Understanding the problem of Police brutality in India

Reader discretion is advised – Police Brutality

Recently after the father - son duo of Jeyaraj and Fenix died in custody of the Tamil Nadu police, India has been trying to decode why there are so many police brutality cases in these trying times . Let’s try to understand how it all began –

BACKGROUND :

According to Wikipedia ,The uniform system of police administration was established by the Indian Act 5 of 1861 in British India , by the year 1920 the Imperial Indian police had recruited more than 310,000 police officers to rule over more than 300 million people of the Indian subcontinent ( Pakistan , Bangladesh , Burma ) and by the 1930’s the police exercised “unprecedented degree of authority within the colonial administration” . So basically the Indian Police system was built on oppression and brutality , it was a system designed to oppress the minorities of the country. The institution of police was a major tool developed by our colonizers to oppress us .

The quote “ the sun never set in the British empire “ stands quite accurate in the following context , almost all major continents have been colonized by the British , they created different kinds of policing based on cultural connotations . India being a country that used the caste system to function on a daily basis got the policing it culturally deserved , the Indian society was undemocratic , due to the casteism being prevalent the society , a particular group of people lead better and more comfortable lives than others in the community. The police on observing this made sure to treat the oppressed with more brutality , hence , making their lives harder than it was supposed to be. It is very important to understand that the Indian police were founded on laws made between the period 1860-61 , during which the sole purpose of the laws were to strengthen the existence of the British rule .

Now let’s talk about why Post-Independence the laws weren’t changed and the why the police force was not reformed ?

During the 70’s , the police were basically used as an instrument in the large scale riggings of elections and our leaders were corrupt and spoilt the system further instead of uplifting it and changing it for the better . Not a single election after Independence has witnessed Police Reforms as a major campaign issue .

In recent times , people who protested against CAA and NRC , were faced with communal venom , it has been drilled into the minds of some policemen that violence is the only resort to control crime. The level of acceptance the Indian society has developed towards police brutality is to the point where encounters are welcomed and sometimes even praised , before the accused is taken to court , the recent activities regarding the controversial encounter of Vikas Dubey have highlighted the same .

Reader discretion is advised – graphic descriptions of abuse , police brutality.

Custodial deaths have been increasing rapidly in the recent years , The National Human Rights Commission , recorded a staggering 1,674 cases of custodial deaths in 334 days i.e 11 months between April 2017 to February 2018 . More than half of these go unregistered or are considered suicides or death due to medical conditions .

Bollywood movies have normalised and romanticized Police brutality to the point where most young adults think “Good Cops” are the ones that assault the “bad guys” and serve instant justices by encounters , in the year 2019 , custodial torture claimed lives of almost 1,731 people in India .

During the lockdown , many people have been forwarding videos of the Police “punishing” violators – and people have either turned a blind eye to this or have normalised it by saying that they deserve it for violating the state orders , but do people who stepped out of their homes to get “essential goods” like vegetables , milk , groceries deserve to be sent back home in a body bag ? From calling Anti-CAA protesters Anti-nationals to forwarding the heartbreaking video of five men being abused and forced to sing the national anthem by the police where one of them – Faizan passed away from the severity of his wounds we can see Micro-aggression in our own people and media . Hence , it seems like we cannot condemn police brutality in India because a majority of the population seems to cheer it and police violence here is a caste and class sensitive issue , this is reflected in the many instances where the Dalits and Muslims of India have faced hate crimes and police atrocities , out of the 1,731 killed in custody last year 60% of them belonged to marginalized communities .

Because we have not spoken about and failed to hold the police accountable for their actions , the once Gandhian Nation is now bleeding with violence , we need systematic change rather than individual change but one is not possible without the other so as citizens it is upto us to demand justice and help amplify the voices of the oppressed , it is high time we understand that our WhatsApp propaganda is toxic and that we are still living under the shadow of the corrupt British raj .