I can live Khaki or any other color uniform. What bothers me is the Big Belly of Indian Policemen. Why most of them are 6 month pregnant ? (LOL)
Seriously, Indian Policemen need a lot of lentils (Daal), Yogurt (Dahi) and Milk in their diet along with good amount of physical exercise to shrink the Pot Belly which gives them a lazy and stupid look.
Anyone over 36 inches of belly should be put on suspension until belly fat comes down below 36 inches.
Also, they should be trained to stand straight and not hunched.
A common cop below the rank of Dy. SP or AC, normally pulls duty of 12 hours or more on average. They hardly get time to rest or spend time with family, let alone excercise. Almost none of their police stations are equipped with minimum excercise equipments. The terribly low number of cops that almost every state has means the work pressure is immense, not counting the political shenanigans they have to face on a daily basis. Also, their salary is pitiable.
All compounded it means an average cop lose morale soon after they join the forces. Add in the common perception of the people about them being corrupt in general. I have seen even a morally upright officer soon loses his initial urge of serving fast. The stop giving a damn.
A stressful life without urge to perform better and lack of proper diet and rest along with excercise, means the cops cannot have a healthy disposition. Easting whatever is available whenever there is time, does not help any.
There are good cops and in large no. too. But unless their moral is boosted and their life is made less stressful, nothing's gonna change.
The need of the hour is not change of uniform. Although the shirts do need to be made of normal shirt cloth. The thick pant material saps the energy fast in summer. The need of the hour is to make the police force an independent body with minimum opportunity for the political meddling.
changing uniform of policemen wont make much impact. Need to check the eligibility of policemens for every three years and need to assign responsibilities based on their current eligibility. Nowadays i used to see most of them are not elligible, they got huge belly. i even notice a policemen cant even able to walk. what they gonna plugh for the citizens they used to rob us by corrupting the Country.
The mandatory fitness criteria should be applicable, but only after necessary reforms like proper no. of recruitment, more humane working hours, provision for excercise equipment and proper diet is made available within the stations.
You would see the glaring difference of the fitness level between the state cops and Central police forces. It is only because central forces are not only more disciplined but also the authorities do take care of the needs of the central forces unlike the states.
Motivation is the key here. If the troops know the authorities care for them, and they would not be treated like rag shots, their willingness for the job will increase automatically.
Also, a much needed reform is restricting the IPS numbers. If the cops are promoted from lower rank and if they know their hard work can lead them to higher rank, they would be more motivated to do good work and be willing to be more honest. Let alone Constables, the officers joining as Sub Inspectors or Inspectors get very few promotions. But these are the officers with more ground level knowledge learnt from sweat and blood, unlike the IPS, most of whom are used to air conditioned offices.
More important than uniform would be mandatory body cameras all across India. Without video evidence, don't believe anything that comes out of a cop's mouth.
They wrote a ticket for not wearing seatbelts? Video evidence or GTFO. And fucking release their income tax returns and keep track of disproportionate assets with an eagle eye.
A Punjab Police hawaldar showing up in a 10 lakh car? Yeah, that is shakedown money.
On the flip side, take care of the cops and fix their salaries so that an honest cop can make a decent living, provide healthcare etc.
Police reform is badly needed in India.
Body cameras and body armours for every cop won't happen at least for a decade. The economy simply is not there yet. The first requirement is more qualified and well trained cops with minimum necessary equipments. Can you believe even in cities the cops' main weapon is rifles, instead of small arms? They don't have the no. of vehicles required or the quality of the vehicles required. In WB the scenario is far worse. Here the cops' are given their due uniforms or boots even!
Improve the salary, make promotions, give them amenities - and a newer and more vigorous police force with more sensibilities will be there to serve the people. In fact that will attract more qualified youth for the job! Nowadays alarge number of the people attracted to the job are under qualified as well as have less than optimum moral righteousness.