IPS officer Vishwas Nangre Patil’s Win All Your Battles is an engrossing autobiography

Vishwas Nangre Patil, the Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Mumbai City, is best known for his role in the counter-terrorist operations launched after a series of deadly attacks orchestrated by the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba shook all of India, perhaps the world, in 2008. When I learnt that his book Kar Har Maidan Fateh was translated by Subha Pande from Marathi into English as Win All Your Battles, I promptly got myself a copy to read. I
wanted to know what the man who got the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry had to say.

As someone who has grown up in Mumbai, it is hard to forget those images of dead bodies strewn across multiple locations in the city but the tragedy that unfolded at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel remains in the foreground thanks to popular culture. Most recently, it was Sashi Kiran Tikka’s film Major (2022), starring Adivi Sesh and based on the life of Indian Army officer Sandeep Unnikrishnan, that revisited the devastating loss of lives in November 2008.

Patil writes, “Usually, the police arrive at the crime scene after the crime is committed, but here, the crime was taking place as we arrived and people were losing lives…not for a moment was I afraid of death or was shaken. I went ahead confidently and fought the terrorists to the best of my ability…My goal was clear: die or do for the country.”

I picked up Patil’s book curious to know what drives a person to take up a job wherein they put their life on the line to ensure that others can feel safe and sleep peacefully. I also wanted to give myself a chance to learn about life in the Indian Police Service even though I do not romanticize the uniform since many who wear it abuse their power to harass the vulnerable.

Patil’s book offers a window into the rigorous training that people have to go through before they are entrusted with the task of cracking down on crime. He writes at length about his days at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy after clearing the Union Public Service Commission exams. The trainees were expected to be “physically fit” in addition to being “well-versed in law, skilled in crime investigation and able administrators”. They were also taught to avoid the use of “third-degree methods to get a confession because these go against human rights.”

Apart from being the story of an officer, it is about how a young man from “Kokrud, a small, picturesque village nestled in the Sahyadris” grew into a confident person committed to serving his country. His first-person narrative is endearing because he is not full of himself. He makes himself vulnerable in the book, and shares how he met with challenges. He writes, “I used to feel a lot of anxiety in the academy. I was filled with an inferiority complex and felt suffocated in that environment filled with academic excellence and scholarly people.”

While the form is that of an autobiography, it could easily be classified as a self-help book because of the content. Patil wants to inspire, especially “youth from rural backgrounds” who tend to face “a lot of suffocation” when they make their way into “the steely framework of the Indian bureaucracy established by the British”. While “the unrestrained and independent existence that is on offer” has an aspirational quality to it, the same can be hugely frustrating. Some of his candid descriptions give the impression of etiquette training at a finishing school.

Patil writes, “Just as we had rules for behaviour, there were rules for conversation and dining. We were taught table manners. We were taught that we should sit only after the seniors and ladies were seated. We should not eat fast and lick our fingers. We shouldn’t gulp down water but sip it slowly.” If you thought that was enough, wait, there is a lot more coming up.

Patil and his IPS batchmates were instructed to avoid wasting food, eat small portions, not mix things on the plate, and not make sounds with their mouth or read the newspaper while eating. He adds, “We shouldn’t look for good chicken or mutton pieces during a buffet. We must not burp and if we do, we must ask to be excused.” In addition, they were told to “speak politely about positive things” and avoid commenting on the food after the meal was over.

If you are wondering whether this book is too serious for your taste, sample this anecdote: “Grilling physical training earlier in the morning followed by a sumptuous breakfast made it difficult to sit through the boring theory classes with our eyes open in the air-conditioned classrooms. Many of my classmates would be snoring with their eyes open.” When the administration got a whiff of what the back benchers were up to, the ACs were uninstalled. The book is peppered with quotes from and references to writers like Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Pritam, Viktor Frankl, H.W. Longfellow, Kalidasa, B.R. Ambedkar, Jyotirao Phule, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Upamanyu Chatterjee, and Pablo Neruda. Patil also draws upon Bollywood films such as Anand (1971), Sarfarosh (1999), Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001), Chak De India (2007), Toilet Ek Prem Katha (2017), Pad Man (2018) to connect with his readers. His friend, actor Akshay Kumar, has written the book’s foreword.

My favourite part of the book is where Patil gives us insights about the “daily work pressures and stress” that police officers have to deal with. It challenges stereotypes from films that portray them either as heroic and superhuman, or as corrupt and sadistic. Patil acknowledges that “even the senior officers lose their inherent sensitivity with time” and that those who wear the uniform often lose “their relationship and exposure to the arts and finer things in life.” This is not a rant but an effort to show what things look like behind the scenes.

The tone of the book is elder-brotherly because the author’s aim is “to guide my younger brothers and sisters in their lives”. He wants them to learn from “the knocks” that he faced, and the “solutions and cures” that he found. I have not read the original book in Marathi, published by Mehta Publishing House, so I cannot say much about Pande’s skills as a translator, but the English translation published by HarperCollins India is worth reading.

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist and educator who tweets @chintanwriting

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