India, Aug. 9 -- India's police still function under a law written for a colonial power to control its subjects, not a republic to serve its citizens. The Police Act of 1861, drafted in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising, remains in force in large parts of the country. In 2006, the Supreme Court, ruling on a petition filed a decade earlier by former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh, issued seven binding directives ordering every state to insulate its police from political interference - fixed tenures for top officers, security commissions to buffer the force from the government of the day, and a clear separation between investigation and law-and-order duties. Nearly two decades on, compliance across most states remains cosmetic at best. It...