Command,
and its obligations.

Most of what a metropolitan police force does is routine, and most of it works. The test of leadership is the small proportion of time when it is not routine: a communal flashpoint, a large crowd behaving unpredictably, a serious crime with an immediate public dimension, a security alert during a major event, or a natural emergency arriving on top of an ordinary working day.

In those hours the organisation cannot be redesigned. It can only be used. Whatever command relationships, communication habits and standing procedures were built in advance are what the force has to work with. That is why the real work of senior police leadership happens long before the incident.

Law and order is usually discussed as enforcement. It is more accurately understood as infrastructure — an enabling condition that other activity depends on, in the same way that activity depends on power supply or a functioning road network.

A city trades because contracts can be enforced and premises are secure. People commute because stations and streets are usable at the hours they need them. Festivals and processions take place because routes, timings and crowd limits have been negotiated and policed. Emergency services reach an incident because traffic can be held and a cordon can be established. Communities live alongside one another because disputes are contained early rather than allowed to become confrontations.

None of this is visible when it works. That is the defining difficulty of the portfolio: its success produces no evidence, and its failure produces nothing but evidence.

The composition of crime in a large Indian city has changed faster than most institutions can restructure. A significant and growing share of offences now originates outside the jurisdiction where the loss occurs, is committed through a device rather than in a place, and leaves evidence that is digital, perishable and held by a third party.

That shift changes what a police force needs. It needs officers who can recognise a digital offence when it is reported at a police station counter. It needs the technical capacity to preserve and analyse evidence in a form a court will accept. It needs working relationships with banks, platforms and telecom operators, because the material a case depends on is usually in their custody. And it needs channels through which a citizen can report quickly enough for the trail to still exist.

The Mumbai Police operates dedicated cyber police stations. Speaking to reporters after assuming charge as Commissioner, Deven Bharti referred to that capability directly.