Trained in psychology and economics. Over three decades across the desks of the Indian state, and a reputation, in each of them, for doing useful things in novel and more productive ways. The schemes, the books, the new one coming — set out plainly, for the desk on the other side of yours.
India loses an estimated USD 70 billion a year to a single administrative pathology — what the book calls the Inaction Gap: the distance between a decision being substantively ready and being formally taken. The book locates the problem on the desk of the Head of Office, and supplies the four-step C.O.P. Protocol — Clarity, Ownership, Protection — that closes it in ninety days.
No legislation. No new technology. No reorganisation. Reform that fits inside the office it means to transform.
"In our offices, caution is praised and decisiveness is read as indiscipline. The grammar of evaluation has, over a long period, made the careful officer the safe officer. We can change that grammar."— Foreword, Dr Shashi Tharoor
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The Sports and Physical Aptitude Test — designed to put a fourteen-year-old's athletic potential on a register the state could use. Adopted across Haryana and, in 2012, taken as the design template for the Government of India's National Physical Fitness Programme. I was, in this period, the first IPS officer in Haryana posted as Principal Secretary to the Government.
As IGP Hisar: range officers were directed to formally adopt high-crime villages in their jurisdictions for structured community engagement. An attempt to make the beat permanent.
Pairing range officers with elected village heads in informal settings. Trust, when it is built outside the station, has a way of holding inside it.
Three city-scale marathons in a single year. Hisar with around fifty thousand runners for the state's golden jubilee. Jind with around sixty thousand, in a winter morning. Panchkula's first edition with twenty thousand at Shalimar Grounds.
The open-streets civic programme. Public safety written as participation, not enforcement. Conceived at the Chief Minister's Office, where I was Special Officer for Community Policing and Outreach — the first IPS officer in Haryana posted to the CM's Office.
Three parallel programmes at the State Narcotics Control Bureau: a public Drug-Free Bucket Challenge, an escape-room model, and a drama mission. Communication run as a primary instrument of the bureau, beside investigation.
A short citizen-response protocol for online fraud — three words a banked citizen can hold in mind in the seven seconds before they click. Proposed as DGP; carried into the state's public communications.
A state policy position that, under specified conditions of demonstrable institutional failure, places the financial burden of online fraud on the bank — not on the citizen who has already lost.
At the Haryana Police Housing Corporation: green-building practices and net-zero initiatives in the state's police-infrastructure projects. The constable's home, written as climate work.
As DGP: stations recast as public-service spaces. Raised platforms removed. Direct internal communications in Hindi to all ranks. Roll calls, Monday parades, orderly rooms and bada khana revived. Outlook called it cultural transformation rather than procedural reform.
Set up the state's anti-cybercrime infrastructure and successfully operationalised Haryana's Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems. Haryana Police adjudged 1st among all major states in CCTNS implementation. Under the system, Haryana became number one in the country for recovery of money defrauded in cybercrime.
Contained violent criminals through a desperation-mapping model and a team-to-fugitive marking protocol — both designed to put a named team against a named offender, with measurable cycle times. Outlook called it a model for trust-based governance.
The DGP's public-safety announcements and podcast series, COPCast, accumulated over 250 million cumulative views across podcasts, interviews, and awareness campaigns. Internal polling placed approval of these announcements at around 95%. Digital reach used not as theatre, but as policing.
Public stand against social-media content that glamorises gangster lifestyles and the cultural drift around vehicles such as Thar SUVs and Bullet motorcycles. The remarks went viral; the police action that followed converted the public conversation into a state position with consequences.
On central deputation as Deputy Director of the Enforcement Directorate. Cases built in offices that do not produce press conferences; the file is the only memorial.
Deputation to a UN Mission in Italy — the international leg of a working life otherwise spent in Indian districts and secretariats. A vantage on policing and administration outside the cadre, brought back to the cadre.
Kaithal, Panipat, the Government Railway Police, Hisar, Jind. The years in which the working day began before the night-duty register was signed off, and the map of Haryana was drawn — district by district, road by road, station by station.
A fact-check of the world view that is largely shaped by television and the newspaper. The title borrows from the Kabir tradition — those who seek, find. Written for the reader who has begun to suspect that the framing of the headline is not the whole of the story.
Publisher's pageA beautiful piece of Hindi writing. Twenty-four chapters that open in the village and pass through schools, cities, and the corridors of administration — written with the patience and the cadence the language asks for. The volume that brought a wider Hindi readership to a working IPS officer's prose.
More on HauslanamaThe first book — on Indian sports policy, drawn from the Sports Director years. Launched in 2013 by Dr Shashi Tharoor, then Union Minister. The first Tharoor association; the foreword to the new book is the second.
More on Say Yes to SportsConversations bridging the public and the police
The DGP's own podcast and public-conversation series. Across COPCast, the public-safety announcements and the interviews, cumulative views have crossed 250 million; internal polling placed approval at around 95%.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
An extended conversation on the working life across the desks of the Indian state — district policing, sports policy, federal enforcement, senior command — and the argument the new book draws from it.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
The cultural-transformation account of the DGP tenure — public-service stations, the recall of gunmen, the revival of roll-calls — read alongside the book.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
Career, training, the schemes that worked and the ones that did not, and what the new book is trying to make ordinary.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
The Hindi conversation on the Inaction Gap, framed for the reader who has not yet seen the English columns. Plain register, long format.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
The book's argument worked through with policy thinkers — calmly, in a long format, with the Singapore parallel given its full length.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
The Fear Tax read as a development metric, the C.O.P. Protocol as a state-capacity instrument, the Singapore and UAE parallels examined.
Watch on YouTubeIn conversation
A wide-angle conversation across the working life, the books, and the reform argument the new one is built around.
Watch on YouTubeCurated by the author
An author reading, a chapter-timestamped clip, a Hindi short — depending on the cut. The full channel carries more of the same, including clips on the three coinages.
Watch on YouTubeA monthly note from OP Singh.
One office. One number. One move.
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