South Asia Terrorism Portal
INDIA: ‘Federal Crimes Bureau’: New Digits in the Alphabet Soup - Ajai Sahni
‘Federal Crimes Bureau’: New Digits in the Alphabet Soup Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
Once again, a major terrorist incident – this time in Jaipur – has set off a strident and polarised national political debate on ‘counter-terrorism policy’, with parties and leaders pulling out the same tired old rabbits from their tattered hats. One of these proposals has caught particular attention, having been articulated, for the first time, by the Prime Minister – though the Union Home Minister assures us that this has been under discussion for more than 20 years; this is the prospect of setting up a Federal Crimes Bureau (FCB) to look into a particular set of crimes, identified by their complexity, gravity or dispersal across State boundaries, including terrorism.
This has enthusiastically been seized upon by most commentators and, in principal, the concept of federal crimes and a federal agency to deal with them appears to be impeccable. The arguments in support of this proposal – and the failure of the proposal in the face of the apparent obduracy and cussedness of the States – has been widely documented over the past days, and will not detain us here.
The issue at hand is that the proposal to create a new setup for federal crimes reflects an approach that remains fragmented, divorced from the realities of the acute institutional deficits and near collapse that afflict existing state organisations, and the inability to comprehend – leave alone cope with – the sheer diversity of terrorist activities and operations, of which the occasional attack is only the most dramatic of many manifestations.
The FCB proposal has resurfaced urgently out of concerns over the continued and persistent failure to ‘solve’ virtually all the major terrorist incidents of the past three years, and on the grounds that the States ‘botched’ investigations, or were not able to efficiently pursue leads beyond their own territorial jurisdictions. The FCB, duly empowered and ‘naturally’ reflecting an efficiency far superior to various provincial units, it is argued, would be far more effective in investigating these trans-State crimes, and in hunting down terrorists and bringing them to book. If evidence is necessary, look at the long history of successes of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
This is a pattern reasoning that has been recurrent in the creation or conceptualisation of a number of other institutions set up over the past years, blindly imitating foreign – and particularly US – models. In the security context, two examples come immediately to mind: the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Net Assessment. Both these have proven to be non-starters, marred by a confusion of mandates and severe deficits in manpower – including the lack of suitable manpower within the limited contingents sanctioned – and in resource allocation. The National Security Guard is another case in point. Set up as far back as in 1984 to engage in high risk counter-hijacking and counter-terrorist operations, it has been able to establish a substantial infrastructure for training and research, an excellent pool of trained manpower, and particular expertise and a database on improvised explosive devices. Nevertheless, its utility has remained severely limited – indeed, peripheral – within the counter-terrorism efforts in the country, essentially as a consequence of deficiencies in conception and design, which saw the country’s elite counter-terrorism group located at a single, centralized establishment, with acute limitation on rapid transportation to the points of engagement – the areas of terrorist threat or attack.
The reality is, there is already a multiplicity of agencies concerned with intelligence gathering, investigation and enforcement relating to various aspects of terrorist activity, and this abundance of institutions has combined with an acute paucity of resources in each, compounded by severe difficulties of coordination and sharing of intelligence between these, and tremendous duplication of functions and consequent waste of already scarce resources. This multiplicity of agencies concerned with intelligence gathering itself suggests a significant problem of coordination, intelligence sharing and focused response strategies.
An unpublished review by this writer of the state’s capacities to monitor hawala and other illegal financial operations by terrorists revealed, for instance, that there were at least fifteen central agencies variously charged with financial intelligence monitoring and enforcement across the country. Each of these agencies was under-resourced and struggling to maintain a modicum of efficiency in executing a fraction of its mandate.
Adding FCB to the existing alphabet soup of intelligence, investigative and enforcement agencies does not hold any promise of a unique or efficient solution to the current crisis of terrorism, unless there is a complete and uncharacteristic reversal of the country’s recent history of institution building. At best, another shell organisation, overburdened by an ambitious (and largely imitative) mandate, but deprived of the means to secure its objectives, would be set up, creating a new drain on national resources. Building up such an organisation would take years, if not decades, and it would, at least initially, scavenge its manpower from other existing and hard-pressed security, intelligence and enforcement organisations
This, however, is not the only argument against the FCB. A simple ‘crime investigation’ model envisaged for the projected Federal agency certainly would not work with terrorism – though such an agency may (as existing state and central agencies sometimes do) succeed in solving the occasional terrorist crime. Terrorism is a continuous and complex activity involving persistent networks, and effective counter-terrorist action cannot be reduced to the task of investigation – however efficient – after an attack. There is a necessary integrity of preventive, intelligence and investigative functions in counter-terrorism. Given the complex linkages and the diversity of criminal, collusive and subversive operations – encompassing the entire gamut of financial, violent and political crimes – that underpin terrorism, and the unique threat these activities now constitute for the security and integrity of the country, intelligence, investigation, and enforcement can no longer be treated in isolation. Effective counter-terrorism involves the tracking and evidentiary documentation of a wide range of continuous subversive and criminal activities that only periodically manifest themselves in the theatre of a bomb blast or other terrorist attack. According to recent disclosures, UK’s internal intelligence agency, MI5, for instance, created dossiers on over 8,000 ‘at risk’ individuals – those who, by belief, conduct or association, appeared especially vulnerable to extremist mobilisation – in addition to the surveillance and investigation of 1,600 suspects believed to be involved in 200 terrorist networks and 30 ‘active plots’. This is the scale and scope of counter-terrorism intelligence and investigative operations under a single Central Agency in a country as small as the UK.
What, then, of a federal agency to tackle terrorism and other crimes envisaged under the jurisdiction of the proposed FCB? The solution lies in taking the most suitable among existing central agencies, expanding its mandate and legislative cover, and drastically augmenting its resource complement.
Inevitably, a turf war will break out the moment such a proposal is articulated. Advocates supporting the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) can be expected to make persuasive cases as to why either of these is best suited for the task (and the concomitant augmentation of power and resources), and even more persuasive cases why the other agency is particularly unsuited.
Within a purely investigative context, the CBI would appear to be a strong possible candidate for the undertaking. Despite the severe, and in may cases extremely valid criticisms of the CBI on its record of investigations, and particularly its politicisation (a criticism that would apply, equally, to virtually every agency of Government today), the fact remains, the CBI is the country’s premier investigative agency.
As already stated, however, a purely investigative model has little relevance in the context of the Centre’s counter-terrorism role, and the necessary functions a proposed Central Agency would be required to perform if it is to deal with the wide range of tasks – with both internal and external dimensions – that are necessary if the limitations of State agencies are to be overcome in dealing with this trans-State and trans-national challenge.
This line of evolution also makes greater sense within the context of prevailing and fractious Centre-State relations. Cooperation – and not conflict – with States is necessary, and the IB has been operating in continuous collaboration with State agencies on the issue of terrorism (no doubt, with some conflict and mutual dissatisfaction), and this mechanism needs to be deepened and strengthened, even as the IB’s mandate is formally augmented.
Crucially, the reality is that the States are so deeply concerned about the problem that, if the capacities, technical resources and expertise were created in a Central Agency, they would be eager to seek and secure its cooperation in resolving cases of terrorism and in effectively countering the networks and support structures of terrorism – unless political confrontations are engineered over the issue jurisdiction, or politically partisan allegations of failure or bias undermine cooperation between Central and State agencies.