‘A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.’ – Lao Tzu
The first time a woman became Commissioner of Police in Maharashtra was in the year 2010. As expected, there was great rejoicement among the public, especially women since another male bastion had been scaled. My first month at the job was therefore spent responding to enthusiastic felicitations from Punekars and giving them audience. I was relieved to have returned to work after a nearly year-long leave and did not mind the balance of life tilting more towards my chosen profession.
The eighth-largest metropolis in India, Pune is the cultural capital of Maharashtra and also known as the ‘Queen of the Deccan’. It has a growing industrial hinterland, replete with information technology, engineering and automotive companies. The city is famous for cultural activities, classical music recitals, a vibrant theatre and literary scene. Besides being recognized as a seat of learning – some call it the ‘Oxford of the East’ – Pune has made a definitive mark on the world of sports too. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it gained further international recognition as the local Serum Institute of India produced and exported the much sought-after AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ vaccine.
After completing the initial formalities of taking over as Commissioner, I started visiting all the police stations in Pune. Having lived there and worked at the local CID headquarters, I was well aware of the crime situation, but I thought it was important for me to be properly visible to the Pune police team. I believe that a leader has to be present and approachable to those she claims to lead. During my police station visits, we would hold regular meetings with the staff as well as local citizens in order to listen to their views on policing.
Meeran Chadha Borwankar
Madam Commissioner: The Extraordinary Life of an Indian Police Chief
Pan Macmillan India (October 2023)
Often, I felt disappointed by the quality of police investigation I observed during these visits. A few times I even left the police stations in anguish. While CBI and Mumbai crime branch officers had time to pursue cases assiduously and without interruptions, police officers in Pune were always running around in circles attending to multifarious duties.
There were too many VIP visits, festival celebrations, agitations, protests and so on and so forth. Lethargy and corruption too had seeped in. At the same time, I appreciated the cordial citizen–police relations in the city. As with most organizations, about 20 per cent of the staff were highly motivated and efficient, another 20 per cent were shirkers, while the remaining lot preferred to sit on the fence. Our team concentrated on bringing these fence-sitters over to the mainstream motivated workforce. But I must admit that we could probably rope in only 50 per cent of the fence-sitters.
Under these circumstances, I finalized the three projects that I would undertake during my tenure. The first community police project was named ‘Pune Police Vidyarathi Abhiyan’. As part of it, we offered unpaid internships to college students at all police stations. The basic aim was to familiarize students with police operations. While working on my doctorate, I had surveyed about a hundred college students and they had shown keen interest in learning how the police functioned. The additional commissoner Sanjay Lathkar and his team prepared a detailed syllabus that the student interns would have to complete. The internships were advertised on the city police website and publicized widely. Many local colleges including the management department of the University of Pune participated by sending their students to nearby police stations. The youngsters always responded enthusiastically. An intern in fact apprehended a chain snatcher in an area under the jurisdiction of the Hadapsar police station. The university’s female students insisted on accompanying the Chaturshringi police officers during night rounds. These student–police collaborations yielded many interesting experiences.
After about a year of these internships and upon consultation with Dr C. M. Chitale, the head of the management department at the university, we reviewed the usefulness of the programme. Questionnaires were drafted and presented to the interns. Students of New Law College, Shri Siddhivinayak College for Women and Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha participated in the survey. Almost 94 per cent of the students said that mutual relations between the police and the common man improve through such initiatives; 95.6 per cent stated that they no longer felt afraid of the police after their internship; 94.7 per cent said they would recommend such internship programmes to their friends.
We called the second community police initiative ‘Chowki Sabalikaran’, through which we intended to improve the efficacy of police chowkies. Pune is probably the only city in Maharashtra where citizens approach their chowkis to lodge FIRs. Each police station supervises the work of two or three such chowkis. Since their jurisdictions are small, the citizens and chowki police staff know one another well.
As a part of this exercise, the IndSearch Institute of Management Studies & Research was entrusted the task of training the chowki personnel in conducting meetings with citizens. The institute’s faculty trained the police staff on how to draw agenda items in advance, take down meeting minutes and prepare reports of action taken. Professor Sham Wagh of the institute steered the project. After training sessions were conducted for all police chowkies in Pune, joint meetings were held to assess the implementation and impact of suggested improvements. The institute collected feedback from citizens and police officers on the usefulness of meetings and participation levels. They expressed their overall satisfaction with regards to the conduct and recording of the meetings post training sessions. Even though there were times when specified agenda items were not pursued, the faculty noted that the ‘participation of citizens is more important and an encouraging factor’.
Our third project was the creation of ‘Study Circles’ in each police station by inviting local experts to discuss diverse topics. Many inspectors took keen interest in these sessions and reported that eminent Punekars were more than willing to share their knowledge with police officers. In my profession, people tend to get sucked into routine police work and thereby start stagnating. Study circles can help broaden our perspective and enrich us as individuals. Our endeavour therefore received a very positive response and has since been adopted by many officers.
We also revived the ‘Mahila Dakshata Samitees’ at all police stations in Pune. This stems from my belief that the police alone are insufficient to handle the ubiquitous issue of crimes against women and that collaboration with civil society, academicians and NGOs can improve our services.
The Mahila Dakshata Samitees in Maharashtra were constituted in the early 1980s, with local women being nominated to lead these groups and cooperate with police stations to help women victims. There were hardly any females in the police force in those days. Later on, the Maharashtra government introduced a 33 per cent reservation for women in all government departments, leading to more women joining the police. While reactivating these committees we weeded out those who were not interested in the work these groups did – many had been appointed simply on the basis of their political allegiance.
A two-day state-level conference was held to mark and celebrate twenty-five years of the ‘Mahila Dakshata Samitees’. Women from far-flung corners of the state came to attend it, even though they had to fund the trips on their own as the Pune police could only make arrangements for their stay. Their sessions were highly interactive and their awareness about the latest legal amendments impressive.
I was completely focused on ensuring the conference’s success until a phone call from a young woman took me by surprise. ‘Madam Commissioner,’ she began, ‘is it a crime to have coffee in Pune late in the evening?’ Feeling a bit baffled, I asked her to elaborate. Instead, she asked to see me. So, I invited her to visit my office between 4 and 5 p.m., during the one hour I used to reserve for citizen walk-ins.
The woman came along with a friend and began recounting her story. A few days back, the two of them were having coffee at a cafe near the airport when a group of boys at the adjoining table started teasing them. Initially they ignored it but when their obnoxious behaviour became unbearable, they dialled police control room, seeking help. The police operator responded promptly but asked them why they were out so late in the evening. Could they not have had coffee at home? He was arrogant and rude. The young girls were livid and decided to approach me.
Pune’s police control room was on the same floor of the building as my office chamber. We had recently installed new technology that allowed us to record all our phone conversations with citizens. Since the girls had provided the exact date and time of the incident, I asked the control room officers to locate the conversation. When the recorded conversation was played to me, it became immediately clear that the police constable who had taken the call was indeed very rude. He was arguing with the girls instead of directing a nearby police vehicle to go to their aid. Without wasting any time, I transferred him out and initiated disciplinary action. Had these young women not taken the initiative to bring the control room operator’s unjustified conduct to my notice, he would have continued in the same vein. Two-way communication between citizens and police is only of mutual benefit.
Though I was introducing various measures to strengthen citizen–police relations, this incident exposed the underbelly of the police as an organization. I realized that we still had miles to go.
This excerpt from Meeran Chadha Borwankar’s Madam Commission was republished with permission from Pan Macmillan India.