Policing By Consent

National stereotypes make one laugh or cringe. As the famous one goes, ‘Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italians, and everything is organised by the Swiss’. Whereas ‘Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are Germans, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organised by the Italians’!

Inherent racism in stereotypes notwithstanding (as frankly the Europeans can’t really complain on this front), there is an undeniable sliver of truth in the popular imagination about British food. After all, French President Jacques Chirac had chuckled justifiably about the bland British food with his Russian buddy, Vladimir Putin, “One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad”.

Thankfully the Desis from the sub-continent saved the Brits from perpetual jokes about the soggy and stodgy Brit food with the spicing of curries, chutneys and the truly reductive, garam masalas!

But the Brits have historically had (admittedly declining) a national culture based on civic manners, propriety, honour and respect between the citizenry and the sovereign. orderliness, discipline and inherent ‘correctness’ influenced the same cultural civility onto its security apparatus, namely, the famous Bobbies (British Police Officers) with its Peelian principles of ethicality.

The underlying ethos of ‘policing by consent’ necessitates winning the legitimacy to be the ‘citizens in uniform’ through their demonstrated impartiality, without fear or favour. Like all police forces, it has had its share of rotten apples that have made the entire barrel stink at times – however, by and large it has undertaken several corrective reforms, inclusivity measures and stood up to power, in their line of duty.

Of the 45 territorial police services within Great Britain’s decentralised system, the Lancashire Police was in the news recently. As per an internal audit report on ‘Police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy’ fared reasonably well in the PEEL 2021/22. In the rather description for ‘area for improvement’, the findings read, ‘The constabulary needs to develop a comprehensive understanding of its response capability and capacity’.

Very recently, Lancashire Police latched onto an inadvertent opportunity to display its purported area of improvement of ‘response capability and capacity’, when it tweeted, “Following the circulation of a video on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seat belt, while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire we have today (Friday, Jan 20) issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty”.

Basically, the lads of Lancs Police had knowingly issued a fine to a “42-year-old man from London” i.e., the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Rishi Sunak! In an era of thin-skinned and super-smug politicians, the news of the British Prime Minister getting fined by its own police, was sheer wholesomeness!

Reciprocal civility and the need to demonstrate unfiltered humility (at least publicly, when exposed), led the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to accept the mistake, and apologise. To reiterate the flow of the incident, a Prime Minister sits and gives an interview in a car and takes off the rear seat belt, temporarily. He then puts the video on his Instagram, only to have some pick-up and call-out the unbuckling of the seat belt. The Police then without any fear or unnecessary drama proceeds to fine and issues a terse statement confirming the issuance to a “42-year-old man from London”.

A meme fest is unleashed but a larger point of no one being above the law, or loyal cadres issuing contexts to justify the obvious slip-up, or even partake of whataboutery, is just so refreshing. This is in stark contrast to our own VVIP culture of unrestrained entitlement or even the rather condescending optics of ‘manufactured humility’ (obviously at their own terms, without the embarrassment of getting exposed a la Rishi Sunak).

Dominic Raab, Deputy PM and the Secretary of State for Justice, who would be the overall in-charge for Policing services acknowledged that the Prime Minister had indeed “put his hands straight up” and apologised. Whereas Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson admitted the “error of judgement” and confirmed that the Prime Minister “fully accepts this was a mistake and apologises”.

Of course, the Opposition party had a field day slamming the Prime Minister for falling short of expected standards. And they did so without Tory cadres defending the Prime Minister’s dereliction with any unrequired contexts, as is the wont in other democracies. Barbs about Rishi’s Sunak’s second fine after the infamous Partygate (when Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister and Rishi Sunak the Chancellor) to ‘Beltgate’, now!

As one respondent on Lancashire Police’s account tweeted, “Well Rishi has already broken his New Year’s resolution of not receiving a fixed penalty notice this year. Oh well Rishi lad, always next year”. Irrespective of the situation, British humour hasn’t left the Isle, Brexit or no Brexit!

Meanwhile, back home, the tragic car accident that had killed industrialist Cyrus Mistry, wherein he was sitting in the rear seat without his seat belts on, had rightfully led to serious questions about seat belts in the rear. Actually, Section 194B of the Motor Vehicles (Amended) Act 2019 already reads, “Whosoever drives a motor vehicle without wearing a safety belt or carries passengers not wearing seat belts shall be punishable with a fine of Rs 1000”.

Many cities thereafter did a public campaign to reiterate and sensitise the citizenry of the law, and many were also issued fines. However, in the Indian scenario the ability of a Police personnel to challan a senior government official, let alone a high-ranking politician is simply unthinkable. It would be highly presumptuous and naïve to think that all the high and mighty of Indian officialdom, be it at the Centre or in the States, are strictly complying/enforcing this order, today.

The fact that we cannot imagine a ‘Rishi Sunak’ moment in our narrative says something about how enfeebled our law enforcement is, how above-the-law the VVIPs can get, and above all, how unaccountable and unquestioned we leave the powers-that-be owing to our partisan loyalties.

There was no digging of personal dirt about the Lancashire officials who issued the ticket e.g., if they were Labour Party supporters? If they were racists and disliked Rishi owing to his ethnicity? If they themselves were guilty of similar misdemeanours? Or as the uniquely Indian stance goes that they were “politically motivated”?

It was a simple mistake, the man acknowledged and paid the fine, a larger lesson about probity and impartiality of the law enforcers was established (as also the collateral benefit of some truly funny memes), and then it was business-as usual, no further drama.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh (Retd), is the Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Views expressed are the writer’s own.