Whose number is up?

What happened in Karachi last month _ the murder of a young man by the Rangers _ beggars description. Callous, cruel, barbarous, insensitive, pathetic, dismal, disappointing are the common adjectives which spring up in the mind when you think of the way the poor chap was exterminated. Yet the mind is not satisfied. Probably, you need to open up a thesaurus to find an appropriate word to explain the situation with all its hideousness. Whereas there has been much wailing and weeping over the incident, harsh criticism of the law enforcement agencies, including army, and of the government, one hardly finds any rational analysis of the situation as to why such incidents basically take place and what needs to be done to prevent them in future.
Without understanding the historical background, cultural characteristics and operational traditions of our law enforcement agencies neither any realistic opinion about the etiology, genesis and implication of such incidents can be made nor can any practical solution be hit on. Viewing such incidents in isolation as sporadic happenings taking place here and there is the biggest predicament of our analysts and policy makers which put the root causes of the malaise out of sight. Why pull the trigger and take a life? Focusing on trigger and bullet will not take us anywhere. It is the man behind the gun and the thought process running in the brain cells that matters. Who controls this thought process? It is the surrounding environment with its cultural norms and mores which have deterministic influences on how a man thinks and acts. Why are our law enforcing personnel so trigger happy? It is the culture of violence, historically imbedded in the mindsets of our law enforcing agencies, which is manifested from time to time in the form of extra judicial killings, use of torture in the process of investigation and deaths in custody.
Historically speaking our law enforcement apparatus was never raised and groomed to serve the public, safeguard their human rights and deliver justice through the due process of law. It was rather created to control the public (tacitly) through repressive measures of which use of violence is the main tool. Imagine what can be the self image of a man trained to control the people? Isn’t is natural for him to assume an air of superiority and self-righteousness and by corollary cast the public in negative light and regard them as inferior beings, bunch of criminals, mischief mongers and disorder creators? It is indeed this us vs them mindset which is reflected time and again in the attitude of the law enforcement personnel and leads to Karachi like incidents. In many of such incidents the law enforcing agencies may be acting in good faith with the intention to protect the society at large by ridding it of the criminal elements through summary justice but how dangerous are its ramifications for the whole fabric of society is never realised. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Just like the public, the law itself does not enjoy much respect in the eyes of law enforcement institutions. There is an ingrained culture of glorifying the personnel who indulge in illegalities and transgress the boundaries of law to achieve their (noble) objectives. These self-proclaimed Robin Hoods fail to understand that pulling down the whole edifice of law on which the peace and order of society rests, they are doing more harm than good. Ironically, this culture also gets nourishment in the form of public approval of extra judicial means to control crime and law and order. The concept of harsher punishments on the one hand and failure of the criminal justice system to deliver on the other also nurtures an outlook which increases the acceptability of illegal means to establish order within and outside the law enforcement apparatus. As said earlier no amount of lamenting and deploring can help until we earnestly understand this mindset and culture and make sincere efforts to transform it.
Disappointingly, no significant effort has been made in the past to break this mindset and bring about a genuine change in attitude and culture of LEAs, particularly with regard to use of force and violence. Pick up the curricula of any training institute either of police or rangers, you will find the reference to human rights or respect for law conspicuous by their absence. It is high time that our policy makers realise that until the issues like respect for law and human rights, value and sanctity of human life and dignity are placed high on the agenda of the government no substantial change can be expected. The training syllabi of law enforcers need to be revised to include the subjects of human rights and due process of law. It has to be inculcated in the minds of trainees particularly the new recruits that they are in the law enforcement machinery to serve the public not to control or oppress them. It has to be ensconced into each and every cell of their brain that human life and dignity is supreme and ends, however noble they may seem, must be achieved through legitimate means and any action in breach of due process of law or violating human rights is not acceptable at any cost. It is only when these principles are instilled into the instincts of law enforcement personnel that we can hope that the trigger will not be pulled advertently or inadvertently. Otherwise the old instincts will keep functioning and leaving all of us to wait whose number is up next?
The writer is a senior police officer