We spoke to Surendra Kumar Sharma, one of our PEN-members with a long career within international policing. Dr. Sharma is a retired Inspector General who has extensive experience with police and security reform in several post-conflict countries. In our conversation he offers some insights into his experiences with policing in a conflict setting from Afghanistan, as well as his experience of contributing to the ICT4COP project as a PEN-member. 

Surendra worked in Afghanistan for 1 ½ years. He described how they were trying to deliver according to the mandate in the war-torn country, which included contributing towards rebuilding the Afghan police force.  

“Afghanistan was a complicated issue. One thing is that it’s not a place for pessimists. You have to be an optimist, because things are bound to go around.” 

He explained that among the challenges they faced in Afghanistan was its police force not being a trained professional organization but comprised of people from very different backgrounds. Some had received policing education or training, but many also joined from the army, some were ex-combatants, and some did not have any experience at all or were either drug addicts or people who worked for warlords. 

“What was striking about Afghanistan, was that policing was not a career. Anyone could join, talk to the station, and then you could become an officer. It’s not how it should be or how it should function. In a serious scenario, what do you do? “ 

“What we tried to do was work around these situations. See, in every country there are people who have potential and want to do good things. Leverage their talent and try to see what project will work based on their experience.” 

He also explained the frequent change of people in command to be another related challenge. 

“At the ministry level, people were changed every 6 months. Among the ministers, there was no proper chain of command, it was handled by NATO, by the Brits, by the Americans, and when you have such sophisticated equipment, then they end up with people that are untrained to use it.” 

“That’s why we found that there were too many gaps, everyone wanted peace and wanted to train the police... It really struck us working on the ground there. We wanted to see what we could get out of it, however changing the whole system was beyond our scope, we couldn’t do that. You need politics for that, you wait for people to get educated and go to the police academy.” 

Surendra explained that him and his colleagues tried to work around the situation by focusing on the people and finding and building a common ground that everyone could work with. 

“So, we wanted to make the best out of what is available and see what we could deliver. That’s where it really helped, talking to people, making them realize that their security is in everyone’s interest and that everyone has to contribute. That was something that could have been achieved through community policing.” 

He said they also engaged with the women to find community-oriented solutions. This both revealed a different set of perspectives on the challenges facing the communities, but also gave the women a platform and a change to give their side of the story. Surendra made a final note about the intricacies of implementing community-oriented policing in different contexts. 

“In community policing we have a discussion on things that could be tried out, but because of political compositions, it’s not an easy thing because countries have their own policies and conditions. But the communities have less restrictions, because you deal with them directly, so it becomes slightly easier. It’s not an easy thing to do, communities sometimes have their own agenda, but with experience you can move the process forward” 

On a broader level, Surendra stated that as police experts, the aim is always to improve the country’s security scenario and to protect human lives and property, but that there is no ‘one-size fits all’: 

“As police professionals, we were trying to find a common card, deliver a mandate despite all the challenges. In each country the challenges are different, from conflict areas to post-conflict areas.” 

The experienced policeman explained that the challenges in each country are contextual, and they therefore require different approaches to achieve these goals. He said there are nevertheless some converging aspects that we can learn from if we are sensitive towards countries’ unique context. As a PEN-member, he used this insight and his experiences from Afghanistan and other post-conflict countries to contribute to the ICT4COP project. 

“In the last seminar we had, I was trying to outline that in these scenarios we have, it’s not just relevant for Afghanistan, but for most post-conflict countries. It has to be catered to the means of that country, in the specific country.” 

He also emphasized how the PEN-members had diverse backgrounds and working experiences that helped them better understand different approaches and best practices in post-conflict environments. 

“We all came from different countries, cultures, background, and trainings, and most of us had worked in different countries so we had a good combination of experiences. In the sense that we understood the challenges you have in certain areas with post-conflict environments.”  

Surendra explained that sharing experiences between each other resulted in an interesting learning experience for both himself and other members. 

“The experiences you have, you can draw on it, listen to it, and see what others have done in their countries, and see how it can be dissented to address specific countries. So, working with different experts in the project was great, they had enormous experience, so I think that was really interesting.” 

Surendra explained that sharing these experiences between members of the network was not only beneficial for the project but also for him as a police professional: 

“I think these are experiences that will help you to tackle these issues, and so many other things. You will be better as a professional, the more you’re exposed and discuss issues with people who understand what you’re talking about, the better you’d be equipped to deal with complicated issues. Dealing with these things gives me a lot of confidence.”