Rhetorically, the poor representation of the Muslims, the single biggest minority community, has been lamented by ‘secular’ politicians, journalists, academicians and some police officers. They cite studies, judicial inquiry commissions and of course their own perception in support of their contention. In fact, the lead in this regard has been taken by Rajinder Sachar Committee in its report on the socio-economic condition of Muslims, submitted to the Union Government eight years ago. The votaries of the representation of the Muslims in the police force as per the share of the Muslim population conveniently forget that the unabated politicalisation of the police force during the last six decades has played havoc with the police, the law and order enforcing agency.
Uttar Pradesh has already earned the dubious distinction in this regard. The matrix of caste-based appointments as per the reservation policy is being openly flouted with a heavy leaning towards the Yadavs. A Government Order (GO) dated June 7, 2002 mandates 50 percent posting of station officers in police stations under the general category, 21 percent under the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, 2 percent Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 27 percent other backward classes (OBC) including minorities.
UP has a total of 1447 police stations and as per the GO, there shall be 724 General, 303 SC, 30 ST and 420 OBC category station officers. However, against this, as on February 2014, there were only 597 General, 120 SC and 1 ST station officer, besides 614 OBC and 102 minority station officers. Among the OBC stations officers, a substantial section belonged to the Yadava community. For instance Meerut had 9 out of 28, Varanasi 7 out of 25, Jhansi 12 out of 26, Banda 5 out of 18, Kasganj 3 out of 11 and Bareilly 10 out of 30 Yadava station officers.
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that in 2007, there were 1.01 lakh Muslims in the country’s police — 8 per cent of what was then a 13.4 lakh strong force. By 2012, the force had grown over 24 per cent to 16.7 lakh, but Muslim representation had actually fallen by one percentage point to 6.5 per cent. However, in 2013, there were 1,08,602 Muslims serving in the police, that is, around 8.05 per cent of the total number of personnel. Thus, in no state police force, except Jammu and Kashmir’s, do Muslims serve in proportion to their numbers in the general population. Unfortunately, there is no data to determine how many Muslims occupy supervisory positions and importantly, are posted at police stations where service to the Muslim community is more meaningful.
In absolute numbers, of the 3.26 lakh policemen added across all states and union territories in these five years, only 7,132, or 2.2 per cent were Muslim. The number of Muslims in the police had increased from 1.01 lakh to 1.08 lakh. As per the 2001 census, Muslims make up 13.43 per cent of India’s population. The worst performing states on this count have been Rajasthan and Assam, where the number of Muslim police personnel fell in absolute terms by 56 per cent during 2007-12. Assam, nearly 31 per cent of whose population is Muslim, had 2,388 Muslim police personnel in 2012, making up just about 4 per cent of the force. There were only 871 Muslims in the Rajasthan police in 2012.
BJP-ruled Gujarat and Chhattisgarh showed similar trends. The decline in Gujarat was 32.74 per cent, falling to 3,047 in 2012 from 4,530 in 2007. Tamil Nadu and Puducherry too showed decline. On the other hand, Jharkhand and Haryana have shown the best numbers — growth of 93.16 per cent and 91.13 per cent respectively. Uttar Pradesh (37.98 per cent), Maharashtra (39.71 per cent), Tripura (24.11 per cent) and West Bengal (15.36 per cent) too have scored well in terms of improving the Muslim representation in the police. A majority of the states in which the percentage of Muslims in the police was smaller in 2012 than in 2007 are now ruled by the Congress: Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Mizoram.
A report, “Strategy for making police forces more sensitive towards minority sections”, prepared by three DGPs — Sanjeev Dayal of Maharashtra, Deoraj Nagar of Uttar Pradesh and K Ramanujam of Tamil Nadu — along with an Intelligence Bureau representative, presented at the 2013 DG’s conference in New Delhi, says that the distrust of police force comes from poor representation of minorities in the forces and the conduct of some policemen during riots.
“Poor representation of the minorities in the police forces has contributed to this distrust and suspicion. It has to be admitted that the conduct of some members of the police forces in various states during communal riots had only served to strengthen and heighten these suspicions and distrust in the minority communities,” it says.
Saying that Muslims form the largest minority, constituting “a vocal and large section of the population” in most states, the report calls for urgent correction of the perception in the community about the police as it “impinges on the communal situation of the country and thus its internal security”.
Vibhuti Narain Rai, a senior IPS officer and a Hindi litterateur in his book “Combating Communal Conflicts: Perception of Police Neutrality During Hindu-Muslim Riots in India” too concluded that the police force did indeed suffer from a pronounced communal bias during riots.
As many as 97 per cent of the 200 Muslim respondents told Rai that they regarded the civil police as their enemy, while over 71 per cent of the Hindus interviewed by the senior police officer said they considered the force to be a friend. “There is a grave danger inherent in this situation,” warns Rai. “When the minorities lose faith in the police force, it means that they have lost faith in the State. They become easy prey to organisations like the ISI. That is when Mumbai and Coimbatore happen.”
Even in the UK, most Muslims have lost confidence in the police. The findings, in a poll of Muslim opinion in 2006, starkly illustrate the lack of confidence in the police. In the poll, Muslims were also asked: “Do you think it is right or wrong for the police to act to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks, even if the intelligence, information and warnings may turn out to be wrong?” Thirty-one per cent said it was right and 57% said it was wrong. This view contrasts sharply with that held by the general public. When the same question was asked of a representative sample of all adults, 74% said the police were right to act and 17% said they were wrong.
A section of political and Muslim community leaders in India have come out with the demand of reservation of Muslims in the recruitment of policemen. Countering such a demand, Prof. Naseem A. Zaidi of Economics Department in the Aligarh Muslim University writes in the Economic & Political Weekly (January 18, 2014) that “ The demand for community-based reservation by the Muslim leadership seems to be a wild-goose chase in view of the constitutional and legal hurdles. For the Muslim political leadership, this demand is a catchy slogan yielding rich dividends. In the field of education, the main thrust of the policy adopted by most of the Muslim NGOs is on quantity rather than on quality. Educational institutions run by Muslim NGOs have mushroomed in urban areas but the quality of education, inculcation of a competitive spirit or career planning, etc. are rarely on their agenda.
“The rhetoric about poverty, low educational levels and the non-implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report converge largely on the demand for a religion-based reservation in education and employment. However, these well-wishers of the Muslim community conveniently fail to see the root cause of the low representation of Muslims which lies in the low level of participation rather than the low success ratio of Muslim candidates.”
Moreover, these well-wishers of the Muslims fail to take a historical perspective of the poor representation of the Muslims in the police force. As the Muslims lost power to the British in 1857, the Muslim community went into a sullen mode. After the lapse of some years, the Muslims started joining the police force in bulk as they found it the only available platform to enjoy the power. The Hindus’ response in this regard was lukewarm. Naturally, the bulk of the police forces in North Indian States at that time comprised of the Muslims. This predominantly Muslim police force used to take sides with the Muslim community in the occasionally occurring communal riots in cities. Such a development led to the emergence of the Hindu Mahasabha, a socio-political organisation as a saviour of the Hindu community. At that time there was no bar on the Congressmen to join other social organisations. There were socialists, communists and Hindu Mahasabha activists as members of the All India Congress Committee. At the time of the partition, majority of the Muslim police men and officers preferred to migrate to the newly carved country, Pakistan for better prospects. The vacancies in the police force as well as the administration were filled to a large extent by the Hindu Middle Classes such as Jats, Gujjars, Yadavas etc. The character of the police force became a predominantly Hindu one. Little wonder, taking a cue from the prevalent practice, the majority of the policemen on duty during the communal riots started taking side of the Hindus in the post-Independence riots. In the process, the Hindu Mahasabha was decimated as there was no need of the protectors for the Hindu community.
It is a fact the Indian police is a discredited organisation. Citizens repose little faith in its capability or even reliability. The harassment experienced in reporting crime, seeking assistance and dealing with anti-social elements is not only ubiquitous but also deep-rooted. Political considerations affect every function of the police and every community, including Muslims, experiences the brutality, indifference and inefficiency of poorly trained and corrupt personnel. No citizen is willing to approach the police for help unless there is no other recourse left.
Therefore, police reforms, not the caste and community based reservations is the need of the hour to make India, a country where rule of law prevails.
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Anil Maheshwari
Anil is a senior journalist and a published author. He's published 6 books including “Aligarh Muslim University: Perfect Past and Precarious Present”
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Are Muslims Well-Represented in Indian Police? » The Indian Republic
