Chance encounters with KPS Gill

Growing up in Punjab and Chandigarh, I had longed to meet the legendary DGP, Punjab, KPS Gill. Shortly after joining at Bathinda as ASP, under training, in November 1995, orders arrived for a formal call on the DGP.

The Director, Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, travelled with us to the PWD rest house, in Ropar. Gill came out to meet us. He simply asked our names and districts to which we were attached for practical police training.

When my turn came, I gave out that I was working in Bathinda for the past two weeks. He looked askance at the Director, PPA Phillaur, and asked whether Bathinda was a place for training for an IPS officer. He decreed that I should be in Amritsar by 9 am the next day. That his word had to be complied with dawned on me that day. From the rest house, I was sent straight to Amritsar. This brief encounter, in which I believed I had been noticed by him, had increased my confidence.

The second time I got to see him was in Patiala. I had been detailed for duty at the helipad at Punjabi University, Patiala, where the then Prime Minister was to land to inaugurate the Indian Science Congress. Gill had come to oversee the security arrangements.

As he was walking back towards his chopper, I saw that he had a book in his hand. I muttered within his earshot, somewhat sarcastically, ‘What has the Punjab DGP got to do with books!’ He turned around and walked up to me. With a finger pointed at me, he remarked, ‘Remember, gentleman, a person who reads is a person who leads.’

The fact that his leadership had its basis not in his position, but in his personality, was revealed to me during his farewell speech to Punjab Police officers in Chandigarh in January 1996. His tenure in service was not extended and he became an ex-DGP. In his speech, he suggested that senior police officers learn to make themselves irrelevant to their job and nurture leaders below them.

My last meeting with him, as SSP Ludhiana, in 2006, was more leisurely and revealed to me the spiritual aspect of his personality. It also led me to see my job and life in a new light. He stopped by at the Ludhiana police mess along with a set of friends from Los Angeles, who were making a documentary film.

Over lunch, I asked his friends what the documentary was about. They proudly said the documentary was titled In search of God. This ticked off Gill, who had been quiet so far. Questioning their presumptuousness in his characteristic monosyllables, he remarked: ‘God is a verb and not a noun.’

Gill would have turned 86 today!