Proceedings of XXXII All India Police Science Congress , Chandigarh 27 – 29 November, 2000
Sandeep Mittal, IPS
After passing out of the Police Academy, I was posted as Assistant Superintendent of Police Incharge of a subdivision. I have the privilege of serving in the communally sensitive areas of Tamilnadu like Maniyachi, Sivakasi and Tuticorin mainly in rural areas which were training grounds for me to learn the basic field policing. Immediately after I joined the Maniyachi Subdivision, the Tuticorin District witnessed communal tension due to caste conflicts. While deployed on Law and order duty, I tried to find out the reasons for the communal clashes and the “police response” to it. Here it would be suffice to say that the origin of caste clashes is deep rooted and there is little that police can do under the present circumstances mainly due to attitude of police towards public and vice-versa. It was almost impossible for the police to obtain the timely intelligence on communal elements mainly because the local officers had not developed good rapport with the public. Another realisation was that due to continuous deployment of men on Law and order duties, their training is neglected. There-fore, the main challenge before the Police-Leadership is training and development of subordinates so as to improve the system of policing and widen the police base among the public and winning their support.
THE POLICE LEADERSHIP
The Communication and Motivation are the essentials to effective police management. The process through which they are implemented in practice is leadership. The Leadership can be defined in many ways and a useful approach to define it is to consider the activities of a leader. These activities include communicating, motivating, inspiring, coordinating, directing, commanding, influencing others, setting goals and making decisions. Each leader develops a leadership style and has his own personal leadership characteristics and carries leadership activities in his own way. We may consider the “Police Leadership” to comprise of two components viz., the internal leadership, governing his leadership behaviour with his subordinates in police force and the external leadership which means his leadership role in the community. It is combined play of these two components which would decide the training and development activities for the subordinates in police force.
INTERNAL POLICE LEADERSHIP
Optimum motivation for employees can be achieved if individual goals and organisational goals can be integrated. These two goals can be used to develop an internal leadership system for police and can be correlated with the managerial styles of Blake and Jane Mouton. Using the factors (a) concern for people and (b) concern for performance, the Blake and Mouton designated a high concern as 9, a moderate concern as 5 and a low concern as 1 .They identify the five leadership styles as shown in figure 1.
- The 9/9 Style reflects leadership values and actions that lead to an integration of task and human requirements in realizing goals. this style implies high concern for people and performance.
- The 5/5 Style reflects moderate concern for performance and people.
- The 9/1 Style reflects high concern for performance and low concern for people. In this style the leader faces difficulty in gaining the confidence and faith of subordinates.
- The 1/4 Style reflects low concern for performance and high concern for people. By use of this style the leader may avoid conflict but performance levels are minimised.
- 1 /1 Style reflects low concern for performance and people. Thus from figure it is clear that 9/9 is the most desirable style in which the leader shows a high concern for both people and performance but it is important to mention that the style would change with a change in leadership activity.
MANAGERIAL STYLES
(After Blake & Mouton, 1964)
THE EXTERNAL POLICE LEADERSHIP
“A Police leader is a public servant who is the keeper of public trust. How should a police leader carry out this most responsible role?”
The general tendency among the police officers is to react to police related problems in community as and when the problem arise. This is not the effective leadership. The Police leader must play a proactive role forcefully and decisively in taking the leadership role in the community to develop support and resource, and offer alternative solutions to police related problems.
The Police leader’s main objective is to develop human and material resources both within and outside the organisation. The Police leader at the district level has to work under the frame work of the guidelines laid down by the Chief of the Police Force and Government. Given the constraints, the proactive police leader by using the factors of motivation and communication must be able to bring drastic change in the functioning of police system at the district level. But he must have a basic awareness of the problems and prepare strategies which provide better results.
COMMUNICATION -TOOL FOR TRAINING DEVELOPMENT
The police leader either communicate within the department or with people outside the department. For the effective training and development of subordinates the process of internal and external communication has to be obstacle free. In the following lines we’ld utilise the concept of “Johari Window” to develop a communication style for a proactive police leader.
The Johari Window concept was successfully used in the “Tuticorin Experiment” to eliminate all sort of communication barriers within as well as outside the police department.
CONCEPT OF JOHARI WINDOW
Thus a style of communication in which communication is open and frank is best suited for a proactive police leader. Over a period of time a level of trust and creativity will be developed in police department.
Thus keeping the needs of public, ability of subordinates the aforesaid concepts were practically applied by the author in Tuticorin for training and development of subordinates in an indirect but effective manner. A summary is presented in the following lines.
THE TUTICORIN EXPERIMENT
| ” It’s a lesson for the young IPS officers to implement”
Shri Gautam Kaul, IPS Director – |
- Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body : Compulsory Yoga was introduced for all police officers and men on weekly parade days. The important asanas practiced were Bhujangasana, Bhalbhansana, Sarvangasana, Mayurasana, Dhanurasana and Shavasana which are useful in relieving stress from the body. Free medical checkup camps were organised to provide medical relief to policemen.
- Crime Scene Simulation Exercises : To refresh and upgrade the skills of officers and men a number of exercises were conducted on a variety of themes such as burglary, rape, dacoity, murder, murder for gain, hanging etc. The chain of steps involved on receipt of complaint at police station to the arrest of the accused were clearly illustrated through lecture cum demonstration by a team of experienced officers.
- Lecture cum Demonstration on Anti-Insurgency Operation – The Psychological Policing: A number of anti-insurgency exercises were conducted in areas adjoining to communally sensitive villages. In addition to training of subordinates, the most important advantage of such field exercises is that even these are mock exercises, a tough and active image of visible policing is created in the minds of public. This would also have a deterrent effect during communal problems.
- “Police/ Public Relations Seminar” : Interaction between police and public was organised through seminars. A frank and open discussion between police and public led to creation of an atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operation. This exercise also provided an opportunity for policemen to realise their shortcomings thus giving a scope for improvement.
- On-the-Spot-Redressal of public Grievances:
| “The people to whom we serve are our masters and if we are able to get their good will and gratefulness, it will go a long way in maintaining peace and tranquility.”
– A Subraminian, IPS Deputy Inspector General of Police Dindigul, Tamil Nadu |
A number of Police camps were organised in communally sensitive villages, the main features of these camps being:
(a) Wide publicity is given regarding date, time and place of camps through Tom-Tom and distribution of pamphlets.
(b) No body is allowed to act as a mediator between police and public.
(c) The.Police officers would sit on the ground with the villagers. This has tremendous effect on villagers as they start identifying you with them thus breaking the strongest barrier in communication.
(d) Most of the petty matters which have the potential
of creating Law and Order problem or even grave crime are settled on the spot to the satisfaction of both parties.
(e) The grievances pertaining to district administration are forwarded to district administration while petitioners are advised to go to a court of Law on matters of civil nature.
(f) As a gesture of good will, we organised Kabaddi match between local police and public. We used it as a means for cultivating good sources to collect intelligence in due course of time. Moreover a boy who has played Kabaddi with policemen may not throw a stone on the police during a problem. Surprisingly in one village the women-folk staged a protest that why some game has not been organized for them. Finally we organised a tug of war for women with 30 women on each side. This shows the level of faith which public started posing in police.
(g) During the camp the villagers used to present shawls and garlands to me. Strategically, I would redistribute it to the villagers as rewards to best player or some needy person. This has a long term effect on their minds.
These exercises, though seems to be simple, have brought a positive change in the mind set of subordinate police officers and men. Thus, this experiment was not only useful in reinforcing the faith of common men in the system of Criminal Justice Administration but also a humble beginning in training and development of subordinates in an indirect but effective manner has been made.
| “I would like to congratulate you and convey my commendations to you on this innovative experiment that you have started. One of the major challenges before the police today is trying to improve its image and reaching out to the people. It is only through these methods that you would be able to get timely intelligence and co-operation from the public to deal with communally sensitive situations.”
– Shri P. V. Rajgopal, IPS Director -S.V.P. National Police Academy Hyderabad |
| “I am happy to know that the XXXII All India Police Science Congress held at Chandigarh on 27th November, 2000 had commended your ‘Tuticorin Experiment’ for its innovation and also recommended it to all other states to be adopted by them. This shows your commitment to the force. Hope you will continue your good work and add many more laurels to the force.”
– Dr. R. Rajagopalan, IPS Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu |
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THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS MADURAI FRIDAY JULY 9, 1999 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Sir, – This has reference to the report ‘Spot grievance redressal (June 23). Kudos to Thoothukudi Rural Police for organising spot grievance redressal camp at Thiraviapuram village of Thoothukudi district to instill faith and confidence on police in commoner’s mind. Dharamaraj Joseph-Tiruneveli |
Dr. Sandeep Mittal, IPS 
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