I DON’T have a good understanding of the current demand for police officers in the marriage market in Bangladesh. Such demands — like all demands in all markets — change over time.
I had a friend who was also my classmate during my college years. She used to say that she would never marry a police officer. However, she ended up marrying one upon finishing her university education. This police officer was also a friend who left this world a few years ago. As I write, I remember him with respect and pray for him.
Writing about the marriage market potential of police personnel would be intriguing. However, putting it aside, I would like to talk about their professional practice. As an outsider, I can’t pretend to know how the profession works, what unwritten rules or norms they abide by, or what kind of people join the police force and for what reasons or motivations.
Furthermore, my writing about policing is not a neutral choice. It was influenced by media coverage. Specifically, an opinion piece by professor Shamsad Mortuza in another English newspaper last month inspired me. Shamsad Bhai ‘mediatised’ the story of a schoolteacher who was beaten by the police. The teacher was a member of the ‘Leaders of the Alliance for Nationalisation of MPO-Listed Educational Institutions’ who protested in the streets of Dhaka. They demanded higher job benefits, including a housing allowance. The teacher in question was heard saying, ‘Sir, don’t beat me. I am a teacher’. Shamsad Bhai’s analysis digs the ‘paradox’ in the teacher’s cry.
I don’t know what the uniformed people policing the teacher said in response. I also wonder what went through their minds when the teacher made that appeal. As students, had they been beaten by their teachers in primary or secondary schools? If so, was this an opportunity for them to pay back? This supposed repayment is not only physical; it’s social and discursive as well. As students, they must have addressed their teachers as ‘sir’; they were now returned that address form of power and respect.
Fortunately, physical punishment is now illegal in Bangladeshi schools. We may want to give credit to the Hasina government for stopping the age-old caning practice. However, before we do so, we need to remember that it is the same regime which set the police against people in unprecedented ways. What was stopped at school through policy was intensified in the street. The police heightened what the teachers ceased to practise in the classroom.
Police torture of people existed in the past. However, it crossed all limits during Hasina’s rule. The climax of the police terror was marked by their violent actions just before her fall in August 2024, when hundreds of students were shot dead or injured all over the country in incredible ways.
Both teachers and the police receive negative media coverage across societies. Over 10 years ago, some colleagues and I conducted a study on the media representation of teachers in Australia, Bangladesh, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. Our analysis showed that teachers and their jobs received negative portrayals in selected newspapers in these countries.
The police are likely to attract even less media sympathy compared to teachers. However, this media representation is relational. If the police are involved in an alleged physical torture, shooting, or killing of immigrants, Palestinians, African Americans, indigenous people, and Muslims, the media story coming from certain countries may follow a particular pattern. We just need to consider the police actions in the West in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. We may also be reminded of police behaviours against Muslims in the ‘largest democratic country’ in the world. Indeed, racial discrimination is now an issue associated with the police and policing in many parts of the world.
Like all professionals, most police personnel do most of their everyday work in responsible and ethical ways. Citizens enjoy the fruit of their labour in the form of safety and security. However, their good work remains invisible most of the time, as it may not be newsworthy. They attract media attention when there are deviations from good practices. It is deviations rather than norms that drive media interest.
Having said all that, what I don’t understand is the nature of agency in violent police action. It’s not easy to unpack the concept of agency. It has many meanings and takes many forms and manifestations. Essentially, agency is what drives action, judgement, or practice in a specific field.
There is no denying that when police personnel lathi charge people or perform other violent actions on them for whatever reasons, they do so under instructions from their superiors. Does that mean that such actions are entirely command-induced, in which the police persons are mere instruments of physical torture? Should we understand such acts as fitting the pattern of order-compliance without the mediation of human agency?
Such ‘reluctant’ or passive actions without human agency are likely to be role-playing acts. As such, these actions should be underpinned by a lack of authenticity and commitment. The underlying rationale may go something like this: ‘I am beating unruly people just because I have been asked to do so; I don’t have anything personal against anyone.’ However, we know from experience that violent police action indeed hurts, causes pain, and sometimes even kills. Role-playing actions might not have such effects or consequences.
The second point that I would like to touch on is the paradoxical relationship between violence and peacemaking, which is at the heart of the profession. The origin of the police force for maintaining order and peace has a long history. However, the introduction of modern policing is attributed to Sir Robert Peel, who is called its father. In 1829, as British Home Secretary, Peel established the London Metropolitan Police Service with the principles of crime prevention, public cooperation, and minimal deployment of force.
Colonial rule brought policing to colonised territories, where it deviated from the ‘Peelian’ principles in significant ways. Policing was inherited as a colonial legacy in postcolonial societies, without decolonising it. The history of policing during the Pakistani era and in independent Bangladesh makes us question if the force has truly worked for people. But what is probably unquestionable is that the force has almost always worked as a coercive arm of the government in power. The July 2024 movement reached the climax of police oppression in the history of the country when it broke all rules and norms. They killed and injured hundreds of people to protect an autocratic regime.
How effective is the use of violence to prevent violence and establish peace and order in society? In a way, this is ironical. There may be double standards. Those who are supposed to stop violence are allowed its exercise. Where is the social, moral, or educational significance of the approach? Shouldn’t we expect that the police should practise what they preach?
Police violence on protesting people is unacceptable during the interim government. Police persons swooping on teachers and other professionals and students tell us that they haven’t learnt lessons as a profession from their experiences during the past regime. This learning was essential for the government as well. How can it condemn the previous government if they use the same forces and strategies against its citizens and their civil rights?
Teachers may not have to take to the streets in more democratic societies. They can communicate their messages to relevant authorities through various other worthy means. We are far away from reaching that level of civility or norms, but at least we can afford to let them go to the streets and place their demands. Teachers or other professionals are unlikely to run amok and cause public terror, demanding violent police intervention.
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Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He researches language, education, and society in the developing world. He is a co-editor of Current Issues in Language Planning.