Square peg in a round hole: a Sindhi wearing a uniform

“Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it”

Donning a uniform had always been my dream, but for the most absurd of reasons. Deep down, I had always been scared that I’d end up as a fat and bald grown-up like my other male family members. I figured that the only way to fight my genes was to join armed forces, where they make you run 24-7 and give you a free headgear to cover your Ganj (slang for bald head). So, even though my preparation for engineering entrance was in full steam, I secretly applied to join army during my senior year at high school.

My parents got the shock of their life when they received a letter from the Indian Army, inviting me to appear for a four-day interview with Service Selection Board (SSB) to ascertain my suitability for the force. My lovely but old-fashioned grandfather asked my dad in Sindhi, “Are you out of your mind? Have you ever seen any Sindhi (apparently, a non-martial class) joining army? And on top of that, you are even supporting your misguided son.” My super-confident dad replied in Sindhi, “Don’t worry papa, he will fail for sure.”

And so, I did. My dad couldn’t hide his sadistic smile hearing the news, and when he told me how he had already prophesized this, my eyes couldn’t hold on to my tears. Six years later, mother nature gave me another chance to wear a uniform when I ended up as an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, despite honorable P.C. Hota’s UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) board handing me a well-deserved 38% marks in my interview for the civil services, not one but two years in a row.

For me, joining the IPS was a no-brainer for a variety of other reasons. Some wise soul had brainwashed me into believing that as an IPS officer, I am going to get a lot of job satisfaction and an extremely rich work experience. How exactly? I didn’t probe, for I was happy enough to know that this was a prestigious career and that I’d have little problem in finding a suitable bride, which didn’t seem that straightforward in my case. My older brother had married outside our caste amid a lot of family drama and police action, and some of our ‘concerned’ relatives had warned my mom that such ‘anti-social’ behavior from my brother could impede my chances of marriage.

But now, all these problems seemed to be behind me. That was true, except that bigger ones were in the pipeline. The wise soul forgot to mention that to get job satisfaction as an IPS officer, I would have to turn my conscience into a battleground, where I would face moral dilemmas on a daily basis.

Dilemma no 1: Justice vs procedure

A couple of years after I made it to the service, I was posted as Asst Supdt. of Police (ASP) when my boss's boss's boss, an Inspector General of Police (IGP), called me to get a girl’s abduction case registered, as my subordinates were not doing so. When I checked with them, I learnt that it was not really a kidnapping case but a case of two lovebirds who eloped to get married amid objections from the girl's father. When I passed on this message to my IGP, he surmised to me that as police officers, our job is to register a case first and arrive at a conclusion only after we finish investigation. Technically, he was right. So, I promptly instructed my juniors to do so.

Deep down, I sensed some miscarriage of justice and a selective application of law in the name of following the procedure. After all, if my superiors cared so much about the registration of cases, why the hell there was so much underreporting of crimes. In this case, I kind of guessed what was going to happen, something that could have happened to my older brother when he was in a similar situation. Most likely, the eloped girl’s parents would bribe the police to arrest the boy and torture him, unless the girl gives a statement against the boy before the judge, stating that he abducted her for real. The guy would likely go behind the bars for a cool seven years, simply because he loved somebody. That’s how broken the criminal justice system is in India, and that too in its most literate state, Kerala. I was now beginning to feel the weight of wearing a khaki. Suddenly, all the hubris started to melt.

Left with no reasonable options to salvage my conscience, I decided to break some protocol. I called the boy’s home and told them that if the girl voluntarily comes to me, I’d get her statement recorded before the judge and get the abduction case dismissed. But they had to act fast, because if the police catches the boy before this happens, it might turn out the way I had feared. After much persuasion, they produced the girl before me, along with the boy. My junior colleagues insisted on two things. First, we should take into custody both the boy and the girl. Secondly, I should delegate the job of taking the girl to the court to some junior officer. I declined both suggestions as I smelled some conspiracy from the higher-ups.

After the girl gave her statement, the judge dismissed the case. I then asked the investigating officer to register a case against the girl’s father for giving false information to the police. Well, I was just following the procedure, but it was funny that this time, it didn’t go well with my IGP. Apparently, the girl’s father belonged to the same caste as my IGP, and years later, he got a chance to get back at me for my ‘insubordination’. But that’s a story for another day.

Dilemma no 2: Justice vs public order

On December 6, 1992, Babri Mosque was demolished, and since then, this date has become a yearly public order nightmare for the police in India. On this fateful date in the year 2000, District Supdt of Police (SP), my immediate boss, called me at 4 a.m., asking me about a robbery incident. Apparently, it was committed by members of a religious group against a very senior politician and leader of another one. My SP was quite mad at me for having no clue about so serious an occurrence. I was wondering, how does he know? Every district has a local intelligence division, called Special Branch, which directly reports to the district SP. SPs often use this asymmetry of information access to pull-up their junior colleagues.

Anyhow, he said that IGP wants some arrests to be made immediately, or else there could be Hindu-Muslim riots, as threatened by the local Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA). I immediately visited the victim, who seemed to exhibit no injury, and he claimed to have been robbed of Rs 50K, a big sum in those days, apparently kept in his table drawer. I asked him if he could identify the miscreants, who in his own words were wearing masks. He started reading out the names of robbers from a list handed out to him. He said he could identify them by their voices. Everything seemed fishy and I didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest, as desired by my superiors.

My IGP kept calling me non-stop on the ‘progress’ of the case, and telling why not making an arrest would lead to riots that I won’t be able to handle. I bought some more time to investigate, only to realize that the ‘victim’ politician had every reason to lie as he had a lot of unpaid debts. I asked for more force to maintain public order, but that request was summarily rejected. Left with no options, I asked all the available force at my disposal to be on the roads till the situation calmed. The pressure, however, got to me and I was on the verge of ordering an arrest based on whatever evidence was available. If I had done that, I’d perhaps not be able to forgive myself ever. Thankfully, my SP’s conscience woke up just-in-time before his retirement in upcoming February, and he told me not to make any arrest without enough evidence. He also asked me to direct all IGP’s calls to him, henceforth. What a relief!

Spiderman says that with great power comes great responsibility. Ironically, I have never felt more powerless than when wearing a uniform. I have never regretted my decision to join the services, though. They do offer tremendous job satisfaction, if you are able to make a difference. But they also have the potential to leave permanent scars on your soul, if you end up doing nothing.?

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