The author, who has handled some of the toughest assignments as an IPS officer, does not hesitate in calling a spade a spade while narrating the tragic incidents in Punjab during the ‘Khalistani movement' or Delhi during the anti-Sikh pogrom, writes Ved Marwah
Time Present and Time Past
Author: Kripal Dhillon
Publisher: Penguin, Rs 399
The author of this book, Kripal Dhillon, is a multi-faceted personality: An academic, a sports lover and a gentleman police officer who has handled some of the toughest assignments during his illustrious career in the Indian Police Service. An author of many books, he has written extensively on police and internal security issues. In each one of them, he has displayed high quality of scholarship. A true professional with a high sense of integrity, a gentleman police officer as many call him, he can be hard-hitting when need be. He does not hesitate in calling a spade a spade while narrating the tragic incidents in Punjab during the ‘Khalistani movement’ when he headed the Punjab Police as the Director General of Police.
He earned the admiration of both his seniors and subordinates when he refused to go along with his political boss to support his devious personal agenda. His insider’s account of what went wrong during that difficult period, which was made more difficult by the machinations of the wily politicians pursuing their own personal agendas, makes fascinating reading. He has some harsh things to say about the complicity of the Congress leaders in the anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the inaction of the police against the rioters, “with Congress leaders directing the rampaging mobs to target Sikh colonies with the help of electoral rolls, not unlike the Nazis going after the Jews half-a-century earlier”.
A true leader of the force, Dhillon is generous in his praise of his subordinates, but mild in his criticism — like when his intelligence IGP, MC Trikha, let him down and started reporting directly to Governor Arjun Singh. The bitter memories of how he was humiliated and given the marching orders to report back to Madhya Pradesh without even being allowed to avail of the ‘joining time’, which he was entitled to, still hurt him, but that has not changed his positive attitude to the many ups and downs in his life. There is no malice even when he makes some critical remarks against some of them — like MK Rasgotra who was his senior in Government College, ludhiana but refused to recognise him when he had accompanied the King of Nepal for a shikar visit in his district in Madhya Pradesh. He describes this incident with some humour.
The memoirs are spread over a vast canvas and narrate events of enormous significance. Dhillon goes back to the year of his birth which, he writes, “coincided with a period of heightened political activity when the Indian freedom struggle was peaking fast”. The author recalls that even a visit by a lowly constable “not to speak of the thanedar or the station house officer, was enough to send shivers down the spine of village elders... such was the fear and terror of the police in colonial India”. Since the village only had a primary school, Dhillon, then a young boy of nine, had to leave the place in 1938 to join his parents in Montgomery — the present day Sahiwal of Pakistan — where he spent several years till the completion of his school education. The Montgomery of those years was “a sparsely populated town by present day standards, well-laid-out and clean, its roads and streets sprinkled with water every evening by municipal lorries... Several parks and gardens lent an air of elegance to the city”.
But even in those years there were latent, but unmistakable, inter-communal tensions which occasionally surfaced in the form of “biases and misperceptions of many kinds” between Hindus and Muslims. “A most hateful bias,” Dhillon recollects, “was not to partake of cooked food at Muslim households, even when they belonged to close friends... It must be said to the credit of our Muslim friends that they continued to send uncooked food to their non-Muslim friends’ houses on Eid. Such odious biases against them must have contributed in a major way to prompt Punjabi Muslims to press for Partition in 1947.” The firsthand account of the savagery that accompanied Independence has been written in a fair and unbiased style.
The chapters on Dhillon’s selection for the Indian Police Service, the training phase at the academy in Mount Abu, the postings to various districts replete with encounters with bandits interspersed with thrilling tiger hunts, the assignment at the National Academy of Administration in the idyllic hill station of Mussoorie, are well-written and holds the interest of the reader.
Most of his problems during his service career were due to his refusal to bend to the illegal orders of his seniors. His reputation as a straight-forward officer reached even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when he called on her before taking over as the DGP of Punjab. He describes with some amusement how she told him that he was known to be too “sharif”. His describes how after the anti-dacoity operations, cases for gallantry medals were cooked up by the subordinates to please their seniors. There was much amusement when he declined to be a part of this widely prevailing racket to earn a gallantry medal.
Widespread violation of human rights in Punjab and many other places in India by the police is another serious problem that Dhillon faced during his stint in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. Here again, these horrible acts could not have been committed without the tacit approval, if not direct orders, from their seniors and the political bosses. The sad part is that these violations of human rights have been increasing — and not coming down — since the colonial period. The dysfunctional criminal justice system is one reason, pursuit of political agendas is another, but in most cases the fault lies with unprofessional and untrained police officers who have no patience and lack the skills for investigations. They resort to shortcut methods to show quick results to earn the appreciation of their seniors.
While the most frustrating period of Dhillon’s career was his posting to Punjab after the Army’s bungled Blue Star Operation, the most enjoyable and satisfying period in his service career was his tenure in the lBS Academy in Mussoorie. He has titled this chapter as ‘Among the Crème de la Crème’. He made full use of the facilities of the training institute to enjoy his favourite sport, riding, and his academic interests. Even after retirement from the IPS, he has continued with his scholarly activities. He started career as a lecturer and ended it as Vice-Chancellor of a university.
Writing a book when you are reaching mid-80s is no easy task, but Dhillon has accomplished this task with a professional touch. It is an “exceptionally well-written book” that reads like a “Russian novel”, as the two commentators of the book have said. The book should be of great interest to the serving police officers as well as to all those interested in internal security issues. It will be of equal interest to a lay-reader who is interested in those historical events which the author witnessed or handled as a police officer that have shaped the future of our country.
The reviewer, a retired IPS officer, is a former Governor of Manipur, Mizoram and Jharkhand