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Trapped in the past

The principal strategic challenge in any conflict comprises four elements: a realistic and accurate assessment of the threat; an objective assessment of the resources for an adequate, if not overwhelming, response (including institutional, financial, manpower and technological components); the acquisition of these resources within timeframes imposed by the conflict; and the sagacious deployment of these resources to secure the objectives of a coherent and clearly defined strategy.

As legendary Chinese general Sun Tzu says, "A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates."

The situation of victory against terrorism has not yet been created in India.

Indeed, the very first step in the envisaged four-stage strategic process is yet to be secured. There is no consensus whatsoever, even on the nature and magnitude of the threat of terrorism in this country, and even less of an understanding of the extraordinary geopolitical environment within which this threat is being articulated.

We have, consequently, an utterly directionless and ill-informed policy discourse on the subject, a pervasive incapacity to distinguish between variables that are relevant and meaningful, and others that are mere 'noise', often imported into the discourse through political correctness, or even injected therein by advocates of the very terrorist organisations, their support structures and sponsoring states, that counter-terrorism policy is intended to confront and neutralise.

The Indian security apparatus dates back to the early 20th century. Concealed behind the dust of this enveloping confusion is a policy establishment that has atrophied over decades, and a security establishment that has been systematically debilitated and rendered infirm through incessant and multiple acts of neglect, intentional harm and a political philosophy of abuse and abandonment.

The cumulative impact is that each new terrorist outrage in India is ordinarily met with disarray and posturing, rather than with responses that demonstrate improving control, efficiency and capability.

Worse, a wide range of pseudo-solutions are immediately articulated, while the fundamentals, simple as they are, are studiously and persistently ignored.

With dozens of dysfunctional Central agencies already in existence, for instance, we are abruptly informed that the problem of terrorism can only be addressed by a new federal investigative agency.

This is essentially a diversionary ploy to channel the entire debate into the realm of fractious Centre-state relations and contentious constitutional amendments that, advocates of this 'solution' themselves admit, are nigh-impossible to resolve.

The result, of course, is that the political leadership has found an alibi that lets them off the hook as far as immediate corrective action is concerned.

Or, again, the most widely circulated and popular myth of all, we are wisely informed that 'development', and not the use of force or any conceivable operational improvements in the security and intelligence establishment, is the 'only solution' to terrorism.

But 'development' is not something you can order off a menu card; it is not the case that, for 60 years, successive governments have implemented policies that deliberately sought to keep the country underdeveloped, and, since realisation has now abruptly dawned on the present leaders of this benighted nation that 'development' is the 'solution', such development is quickly going to be attained.

There is, in reality, no magic formula that is going to transform India into a well-governed, modern, equitable society with its entire population enjoying European living standards at any point in the foreseeable future.

Poverty, acute deprivation, widespread under-employment and unemployment and endemic backwardness, compounded infinitely by growing incompetence in governance and a steady deterioration in administrative capacities and penetration across wide regions of the country, will remain inescapable realities for large proportions of the Indian population for decades into the future. Substantial pools of grievances and hopelessness will, consequently, continue to exist in abundance, for extremist and subversive elements to tap into.

Where then, do the real solutions lie? What, precisely, is the 'great idea' that can transform the confusion, vacillation and incoherence of current policy into a tough and effective line that will give a fitting response to the challenge of terrorism?

The reality is that, while a 'great idea' may, on occasion, underlie excellence in certain fields, excellence is not realised, even in such cases, merely through the articulation of an exceptional idea. What India needs is to plug the crippling deficits in its policing and intelligence agencies, nothing more and, equally nothing less.

Instead, on the rare occasion when the policy discourse actually focuses on the country's security vulnerabilities, there is overwhelming emphasis on the creation of special forces and institutions, rather than on fundamental and comprehensive improvements in existing ones.

The first and most crucial principal here is that you cannot have a first class counter-terrorism response within the context of a third class policing system. This should have been more than evident by now, but somehow fails consistently to register.

Take, for instance, the case of the National Security Guard (NSG)-an elite special response unit set up principally for counter-terrorism. Despite excellent manpower profiles, training regimes and technology backups, the NSG has had, at best, a peripheral role in dealing with terrorism simply because of its location.

Terrorists, unfortunately, do not strike where special forces stand ready to confront them, and in most cases, by the time special forces arrive at targeted locations, the mischief has already been done.

Of course, the special skills cultivated in the NSG are not altogether wasted, and the contributions, particularly, of explosives' experts in the organisation and the national database they have established is not negligible.

On objective parameters of its performance in countering terrorism, however, the NSG would have to be declared a failure, not through any defalcation on the part of its officers and personnel, but through error of design.

"In the 20th century, the state was the chief enemy of freedom," philosopher John Gray notes, "today, it is the weakness of the state that most threatens freedom."

It is the infirmities of the presently under-manned, under-trained, under-equipped and primitive security and justice systems, and not lack of some inchoate 'great idea' or 'out-of-the-box solution', that lie at the core of our inability to effectively tackle extremist subversion, terrorism and sub-conventional warfare in India.

Manpower deficits, for instance, are endemic. India has 126 policemen per 1 lakh population, compared to western ratios that range between 250 and 500 per 1 lakh. Worse, the Indian ratio is worked out against sanctioned posts, and there is a 9.75 per cent deficit against sanctions across the country, with some states recording a nearly 40 per cent deficit.

The ineptitude of the political executive has prevented any action on terrorism. Across the country, there is a 17 per cent deficit in the sanctioned strength of Indian Police Service cadres. Western intelligence and enforcement agencies are backed with cutting-edge technologies, the best technical support, enormous resources and responsive and efficient judicial and legislative systems.

The Indian security apparatus, meanwhile, remains trapped in policing techniques and technologies, most of which date back to the early 20th century. Even the best of them are decades old.

Other elements of the justice system, including legislation and a formalistic, lingering, unaccountable and often hostile judiciary, offer little support to law and order administration or counterterrorism in India.

The intelligence apparatus is even more ill-equipped for the challenge. Despite its image of omnipresence, the total strength of field personnel engaged in intelligence gathering in the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is under 3,500 for this country of 1.2 billion people.

The Centre offers no explanation for its inability to implement long-standing decisions-based on the Girish Saxena Committee recommendations- dating back to 2001, for a system-wide reform and massive upgrading of intelligence capabilities.

Crucially, the Multi-Agency Centre, the national intelligence database, and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence, which were to be set up under the IB, remain mere shell organisations, more than seven years after the decision was taken to create these, with endemic manpower, technological and resource shortages.

A first class response to terrorism cannot co-exist with a third class policing system.

The Saxena Committee recommendation to immediately increase the IB's strength by 3,000 personnel, accepted by the government in February 2001, has resulted in the sanction of just 1,400 additional posts till September 2008.

The Centre is, of course, not alone in its failures. Despite liberal Central schemes underwriting security related expenditure and police modernisation in the states, the latter have failed even to spend the monies allocated (utilisation in 2006-07, for instance, stood at 63.71 per cent).

The gravest threat to India's security is not Pakistan, not the ISI, not terrorism, but the limitless acts of omission, the venality and the ineptitude of the political and administrative executive, and the complete absence of accountability in the top echelons of Government. Our greatest enemy is not only within. It has captured the highest nodes of power and decision-making in the country.

(Published in India Today, New Delhi, September 25, 2008)

 

 

 

 

 
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