

KK: “Probably, Sir, you think I am unbalanced.”

 

S.P.: “This kind of misunderstanding should not happen. There are always these mischief-mongers.”

 

KK: “Sir, I was the first boy from my village to finish Matriculation. Then I became the first boy from my Taluk to finish graduation. And after a lot of struggle, I became the first boy from my district to join the IPS. I am really trying to do a sincere job.”

 

S.P.: “Of course, you are. We all are very proud of you. Why should you have any doubts?”

 

KK: “Sir, yesterday, there was a parallel connection. You were telling Sumanto Babu that I am unbalanced, incompetent, unsavoury and must be removed…”

 

Earlier, IPS officers were not allowed to go for UN missions. Good tax-free money, little work, exotic locales but no IPS. In the early 1990s, there was just a small suggestion that IPS officers could also be considered for the UN mission in Liberia. KK grabbed the opportunity with both hands. All of us eight officers of Bengal cadre who had applied got selected but the West Bengal government suddenly realized that sparing so many officers at Additional S.P./ S.P. level would create a serious vacuum so they refused to release us. We tried and nearly gave up but not KK. In Bengal, no one attends office before 11 AM. Every single morning, KK would be at the door of Joint Secretary (Police) office at 1055 hrs, usher him into his own office and start with the story of how he was the first boy from his village to finish Matriculation … and so on and end with the plea to kindly release us. After about a week of this, the Joint Secretary was pissed off and asked KK whether there wasn’t some other important work for him to do as he was in a sensitive district and why he was pestering him every day on end. KK replied that he had a very important assignment but since going to Liberia was more important, he reported sick so that he could hound this Joint Secretary. Finally, in sheer disgust, the Joint Secretary gave in. Even then it was touch and go. When that chartered flight took off from Delhi airport with us on board, we finally believed that we were in fact going on a UN mission and a cheer went up for KK in the plane.

 

Because it was a UN mission in a war devastated country, we were given a special baggage allowance of 140 kgs. KK persuaded the authorities and managed to sneak in baggage weighing 160 kgs. I did not know how tough things could be and went in with 24 kgs and everyone thought I was a fool. When we landed in Liberia, there was a lot of jostling for the officers to get down as though they were the first men on the moon. KK managed to be the first to get down but was very disappointed. There were already people there so he felt cheated out of his Neil Armstrong moment. There was a further problem. NO COOLIE or trolley! Everyone had to lug his own stuff. I was the only one laughing at that moment. It was tough work, heaving all that baggage on to a pick-up van at a considerable distance. One bag of KK fell and broke and about 78 pickle bottles rolled out in 78 different directions. In a place and context like Liberia in the early 1990s, pickle was a very precious commodity. Each of us grabbed as many pickle bottles as possible and tried to run as far away from KK as possible. He chased some of us and finally caught up with me. He pulled rank and demanded his pickles back. I politely and firmly refused and then he told me how his wife had lovingly packed them for him and if I did not return them, divorce was a distinct possibility and there was also the little matter of his having been the first boy from his village to have passed Matriculation and … Finally, we negotiated down to 50 – 50. He was not so successful with the others.

 

I had not seen 10,000 rupees together in my life till then. Liberia offered 105 USD per day plus our salaries. Before we could be posted to our duty stations and rent accommodation, we were put up in an exploitative hotel charging about 70 dollars per day. Most of us were still happy because it was a temporary thing for about a week and even the balance money was fine but not so KK. His world appeared to have crashed all around him. I asked him about the problem and he said he had budgeted for 3 dollars of rent plus 2 dollars of food per day so that he would save at least a hundred dollars per day, else, it was not economical. Economical?!! I thought this was just polite small talk and did not realize how dead serious he was. One morning, he announced to the utter jealously of the rest of us at the breakfast table that he had found a hotel where three of them would be sharing a room for just 10 dollars per night and they were moving out. We the great unwashed bade them goodbye secretly wishing that they would get run over. At 2 AM in the morning, same night, there was a lot of commotion. We saw KK and the two others sheepishly lugging their trunks (KK with 160 kgs minus some of the pickle bottles) and such like on their backs walking back into the hotel. Apparently, that dream castle was a room in a red-light area hotel and some “clients” were trying to wake them up around midnight. Unfortunately, the original hotel did not have any spare rooms so they spent the night searching unsuccessfully for a hotel room elsewhere, all their luggage on their backs.

 

I took over a particular assignment from KK. In the course of the farewell speeches in my honour when I was leaving the assignment, some of my staff described me in glowing terms and some even ascribed some sort of divinity to little old me. I was getting more and more elated until I realised that everything was relative. Compared to KK, my illustrious predecessor, who was by now referred to as King Kobra by some, in certain lights, from certain angles, I was appearing a little bit of all right!

“He’s a walking contradiction,
Partly truth and partly fiction.”

 

 

[Like that song, this is part truth, part fiction and part wild exaggeration; a mish-mash

combination of different people who brightened my days at different points

of time. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental.]

An IPS officer and his wife

  

During training, IPS officers have a “troubled area visit” to learn policing in such situations, first – hand. During our training, we were taken to Punjab which was at the peak of its militancy then. Mr. Julio Ribeiro had just become Advisor to Governor, giving charge of DGP to Mr. K.P.S. Gill. Both of them addressed us separately. During Mr. Ribeiro’s address, one of the trainees (excited electron type) asked him whether, given another go at life, he would still like to be an IPS officer. Mr. Ribeiro pondered hard and long. “No,” he drawled, “I would not. I would rather be an IPS officer’s wife!”

 

The big thing about life is not the money or the bungalow or the car or the academic degrees. It is actually about how many slave labour you can achieve through authorized and unauthorized means. And in Police and Army, numbers don’t matter. During the first posting I had as a Sub Divisional Police Officer, I found that there were 700 people I was commanding. As you go up the ladder, as IG or Major General in the Army, that number goes up to about 12,000 – 14,000. It hits stratospheric levels when you hit DGship. Given that, sparing 10 or 15 people for the upkeep of the house or massaging the wife's status is like a drop in the ocean. Some of us may have seen a media SCOOP about how a large contingent was deployed to build a swimming pool in the residential house of S.P., Keonjahr in Orissa. The S.P.’s explanation: He was giving them physical training to make them bigger, broader, better human beings through physical exercise! Please closely observe the sequel – wife is very happy. She also has a high status amongst other wives of her ilk. I think, much of the rivalry and bitterness between IAS and IPS can be traced to this. IPS wives have this army of disguised slave labour for the whole career of their husbands and the IAS wives’ equivalent army probably takes a hit after the DMship.

 

When one joins the Police, one is immediately given certain perks officially – a vehicle, a driver, a bodyguard and two orderlies. The orderlies are supposed to take ‘orders’ – for cooking, buying sabzi, looking after the children and so on. (Un?)fortunately, in West Bengal cadre, the orderly system was abolished by CPM government which thought it was a sad relic of the decadent Raj. In its place, two Home Guards were provided. Their job was to guard the home of the officer. How these one–foot–in–the–grave guys could ever hope to do that without firearms was beyond me. Some officers used them for household work. I drew the short straw and the two guys allotted to me made it very clear on Day One that their job was to guard the home and not household work. I was okay with it. They helped in running errands and attending to the phone and so on. Then I got married. The wife must have been updated at some point and we all settled down to happy domesticity. I carried these two guys from posting to posting as we were familiar with each others’ expectations and there was no hassle. Then I joined SSB, a central police force on Central deputation as a Commandant and all peace went out the window.

 

I was now entitled (?) to a cook, several orderlies and other such entities and I grabbed them without hesitation. The cook was an ex – three star hotel chef so all of us put on about 5 kgs each within a month. My shoes were shining enough to dispense with the mirror. The crease in my uniform could cut through butter. I was happy, reading jokes on the internet and occasionally contributing a PJ or two to my IIMB e-group until one fateful Sunday morning. I was sleeping late when the wife woke me up with some urgency.

 

Wife: “The Home Guard has misbehaved with me – you must do something.”

 

Me: “Wha… wha… what?”

 

Wife: “I asked him to polish your shoes and he refused, saying it’s not his job.”

 

Me: “Wha… wha… what?”

 

Wife: “Wake up. I asked him to polish your shoes and he refused, saying it’s not his job.”

 

Me: “But darling, he had made it clear about 14 years back that it was not his work. Why the sudden urge to get the shoes polished by him? I don’t want my shoes polished by him.”

 

Wife: “But the other orderlies from SSB do it. Why not him?”

 

Me: “Look, like he said, it’s not his job and it has not been his job for the last 14 years. If it’s the job of the SSB guys, they are welcome to it. What do you want me to do now?”

 

Wife: “Well, I have been humiliated so you must chuck your West Bengal Home Guards.”

 

Thus, a long 14-year association between me and these Home Guards came to an end – over shining a pair of shoes.

 

Anyone observing bureaucracy closely would call it jeepocracy (or, carocracy now). The seat of the seniormost person in the jeep or car is fixed so that people can do salaam to the correct person. It is the left side seat in the back, diagonally opposite to the driver. How this tradition originated is not known but officers adhere to it fiercely. So if I travelled with anyone even one batch senior to me, I waited until he occupied the “big” seat – left, back and then occupy any other seat available. What happens when the wives are travelling together?

 

One of my cadremates, Namit Verma got posted as SP, Jalpaiguri. Simultaneously, his batchmate, Deepak Soni got posted as SP, Cooch Behar. While Namit and Deepak were good friends and did not have any issues, when their wives were travelling together in one car, Namit’s wife insisted on occupying that coveted left – back seat as Jalpaiguri was a bigger district than Cooch Behar. Within months, Deepak was posted as SP, Darjeeling which was then considered a more important district than Jalpaiguri. Now, Deepak’s wife would insist on occupying that left – back seat when she travelled with Mrs Namit Verma. I found it very funny and wanted to share the story with the wife. She has a far more successful career than mine and inhabits a world fairly insulated from Police shenanigans. I thought she would also have a laugh but decided against telling her. 

 

 

 

 

[Names changed to protect identities]

 

 

 

The cop and the bribe go one step up

 

Pre-Kandahar hijacking, airport security used to be manned by the local police. At Calcutta airport, there was enormous jockeying to be posted to the international frisking wing which used to be allocated on rotational basis. A Constable hauled up before me in the orderly room for some misdemeanour was barely able to speak, even in Bengali. I thought he had some speech impediment or problems with language skills. When his turn came, the same Constable was posted to the international frisking wing. I used to sometimes tag along in civvies, incognito, in the queue of passengers waiting to be frisked. I found that the posting had wrought a miracle in the above Constable. Not only did it cure him of his speech impediment, he was now fluent in English also. I saw and heard him engaged in a lucid conversation with a British passenger, “Sir, you are our English master. We are your Indian slaves. You may give me some pounds. Or dollars. Even some 555 cigarettes will do …”

At Calcutta airport, it was sometimes difficult to digest some of the capers the personnel could get up to. The airport duty is round-the-clock so the personnel are deployed in eight-hour shifts. A Dy SP supervises the duty of the personnel in each shift and is present at the airport during his shift to attend to any urgent problems. Once, a passenger complained to the shift Dy SP regarding extortion by a Constable and gave the complaint in writing. The Dy SP summoned the Constable and asked him for an explanation. The Constable swore up and down and sideways that he was innocent. When the Dy SP pointed to the written complaint, the Constable grabbed it and immediately proceeded to eat it up. By that time, the passenger and his flight had already left so all that was left of the evidence was a little bit of indigestion for the Constable. Which brings me to a little higher up.

How does an IPS officer make money, if he is so inclined? Obviously, he is above going from truck to truck or weekly market to weekly market or chewing up evidence against him. Well, he has serious discretionary powers over all those who do all those things. Let’s go back a little in history.

The colonial rule did suffer from fears of illegitimacy in the minds of the people for the early part. There was considerable effort at display of grandeur to counteract such perceptions in the populace. Thus, the British built few hospitals and schools but the police stations and buildings were elaborate, imposing bungalows in Victorian architecture, with high ceilings and broad verandas all around where most of the official work was carried out. The same principle applied to SP offices and residences, armed guards and escorts, addressing senior officers as “Huzur Bahadur” (the brave gentleman) or “Kaptaan Sahib'' (the lordly captain), practices which endure till date. And so do the buildings. Inspections by senior officers used to be accompanied by tiger hunts and lavish stay, feasts and entertainment arrangements, all paid for by the Police Stations.

Would a senior officer of the British India of the 19^th century landing up at a Police Station of today find things different? Not much. Tiger hunts have, of course, been banned. However, these have been replaced by new year parties, picnics and official “get togethers'' with family and friends, at “Dak Bungalows.” The entertainment of senior officers by the subordinate staff is even now an established practice in the police departments and beyond a token payment, all other expenses are passed down to the SHOs. That British India officer would miss the tiger hunt but otherwise feel right at home.

In Police, we have a system of a monthly meeting, called the Crime Conference. It’s usually about three hours of grilling the officers on crime and their countervailing efforts in their areas of responsibility – COMPSTAT in New York by Bratton was the nearest that US had. One of my predecessors in a post used to have two Crime Conferences – one for grilling the officers on the crimes and the second one held on his residential lawns by his wife to discuss why the last month’s brown envelope was smaller in size than the previous month’s … There are always people searching for ways to bribe without being obvious about it. Birthday gifts for the child come in real handy. This same predecessor’s son used to have at least half a dozen birthdays per year as a result…

In a district, while the final disciplining powers vest with the SP, the minor punishment powers are delegated to the SDPOs and the Additional SPs for officials in their jurisdictions. In one district, I found that the SP had taken away this delegation and used to deal with all infringements himself. Because of this, he had to hold Orderly Rooms on almost every working day. While the number of personnel accused of the misdemeanours was huge, I found that he had not awarded a single punishment to anyone in his entire tenure. The implications were staggering.

Police recruitment is the big money spinner. While in Calcutta Police as Dy. Commissioner (DC), I was sent to a district called Burdwan for recruiting 100 Constables. Trying to be extremely diligent. I closely supervised all phases of the recruitment – measurement of height, chest, chest expansion, weight, 800 metres run within 4 minutes and so many seconds, 15 feet long jump, 100 metres sprint within 15 seconds, interview and so on. Just to be safe, I made everyone run singly for 100 metres with a stop watch in my hand. The process was so rigorous that there were less than a hundred people qualifying the physical tests. As a result, interview was inconsequential, eliminating the discretion component. Despite all this, I learnt that there had been widespread corruption. How? Apparently, there were these touts who promised the job to most of the candidates and collected two lakh rupees from each. They pocketed the money from all those who were selected on merit and returned the money to all those who failed. At Rs. 2 lacs per head for 100 selected – a neat two crores, in one district alone. No one complained. The selected candidates were happy. The failed ones got their money back and had no grievance. The touts were laughing all the way to the bank. If a DC taps into this, he also chuckles. One DC of Calcutta Police sent to North Bengal for recruitment in several districts never returned – they’re still waiting for him, after decades. Meanwhile, the immediate target of that constable having paid Rs. 2 lacs would be to recoup the money as quickly as possible …

Posting of officers and men is the other big one. I have heard that in many states, many times, the SHO posts of police stations are auctioned to the highest bidder. By its very nature, the organisation is secretive and this creates great opportunities. Subversion of investigation of major cases on pecuniary and political considerations is one of these. Cuts from vendors supplying uniforms, office equipment, vehicles, arms, ammunition and gadgets work out to huge amounts because the numbers are very high. The Police strength of a medium-sized state is over a lakh. The strength of one paramilitary force is above 2.5 lakh. The maths of any percentage cuts can be overwhelming. The budget estimate for Police expenditure for a medium-sized state for 2022-23 is above Rs. 10,000 cr. Police modernisation for both the state and the central police forces have huge budgets and, of course, huge opportunities.

When I joined the service, I thought there was a small, miniscule proportion of IPS officers (the so-called “haves”) creating a bad name for the majority (the so-called “have-nots”). Do I still hold that opinion? Well, ahem, ahem …

 

You were supposed to lend these powerful shoulders to the weak against the mighty …

 … what have you done with the stars in your hands?!