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| Credit: Huffington post |
While the United States examines the role of race in their society, and how it impacts their brutal policing system, the world often ignores the underlying factors behind excessive police force and corruption in their own states. Gratuitous police brutality, custodial deaths and the evident indifference of politicians to blatant state enforced violence is not an uncommon occurrence in India. In recent times, heightened during the COVID-19 lockdown, countless instances of police violence against citizens have been filmed and circulated. They invoke outrage on social media— but this outrage is often limited. Police torture has become quite routine and there is a level of acceptance. In the US we see structural inequalities and systemic racism affect black Americans disproportionately. The same structural inequalities affect Indians based on their caste, religion and gender.
Yet the reactions are vastly different; vicious police brutality is not enough to get citizens out on the streets. Police brutality has just not evolved to invoke enough political outcry in India, as it has rightfully done in the US. Where thousands have come out in major cities in the US, a cop mindlessly using force on a hapless man provokes barely a ripple in India; no one ever stands in public protesting it.
However, the custodial deaths of a father and son have sparked protests across parts of Tamil Nadu, with many taking to the streets to demand justice. Justice for Jayaraj and Benicks has sparked public outrage, demanding strict action against the perpetrators of the brutality. Five policemen have been arrested and charged with murder in relation to the custodial deaths— allowing us to ask questions about the nature of police brutality in India.
The History
Although the British strove to foster an image of paternalistic Raj governing a quiescent society through the “rule of law”’ and through collaboration with indigenous elites rather than through coercion, British rule in India was underpinned by violence. Moreover, though a governmental form of power such as law became the key signifier of both state legitimacy and the moral bulwark of colonial rule, as a regime of conquest, dependent on the authority of its executive and the strength of its police and army, it was undoubtedly sovereign power that ultimately made British rule over India possible. The Indian Police was founded on the basis of laws enacted during the period 1860 – 61 and the sole purpose of its creation was to strengthen and prolong the existence of the Raj. Today, the police force has become the epitome of terror for the community, and the origin of discontent that exists among societal order. Corruption and bribery reign paramount throughout the whole establishment; violence, torture, and cruelty are their chief instruments for detecting crime, implicating innocence, or extorting money.
In another instance of police brutality, two men died in custody in Thoothukudi, India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu. They had reportedly kept their mobile shop open beyond permitted time on June 19, despite restrictions imposed by the state as part of lockdown measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. The police arrested the father-son duo, 59 year old Jeyaraj and 31 year old Benicks, dragged them to the Sathankulam police station, where they were allegedly beaten, stripped naked, sodomized and sexually assaulted. The men’s friends, who were lawyers, were refused entry into the police station. Four days later, Jeyaraj and Benicks became severely ill and were taken to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead.
The power of the police in India has been on full display of late. Police brutality and complacency were at its worst at JNU and Jamia during the anti-CAA protests. At the time of the Delhi riots, policemen either just stood by while Muslim properties were smashed, looted, and burned, as they allegedly sided with the rioters. Such brutality is seen enforced against poor minorities and the marginalized, vulnerable sections of society. According to a Common Cause – CSDS survey, half of all Indian police officers believe that the Muslim community has an instinctive tendency to commit crimes. These backward prejudices also extend to Scheduled castes, Scheduled Tribes, Adivasis, Dalits, and Transgender people.
The Opinions
If India isn’t seeing mass protests demanding police accountability, it may be because the police itself broadly represents the problems within the country’s citizenry. The police system reflects the caste and class hierarchies of their communities, with entrenched beliefs about positions in society. Although police recruits go through training to sensitize them, prejudices are carried forward into their policing duties. Corruption and power keep the system going. Police forces are supervised by the political executive, headed by home ministers of respective states. Recruitment and career advancement of these law enforcement officers are directly overseen by political leaders, making the police accountable to the politicians and not the people who they’re supposed to protect.
Moreover, Salman Khan’s Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg, Ajay Devgn in the Singham series, or Akshay Kumar in Rowdy Rathore (2012)— all these characters are the foundation of the distorted depiction of violent cops in Hindi cinema. For an average Bollywood viewer, a police officer isn’t just responsible for maintaining law and order, he’s also meant to hunt down villains and take revenge—the ultimate hero. Bollywood cop films are known to glorify police brutality and serve as propaganda. Normalization and glorification of police brutality has been widely consumed and accepted by society.
Privileged Indians and celebrities have been criticized for being selective in raising their voice against certain injustices. Bollywood film stars have come under fire for their “selective activism”, for jumping on the bandwagon of causes that may gain them social currency.
The freedom enjoyed by the police forces under colonial legislation must be urgently attenuated by modern reformations, so that only the rule of law prevails, not the rule by excessive force and power play.
The Conclusion
India’s attitude towards police violence has been retributive rather than preventive. Apart from merely highlighting concerns over social media, it is imperative that the government and state officials take policy actions that deconstruct police brutality and curb its normalisation. There is a growing need for a legitimate authority that will monitor police’s exercise and enforcement of laws, if the increasing custodial torture, deaths and rapes are anything to go by.
Examining caste privilege is the first step for South Asians to interrogate the underlying logic of anti-Blackness in America and around the world, to find a new language to raise the consciousness of our communities. There is a need to reframe the conversation around police brutality- the Black Lives Matter movement is not only about the end to police brutality, it is a multi-faceted movement to bring about revolutionary change for all our communities - from divesting in police and military, to safer societal order, nourished with resources, social safety nets and equity for all citizens.
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