She is the first woman to join the Indian Police Services in 1972, a former Asian women’s lawn tennis champion, an extraordinary academician, author, speaker and activist, winner of the Magsaysay Award(also called the Asian Nobel Prize), the first woman to become Police advisor to head the Civilian Police Division in the United Nations Department to Peace keeping Operations, but it’s the extraordinary reforms that Kiran Bedi brought inside Tihar, the largest most notorious jail in India, that has secured her place in the history of policing as a pioneer.
In a candid, exclusive interview, super cop Kiran Bedi, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, talks about her journey and why her career became her cause.
We are the products of our environment. What was the environment and lessons learnt that have made you exceed beyond yourself in anything you’ve done in life?
My paternal grandfather was a chauvinistic feudal man, who didn’t believe in the equality of sexes. My father had four daughters and looked at life differently. My grandfather told my father to send us to a neighborhood school where there were no fees and he would use some of the substantial property he owned to marry us off. My father refused and sent us to the best school in town. As a consequence our grandfather withdrew certain privileges and financial allowances from his son that made life pretty rough. I never saw my father regret his decision. He told my grandfather, “Property can be stolen, but the gift of sound education that I’m giving my daughters, is something that will stand them in good stead, and cannot be taken away.”
I am the second of four daughters and all of us saw our parents go beyond their means to bring us up. Both my parents were the epitome of integrity, sacrifice, unconditional love and remarkable hard work. They became our inspiration and excelling came naturally. I wanted to win that trophy, score the highest grade, and excel just to see the joy and pride in their eyes. The biggest lesson I learnt from them was that love begets love and inspires you to great heights. I also learnt that one must stand up for what one believes in fearlessly.
The tennis scene for women was fairly well established when you got into the game, but I’m sure it was still a male domain.
It was and badminton was more popular among women. We didn’t see too many women on the tennis courts as we see today, so we were the early pioneers of the game. My father was a very keen tennis player and the whole family got into the game. Our house was between school and the tennis courts, so all of us went to the tennis courts straight from school, and my mom would come there with hot food, milk and our playing clothes.
You decided to join the Indian Police Services going where no woman had gone before, so to speak. What motivated you to opt for IPS?
It was the inherent power in policing that attracted me. I was looking to join a profession that would give me the opportunity to produce visible, assured results in changing society for the better. I wasn’t affected by the negative image that the service had from time to time, which was often substantiated, but I felt that this would give me the platform to do my bit.
How did the men react to your joining something that was a male bastion? What did the Police Academy teach you?
There were doubts obviously. In fact they hoped that I would change my mind and go elsewhere, but I had just returned as Asian women’s tennis champion, a very tough feat and that became a symbol of how determined I was to succeed in any thing seemingly impossible that came my way. They already knew that I had the will, the determination and the endurance. Their confused minds were trying to figure out-where does she fit in? I went from being referred to as that chokri, to Madam and then later when I had proved my mettle many times to sir!
The Police Academy formats you, gives you the tools to deliver, and teaches you to work in a structural manner. What I had within me was the passion, the willingness and love for what I was getting into, but I learnt how to fulfill my potential through the training at the Police academy.
They taught us the laws, how to investigate, how to handle arms and ammunition, how to hone our skills, learn things like horse riding, built our courage, our management and leadership skills.
You have a law degree and a PhD. Your dissertation began in something else and ended with one on drug abuse and violence.
That subject came to the fore because of my policing experiences. I have always had a natural curiosity to question why a criminal had been arrested. I wanted to focus on preventive measures so every morning I used to go to all the police stations where we had made arrests and ask why those criminals had committed that crime. I soon realized that out of every two criminals I spoke to, one was a drug addict. The same man then beat up his mother or his wife and I could see the strong co-relation between drugs, violence and crime. I started a drug abuse treatment center to treat these addicts, and found, that as they became drug free they stopped committing the crimes and the violence that came with it. While this was happening I was actually doing my research on performance appraisal systems, but soon realized my heart was not it. After studying it for 2 years, I decided to switch and changed my dissertation to a study of drug abuse and violence and the relationship between the two.
I found out that a lot of time people got into drugs due to peer pressure, curiosity or just bad company. People who dropped out of school got into drugs quite often. Then there were cases of accelerated addiction where people, who initially got addicted to smoking at an early age, moved to drinking and then charas and whatever else, came their way.
My posting with the Narcotics Control Bureau gave me an understanding of national and international drug trafficking. I was already working voluntarily to understand the issues of drug abuse, this posting gave me a total perspective of drug abuse on a global level and what was wrong and how we could intercept international drug traffickers. Drug trafficking is never within any boundaries. It is always inter state, inter country crime. We were sharing a lot of intelligence information with Interpol and the UN and succeeding in getting people convicted.
Navjyoti has played a very important role in drug use prevention. You were the master mind behind it.
I have always believed in prevention as the best way to deal with crime. After seeing the correlation between drugs and crime, I set up detoxification centers which helped drug addicts to become drug free. The success of this project led us to register Navjyoti as a foundation. Through Navjyoti thousands of drug addicts have over come their addiction. The foundation has social workers, counselors, para professionals, yoga therapists and abusers who are recovering addicts. All of them volunteer their services. We have physicians who practice allopathy, homeopathic medicine, naturopathy and acupuncture. The treatment lasts for a year and is meant for the poor. Not just that, we have involved the families of these drug addicts to chip in. Navjyoti also provides education and vocational training to girls.
What are the milestones in your career that you are proud of most? Your posting as traffic police chief created quite a rumble! You were rechristened Crane Bedi from Kiran Bedi!
I think if I go back, I must start with my post in district policing in 1980 where we introduced good policies in community policing. As a result bootleggers got reformed, and sales of illicit liquor stopped. These sellers switched professions. A criminal tribe sansi had been doing the liquor peddling since the British days and we managed to rehabilitate them, through counseling and winning their confidence. We received tremendous community support and that is key for the police in combating crime.
I think traffic in India has always been a challenge and at that time the 1982 Asian Games were coming up and we had to handle the traffic there. I had to also handle traffic at the Common Wealth Heads of Government Meet in Goa in 1983. I gave orders that any violators would be towed away and no one was spared, not even Mrs. Gandhi’s car which was found parked on the wrong side in Connaught Place. She however was not there at that time. I used to be up every day at 5 a.m. get my office work done and then by 8 a.m. I used to be out checking on any violations yelling into a loudspeaker addressing the motorists. At the end of the day I’d be croaking and had to get my throat massaged There were a large numbers of crane that were used to haul away violators and hence the name. The cranes were introduced for the first time, and the message was clear. We were cleaning up the roads and the law applied to every one equally.
You have come close to death twice. What goes through the mind of a cop who is also a woman and a mother?
What can you think? I had a close brush with death in 1979 when angry Akali Sikhs in hundreds rushed towards Rashtrapati Bhavan. I rushed towards them asking them to stop. We didn’t have enough officers. I just had my baton to deflect their naked swords. My officers beat a hasty retreat and I just rushed forward helmet in hand and my baton. In spite of receiving some blows I managed to push them back. Another time we were facing miscreants in the narrow by lanes of Delhi. They were throwing acid in bottles from above but they would somehow get deflected. I guess someone from above was watching over me. My family used to worry about my well being, but I had chosen to do this and I’m not the kind of person to back off. Of course you become vulnerable where your child is concerned and I went through my own trauma when they transferred me to Goa, after the traffic laws were strictly enforced and made some people at the top unhappy. My daughter was being treated for kidney problems and could not be moved from Delhi, but they wouldn’t let me stay on. I had not made any friends with my honesty, and had no connections in the upper hierarchy but I didn’t cave in even then. Somehow you find the strength within.
You’ve acted in a documentary and inspired many movies on women cops! There were also TV serials inspired by you. How was it facing the camera to act?
The cool thing is they have made sure even in the South Indian films where women are more curvaceous to keep the women cops slim! But they do better stunts than I have done in real life! Jokes apart, I feel really happy that they have shown all the women cops as police officers with integrity. Very rarely do you see a woman cop being portrayed as corrupt or violent. I hope that these characters inspired more women to join the IPS. It is incredible to see how many more women have joined the police force in the past 3 decades.
Today there is a total acceptance of women police officers in the urban centers. In the rural areas there is some curiosity, but at the same time they too have a lot of respect for women police officers.
“Real Salute”, where I acted, is a documentary on national integration. The idea evolved when the film’s directors happened to walk through a village in Gurgaon and saw the Indian flag, torn, and dumped in a garbage can. I play an aged rag picker who sees the flag and ripping her sari replaces the torn green portion of the flag with it, sews it up and hoists the flag up proudly and joyfully.
Looking at your national flag, the pride you feel evoke deep emotions naturally, so it wasn’t tough to emote.
Lets talk about your crowning glory- the innovative changes you made at Tihar Jail. It’s now called Tihar Ashram. It was supposed to be a “punishment posting”, since you had been treading on so many toes. A notorious jail with 11000 inmates, a woman IGP, and the rest they say is history!
Tihar was a continuation in my endeavors towards community, corrective and reformatory policing. I realized that all that I had done so far in different positions I could do in one community, in a township of criminals of over 10,000.
Ninety percent of the people in Tihar jail were under trials and the reforms we made never reached those under trials . The only reforms programs around the world are for people who have been convicted. The uniqueness of our program was that it was for any body inside the prison, whether he was there for 10 days or 10 years.
There were individual voices that protested the changes but they were drowned in the overwhelming acceptance of the reforms.
I still remember my first day in Tihar. There were prisoners in hundreds, looking subdued and silent. I had also heard someone had bitten the finger off of one of my predecessors, because he got too close. My first question to these people was-Do you pray? They did not answer. I asked again and then hesitatingly someone said yes. We sang Ae malik tere bande hum with closed eyes. I opened my eyes to find my fingers intact. A bond was created that day.
The reforms we introduced, inspired other states. These were not restricted by the budget, but were run by volunteers who were committed to changing the horrible conditions under which the prisoners were living. We had doctors, educators, and spiritual leaders, motivational speakers, counselors who came in and did their bit. Books were sent by publishers and schools. Vipasshana meditation was introduced in the jail. While I had not been into meditation, for me value based living was important. I believe the quest for value based living leads to higher seeking.
As a result, the families of Tihar jail’s prisoners have also benefited. Every day 500 new prisoners come into the prison and 500 go out. The meditation and education they receive here affects their family directly. The Indian legal system allows you to keep children with mothers until the age of 5, but then they are as much in prison as their mothers. The children start talking the foul adult language of murder and stabbing. So there is a direct correlation between environment and a child’s development. We started a nursery school for children outside the prison. Initially, they were afraid even to climb the bus. Until then, they had used spoons pretending to stab each other. The first thing they wanted to do, on waking up was kill an insect. They would also overhear conversations and talk to each other about how to present their case in court once they were arrested. When we took them to the nursery schools, they became normal children.
We had a community within the prison with two concepts in place. One was founded on the community outside the prison where NGOs and individuals came in to train the prisoners in meditation and to educate them. We had psychiatrists and other physicians carrying on the medical care of prisoners. We had volunteers handling festival management – painting, drawing and other creative efforts. Inside the community the prisoners themselves became the panchayat. There were elders in the prison who spoke well and the prisoners interestingly chose the better human beings among themselves to lead the panchayat. Somebody took care of educational duties, somebody took care of time management, and somebody took care of cleanliness. By delegating responsibility we built leaders. We were not leaving these prisoners alone. We were training them everyday to be better panchayat leaders, encouraging a sense of responsibility. No money was involved in panchayat. I never saw my work being beyond what I was supposed to do. All I did was deliver. My career however became my cause.
You went and met with heads of prisons in other countries. What did you think of the prisons abroad including the ones in the United States?
Well I went abroad initially to check whether what we had achieved in Tihar was something extraordinary or is the world ahead of us? We realized then that even in the mid nineties we were way ahead. I heard the Governor of California say a few months ago that the jails should allow volunteers in prisons. We did that in 1993 and America is still considering it!
I think the problem here is that for something like what we achieved in Tihar to happen, political will and a huge amount of public acceptance is required. That is not the case in India where we didn’t have to wait. Education, rehabilitation and community integration, anything that can help rehabilitation was encouraged by me, although even in India, it should have happened sooner. The westerners respect and admire our efforts a lot but also wonder where to begin and how to begin. They doubt if similar reforms in their own prisons are at all possible. Even in India it depends on how the institution leader defines reform. The individuals who are heading institutions and are supposed to define the quality of living come with their own agendas and that affects the institution. I believe more than IQ a good leader needs EQ and SQ(emotional quotient and spiritual quotient). While most of us have high IQs, we are very weak on EQ and SQ. We don’t communicate. We are hierarchical and egoistical. We don’t want to come down to the constable level. Our entire perception is affected by the kind of upbringing we have, the kind of books we read, the teachers who taught us, the neighborhoods we lived in.
We need to develop our discerning abilities. I believe that good quality individuals make good quality changes. If you are not one, all your technical qualifications won’t make a difference. Unlike others, I begin with imparting personal skills to my officers, like EQ and SQ, and then add the professional skills. What is critical is that a police officer has to learn how to be a human being first, how to respect human rights. The moment you sensitize them, they will not shoot to kill, they will shoot to defend.
Tell me about the petition box. That was a great innovation.
No prison has that internationally to this day. This was a locked mobile petition box, and only I had the key. The prisoners were writing to me directly. All the cops, the panchayat leaders knew, anything could reach me so they had to be on their toes. They could even write to me and say “Madam, even you misbehaved” if I messed up. I remember there was one prison I had not been able to visit for five days, because I was traveling and they put a note in the petition box asking why I hadn’t been there. So even I was accountable to them! Again, the petition box cost nothing. It was a wooden hand-held box that would be taken to the barracks and anyone sitting there could put in their comments or complaints. So 1100 people in the prison knew that the IG knew everything. The prisoners were surprisingly honest. I didn’t find a single misleading petition which would have put me off track. They understood this was being done for their well-being and I had no personal gains from doing this.
Several success stories came out of Tihar jail thanks to all these reforms. Would you like to share some?
There was a Japanese boy who never talked, never smiled. I used to walk the prisons everyday and read the faces of the prisoners. I asked what could be done to put a smile on his face. I was told by fellow prisoners “Madam, he loves the guitar.” We got him a guitar. He started to play. He changed and went on to become a musician. Last year I got a letter from a man in Kashmir who I had sent to study in the computer training program of the Indira Gandhi Open University in jail. He was now conducting classes in Kashmir in a study center which he invited me to inaugurate. Another prisoner is now one of Bombay’s most promising lawyers who helps rehabilitate people like himself. Another guy, a Norwegian, undertook the vipasshna meditation, went back to Norway and set up a meditation center. All of Norway is rallying around him. He is now a major media attraction.
How did you motivate the police officers around you? The life of a cop in Tihar jail isn’t exactly exciting.
I made sure they received a lot of recognition for their work. They got the credit in writing, and that built up their careers. I also addressed their insecurities. They were afraid of prisoners beating them up. I got security arrangements for their houses. Some wanted weapons. I issued them weapons and opened welfare centers for the children of police officers. A community welfare center was also opened for their wives to work to supplement the family income. This continues to this day in Tihar. The officers and their families also went for vipsshna training. There was a community center which was full of cobwebs. When I took over, the windows had disappeared, the glass had been broken. We cleaned it up. Today it is a vibrant community center for the kids. Tihar has an organization called TEWA – Tihar employees welfare association – which has now become a major organization. A playground was set up for children so they get away from criminal behavior. I could not, however, make a magic breakthrough in promotional policies. That area is still neglected. To boost their morale and motivate them we need more promotions, but that is beyond my jurisdiction and two years was not enough for me to make those changes.
Let’s talk about your stint in the United Nations.
Whatever I did in India prior to this assignment was of great benefit to me. Under this assignment I was deploying police officers in conflict zones in war torn countries like Liberia and others. The UN is a very organized entity. Here I learnt to conceptualize and plan better, to formulate and write better documents. I understood what international policing and peacekeeping standards are and realized that we were doing a pretty good job back home. I also learnt to respect what we have back home more. Our ordinary policeman back home may not have the high tech gadgets we see in affluent nations, but when it comes to training and the way we look after him, he is much better off than his peers in most developing nations. I’m going back to India with a lot more knowledge, international skills and experience.
Tell me about the India Vision Foundation.
I used the proceeds from the Magsaysay Award to establish the India Vision Foundation. The key focus of the foundation is to continue educating the children of prisoners, running schools in the slums, crèches for the children of women prisoners, vocational training, family counseling, and much more. We have received tremendous community support nationally and abroad, but so much still remains to be done.
If you knew then, what you know now, would you have done something differently?
I would have learned Sanskrit as a child so I could be reading the original Upanishads and Vedas instead of their English translations.