Practitioner-scholar · Governance & policing

O. P. Singh

The 41st Director General of Police, Haryana.  Indian Police Service, 1992–2025.

Thirty-three years inside the Indian state — now writing to put honest arithmetic where the headlines won't, and to build systems that hold order by consent rather than fear.

The new books ↓ What I write about
O. P. Singh in Director General of Police uniform
O. P. Singh

Yesterday, in India, seven billion things did not go wrong. Order, when it works, is invisible — and for thirty-three years, counting the exceptions was my job.

O. P. Singh

New & forthcoming

Wisdom Tree · 2026

I wrote both books for the people who run the state — to help heads of office acquire decision velocity, and to make India a fast state: one that draws capital and talent from around the world, and keeps them. I write, too, to counter the motivated and ill-informed content that sets out to show India in a bad light.

The Fear Tax — cover
Forthcoming
The Fear Tax
Foreword by Dr Shashi Tharoor

Why capable officers stop deciding — and how to build the Fast State. The hidden cost of a state that withholds its own decisions.

Read the free chapters ›
The Audacity of Order — cover
Forthcoming
The Audacity of Order
"Rewriting the police playbook." — Outlook

Policing a young, connected India — a doctrine in five pillars, with an agenda for the decade and twelve field cards to carry.

Explore the book ›

Watch

A minute with each book
The Fear TaxIn the author's hand · five minutes
The Audacity of OrderAn illustrated tour · 77 seconds

In the press

Selected writing & coverage
O. P. Singh signing files at his desk, in Director General of Police uniform Outlook Why Capable Officers Stop Deciding By O. P. Singh · 13 June 2026 O. P. Singh in uniform, addressing the press Outlook India Is Paying a Fear Tax: We Should Talk About It By O. P. Singh · 6 March 2026

More coverage as the books reach the shelves.

What I write about

The recurring ideas
The Fear Tax
What a nation loses when capable officers stop deciding.
Decision Velocity
Order is also a matter of speed; a slow state is a failing one.
Rational Abdication
How caution becomes the safest career move — and the costliest public one.
The Quiet Compact
Order as an unspoken pact among strangers not to prey on one another.
Order by Consent
A feared force is blind; only a trusted one can see.
The Outcome-First State
Measure what was delivered, not what was filed.

Also by O. P. Singh

Previously published

About

O. P. Singh spent thirty-three years in the Indian Police Service, and now writes about the work from the inside.

He joined the service in 1992 and retired in 2025 as the 41st Director General of Police, Haryana. Along the way he worked on field policing, cybercrime and economic offences, on sport and administration, and in the Chief Minister's Office; he served on a United Nations mission and at the Union finance ministry, where he had a hand in India's early anti-money-laundering rules.

Trained in psychology, economics and English literature, he writes for the general reader — and, through that reader, for the policymaker. His subject is the part of governance that rarely makes the news: how order is actually held, and why it more often fails from caution than from malice. He is the author of Say Yes to Sports, Hauslanama and Jin Dhoondha Tin Paaiyan; The Fear Tax and The Audacity of Order follow from Wisdom Tree.

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