India needs to re-envision its policing: CHRI Senior Advisor Maja Daruwala

The police establishment retains the same classist hierarchical, status-oriented structure it has always had

Maja Daruwala has been working to advocate for rights and social justice for over 40 years. For 20 years, she was director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a body that advises Commonwealth countries in Asia and Africa, on police and prison reform. She tells Aditi Phadnis police inaction in the Delhi riots was criminally negligent

Now that some semblance of calm has returned to Delhi, what do you think went wrong in its policing during the riots?

It is obvious to the simplest mind what went wrong: and the evidence is everywhere before the most doubting eye that the police were