Engendering ‘Common Sense’ Police Reforms: Imperative Of Women Security in India

New Delhi- The publication of India Beijing+30 Report applauding the nations ‘progress’ on the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) adopted in 1995 at the 4^th United Nations World Conference on Women, and the Prime Minister’s strict directions to Varanasi police to take “swift and stringent” actions against the perpetrators of Varanasi gangrape, both the events happing in the first half of 2025, stipulates the collective failure of conscience of society and efficiency of the police.

The report celebrates the successes towards ensuring the ‘Nari Shakti’ as well as a reminder of the unachieved goal of gender equality and encourages people, societies, and state authorities to foster an atmosphere that champions the security of women of all ages. The preconditions for achieving the aspirations of ‘women-led development’ as mentioned in the report require, at the first step to make them secure to expand their wings of dreams and achieve new heights and it is implicitly connected with the ‘Commonsense’ reform of the Indian police, which has eluded the senses of the policymakers for decades even after independence.

The horrific non-humanistic heinous crimes like the Mathura case, Bhanwari Devi case, Ajmer case, Nirbhaya case, Hathras case, R. G. Kar case, or the repeated gang rape of a teen girl over the four days at different locations of city of Varanasi, and enormous others led to the volcanic eruption of the anger of humanity against the perpetuated prevalence of crime against women, but the personal limitations and social obligation of earning and living led these eruptions to get cooled faster than the speed of their explosions. The popular rage and democratic dissent against the heinous crime against women at the extreme can coerce the state to draft stringent legislation to punish such perpetrators and accord speedy justice to victims, after all, it’s the prime responsibility of the police to maintain peace and tranquillity.

The dedicated Nirbhaya Fund for the safety and security of women, the decolonisation of criminal jurisprudence through the implementation of BNS, BNSS, and BSA with enlarged punishments for violence against women, the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS)- the 24/7 safety net to protect a woman at all times and at all locations, the numbers of drones and CCTV cameras installed throughout the Varanasi, however, couldn’t make the police to detect or protect the victim for the four days in the holly city of Banaras. Varanasi is not an isolated incident of an unhumanised act by the beasts in human skin, the crime against women is at an all-time high, as the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) report 2022 disclosed the filing of 51 FIRs every hour relating to cases of crime against women, real numbers have been a multiplication of this, despite having the conglomerations of law protecting the interests and safety of women. No criminal law or security measure however absolute and objective will serve the purpose unless the ‘policing of police’ is taken out of the hands of politicians and vested into an ‘All India Police Commission’ constituted on the lines of other constitutional bodies to make the ‘policing pro-active’ by abolishing the reactive, lethargic and burdensome organisation severing multiple vested interests of varied masters.

Radical reforms, to satisfy the commonsense of any citizen, structurally and philosophically, in the command and authority of police are required from the bottom to the top to make police engendered and sympathetic to women's safety and security. The first step would be amending the ‘Seventh Schedule’ of the Constitution to place police under the Concurrent list to have a pan-India uniformly trained and objectively oriented police force working under the functional directions of respective state governments.

Simplistic relying on the credentials of the IPS officers, and leaving the middle leadership of the police officers recruited through the State Public Commission in misery and pathetic conditions, where their promotion and elevation to the Indian Police Services (IPS) depends on the kindness of the state government, will leave little incentives for the state Provincial Police Services (PPS) officers to discharge their policing duties without the fear or favour. The snailing career growth of PPS officers, that too depended upon the compassion of dispensation of the day, as they had to serve in the same post of DSPs for more than 18 to 25 years on which they were recruited by the state public service commissions, make them cog in the wheel and pawns in the hands of IPS officers and obedient to local politicians, leaving little incentive or meagre authority for them to work for public welfare and discharging their policing duties, resulted in demoralised and deficient policing, as was the cases R. G. Kar and many others. The rising case of sexual assaults against foreign women, be it a Brazilian tourist’s gang rape in Jharkhand, an Israeli tourist gang-rape in Hampi, or recent British woman rape in Delhi, describes the rotting state of police functioning where the criminals do not have any ‘fear concern’ of police.

The National Police Commission of 1980 in its 5^th report categorically stated that the police is a vital adjunct of administration having a direct bearing on the public activities and public welfare because “the control over crime and the maintenance of public order are functions essential to provide a climate for rapid economic, social and cultural development”. After the BNS-2023, the big-ticket reform will be to liberate the IPS from the functional superiority of the IAS by ending the dual control in the district police administration, appropriating the disparity between the salary, perks, and promotional and career prospects between the IPS and IAS, eliminating the colonial practices of cadre management of the IPS by the IAS and initiation of the annual confidential reports of the IPS by the IAS. Next will be either abolishing or recognising and engendering the PPS to have them proper promotional avenues of career progression, making it compulsory to induct them into IPS after eight years of services, eliminating the current practice of tediously slow process by following impartial objective criteria. The subordinate officers at the level of sub-inspector and inspectors must be given an objective opportunity to have a fair chance to get themselves promoted to PPS timely so that they can utilize their practical knowledge of police in leadership positions. The symbolic practice of ‘Pink police booths’ hadn’t changed the ground reality, there is an imperative need to have women in the position of power at the posts of SHOs, COs, and SPs, giving them sufficient minimum tenure as stipulated by the highest Court of the land regarding the functional positions in landmark Prakash Singh case judgement of 2006.

Police perform a dual role in society, first as the strong arm of the state to uphold constitutional justice by maintaining law and order and second to provide a soothing touch and healing help to persons in distress. However, it's an open secret the Indian police is structurally inadequate and ideologically feudal with the colonial mindset of power dominations to subjugate the public, is antithetic to the democratic aspirations of a vibrant and plural society, and is antagonistic to policing needs and aspirations of the women. The humanistic incommunicado between the different levels of officers differentiated based on their level of recruitment, with IPS being at the top and constabulary at the bottom of the official and social hierarchy of police, leaves little room for the democratisation of the Indian police to make them empathetic and accountable to the public in general and women in particular.

The frontline policing, the constabulary constitutes around 90% of the police force, according to R. N. Ravi the renowned police officer, is “intellectually deficient, inadequately skilled” and treated with disdain both by seniors and civil society, consequently ‘fear’ rather than the spirit of public service becomes the dominant leitmotif of policing in India. The academic apathy, intellectual indifference, and social apartheid of police due to its colonial characteristics and authoritarian character have cost the society not only in terms of depleting law & order situations in many states and regions, but rising tides of despised dissent paying the way for the menace of radicalisations, regionalism, communalism, and organised crimes, particularly against women and children's.

There are a plethora of women-centric laws and legislations, both civil and criminal, however, their implementing and executing institutions lack women’s and gender-specific attitudes, and the Judiciary and police are on the top of such imperative institutions, envisioned to protect and provide justice to them. The police is structurally colonised, ideologically masculinised, functionally overburdened, technology obsolete, and democratically authoritarian, where women are in the minority and expected to behave on the lines of their male counterparts. Women heads of district police, range police, or state police force, which should be a normal practice, are still considered to be an exceptional achievement indicating the modernisation of the society and welfarist orientation of the State. The recommendations of the Nation Police Commission, and various other reform Commissions and Committees, specifically the honourable Supreme Court judgment in the Prakash Singh Case- 2006, and the much-needed introduction of BNS at the place of colonial IPC offers a guiding light and ray of hope for ensuring the crime-free society to make India a developed nation by 2047.

Daily news of increasing crime against women should not become part of common sense or in the words of Hannah Arendt ‘Banality of evil’. No civilised society or democratic state whose constitution provides equal and privileged positions, rightly so, to half of its population, shall tolerate any form of discrimination or crime against women. The systematic structures of the police and judiciary need to be reconstructed and reinvented to have woman-centric ‘engendered police’ functionally efficiently & autonomously under the ethos of the constitution, deprived of the dictates of bureaucratic hurdles or political interferences.

For too long, women have been underrepresented in law enforcement, which often results in a lack of perspectives on issues that disproportionately affect women, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and gender-based violence. To address this, various initiatives have been put in place to encourage more women to pursue careers in policing. This includes recruitment programs that specifically target women, ensuring that the recruitment process is gender-neutral and supportive, and making the police force a more welcoming and inclusive environment. The carnival of International Women’s Day every year shall be celebrated by gifting her protection and preservation from the demons wandering under the human skin, rest assured she is more than capable of any species on the earth to have and lead the way for her growth and development flowering the society by her charm of excellence and triumphs of accomplishments, and engendering the police will be first concert step towards the by same by reserving the 50% seats of police recruitment at every level for women.  Women's security will be best assured when women secure themselves and the society at large.

- The author is a PhD Scholar and Adjunct Faculty, working on ‘Democratic Policing’, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi.