Law In Their Hands

AT midnight on April 6, 2000, Guwahati’s oil refinery presented a strange sight. Over 200 people, both young and old, formed a half-circle around the refinery and kept a nightlong vigil. Even more surprisingly, the police kept a discreet distance, the people just seemed to have taken over. And these vigilantes were ordinary people-bank clerks, small-time businessmen, government servants, even students, and members of the Noonmati Nagarik Committee (NC). What made them stand guard in the night was a common cause: the refinery, under threat from ULFA militants, had to be protected at all costs.

This action of the area’s nagarik committee was no isolated instance. For, all across Guwahati city, citizens are increasingly becoming active participants in helping the police maintain law and order, prevent petty crimes and even in managing the increasing traffic on the city’s choked roads. And, while these public guardians are enjoying the limelight, they’ve also made quite an impact. For, ever since the Guwahati Police launched a scheme to form locality-based nagarik (citizens’) committees in August ‘99, the city’s crime rate has gone down. Says city SP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, "Once people started taking the responsibility to try and keep their locality crime-free, our job has eased a lot and it’s easier to detect or prevent crime." The facts bear him out:

It’s a simple, effective plan: the traffic police spells out the policies and the local committee implements it. For instance, once a no-parking zone is notified, it’s left to the people to enforce it. The committees also appoint volunteers to assist the traffic police on busy roads in the city. It’s been about eight months since the scheme was launched, but as Mahanta, who took the cue from a similar programme in Singapore called Neighbourhood Watch Post, points out, the difference is already visible. "Earlier, the police was seen as something to be avoided. But now, not only has mutual coordination improved, there’s also more understanding of the problems we face in maintaining order." Agrees Amal Medhi, councillor and president of the committee in his locality, "We’ve realised that a crime-free society is as much our responsibility as that of the police."

This recognition that institutions are a public asset is precisely why Medhi and his NC colleagues are protecting the Guwahati refinery which falls under their locality. "On the eve of the Independence Day, Republic Day and the foundation day of the militant organisations, we’re extra alert and increase our vigil around the refinery," says Medhi. And this time the vigil started three days before April 7, ULFA’s foundation day.

The people aren’t just supporting this new rapport but there actually are demands that the programme be extended to more areas. This alliance has also ensured that miscreants and militants who made Guwahati their hideout after a terrorist act in the rural areas can’t take shelter in the city for too long. This happened after a door-to-door police survey to prepare a list of tenants in the city. "It ensured that any newcomer would be noticed immediately," Mahanta says.

It’s an initiative that’s worked well so far. But the challenge, as Mahanta knows well, lies in sustaining and fine-tuning it. Says an elderly citizen, "I’m all for police-public cooperation. But it must be ensured that NC office-bearers don’t become a law unto themselves." That, perhaps, might be a possible danger. But right now, Guwahati, a growing city of over 12 lakh people, is witnessing a new phenomenon wherein the police and the public aren’t adversaries but partners.