The role of women in the police has been steadily increasing. The Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and major criminal laws now require every case of sexual assault to be recorded and investigated by a female police officer. The arrest of a woman and searching a woman must be done by a woman only. Even juvenile delinquents are believed to be best handled by the women police officers as they are more compassionate and communicative with children.
Further, the police are required to deal with varied situations of public order involving women, ranging from outrage generated from incidents of brutal sexual assault on women to the terror unleashed by women insurgents. Public agitations by female groups are not very uncommon. While women might be small in number in insurgent groups of J&K and the North-East, their number is quite high in the outlawed CPI (Maoist). Except for the Maoist’s top body, their participation is sizable at the lower level. Many a times, the village women accuse security forces of sexual harassment during anti-Maoist operations. It is difficult for the forces to defend themselves as they are rarely accompanied by a female contingent. Despite all this, women are still under-represented in the police force.
One of the paradoxes is that the ‘police’ and ‘public order’ are in the State List and ‘criminal laws’ in the Concurrent List. While the central government has the right to enact criminal laws and amend them whenever needed to include intervention of women police, it cannot compel state governments to increase women’s strength in their police forces. The states are singularly responsible for maintaining police forces, be it their constitution or total strength. In the Prakash Singh (2006) case, though the Supreme Court issued certain directives with an intention to bring in some reforms in the police, most of the states enacted their own state police acts instead of the central act that was prevalent then, The Police Act, 1861. This colonial legislation contained provisions relating to the establishment of the police force in states and could have been amended to ensure some minimum strength of women in the force across the states. No one can deny that India needs a good piece of legislation for regulating its police force uniformly and insulating it from extraneous pressures.
The NCRB data reveals that though the average representation of women in the police force has increased from 2% in 2001 to 7% in 2016, it is still far from satisfactory to effectively deal with women related crimes. According to the NCRB data, about 11% of total IPC crimes were committed against women and about 5% of total arrested persons were women in 2016. Therefore, even if we go by simple mathematics, without having a minimum female representation of about 16% in the police, not only will the mandate of various laws remain non-complied, but dealing with day-to-day public order (involving women) will also fall short of public expectations. Many countries like South Africa, USA, Australia and Canada have much better representation (about 15 to 30%) of women in their police forces.
It is for each state to ensure that the legal mandate of criminal laws is complied with. Though most of the states have a (horizontal) reservation policy of inducting about 33% women in the force, their recruitment policy does not compensate for the huge shortage that has accumulated over the years because of their low intake. The ‘All-women Police Station’ model, though launched with much fanfare in many states, has not worked successfully. Therefore, in order to facilitate reporting of any woman-related crime, each police station should preferably about one-third of its staff as women. Women police personnel are very effective due to minimal usage of brawn, and better communication with the general populace. However, each station must have sufficient infrastructure, particularly separate toilets and restrooms for women. This will not only make stations more approachable for a common woman but will also make a traditionally patriarchal police force more sensitive towards women’s problems.
The CRPF has recently deployed a women’s battalion in Bastar to deal with the Maoists. The Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) has also, for the first time, inducted women to deal with law and order situations in the state. This will certainly improve discipline among policemen and avoid allegations of misbehaviour with female agitators and Maoists.
However, more needs to be done to address the huge shortage of women in the police force. Policing must not be seen as a muscle man’s job. The recruitment policy must be relaxed to increase intake of women in the police so that women feel safe while walking into police stations. Gender sensitisation training can no longer be treated as an occasional intervention. Women form almost half of our population, but the police force has only 7% of women. How is it then a citizen’s police force? The police force must be representative of society to ensure the safety of all its sections.
R K Vij
Special Director General of Police in Chhattisgarh. Views expressed are personal.
Email: vijrk@hotmail.com