Indian Police - something I found on Youtube...

[Beorning]

Okay, so here's something that I'm wondering about right now.

Yesterday, some random browsing through Youtube took me to some channels showing Indian movie / TV clips with Indian policewomen (it seems they have a lot of fans). I looked through some of these clips and I noticed something:

Indian police officers seem to beat people up. A lot.

And not like the Western police officers, who (at least in the fictional media) usually cross the line rarely and under pressure. In these Indian movies / TV shows, beating people up (with sticks, canes etc.) seems to be some kind of standard operating procedure. Even more surprisingly, such beatings seem to be shown as something positive, a cool thing heroic cops do. At least, that's what I got from the clips I've seen - note that I don't speak the language(s).

Some examples, maybe... Here, a heroic (I think) female cop basically tortures a guy in jail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz3Ht4vEims

Another similar scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19YbcV5g-Ts

And here's a case of a beating used for a comedic effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N95tXA5BF_E

Finally, here's a clip from what looks like a serious drama about an innocent woman arrested wrongfully and interrogated brutally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2G6RwXqTb8

Note that, even though there is a sympathetic female cop present, even she doesn't question the basic idea of beating up the suspect to force a confession...

So, here's a question for anyone knowledgeable enough about India: is this kind of thing just a made-up trope in Indian media, or is it reflective as to how Indian police operates? Also, does the fact that some of these examples show the heroic characters doing such things mean that such methods are in some way accepted by the Indian public in general?

[MagicalPen]

From my understanding, its a common practice in India.

You can find youtube videos of actual cops in India using canes/sticks. I imagine it stems from the whole class-system etc.

[Mathim]

Isn't sparing the rod kind of a first-world thing? Whether on children or otherwise. Valuing diplomacy and restraint isn't usually the first choice in more traditional places. Not sure if that's surprising.

[RedRose]

Indian prisons are hardcore (and highly corrupt). I say this despite loving the country. I spent a month there and found the society to be very violent (not toward tourists! though there are stories for lone women).

[MagicalPen]

A lot of true horror stories come out of India in regards to raping women...setting them on fire to cover it up...lynchings, cover ups etc.

[Beorning]

Thanks for your opinions so far!

Here's another fictional example - look how casual and accepting everyone seems to be about the beating. The girl gets beaten up by one officer, then her superior comes and orders her to stop... and the girl is released as if all of this was a misunderstanding. No punishment for the officer who did the beating...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHea4L2OVi8

I thought that, maybe, the earlier examples I posted were from old and / or bad movies, so maybe they shouldn't be treated seriously (just like you shouldn't think that old grindhouse movies had much to do with reality). But this particular movie is a recent one (2007) and, apparently, a big budget and serious affair. Soooo..?

Anyway, yeah - movies are just movies. On the other hand, here's a real-life video of Indian police officers handling a riot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUylX1KBKYc

Note that the female officer both bangs a man in the head with some metal object, then slaps his mother a few times. And she's not some low-level cop - this officer is Kim Sharma, the head of the police in that city! Hm...

[Cookie]

Police in India and throughout Asia, Thailand, Cambodia etc. are notorious for beating confessions out of people. South America and Africa too, most police than haven't been explicitly trained not to tend dish out violence. We were beating people in the UK in the 70s still, the Birmingham Six had confessions beat out of them then and served a lot of years before they were released on appeal.

[Beorning]

Hm. I wonder what makes the officers think that doing something like that is okay?

I'd like to think that people who join the police are caring and well-meaning. How come they end up thinking that beating confessions out of people is a normal thing to do?

(I guess there's some RP potential in that question, but that's another matter...)

[Mathim]

Aren't there places in that region where women can be punished in the place of male relatives? Or where 'honor' rape/killings happen? Again, I don't get why anything like this should surprise anyone. Them having a uniform and badge can't change the way a culture that has certain views will look at them.

[Cookie]

Hm. I wonder what makes the officers think that doing something like that is okay?

I'd like to think that people who join the police are caring and well-meaning. How come they end up thinking that beating confessions out of people is a normal thing to do?

(I guess there's some RP potential in that question, but that's another matter...)

You'd like to think they were good people wouldn't you, and a lot are I know an officer well and she's lovely. It can be a bit of a vocation for some, but for others it's just a job, especially in the developing world.

I guess the justification is that they're beating bad people who did it or something equally bad, so it's OK. Some are probably just sadists, assholes or corrupt criminals themselves. Sometimes they have a lot of pressure from their governments to solve a high profile case quick and cleanly too. You get a lot of miscarriages of justice with high profile cases.

[RedRose]

You'd like to think they were good people wouldn't you, and a lot are I know an officer well and she's lovely. It can be a bit of a vocation for some, but for others it's just a job, especially in the developing world.

I guess the justification is that they're beating bad people who did it or something equally bad, so it's OK. Some are probably just sadists, assholes or corrupt criminals themselves. Sometimes they have a lot of pressure from their governments to solve a high profile case quick and cleanly too. You get a lot of miscarriages of justice with high profile cases.

All this.
Adding: many get burned out. Plus "the ends justifying the means". Plus simply a violent culture: they probably hit their own children when they "deserve" it, so why wouldn't them beat up criminals?

It is simply another world. I spent the first days locked up in the hotel, unable to handle the Streets (but I got used to it).

[Scribbles]

You'd like to think they were good people wouldn't you, and a lot are I know an officer well and she's lovely. It can be a bit of a vocation for some, but for others it's just a job, especially in the developing world.

This!

In developing countries, public roles such as police are normally used to fill the void left by a lack of employment, meaning most are there just to put bread on the table and care little for what their job entails. Putting aside the risks that come with such work, they're also usually underpaid and overworked, with many pushing over eight hours a day and seven days a week. Lob on to this the fact that crime and corruption is rampant and the general populace is growing frustrated with it, and you suddenly have a recipe where beating criminals is an accepted practice...