Why is it so that whenever Punjab police are humiliated for reasons right or wrong people feel elated? Why do they celebrate it as something that falls in the category of natural justice, as something that they want to see happen? But it usually comes their way as a serendipitous gift? It only happens once in a blue moon, literally out of nowhere. The reason is fathomable if one cares to know.

Colonialism sired Punjab police in the mid-19th century. Like a true son they carry all the frightful and ugly features of their father; brutality and corruption. Colonialism actively worked at least at three levels; economic, political and socio-cultural. At economic level it was highly extractive as it forcibly appropriated most of the surplus produced by the colonised people. They did it through the laws they introduced to their advantage. It legalised plunder in the name of rule of law. In order to ensure strict compliance from the indigenous people it created new departments of the government which gave them carte blanche to use force and coercion when and where needed. At times force was used just to display who was the master.

At political level, colonialism created segments in upper and middle classes that would be loyal to the foreign ruling elite. This was usually done using the carrot and stick approach. People were forced to provide the both; the carrot and the stick. The carrot was the indigenous resources which were used to buy the loyalty of important sections of the colonised. Allotment of land and appointment to high offices did the trick. The stick was the newly put in place structure of the state for the ‘people’s welfare’ that had at its command forces to suppress and eliminate all those who resisted and defied the occupation.

At socio-cultural level, the way of life of the foreign masters was effectively projected as a mark of a civilised society that relied more on rationality and scientific inquiry than humaneness. So the ideal was not freedom from the imposed order but to ape and emulate the enforcers of the order.

To maintain the status quo the colonial state evolved two crucial departments along with others, namely army and police. Army for the border security and crushing internal rebellion if and when it happened. And police for law and order. Army was raised theoretically, at least, from all regions while police were generally region specific. So were the Punjab police as the very name indicates. Without going into what is written in the documents, it’s very obvious that police were raised with the objective of controlling the local people. They were trained to terrorise the people into submission which they gladly did and still do. The police built under the Raj was the polar opposite of the UK police. The fundamental difference was that in the UK police dealt with citizens and here it dealt with subjects. Subjects under foreign rule had to be treated like slaves. They had to be reminded of their status to make them compliant. In order to put them in their place the police were given the licence to be brutal in their dealings with the subjects. Their brutality displayed itself in the acts of humiliating and torturing the subjects. Not only the vestiges of this colonial practice are still there but the practice itself is also intact in the post-colonial era. Even the lowest member of Punjab police is in the habit of addressing an ordinary person, who is legally a citizen, with unbearable rudeness. If he talks back, he would be honoured with unrepeatable names. Hurtful talk laced with expletives is meant to humiliate the citizens. A policeman is not there to serve the citizenry but to lord over it. Even the apparently cultured police officer wouldn’t use a word like sir while addressing a citizen. Rather citizens are expected to address policemen as ‘janab, janabe aali (your highness)’ which no member of police force deserves. If you go to a police station you will not be offered a chair or something to sit on. You have to stand and abjectly mumble your request which will not be given serious attention. You have to bribe the staff at the station to get your complaint lodged. If they arrest someone and bring them to police station they are surely going to humiliate them first and torture later, with impunity of course. It’s routine that can be observed 24/7.

Our policeman is like a character in one of the Brecht’s poems who announces: “…What my gun says is my opinion / and that of the whole lot I’ll spare only my brother/ by just kicking him in the teeth.” But hold on. There are certain type of persons who are received with respect. They are the vestiges of the lot created by colonial apparatus who acted as informers and go-betweens with the Raj administration. They were/ are allowed to settle people’s matters which involve the police and charge people their ‘fee’ part of which goes to the police and the rest is pocketed by them. There is another group higher in status that doesn’t frequent police stations but police visit their outhouses and farmhouses to pay their salutations. They are politicians. Police and politicians have been/ are organically linked. That’s why every politician in power insists on having a police officer of his choice in his area; he does his bidding by framing his opponents in false cases and favouring or disfavouring people, innocent and involved in cases, at his recommendation.

Such a historical situation provides a backdrop for the people’s vicarious pleasure when police are humiliated by other organs of the state or non-state actors such as rural gangs and urban mafias. As to the efficiency of the Punjab Police in matters of law and order, they continue with the novel ways invented in colonial days.

Hardened criminals and perpetrators of heinous crimes are routinely eliminated in so-called police encounters in which only criminals get killed, not members of the force. Press is given the handout after each encounter. The text has remained the same since mid-19th century: “some accomplices of the accused opened fire on the police escorting the accused and he died because of their fire.” As to the ordinary crimes, they are hardly registered.

In a nutshell, Punjab Police are what they were in the colonial era; they treat the people who pay for their pay and privileges as enemies. That’s why when the incident of their humiliation occurs it gets the biggest laugh. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2024