Ah, those 90 hours!

 

First came the 70-hour work-week prescription from a fossilised has-been called Narayana Murthy. Initially, I thought it was just a senile man seeking relevance and validation in his golden years but later, someone pointed out that his sound-off was actually a carefully calibrated one to cadge the post of President of India as and when it falls vacant. So I dismissed it as just a job application. 

Then came our Let’s Tango L&T chap with his higher-dosage prescription of 90 hours. Not only that; he railed against excessive staring at the wife. Faced with a barrage of memes and criticisms, he doubled down, saying this was all for nation building. 

Well, in India, there actually is one agency for most of whose members 90-hour work weeks are the norm rather than the exception. Even though it is a government agency, in its case, the Government of India violates all the norms and conventions of International Labour Organisation and other multilateral agencies it is a signatory to. That is the Police. 

The personnel at the Police Station work 24 X 7 because crime and law and order incidents do not follow the calendar or office hours. In fact, most of the work happens in the night. They do not have any government holidays; actually, on most of the government holidays like festivals, Republic Day, Independence Day, Polling Day and so on, they have extra-onerous duties. There is no concept of weekend. Reasons for this are many – very low police/population ratio, organisational ethos of the Police, high incidence of crime and disorder and so on. One DGP of a particular state introduced a one-day off per week and that became a huge talking point. In essence, the Police Station personnel in India lead a very abnormal life. This applies to senior officers too. 

Like any other IPS officer during the field posting period, I was also lurching from hectic assignment to hectic assignment for 14 long years until I completed my SPship of a district. During that tenure, one Dy SP from a different district lobbied hard and got posted in the District Intelligence Branch (DIB) of my district. I was really intrigued because the Dy SP had a tremendous reputation as an ace investigator and DIB posting is considered peripheral and very unimportant. I asked him how come, when he was such a good officer and when we used to consult him for important/ complicated cases. His reply, roughly translated into English: 

“Sir, just like you’re praising me, many senior officers have seen fit to bestow encomiums in the past. I was also puffed up and put in my level best throughout my career, not bothering about anything except my job – family, other interests, and so on. Most of the time, I’ve stayed away from my family. But, what has been the point of it all?! My only child (a son) has turned into a drug addict. I have just three years of service left. I’ve tried for a lighter posting in my home district so that I’ll try to return him to mainstream …” 

That night, I thought long and hard about what the Dy SP said. My situation was not much different, although I was younger than him. By then, I’d put in 14 years on that treadmill. My children were growing up in a practically one-parent household. My own psyche was taking a hit. Although I liked to write, I couldn’t remember when I’d last written anything other than an official letter or some personal correspondence. Getting together with people other than service colleagues was a distant memory. Pursuing any hobby had been out of the question. I decided to opt for assignments where at least I could segregate office and personal time. And went on a deputation, against the will of the highest levels in the state government. Now, even though working hours were still long, when I went home, I could at least leave the office behind. 

I need not tell you about the staring bit. However, I did manage to spend quality time with the kids in their formative years. They went on to do well in their careers and vocations. When my son, armed with a 99 percentile score in GRE, was applying for US universities and was having some problems arranging the recommendation letters from his teachers, I offered to request my PhD guide at IIT, Delhi for the same. He refused, saying that would be unethical. I was extremely proud of him.

90-hour work week? BULLSHIT! I have lived through it for 14 years. It sucks.

Footprints

 

The only way a civil servant thinks he exists or has ever existed is to find his name on something called a Succession Board. Most government offices have this board where the serial numbers, names of the officers and the dates they occupied the hallowed chair are written and prominently displayed, usually behind the chair. Some of these boards go back to ancient times, much before India’s independence also. 

Given this, despite putting in 33 long years in the Indian Police Service, I wonder whether I have ever existed because my name doesn’t figure in (m)any board/s. 

The problem started with my probation/training days itself. Our outdoor in-charge used to be very innovative and introduced two large brass plaques on the training ground at the National Police Academy (NPA) recording the names of all the IPS officers who had passed out from the portals of NPA. After passing out, for some reason, the Academy recommended that I should be removed from service and pursued it vigorously. They succeeded in ensuring that orders terminating my services were issued. Apparently, there were jubilant celebrations in the Academy when news of this reached there and, in the middle of it, someone decided to remove my name from the brass plaque. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the honourable President of India who is never pleased was pleased to cancel the termination order so I survived. Later, when I visited the Academy, I checked to see whether my name had been put back in. It was. While returning from the parade ground to my room, I ran into the officer/ faculty who had vigorously campaigned for my removal. He enquired, “Aur, kya ho raha hai?” I replied, “Woh sab nahi ho raha hai,” and moved on. I wonder whether the brass plaque and my name are still there. 

In the cadre, my first posting was as Sub Divisional Police Officer in Alipurduar. The post was very old and the succession board in that office contained the names of many celebrated officers dating back to really ancient times. It was a matter of pride to see my name alongside theirs. Unfortunately, the sub division has now been converted into a district so there is a Superintendent of Police there and the post and the board have ceased to exist. 

On promotion, I joined as a zonal Additional SP in South 24 Parganas district. Unfortunately for me, that zone has now been subdivided into three full-fledged police districts so, again, the old board is gone. 

My next assignment was a United Nations deployment in Mozambique. In those deployments, there is no system of succession boards. In any case, once the mission winds up, hardly any trace of it survives. Sometimes, the country also doesn’t survive, let alone a succession board. 

After I came back, I was posted for a few months as Additional SP in North 24 Parganas district. That office has now got shifted and succession board, if any, of the post also must have been subsumed in an unmarked grave of the interminable march of time. 

On promotion, I was posted as SP, Calcutta airport. Those were pre-Kandahar hijacking days and airport security was manned by local Police of the state where any airport was situated. After the Kandahar hijacking, the government decided that the airport security would be handed over to a Central force and CISF was designated to take over the security at the airports in a phased manner. Accordingly, the security of Calcutta airport is now under the charge of an officer of CISF designated as CASO (Chief Airport Security officer). The earlier post and succession board are long gone. 

The next post, DC, Enforcement Branch, Calcutta Police was already in decline when I joined because the control orders were being cancelled one by one. It has now been fairly reduced to a long-deceased letter box and has been relocated. I have no idea if a succession board exists when the post itself faces extinction. 

North Dinajpur, the district where I was SP was carved out of another district called West Dinajpur which might have been carved out of an undivided Dinajpur during British times – the East Dianjpur part became part of East Bengal/ Bangladesh. When this happens, that succession board of the original district disappears, to be replaced by succession boards of the new units, starting with when the unit was formed. Unfortunately, North Dinajpur district has now been splintered into two districts. 

I went on Central deputation as a Commandant. This organisation was undergoing a transformation at that point of time, to becoming a border guarding force. The unit I was heading was in the hinterland and was now merged with other units and the combined unit was located at the border. With this went any hope of mine to have some kind of existence on a succession board. Later, on promotion in that organisation, I held a combination of assignments simultaneously and these combinations were changing frequently so the question of any succession board didn’t arise. 

My second central deputation was with Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and since the demands on the organisation were far greater than its capabilities, I devoted my entire energy into a massive reorganisation. All the designations also underwent a transformation. Thus the post of Commissioner became Director General. My name figured in the posts of Commissioner and Joint Commissioner but it’s unlikely that those boards exist any more. In that sense, I dug my own grave by organising the overhaul of BCAS.

My last assignment in the service was so insignificant that there was no succession board. I tried to find the dates my predecessors had occupied the post  so that I could create a succession board but even that record didn’t exist. Thus, I faded gently into that post-retirement good night, unseen, unheard, unrecorded for posterity. 

In my quest for some kind of footprint on the sands of time, I compiled a selection of these blogs into a book hoping that there would be at least some traces of my existence. Unfortunately, just a few days back, my publishers informed that they are winding up their Indian operations and after this month, my book will stop being listed in Amazon, etc., unless I get it reprinted by some other publishers. 

Leads me to think, do I exist? Have I ever existed? I seek solace in Einstein’s quote about Mahatma Gandhi:

But then, apparently, no one knew Gandhi until a film was made on him. I wonder whether anyone ever would make a film on me.

Dial M for Murder (of Democracy)

 

During this entire election (Lok Sabha, 2024), I have been appalled by what the Election Commission of India has done and more so, by what it has not done. The incidents have got curiouser and curiouser.

This has been the longest electoral exercise in India ever, except for 1951-52 when it was held over four months and 68 phases. However, the situation and the process were different then. 314 constituencies elected one member using the first-past-the-post system and 86 constituencies elected two members, one from the general category and one from scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. One constituency elected three representatives. The majority of voting took place in early 1952, but Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 as its weather is usually inclement in February and March. Plus, India was a young nation and the logistics were truly challenging.

Even now, in India, elections are a mammoth exercise. The electoral roll comprises around 96 crore voters who cast their votes in 12 lakh odd booths. The sanctioned strength of Police all-India is 20 lakhs plus and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have around 10 lakh personnel. Obviously, the elections cannot be held on one single day. However, was it really necessary to have seven phases spread over 44 long days? A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that it can be done with three dates spread over 15 days only. How? 

During elections, due to extensive deployment of forces in an area, regular Policing, border guarding and other stresses on the Police are much less so easily, 50 % of the above 30 lakhs personnel can be mobilised. Looks like a tall ask but, if forced to, a lot of flab in terms of personnel deployed for non-policing duties (I saw one retired officer having 50 CAPF personnel in his house) can be trimmed down. In the current elections, 3.4 lakh CAPF personnel have been mobilised. That can easily go up to 5 lakhs. 

Secondly, my experience is that the personnel at the booth cannot thwart a depredation. A few polling booths are combined into a circle/sector and a force is deployed for each circle/sector. This is the force which patrols the booths in its jurisdiction and is the real deployment that makes for the effectiveness of the election police arrangement. Rather than manning the sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths by CAPF instead of local police, these circles should be made smaller and manned properly. That will reduce the absolute numbers and make for better policing. 

Half the CAPF personnel may be deployed each for Phase I and Phase II, a week apart. Bulk of the CAPF deployment in the Phase I may be relocated for Phase III and will get 10 days for movement and acclimatisation. 

Thus, the elections would be over in two weeks. 

When this is possible, why was the election spread over 44 days during the current elections? The reasons were not logistical. It was just to facilitate one particular “star campaigner” of one particular party to go around the countryside and campaign as much as possible. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired. Badly. So, ‘Viksit Bharat’ immediately gave way to many things starting with M – Mutton, Machhli (Udhampur, April 12), Musalmaan (Ajmer, April 6), Mangalsutra (Banswara, April 21), Muslim Cricket team (Dhar, May 7), Mujra (Patliputra, May 25) and towards the very end, Mahatma, the unknown (TV interview, May 29). The whole thing was rounded off with a bout of Meditation with or without spectacles but definitely with the cameramen. 

For good measure, there were a few non-M words also, Ghuspetiya (Banswara, April 21), Vote jihad (Barasat, May 28), Reservation to Muslims at the cost of SC, ST, OBC (Dumka, May 28), the “Non-biological Divinity” (Varanasi, May 14), and so on. 

Section I (1) of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) requires that “No party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic." 

Section I (3) of the Model Code of Conduct states, “There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes …” Would the M-tirades be violations of MCC? Of course, they were, apart from falling foul of various sections of the Representation of People’s Act and IPC. The Election Commission of India (ECI) was silent. It remained silent when the voters were told that not voting for a particular party would be a “sin” as opposed to voting for it which would be “auspicious.” It also remained silent when campaign interviews were telecast in areas in “silent period” before polling. The so-called meditation which was nothing but a campaign ploy was telecast all over during the silent period before the last Phase poll on June 1. 

Then there were the prodigious amounts of lies and untruths purveyed with contemptuous glee. 

“They will put Ram Lalla back in a tent...,” “They will put a Babri lock on the Ram temple...,” “They plan to bulldoze Ram temple...,” “As per their manifesto, 15 % of the budget/ resources will be given away to ghuspetiyas…,” “If you have two buffalos, their government will take away one,” “No one knew about Mahatma Gandhi until a film was made about him…” It’s another matter that no such words were available in any manifesto and around 12,600,000 books on Gandhi are available in the US Library of Congress collection. Tempos loaded with cash of Ambani and Adani were never found. 

MCC does have prohibition against lies. Section I (2) directs, “Criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion shall be avoided.” 

Experiments with weaponised lies aren’t supposed to succeed with such ease, even if they come dressed in supreme arrogance. 

Unless future Election Commissions dig even lower, the current elections will probably go down in history as the rock bottom in terms of transparency, probity and fairness, with obvious implications for its presiding deities.

OMG, What have they done!

 

In 2002, when I visited the National Police Academy (NPA) at Hyderabad to attend a seminar on National Security, we were taken to see the sound and light show at Golconda fort. This was started in 1993, much after we had passed out from NPA. It was the first sound and light show I’d ever seen. I was stunned! 

It started with a mesmerising ghazal by Jagjit Singh: 

एक गुलशन था जलवानुमां इस जगह,

रंग-ओ-बू जिसकी दुनिया में मशहूर थी,

बेग़मों की हँसी गूँजती थी यहीं,

शाह की शानोशौकत में भरपूर थी … 

There was a beauty of splendour here

Its fame enthralled many all over the world

The place used to echo with the laughter of queens and princesses

It bore witness to the kings’ pomp and pageantry … 

[Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vTT-EucsqA] 

Then, Amitabh Bachchan’s voice took over, “Come, friends, come this way please …” 

The show was for one hour. With questions and answers, Amitabh Bachchan took us through the entire history of the fort from the time Prataprudra built the fort in the 11^th Century through its development by the Kakatiyas, Bahmani Sultans, Sultan Quli and so on. The narration included reenacted conversations between certain key personae in history and with tremendous sound effects like that of horses galloping and neighing, war drums and so on and differential lighting focusing on different parts of the fort at different levels in sync with the events being described, it transported us to the bygone eras which we felt we were ourselves inhabiting during that hour. The coloured lighting focused in turns on Diwan-e-khas, Rani Mahal, Sultan’s chambers and while being narrated, a lit-up fountain suddenly sprang to life. So did a beam highlighting the Koh-i-Noor diamond which is supposed to have either originated in the Golconda mines or adorned the Golconda vaults initially. 

When the one and a half month siege of the fort by Aurangzeb was depicted we felt we were inside the fort with the vast Mughal army barracked outside. When the negotiation between the queen and Aurangzeb happened and Aurangzeb extracted a heavy price for lifting the siege, we were flies on the wall watching and listening to the exchanges. 

The romance between Sultan Qutb Shah and Bhagmati and the risks the former took to meet her, defying royal edict against it, was poignantly portrayed with great sound effects and exchanges. 

Golconda fort has a unique architecture and built on several tiers/ levels. This made for riveting details in the narration. It has a seven kilometer surrounding wall, four drawbridges, eight gates and 87 bastions. The fort has an amazing acoustic system which is a technical and engineering marvel. It was designed in such a way that a clap at the entrance is transmitted a kilometer away to the main fort three levels up but could not be heard a meter away. This was for announcing arrivals and warning against attacks. The gates were designed in such a way with narrow entrances and giant iron spikes that the elephants couldn’t charge and bring them down. That is why Aurangzeb resorted to sorrrounding the fort for one and half months in the first instance and later, for eight months. 

When the show ended after an hour, each one in the packed audience burst into spontaneous applause. 

Later I saw the sound and light shows at the cellular jail in Port Blair and Lal Qila in Delhi but those were just not a patch on the one at Golconda fort. Whenever anyone I knew was visiting Hyderabad, I used to urge him to make it a point to catch the show at Golconda. It truly showcased the brilliant talent of India in art and music, its famed "soft" power. I wanted to see it again too. The opportunity came during a recent visit and the experience was heart-breaking. 

For reasons completely unknown, the authorities have taken something utterly brilliant and replaced it with a tedious, almost unwatchable excretion of half an hour duration. My first indication came when I saw most of the chairs empty – it used to get really crowded earlier. Gone are the music and the Jagjit Singh ghazals. Gone also is the highlighting of the fort and its different aspects. The drama is missing in the narration which is now a flat reading. Some pictures are shown on a single wall – one may as well see it on a computer screen at home. The exquisite sound effects are all gone. There is nothing in the depiction about the technical and engineering marvel that is Golconda fort. And, for some reason, Shivaji Maharaj has entered the narration. 

Not only that no one clapped at the end, people had started leaving much before the whittled-down half-an-hour tedium ended. 

I came away utterly dejected and googled to learn why. Apparently, the change was done to incorporate 3D mapping projection with high-resolution projectors, laser lights and moving heads. Why it couldn’t have been done while retaining the earlier out-of-the-world narration, music and highlighting is one question I couldn’t find an answer to. What upset me the most was that the change came about just 3-4 months back. Had I visited just a few months back, I could have re-lived that beautiful experience all over again. 

I wonder why there hasn’t been any protest against this mindless modification. There should have been. There should be. For those who might like to get somewhat reminded of the old glorious thing, here are the links to what someone has posted on YouTube in three parts. The experience of sitting at the fort and the audio quality can’t be there but one gets the idea of how much better the old version was. As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” 

Part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Lelmz3JS0 

Part 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfiSufcer3Y 

Part 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIv3ykTaRoU

[Queen Bhagmati entering the fort]

Not a drop to drink

 

“Don’t Work-From-Home, Go Home,” “India’s IT capital high and dry,” “Southern metropolis heading towards Day Zero” … are some of the headlines the media screamed about the current water crisis in Bengaluru. If reports are to be believed, people have been reduced to a bath once a week, using disposable cutlery, ordering out instead of cooking, using aerators on taps and cans for washing hands, lining up for water tankers and being fined for washing cars or sprinkling the gardens. IPL matches in the city scheduled shortly have come under uncertainty. How did a premium city come to this? 

The two primary sources of water for Bengaluru, the Cauvery river and ground water have been stretched beyond the limit. Against around 3,000 million litres required per day, the supply is around 1,500 million litres. The rapid urbanisation of the city and its surroundings meant that its lakes turned dry and toxic, gardens gave way to concrete jungles and water consumption grew by leaps and bounds. Lands reserved for green cover, wetlands, urban forests and river courses were rapidly de-notified. Its 262 lakes (around when I studied there in 1984) have come down to 81 now. 90 % of even these 81 are on the verge of extinction, as per Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. 

We shall be extremely myopic if we think this is a problem of Bengaluru alone and that too for a short while. India has been witnessing extremely rapid urbanisation. As per census data, 28.53 % of India’s population resided in urban areas in 2001. By 2017, this had grown to 34 % as per World Bank which estimates that, by 2030, 40.76 % of the country’s population will be in urban areas (400 persons/sq km). Slowly, all cities and later, all urban areas in India may attain Bengaluru’s “water-loo.” 

What’s the way out, then? Let’s take a look at Singapore. 

Compared to other colonised countries, Singapore got its independence from British rule very late, in 1965. One of the reasons was that the British didn’t think it could survive as an independent nation because it had serious inadequacy of water. It was only after a water agreement was signed with Malaysia in 1962 that an independent nation could be thought of. The Malaysian Constitution was also amended in 1965 to provide for an assured quantity of water supplied to Singapore. 

Singapore went on to become a thriving nation but at the back of the policy maker’s mind, its water conundrum has always occupied pride of place and apprehension. While grandstanding against Malaysia which was trying to negotiate a revised price and revised water treaty (“The day Malaysia stops water supply, my tanks will be on Malaysia border” ~ Lee Kuan Yew), Singapore did a few things. 

On the supply side, Singapore extended its available sources by desalination of sea water and reuse of waste water and stormwater. Wastewater discharge into streams is not permitted in 95 % of the area and in the remaining 5 %, it requires prior treatment. This is enforced strictly. The recycling of waste water has been so successful that it (called NEWater) is actually purer than tap water. However, so as not to affect sentiments, it is being used primarily for industrial purposes although part of it is blended into the domestic supply reservoirs also. Singapore identified “four taps” of its water supply, Water from local catchment areas, Imported water from Malaysia, NEWater and Desalinated water. Since one of the taps, Imports from Malaysia is uncertain, it has continuously tried to improve the other three taps, calling it the “Three-Tap-Strategy.” This was coupled with ABC – Active, Beautiful, Clean waters programme. [Acronyms have been around for a while!] 

“Whatever gets measured, gets done.” Singapore aggressively chased a metric called UfW to minimise. This is Unaccounted for Water, the difference between the quantity of water supplied to a city's network and the metered quantity of water used by the customers. It has two components -- physical losses due to leakage from pipes and administrative losses due to illegal connections and under-registration of water meters. This stands at 40 % for Delhi and 31 % for Bengaluru at present, against an internationally permissible level of 20 %. UfW in most Asian urban centres range between 40 % to 60 %. For London, it is 24 %. Singapore managed to plug almost all the leaks in the pipes and the systems and eliminated any illegal connections. It has achieved an astounding UfW below 5 %. 

However, it was on the demand side that Singapore wrought a miracle. 

Most countries charge higher for industrial and commercial use of water compared to domestic use. Singapore changed that and charged the same rate for both domestic and commercial use up to a reasonable amount of use per household (40 cubic metres per month). Beyond this, the rates go up steeply for the domestic consumption. Thus, industrial/ commercial users do not subsidise domestic users. [In India, domestic consumers use 90 % of the water but account for only 20 % of the revenues. Source: Asian Development Bank]. 

Instead of providing for lower “lifeline” tariff for poor households on humanitarian grounds, the tariff is kept the same for all but cash benefit transfer is given to the poor households. 

There are Water Conservation Tax, Water-borne fee (for treatment of effluents) and Sanitary appliance Fee. These make the water management financially self-sufficient. 

The water management staff remuneration is benchmarked on the Civil Service and corruption is met with exemplary punishment. 

The biggest enabler in Singapore has probably been taking the politicians out of the equation while setting tariffs. Politicians would necessarily have a vote-centric 5-year horizon which would keep tariffs artificially low or very sticky upwards. Let them play around with targeted subsidy through cashbacks (Direct Benefit Transfer) and let the tariff be on long-term considerations of water conservation and economising its use, and you have a winner. 

Singapore is not necessarily perfect. Although it has reduced its dependence on Malaysia for its water, even now 40 % of its water supply depends on the imports (down from 50 % earlier). However, let’s target a few things amongst what Singapore achieved more than a decade back: 100 % population having access to safe drinking water and sanitation; less than 5 % UfW; every drop of supplied water accounted for; an extraordinarily high water account/employee ratio (376); 99 % water bill collection efficiency; and a financially self-sufficient water management authority. 

The alternative is the doomsday Bengaluru forecast of “No water anywhere, let alone a drop to drink.” Replicated across the country.

Stop whining, start shining II

 

I wonder if any cop at the senior level realises how troublesome being a victim of a crime is. When I was in Sierra Leone, after the hectic elections were over (one of the rare African elections where the government changed without a bloodbath), some of us UN mentors and the Senior Police Advisor got together in our house (it was called the India House) for a celebratory do. It was a rollicking party and, after the guests left, we, the inmates, went off to sleep blissfully. One of us received a call at around 3 AM from the landlord, who stayed in an adjacent house, saying he feared there were some intruders in the house. Our friend woke up to find that most of the things in the drawing room and living room including the TV set, music system, etc. had been taken away by the robbers. He woke all of us up and we saw that there was an armed gang who had come in and some of them were standing guard with knives outside each of the bedroom in case any of us woke up or disturbed them. Some of the knives were left behind. Luckily, none of us woke up suddenly, else, there might have been bloodshed that night and I wouldn’t be around to pontificate. 

We lodged a complaint but, for a few days, every night, we used to go to bed fearful that we might be set upon during the night. It wasn’t a happy existence for those days, despite our being cops and the local cops visiting regularly and putting in an armed guard for the nights also. 

In India, just lodging a complaint is a Herculean task. A victim going to a police station is already under severe stress. Then, there is utter insensitivity at the Police station which treats him as the problem and a nuisance. The default option of the Police officer is to prove that the complaint is false. At the end of the experience, the complainant feels more like the accused than the victim. Then, there are those interminable summons to the Police station on the pretext of recording of statements, examination by supervising officers, and so on. 

If we take ourselves away from the colonial mindset and think of Policing as a service, what would we focus on? A victim of a crime is less interested in the detection than in someone promptly attending to his distress call or his complaint. Just the fact that people in uniform land up at the scene of crime and start investigation quickly reassures him and his neighbourhood. We should concentrate on that and on how to minimise the inconvenience to the victim. That would mean recording the complaint at the scene of crime and taking all other steps like recording the statements, seizures, examination of witnesses, identifications, etc. all in one go and at one place. One-stop policing, in a nutshell. 

A member in my IIMB alumni group once contacted me. He had started a high-end café and the business was picking up. There was a burglary in the café and he lodged a complaint. There was no peace for him thereafter. Every day, the Police station started summoning his key personnel so that the café came to a standstill. In his desperation, he approached the SHO for withdrawing/ closing the case but the demand for doing so was so extortionate that he was cursing his “misadventure” in lodging a police complaint in the first place. He contacted me in utter desperation and was most grateful just because I helped him in closing the case. Imagine! With this kind of extreme victimisation of the victim himself, what legitimacy can the Police have? Is there a way out? Yes, very much. All cases should be reviewed on a monthly basis and there should be no non-Special Report cases pending for more than three months. This is easy to achieve. In case a case has been closed due to lack of evidence, it can be revived later if fresh evidence is forthcoming. 

Every single day, we wake up to news that such and such person has been denied bail on flimsy grounds. Even though he was arrested on cooked-up charges. That is between the Courts and the arrested person. Police can’t so anything about it. What the Police can do is, avoid wrongful arrest. How? Penalise it. 

Unlike in the US and elsewhere, there is no penalty mandated for wrongful arrest in India and the police and the politicians have had a free pass to do a lot of reprehensible things for too long, taking advantage of this. The cop leadership can do it internally and mete out exemplary punishment. The SP or DCP knows when a wrongful arrest has happened. Instead of turning a blind eye to it or starting a Departmental Enquiry, he can arrest the offender and put him behind bars. In a Police lock-up. I did just that when I was SP so I know how extraordinarily effective that is, to restore public confidence in “the system.”

The long goodbye

 

It must have been extremely difficult and back-breaking. Raising five kids on a school teacher’s salary. Plus, the guests at our house would very often go up to 20 or more. Most of the way, there was no household help. Just the utensils to be washed and the cooking would be something. My Mom bore it all stoically. And, managed to be cheerful. Basically, she is as non-complaining as one can get. 

In her old age, I have wanted to make her as comfortable as possible and shifted to a new house primarily because there is a servant quarter there. Six months into the stay there, she complained of severe stomach disorder. She was not able to describe the symptoms accurately but looked like, the chief complaint was major gastric discomfort. The distress was so acute that she had to be admitted at Apollo, Kolkata. A whole battery of tests didn’t throw up anything significant. With the medications, when the symptoms eased, she was discharged. After returning home, again, the distress rebounded. Various doctors, gastro-enterologist, diabetologist, internal medicine specialist and so on were at their wit’s end. When I asked if any further investigation can be done, the doctors said everything had been tested for; the only thing left was a whole body PET-CT scan but that was not indicated. On my own, I got that too done and the results were normal. 

During all these rounds of doctors and hospitals, one doctor suggested gently that since organically nothing is being found, should I be thinking of a psychiatric consult? Since, as I mentioned earlier, she is very far from being the complaining kind, I didn’t put much store by that and even the doctor was not very convinced about the need. 

Slowly, she took to bed almost the whole day. She stopped all activities, even her Puja in the morning and evening. After some time, she almost stopped eating because of lack of appetite. In front of my eyes, she kept shrinking and withering away, with severe weight loss. After about six months from the onset of the symptoms I had exhausted all other possible doctors and, in desperation, consulted a psychiatrist. After hearing the details and checking the voluminous medical records, he was confident that it was a case of what is called Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). I didn’t share his confidence but tried out the medication (anti-depressant and anti-anxiety) that he prescribed. Lo and behold, the situation improved dramatically. By the second consult, the psychiatrist asked me stop all the medicines prescribed by gastro-enterology. 

Mom is back to her morning walks, pujas, meals, cooking and so on. 

I had read about mental health but never realised that it could have such severe physical manifestations. I am grateful to the psychiatrist’s confidence – probably that stemmed from the fact that his own father is also suffering from MDD. 

Mom has also been diagnosed with early dementia and that is scary. After reading about it, what I gather about dementia is, it is a shrinking of the brain or its capacity. It starts with forgetting things (my Mom’s current stage). If the disease progresses, the patient changes physically, forgets his near and dear ones. The patient can eventually become bedridden and not be able to eat or drink or talk. However, there is a chance that the disease doesn’t progress and I am hoping for that. 

Meanwhile, many things have needed to be recalibrated. For example, I see to it that Mom is never alone. Even when I have to travel, I ask for one of my siblings to come and stand guard or first travel with her to the sibling’s place and keep her there for the duration. When she goes for her walk, I accompany her and after bringing her back, go for my own walk and exercises. I am having to change the lock on the house door so that she can’t open it on her own and wander away. I have locked away all medicines in the house and certain eatables so that she doesn't accidentally overdose/overconsume. I came across a set of very good advice on how to behave around a dementia patient and am reproducing it here:

Dementia is called “the long goodbye.” I am hoping that goodbye never comes or even if it does, it is far away in the future. Meanwhile, I take each day as an adventure anew …