Real-life Singham gets candid

Former IPS officer K Annamalai’s memoir attempts to demolish the many notions about men in khaki that persist in the public mindscape.

Fearful. Tough. Inhuman. Corrupt. Emotionless.

Many feel these characteristics shape a policeman in India, the second most populous country in the globe. However, the book 'Stepping Beyond Khaki: Revelations of a real-life Singham' by former Karnataka-cadre IPS officer K Annamalai, attempts to demolish this stereotypical image of men in khaki that exists in the minds of many.

The book not just gives a sneak peek into the psyche of a policeman and the troubles he undergoes every day, but also makes a case for people to understand them — they are also humans like “you and me” — before judging.

In the 248-page book, the newbie politician — Annamalai is now vice-president of Tamil Nadu BJP and an aspiring legislator — does not mince words while talking about the rot within the system. How corruption is deep-rooted, nepotism is the order of the day, and the pathetic work conditions that ordinary policemen are exposed to day in and day out. Besides, the book also dwells on what ails the police department in the country.

Not always tough

Annamalai, in his candid best, breaks the image that policemen are always tough.

It takes great courage for a man who was known as 'Singham' (for his flamboyance and tough-cop demeanour) all through his nearly decade-long career as a police officer, to narrate incidents where he publicly broke down.

Some of these include being witness to a father completing the formalities of a police complaint even as the hospital staff were trying to stitch together the body parts of his son to “give a semblance of a human body”; standing outside the mortuary along with another father waiting to collect the lifeless body of his son.

“With his tears on my uniform, I just stood there, not knowing what to do,” he writes about the last incident. “I can still feel the mother's chilling look in my bones,” Annamalai says while narrating the emotions of a woman after she was told that they could only find the dismembered body of her five-year-old son.

Cutting red tape

He bats for cutting the red-tape in dealing with leaves granted to policemen for emergency situations, while explaining the “weekly off” system he re-introduced in districts where he worked, and why many do not like taking a break because they are “too used” to being on duty round-the-clock.

Narrating his “first brush” with corruption, Annamalai says the scene that unfolded at his office — when an old man quietly opened his bag and took out a Rs 500 note by saying “this is all I can afford” after the police sorted out a long-standing dispute he had with his neighbour who happened to be an ex-serviceman — “broke me.”

When Annamalai questioned the old man on why and who told him to pay, the answer was “both hilarious and food for thought” because, the old man replied: “if anybody, especially a government official, does any good work for him, he pays for it just like he pays for the electricity and the bus [fare].”

Writing in detail on the issue, Annamalai says most of the police postings are graded into four categories — “tough and income generating”, “tough and non-income generating”, "easy to work and income generating", and "easy to work and non-income generating”.

“This classification is based on the economical potential of the area and the nature of the policing challenges,” he says, adding that one of the “ugliest scenes” that one witnesses is the concept of local politicians deciding who gets posted to their district starting from the SP to sub-inspector. “Needless to say, money plays a huge role in getting the post,” he says.

Life-changing incidents

While recounting “life-changing incidents” like cracking the sexual assault-cum-murder of a young girl, Annamalai dwells on the amount of time and energy policemen put in to nab the perpetrators of crime and get them punished, not withstanding poor infrastructure and lack of adequate support from the system.

He also goes on to narrate how ordinary policemen, who are often ridiculed for being obese and not humane, inspire senior officers like him constantly. It took time for him, Annamalai says, to understand why many policemen are obese — irregular timings, unhealthy food, lack of sleep, and stress.

The former police officer also talks in detail about how senior officers do not stand up for their subordinates, and how they take away the morale of their men by suspending them for “non-issues” like not taking care of them “properly” while on official visit or “not saluting properly.”

The book bats for putting an end to criminalisation of politics as it gives out statistics and examples of how people with tens of criminal cases find place not just in political parties, but also get elected to legislative assemblies and the parliament with popular support.

There are some lighter moments too in the book like a local politician asking him politely to help him wriggle out of a situation by coming out of the station and telling his supporters, “you have heard me, and you will personally look into my request” though, in reality, he had admitted that his supporters were at fault.

Annamalai, who served as ASP in Karkala sub-division, as the superintendent of police in Udupi and Chikkamagaluru districts and as deputy commissioner of police (Bengaluru South) before he hanged his police boots, neither names the districts where he served while talking about both the pleasant and the unpleasant nor goes into much details about incidents that earned him people's wrath. He has also refrained from naming any political party or politician.

After all, he needs to be politically correct, now that he has changed the colour of his dress to white from khaki.