when people meet me generally they are
curious to know what it takes to be a
police officer what are the challenges
are these challenges any different for a
woman top cop in a predominantly male
dominated police force and so on in the
next 16 minutes I will unravel some of
these challenges if not all when people
enter the Indian Police Service the IPS
they are starry-eyed and they have seen
him like idealism in mind but as days
rolled by and they become part of the
system their idealism waxes and wanes
and the first sign of this is when the
officer begins to think in terms of what
his political boss warns rather than
what the law demands my first run the
war with a politician was way back in
August 2004 I was in my first
independent charge as the police head of
any district I was posted in Harvard
district I was just a month old in that
post the local court had issued a
non-bailable warrant against the then
chief minister of Madhya Pradesh
executing non-bailable warrant meant
arresting her eventually this incident
led her to resign from the post of chief
minister but for me trust me though this
incident involved a person as high
profile as the chief minister of a state
this has been the easiest challenge till
date in India we have a deep-rooted
Menace of VIP culture the VIPs
particularly the politicians are given
special treatment of various kinds one
such being policeman given as gunmen to
politicians now in most of the
situation’s most of the cases even when
there is no real threat even when there
is no specific threat gunmen are given
as status symbols and the more the
gunmen the higher the state
it is perceived and it’s not an
exaggeration at all that many a time
most of these gunmen are used as boys to
run Iran’s I was posted as the Deputy
Commissioner of Police Bengaluru City
armed reserve and my job was to
supervise man management personnel
deployment and therefore I took stock of
the situation as to where my boys had
been deployed and to my utter shock I
found that a number of politicians the
public representatives the MLAs MPs MLCs
and so on had kept the gun men in excess
of the authorized number they were
supposed to keep now I made a list there
were 82 politicians who had kept about
two hundred and sixteen gunmen in excess
of the number they were entitled I
started withdrawing them the first
resistance came from my own boss who
reprimanded me in front of my
subordinate officers yet undeterred I
completed the task I withdrew till the
last excess gun man came back to the
unit in the same stroke I also removed
withdrew eight brand-new suvs kept by
the then ex Chief Minister of Karnataka
the man had stepped down from the post
of chief minister yet the vehicles had
continued to be with him I withdrew the
vehicles but I often wondered why my
predecessors had not acted what
prevented them from setting things right
I later learned that these are called
the dirty jobs they are unpleasant tasks
inviting the wrath of the politicians
and nobody wants to do them not very
long ago I was posted as d IG prisons
Bengaluru I was there in that post for
barely 17 working days barring all the
Sundays and holidays
and during that time I witnessed similar
special treatment
being given to a convict this convict
was very powerful she had been the close
aide of
the ex chief minister of tamil nadu who
died recently the convict herself was
slated to be the chief minister some
time ago in that state now the Supreme
Court had convicted her under corruption
act for possessing disproportionate
assets beyond had known sources of
income flouting the Honorable supreme
court’s orders the jail officials had
given special facilities to her as quid
pro coal
so I reported this irregularity and soon
after this report a number of people
asked me was your act a well thought out
one or something done at the spur of the
moment frankly speaking I did not think
of the consequences there was no need to
because I was clear in my mind that had
acted in a manner most transparent and
accountable which every public servant
is expected to now after this report I
was slapped a defamation suit notice so
what is the take home if you stir
hornet’s nest be prepared for all kinds
of oddities and notices in a similar
such instance 11 years ago I received a
similar notice but that time it was
privilege motion notice by a legislator
in 2006 I was posted as the district
police head of be the district there
were riots in toluca of be the district
called hum ‘nobody there were Primus
prima facie reports that the local
member of Legislative Council MLC had
incited the riots and therefore I gave a
go-ahead to the station house officer of
the police station to register case
against the MLC and to take further
action no sooner than I did this not
only was I transferred but that apart
privilege motion notice was slapped on
me now the law is very clear rules are
very clear if a public representative is
booked or named in the fyr as accused
beat the MLA or mlc
or MP he cannot claim it as his
privilege there can’t be any privilege
motion against the person who does it
yet unjustifiably I was slapped the
notice I was made to appear before the
privilege committee of the state
legislature a number of times and it
dragged on for several years yes and now
what is the take home what is the lesson
that the politician is driving home in
this he is trying to teach the lesson to
a bureaucrat if you take me head-on this
is what is going to be meted out to you
he is creating a fear psychosis in the
mind of not just that particular
individual bureaucrat but in the whole
clan of bureaucrats and if the
bureaucrats gets scared and succumbs the
politician succeeds in his purpose trust
me
not many officers are willing to face
such notices because for acts done in
official capacity these kind of notices
create a lot of personal discomfiture
they take away personal time energy
peace of mind and of course money if you
have to fight it out in the court of law
and therefore nobody wants to face them
but in my personal opinion just like
every occupation has its own
occupational hazards these notices be to
the privileged notice or the contempt
notice or the or any other kind of
notice
defamation notice whichever they are the
occupational hazards which have to be
faced boldly by the bureaucrat now
coming to the challenges that I faced as
a woman in male-dominated police force
the peril is that the woman officer
could be ignored taken for granted taken
lightly her instructions can be thrown
to air at times I had one such shocking
experience in the other district in 2008
I was heading gutter district police
force in March 2008 in Nirguna Toluca
of gathered district there was a
powerful politician who had been a
minister earlier he addressed his a
gathering of his followers and made an
inciting speech that made his followers
to set the blaze on fire three
government bustles soon after his speech
now gum and buses mean public property
bought out of taxpayers money I
instructed my subordinate the
second-in-command of the rank of dy SP
to arrest the politician as he was prima
facie guilty of abatement of the offense
and there was video graft evidence of
his speech now to my utter shock not
only my subordinate resisted refused but
also kept on arguing relentlessly and
kept lying to me that the politician had
already left the town I too did not
budge I had reached the police station
in the morning and I kept sitting
throughout the day so it became evening
it became night the clock struck 9:00 at
night 9:15 9:30 10:00 and finally when
the police staff saw that I am not
budging out they somehow managed to get
the politician to the polish police
station
and then I instructed the station house
officer of the police station to carry
on the Arras procedures legally and to
hand him over to the judicial custody
which was carried out now upon the
subordinate who had been captain who had
been lying to me I took upon an inquiry
and found that he was in constant touch
with that politician overfall though he
had been lying to me that he was nowhere
to be found
to this effect I sent a report against
the subordinate the DSP to the
government as well as the Election
Commission of India because by that time
election machinery was in place and the
government suspended him and he remained
in suspension for more than a year now
the challenges could be of a very
different kind
yaagh curry was created as the newest
district of Karnataka and I was the
first police head of the district they
were teething problems let alone there
being no office building let alone there
being no official residential quarter
there was not even striking force so if
there is a law not a problem or peace
disturbance what does one do without
striking force hence I adopted a
strategy in the initial few days even in
the smallest of the smallest instances
of peace disturbance
I took strictest action without any
leniency against the law breakers and
that sent down a message that if you
take law into your hands you will not be
spared and this worked wonders my next
three years of yadagiri tenure were
quite peaceful but we are clearly
posting posed different challenges even
to my family members as I said there was
no official residential quarter there
was not even a private one available but
incidentally my husband had an
additional post he was in charge of that
additional post in that district and
that post had an official quarter but
that residence was in a village and the
village was called Rima and goody I
started staying there and very next to
the residence was a school my daughter
literally started her formal education
in that village school she sat on the
floor as there were no benches and she
completed three years of her education
there in a school with no facilities
whatsoever including the toilet now not
many police officers IPS officers like
to work in such places which are called
backward nondescript remote and in what
in their own words they would call
lacking in lights and in such a place I
spent more than three years of my
service including the period of my prime
youth they
so challenge is therefore a manifold yet
if the officer is willing to take risks
if the office has nothing to hide if he
is clear in mind that he has acted
lawfully and is fair if he does not
cling on to politicians for Berg’s cushy
postings and so on and last but not the
least if he has kept his backs back
ready to move out any time if
transferred then such an officer he or
she becomes a force to reckon with I
after taking head-on the mighty and
powerful on several occasions if I’m
alive and kicking
and able to tell you where a TEDTalk
before y’all you can imagine the robust
protection and the law available to the
bureaucrats for acts done in official
capacity and therefore I find many of
the fears of bureaucrats to be unfounded
and baseless now you might see that
there is it’s a commonplace knowledge
that the MLAs the MPs the ml sees these
posts are created under the Constitution
of India but one must not forget that it
is under the same Constitution the
all-india services the is the IPS are
created and article 311 of the
Constitution gives complete protection
to the bureaucrats for acts then in
official capacity and it is available to
every officer in the country including
the state services so the day the
bureaucrats are able to come out of the
phobia of transfers the phobia of
politicians we will have the best
bureaucracy in the world Karl Marx once
said bureaucracy is an iron cage but I
find that our bureaucrats have chained
themselves they are the ones holding the
chains the day they break away from
these self-imposed chains
the day they start exercising their real
powers we will see a new India thank you
[Applause]
curious to know what it takes to be a
police officer what are the challenges
are these challenges any different for a
woman top cop in a predominantly male
dominated police force and so on in the
next 16 minutes I will unravel some of
these challenges if not all when people
enter the Indian Police Service the IPS
they are starry-eyed and they have seen
him like idealism in mind but as days
rolled by and they become part of the
system their idealism waxes and wanes
and the first sign of this is when the
officer begins to think in terms of what
his political boss warns rather than
what the law demands my first run the
war with a politician was way back in
August 2004 I was in my first
independent charge as the police head of
any district I was posted in Harvard
district I was just a month old in that
post the local court had issued a
non-bailable warrant against the then
chief minister of Madhya Pradesh
executing non-bailable warrant meant
arresting her eventually this incident
led her to resign from the post of chief
minister but for me trust me though this
incident involved a person as high
profile as the chief minister of a state
this has been the easiest challenge till
date in India we have a deep-rooted
Menace of VIP culture the VIPs
particularly the politicians are given
special treatment of various kinds one
such being policeman given as gunmen to
politicians now in most of the
situation’s most of the cases even when
there is no real threat even when there
is no specific threat gunmen are given
as status symbols and the more the
gunmen the higher the state
it is perceived and it’s not an
exaggeration at all that many a time
most of these gunmen are used as boys to
run Iran’s I was posted as the Deputy
Commissioner of Police Bengaluru City
armed reserve and my job was to
supervise man management personnel
deployment and therefore I took stock of
the situation as to where my boys had
been deployed and to my utter shock I
found that a number of politicians the
public representatives the MLAs MPs MLCs
and so on had kept the gun men in excess
of the authorized number they were
supposed to keep now I made a list there
were 82 politicians who had kept about
two hundred and sixteen gunmen in excess
of the number they were entitled I
started withdrawing them the first
resistance came from my own boss who
reprimanded me in front of my
subordinate officers yet undeterred I
completed the task I withdrew till the
last excess gun man came back to the
unit in the same stroke I also removed
withdrew eight brand-new suvs kept by
the then ex Chief Minister of Karnataka
the man had stepped down from the post
of chief minister yet the vehicles had
continued to be with him I withdrew the
vehicles but I often wondered why my
predecessors had not acted what
prevented them from setting things right
I later learned that these are called
the dirty jobs they are unpleasant tasks
inviting the wrath of the politicians
and nobody wants to do them not very
long ago I was posted as d IG prisons
Bengaluru I was there in that post for
barely 17 working days barring all the
Sundays and holidays
and during that time I witnessed similar
special treatment
being given to a convict this convict
was very powerful she had been the close
aide of
the ex chief minister of tamil nadu who
died recently the convict herself was
slated to be the chief minister some
time ago in that state now the Supreme
Court had convicted her under corruption
act for possessing disproportionate
assets beyond had known sources of
income flouting the Honorable supreme
court’s orders the jail officials had
given special facilities to her as quid
pro coal
so I reported this irregularity and soon
after this report a number of people
asked me was your act a well thought out
one or something done at the spur of the
moment frankly speaking I did not think
of the consequences there was no need to
because I was clear in my mind that had
acted in a manner most transparent and
accountable which every public servant
is expected to now after this report I
was slapped a defamation suit notice so
what is the take home if you stir
hornet’s nest be prepared for all kinds
of oddities and notices in a similar
such instance 11 years ago I received a
similar notice but that time it was
privilege motion notice by a legislator
in 2006 I was posted as the district
police head of be the district there
were riots in toluca of be the district
called hum ‘nobody there were Primus
prima facie reports that the local
member of Legislative Council MLC had
incited the riots and therefore I gave a
go-ahead to the station house officer of
the police station to register case
against the MLC and to take further
action no sooner than I did this not
only was I transferred but that apart
privilege motion notice was slapped on
me now the law is very clear rules are
very clear if a public representative is
booked or named in the fyr as accused
beat the MLA or mlc
or MP he cannot claim it as his
privilege there can’t be any privilege
motion against the person who does it
yet unjustifiably I was slapped the
notice I was made to appear before the
privilege committee of the state
legislature a number of times and it
dragged on for several years yes and now
what is the take home what is the lesson
that the politician is driving home in
this he is trying to teach the lesson to
a bureaucrat if you take me head-on this
is what is going to be meted out to you
he is creating a fear psychosis in the
mind of not just that particular
individual bureaucrat but in the whole
clan of bureaucrats and if the
bureaucrats gets scared and succumbs the
politician succeeds in his purpose trust
me
not many officers are willing to face
such notices because for acts done in
official capacity these kind of notices
create a lot of personal discomfiture
they take away personal time energy
peace of mind and of course money if you
have to fight it out in the court of law
and therefore nobody wants to face them
but in my personal opinion just like
every occupation has its own
occupational hazards these notices be to
the privileged notice or the contempt
notice or the or any other kind of
notice
defamation notice whichever they are the
occupational hazards which have to be
faced boldly by the bureaucrat now
coming to the challenges that I faced as
a woman in male-dominated police force
the peril is that the woman officer
could be ignored taken for granted taken
lightly her instructions can be thrown
to air at times I had one such shocking
experience in the other district in 2008
I was heading gutter district police
force in March 2008 in Nirguna Toluca
of gathered district there was a
powerful politician who had been a
minister earlier he addressed his a
gathering of his followers and made an
inciting speech that made his followers
to set the blaze on fire three
government bustles soon after his speech
now gum and buses mean public property
bought out of taxpayers money I
instructed my subordinate the
second-in-command of the rank of dy SP
to arrest the politician as he was prima
facie guilty of abatement of the offense
and there was video graft evidence of
his speech now to my utter shock not
only my subordinate resisted refused but
also kept on arguing relentlessly and
kept lying to me that the politician had
already left the town I too did not
budge I had reached the police station
in the morning and I kept sitting
throughout the day so it became evening
it became night the clock struck 9:00 at
night 9:15 9:30 10:00 and finally when
the police staff saw that I am not
budging out they somehow managed to get
the politician to the polish police
station
and then I instructed the station house
officer of the police station to carry
on the Arras procedures legally and to
hand him over to the judicial custody
which was carried out now upon the
subordinate who had been captain who had
been lying to me I took upon an inquiry
and found that he was in constant touch
with that politician overfall though he
had been lying to me that he was nowhere
to be found
to this effect I sent a report against
the subordinate the DSP to the
government as well as the Election
Commission of India because by that time
election machinery was in place and the
government suspended him and he remained
in suspension for more than a year now
the challenges could be of a very
different kind
yaagh curry was created as the newest
district of Karnataka and I was the
first police head of the district they
were teething problems let alone there
being no office building let alone there
being no official residential quarter
there was not even striking force so if
there is a law not a problem or peace
disturbance what does one do without
striking force hence I adopted a
strategy in the initial few days even in
the smallest of the smallest instances
of peace disturbance
I took strictest action without any
leniency against the law breakers and
that sent down a message that if you
take law into your hands you will not be
spared and this worked wonders my next
three years of yadagiri tenure were
quite peaceful but we are clearly
posting posed different challenges even
to my family members as I said there was
no official residential quarter there
was not even a private one available but
incidentally my husband had an
additional post he was in charge of that
additional post in that district and
that post had an official quarter but
that residence was in a village and the
village was called Rima and goody I
started staying there and very next to
the residence was a school my daughter
literally started her formal education
in that village school she sat on the
floor as there were no benches and she
completed three years of her education
there in a school with no facilities
whatsoever including the toilet now not
many police officers IPS officers like
to work in such places which are called
backward nondescript remote and in what
in their own words they would call
lacking in lights and in such a place I
spent more than three years of my
service including the period of my prime
youth they
so challenge is therefore a manifold yet
if the officer is willing to take risks
if the office has nothing to hide if he
is clear in mind that he has acted
lawfully and is fair if he does not
cling on to politicians for Berg’s cushy
postings and so on and last but not the
least if he has kept his backs back
ready to move out any time if
transferred then such an officer he or
she becomes a force to reckon with I
after taking head-on the mighty and
powerful on several occasions if I’m
alive and kicking
and able to tell you where a TEDTalk
before y’all you can imagine the robust
protection and the law available to the
bureaucrats for acts done in official
capacity and therefore I find many of
the fears of bureaucrats to be unfounded
and baseless now you might see that
there is it’s a commonplace knowledge
that the MLAs the MPs the ml sees these
posts are created under the Constitution
of India but one must not forget that it
is under the same Constitution the
all-india services the is the IPS are
created and article 311 of the
Constitution gives complete protection
to the bureaucrats for acts then in
official capacity and it is available to
every officer in the country including
the state services so the day the
bureaucrats are able to come out of the
phobia of transfers the phobia of
politicians we will have the best
bureaucracy in the world Karl Marx once
said bureaucracy is an iron cage but I
find that our bureaucrats have chained
themselves they are the ones holding the
chains the day they break away from
these self-imposed chains
the day they start exercising their real
powers we will see a new India thank you
[Applause]
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