Indian Forces are categorized as Military, Paramilitary, and Police. The military is meant for external war. Paramilitary is meant for internal security. Police are meant for law and order. Their duties are different and hence recruited and trained separately. The deputation of IPS officers to the Paramilitary forces like CRPF and BSF is not only counterproductive but also unethical. IPS officers are attained a lot of respect for their brilliance and erudite. They are great at their job but their job is not guarding the borders, counter-insurgency operations nor are anti-Naxal operations. Their job requires police work and that’s where they should stay.
“We are good enough to risk our lives and die but not enough to lead the same organization we are devoting our lives to.” is the internal thought of every CAPF officer.
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The major part of IPS officers does not have experience in internal security, anti-terrorism, or border management. They are meant for maintaining public peace and order, crime prevention, investigation and detection, VIP security, etc. But they are dropped from a state cadre to lead a professional force comprising of hundreds of thousands of men and women who try their level best to tolerate their hegemony. There are a number of factors as to why IPS officers mustn’t lead CAPF:
- The IPS officers do not have experience in these organizations at a company/battalion level.
- The CAPF is perfectly capable of leading their own organizations and does not require any outside help, especially from officers with no tactical experience in Riot management or Naxal operations, or border security.
- These organizations have a military character and do not require civil service personnel like the IPS to lead them.
We cannot say that the IPS has no field experience. They have hundreds of battalions of armed police. But the duration of their position in CAPF posts is two years only. During those two years, the personnel would spend a whole year most probably trying to understand the organizational structure and their force. After that, they try to ascertain their power and superiority and bid changes in the force so that they are ‘remembered’. But these changes risk setting back the force by years.
The only solution to the problem of leadership can be solved if the CAPFs have their own cadre and once they are they should not be out under the local police. These forces must act independently. For too long we have treated CAPF as the illegitimate child of the Indian forces but not anymore. They are neither army nor the police and yet they are devoting their life from internal and external threats.
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