On donning Khaki

“Once, the police came to our neighbourhood after a thief broke into my neighbour’s house. I was so scared seeing them that I shut myself in my house,” recalls Fathima S, a class X student of Karthika Tirunal Government Vocational Higher Secondary School (VHSS) for Girls, Manacaud.

That was two years ago, a few months before the Student Police Cadet (SPC) project came along. Now there’s no room for fear of the police in her mind, especially since she led her fellow Student Police Cadets as Parade Commander during the second anniversary celebrations of the scheme held on August 2 in the city.

The Student Police Cadet project was started two years ago and implemented in 100 schools in the state. A school-based initiative by Kerala Police, it was meant to train high school students to be responsible future leaders and instill in them “respect for the law, discipline and civic sense.” In the first batch, 44 students were taken each from classes VIII and IX from a school. Grace marks and job reservations in the police for student cadets were recent developments and not what attracted these student cadets in the first place.

“It was not for marks that I joined, which was not there in any case, but for my own personal development,” says Arun R of Government Model Boys Higher Secondary School, Thycaud, who was in the first batch of student police cadets.

His classmates and fellow cadets Adarsh S and Asif Jan agree and add that their inherent fear of the police had also vanished after their enlistment as student police.

“Earlier, the very term ‘police’ would make me tremble in my shoes,” says Adarsh. “But during our time as cadets, we built a very good rapport with all the officers we met. They were very friendly and explained a lot of things to us.”

The special classes and talks by various officials conducted during the course of the summer camp held this year at the Kerala Police Academy in Thrissur provided some of their most memorable moments.

“I have it all written down in the diary they made us keep,” Arun says, eyes bright with excitement. “In one session, they told us about the history of the police. I did not know that earlier, in the times of kings, the police were mainly tax collectors.”

Apart from the parades, rides in police vehicles and interesting sessions by the Bomb Squad and Cyber Crimes unit, what the cadets enjoyed was their practical experience as law enforcers.

“We had traffic awareness sessions where two or three of us, accompanied by a police officer, would stop those riding two-wheelers without a helmet or car drivers without seat-belts on,” describes Asif. “We would request them not to drive without helmets on and hand them brochures. I think they took us seriously even though, or maybe because, we were kids.”

Adarsh was quick to chip in. "But some of them complained about hair fall and dandruff and headache as reasons for not wearing helmets. What can you do when people say such things?” he asks rhetorically.

But what Anjitha B A of Government VHSS, Manacaud took home was neither the lessons in bomb detection nor her experience as a cadet in crowd control during the Attukal Pongala.

“It is the sense of discipline that gets automatically instilled in us,” she says. “During the camp, we had to get dressed in five minutes and we had to be perfect - from properly brushed hair to polished shoes.”