Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

From the Chairman, Editorial BoardOne of the important departments of the government is the police force.In any civil society a sound and efficient police force is necessary for goodgovernance. In India the police forces have been functioning on the basis of thePolice Act of 1861 (Act V). Several provinces also enacted their own Police Acts,which have been modelled on the Central Police Act. The statute was createdagainst the backdrop of the uprising of 1857, and had as its main objective thepreservation of British rule in India.Before the advent of the British, the system of governance in India had itsgenesis in the interregnum of Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan chieftain who defeatedHumayun and ruled much of North India from 1539 to 1545. Sher Shah designatedgroups of villages as parganas, and these in turn formed larger units which werecalled sarkars, or revenue districts, each having a shiqqdar or revenue collector and a chief munsif, theleading judicial officer. Subsequently, the Mughals introduced some modifications in the titles, for instance‘nayabdiwan’ in place of ‘chief shiqqdar’, and superimposed over the whole system a military veneer,appointing an officer of a certain specified rank in the military hierarchy of ‘mansabdar’. Though this gavecohesiveness to the bureaucracy, during the inevitable reigns of weak rulers, the ties between the provincesand the imperial regime weakened.The physical presence of the British in India was not significant, yet for almost two centuries theBritish were able to rule two-thirds of the subcontinent directly and exercise considerable leverageover the princely states that accounted for the rest of the country. Madras Presidency enacted the firstProvincial Police Statute in 1859. Two years later, using the Madras legislation as a model, a central lawcalled the Police Act of 1861 was created. It was framed against the backdrop of the uprising of 1857and known as Act V, the police in the districts was placed under the control of the Collector and DistrictMagistrate. The efficiency of the police force was reckoned by the manner in which it protected Britishinterests, the zamindari, and the effectiveness with which it suppressed the aspirations of the people forself-governance.Very early, the British realised the importance of collecting intelligence in a structured and organizedmanner. Lord Dufferin, then Viceroy of India, in a communication addressed to the Secretary of State forIndia on 15th November, 1887, submitted a proposal regarding collection of secret and political intelligencein India.The secret internal note, since declassified, has been included in this issue and makes for interestingreading. It refers to a memorandum of 23 rd July, 1887 on the formation of an Intelligence Departmentby Col. Henderson and Mr. D. McCracken and goes on to describe a two-pronged strategy of collectingpolitical, social and religious intelligence through the police force deployed in the British India andthrough the instrument of the Political Officers assigned to native States. The approval to the Viceroy’sproposal arrived through a dispatch dated 23 rd December, 1887 and thus, was born the IntelligenceBureau.Since independence, the Bureau has safeguarded the nation’s interest effectively in a low profilemanner befitting the nature of its assignment. While most on the outside will never know the achievementsof this organisation, it should be possible for all to discern that the safety and the security of the countryhas indeed been well served by this important organ of the Government.On the occasion of the 125 th anniversary, the Bureau of Police Research and Development considersit a privilege to dedicate the current issue of the Indian Police Journal to the Intelligence Bureau.(Kuldip Sharma)Director GeneralBPR&DiiThe Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue