Describe the police and jail system of the British period.
Answers
The third pillar of British rule was the police whose creator was Cornwallis. He relieved the zamindars of their police functions and established a regular police force to maintain law and order. In this respect, he went back to, and modernized, the old Indian system of thanas.
This put India ahead of Britain where a system of police had not developed yet. Cornwallis established a system of circles or thanas headed by a daroga, who was an Indian.
Later, the post of the District Superintendent of Police was created to head the police organisation in a district. Once again, Indians were excluded from all superior posts. In the villages, the duties of the police continued to be performed by village-watchmen who were maintained by the villagers.
The police gradually succeeded in reducing major crimes such as dacoity. The police also prevented the organisation of a large- scale conspiracy against foreign control, and when the national movement arose, the police was used to suppress it.
In its dealings with the people, the Indian police adopted an unsympathetic attitude. A Committee of Parliament reported in 1813 that the police committed “depredations on the peaceable inhabitants, of the same nature as those practiced by the dacoits whom they were employed to suppress”.
And William Bentinck, the Governor-General, wrote in 1832:
As for the police, so far from being a protection to the people, I cannot better illustrate the public feeling regarding it, than by the following fact, that nothing can exceed the popularity of a recent regulation by which, if a robbery has been committed, the police are prevented from making any enquiry into it, except upon the requisition of the persons robbed: that is to say, the shepherd is a more ravenous beast of prey than the wolf.