There’s this old joke about our cops. The Government of India is trying to catch a lion hiding in a particular forest and summons the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the state police. The investigators get busy.
The IB enters the forest, places animal informants throughout the jungle and questions all plant and mineral witnesses. After six months of extensive investigations they conclude that lions do not exist. The CBI goes in. After three weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the lion. “It’s been taken care of”, they say smugly.
Meanwhile the state police had gone into the forest. And were found the next day clustered around a tree where they had tied up a rabbit. As they beat up the terrified little creature, the cops roared, “Bol tu sher hai! Saala bol! (Say you’re a lion! Admit it, saala!)”
Our faith in our law and order mechanism is clear from this joke. That the police use torture as their primary tool of investigation is a given. We know this does not help catch the culprit. And that the ordinary citizen has no escape from this absurd drama is clear from our seeking refuge in jokes.
As far as I remember, India tops the number of incidents of police torture and custodial deaths in a democracy. Deaths in police custody and in prison are routine, and increasing. They are even passed off as deaths in police “encounters”. But whatever the mounting figures for custodial deaths, a much higher number of victims of police atrocities live on, broken in body and mind, maimed forever physically, mentally and psychologically or dumped back home to die. And even 13 years after signing the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (known as Convention Against Torture or CAT) we have no qualms about it.
Today is International Day Against Torture. On this day in 1987 the CAT came into force. And exactly 65 years ago, on June 26, 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed. Over the years the world has become kinder and gentler in parts, but there are creepy dark patches. India happens to be one such scary blotch, where the world’s largest democracy continues to use savagery as a valid administrative principle. Torture is our short cut to investigating crime and maintaining order. We have no law against torture, and we have skilfully dodged ratifying the CAT.
Thankfully, there are chimes of change. Two important steps in the last two months bring us closer to internationally accepted levels of civility and ratifying the CAT. First, the much awaited Prevention of Torture Bill (2010) was introduced and passed in the Lok Sabha. India has no specific law against torture, which allows the police and other officers in uniform like the armed forces to get away with the most atrocious crimes against humanity. For the first time India could have a stand-alone law against torture, which defines “torture” clearly and provides punishment. It could send guilty public servants to jail for 10 years. The bill has drawbacks, but is a step in the right direction.
Second, the Supreme Court has ruled against the use of narco-analysis, lie detector tests and brain mapping. These are illegal, the court ruled, and when done without the consent of the suspect, violates the Constitution. They infringe our rights to fair trial and against self-incrimination. The order talked of the need “to arrive at a pragmatic balance between the often competing interests of personal liberty and public safety” and refused to justify “the use of torture or other improper means for eliciting information”.
Which is again a progressive step. The panic over terrorism and security concerns makes us justify savagery, with horrendous anti-terror laws being introduced that play havoc with the lives of ordinary citizens. We refuse to recognise the difference between a real and a sham fight against terror. Terrorising and torturing innocents may make our law enforcers look efficient, but doesn’t make us more secure. The lions we seek roam free as we slyly frame rabbits.
In fact, torture increases our terror quotient and internal security risk. State brutality pushes desperate people into the arms of rebels, who promise justice and a better life. Maoist violence and the extremism in Kashmir and the Northeast are nurtured by the state, fed by the anger of long-suffering people frustrated with the state’s neglect and torture. Because the violence and brutality of our uniformed forces is legalised by our lack of proper legislation against torture, the traditional impunity of the police and the enforcement of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in acutely disturbed areas.
So the Prevention of Torture Bill and the Supreme Court order against narco-analysis are firm steps towards a less savage state. They would also pave the way to India’s ratifying the CAT and improving our image internationally.
But we need more than image. We need to enact and implement laws to deliver justice to Indians. Merely having an anti-torture law will not be of much use, for example, without a separate investigating agency for torture. The police are unlikely to find fault with their own, so victims have little hope of a proper case against their tormentors. Besides, cases linger on in courts forever, crushing any hope the victims may have of justice.
Also, as long as the police remain lackeys of politicians there will be no fair play, and the state machinery will be used as the personal army of the powerful to protect friends and frame the less friendly. And they will continue to use torture particularly against the most disempowered — traditionally the dalits and Muslims get the worst treatment — they will continue to rape and molest women, and inflict filthy verbal and physical abuse on the less privileged.
So to actually free ourselves of police torture, we need more than laws — we need police reform. Days ago you saw pictures of a 75-year-old hung from a tree in a Rajasthan police station and beaten brutally to extract a confession. Jaidev, the old man, swears he is being framed. But for every incident of police torture you see on television or in the papers, there are thousands more that you will never know of. And it does nothing to deter crime. It’s plain stupid.
In short, it is in the interest of the state to prevent torture. If we want to catch the lion, we need to stop being happy beating up rabbits.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine.
She can be contacted at sen@littlemag.com