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ShareKen Haywood has absolved the Mumbai police of all venal sins. That is a relief, because before he left India - despite a red-corner notice proscribing travel - he had accused the police of being corrupt.
He had suggested that he was being pressured not because cops wanted information about the terror mail that was sent from his computer, but because they wanted a bit of his MNC money. In the end, Ken accomplished a historic reversal of roles: it is usually the police who give a clean chit to a suspect.
Well, the police will argue that they did not need Ken's appraisal. But here is something they do urgently need: a radical change in the way they do things, and a desperate image makeover.
While it is true that a phirang's accusation which sullies the character of Mumbai's finest will tousle our pride, it must be acknowledged that questioning the integrity of the police is a part of every Indian's grouse-list.
The taxi-driver will curse every traffic policeman in sight, relating to the weary passenger unedifying tales of highway robberies committed by the traffic police. "They will first ask you for your licence," one stoic cabbie told me, "then they will demand all sorts of papers - and you are doomed if you have them."
According to him, nothing frustrates traffic cops more than a taxi-driver with papers in order. "So they will ask you to operate the indicators, the tail lights, and horn...till you pay up some money just to escape the farce."
What the cabbie is most offended by is not the rip-off, but the boorishness with which cops usually deal with common people. I agree with the man, dashed reasonable I mean: if I am being swindled, I would want the encounter to end with a cheery "have a great day" cry.
But seriously, those of us who have gingerly shuffled into a police station for some reason have been intimidated, scowled at, or ignored. Common citizens are not entitled to the sustained attention the ATS chaps accord to terror suspects, thank god!
However, wouldn't it be nice if cops do not treat us like vermin when we enquire about that passport application? Or when we call the control room to have some emergency tackled? The police cannot be persuaded to drop their gruff manner, an essential qualification to be a cop, by a media column.
So I would urge the Mumbai police top brass to do what their peers in Bangalore are doing: they have invited Infosys to train their personnel to deal efficiently and politely with citizens who approach them. It is a capital idea, if our tax money is contributing to the payment of the policing bill, we should be entitled to some courtesy. And if cops begin to treat us like customers, we will be responsible and in the usage of services; don't we helpfully tell the nice airhostess that man sitting across the aisle looks drunk and dangerous?
Mumbai police can appropriate another idea from their Bangalore brothers and sisters. The Bangalore police have decided to send mid-level officials to Singapore to study its traffic-management expertise. The top brass has been excluded because knowledge gained by senior officers hardly percolates down the ranks.
It is not their fault of course, the file-clearing duty chains them to their desks. The Bangalore experiment is based on the premise that officers who routinely mingle with the ground-troops will share key learning from the Singapore stint. The latter will then learn to deal with Mumbai situations with rich-country sophistication. If Mumbai netas don't like Singapore, they can send the cops to Shanghai.
raghu@dnaindia.net
