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The nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on most citizens’ physical and mental health. And the personnel of India’s police forces, especially those on the ground, are no exception. Besides viral videos of brutal lathi-charge on Muslim citizens following the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco and use of force to keep citizens indoors, we have also witnessed the human side of India’s police.

A police officer in Kerala was seen telling a group of migrants from northern states that they have nothing to worry about because the government will take care of their “food, water and shelter” until they are able to leave for their respective states. In Punjab, officers are responding to even children’s calls for assistance, asking migrants to stay put without worrying about their daily needs, and also preparing and distributing food among the poor. In Maharashtra, officers are distributing umbrellas to street vendors.

When officers aren’t involved in assisting the needy, or busting motivated fake news intended to spread hate and bigotry against Muslims, such as in Uttar Pradesh, or misinformation related to coronavirus, such as in Punjab, they are showing their creative side in the battle against the pandemic.

@ANINewsUP people who had come in contact with the positive case were quarantined as per laid procedure.

There was no mention of Tabligh Jamat. You are misquoting and spreading fake news@noidapolice @Uppolicehttps://t.co/HwIM5Cr7K3 — DCP_Noida (@DCP_Noida) April 7, 2020

Also read: Lockdown may contain Covid-19, but it can’t curb the virus of Islamophobia in India

The singing police

If police officers in Spain, Poland, Sri Lanka, Turkey and others travelled to neighbourhoods to entertain people with song and dance, some in the US decided to hold jam sessions while officers in Italy sang instructions on how to avoid catching the coronavirus.

Indian police officers weren’t behind. Over the past week or so, forces in several states have discovered singing talents within their units. Videos of officers lending their voice to old Bollywood songs in places such as Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Goa and others have been widely shared by people on social media. Neighbourhoods in Nagaland and Assam have found encouraging support from their local police who have been captured singing songs like ‘We Shall Overcome’.

Kolkata Police officer singing from Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gayen — interspersed with Corona Messages ! pic.twitter.com/O3IbzSauIq — Jawhar Sircar (@jawharsircar) April 4, 2020

India’s police is mostly criticised for its high-handedness and bribery. It generates little trust in the eyes of the common people. But coronavirus crisis and the subsequent lockdown have brought out a less seen, compassionate side of them. It is this combined image of personnel in uniform singing and dancing for the troubled public that can help change people’s perception of them.

Also read: This 56-year-old IAS officer is the brain behind Bhilwara model of fighting Covid-19

Always the ‘tough cop’

In Netflix show Sacred Games, we saw Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan playing a Mumbai Police Inspector named Sartaj Singh, who works like a machine to save the city from nuclear bomb blasts. In the show, Singh also deals with a bigger explosion in his personal life — his broken marriage. But to him, his personal suffering is not bigger than what the city might end up witnessing.

This is not an isolated case. Popular culture has largely portrayed police officers as living a difficult, sad life — if they aren’t shown as corrupt or criminals. A police officer having a good time with his/her family in one scene will invariably be crying or vowing revenge in another over the murder or abduction of his family member(s). It all becomes about being a ‘tough cop’.

We meet these tough cops in real life too. I met them during the many protests over the gang rape of a paramedic student in Delhi in December 2012. I was shocked to see young policemen mercilessly lathi-charging the protesters, most of whom were students. These policemen themselves must have been young students until a few years ago and here they were completely immune to the anger and frustration of people grieving and demanding justice over a brutal crime.

My interaction with some officers from Haryana indicates that this is how the police system works. It instantly transforms young boys and men into ‘tough cops’ who never become part of the common public even though they work among them all day and night.

Also read: How AI can be used in policing to reform criminal justice system

The two sides

But these troubled times have brought to the fore the dual character of police officers. There’s the tough, indifferent side in the face of relentless crime and poverty; and then there’s the softer, kinder side that is willing to take matters into its own hands to achieve the common good.

There are debates to reform India’s police system to erase the bad public image, to make the officers look more human than machines on standby waiting for an instruction from the political class.

The lockdown suggests this can be achieved somewhat without institutional reforms. There should be means for police officers to display their passion and creativity. Senior officers should encourage their subordinates to be expressive, even participate in cultural and social events. Like the police officer in Mumbai singing for the lockdown violators ‘Zindagi maut na ban jaaye, sambhalo yaaron’, perhaps it’s time to save India’s police officers too.

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