At roughly two million police personnel for India’s 1.3 billion people, the police-population ratio in India (153 per 100,000 people) is lower than in many developed countries, such as Australia (2,401) and South Africa (2,422). Even in France, which has been roiled by protests over retirement age reforms, the number stands at 400.
While we wait for the political will and police leadership to reform policing and make the force fit to serve a diverse set of people in a democratic country, the focus must shift from increasing the numbers — one of the possible motivations behind the others category — to building capacity, transparency and accountability. (PTI)
This lack of capacity is endemic, and seen across the board in the justice delivery system; nearly 30% of posts of police officers and 22% among the constabulary lie vacant. The situation is worse in some big states. In Bihar, one in two officer posts remains unfilled, while constabulary vacancy is at 32%. In Uttar Pradesh (UP), officer-level vacancy is 42.5% and constabulary is 26%. The pattern repeats in state after state. The highest vacancies are seen among the supervisory and investigative ranks, with consequences for performance and public satisfaction.
Yet, there is a curious exception to this trend, hidden in an obscure category in the Data on Police Organisation Report 2022, which tabulates categories of personnel by rank. This undefined column — titled others — if any, represents a new pattern in law enforcement hiring that is gathering steam across states and growing at a rapid rate. In our work, we found that this category encompassed a wide variety of people and professionals employed in roles that aid police work in ancillary capacities. These ranged from short-term typists and machine operators to messenger boys, other temporary, contractual, ministerial or menial staff, police informers and even special police officers.
From 1.2% of the total police strength in the country in 2019, the share of others has grown to 5% as of January 2022. But it varies widely, ranging from none in Odisha, Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan, to 17,295 in UP. Haryana is one of the leaders in this category, with others making up 13.9 % of its total police force.
In Lucknow, special police officers are being recruited on three-year contracts. In 2021, the Pune police engaged college students as special police officers on a voluntary basis to tackle staff shortages.
In Andhra Pradesh — which counts 29,179 others in its police force, among the highest in the country — it has led to a skew in its gender diversity numbers. Since January 2020, the state has augmented its cohort of constables with a new 15,000-strong cadre of women recruited at the village level as mahila (women) police. They have quasi-policing functions, such as curbing violence against women and girls, assisting in police investigations, and creating awareness about domestic violence, child marriage and sexual harassment. In two years, their inclusion has boosted the share of women in the state police force from 5.8% to 21.8%. This is not only higher than the national average of 11.8%, but also puts Andhra Pradesh in the top bracket of four states and Union Territories that have more than 20% of women in their police force (the others are Bihar, Chandigarh and Ladakh).
But this model of recruitment is controversial, as is borne out in proceedings before the Andhra Pradesh high court, which is hearing a challenge to hiring mahila police on the grounds that designating some village-level women employees as police violated norms. Moreover, the inclusion of others projects Andhra Pradesh’s police diversity profile as being much better than it genuinely is.
The growth of this category — and counting them within the core cohort of the police — distorts the numbers of people available for the core policing tasks of keeping peace, crime prevention, detection and apprehension. In addition, the rising numbers of personnel who augment police functions through recruitment processes outside of state police acts and formal recruitment boards are of concern, given the immense power enjoyed by those who wear khaki.
Though counted as police, other personnel are often not subject to the discipline and accountability standards that the regular force must adhere to. As it is, the regular force is perpetually under the scanner for its problems and allegations of excesses. It is poorly trained with less than 2% of the total police budget nationally allocated towards this important function. According to data, barring the elite ranks, the only training that most police personnel receive is at the induction stage.
While we wait for the political will and police leadership to reform policing and make the force fit to serve a diverse set of people in a democratic country, the focus must shift from increasing the numbers — one of the possible motivations behind the others category — to building capacity, transparency and accountability.
Real improvements can come quickly if recruitment is timely and designed to induct diverse and carefully selected people into the force; large investments and serious curriculum changes are made in training for all levels; specialisation, deployment and infrastructure that privileges capacity enlargement at police stations are prioritised; and internal reforms encourage good behaviour and bear the hallmarks of fairness transparency and accountability in both the institution and individual. Without these changes, it will matter little whether there are more or less police on the ground, whether recruited traditionally or through the “others” category.
Maja Daruwala and Valay Singh are with the India Justice Report
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