Perils of a Profession – a Review

by Lalin Fernando

After reading Shamindra Ferdinando’s sparkling review (Island Jan 13 with a follow up a week later) of retired Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Merril Guneratne’s third book, ‘Perils of a Profession’, this may appear to be like shoveling salt into the sea.

No gazetted police officer has shown his ability to write as lucidly as Guneratne to highlight the real concerns of the police from professional competence to welfare of the beat constable.

This book is both outstanding and timely. There has been a slow and steady deterioration of the police service, arguably since 1977, and possibly before. The nadir was reached when the police high command on April 4, 2020 did not act on actionable operational intelligence within the standard 12-24 hours. Consequently it was unable to prevent or even minimize the Easter Sunday massacre on April 21, 2019 that resulted in 259 people, mostly at worship in Catholic churches, being killed. Clearly the evolving trend made such criminal dereliction of duty inevitable.

The concerned IGP, SDIGs DIGs by this outrage dishonoured, disgraced, perverted and shamed the service as never before. Their only concern together with President Sirisena was to distance themselves and save their skins. Their subordinates following customary practices falsified Information Books and other documents at police stations to support their seniors and thwart the search for truth. There were few tears for the dead.

In 1990 a spineless IGP relayed an order from a minister for the police to surrender to the LTTE in the East. It was the most reprehensible act in police history. Six hundred Sinhala and Muslim policemen were murdered by the LTTE. The IGP, the Minister and the President responsible were not censured and remained unrepentant.

Pointedly, no senior police officer before SDIG Guneratne has at least commented on these or other disgraceful and disgusting events in a force that traces its history from 1866. Nor was there any attempt at departmental or Government correction. Apparently it suited the police top brass to toe the line with errant politicians. The public must however know why Guneratne blew the whistle.

He, recognizing the growing malignancy spent much of his 35 years of service from 1965 in attempting to stem the tide. He bucked those who did otherwise and their patrons. This may be why he never made IGP. He however set an unenviable example in whatever domain he was given, leading by example, without fear, bias or seeking rewards. In retirement he wrote two books before this one to sound the alarm. This book is probably his last attempt to generate a change.

However a morally contaminated and corrupt counter culture had taken deep root mainly, but not confined, to the senior command alone. Much of it was about servility to the politicians by bending the law, compromising on duty, gathering the harvest and promoting their own careers. Public perception, the careers of the rank and file, the Inspectorate, the back bone of the police, and self respect mattered little to them.

This is a fascinating and enjoyable book. It is an eye opener to all professionals. Hopefully it could also help the new Minister in charge, to make a sea ichange in the police. He has vowed to refloat them

It is definitive, witty and elegant. It is also hard hitting and controversial, sparing few. It reconstructs law and order situations brilliantly. It will shock those who did not know that the best are those who meddle and ask tough questions and not those who are silent or appease. It could serve as an example on police high command.

It is replete with examples and connects performance with consequences. It is strict and demanding if unforgiving. He believed that those who fail to meet the challenge should be sacked. With devastating analysis it explores much that is wrong in the police-political relationship that appears to be the key to the existing malaise.

While it is unlikely that a tidal wave of books on the police may follow, one hopes that this book will encourage those in the service or who have retired to emulate the author in writing on similar themes, for the benefit of the public and the police.

It also poses the question –who should run the service, the National Police Commission (NPC) that had little if not negative impact or an IGP with wings clipped, sans vision or mission.

The NPC had two retired police officers as members. A conflict of interest was bound to arise. Brain dead recommendations followed. One was to give retired IGPs and SDIGs a ‘valet’ service of serving policemen with a captive inspector in charge. The ludicrous reason alluded was to give them ‘dignity’ in retirement! Another was to promote them to a rank higher on retirement. The tragedy and overwhelming shame of Easter Sunday hung featherlight on the NPC.

The scheme to enlist graduates as gazetted police officers (ASPs) has been found seriously wanting. Apparently this scheme followed the earlier Defence Forces experiment which however was found unsatisfactory and discarded over 50 years ago. The KDU was raised instead. The author, himself a graduate entry, controversially and seemingly in desperation recommends graduate probationers join as sub inspectors and learn the nitty gritty on the job.

This book has just 136 pages. It could be used as a primer for those who would wish to restore the public trust in the police where effectiveness, respect, courage, commitment, integrity and fear of doing wrong matter. Corruption, ineffectiveness and favouritism have to be battled.

Both the new minister and the public must however know that the problems posed have no easy solutions. The police reflect society and not the other way round. A corrupt society will unerringly have a corrupt police service. The police does what the public expects it to do.

This book is also about the author. He is as much at home with the survival of the policeman on the streets, or as their commander in the field dealing with threats to public order as at operational high command with a flair for intelligence operations or even dealing firmly and tactfully with politicians. With the breadth of his knowledge, a lifelong passion and overwhelming concern for integrity especially at the top and the very future of the Police, this book could serve as a primer for Police reforms.

The book projects an image of a highly effective, successful, honest and courageous man with tremendous integrity and character who knows instinctively what is right and does it. In a crisis he does not wait for superior orders to cover himself or for absent subordinates to avoid a challenge. He takes over both point and general command as at Kelaniya University in 1978 to prevent a powerful minister with four busloads of goons from storming it. To have done so he had not only to be absolutely sure of his interpretations of law, police procedure and his duty but also have implicit faith in his own judgment if force was used. He did not fear criminals or powerful politicians in any guise or racist mobs as at Alutgama.

He was ambitious but not a ruthlessly so as he showed even when his own promotion was concerned. He had passion and vision. He inspired. He was innovative. He was even handed and yet authoritative.

The Police hospital, his most enduring and monumental legacy, showed his tremendous concern for the rank and file and his capacity as and all round administrator. Like much else the facilities here too were disabused later by the top for their own selfish benefit. There is need for reform and urgent improvement both in its administration and management. Thankfully the new Health Secretary, the former Director General of the Army Health Services, has committed himself to doing so.

Guneratne is well rounded personality who is also a cricket aficionado. He is charming and generous to a fault. The book is garnished with a profusion of photos but typically more of others than of him. He praises those he crossed swords with and remembers exemplary officers with affection and respect. But there is no rhetorical exaggeration.

Interestingly this SDIG is far better read on military affairs than most military men. He is stirred by the life and deeds and especially the phenomenal administrative skills of Napoleon. Field Marshals Manekshaw and Slim are also icons of leadership to him. Stalin and Hitler he considers as studies in terror. Eisenhower impressed him but not MacArthur. Is it any wonder that he recalls his foray as a subaltern in the SL National Guard with nostalgic pride? The question must be why he then joined the Police and his brother Harsha enlisted in the Army, eventually.

Who would have taken the decision to use the STF at Ansell Lanka when a hostage drama unfolded at the FTZ Biyagama in August 1994? The hostage takers threatened to kill the 12 Australian staff. He called their bluff despite the concerns of the Australian High Commissioner, present on the spot. They surrendered in great haste. Had it gone wrong it may have turned very ugly. Here was a man who was willing to take calculated risks and face whatever consequences that followed.

What if someone like the author was IGP when the FTZ Katunayake or Rathupaswela unrest broke out, or on Easter Sunday or when rioting broke out in the North West Province one month after Easter Sunday 2019 shaming both the police and the Army? Maybe this book would then not have had to be written.

(The reviewer is a retired Major General of the Sri Lanka Army)