Securing the home front

India Today Bureau
January 9, 2009


CloseIndia Today expert view on Securing the home front

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with ChidambaramUnion Minister of Home Affairs P. Chidambaram is acutely aware that he has very little time to deliver with the general elections due in May 2009. In a way it is fortuitous because what India needs after the Mumbai attacks is action, and fast. In the saddle for just over a month, Chidambaram at a meeting of chief ministers on internal security on January 6 said his immediate priority was to raise the level of preparedness to meet the increasingly sophisticated terrorist threats. Equally important was to enhance the speed and decisiveness of the response to a terrorist threat or attack.

Both these measures are key to inspiring confidence of the country that has been severely punctured after the Mumbai attacks. But even as Chidambaram gets cracking on the stiff agenda he has set for himself and the Government, he needs to examine the functioning of his Ministry more closely.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has to play a pivotal role if the war on terror has to be won. But in the past few years, the Ministry exemplifies what has gone wrong with the country’s management of internal security. In the six months, preceding the Mumbai attacks, there were blasts in Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Guwahati that killed 215 and injured 1,000. Typically after these attacks, there were “security review” meetings which saw the buck being passed from one authority to another and no responsibility being fixed. Routine alerts were sent to states to tighten their security with no follow up.

After Mumbai, it was evident that the MHA had to radically change its approach. It has it hands in just too many issues. Apart from internal security and terrorism, its mandate is to tackle insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the Northeastern states, Left wing extremism, border management, immigration, foreign funding, Centre-state relations, Union Territories, managing the Indian Police Service (IPS) and Central paramilitary forces, police modernisation and policy planning. Experts say, over the years the ministry has grown into a behemoth that is difficult to manage, has dragged its feet on key proposals like police modernisation, did nothing to sort out turf battles between intelligence agencies both at the level of the Centre and the states and has failed to come up with an effective anti-terror policy.

After 9/11, the George Bush administration decided that what it needed was a humongous Homeland Security Department that would, in the American President’s view, “make America safer because our nation would have one department whose primary mission is to protect the American homeland.” Bush decided that there would be only one department to secure US borders, transport sector, ports and critical infrastructure, apart from synthesising and analysing homeland security intelligence from multiple sources, training and equipping first responders and managing a federal emergency response.

Clearly, India can learn a lot from the American review of its homeland security. Given that bureaucracy tends to create more muddles in India, perhaps the solution lies in segregating the internal security aspect from other functions of the Home Ministry. The US Homeland Security Department does not deal with issues pertaining to police modernisation, procurement and other executive work. So it would probably help if there is a full-time Cabinet Minister to look after internal security, segregated from the MHA.

In the first flush of his tenure, Chidambaram has moved swiftly to get a National Investigative Agency set up to investigate terror cases across the country and also ensured greater co-ordination and sharing of information among intelligence agencies by reactivating the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC)and making it accountable. The focus now has to be firmly on prevention through enhanced intelligence coordination and sharing. He has also cut through the red tape and sanctioned long pending and muchneeded equipment for the paramilitary forces like bulletproof vests and rifles.

These would make a significant difference. But as important is pushing for fundamental structural and personnel changes in the Home Ministry. It could start by looking at the composition of those who head it. Of the eight special and additional secretaries in the Ministry, and 20 joint secretaries, only two are career police officers. Starting from secretary Madhukar Gupta, almost all in key positions are IAS officers with no experience of handling security issues. All officials handling key desks, including Kashmir, the Northeast, Naxals and Border Management are administrative service officers.