Special Police Force in Colonial Bengal

Contents: 1. The Dacoity Department of Bengal Police. 2. The Special Department of Bengal Police. 3. Extension of the Special Department. 4. The Special Branch of Calcutta Police. 5. People and the police. 6. The past and the present. Appendixes: i. Medical reports. ii. Court of the Dacoity Commissioner and his deputies. iii. History sheets. iv. Revised statement showing the present and the proposed cost of the Special Department, Bengal. v. Revised statement showing the cost of the scheme for the revision of the Special Branch, Calcutta. Bibliography.

"Police and government, as it is observed by the sociologists, \'could no more be separated than knife and knife-edge\'. More significantly, the police plays a vital role in the administration of justice and its work should be treated as precedent of the judicial process. On the contrary, the real success of the police largely depends on the extent to which it is able to secure public trust. But in a country under colonial rule, the government deliberately utilized the police force from the totalitarian outlook. It led the British Government to turn its colony into a rigid police state creating terror in the minds of the people. The book focuses on the period between 1852 and 1913 because evolution of the Special Police Force, after it brought the most \'agonizing time of trial\' for the Indian policemen as they had to raise arms against the Indian freedom fighters. The book is a critical study of the genesis and evolution of the Special Police Force during the period 1852-1913." (jacket)