Tide of Violence Against Public Servants: An Indian or Global Crisis?

A DISTURBING TREND has emerged recently across the globe: public servants - police officers, healthcare workers, teachers, and municipal officials - are increasingly becoming targets of abuse, battery, and assault.

- By Raghav Chandra

From physical attacks to verbal harassment, these worrying incidents reflect a growing aggression against those tasked with serving the public. In India, this issue is particularly acute, exacerbated by social tensions, organisational inefficiencies, and a culture of impunity. High-profile cases underscore the urgency of addressing this crisis to protect the integrity of governance.

Globally, assaults on workers can occur in customer-facing roles as for instance of airline pilots and cabin crew or more importantly for more frontline, public-facing roles as of the police, doctors, municipal staff, highway managers, and civil servants. In the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) programme, over 40,000 officers were assaulted while performing their duties in 2021, with over 30 per cent suffering some kind of injury and over 100 suffering fatalities. The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests saw instances of violence against police, as also the assault on officers during the Capitol riot on 6 January, 2021, where several dozen police officers were injured. The distinguishing feature about the United States is that the conviction rate is exceptionally high because cases of assault against public servants are pursued rigorously and monitored institutionally.