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This week in Kolkata the police have risen to the occasion repeatedly to make major headlines in the leading City newspapers. Ordinarily the citizens of Kolkata associate the police force with inaction, inefficiency, corruption and atrocities. But in these latest examples of a concerned and conscientious police force in action one must admit that the Kolkata Police have come across in a most shining and commendable manner.

Let us recount the incidents one by one. Traffic sergeants have helped ill passers-by on the streets of Kolkata to regain strength and revive in the custody and care of clinics. One young sergeant even signaled a crowded public bus to enter the Seth Sukhlal Memorial Karnani Hospital (better known as PG Hospital) in downtown Kolkata in order to help an aged passenger who had fallen sick in the bus itself.

This sergeant ensured that the passenger receives adequate medical attention by networking with the medical and support staff of this busy City hospital where getting admission and proper treatment is a complicated affair due to excessive bureaucratization, pockets of vested interests and enormous pressure of patients coming daily for referral treatment from elsewhere in the City and adjoining Districts.

Another police constable was stationed near the Nandan complex (the cultural hub of Kolkata) when he saw that a laborer working in the vicinity got injured due to an accident. The other workers promptly fled the scene of accident but the constable was successful to retain two workers. They went to hospital where the constable busied himself in the formalities and paperwork regarding admission of the patient.

He returned only to find that the two remaining laborers have also escaped. It then became his single-handed responsibility to admit the critically injured laborer and attend to all the necessary details. He modestly told the Press that it was his duty as a policeman to help a man in need of urgent medical attention.

A traffic constable found a large sum of money lying on the street. He deposited it in the nearest police station for safe custody. He thought that he was only performing his duty as the keeper of law and order in doing so.

These are our silent heroes who are not always recognized in the public eye but who nevertheless go on performing their duties at busy street junctions while a merciless sun beats down upon them and thunder showers drench them to their bones. We do not always remember their sterling role in keeping our City habitable and safe. It is true that Kolkata (like most other metropolitan cities of the world) suffer from occasional bouts of lawlessness and crimes against women. But one can take courage from these selfless acts of devotion to duty on the part of our law keepers.

It is a fact that usually the interaction between the police and the civil society in a highly volatile city like Kolkata is problematic simply due to the fact that the police force more often than not serves as the Repressive State Apparatus in the hands of the ruling party that forms the State Government. This was amply borne out by the fact that the Election Commission of India recently decided to dissociate the police force under the State Government from the just-concluded Legislative Assembly Election in West Bengal. There was widespread apprehension that the police force would act in a partisan manner to serve the interests of the ruling Left Front. So paramilitary forces were brought in from outside the State to secure the law and order situation in the State. Incidentally the Left Front Government takes oath this week in Kolkata for a record seventh time and it remains a fact that the West Bengal Police and Kolkata Police have played an important role to keep the rulers in power at Writers’ Buildings in the heart of the City.

The Left Front Government has even allowed policemen to practice trade unionism. This is most unprecedented, as ordinarily regimented forces are not permitted to form unions of their own. These recent exemplary acts of public service have nevertheless glorified the image of the police force in the public eye. Citizens now feel somewhat confident to approach policemen for help and direction during an emergency. The State Government in the recent past had introduced football tournaments where ordinary citizens would play with policemen in order to promote public relations exercises of the Home Department.

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, himself a leading intellectual and a visionary in his own right, is also the Police Minister. He also happens to lead the Cultural Affairs as well Information Departments. It would be indeed unique if he can uplift the rather tarnished image of his police force in the eyes of the citizens of Kolkata in particular and West Bengal in general. It is a fact that more empathy is required between the police force and the ordinary citizens so that their mutual problems are negotiated from common platforms. Policemen are social human beings and they have to relate more to the mainstream aims and aspirations as well as anxieties and apprehensions of the society all around them.

Commoners also have to realize that policemen are fellow citizens who should be readily approached during moments of genuine need so that solutions to grave or even everyday problems can be explored across the table in terms of coherent and meaningful dialogues. For instance, the police did not use force to disperse protesting medical students when they paralyzed a busy street intersection at Dorina Crossing near the Governor’s House but tried to reason with them instead. It is not always easy to converse with the administration, especially policemen whom we traditionally view with awe and fear because of their background of legitimate and organized violence sanctioned by the State.

But at least an initial step toward this challenging direction may be taken to institutionalize a better civic life for the City of Kolkata. This may reduce the incidence of crime and lawlessness in the City in the near future while the police and public may finally join hands to make Kolkata a better place to live and prosper in the context of the State Government’s liberal pro-industry policy that is increasingly attracting Foreign Direct Investments to West Bengal.  

May 21, 2006

Top | Kolkata Diary

The Week of May 21, 2006          
War or Peace? Middle-East Great Game Approaching Climax by Rajinder Puri 
Unprovoked, Unwarranted Papal Assault on India by V. Sundaram 
Did Jesus Die in India? by Kusum Choppra 
BJP Needs Reinvention by Dr. Subhash Kapila
The Da Vinci Tsunami by V. Sundaram 
Whither South Africa by Kusum Choppra  
Children of Secularism by J. Ajithkumar  
Is Equality Really Possible? by TA Ramesh  
Damned by Dam by VK Joshi  
Think Tank Propaganda Machines & the Death of the Free Press by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Are the Kashmiri Pundits abandoned Dregs & Derelicts? by V Sundaram
And, the Way Up is the Way Down ... by Pradip Bhattacharya
Ahalya: Incest and Temptation by Satya Chaitanya
Hinduism: A Holy Water Religion by Dr. V. Sankaran Nair
Liberty, Inequality and Enmity of State-Sponsored Quota Raj by V.Sundaram
The Reservation Hurricane by MH Ahsan 
Reservations about Quotas by Usha Kakkar 
Data Backup to Avoid Disasters by Ruchi Gupta
Police Story Kolkata Diary by Dr. Prasenjit Maiti
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai 
A Gallery of Failures by Deepti Priya Mehrotra   
Geetli A Long Story by Kusum Choppra
Love, Struggle and the Poetry of Nepal by Dr. Amitabh Mitra
Rama Suresh : The Rural Aesthete by Aparna Sharma 
Child Labor to End in a Decade? by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna  
Women and Worship by Humera Afridi