James Alexander Scott

James Alexander Scott CIE OBE (2 December 1895 – 20 January 1983), was a British member of the Indian Police Force from 1915 to 1947.

In 1915 Scott joined the Indian Police Force. He then became attached to the 93rd Burma Infantry and completed three years of service with the Indian Army. Subsequently he was posted to the provinces of Punjab and Delhi. In October 1928, he was superintendent of police in Lahore, when the Simon Commission visited. There, he ordered the dispersal of protesters by the charging with batons, resulting in severe injuries to the Indian revolutionary Lala Lajpat Rai. Rai's death a fortnight later led to Scott becoming the target of an assassination by members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, and the subsequent Lahore Conspiracy Case.

Documents related to Scott, including his thoughts penciled in the margins of a copy of Alfred Draper's book titled Amritsar: The Massacre that Ended the Raj (1981), are kept in the British Library.