Policing in Practice: Security, Surveillance, and Everyday Peacekeeping on a South Asian Border

In December 2015, India's Intelligence Bureau (IB) organized its annual conference on policing. The occasion brought together directors general (DG) and inspectors general (IG) of police from across the country to a carefully chosen borderland site in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The conference is an annual gathering to review internal security and police organizational matters. Although it is usually held in the capital, New Delhi, the newly elected prime minister and leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided to shift the conference's location to more field-oriented spaces. The first two conferences after his election were in significant sites close to national borders: in 2014, the northeastern city of Guwahati was chosen for "increasing the morale" of the police forces serving in the politically and militarily sensitive northeast.¹ The following year, it was convened in the Rann of Kutch, on India's western border with Pakistan. A vast tented space was erected on the salt-encrusted desert that stretches from Kutch into Sindh, known as the "White Rann" after a successful advertising campaign emblazoned it on the tourist map of the region. The prime minister was in attendance on all three days of the conference, a fact noted as exceptional in the extensive media coverage accorded to an event that drew comment as much for its spectacular staging as for its agenda. Local and national newspapers splashed images of the prime minister and home minister taking a walk in the Rann, doing yoga with conference participants, taking a camel safari, and watching the sun set over a pink-hued horizon, "adding," as one newspaper reported, "a touch of glamour and spirituality to an otherwise straitjacketed event."² These officially released images were reminiscent of photos on tourism brochures for the annual festival in the Rann—the Rann Utsav.³ Against this picturesque and strategic backdrop, the prime minister emphasized the importance of "sensitive" policing, reiterating that the "police forces should establish strong links with local community [sic] and connect with people."⁴

On the ground, preparations for this star-studded event had begun well in advance in a village just outside the conference venue, some of whose residents already felt a deeply personal connection with the prime minister. A month before the conference, Miyan Husain's home in the village of Dhordo was abuzz with activity; he was the chief liaison with government officials and was overseeing a number of the preparations.⁵ Juggling two mobile phones as he fielded a stream of calls, he looked piercingly at me as he entered the room I was sharing with his sister Phupli and their niece Sofiya. We had been catching up on local news since my last visit. Looking at me intently as he tried to place me, he murmured, "I don't forget people" (main logon ko nahin bhoolta), but asked to be excused for his memory lapse this time due to his state of preoccupation. "You have a big event coming up," I said to him. "A very big (bahut bada) programme," he concurred. Four hundred tents had to be erected to accommodate the "VIP visitors," coordination with the IB was required to put in place an impregnable air-to-ground security blanket; local dancers had to be vetted and trained to put on a cultural show for the prime minister. But above all, he was "one of them," a fellow Gujarati, its one-time chief minister, and—as the residents of Dhordo saw it—someone with whom they not only had a "direct line" of communication, but a deeply personal connection. As Sofiya put it on another occasion: hamare gaon ki dua se woh Dilli pahuche hain (it was the blessings of our village that sent him to Delhi [made him prime minister]). Miyan Husain's family in particular, regarded themselves as deeply embedded within the security framework that considered itself responsible for maintaining the peace on this national border, even though they are Muslim residents whose containment constitutes a key element of India's citizenship regime.⁶ This article will...