The bureaucracy helps to make and implement laws; the police uphold and enforce them. Every country maintains security services to protect its citizens from lawlessness within and enemies without. Because of their coercive nature, however, the security services can also be misused by governments as an instrument for oppressing their own people. In this chapter, I shall: 1. Describe the police setup in India. 2. Discuss the role of the police in maintaining law and order and solving crimes. 3. Examine the dangers of police politicisation and militancy. 4. Describe the structure of India’s defence forces. 5. Speculate on the reasons for the absence of military intervention in India in the context of the literature on military interventions and the state of civil-military relations.