K.S. Dhillon, a former director-general of police, last week issued an extremely important statement which deserves to be publicized as fresh evidence of the working of the world’s largest democracy. Dhillon says that the Indian political authority has been dishonest in allowing the police to take the law in its own hands during the insurgency in Punjab. The Indian state did not want to give legal powers to the police to deal with the situation. The excesses committed by the police were not only ignored but were positively encouraged.
Dhillon is no easy-chair academic. He is a former senior police officer. He served as director-general of police, Punjab, during the critical years, 1984-85, when operation “Blue Star” was enacted in Punjab. He should, therefore, know better than others because to get orders on how to deal with the situation.
The former police chief did not spell out as to how the police took law in its own hands. It is obvious that what he means is that the police killed a large number of Sikh political activists in Punjab in police custody and without going into the process of law. Dhillon is also of the view that excuses were not only ignored but were “positively encouraged.”
Dhillon has exposed not only the dishonest Indian political authorities but also the entire political system in the country because there are no honest political authorities who have given legal powers to the police to handle the situation in Punjab or, for that matter, in any other Indian state. Thus the dishonesty of the Indian state pervades through the entire system and is not limited to one or the other prime minister, or his tenure. Can such a system qualify to be called democracy? And the world’s largest democracy at that? What kind of democracy is it where police excesses are not only tolerated but are positively encouraged Dhillon’s remark totally exposes the hypocritical statements issued from time to time by men like S.S. Ray that the police excesses in India is a local phenomenon and that institutions in India are available to correct the distortions. No, Mr. Ray, the excesses are engineered by the political bosses and that there are no institutions to correct the phenomenon.”
Dhillon has in the process also condemned men like K.P.S. Gill who he exposes as plain, illegal killers. The excesses on the public are committed through men like K.P.S. Gill who are positively encouraged in doing so. No wonder, Gill has been allowed by the dishonest Indian political authority to continue to hold the post of police chief in Punjab for his entire life, if he so lives.
The former police chief’s assessment that the factors that gave birth to militancy in Punjab still remain to be sorted out is realistic. The late parties and the flow of rivers of liquor are no indication of the police success. Dhillon’s observations fly at the face of assessments made of the Punjab situation by the U.S. state department. Members of the U.S. Congress and the Senate, leaders of public opinion, the academics are well advised to study Dhillon’s statement carefully. They must reflect on the type of system that India has built up in the name of democracy.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 10, 1995
