India farmer protests put police brutality and use of 'lathis' under spotlight
In India, constables tasked with maintaining law and order on the streets largely carry lathis - either five-foot stout bamboo sticks or three-foot polycarbonate pipes. Such sticks were historically used by ordinary citizens for their own safety or as weapons, but once the British colonised the country, they utilised them to quell dissent by teaching police to jab protesters in the gut or hit them on the neck or head, and the practice has remained.
"There is a perception among a section of policemen that the lathi they carry gives them the right to do anything they want," said Abhishek Pallava, the superintendent of police in Dantewada in conflict-ridden Chhattisgarh. "But they don't have the awareness about the responsibility that comes with the right to wield a lathi." And they often forget it should only be used to disperse a crowd and not to injure anyone, Pallava said.
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Recently, constables from the Delhi Police, a force governed by the Narendra Modi-led Indian government, were seen carrying metal pipes with forearm guards after some of their colleagues were injured during clashes with protesting farmers carrying swords.
These were considered illegal, but Delhi Police spokesperson Chinmoy Biswal insisted police did not use "metallic equipment" against the protesting farmers.
"Police only have polycarbonate [pipes] and bamboo sticks for maintaining law and order," Biswal told This Week in Asia.
Former chief of Uttar Pradesh police, Prakash Singh, said that in a lathi charge, constables are supposed to move in a formation, hit and withdraw.
However, the videos that surfaced from the farmer protests showed constables were wielding lathis in whichever direction they want.
According to NC Asthana, the former director general of police in Kerala, constables currently do not receive any prescribed training on how to use the lathi, and 'it's their call to hit on the leg or the head".
"With no standardisation of the length and material of the stick, many constables carry whatever they want from their homes." Asthana has called for a ban on the use of bamboo sticks by police in India.
Polycarbonate pipes bend backwards when they hit the human body, meaning they cannot break any bones. "But the rigid bamboo stick often cracks the human skull when it hits the head," said Asthana, who has written 48 books that are critical of the Indian police.
Indian officials clash with demonstrators during a protest in solidarity with Indian farmers on February 3. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Indian officials clash with demonstrators during a protest in solidarity with Indian farmers on February 3. Photo: EPA-EFE
BRUTALITY
Over the past two years, the police use of the lathi in law enforcement has repeatedly come under scrutiny.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, a man died in West Bengal after being beaten by police when he went out to buy milk, an essential commodity. Police in Delhi and Tamil Nadu were seen thrashing daily-wage workers when they were walking back to their homes after losing their jobs.
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative found that at least 12 people died between March 25 and April 30, 2020 - the first month of lockdown - after being publicly beaten for allegedly violating the restrictions.
Last year, a video showing policemen prodding five injured men on Delhi's streets and forcing them to sing the national anthem went viral on social media. And in 2019, Delhi Police used their lathi to charge at students inside the library of the Jamia Millia Islamia, an Indian-government run university, after they took part in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). A Delhi court recently ruled that police had used "more force than necessary" in some instances during the anti-CAA protests, but no further action was taken.
Cases like these mean Indian police have failed to instil any confidence in people, said Asthana. "The police training courses do have lessons on human rights underlining that police are supposed to protect people but the most common response from people about police is, 'police beat us up'."
According to government statistics, 255 people died in police custody from 2017-2019. Over 49 cases of human rights violations were lodged against police departments across the country for extrajudicial killings, torture and similar crimes during the same period.
"The brutality of Indian police is selectively higher against the minorities and the downtrodden," said Asthana.
Indian policemen are seen at a protest by farmers over agriculture laws. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Indian policemen are seen at a protest by farmers over agriculture laws. Photo: EPA-EFE
POLITICAL PRESSURE
There are also concerns that police act in favour of the political elite. Last year, there was outrage when policemen in Uttar Pradesh cremated a Dalit girl who had allegedly been gang-raped and murdered by four upper-caste men. These men were later supported by politicians of the ruling BJP.
Former director general of police in Jammu and Kashmir, K Rajendra Kumar stressed that the police have to "say no to undue and unethical political pressure", and need to change public perceptions as they are considered the visible arm of the government and therefore "suspect" in the eyes of the public.
Despite a 2006 Supreme Court judgment that state police should be able to function independently of unwarranted control or pressure, Singh said governments still give directions to the police in operational matters. "A lot of policing that is happening at the farmers' protest could be possibly because police are not insulated from political power," he said.
Delhi Police spokesperson Biswal pointed out that the police are "government servants" and that they cannot defy the government of the land but they follow their professional responsibility and mandate. "Which government department works in contravention or defiance to the government's policy and directives?"
According to Kumar, the "brutality" displayed by the Indian police is a reflection of the hardships they face, such as long and difficult working hours and no access to basic amenities.
But Biswal said false generalisations about the entire force are drawn from a small sample. "Only a few errant behaviours of some policemen get magnified while nobody talks about the numerous times police have proved to be helpful."
Vipul Mudgal, director of New Delhi-based civil society watchdog Common Cause, which jointly published a report with Lokniti Centre for the Study of Developing Societies on the status of policing in India in 2019, told This Week in Asia: "The Indian police need to maintain a balance between over-policing and deficient policing. The former makes one a police state while the latter makes one a failed state."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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