The United States is witnessing widespread protests instigated by the death of George Floyd, which was caused by the use of excessive force by police officers in Minneapolis. Protestors are fighting against systemic discrimination faced by the black community at the hands of the police. Amidst these demonstrations, a call for monumental reforms in the police system broke out across the country. After decades of arguing for changes in the behaviour of police authorities, the demand has now turned towards more dramatic modifications in the fundamental structure of the system. Protestors are calling for the defunding of police departments to eradicate the racial discrimination that propels the US policing system, along with commensurate reductions in the financial resources allocated to these authorities. In exchange, advocates of the “defund the police” movement suggest the reallocation of funds to other municipal units to reduce dependency on the police and prison systems for societal issues.
While each country has its unique struggles with its police forces, similar sentiments against discrimination by officers are being echoed across the world. In fact, the call for police reforms has now expanded to include other social and economic minorities as well. Thus, the movement has morphed into something larger than the discrimination faced by Black people, and into one that seeks to tackle discrimination against all disenfranchised communities. Accordingly, calls for police reforms have taken hold across the globe, and have even spread to our shores here in India.
While the discourse in India is at a nascent stage, several citizens have highlighted instances of police brutality against minorities in India. Users on Twitter, for instance, recalled the death of Faizan, a 23-year-old resident in Delhi who died after being brutally beaten and humiliated by the police, and the death of Jitu Khatik, a Dalit boy who died while in police custody in Rajasthan. Most commentators called for punitive actions to be taken against the concerned policemen. However, the issue is not one of “bad apples”, but of how systematic discrimination by the police force is both perpetuated and ignored. These incidences are reflective of a more deeply-rooted problem in the Indian police force and reflect the society’s history of violence against minorities. However, the solution to tackle the disproportionate burden of brutality by police on Indian minorities is different from the one that is being advocated for in the US.
To sufficiently and specifically address the problem of violence by police officers against minorities in India, two issues must be tackled with. The first issue is the lack of training given to police forces to sufficiently enable them to gauge complex religion and caste centric issues. For instance, merely 6.4% of police forces have reported having received any in-service training. This is primarily because of an insufficiency of funds that are allocated for training facilities. In 2016-2017, the funds allocated to police training amounted to Rs. 885.5 crore, which was merely 1% of the total budget of the police forces. In fact, from 2012 to 2017, fifteen states reduced their expenditure on training facilities. Evidently, spending on police training ranks quite low on the list of priorities for policymakers.
Moreover, the training that is currently provided to officers is centred mainly around “crowd control” and not sensitisation on social issues such as human rights and caste and religious discrimination. This, however, is not an issue of lack of demand. In fact, 92 to 95% policemen report that training in human rights and caste sensitisation is necessary. Without the much-needed guidance on such complexities of the society they intend to serve, police officers are severely undertrained and undereducated in tackling the dynamics of minorities in India. Hence, rather than the call to “defund the police”, India must focus on increasing the police budget to specifically intensify the expenditure on in-service training with a focus on minority sensitisation and human rights.
To adopt a successful model of such a training program, India has many lessons to learn from the failures of the “implicit bias” training program adopted by the US. Critics of the program argue that it has been ineffective in reducing racial biases amongst police officers. They argue that such programs are essentially ineffective in combatting long-lasting and deeply embedded biases in police officers. However, the limitations of the program must be acknowledged before blatantly rejecting its adoption in other societies.
The “implicit bias” program gained traction in the US following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Hence, it can be argued that its implementation is still being fine-tuned. A survey done by CBS says that merely 69% of officers reported to receive the training. Moreover, the program also faces several issues in its execution. For example, there is no uniform standard to define what should form a part of the training, which leads to an inconsistent, and often insufficient course structure. Another issue with the current training program is its focus on highlighting the violence faced because of police biases, which often creates a disconnect amongst the officers. While it is crucial to force police officers to confront the impact of their implicit biases, perhaps it may be more effective to educate them on how to tackle the problem rather than taking the heavy-handed approach of placing blame on them. Hence, for the program to be effective in India, it must educate officers on cultural and social issues and sensitise them to the challenges faced by minorities, rather than focusing on violence against minorities at the hands of police. Simultaneously, it must develop a holistic curriculum that is standardised across regions.
The second issue that provokes discrimination by police is its skewed caste and religious composition. The US, too, faces problems with the racial composition of the police, which is currently unreflective of the heterogeneity of its population. A study proved that diversity in the police force is vital to achieve as it helps in securing the legitimacy of officers and their actions in the eyes of the minorities. However, like their American counterparts, the Indian police force also has an alarmingly disproportionate representation of its minority communities. This contributes to the burgeoning mistrust of the police that is prevalent amongst minority communities.
Keeping in mind the historical and systemic discrimination faced by minority communities in India, the drafters of the Indian constitution mandated representation of minorities in all public services, including the police force. However, these rights remain largely unfulfilled in practice. Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) cumulatively account for about 69% of the total population in India. Yet, merely 15% of the positions in the police are reserved for members of the three communities. Moreover, even these reserved posts remain mostly unfilled. According to a 2019 report by Common Cause, only four states have completely filled the posts reserved for SCs, and eight states for STs and OBCs. In most other states, 50% of the positions remain vacant. A similar imbalance is seen amongst religious minorities in India too. For instance, Muslims, who account for 14% of the population in India, comprises of merely 8% of the police force.
It has been shown that a diverse police force is more sensitive to minority-specific issues of the community. Conversely, a police force that does not accurately represent the demographics of the population validates and perpetuates stereotypes against marginalized communities. In essence, a more diverse police force, and one that is more representative of the general population, acts as a system of checks and balances on such biases, stereotypes, and systemic oppression. For instance, one in five police officers believes charges under the Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which was specifically enacted to prevent atrocities against SCs and STs, to be malicious and false. Further, the abovementioned Common Cause report states that more than half the police force believe that Muslims are more likely to commit a crime. These biases contribute to higher rates of incarceration amongst minorities, thereby adding to the woes of the already disadvantaged.
Under-representation of minorities and lack of training to increase sensitivity in police forces adds to the prevailing issues such as underfunding and poor infrastructural support. There have been several attempts by committees and judicial bodies to stimulate radical reforms in the police in India. However, the age-old system, complemented with outdated practices, is extremely resistant to these changes. In light of the increasing communal tensions and caste-related crimes in India, what India must work towards is a holistic, intersectional approach to police reform to sufficiently satiate the needs of its dynamic society.
Image Source: Al Jazeera
