Our Mission
"Police Control" : A Genuine Media
We are planning to bring out the public issue of our journal "Police Control'" within a short time. Police Control" henceforth would come out regularly as weekly with a nation-wide network. The considerations that motivated us to bring out the public issue of our journal are numerous. We briefly list below some of the important reasons for our major departure from an earlier perspective.
Unfortunately, people in this country, at practically all levels, lower or even higher, know so little about the personal lives, hazards, intricacy, sensitivity, and host of problems involved in the career of police personnel. Not only that the information at the disposal of the public is so limited, but whatever limited perception that people have is also based on such a distorted version (has filmy stories or some media version) that it does more damage to the police profession. The general image, which is often projected of a police force as brutal, corrupt, irresponsible, and at times even idiotic, is that this could certainly demoralize the police personnel at all levels. There may be some truth in such a perception. But it is absolutely essential to have a more human, holistic, balanced view of the police force, keeping in mind their family life', economic and social well-being, duty hours, its organizational structure, administrative hierarchy, pay scales in comparison with other categories in the public and corporate sectors, mode of recruitment and promotion, public expectation, delegation of power, authority, and concomitant constraints in their effective functioning, political pressures, the mode of training, democratic rights as citizens, problems of unionization, the need for a democratic structure fitting with the ideals of the parliamentary form of government, and such other related factors.
While people may have some limited knowledge of the workings of the police force, one hardly has even an inkling of the life and problems, modes of functioning, complexity, and hurdles and hastles involved in equally vital sections of our country, who shoulder the responsibility of defending, protecting, and promoting the security and image of this nation. One knows so little about our Army personnel, Air Force, Naval Force, CBI, RAW, CRPF, PCF, BSF, Railway Security Force, and such other categories. There is an urgent need to understand them and their problems dispassionately and sympethically.
It is a well-known fact that the state has started using other categories of security personnel, like Army, BSF, and CRPF, so liberally that it creates multiple problems in terms of their interaction with the police force, issues of relative authority, and difficulties in coordination. This kind of unrestricted, unrestrained use of military and other categories leads to the demoralization of all security forces, which needs serious consideration. We wish to raise such issues and have proper deliberation on such vital and delicate problems.
One of the issues that deserves service consideration is the mode of appointment, norms of recruitment and promotion, especially with regards to levels and types of authority, payscales of the direct recruit who comes through the competitive examinations, like IPS, and their placement, power equations, and problems of coordination with regular cadres promoted through the department on the basis of seniority and other criteria. These are quite delicate issues, and there is hardly any need for a veil of secrecy over these issues. As a matter of fact, with regard to the internal administrative set-up of the security forces, like the deviation between regimentation and the usual disciplinarian norms, whether the police force, for instance, has to function in a highly authoritarian or repressive fashion, what should be the appropriate style of functioning in a democratic set-up? On all these issues, we strongly feel there is an urgent need for free, fair, and dispassionate discussion and deliberation. We sincerely feel this journal would prove a genuine medium that would give a proper and effective outlet to such deliberations.
The recent, although few and isolated, incidents of the police force committing suicide at higher as well as lower levels deserve a more serious investigation than just a routine inquiry. One must seriously probe the types of problems and hazards, internal as well as external, in the effective functioning of the police before such incidents acquire a serious magnitude.
What is applicable to the police force is far more true and relevant for other security forces, especially the Army, Naval, Air Force, and other categories. We wish to highlight these issues through our journal, of course, fully keeping in view the tenets of national honor and security.
The frequency of interaction among these various categories of our security force has rapidly increased in recent years, as the state has started taking recourse to the use of the Army, BSF, PCF, and other categories so liberally for controlling communal riots, ethnic disturbances, industrial unrest, tribal movements, peasant struggles, and, of course, terrorist activities. There are some disturbed states, like Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, and the North-East Frontier States, where the use of these various categories, from the Army to other protection forces, has become a regular feature of civil society.
As the issues we intend to highlight are so delicate, the responsibility for the collection of factual data, empirical survey, investigative write-up, and news correspondence would be entrusted to only those highly competent personnel with total integrity and honesty, preferably those who have first-hand knowledge and accessibility to facts in these areas.
We also intend to install prestigious awards for personnel for their meritorious services, exemplary courage, and competence through the celebrations of such events at a national level in the presence of well-known state dignitaries and eminent citizens.
We earnestly solicit your response to our appeal for the public issue of our Journal of Police Control," which has already otherwise acquired a sound reputation for its boldness and competence within the official circle.
For further information, contact: Chief Editor, Police Control, P.O. Box No. 6928 Santacruz Post Office, Santacruz (W), Mumbai, 400 054.