Mr. S. M. EDWARDES
This Committee, which met in the Secretariat, directed particular attention to the provision of properly equipped police stations, to the reconstitution and enlargement of the detective branch, hereafter to be known as the C. I. D., to the creation of a trained Indian staff for the investigation of crime in the Divisions, and to the numbers and personnel of the European and Indian branches of the force. The Committee came to the conclusion from the facts and evidence before them that in dealing with political crime and seditious movements, planned, promoted and carried out by an Indian intelligentsia, the police were handicapped by the absence of educated Indians in the subordinate ranks of the force, and that the investigation of ordinary crime by the divisional police suffered from being in the hands of an old-fashioned agency, which conducted its inquiries in a multiplicity of small and sometimes obscure chaukis and kept no proper record of its cases. Concentration of the staff in a definite number of properly-equipped stations in each division, and the inclusion in the force of a new cadre of Indian officers for the divisional investigation of crime were two obvious desiderata, upon which the Committee laid particular stress. They decided also that the time had arrived to place the C. I. D. under the immediate control of a gazetted officer of the Imperial Police, who would occupy the position of a Deputy Commissioner, leaving the existing Deputy Commissioner to deal with the divisional police and with the large amount of miscellaneous work requiring the attention of the headquarters staff. Proposals, of a more or less tentative character, were also made regarding the numbers, grading and duties of the European police, the recruitment of Indian constables, and the numbers and work of the Harbour, Docks and Mounted Police.
After drafting the report of the Committee and arranging for its submission to Government in October, 1908, Mr. Edwardes took leave to England. While there, he received an intimation from the Bombay Government of their intention to appoint him Commissioner of Police vice Mr. Gell, who proposed to take leave in 1909. He was at the same time instructed to visit Scotland Yard and study at first hand the organization of the Metropolitan Police. Armed with a letter from the Home Office to the Chief Commissioner, Sir Edward Henry, Mr. Edwardes accordingly spent some time in the early part of 1909 in acquainting himself with the distribution of work and the machinery for the prevention and detection of crime in a typical London police division, with the details of the Metropolitan beat-system, with the work of the constables’ training-school in Westminster, with the organization of the Finger Print Bureau, and with the staffing, equipment, structural features and general management of one of the latest and most up-to-date London police-stations. The knowledge thus acquired was of the greatest value, when his own proposals for the reorganization of the Bombay City Police were under preparation.
Mr. Edwardes assumed charge of the Commissioner’s office on May 7th, 1909, with Mr. R. M. Phillips as his Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent Sloane as head of the Criminal Investigation Department. The former was succeeded in July by Mr. Hayter, who made way in September for Mr. Gadney. The latter served as Deputy Commissioner until November, 1913, when his place was taken by Mr. O. Allen Harker, who held the appointment until after the expiry of Mr. Edwardes’ term of office. In pursuance of the recommendations of the Morison Committee, an additional appointment of Deputy Commissioner in charge of the C. I. D. was sanctioned by G. R. J. D. 3253 of June 8th, 1909; and, Superintendent Sloane having been promoted to the cadre of the Imperial Police and transferred to a district, the new post was given to Mr. F. A. M. H. Vincent, son of the former Commissioner of Police, who held it until the beginning of 1913, when he was appointed Deputy Director of Criminal Intelligence at Simla. He was succeeded in Bombay by Mr. F. C. Griffith, who remained in charge of the C. I. D. during the remainder of Mr. Edwardes’ term of office. Both Mr. Vincent and Mr. Griffith subsequently succeeded in turn to the Commissioner’s appointment. In 1914 a third appointment of Deputy Commissioner was sanctioned by G. R. J. D. 9249 of December 19th, 1914, under the style and title of Deputy Commissioner of Police for the Port of Bombay. Mr. G. S. Wilson was chosen for this post and became responsible, under the general authority of the Commissioner, for all work connected with the Harbour and Dock Police and the Pilgrim Traffic. This period thus witnessed the permanent appointment of three Deputy Commissioners in place of a single officer of that rank, and the consequent delegation to them by the Commissioner of much of the work which he had hitherto been expected to perform without adequate assistance.
Mr. Edwardes’ appointment was not received favourably at first by the members of the Imperial Police Service, who naturally felt some resentment at such a post being given to one who was not a professional police-officer. This feeling led to the submission of memorials on the subject to the Bombay Government, who were able without difficulty to justify their departure from the usual practice. The discontent also communicated itself to the rank and file of the City police, who during the first few months of Mr. Edwardes’ régime displayed a spirit of captious criticism, which was fanned at last by a few malcontents into overt disobedience. The movement culminated on January 7th, 1910, in the refusal of a certain number of Indian constables to receive their pay. The Commissioner, who had kept himself informed of the course of the movement, had arranged with the European officers of the Divisions what action should be taken in the event of open insubordination. The men who declined to accept their pay were therefore marched immediately to the Head Police Office and, after inquiry into their conduct, were dismissed from the force. This action completely quashed the movement, which was based upon no real grievance and was designed merely to cause trouble to a Commissioner, whose policy and plans they had been taught to regard with suspicion.
The strength and cost of the City Police Force underwent much alteration during this period of seven years, in consequence of the reorganization scheme prepared by the Commissioner. His proposals for the future constitution and character of the force, which were submitted in July, 1910, were sanctioned by the Government of India in September, 1911; but owing to very heavy work connected with the visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen in November of that year, the scheme was not actually introduced until the beginning of 1912. As early as 1909, however, certain changes were made in consonance with the proposals of the Morison Committee, and to meet emergent requirements, which resulted in an increase of the total number to 2,408. This total included additions to the Dockyard police, temporary sanitary police for service under the Port Health Officer, temporary constables for traffic-duty at various railway level crossings, and finally the revised strength of the C. I. D., which was fixed by G. R. J. D. 2708 of May 10th, 1909, at 1 Superintendent, 6 Inspectors, 7 Sub-Inspectors, 23 Head Constables and 41 Constables. In 1910 an additional Inspector was sanctioned for the Motor Vehicles department; and 9 Indian sub-inspectors, 3 head constables and 9 constables were added to the force, to enable the Commissioner to introduce tentatively in three areas the new divisional organization which formed the salient feature of his administrative proposals. Thus by 1911 the force numbered 2,505, which was equivalent to a proportion of one policeman to every 394 of population, and cost annually, inclusive of temporary police and contingent charges, Rs. 10,93,351. In 1913, when the reorganization was well in hand, the total strength of the force stood at 2,844 and cost Rs. 12,73,834; while at the end of 1915, a few months before Mr. Edwardes relinquished office, the total number, inclusive of a small temporary staff for watching transfrontier Pathans in the City, was 3,011, and the annual cost amounted to Rs. 13,37,208. The proportion of police to population at this date was 1 to 327, which compared unfavourably with the proportions in Calcutta and London. Had the Commissioner’s first proposals been sanctioned without alteration, the proportion of police to population in Bombay would have been far more favourable; for he had worked out a complete beat-system on the London model for the whole of the City. The number of men, however, required for this purpose was naturally large, and as the Bombay Government were compelled by the Government of India to restrict the additional annual cost of the force to 2½ lakhs of rupees, the Commissioner was obliged to jettison the beat-system and utilize the available funds in other directions, such as perfecting the divisional machinery for the investigation of crime, increasing the number of fixed traffic posts, and augmenting the inadequate pay of the European police.
This force of just over 3,000 men was distributed among the following divisions at the close of 1916:—
| Division | Sub-divisions or Sections |
|---|---|
| A | Colaba, Fort South, Fort North, Esplanade |
| B | Mandvi, Chakla, Umarkhadi, Dongri |
| C | Market and Dhobi Talao, Bhuleshwar and Khara Talao |
| D | Khetwadi, Girgaum, Chaupati, Walkeshwar |
| E | Mazagon, Tarwadi, Kamathipura, New Nagpada, Mahalakshmi, Jacob’s Circle |
| F | Parel, Dadar, Matunga, Sion |
| G | Mahim, Worli |
| H and I | Harbour and Docks |
| L | Head Quarters Armed and Unarmed Police |
| M | Mounted Police |
| N | The Government Dockyard |
and The Criminal Investigation Department (formerly the K division).
With the appointment of Mr. F. A. M. H. Vincent as Deputy Commissioner, C. I. D., and the increase in its personnel, the Criminal Investigation Department entered upon a period of remarkable activity. The staff was divided into four branches—Political, Foreign, Crime, and Miscellaneous—each in control of one or more Inspectors; work-books were introduced, which fixed responsibility upon individual officers for cases entrusted to them for inquiry and served as a check upon delay in the submission of final reports of investigations; a confidential strong-room was provided, and the card index system and upright filing of records were substituted for the old methods in vogue at this date in most official departments. In addition to the investigation of cases, some of the more remarkable of which will be mentioned hereafter, the department made confidential inquiries, often of a delicate character, into political, religious and social movements; it scrutinized plays for performance licenses, amending or rejecting those that were objectionable; it took vigorous action under the Press Act, confiscating on occasions as many as twenty-one thousand copies of proscribed books; it maintained a constant watch upon the arrivals and departures of steamers, assisted the Excise authorities, collaborated with the police of other districts and provinces, supervised and, if necessary, prohibited the songs sung by the melas at the annual Ganpati celebration, and performed an immense amount of confidential work in connexion with the Muharram. It also assisted or secured the repatriation of all manner of destitute persons stranded in Bombay, including English theatrical artistes, Arabs belonging to French territories, ladies from Mauritius, Bengali seamen, Pathan labourers expelled from Ceylon, and deportees from the Transvaal.