Short essay on Public hostility in India

Short essay on Public hostility in India

People perceive the police as intruders, exploiters, cynical, prejudiced, suspicious, and parasitical. The epithets used to describe the police khaki drones, khaki mercenaries, rakshasas, etc. reveal profound resentment against them.

Why have people antagonistic views of the police? Why are policemen targets of negative responses from citizens? Why do people say: “the less the police intrude into their affairs, the better?” Why are people dissatisfied with law enforcement agencies?

One reason is that people believe that the police is frequently linked with organised criminals and corrupt officials in the operation of vice of various kinds.

The police are often believed to be in collusion with gambling dens, drug traffickers, smugglers and with those who are engaged in illegal activities. They have a share in the illegal income of these criminals and/or their organisations.

Secondly, the police are believed to use various illegal and questionable methods in dealing with the accused, include the use of excessive physical force in effecting arrests. Anybody who dares to challenge a policeman’s authority or his commands becomes a victim of police harassment.

Even in dealing with a crowd of protesters, they use excessive lathi charge, tear gas and other gratuitous methods typical to the police force. Such incidents encourage the spread of public notions that the police department is a heaven for sadists. Whether or not these notions square with the facts, such images contribute to the low esteem in which policemen are held in society.

Third aspect of police hostility is the attitude of the police towards the citizens. The police adopt the posture that all people are suspicious criminals, all journalists are their enemies and all sources of mass media are interested only in belittling them.

As a consequence, the police never give any information about their internal working. Whenever the police get a report against any policeman, they go out of their way to protect their fellow brothers even when they are the most deviant men in the force.

In spite of prevalent hatred, people do not articulate the resentment felt against the police because of the power it possesses and because they know that nobody would take their complaint seriously and effectively.

Occasionally, the organised groups-say students in educational institutions, women’s voluntary organisations, shop-keepers, etc.-may ask and agitate for drastic action against police harassment, but the criminals, as individuals, never raise their voice against police oppressions.