Dr.
Zafar Altaf
THE much-trumpeted new police ordinance is finally out and so is
the police, to kill innocent civilians of this country, as first
in Islamabad's Sector D-12 and now in 
Khanewal
at the infamous military farms!
Before we discuss it here, I am reminded of Robert Peel who gave
England its police force. Then the idea was to maintain not only
harmony in society but also to check the rule of wanton authority.
To the subcontinent it gave nothing more than a police force that
could use its authority for the perpetuation of state power. The
rights of people mattered little to them. The harmony required for
a social system to develop was not their objective. The police constable
had the right to arrest any one under section 54 of the Criminal
Procedure Code on the sole reason of suspicion.
There
were safeguards that were provided. The Army was monitored under
the Army Act. It was inconceivable that the white man be tried in
any way by the natives. Even to this day the rule stands and in
fact the army personnel are not prosecuted under the local and national
laws. But the Army Act had one saving grace. It was that the court
martial was always swift and speedy.
The
white man may not have been tried but when a principle was violated
the incumbent was usually sent home in disgrace [Chief Justice Young
of the Lahore High Court was recalled by the Privy Council for sitting
on judgment in his own cause].
Pakistan
inherited a policing system that was given to a culture of excessive
power orientation. The colonialists did build a system of checks
and balance and the police came under the control of the District
Magistrates, who in turn were answerable to the High Courts under
the rules thus formulated. All these rules came into force in the
mid 19th century. Public peace and public interest were supreme
with the police. Both tallied with the government in power. What
was public interest depended on the government in power.
The
colonial powers never had to use the police force to perpetuate
themselves in power because the Viceroy and his cabinet were never
up for elections of any kind. All the indigenous leadership that
was thrown up after Morley-Minto reform [1868] for manning the local
councils was of no serious consequence to the Vice regal authority.
The police was thus mainly for the removal of conflict between the
locals. Criminal activity was adequately covered under the various
codes.
Come
Pakistan, the police became the main instrument for perpetuation
of power. All criticism was to be stifled and the various agencies
that were in uniform were to be used for this purpose. The police
leadership became uncertain for the sitting incumbents unless and
until they were able to deliver what the political or technocrat-political
leadership [a euphuism] wanted of them.
Successive
governments have ridiculed and pampered the police for the activities
that they were supposed to have carried out for the past governments
and then have asked them to carry out the same activities for their
own perpetuation.
In
the current realm a number of activities have indicated how the
police are made scapegoats for what has happened due to serious
underlying causes. Like the virus that debilitates but seldom kills,
political powers and the police have been feeding on each other.
In
the last couple of years the brutalization of the people by the
police has reached unprecedented heights. A new interface has emerged
in which the police have now become involved with not only the sovereign
state in action but other sovereign states in action. The Americans,
the French and even the New Zealand cricket team have been the targets
of this brutalization.
Local
actions that have taken place against the people are unprecedented.
Freedoms, as generally known and practiced in other parts of the
world, are not part of the culture of the Pakistan social scene.
Without
going into specific events let there be an assessment of which way
the police reform is going. Very early on the government set up
a police reforms committee consisting of police officers, retired
police officers. They had gone through the system where they had
been used by successive governments for their own purpose and objectives.
All of them had been Inspector Generals of some sort or the other.
An
Inspector general leads a provincial police force [there being four
provinces] but there are more than two dozens of them loitering
around looking for all kinds of jobs. Some of them landed in the
power structure. These police personnel were, and are, very persuasive
when it comes to promising loyalty to a current cause. They are
also agreeable to taking a secondary position of authority and to
thus show themselves as the most agreeable to the power structure.
Evidence
for this came when the President saluted them for their zeal and
sense of duty during the referendum. For what services they provided
in the referendum is another story.
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