Jan 4, 2010

The Chidambaram Security Architecture

            The Union Home Minister, ShriP.Chidambaram proposed radical restructuring of the security architecture atthe national level while delivering the 22nd Intelligence Bureau CentenaryEndowment Lecture in Kolkata on topic, “A New Architecture of India’sSecurity”. Some of the key points highlighted by Mr P Chidambaram aresummarized as follows:-

General

·       Violence is endemic to human society and it isnot possible to eliminate violence per se but it can be brought underreasonable control.

·       The state of the country’s preparedness tocounter terror post Mumbai was dismal. The security establishment was indisarray and numerous questions were being asked.  Had the intelligence agencies failed?  Did the first responder, the Mumbai police,prove to be totally inadequate?  Was thefamed National Security Guard too slow to get off the block?  Did the leadership of the police let down itsmen?  Did the security forces take toolong to neutralise ten terrorists?  Didthe Central and the State Governments fail to provide strong leadership?  Did the crisis management systemcollapse?  Did the country pay too heavya price before it repulsed the terrorist attack?  Did the Government fail the people in notmounting a swift counter-attack on the perpetrators of terror?

·       All the States and UnionTerritories put together had asanctioned strength of 1,746,215 policemen as on January 1, 2008. Against that number, only 1,478,888 policemen were in place.  There are 13,057 police stations and 7,535police posts in the country.  The ratioof available police to per 100,000 people for the whole country is about130.  The international average is about270.  States would have to recruit over400,000 constables in the next two years in order to fill the vacancies and inorder to provide for expansion of the police forces. 

·       The police stations in the country have nosystem of data storage, data sharing and accessing data.  There is no system under which one policestation can talk to another directly. There is no record of crimes or criminals that can be accessed by a StationHouse Officer, except the manual records. “Crime and Criminal Tracking NetworkSystem (CCTNS)”  to facilitatecollection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data andinformation at the police station and between the police station and the StateHeadquarters and the Central Police Organisations is therefore beingimplemented.

·       State Governments should adopt “CommunityPolicing” and establish a toll-free service under which a citizen can provideinformation or lodge a complaint. 

·       At the District and State levels, the SpecialBranch is the key to better intelligence and more intelligence-basedoperations.  There should be at least onepolice officer in each police station exclusively for intelligence gatheringand adequate number of well-trained analysts to analyse the intelligence and todraw the correct conclusions. Intelligence is a specialised function. 

·       At the District and State levels, 24 x 7 controlrooms must be set up at the District and State levels.  Quick Response Teams must be positioned inevery district capital and in important towns. Commando units must be raised and placed at different locations.  The Central Government is supporting andfunding the conversion of two companies of selected IR Battalions into commandounits.  QRT and commando units shouldhave modern weapons and equipment. 

At theNational Level

        The present architecture consists ofpolitical, administrative, intelligence and enforcement elements.  At the political level, there is the CabinetCommittee on Security.  Theadministrative element is the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Prime Minister’soffice and the Cabinet Secretariat. 

Theintelligence elements are spread over different ministries: there is theIntelligence Bureau which reports to the Home Minister; there is the Researchand Analysis Wing which falls under the Cabinet Secretariat and, hence, reportsto the Prime Minister; there are organisations such as Joint IntelligenceCommittee (JIC), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO)and Aviation Research Centre (ARC) which report to the National SecurityAdviser; and there is the National Security Council Secretariat under the NSAwhich serves the National Security Council. 

Thearmed forces have their own intelligence agencies, one each under the Army,Navy and Air Force and an umbrella body called the Defence IntelligenceAgency.  There are other agencies whichspecialise in financial intelligence. These are the Directorates in the IncomeTax, Customs and Central Excise departments, the Financial Intelligence Unit,and the Enforcement Directorate.   Theenforcement element of this architecture consists of the central para-militaryforces such as CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, Assam Rifles, SSB and the NSG.  What will strike any observer is that thereis no single authority to which these organisations report and there is nosingle or unified command which can issue directions to these agencies andbodies.

Tocoordinate their activities the most beneficial change has been theoperationalisation of the Multi-Agency Centre. By an Executive Order issued on December31, 2008, the MAC was energised with a broader and compulsorymembership and a new mandate.  Everypiece of relevant information or intelligence gathered by one of theparticipating agencies is brought to the table.    It is analysed and the analysis is sharedwith the participating agencies. 

Anotherbeneficial change has been the extension of the reach of MAC to the Statecapitals and the setting up of the Subsidiary-MAC in each State capital inwhich all agencies operating at the State level, especially the Special Branchof the State police, are represented. Through the MAC-SMAC-State Special Branch network, the IntelligenceBureau has been able to pull more information and intelligence from the Statecapitals.  It has also been able to pushmore information and intelligence into the State security system.

            Anotherinnovation is the security meeting held every day, around noon, under the Chairmanship of the Home Minister.  NSA, Home Secretary, Secretary (R&AW),DIB, Chairman, JIC, and Special Secretary (IS) attend the meeting.  The broad directions issued at the end of themeeting have brought about better coordination in all aspects of intelligenceincluding gathering, analysing and acting upon the intelligence.

UnderNATGRID, 21 sets of databases will be networked to achieve quick, seamless andsecure access to desired information for intelligence/enforcementagencies.  This project is likely to becompleted in 18 – 24 months from now.

Theagencies that deal with crimes such as money laundering, drugs and so on arescattered.  For example, the NarcoticsControl Bureau is under the Ministry of Home Affairs while the Central Bureauof Narcotics is under the Ministry of Finance. The Arms Act is administered by MHA. As far as human-trafficking is concerned, the primary responsibilitylies with the State Governments, but anti-human trafficking cells have been setup only in 9 districts of the country. Regulation and enforcement in each of these areas require bestrengthening and bringing under the overall management of internal security.

NationalCounter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). 

NCTC’smandate should be to respond to violence unleashed by any group – be it aninsurgent group in the North East or the CPI(Maoist) in the heartland of Indiaor any group of religious fanatics anywhere in Indiaacting on their own or in concert with terrorists outside India.  NCTC would therefore have to performfunctions relating to intelligence, investigation and operations.  All intelligence agencies would thereforehave to be represented in the NCTC. Consequently, MAC would be subsumed in the NCTC. 

Theestablishment of the NCTC will indeed result in transferring some oversightresponsibilities over existing agencies or bodies to the NCTC.  It is my fervent plea that this should notresult in turf wars.  Some agencies wouldnaturally have to be brought under NCTC and what come to my mind readily areNIA, NTRO, JIC, NCRB and the NSG.  The positioning of R&AW, ARC and CBIwould have to be re-examined and a way would have to be found to place themunder the oversight of NCTC to the extent that they deal with terrorism.  The intelligence agencies of the Ministry ofDefence and the Ministry of Finance would, of course, continue to remain underthe respective Ministry, but their representatives would have to be deputedmandatorily to the NCTC.  NATGRID wouldobviously come under NCTC.  So also,CCTNS would have to be supervised by the NCTC.

Structure ofthe Ministry of Home Affairs

TheMinistry of Home Affairs would have to be bifurcated as it performs a number offunctions that have no direct relation to internal security.

            The sweeping reforms proposed by MrChidambaram were long over due particularly to combat the key threats faced bythe country terrorism. The large sweep calls for a review of the country'ssecurity architecture by rehashing the intelligence gathering and processingsystem, response times and enhancing police capacity. The proposal is animportant step for systemic change in intelligence processing and functioningof agencies and to integrate security operations and bring down departmentalfirewalls. These measures are no doubt necessary and possibly Mr Chidambaramwould be the man to address the same and thus there is much that the people arelooking forward to with expectations due to his efficiency and probity. Howeverthere are certainly concerns of implementation at the grass roots which wouldneed a socio cultural approach to change mind sets from a state of stasis toaction.

JAN 2010