An advantage of a rifle is that it is conspicuous. This can make people feel uncomfortable because there is a big obvious gun, but it can also avoid a potential confrontation (someone is more likely to mess with someone who’s gun is concealed than someone holding a large rifle). Personally I think I would prefer if the availability of pistols were very limited and people who wanted to carry firearms had to carry conspicuous large rifles. (I’d prefer this to the status quo but not to e.g. all arms being limited)

Most security you'd encounter in India doesn't even carry sidearms, just Lathi sticks or batons.

At a guess you've seen the police with rifles at high value terrorist targets - airports, major stations, national tourist attractions/monuments. Such locations will have police with SMGs or assault rifles in most other places too, including places like the UK where police are rarely armed otherwise...

The mall guys and some of those I saw guarding places in more expensive neighborhoods may have been police, I'm admittedly not 100% not sure - but the building I worked in employed private security with rifles (it was a Tata Consultancy office a little ways outside of Hyderabad, maybe 20 minutes or so from Ramoji Film City, for whatever it is worth).

Most of the guns carried by such security are very old design lee-enfield rifles, some version of the AK-47 or sten guns. The police in India traditionally had 6 shot revolvers as standard issue for the officers. These work well as a visible deterrent when most people you are guarding against dont have guns. These guns are rarely fired by the private security guards. You will also see double barrel shot guns used by security personell at banks and atms.

agreed, back in days at least in New Delhi you could see those "war nests" (military points) made of sandbags with heavy machine guns at some locations like Red Fort as if there was actual war going

but I can imagine seeing everywhere policemen with big guns can be scary, luckily in my not so multicultural location in Europe it's still odd to see policemen carrying those uzi guns, usually you see just policemen with pistol or nothing at all

and while we are discussing guns, my biggest experience with guns presence in Eastern Asia was in Phillipines, where you can see security guards with shotguns at normal shops every few meters (at least in Manila, outside Manila it seemed better), that was quite crazy and also security guards checking me when going to subway obviously not for drugs, but for guns

> agreed, back in days at least in New Delhi you could see those "war nests" (military points) made of sandbags with heavy machine guns at some locations like Red Fort as if there was actual war going

This is still a thing in Delhi. You can see sand bags or security shields with some security personell hiding behind them all over the city.

Here in Delhi, you will be checked very thoroughly for guns and bombs whenever you enter a luxury hotel, shopping mall or the subway. That checking includes the combination of a doorframe metal detector, hand held metal detector and airport style baggage x ray scanner.