About the discussion
The Police is the most visible face of the State. Indian police forces are riddled with problems of corruption and misuse of authority, and are often seen as stooges of the parties in power. The idea of police reforms in India remain a distant reality as no action has been taken despite 12 years having passed since the landmark Supreme Court judgement of Prakash Singh vs Union of India. The police and paramilitary forces often seem to work as private armies of politicians and political parties in power across the ideological spectrum. Their writ seems to run everything from arrests to acquittals and from appointments to transfer and postings, irrespective of court orders and constitutional provisions.
The Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2018– A Study of Performance and Perceptions is one of the first attempts to scientifically study police performance and its interaction with the public. It is a rigorous study of the performance and perception of the police in India. It covers close to 16000 respondents in 22 states on parameters like citizens’ trust and satisfaction levels, discrimination against the vulnerable, police excesses, infrastructure, diversity in forces, state of prisons and disposal of cases etc.
The study combines mixed methodologies in order to present a slice of life of policing in India. It analyses official NCRB/ BPR&D data and CAG reports along with an all India perception survey conducted by the Lokniti team of the CSDS and their partners in the states.
About the Speaker
Dr Vipul Mudgal is an activist, journalist and a media scholar. He is the Director and Chief Executive of Common Cause, a civil society organisation known for its high-impact interventions. He also heads the Inclusive Media for Change (www.im4change.org) a clearinghouse of ideas and information on India’s marginalised. A doctorate in media studies from Leicester University, UK, as a Nehru Fellow, Vipul has been a Resident Editor at Hindustan Times in Jaipur and Lucknow, South Asia Editor at Asia Times, Bangkok, and a BBC journalist in London and Delhi. He was earlier a visiting Senior Fellow and the founder-director of Publics and Policies Programme at the CSDS. He works on the intersections of democracy, media and political violence. He has edited two books, ‘Claiming India from Below: Activism and Democratic Transformation‘ and ‘Journalism, Democracy and Civil Society in India‘ (jointly with Prof Shakuntala Rao).
Professor Sanjay Kumar is currently the Director of CSDS. His core area of research is Electoral Politics, but using survey method as research tool he has been engaged in conducting research on very wide range of themes- Indian Youth, State of Democracy in South Asia, State of Indian Farmers, Slums of Delhi and Electoral Violence. Besides his academic writing he writes regularly for national and regional newspapers, both in English and Hindi languages. His articles are published regularly in The Hindu, Indian Express, Dainik Bhaskar, Rajasthan Patrika and The Mint. He is also a well known face on Indian Television as a Psephologist and Political Commentator. He has also been an international election observer in many countries. He has published widely and authored several books, some of the most recent of which are Post Mandal Politics in Bihar: Changing Electoral Politics and Changing Electoral Politics in Delhi: From Caste to Class (with Praveen Rai).
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