Policing, Values, and Violence: Human Rights Education with Law Enforcers in India RACHEL WAHL* Abstract This article examines how law enforcers in India respond to human rights educators’ efforts to connect human rights to their religious and cultural beliefs. Human rights educators will, according to theorists, be most persuasive if they frame rights in ways that connect to local traditions. In this view, local beliefs often constrain acceptance of international human rights norms, but have the potential to be important sources of support as well. This study, however, reveals a more complex relationship between religious or cultural beliefs and human rights. The human rights course on which this study focuses explicitly connects human rights to Indian traditions. The officers participating in the course accept the idea that human rights embody the same values as their religious and cultural traditions. This does not, however, lead them to accept human rights. Instead officers feel that they must compromise or reject both human rights and their traditional values, in favour of competing values and interests related to their work as law enforcers. This finding complicates assumptions about the relationship between local beliefs and international human rights norms. Furthermore, the study reveals the importance of considering stu- dents’ professional and social roles within society, and the constraints, beliefs, and expectations related to such roles, when designing programmes that aim to connect human rights to students’ values and concerns. Keywords: human rights education; police; religion; torture Human rights professionals often pinpoint religious and cultural beliefs as inspiring resistance to human rights, but also view them as potential sources of support. For example, United Nations documents refer to local beliefs as reasons a community may resist social change. But they also often assert that human rights values can be found within every belief system (Merry, 2008; e.g. United Nations, 1995). If human rights educators can connect their messages to those aspects of local traditions that best support human rights, research suggests that they will be most successful (Merry, 2006; Keck and Sikkink, 1999). In spite of prior research on how activists connect their messages to local beliefs, little is known about how the state actors who bear direct responsibil- ity for protecting rights respond to such an approach. State actors such as law enforcement officers are a primary focus of the current United Nations World * Rachel Wahl (Rachel.wahl@nyu.edu) is an advanced PhD Candidate at New York University and a Visiting Scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Her research examines the factors that inform the implementation and violation of human rights by state actors. Journal of Human Rights Practice Vol. 5 | Number 2 | 2013 | pp. 220 – 242 DOI:10.1093/jhuman/hut008 Advance Access publication June 13, 2013 # The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from by guest on September 28, 2013 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from