(Ed. Note: The following is an interview of an Indian Police Service [IPS] Officer, Dr. Pandakasala Jacob Alexander who is former Director General of Police, Kerala and now a practising lawyer. He is honorary consultant and resource person to a number of organisations and agencies.)

B.F: Dr Alexander, you have described the Indian situation as a classic case of a gaping chasm between practice and precepts. Can you explain this statement?

PJ: This is the ground reality. There is a wide gap between practice and precepts. Our criminal laws and the Constitution framed as early as 1950, ensure the requirements of human rights and set limits to obviate police excesses. However excesses do occur as you find from the media. The recent directions of the Supreme Court on the different steps to be taken when the police makes an arrest exemplify the distrust manifest everywhere of the police. Somehow, somewhere the letter of law lost its precious spirit.

The Indian people have not yet started directly resisting inroads into their rights and personal freedoms. They take these violations as part of the remnants of the colonial hang- over and part of police routines. Surprisingly in India we do not have a vibrant and sturdy human rights movement with an agenda of action with general acceptance.

The police at the cutting edge level please the political masters in power and continue to distort the system by manipulating the records. Supervision is neither constant nor thorough. With unionisation the narrow loyalties have been strengthened. Therefore there is neither compulsion nor incentive for change. They carry on as before, straight from the colonial days when they were trained to be part of a police state wedded to the maintenance of order and collection of revenue. They had class bias and were always on the side of the rich and powerful, not on the side of law. This is perhaps a general explanation of the wide chasm between practice and precepts.

B.F: This is quiet confusing to an outsider like me. Can you make it a little more clear? The law says something and the police does something else. This is unbelievable.

PJ: It is. Let me try to clarify. The question of police accountability on a day- to- day basis was never a part of the colonial system. When something surfaces an ad hoc response is cobbled to satisfy public outcry. Then it is forgotten. Look at the fate of the numerous enquiry commission reports. They gather dust in some morgue for such reports. No one has so far seriously thought of making the police strictly accountable for their commissions and omissions, to the law. As long as the police keep law and order and crime under control no one raises ethical issues.

Generally there is a tendency on the part of police as well as political leadership to condone police excesses if it is part of performance of a duty, if it serves a public purpose and a distinction is drawn between such excesses and those done out of personal or corrupt motives. The greater public good police morale, the need to ensure a safe society all come to play to make the police and political leadership to turn a Nelson's eye. They make precedents and conventions and go for the popularity and support of the regime.

Now there are also deeper issues involved. I have mentioned earlier that status quo in police functioning is the rule and a no-risk or low-risk response is what many governments opt for. In this milieu to reserve status quo, there is failure to exercise resident ghosts. Let me give you an example to prove this point.

You know that the functioning of the police everywhere is under the Police Manuals. It is the Bible. There are portions in the Police Manual of a State like Kerala, so exceptionally different from the rest of India which distorts the provisions of law. The Indian Evidence Act makes admissions or confessions to police officers admissible as evidence. It also makes evidence obtained by fear or favour, tainted. The Criminal Procedure carries similar embargo and forbids a witness attesting his statement. The Constitution itself prohibits testimony on compulsion and double jeopardy while guaranteeing an elaborate Bill of Rights with effective methods of enforcement. Keeping all this in mind, now please listen to this from the Kerala Police Manual of 1972,Order 794 (1)."Statements made to Police Officers are admissible in evidence under section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act,(please see the mischief and attempt at falsification)provided that when any fact is deposed to, as discovered in consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence while he is in the custody of a police officer, so much of such information ,whether it amounts to a confession or not as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered, may be proved. In other words the fact discovered is not equivalent solely to the object produced, the fact discovered embracing the place from which the object is produced and knowledge of the accused as to this, and the information given must relate distinctly to this fact"

Now, when you read this what is the message you get? What is the message a new entrant to the police gets?

Let me now read to you the next sub-section and leave you to draw your own deductions.

Order 794 (2)reads as follows: "Confessions are recorded by Judicial Officers under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. However when an accused on being arrested is willing to confess to a Police Officer about the crime committed by him, the Officer should record the same in the case diary .....This record of the version of the accused will be made by the police officer even if the statement does not amount to a confession, since the same may help further investigation and collection of evidence"

These are not isolated instances. This is cited to show the nature of police catechism and its blatant attempt at subverting the spirit of the law. You may see how the embargo of law is short circuited.

B.F: This is a serious matter. What would be the consequences?

PJ: The gaping chasm between the letter of law and the application is the consequence. This proves my thesis.

B.F: There must have been some attempts to rectify these errors. What about such attempts?

PJ: The truth of the matter is no one has seriously sought to correct these perversions though practically every state had their police commissions and there was a National Commission in 1977 after the Emergency. Most of the recommendations could have been implemented without any serious financial commitments. But it was not attempted either by the states or the centre. They blamed each other and today those recommendations which were progressive when submitted have become irrelevant and obsolete. Now when you think of police training also the picture tallies. It was in 1974 that someone looked into police training from a wider perspective- Prof. M S Gore headed that Committee. Nothing has been done since then.

BF: There must have been some crises which forced the states to set matters right ? We read about such instances off and on?

PJ: Of course such events do occur. But then it is mostly damage control or fire fighting. A crisis is not taken as a reason for reform. You must have heard of the Rajan case of Kerala. Rajan was a student of the Engineering College at Calicut. He was alleged to have links with Naxalites and was suspected to have taken part in attacking a police station. It was alleged that he met with death in police custody and two IPS officers Padikkal and Madhusudanan were tried for murder with others. It did sent shock waves but no lessons were learned. The Government was more concerned with police in action borne out of the shock and shame and was prodding the police to act rather than in act.

BF: Now Dr Alexander, policing for a purpose, it has serious commitment in the society and the citizens. I have heard police officers assert that in practical policing you cannot abjure illegalities and all claims of total clean investigation is for the classroom. How do you react to this position.

PJ: This position is as old as the hills. It is the most common excuse and it is very lame. This is the stand of the passive collaborator not the voice of the dynamic dissenter or innovator.

I want to assert that it is possible to successfully investigate cases without resorting to third degree methods. When I say this I want you to know that I was not an armchair investigator. I have headed the State Crime Branch C.I.D.,not once but twice, both as Deputy Inspector General and Inspector General. We had some spectacular detection of some very complicated cases. In fact the Crime Branch is set up for such purposes. A number of my officers are still in service, most of those who have retired like me are alive

and around. The press and the public have reported these cases. I can say with all honesty and truthfulness that not one of my officers has employed force or I have condoned it. It is still remembered as one of the golden periods of the CB C.I.D. I can challenge any one to disprove me.

BF: If it is possible and results can be obtained, why there are not many takers and such claims are taken as just tall talk and impractical?

PJ: I have no reply to this. It is a question of your principles and your attitudes. People do wrong not because they do not know what is right. It is a question of choice. I firmly hold that to detect a case you don't have to bend the laws and violate human rights. Investigation is a lot of hard work. It is not a glamorous work as you see in the films. It is dogged pursuit of every clue, with an open mind leading a team, without set ideas. It is a game of chess. You must anticipate the next move across the board this time a criminal who had a head start perhaps better facilities and better resources. Do you remember the detective in the film, Day of the Jackal? He is the stereotype, the anti-hero as in the Stories of Le Carre. No James Bond. If you crave for a lot of dash, swaggermspit and polish this is not your job. In fact there is a case for separating law and order and investigation in India. Investigation to a core of detectives like the FBI and make them accountable to the law and the courts as the Supreme Court has done with the CBI. It will make things better. Perhaps law and order can be delegated to local governments. These are issues to be studied in detail.

BF: How did you come to the police and how did you survive with such views and ideas?

PJ: It is a mystery to myself. A career in the IPS had its glamour but it was not my choice. It so happened. You would not believe me when I say that. My mother wanted me to be a priest. And I was a university teacher lecturing to post-graduates on Plato and Marx and the Indian Constitution. But no regrets, the career rewarded me well. I took my doctorate, a law degree, with extensive exposure to management education and widely travelled ,while in service. I had opportunities to occupy very important non-police assignments as well as all top police posts. I had a ring side view of men and events from the inside for nearly three and a half decades. I could write, speak and publish, all would not have been possible with a different background. So I have no regrets.

As about surviving, it was indeed a feat. Swimming against the current is always difficult. But it pays, if you stick to your guns. People at large and your own colleagues would come to respect you for the strength of your principles, That is not a small matter.