Work in
unison on security
By Radhavinod
Raju
The last time India faced external aggression was
in Kargil in 1999. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had been defeated on
the floor of Parliament weeks before the limited war broke out. Yet, the
country rose as one to face the external challenge and fully backed the armed
forces. The combination of the Indian armed forces and Indian diplomacy proved
too strong for the desperate Pakistani generals, who were compelled to withdraw
from the Indian side of the Kargil heights that they had surreptitiously occupied.
The Indian polity was fractured then, as now. No doubt the NDA returned to
power in the elections to Parliament that followed, but one party rule at the
Centre had been virtually ruled out repeatedly by the electorate, since the
1989 Parliament elections.
The latest election results would clearly show that
regional forces would continue to exert pressure on the Centre that sometimes
goes beyond their respective strengths. An example is Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee’s stand that prevented Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from concluding
an important river water sharing agreement with Bangladesh. Banerjee’s
Trinamool Congress with 19 Members of Parliament is an important member of the
ruling UPA. Similar opposition was there in the case with the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision on foreign direct investment
in multi-brand retail, kept on hold pending consensus on the issue. On the
National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Mamata Banerjee has joined forces
with several other opposition chief ministers, and regional political leaders
in opposing the Centre’s move. What are the implications of the latest election
results for national security?
It is clear that in case of external aggression
against the country, all political formations and combinations forget their
differences and fight the aggressor. These differences come out as soon as the
aggression comes to an end, as seen with allegations of coffin-gate after the
Kargil war. In the case of internal security threats, like in handling Maoists,
or even proxies like the Indian Mujahideen of Pakistani groups like the LeT,
differences between political parties are many. Despite the growth of the CPI
(Maoists), which was formed in September, 2004 after the Peoples’ War Group,
the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Maoist Communist Centre
merged, the Centre and affected States have not succeeded in working out a
cohesive counter-terror policy. Sometimes leaders of the same party have
different views, which confuse the counter-terrorism mechanism and weakens its
response. A case in point is the Batla House encounter against the Indian
Mujahideen, where the Union home minister has certified that the operation was
genuine, but was questioned by a prominent general secretary of his own party.
Obviously the general secretary was eyeing the Muslim votes in the battle for
Uttar Pradesh, though the party was rebuffed by the community with disdain.
Such gimmicks do not impress anyone, anymore.
This does not mean that there is no threat to the
country’s integrity from the jihadi and Maoist groups, or the Northeast
insurgencies. There are hostile powers that would continue their efforts to
destabilise India. Our leaders, at the Centre and States, will have to work out
strategies that can successfully counter the machinations of these hostile
powers while retaining a strong federal set- up as envisaged in the
Constitution. They have to learn to work together on issues of national
security. For this to happen, it is essential to bring about certain basic
changes in the functioning of agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and
the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There is public perception that
these organisations are used to enhance the ruling party’s political fortunes
at the Centre and in the States. This is doing great injustice to the hundreds
of officers and men working tirelessly in these organisations to protect India
or to fight corruption at high places. But the perception has lingered, and is
behind the current opposition to the order issued by the central government
creating the NCTC within the IB. The parties, other than the Congress, which
are ruling States, believe that the powers of arrest, search and seizure given
to the NCTC will be misused against them. How does one change this perception?
Perhaps a forum consisting of the prime minister,
the Union home minister, the Union finance minister, the defence minister, the
external affairs minister, the law minister and all chief ministers, senior
bureaucrats like the cabinet secretary, the home, defence, finance, law and
foreign secretary, director IB, and secretary R&AW, and all chief
secretaries and DGs can meet whenever there is need to consider options like
creation of NCTC or setting up of a National Investigation Agency. Once the DIB
or the secretary R&AW explains the nature of the threat faced by the
nation, this forum should consider various options to counter such threats
effectively. Once a consensus is reached by this forum, then if necessary it
would be possible to even amend the Constitution to incorporate the new set-up.
Such a system will remove all misgivings, and state governments will not have
any objections. What happens today appears to be more like a central ‘fatwa’ to
the States to fall in line, which is seriously resented by them.
The time has come to have a parliamentary oversight
body to look at the functioning of intelligence agencies and the CBI. Vice
President Hamid Ansari had first raised the issue of parliamentary oversight in
the case of intelligence agencies during the R N Kao Memorial Lecture in
January, 2010. Such oversight will bring in accountability in the functioning
of these agencies, and make them more credible than they are today. Our growing
economic strength, together with our demographic and other natural advantages
has raised our profile, and India is expected to play a more proactive role for
its own and the region’s security. We need a NCTC, we need a National
Investigation Agency, and we need counter-terror mechanism in the States, all
poised to work together in harmony. We need to evolve into a mature nation,
where all political parties and the bureaucracy work in unison on national
security issues. That appears to be the only way.
(Views expressed in the column are
the author’s own)
Radhavinod Raju
is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail:
radhavinodraju@gmail.com
New Indian Express 12th
March 2012
