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Steel magnolia
The
first Indian woman to join the police services, with a reputation
both for toughness and humanity, Kiran Bedi is undoubtedly
India's most celebrated police officer. The supercop has recently
been conferred an honorary degree by the New York University.
In conversation with TWF correspondent Rashmi Pratap
She is known as a tough cookie, fearless, and a stickler
for discipline. But she is also a reformer introducing vipasana
(meditation) for prisoners as well as the police force, thus
turning the ill-reputed Tihar Jail into a creative hub. Founder
of NGOs and an author, more recently UN's Civilian Police
Adviser on Peacekeeping Operations, Kiran Bedi, dons a multitude
of roles with equal élan.
The New York University has recently awarded you an honorary
degree. It's the latest in the long list of awards bestowed
on you. What's the significance of this award?
For me it’s the first international academic degree,
which is both a recognition and acceptance of a holistic approach
to policing and prison reforms - both having a very strong
underpinning of spirituality. In fact, it is also an _expression
of a wish that this could also perhaps be the way forward
in the western world.
Of late, the UN has come into a lot of flak for various
reasons. From the experience of your last stint at the UN,
do you feel that this organization is still effective in maintaining
peace and order in these conflicting times?
Well, the UN is as effective as the member states want it
to be because it is a community of nations. All peacekeeping
missions are financially supported by the member states as
per their national interests and policies. Some, of course,
do so as a part of their international obligations. There
is no match to UN support as it has the world opinion and
resources behind it. But no doubt, there is an increasing
trend towards 'regionalisation' of peacekeeping.
What was your responsibility during your tenure at the UN?
I was working as Civilian Police Adviser to the UN. This meant
providing the policing components according to the mandate
given by the Security Council. I headed the Police Division,
which comprised over 32 police experts drawn from as many
countries. They were planners, trainers, mission managers,
assessors, mobilisers, legal experts etc.
At the time I returned from the UN (after a two years’
assignment) we were peacekeeping in Africa, Europe, Asia in
14 peacekeeping missions. Nearly 7,000 police officers were
deployed from over 60 countries.
In your career you've often been painted as a 'troublemaker',
one who doesn't go by the book where necessary. In fact, it
was a quality, of exploring creative ways to change things
within given situations, that was cited when the Joseph Beuys
Foundation awarded you in 1997. Comment.
Books are for management and management is not for maintaining
books. All rules are for facilitation and growth. They all
have, somewhere, implicit or explicit provisions for initiatives
provided we care to look for and apply them. Innovations and
newer initiatives mean stepping out of our comfort zones and
shifting of the status quo. It calls for willingness to take
on more work and increase the areas of responsibility. All
this naturally brings more rewards alongside higher visibility.
Do you consider the tenure as Inspector General (Prison)
when you undertook the reformation of the Tihar Jail as the
most challenging and satisfying? You even wrote a book It's
Always Possible from the experience.
The prison assignment (1993-95) came at a very appropriate
time for me. I had the right amount of experience required
for heading such an institution. In fact, the prison and I
grew up together. I encashed all possible goodwill I had in
the city for the causes. Like asking for donation of thousands
of school books for education of 10,000 inmates from publishers
and schools I had gone for giving away prizes at their annuals
or even releasing books for the publishers. Also, having an
NGO was a great asset. I could mobilise all the resources
waiting to come in. Also many others like the Indira Gandhi
National Open University (IGNOU) and National Open School
(NOS) were in correspondence but were being ignored. I only
had to facilitate and respect them. And it all changed. The
book It’s Always Possible is a tribute to the holistic
concept of a reform model we evolved, called the 3 C model
- Corrective, Collective, Community-based reforms.
You have founded two NGOs - Navjyoti and India-Vision Foundation.
What are they about?
India Vision Foundation, in collaboration with its sister
concern, Navjyoti, has been supporting the vocational training
projects in the Tihar Jail, with a view to providing the inmates
skills that will help in their rehabilitation on their release
from imprisonment.
Navjyoti's mission is to mobilise and harness the power of
children, youth, women and people at large to combat illiteracy,
ignorance, gender discrimination and menace of addiction with
an ultimate aim of crime prevention and social development.
India Vision Foundation was a result of the suffering I witnessed
at Tihar. I came face to face with pain and agony of the inmates
and was keen on carrying forward the reformation process in
the prison. It was born with the receipt of the Ramon Magsaysay
Award by me in 1994. The Foundation began its work inside
the prison by setting up a bread- making unit and also set
up a Plant Nursery where rare saplings were grown and marketed
outside. The profits earned went to the Prisoner's Welfare
Fund.
The Foundation will carry forward projects in the field of
prison reforms, drug abuse prevention, child welfare, crime
prevention, empowerment of women, rural development, physical
and mental disability and sports promotion and creativity.
It has now gone global with resource centres in Atlanta and
San Francisco in the US, Melbourne and Tasmania in Australia
and at Port Louis, Mauritius.
India Vision Foundation has also made a documentary You
be the Sky, isn’t it?
The documentary encapsulates the incorporation of meditation
as a strong basis for systematic reforms in prisons and police
performance. The film brings forth the intensity and larger
impact of such reforms on individual minds and systems, whether
on those in
captivity or on those with responsibility for law enforcement.
Recently you even put on the greasepaint to act in a documentary
The Real Salute. Will you act again?
Yes, I play an old woman in this documentary on national integration
made by Chennai-based Malar Network. It is a short patriotic
message. I played a small role and will always do so for patriotic
films.
As an illustrious police officer with long experience,
how do you explain the growing violence against women, even
in Delhi which has gained the sobriquet of the ‘Rape
Capital’?
We are what our parents and teachers make us before other
influences attack us. Hence men who tease women or harass
women or commit crimes against them are a product of their
own fathers, mothers, elders and teachers. This is the basic
responsibility, which
must be shouldered by all. The rest comes later.
What do you feel is needed most now to allay this feeling
of insecurity among women, be in the village or the city?
Teach them all self-defence so that the boys get their due
if they dare to approach a woman with ill intentions. But
then who will enable teaching? Parents and schools again!
Lastly, what are you busy with now? Any innovative programmes
you are involved with presently?
I am right now writing about my international experience gained
at the UN before I get committed to full time duties, which
would then demand all my time
and energy.
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