ABSTRACT
Post-colonial India did not invent a police congruent with its democratic ethos and aspirations. The tensions inherent in a dialectic between a politically empowered people endowed with inalienable human rights enshrined in its fundamental statute - the written Constitution and a system of policing designed to evoke reflexive fears of the authority among the people, fears that inhibit the people in exercising those rights and thwart their aspirations - are manifest in myriad conflicts sporadically erupting in the country.
