Control, autonomy and oversight
In a system of governance historically blemished by the abuse of political authority, the victimisation of political opponents through police force is a routine affair in countries of South Asia including Bangladesh. This misuse coupled with the widely-held perceptions of police inefficiency, corruption, highhandedness and a culture of looking outside the organisation for patronage is part of a deepening crisis confronted by the police force of Bangladesh.

The Indian National Police Commission of 1977 which made meaningful effort to reform the police system had the following to say on the control element -- "The crux of police reform in our country today is to secure professional independence for the police to function truly and efficiently as an impartial agent of the law of the land and at the same time to enable the government to oversee the police performance to ensure its conformity to law."

In view of the above, it is only natural that if we desire the growth of real professional policing, we have to start breaking the long-existing nexus of unthinking bureaucracy and politicians. We have to ensure that the investigative tasks of the police are beyond the kind of intervention by the political executive. The government may lay down broad policies for adoption in respect of only the preventive and service-oriented functions. Such policy directions should be given openly and made known to all members of parliament.

If we want our police to act apolitically then we have to ensure that government discharges its superintending responsibility in an open manner. One way to do that would be to set up a public safety commission or a security commission which amongst others should --

i. Lay down broad guidelines for the performance of preventive and service-oriented functions by the police.

ii. Evaluate the performance of the police very year.

iii. Function as a forum of appeal to dispose representations from officers regarding their being subjected to illegal orders and regarding their promotions.

iv. Generally review the functioning of police force.

The principal purpose behind the creation of the above proposed security commission is to insulate police from politics. We have to be candid to discuss clearly about the vexed issue of political interference in the internal administration of police. It is no secret that the threat of transfer is often used by the political executive as a tool to drive officers to subvert rule of law and to indulge in questionable practices. We have to appreciate that this leverage with the executive lowers the morale of upright officers and affects the discipline of the service. The question is -- are we ready to counter the motivated and arbitrary removals of non-pliant officers by laying down fixed tenure for key police appointments and also requiring the authorities to record grounds of premature transfer for independent scrutiny by the proposed public safety commission?

We have to ask ourselves if our society, through its elected leaders want i) the creation of institutional structures that ensure political neutrality and democratic control of the police; ii) adoption of a unified chain of command of the police; iii) establishment of a recruitment and selection system of personnel based on merit. The police need to be depoliticised and their recruitment, postings, transfers, training and career development ensured on merit.

Statutory support
Our police owe its creation to the Police Act of 1861. The salient characteristics of police organisation produced by the Act are i) principal aim is the preservation of status-quo; ii) lays major emphasis on maintenance of order and avoidance of breach of peace thereby over-emphasising the constabulary functions of the police against the professional aspect of crime control. This organisation was designed not to attract talent to ensure built-in subservience of the police to the executive administration regardless of the resulting corruption, lack of professional excellence, police highhandedness and police-public estrangement.

We need a new Police Act whose principal features should be as under:

i. It redefines in clear terms the role and responsibilities of police.

ii. It seeks to improve human security and access to justice within the ambit of rule of law.

iii It phases out obsolete police management practices.

iv. It provides for enhancing police professionalism.

v. It introduces new powers to improve police discipline.

vi. It strengthens external police accountability through institutionalised civil society oversight.

vii. It aims to transform the police into a public-friendly service-delivery organisation.

viii. It makes it obligatory for the government to establish police-public consultative committees.

The undefined open-ended 'Superintendence' of police in the hands of political executive has to change for ensuring efficient and lawful police performance. The need is to replace the ruler-driven police with a community-based police through the institutional mechanism of Public Safety Commission or Security Commission. Such statutory body should have wide-ranging powers and be a broad-based body incorporating, amongst others, women, civil society members, and the political opposition. The goal should be to foster credible police accountability, gender sensitive enforcement and operational neutrality. The core problem of insulating the police from the illegitimate political, bureaucratic or other extraneous interference should engage our serious attention.

The attitude
It would not be possible to effect meaningful changes or reform in police operations without a broad agreement across the political landscape on the future role and responsibilities of police. Financial constraints have been a factor for stalling progress but it is primarily the influential and vested quarter within the ruling elite that has proved to be a major stumbling block in the way of police modernisation. The reality is that recommendations even without financial implication do not attract appropriate intervention.

The inability of top police management to resist organisationally debilitating extraneous pressures and to bring about attitudinal change in the subordinate personnel is significant impediment to operational freedom. When core reform entails responsibility many functionaries develop a lukewarm attitude.

The way forward
Making the police public-friendly should be the central issue in the reform effort. We need to examine police organisation, its mandate, its functional dynamics. The reform process has to call for a commitment and sense of purpose from the political executive as this involves essentially a re-determination of the whole governance paradigm.

The reality on ground is that valid organisational principles have been violated over the years resulting in corrupt, inefficient and highly politicised police forces in our region. The police have acted as agents of the political executive rather than as instruments of a democratic state. The selective application of law against opponents, whether political or personal has been the norm rather than the exception. People perceive police as agents of party in power and not as an organisation publicly maintained to enforce the rule of law.

The question is which style or model of policing can bring a change in the existing high level of police-public estrangement? How police can be brought under democratic control yet ensuring its political neutrality?

To begin with, the responsibility of maintenance of law and order will need to rest exclusively and unambiguously with the police. Policing operations should no longer be subjected to general control and direction from outside the department. The police role will have to be orientated in a manner in which service function gets precedence and the prevention and detection of crime is seen to have a social purpose. The transformation strategy should seek and solicit voluntary support and cooperation of the people.

Since the predominant purpose of the police is to enforce the laws of the land without fear or favour, it is crucial to render it neutrally. Such neutrality can be achieved by placing the police under apolitical control, thus creating a cushion between political expediency and law enforcement. In the absence of such a cushion, vested quarters will not let police do its mandated duty.

The police needs to be brought under a system of accountability that enjoys public confidence. If this is done, it is hoped, the police work ethics will start changing positively. The police organisation of the future will have to evolve shared vision and understanding of a common mission that focuses on meeting the community expectations. We need an institutional framework that will ensure an operationally neutral, organisationally autonomous, and functionally specialised and institutionally accountable service oriented policing in Bangladesh.

Muhammad Nurul Huda is a former Secretary and IGP.