AN OFFICER AND A LADY

READ FOR FUN 

 AN OFFICER AND A LADY 

- PRAVEEN SWAMI 

It was perhaps typical of Kiran Bedi's career that on the day of the announcement of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for her, she was also ticked off by the Supreme Court. This was during contempt of court proceedings with regard to the Tihar Jail authorities' failure to ensure adequate medical attention for a detainee under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Richard Semre. 

Bedi's career, from its outset, has been characterised by controversy and by her ability to compel attention. Born in prominent Amritsar family, Bedi first attracted attention as a tennis player, winning the Asian women's title in 1972, "Tennis was very important to me," she says, "because to become a champion, I had to learn to fight and to fight fair. I've had to fight hard many times since, but I've always fought fair." That year she met her husband-to-be, Brij Bedi, on the Services Club courts in Amritsar.

The young tennis champion's professional ambitions, however, were clear."I had always wanted to join the police force," Bedi says, "because I believed I had a contribution to make." That determination saw her into the Indian Police Service, as the country's first woman officer, i 1972. Breaking into the old boy's network must have been difficult, but Bedi brushes aside the question. "I told you I was a tennis champion," she smiles, " I was as fit as any of the men, and I was determined to succeed."

The young IPS officerfound her way to Delhi, earning a reputation for toughness. Old- time Delhi residents tsill think of her as 'Crane' Bedi, teaching the city's VIPs that no-parking signs applied to them as well.

Her real contributions to the city's policing were to be more significant. "No relationship in Asia is more fraught with ambiguity than that between the police and the people," the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation's citation notes. "For two many people, the police are not a positive good, only a necessary evil"; and Bedi was determined to change that perception.  

As Deputy Commissioner of Poliec for Delhi 's North and West Zones, Bedi disengaged from the Delhi Police's traditional war  with the urban poor. Rather than intimidate and jail beggars for the crime of poverty, Bedi arranged for loans to enable them to set up legitimate businesses. During these postings, she set up Delhi 's first major de-addiction centres. Later, as Deputy Director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, she broke ground by expanding these centres rather than placing sole emphasis on policing narcotics. 

These actions have found mention in the citation. Other. more controversial actions, have not. During a lawyers strike at Delhi 's Tis Hazari courts, Bedi incurred the wrath of the powerful lobby by arresting, and then handcuffing, an advocate. Bedi refuses now to comment on the episode, but her friends say she has few regrets about the action Some lawyers, her defenders say, were acting like a mafia, little respecting the laws they are obliged to uphold.

Whatever the truth, Bedi had to be shunted out. Controversy followed her to Goa, where as the Superintendent of  Police (Traffic), she committed the error of  forcing the Chief  Minister and other politicians to obey parking regulations during the St.Xavier's festival Dignitaries, forced to walk as much as 10 metres to the church, soon wreaked revenge. Bedi 's daughter fell seriously ill, and was admitted to a Delhi hospital. Denied leave, she had to stay with her daughter. This action resulted in her being  declared a deserter, and her pay was withheld. Bedi struggled for six months without pay, before the matter was resolved.

Similar problems faced her during her stint in Mizoram, where her refusal to cooperate with the Congress (I)'s agenda for law and order led to a carefully orchestrated smear campaign. Bedi had, her opponents said, engineered her daughter's admission to a medical college in Delhi by misusing the Mizoram quota; a quota, it turned out, she was entitled to.

Her latest appointment, as Inspector-General (Prison) in New Delhi, in charge of the Tihar Central Jail, was widely seen as a punishment posting for a problem officer. Bedi says she has no regrets about the consequences of her actions, down to petty reprisals like being denied permission to present a paper at an international police conference in Ontario during her troubled stint in Mizoram. ''People say I'm authoritarian," she says," I' m not, I'm assertive. I want to make my point, and I' ll go to any lengths to make it, and I' m perfectly willing to pay for making it."

Tihar in any case, did not  count as paying for Mizoram. "I have a long relationship with the jail," Bedi recalls. ''I'd planned to do my doctorate on the relationships between narcotics and crime, and asked for permission to do research at Tihar. There was so much valuable material there, so much to look at. But the permission never came, so I had to do my doctorate on narcotics and domestic violence --an interesting subject, but not my main concern then."

That experience was perhaps the key factor in Bedi 's decision to open Tihar to public scrutiny and research last May. ''I Knew a jail had to be a place of correction," she explains, ''and to do that it had to be entirely transparent. In a closed system no one listens to what the prisoners have to say. and I knew much of what they had to say was legitimate. I had to explain to people that the prisons service wasn't meant to be a chowkidar (watchman) but a creator of security."

''I really hope the Magsaysay award will focus attention on bigger issues," she continues. ''Look at this whole undertrials business," she argues. ''On August 15, foreign prisoners will go on hunger strike. I know I cannot have this sort of thing going on, but it will become an international issue, and their demands are legitimate. People have been in jail for a decade without receiving justice. The judiciary, the Bar, the prosecution service, and defence all have to act, and decisions must be taken at the highest level, fast.''

In the long run, Bedi hopes, her work will lead to the transformation of the prisons service into a correctional service, providing post- release rehabilitation services, compensation for wrongly arrested people, and even follow-up aftercare for recovering drug -addicts released from jail.

Prisons, too, she argues, have to be transformed, whatever it costs. ''This is what they do around the world,'' she says, ''and it is what we must move to, because a bitter and angry former prisoner will cost society more in the long run.''

Why has the police system been moribund, unable to play a creative role? Bedi says little in reply, initially. Her own experiences seem to underlie her answer. ''It's always tempting not to do what you can,"she says quietly. 

"The answer," she says, "is to implement the recommendations of the National Police Commission. Have a professional force, which will also be an accountable force. Extend the commissioner system to the rest of the country to minimise pressures, and give officers terms of fixed duration. create a State security commission to supervise the apparatus." 

"I felt total gratitude," Bedi says of the moment when she learnt of the Magsaysay award. "I felt gratitude not just for me, but for the prisoners, who knew the award was for them, what they have achieved, not for me. I felt tears when the flowers and letters came in, from women who shared my joy because of our shared identity, from colleagues who felt the service as a whole had been honoured, from the many sterams of effort which  have led to this award ."

Kiran Bedi 's message for others is simple: "I have been lucky," she insists, "but everyone can tap their luck. The luck is waiting for us to use it."