Exposing Discrimination

The case filed by former prisons officer, Khimraj Bissessar, against the State for discrimination lasted an entire decade. I remember the first visit from Mr Bissessar like yesterday.

He was a tall, well-built man, full of energy. He was broken and depressed because he had dared to articulate his ambition to aim for the post of Commissioner of Prisons, and was ridiculed and told: “No Indian will ever see that position.”

He was lecturing, in the training college, to junior officers whom he would, later, have to salute, as he was constantly bypassed for promotion without explanation. The racial imbalance in the protective services (Army, Police, Fire Service and the Prisons Service) is glaringly obvious.

This may not be because of racial discrimination, as historical, political and cultural factors are relevant.

In recent times, the photographs of applicants for these jobs have been published, and it shows that few Indians applied for these jobs. Assuming that these are pictures of all the people who applied (as opposed to those short-listed for recruitment), then the myth of the discrimination against Indians in this area is baseless. This does not, however, mean that the State can simply fold its arms, as diversity is considered essential in a nation’s protective services.

The London metropolitan police service introduced ethnic monitoring policies and racial minority programmes to ensure racial diversity in the police service. The research data showed that there were good reasons to explain why ethnic minorities were not applying. For example, the interview panels were all white, recruitment centres seldom targeted minorities, and the careers of the few non-white officers were stifled by covert and institutionalised racism. The signal sent to non-whites was that they were neither welcome nor wanted.

Bissessar’s experience sends a similar signal. He endured 15 years of discrimination, and would probably have been the country’s first Indo-Trini Prisons Commissioner, but hit a glass ceiling that he was unable to shatter. A letter was secretly placed on his file to say that he could not be trusted and had no integrity.

The PSC (then chaired by Kenneth Lalla) unwittingly facilitated and perpetuated the discrimination against Bissessar by making subsequent promotions on the advice of the Prisons Commissioner, without even bothering to advertise the vacancy, as required by law, far less consider Bissessar.

Bissessar’s experience shows that cries of racial discrimination are not always imaginary. The recent reform of the promotion system in the Police Service was supposed to have paid heed to the need for diversity in the evaluation and evaluation panels. This has, sadly, not occurred, with the result that many Indian officers have been complaining that the panel is biased and naturally favours non-Indian officers.

This flies in the face in the ten-year-old recommendation by the Centre for Ethnic Studies, which confirmed that Indians were grossly under-represented in the public service, that the interview panels and examination boards should strive for some measure of racial diversity, to give the appearance of fairness.

At present, there are rumours that senior officers have been secretly giving sensitive information about the evaluation exercise about the areas in which the candidate would be tested. The conspiracy theory is that this is leaked to ensure that the status quo is preserved. We can’t afford to flippantly dismiss this.

The vulnerability of the integrity of the examination and promotion process was recently exposed, when it revealed that promotion exam papers had been leaked. Unlike the CXC scandal, no one has been arrested and charged. To whom were the papers leaked, and why? Why has the matter not been fully investigated? Why the cover up?

Whilst merit and ability must never be sacrificed at the altar of racial expediency, the State must be sensitive to the perceptions and concerns of racial discrimination in the protective services. Data collection is necessary to inform government policy in this area.

Thus, for example, there may be an equal number of Indian police officers in the lower ranks of the Police Service. There are, however, none on the executive of the Police Service, and few in the hierarchy.

I am not to be misinterpreted as advocating recruitment or promotion based on race, as opposed to merit and ability. What I am against is discrimination of any kind that may be secreted and flowing in the veins of State institutions that stifle merit and ability because of one’s race, gender, disability, religion, political persuasion, creed, or colour.

By Anand Ramlogan 2008-10-12