It's not tough to be soft

The Uttarakhand police force has shown that nothing’s impossible with the right kind of training even as their polite behaviour in maintaining order is being appreciated by everyone. Are Commonwealth Games officials listening?

Nandita Sengupta

It is a mammoth event that requires constant administrative intervention. And the 16,000-strong police force has demonstrated that policing can be done with care, courtesy, Gandhian grace and to great effect at the ongoing Mahakumbh 2010.

That a sense of the occasion - the presence of devotees everywhere - has much to do with this remarkable makeover in police behaviour is obvious. But, that alone doesn't explain it all. These tough men and women have been trained hard to be gentle. They have undergone the kind of training that doesn't give way under pressure of a 14-hour-long duty and milling crowds that run into lakhs.

At the Mahakumbh, the Uttarakhand force, whose average age is 27 years, policemen address each devotee as uncle/aunty, baba, and ma. And there are not the usual prefixes or suffixes to these terms of endearments.

The restraint on display in holy city is the result of thorough behavioural training that started in May last year. The total strength of 16,000 security personnel is dominated by Uttarakhand police, mostly smart young men and women. But the force also has personnel from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, mounted police from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. There are also men from the paramilitary of CRPF, BSF, SSB, ITBP, RAF and Rajasthan Home Guards too.

These policemen came from different work cultures and situations. The CRPF companies, for instance, came in straight from fighting Naxals, says DIG Alok Sharma, the man behind Mahakumbh's security set-up. ''We told them there are no adversaries here; it's not an anti-insurgency area. It's just a big crowd of pilgrims from all over India, and our business is to handle them with care,'' says Sharma.

The security at the Kumbh is budgeted at Rs.50 crore, and 80 per cent of it goes into the allowances of the personnel. ''There are forces from other states, so we pay their DA,'' says Sharma, adding, "The remaining 20 per cent goes into barricading, building tent colonies, publicity material, feeding horses and dogs and various other small expenditures.''

''However, the emphasis is on training. I coached six trainers. I designed the syllabus. The course focused on behaviour, good manners and thorough knowledge of Haridwar's culture, layout and related issues,'' says Sharma with evident pride. The DIG's dictum was: ''A pilgrim might be the 50,000th guy for you, but for him, you are the first policeman he's approached. So respect that.''

Confidence is another hallmark of the force. ''I'm from a small thana. I didn't know I could do it. I've never seen so many people at one place,'' says constable Mamta Rana. ''I thought they won't listen to me if I'm nice. But we were told, 'Hath jorke, duty point pe rehna, chahe rickshaw-walla, chahe MP'. (With folded hands, hold your ground, be it a rickshaw-puller or an MP.)''

And to her delight and life-long learning, she has discovered that time after time, the pilgrims yielded. The Kumbh season demands four months of policing, a long haul by any count; What keeps the 16,000 going are two other factors - de-stress activities and frequent debriefing sessions. After every few days, and after every main snan (bathing ritual), all officers meet for detailed debriefing. Sharing feedback and being simply heard out go a long way in not only plugging lacunae, but also venting pent-up emotions among the forces.

The personnel also have access to several sports and cultural activities, ranging from volleyball tournaments to kite-flying competitions, from discussions to community dinners.

Another important aspect of the training was to make the policemen familiar about Haridwar as a majority of pilgrims need directions. So it was ensured that every policeman knows what is where, from major ashrams to chowks, from dharamshalas to temples, akharas and street names.

To make things slightly simpler, the Kumbh area, which spreads over a 132-sq km demarcated region, has been zoned into 10 mega areas and 32 sectors, each with a thana. The number of devotees visiting Haridwar is quite impressive: on a lean day, 10 lakhs; on Shahi Snan days, between 55 and 70 lakh. The milling crowds are soft targets, which is why it's all the more important to ensure constant vigil, movement of traffic, and cleanliness as part of security drill.

The smooth operation by the police personnel during the Mahakumbh can be lesson for policing during the Commonwealth Games (CWG) that starts in October. In fact, it may not be a bad idea at all to hire some of this smart police force trained here, whose temperamental stability and linguistic restraint would act as a lesson and positive influence on the hardened city cops. If nothing else, the trainer of the Kumbh force could be asked to train the police for the games.

Clearly, be it the forging of a morally superior police force or the planning and allocation of resources for the management of what is one of the biggest shows on earth, the Commonwealth Games could do with the Uttarakhand experience. We have tried force and failed. Maybe, it's time to give courtesy a chance?