Address at the 2nd National Conference for Women in Police 2005, Mussoorie

Police Can it evolve a secure and harmonious society

I am extremely happy to be present at the Second National Conference for Women in Police. Such a Conference has come not a day too soon. This is the era of Women Empowerment. Gone are the days when women were considered subservient or secondary in almost all walks of life compared to men. It has now amply been proved that women are capable of executing any job as efficiently as men, if not more so. I am particularly happy that care has been taken in this Conference to invite representatives of women from all ranks of the police force. This is a very significant step to bring about total cohesion in putting forth objectives and charting out the proper approach to achieve them. The topic I have selected for discussion today is: "Police ? Can it evolve a secure and harmonious society".

Emerging women

While talking to you, I am reminded of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharatiar, who in 1910 composed the poem envisioning women of India:

This beautiful poem means -

She walks with raised head, with her eyes looking straight,

She has her principles, unafraid of anybody!

She has a lofty and knowledge based pride,

Such cultured women, don't falter from the chosen path.

She drives ignorance away. She welcomes the bliss of life.

With learned mind, this is the Dharma of emerging woman.

The dream of the poet for emerging women aptly suits the police women in the country.

Women Police Force for Law and Order with compassion

We have a very efficient police force in the country who have many times excelled themselves in not only tackling crime but also in ensuring peace and harmony. Women Police have also significantly contributed in this regard. Conferences like this would enable all ranks of women police to share from one another the lessons and experiences each had in her own State. That will provide a wholesome and holistic approach to the problems which are to be tackled by them.

Unfortunately, the incidence of crimes against women has quite significantly gone up and the role of the police, particularly women police has become quite crucial in such cases. Nobody can understand a woman?s problem better than another woman and therefore the role of women police becomes all the more critical. Womankind known for its innate humanness, sympathy and compassion is best suited to tackle all problems including crime particularly in the present day world where there is so much emphasis on reformative approaches rather than retributive ones.

Organization Empowerment

I would like to recall an incident of 1972, nearly 3 decades ago. When Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of ISRO, passed away there was indeed a crisis looking for a dynamic management system for the space programme. Prof Kamala Choudhary a renowned management expert from IIM, Ahmedabad was given the task by Prof MGK Menon the then Chairman, ISRO to re-organize ISRO with the changed environment and the mission. She started her work by interviewing different cross section of scientists, technicians and staff and came out with a reorganization management plan for ISRO which was unique and stands even today. It had two important aspects ? empowering the scientist and creating people centric missions, taking into account the organization vision and people's dreams and aspirations. The result of such empowered organisation plan electrified ISRO to achieve major milestones and has become a very successful organization with eminent leaders heading ISRO.

I am telling you this incident to highlight the contribution of women for the growth of our society. For enabling them to contribute enthusiastically with full vigour, it is essential that we provide them an equal opportunity in all walks of life including the police profession. However, in the police organization also like other organizations there appears to be differential perception about women when response is sought from men in the police.

Interaction of police forces

When we study the men?s perception of women police officers we find that they feel: women are not discriminated; they are given same responsibilities, they are given the same incentives and promotion, there is no need to integrate, superiors are not selective, women should not be given general duties on par-with men, and women need more training to bring them on par. If we get the women?s perception on all these issues we will find that the response will be exactly the opposite. How do we correct this anomaly. One of the important corrective methods is through education and training. A forum like this conference need to discuss these aspects.

Gender sensitivity training

Over the years we have not had special training programmes on gender sensitive issues for men and women employees. There is a need to have sensitization training programme organised for this purpose with an objective to bring out the strengths of men and women individually and how both of them can collaborate effectively and contribute to the common goals of the organisation. Such a training should also address the special needs of women and how the system has to pay attention to maintain harmony in the society. This will remove the misconception and misperceptions among the employees. Planning of the tasks for men and women, working hours, sharing of the responsibility and performance a heterogeneous team of men and women can be explained through a role play exercise. This will definitely bring a healthy understanding of the contribution of men by women and vice versa in the organizational set up.

Periodic Feedback from personnel

Every police unit has to be made aware of the necessity to ensure that there is no difference between men and women. The Commanding officers can have a roster system. The work allocation can be done on the basis of the roster randomly for men and women as is being done by the High Court and Supreme Court. Such random allocation of tasks will remove the feeling that women are not being treated equal while allocating some tasks. Also, the Commanding officers should have a meeting with all the personnel once in a month to hear specific grievances from individual officers. Based on these grievances there must be immediate corrective action if the grievance is found to be genuine. Such a transparent system will definitely promote confidence among all personnel particularly the women if there are any gender issues. Also, periodically senior officers and commanding officers should highlight the importance of team work between men and women during their inspection visits to various units. Preferably while planning operation it is always desirable to have a mixed team of men and women. Women must be given the leadership in some cases and the men should take the leadership in few others. Now I would like to discuss about cyber crimes which is growing and women police personnel can definitely play an important role in detection and prevention of such crimes.

Cyber crimes

Economic prosperity by 2020 will also mean that many of the Indians will be doing business in the digital world on the web. In this new era, crime, law and justice will be completely different from the present. In the present law, for example, the jurisdiction will correspond to the location where the crime is committed and where the damage occurs ? very often both being the same location. Whereas in the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organizational wealth which will be in the digital form in multiple locations. In the 20th century, a nation?s business transactions and wealth creation were based on transfer of materials (atoms) from one place to the other. In the 21st century wealth is created whenever information in the form of electrons is transferred across the networks in a borderless world. Our police system has to build its capacity to define jurisdictions in a way that any crime committed against India or her assets by anyone from anywhere shall be punishable by Indian law. It may be true for other countries also. The police community must enable formulation of progressive and innovative crime detection systems for the digital economy that will be one of the vital components of a developed nation. Cyber crime being technology driven it needs unique training system for detection and prevention. Women police personnel are the most suited for prevention of such crimes.

Mission of Police personnel

Every member of the police force has his/her dream. It has to be groomed. When I think of success in life first requirement is we should all have a mission or goal. Realization of a mission or goal is achieved through a four step process. The first one is to have a goal on where you would like to reach in the next five years. The second one is to acquire the knowledge and experience needed to reach that goal. Third one is continuous hard work which I call ?sweat, sweat and sweat?. The fourth one is perseverance. Here I am reminded of an important advice given by my Guru Prof Satish Dhawan who used to tell ?if you do not work, no problem will occur, but if you do a mission or task definitely problems of varying magnitudes will crop up. But problems should not become the master of the individuals, individuals should become master of the problem, defeat and succeed?. Now I would like to give some suggested actions for this conference.

Suggested Actions

I sincerely hope this Conference will make positive recommendation not only to improve the working conditions of women police but also to create opportunities for learning and also training themselves for much higher and more difficult task. I would even go to the extent of suggesting that there is need to provide a better working environment to women police than their male counterparts particularly because women have to perform a highly demanding role of being an efficient police officer and also a devoted wife and mother. There would be extraordinary demands on her patience, capabilities and time on account of this. Initiatives have to be taken to harmonise all these unavoidable requirements and create an atmosphere in which the women police can acquit themselves creditably. Let me suggest certain actions for police management and personnel. These can be discussed:

a. We can consider increasing the number of women police personnel in India to be at least 10% of the total police force by the year 2007.

b. Each State may organize multi-level gender sensitive training to both women and men as a part of induction training to promote better understanding between men and women as a complimentary force with a common objective.

c. Each State may consider provision of special facilities to women police personnel such as crche in the working place, accommodation closer to the place of work, maternity facilities and flexible working hours as per their convenience wherever possible.

d. Institute a grievance handling systems in each establishment which can hear and provide immediate solution to the problems faced by the women. Also the grievance officers can provide long term systemic solutions for prevention of such problems in future.

e. Commanding officers of the Units and all senior officers should take particular care in ensuring provision of equal opportunities for male and female personnel. They should always keep in mind that there is a tendency to underestimate the potential of a women. They are capable of performing challenging task on par with the male colleagues. Given a job they will always perform very well.

f. Institute a special reward system for women police officers, in addition to the existing incentive and award system available for all police personnel irrespective of the gender.

g. Encourage women police personnel to actively participate in adventure sports such as mountaineering, skiing, marathon along with their male colleagues. This will promote mutual appreciation among men and women police personnel.

h. The government can constitute a Task Force in which few women police officers can be members for recommending Policies regarding induction norms, training, deployment, provision of working environment, transfers, career growth of women police personnel for implementation. This will enable availability of a structured method for management of personnel in the police force.

Conclusion: Empowerment

When a child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge. When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader of any village empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. When religions are empowered and become spiritual force, peace and happiness will blossom in people's heart. Empowerment of various layers of management structure is indeed the best instrument to maximize the performance of a given fund to the developmental tasks. I am sure empowered women police officers will also play an important role in providing us a secure and harmonious society.

My best wishes to all the women police personnel for success in their mission and I am sure their exemplary performance motivate and inspire many women to join the police force.  
May God bless you.