Rather than be instruments of cooperation in maintaining law and order, peace and harmony, police as enforcers of law and order, continue to play partisan and communal.

They continue to frame innocents and kill them in custody. They are corrupt to the hilt. And there is no accountability. This is happening with impunity despite the fact that our parliamentary democratic polity is based on the rule of the law system of governance, where sovereignty vests in the people, who elect the government of the day both at the State and the Central level. And people are the ultimate sovereign masters. Yet the general public and common man continue to be at the receiving end.

The way our police behave in browbeating the innocents, frame them and defile their individual dignity and personal honour, generates general public feelings that the police are more an instrument of state terror, brutish conduct and nasty behaviour. Police forces are completely insensitive to human rights of the people, from whom Government of the day derive power. The result has been for all to see. The police force, lock, stock and barrel, lacks public trust, which speaks volume of the policing in the country. It appears that police forces have not been sensitized to the natty gritty and nuances of democratic virtues i.e. primacy of the people, the ultimate sovereign masters or they tend to be callous, brutish and repressive. It also reveals that India is not a true democracy; a mere façade of democracy with one and only feature of elections. All other attributes of democracy are conspicuously absent for all practical purposes.

In the scheme of the Constitution of India and the rule of the law based system of governance thereunder, law and order is a State Subject. Police Forces under the State Governments maintain public order and for that matter enjoy all the brutish punitive and repressive powers in terms of the colonial Indian Police Act, 1861, rules and manuals framed thereunder. All efforts to reform policing have failed so far in view of the stiff resistance from the State Governments. The Central Para Military Forces are utilized for guarding the borders, industrial security and for reserves. Reserves are used to assist State Police in the maintenance of law and order and related requirements should the Sates so require or in the extreme case of Central Intervention in the event of break down of the Constitutional machinery or internal subversion or secessionist activities. In all such eventualities, State Police rule the roost in such matters as well. This is because the Central Police Forces assist the State Police and take orders from them in view of their primacy in maintaining law and order. State Police are also misutilised by the ruling parties in the state governments to take on their adversaries. This pampers the police and they tend to be corrupt, arbitrary and partisan, emboldened by their misuse by the political powers.

Coming to the policing pattern across the country, an inquiry in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, has revealed that total number of the combined strength of State police in the country is 16,32,651 men charged with maintenance of law and order, which comes to one police per 699 persons in the country as on September 1, 2008. The problem of low policing ratio has been compounded further by high vacancies in the State Police Forces, which are: Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) level 2099 i.e. 24.15 per cent; Sub Inspectors level 18,654 i.e. 20.76 per cent, and Constables 1,13,779 i.e. 10.87 per cent. This reveals beyond reasonable doubts the gross callous negligence by the State Governments. Once again, States are the culprits in neglecting proper and effective functioning of the police forces. In this context, it will be germane to mention that the repeated Central directives to the States to provide 5 per cent of their annual plans for augmenting policing to maintain a semblance of the law and order have not been acted upon. All States combined annual expenditure on police is Rs.22,700 crores. Over and above, there are a total of 7,46,878 combined Central Para Military Forces, annual expenditure on whom is Rs.22,300 crores.

Spatial coverage of countrywide police stations comprises 610 districts, 6,38,635 villages in a total areas of 12,69,340 square miles with a population density of 884 per square mile. Total number of police stations across the country is 12,833. Incidents of crime per one lakh population are 455.80.

With such a pathetic state of policing in India and inherent rampant corruption and lack of public trust in our police, it is time Sates rose concertedly to bring spectacular all round reforms in police forces by making them, among others, accountable so that peace and harmony prevailed in the country and there was no danger to the country's sovereignty! It is also necessary to mitigate heightened social tension right here before it is too late!#