![]() ![]() ![]() Importantly, a difference between the uniforms for the senior level and junior officers, and constabulary was also maintained. However, different kinds of headgear and belts distinguished police in different presidencies, provinces and states. Khaki, with some local variance, emerged as a standard colour of uniform for police, with a few exceptions such as blue-coloured uniform of the Bombay constabulary (which also has changed to khaki now) and white for the Calcutta police. ![]() It was in 1847 that Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden of the army asked to raise a Corps of Guides, and pioneered the use of drab-coloured uniform for the field services that came to be known as ‘khaki’. Police in India began taking shape as ‘Indian police’ as British colonialism took root. However, not only his notion of uniformity is misplaced, but also a total lack of conception on what should be the marker of police identity and how should the police in India be identified.Īlso read: Book Review: Why It’s Important to Audit India’s Institutional Failures ![]() Second, like imagining ‘unity in diversity’ as a living concept in civilisational terms, he would not have ever compared an animated and invaluable institution such as the police with an inert object like a post box, which has lost its relevance to technological advances in communication.īut the prime minister in his distinct style did just that. First, Nehru would have used a constitutional forum such as the Interstate Council to engage with state home ministers and police chiefs rather than a so-called ‘Chintan Shivir’. Two contrasts with Nehru, whom Modi loves to abhor and chastise, are markedly clear. Like a post box that has a distinct identity, police uniform should be identifiable across the country. It will give a common identity to law enforcement as citizens will recognise police personnel anywhere in the country. Just like these, all states should think about having a ‘one nation, one uniform policy’. While addressing the Chintan Shivir of state home ministers and police chiefs in Surajkund near Delhi via video conference on October 28, Prime Minister Modi said, “Currently in our country, there is ‘one nation, one ration card’, ‘one nation, one grid’, ‘one nation, one sign language’. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and custom was practiced, and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.’ That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, standardisation of externs or even of beliefs. In Discovery of India, he said, ‘Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilisation. Jawaharlal Nehru, on the other hand, imagined independent India as a nation with ‘unity in diversity’. On October 28, he pushed the idea of ‘one nation, one uniform’ for the police across the country. He also took pride in pushing the systems of ‘ one nation, one tax‘ ‘one nation, one grid‘ ‘one nation, one mobility card‘ and so on. Earlier, he had used the idea of ‘one nation, one constitution’ while reading down Article 370 and 35A. Some months ago, he keenly promoted ‘ one nation, one election’ from all available platforms. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is persistently conflating his idea of India’s ‘one nationhood’ to a variety of fields, to dissimilar institutional architecture bequeathed by history – ancient, medieval and colonial – as also created by the constitution of India, to stress ‘uniformity’ in the way India lives and governs itself. ![]()
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