Gunning for trouble

Arming Delhi's traffic police is a bad idea

The decision of Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik to have traffic police above the rank of assistant sub-inspector carry side-arms is ill-advised and fraught with risk. The ostensible reason for this move is to help the traffic police cope with the growing instances of road rage in the National Capital Region. Admittedly, the incidence of assaults related to road rage on police personnel seeking to impose traffic rules has seen an uptick. But it is difficult to see how arming traffic police officials, even relatively senior ones, will solve the problem. Most policemen are simply run over by rule breakers, so it is unclear how equipping a policeman with a 9 mm pistol will help matters. 

If anything, in a state like Delhi, where incipient violence lurks at all times, arming the traffic police is likely to accelerate the breakdown in law and order as habitual lawbreakers seek to arm themselves in retaliation. Though formal gun licences are difficult to procure, the commissioner must be aware, no doubt, of the easy access that criminals enjoy to crude country-made pistols. Gangland-style shoot-outs between traffic cops and miscreants are the last thing Delhi needs. 

Besides, addressing the chronic issue of Delhi’s drivers flouting traffic rules with gun-carrying police officers can hardly be considered a sensible approach. It is axiomatic that traffic rules anywhere in the world will be followed if they are enforced. This is emphatically not the case in Delhi. Between powerful citizens pulling rank to avoid traffic tickets and fines to the high propensity for policemen to accept bribes to look the other way, traffic rules in the state have been reduced to a farce. Seeking to counter this systemic ill with guns is unnecessary. Empowering cops with guns is also a lazier solution compared to the hard work involved in the lasting business of eliminating corruption from the police force and transforming it into a citizen-oriented service. 

For cynics who suggest that police corruption is so endemic as to resist all attempt at reform, a compelling counterfactual exists in the form of the drink driving campaign a few years ago. Policemen were armed with breathalysers and briefed to be tough on those found flouting the rules. Even with patchy implementation, drink driving deaths in Delhi fell sharply. Delhi-ites are now learning the value of relying on taxi services when they party. The critical point about this campaign was that it had strong backing from the political leadership. This approach can as well be widened to following traffic rules rather than the silly norm of designating VIP-inhabited areas “no-tolerance zones”. 

Besides, when PCR vans, the first responders in any crime, are equipped with weapon-carrying personnel, it is difficult to see why the traffic police need to wield them. Some may argue that Kolkata’s traffic police have been armed for some decades without much problem. True, though this practice has its origins in the Naxalite movement of the sixties when policemen were gratuitously assaulted. Delhi’s traffic police do not suffer this problem. 

Doubts about the wisdom of this move also stem from the experience in the US. Examples abound of policemen shooting in cold blood; in increasingly polarised India, it is no less possible for policemen to play out their social prejudices in a similar manner. In the US, traffic and dashboard cameras have often nailed the lie and enabled victims to sometimes secure justice. Indian vehicles are still loaded with relatively basic features and it will be a while before they catch up with the developed world on this parameter. Arming Delhi's traffic police will only serve to make the public more vulnerable, not less.