 Patriotism was so strong in my nerves and my entire system that policing attracted me. And I remember once I overheard my father, there was a poor woman who came to my father and said, can you help me? Dad said, what? He said, my husband has been picked up by the police. He's been locked up for a false allegation. Can you help get my husband back? She was our milkmaid. My father said, sure, if what you're saying is true. She said, I swear, I am speaking the truth. The police wanted some money, but we did not give them the cost of it. So my husband has been taken away. My father spoke to the superintendent of police in the city of Amritsar. And the next day the man was back. I was about to wonder, what magic? This is magic. That means if you're a senior cop, you can arrest, you can undo the injustice. Oh, great. That's the place to go. Continue to undo the injustice. It wasn't to do injustice. It was to undo injustice. And it struck me that if this is the most powerful way to undo injustice, that's the place where I've got to go. So the somebody started to go around in my mind. I sat for an all India civil services examination, qualified. There were thousands who sit for that exam in the Indian bureaucracy. And finally very few, sometimes just 40, 50, get selected. I got selected in the Indian police service. And when I made it, it was just great. It was fun because my parents knew I was going to the right place. My friends also knew I was going to the right place. But the world around said, Oh God, what do we do with a woman now in the Indian police service? So I was under training and I then realized I was going to be the first woman in the Indian police service. And I was called by the home ministry and said, are you sure you want to want the same service? And then the home minister was a tennis friend. And he got up and said, I know you are a small Pathan because I have Peshawariya roots, they come from Peshawar, short but short Pathan. And they said, you're a Pathan. You once you make up your mind, you wouldn't give up. But I know you're a tennis player. I welcome you to the family of the Indian police service. I'm glad we have a woman for the first time in the officer ranks of the Indian police service. That's how I made it to the service and then led the most hunt ever, ever in history, always a male parade. That's the first time in India in 1975, a woman led a fully male parade. And that was the year of the moment, it made absolute national news. And the next day, I was invited by Mrs Gandhi for breakfast. That made great, great news that cop being invited for national prayer, meeting a meeting breakfast with Mrs Gandhi, because she was so thrilled. I remember when I was marching and I said, I saluted her, she got up and she jumped and she said, that's it. She felt so brilliant. She felt so as if she was parading herself. So friends, this is how it, this too was a grab. I wasn't getting this to lead the parade because this meant every day practicing for 20 kilometers every day to finally walk the parade 14 kilometers on that time. It is a non-stop parade which starts and ends with 14 kilometers march and with the sword in your hand. I was practicing every day at least 20 kilometers to finally do it non-stop without a break for 14 kilometers. I wasn't getting it. A man was getting it. He was junior to me and I was a beginner as a probationer, went up to my inspector general and said, sir, I hear that somebody else is getting this position to lead the parade. He said, yes. I said, sir, but why? And you know how policing is so hierarchical. You can't just go up and ask. And I was the junior most in the whole service. I just started my service. He said, yes, somebody else is. But I said, sir, can I know why? He said, because you mean to say you will be able to do all that? I said, sir, do you mean to say after all what I've done already, I keep answering this? He said, if you can do that, I welcome you. I said, sure, I will. And that is, you know what? I could have opted out of it. I could have opted out of it. I need not have struggled all this. But my background of tennis and my background of what my father had said, the upbringing came back here to challenge the status quo and said, I'm ready. This is my right. I have to get it. And that is how I got this right to lead the male parade. And this was a turning point in Indian history for women's leadership. So far, we had had political leadership. This is the first time we got visibly a female leadership in the government ranks. When I joined the service, friends, what happened? I joined the service and lo and behold, I realized what a hierarchical department I've got caught in. I was right at the bottom. See, and people who we were, is this a chan, is this? That's right. Is this? Yeah. See, people are right here. People are right here. And the commissioner is right at the top. And here I am, right here, somewhere here. And I said, Oh God, look at the channels, I've got to walk up. Why the hell? So am I caught in a prison here? When, how long will I take to reach here? And secondly, where are the people who we've come for? I have come here to undo injustice. How will they ever get justice? I questioned it. What happened? I'm out my fault. Somebody's fault there. Oh, Lord, I thought that was right. Hey, I got it right. So I was wondering. Technology is yet to grow, no? It's still behind. So here, it was the police commissioner. And I was somewhere here. So you look, look, look at the barriers. That's why in my promotion, Iklif has shown me breaking, breaking the bricks around. You know, in that promotion, you showing me emerging out of broken down. I think breaking through the bricks. This is all bricks. These are all walls. And people are so far away. How do you do injustice? So from here, from here, now this is, yeah, from here, we went here. I got a first district assignment and with minimum resources, I got a district police assignment with very full of crime, full of bootlegging, full of night crime, with many, very few boots on the field, very few constables. And now people said, oh God, we got a woman. Either the crime will go up or we'll have to migrate. What did I do? Exactly what our governor did. Connect. That's the difference between the man and the woman. That's the difference. I opened up the entire system. I took the people into confidence, held meetings like these and said, this is our district. And I'm one of you. You want to have a better policing? You want to have no night crime? You want to get away from bootlegging? Then these are the men I have. You can count them. The only way is we work together. So we brought in a sense of togetherness, friends, for the first time by introducing. This is one of the measures, since I can't show you all, but it's indicative. If you want to know more about this, there's my book called I Dare in the bookstores here. You can pick up the night crime prevention measures, all started to, this was the opening account. It's a very strong archives, 1980. It's a news clip of 1980, where this is the way we began by joint night patrolling. And guess what? I didn't sleep myself. I didn't make, I didn't delegate this leadership. It was delegate. It was, it was togetherness. It was teamwork. So I also patrolled the entire my own district for five nights a week. I would sleep between the two, two pickets and two barriers. And I would get up and say, here people waiting for you. And then I would sleep and then he would drive for two kilometers. And they said, ma'am, here's another picket waiting for you. And they would probably, they were thinking I was awake the whole night. No, no, no. I was taking my little naps. So the night patrolling started, the beat box system started, where every beat officer, every had a beat in the office. You know what I'm offering you, what I'm sharing with you? If I was addressing cops, it's almost a cop plan of crime prevention. I wish I was also addressing law enforcement, because this is a no cost community policing plan. I think it's excellent for the governor of a central bank, how we can save so much of the money. So every beat officer had had a beat box. And we started to recognize people, all the, all the, all the, all these people getting recognized for all the good. You see, it was all people recognition. It was all working with people all the time. They're getting see, see, remember that hierarchical, all that hierarchy was broken. And here you are. Here is a new district assignment I got was a traffic police assignment. I had no clue. You know, in Delhi, we just get posting. We never consulted. And we also don't get a tenure. So we don't know how long you're there. So you just plucked from here. If you're doing well and your senior doesn't like it that you're doing well, he plucks you and puts you somewhere where hopefully you fail. And then when you start succeeding, he plucks you out again and puts you somewhere else and doesn't even care about any tenure. In my career, friends, I got plucked out because I was doing well wherever I was. I got to do because the team was so good. It all happened so well. But I was getting plucked out just because I was doing well and put into postings. I had no clue about and then said, hopefully you do well and then wait fully and wait for me to fail and then punish me saying, Hey, never have women in the Indian police service. Not worth it. This is what happened in my career. I was doing well in all my crime prevention in the past. The bootlegging stopped. The crimes fell. People got together. They had a joint pledge and crime. Policing start to happen at no cost to the government. Crime fell by 50%. But the left hand governor calls me and said, you're going to be posted to traffic police. I said, sir, but I don't know Delhi myself. I only know my own district by night because I only done night patrol. He said, no, you got to do now Asian games traffic management because now and Asian games are just to hear away with 19 stadiums to be planned 19 stadiums. First time India is hosting Asian games after sense independence, which means everybody flocking in the all the roads will get clogged and he tells me to do traffic management in Delhi. And I said, sir, but I don't know Delhi. I on my own scooter sometimes lose my way in Delhi and I go round and round. He said, no, no, but you can do it. You can do it. I said, okay, great because I succeeded in West Delhi in preventing crime. Now they want to. So my wife, my conscience told me, is it a ploy to see that I fail or is it an opportunity to succeed?