The
Union Home Minister, Shri P.Chidambaram has proposed radical restructuring of
the security architecture at the national level. He unveiled the proposal while delivering the
22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture here today. The
topic of the lecture was “A New Architecture of India’s Security”. As part of the plan, the Home Minister said
that India
must be able to set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre(NCTC) by the end
of 2010 and once set up, NCTC must have the broad mandate to deal with all
kinds of terrorist violence, directed against the country and its people. The Home Minister also suggested
restructuring of the Ministry of Home Affairs and said that the Home Minister
should devote the whole of his time and energy to matters relating to
security. Following is the text of his lecture:
“The
Intelligence Bureau is 122 years old. It
celebrated its centenary in the year 1987.
Since 1988, a number of distinguished persons – political leaders,
scientists, jurists, police officers and administrators – have delivered the
Centenary Endowment Lecture. I find that
the subjects chosen by the speakers covered a wide range. I confess that I toyed with the idea of
speaking on something totally unrelated to the security establishment. However, I thought that discretion was the
better part of valour and settled on a subject that is, I hope, both contemporary
and futuristic. I thank Shri Rajiv
Mathur, Director, Intelligence Bureau for inviting me to deliver this
prestigious lecture.
Violence is Omnipresent
2. Humankind
has, through the millennia, co-existed with violence. Hunting and gathering were marked by
violence. Tribal groups employed
violence to assert their authority over land to the exclusion of other tribal
groups. Kingdoms were established by violence;
kings were overthrown by violence. War
was invariably an instrument of policy: to be a warrior was an honour and great
kings were also great warriors. In the
twentieth century alone, humankind witnessed two world wars and many smaller
wars. About 15 million people were
killed in the first World War. Nearly 60
million died in the second World War. In
all the conflicts since 1945, it is estimated that nearly 30 million persons
may have been killed.
3. It
is only in the latter half of the twentieth century that the seeds were sown
for a movement against war. The famous
words of Pope John XXIII come to mind: “No more war, never again war.” Nevertheless, little wars were fought over territories
or boundaries. Fierce civil wars were
fought, and are being fought, within countries.
Nations joined together to fight a despot or eject an invader or quell a
rebellion. As I speak to you, there is an
“official” war in Afghanistan and many more unofficial
battles. A world free from war appears
to be a distant dream. While accepting
the Nobel Peace Prize, the President of the United States and the
Commander-in-Chief of the world’s mightiest armed forces said: “We must begin by acknowledging the hard
truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting
individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but
morally justified.”
4. Can
war be justified? It is a debatable
point. Those who justify war point to
the larger objectives of a war. That was
the case in the Balkans, that was the case in Iraq, and that is the case in
Afghanistan. The jury is still out.
5. Through
the twentieth century, many small wars were waged within countries. In Russia and in China, war took the name of
“armed liberation struggle” in order to liberate the country from the yoke of
capitalism and usher in the so-called rule of the proletariat. The main driver was ideology. Stripped of the rhetoric, it is plain that
such conflicts were also driven by the desire to establish the supremacy of a
leader or a party. Such ideology-driven
internal wars led to the establishment of one-party States such as in China, Vietnam and Cuba.
6. After
the second World War, there was another kind of war. It was called the Cold War. It was fought not with armies or aircraft or
ships. It was fought in the shadowy
world of espionage and intrigue. Its
soldiers were agents and double agents.
Its objectives were not very different from the objectives of a regular war. The ultimate goal was military supremacy over
other countries of the world. It is said
that the Cold War came to an end with the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989, but that was not the end of all
wars. Just as the Cold War came to an
end, we witnessed the emergence of another kind of war, namely, jihad.
Jihad is a war or struggle
against unbelievers and, currently, it is waged by a number of groups owing
allegiance to Islam. Unlike the original
Crusades, jihad is not fought like a
conventional war. Jihad employs terror as an instrument to achieve its
objectives. Such terror is directed
against all and sundry, its victims are usually innocent people, and its goal
is to overawe and overthrow the established authority. The tactics of the jihadis have been copied by militants belonging to other groups
too, not excluding militants professing the Hindu faith.
7. By
a quirk of fate, India in the twenty-first
century has turned out to be the confluence of every kind of violence:
insurrection or insurgency in order to carve out sovereign States; armed
liberation struggle motivated by a rejected ideology; and terrorism driven by
religious fanaticism. Never before has
the Indian State faced such a formidable
challenge. Never before have the Indian
people been asked to prepare themselves for such fundamental changes in the
manner in which the country will be secured and protected.
The Agony of 26/11
8. Let
me summarize the situation as I found it on December
1, 2008. Two days after the terrorist
attack in Mumbai was repulsed – after paying a heavy price of 164 lives – the
nation was in shock and anger. A billion
plus people felt they had been humiliated and the country had been brought to
its knees by a small band of terrorists.
The security establishment was in disarray and numerous questions were
being asked. Had the intelligence
agencies failed? Did the first
responder, the Mumbai police, prove to be totally inadequate? Was the famed National Security Guard too
slow to get off the block? Did the
leadership of the police let down its men? Did the security forces take too long to
neutralise ten terrorists? Did the
Central and the State Governments fail to provide strong leadership? Did the crisis management system
collapse? Did the country pay too heavy
a price before it repulsed the terrorist attack? Did the Government fail the people in not
mounting a swift counter-attack on the perpetrators of terror?
9. These
questions continue to haunt me and many others even today. I think I have found
the answers to some of these questions, but I do not intend to fill this
lecture with those answers. My purpose
is to outline the broad architecture of a new security system that will serve
the country today and in the foreseeable future.
The State of our Police
10. Let
me begin with the foot soldiers. All the
States and Union Territories put together had a
sanctioned 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 7,535 police posts in the country. The ratio of available police to per 100,000 people
for the whole country is about 130. The
international average is about 270. There
is no substitute for the policeman who walks the streets. He is the gatherer of intelligence, the enforcer
of the law, the preventer of the offence, the investigator of the crime and the
standard-bearer of the authority of the State, all rolled into one. If he is not there, it means that all these
functions are not performed. That – the failure
to perform essential police functions – is where the rot began and that is
where the rot lies even today. The first
step, therefore, in devising a new security system in the country is to recruit
more policemen and policewomen. In my
estimate, States would have to recruit over 400,000 constables this year and in
the next two years in order to fill the vacancies and in order to provide for
expansion of the police forces. A bad
police constable is worse than no police constable. Recruitment must therefore be transparent,
objective and corruption-free. The
Central Government has devised and commended to the States a transparent
recruitment procedure that will be totally technology-based and free of any
human interference. On its part, the
Central Government has implemented the new procedure in the recruitment to the
Central Para Military Forces.
11. The
police stations in the country are, today, virtually unconnected islands. Thanks to telephones and wireless, and
especially thanks to mobile telephones, there is voice connectivity between the
police station and senior police officers, but that is about all. There is no system of data storage, data
sharing and accessing data. There is no
system under which one police station can talk to another directly. There is no record of crimes or criminals
that can be accessed by a Station House Officer, except the manual records
relating to that police station.
Realising the gross deficiency in connectivity, the Central Government
is implementing an ambitious scheme called “Crime and Criminal Tracking Network
System (CCTNS).” The goals of the system
are to facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and
sharing of data and information at the police station and between the police
station and the State Headquarters and the Central Police Organisations.
12. If
intelligence-gathering is the corner stone of fighting insurgency or
insurrection or terror, the foot solider cannot work in isolation. He must be enabled to gather intelligence
from the people as well as the representatives and quasi-representatives of the
State such as the Sarpanch, the Lambardar, the village accountant etc. More often than not, intelligence is provided
by the citizen who would wish to remain faceless and nameless. It is therefore important that State
Governments adopt “Community Policing” and establish a toll-free service under
which a citizen can provide information or lodge a complaint. It is the myriad bits of information flowing
from different sources that, when sifted, analysed, matched, correlated and
pieced together, become actionable intelligence. That function must be performed, first and
foremost, at the police station.
13. To
sum up, we must have more police stations and, at the police station level, we
must have more constables, some of whom are exclusively for gathering
intelligence. We must also have a system
of community policing, a toll-free service, and a network to store, retrieve
and access data relating to crimes and criminals.
14. Moving
up the ladder, at the District and State levels, the Special Branch is the key
to better intelligence and more intelligence-based operations. There should be at least one police officer
in each police station exclusively for intelligence gathering. As the intelligence gathered flows up to the
District Special Branch and State Special Branch, there should be an adequate
number of well-trained analysts to analyse the intelligence and to draw the
correct conclusions. Intelligence is a
specialised function. Not every police
officer is qualified to be an intelligence officer. It is therefore imperative that the State Special
Branch should be restructured as a specialised and self-sufficient cadre of the
State police in terms of personnel, funds and equipment. On January
7, 2009, the Central Government had circulated a proposal to restructure the
Special Branch in the State police forces.
The implementation of the proposal will mark the beginning of a long-haul
effort to restructure the intelligence-gathering machinery at the District and State
levels.
15. At
the District and State levels, the police must also be the first responder in
case of a militant or terrorist attack.
24 x 7 control rooms must be set up at the District and State levels. Quick Response Teams must be positioned in
every district capital and in important towns.
Commando units must be raised and placed at different locations. The Central Government is supporting and
funding the conversion of two companies of selected IR Battalions into commando
units. QRT and commando units should
have modern weapons and equipment. The
age profile of these units must be young and older men must, periodically, make
way for younger men. A special
Anti-Terrorist Unit should be created at the State level to pre-empt terrorist
activities and investigate terrorist crimes.
While States have begun to take steps on these matters, the pace is
still slow. States must give a full and
true picture of the tasks completed by them and their state of readiness to
face any threat or attack.
The Difficult Tasks Ahead
16. From
what I have said so far, the changes that are required to be made in the
architecture are quite basic and simple.
They can be done by providing more funds, tightening the administration
and working to a time-bound plan. Of course, it will also require sound
leadership at the political and police levels.
However, when we move upwards, serious questions concerning
constitutional responsibilities and division of powers will arise. Also, difficult questions would have to be
posed and answered regarding the current responsibilities of different
organisations. Questions concerning
jurisdiction and turf would also arise.
If our goal is just extracting a little more from the ‘business as
usual’ model, then these questions can be brushed aside or provided
‘don’t-rock-the-boat’ answers. I am
afraid that would be self-defeating.
Sooner than you think, there may be another crisis like the hijack of
IC-814 or another catastrophe like the Mumbai terror attacks. Hence, the time to act is now and I would
spell the last word with capitals: N-O-W.
17. I
therefore propose a bold, thorough and radical restructuring of the security
architecture at the national level.
18. The
present architecture consists of political, administrative, intelligence and
enforcement elements. At the political
level, there is the Cabinet Committee on Security. The administrative element is the Ministry of
Home Affairs, the Prime Minister’s office and the Cabinet Secretariat. The intelligence elements are spread over
different ministries: there is the Intelligence Bureau which reports to the
Home Minister; there is the Research and Analysis Wing which falls under the
Cabinet Secretariat and, hence, reports to the Prime Minister; there are
organisations such as Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), National Technical
Research Organisation (NTRO) and Aviation Research Centre (ARC) which report to
the National Security Adviser; and there is the National Security Council
Secretariat under the NSA which serves the National Security Council. The armed forces have their own intelligence
agencies, one each under the Army, Navy and Air Force and an umbrella body
called the Defence Intelligence Agency. There
are other agencies which specialise in financial intelligence. These are the
Directorates in the Income Tax, Customs and Central Excise departments, the
Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Enforcement Directorate. The
enforcement element of this architecture consists of the central para-military
forces such as CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, Assam Rifles, SSB and the NSG. What will strike any observer is that there
is no single authority to which these organisations report and there is no
single or unified command which can issue directions to these agencies and
bodies.
19. Some
changes have indeed been brought about after December
1, 2008. The most beneficial change has
been the operationalisation of the Multi-Agency Centre. By an Executive Order issued on December 31, 2008, the MAC was energised with a
broader and compulsory membership and a new mandate. Every piece of relevant information or
intelligence gathered by one of the participating agencies is brought to the
table. It is analysed and the analysis
is shared with the participating agencies.
The key benefit is that no one can say that his/her organisation was
kept in the dark. Another beneficial
change has been the extension of the reach of MAC to the State capitals and the
setting up of the Subsidiary-MAC in each State capital in which all agencies
operating at the State level, especially the Special Branch of the State police,
are represented. Through the MAC-SMAC-State
Special Branch network, the Intelligence Bureau has been able to pull more
information and intelligence from the State capitals. It has also been able to push more
information and intelligence into the State security system.
20. Another
innovation 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 the meeting have brought about better coordination in all
aspects of intelligence including gathering, analysing and acting upon the
intelligence.
21. We
should resist the temptation to exaggerate the gains that have been made
through these changes at the top. The
Home Minister – and by extension the Government – is indeed better informed. The agencies involved are more alert. However, in my view, it does not mean that
our capacity to pre-empt or prevent a terrorist threat or attack has been
enhanced significantly. As far as
responding to a terrorist attack is concerned, we
may have enhanced the capacity to contain and repulse an attack, but I think
that there is still some distance to go before we can claim to have acquired
the capacity to respond swiftly and decisively to a terror attack. It is this assessment which leads me to argue
that the security architecture at the top must be thoroughly and radically
restructured.
The New Architecture
22. Some
steps in this direction are self-evident.
For example, there is a need to network all the databases that contain
vital information and intelligence. Today,
each database stands alone. It does not
talk to another database. Nor can the
‘owner’ of one database access another database. As a result, crucial information that rests in
one database is not available to another agency. In order to remedy the deficiency, the
Central Government has decided to set up NATGRID. Under NATGRID, 21 sets of databases will be
networked to achieve quick, seamless and secure access to desired information
for intelligence/enforcement agencies. This
project is likely to be completed in 18 – 24 months from now.
23. Two
more projects will commence early next year.
The first is the Business Process Re-engineering of the Foreigners
Division at a cost of about Rs.20 crore.
The second is the more ambitious Mission Mode Project on Immigration,
Visa and Foreigners’ Registration and Tracking with the objective of creating a
secure and integrated service delivery framework for facilitating legitimate
travellers and strengthening security.
The scheme will network 169 missions, 77 ICPs, 5 FRROs and over 600 FROs
with the Central Foreigners’ Bureau. It
is estimated to cost Rs.1011 crore, but the rub is it is slated to be
implemented over a period of four and a half years. The gaps in the visa system have been exposed
in a number of cases, the most notable among them being the case of David
Coleman Headley. The compelling need to
create a fool-proof system cannot be overstated. Hence, it is necessary to put the project on
a fast track, engage a Mission Director, beg or borrow the money to implement
the project, and complete the task within 24 months.
24 It
is our experience that the networks of terror overlap with the networks of
drug-peddling, arms-trading and human-trafficking. The agencies that deal with the latter
category of crimes are scattered. For
example, the Narcotics Control Bureau is under the Ministry of Home Affairs
while the Central Bureau of Narcotics is under the Ministry of Finance. The Arms Act is administered by MHA. As far as human-trafficking is concerned, the
primary responsibility lies with the State Governments, but anti-human
trafficking cells have been set up only in 9 districts of the country. Regulation and enforcement in each of these
areas require to be strengthened and brought under the overall management of
internal security.
The Way Forward – NCTC
25. Another
major idea is the proposal to set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre
(NCTC). As the name suggests, the goal
is to counter terrorism. Obviously, this will include preventing a terrorist attack, containing a terrorist attack should one
take place, and responding to a
terrorist attack by inflicting pain upon the perpetrators. Such an organisation does not exist
today. It has to be created from
scratch. I am told that the United States was able to do it within
36 months of September 11, 2001. India cannot afford to wait
for 36 months. India must decide now to go
forward and India must succeed in setting
up the NCTC by the end of 2010.
26. Once
NCTC is set up, it must have the broad mandate to deal with all kinds of terrorist
violence directed against the country and the people. While the nature of the response to different
kinds of terror would indeed be different and nuanced, NCTC’s mandate should be
to respond to violence unleashed by any group – be it an insurgent group in the
North East or the CPI (Maoist) in the heartland of India or any group of
religious fanatics anywhere in India acting on their own or in concert with terrorists
outside India. NCTC would therefore have
to perform functions relating to intelligence, investigation and
operations. All intelligence agencies
would therefore have to be represented in the NCTC. Consequently, in my proposal, MAC would be
subsumed in the NCTC. Actually, MAC with
expanded authority will be at the core of the new organisation and will
transform itself into NCTC. The
functions that will be added to the current functions of MAC are investigation
and operations. As far as investigation
is concerned, Government has set up the National Investigation Agency, and that
agency would have to be brought under the overall control of NCTC.
The last function – operations – would of course be the most sensitive
and difficult part to create and bring under the NCTC. But I am clear in my mind that, without
‘operations’, NCTC and the security architecture that is needed will be
incomplete. It is the proposed
‘operations’ wing of the NCTC that will give an edge – now absent – to our
plans to counter terrorism.
27. The
establishment of the NCTC will indeed result in transferring some oversight
responsibilities over existing agencies or bodies to the NCTC. It is my fervent plea that this should not
result in turf wars. Some agencies would
naturally have to be brought under NCTC and what come to my mind readily are
NIA, NTRO, JIC, NCRB and the NSG. The positioning
of R&AW, ARC and CBI would have to be re-examined and a way would have to
be found to place them under the oversight of NCTC to the extent that they deal
with terrorism. The intelligence
agencies of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Finance would, of
course, continue to remain under the respective Ministry, but their
representatives would have to be deputed mandatorily to the NCTC. NATGRID would obviously come under NCTC. So also, CCTNS would have to be supervised by
the NCTC.
28. Given
the overarching responsibility of NCTC and its mandate, it will be obvious that
it must be headed by a highly qualified professional with vast experience in
security related matters. Considering the
structure of our services, it is natural to expect that the head of one of our
organisations will be appointed to the post, by whatever name it may be called. He/she could be a police officer or a
military officer. He/she must be one who has impeccable professional
credentials and the capacity to oversee intelligence, investigation and
operations. He/she will be the single
person accountable to the country on all matters relating to internal security. At the Government level, and in order to be
accountable to Parliament, it would be logical and natural to place the NCTC
under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
29. That
leaves the question of the structure of the Ministry of Home Affairs
itself. MHA now handles a wide portfolio
of subjects ranging from ‘freedom fighters’ to ‘forensic science’. Is this a functional arrangement to deal with
the grave challenges to internal security that we face and that we will face
from many more years? I am afraid
not. It is true that the words ‘Ministry
of Home Affairs’ have an authoritative ring, but the MHA now performs a number
of functions that have no direct relation to internal security. For example, it has a division dealing with
freedom fighters but it does not have even a desk for dealing exclusively with
forensic science. There are other divisions
or desks that deal with Centre-State Relations, State Legislation, Human Rights,
Union Territories, Disaster Management,
Census etc. These are undoubtedly
important functions and deserve close attention. However, internal security is an equally, if not
more, important function that deserves the highest attention. In my view, given the imperatives and the
challenges of the times, a division of the current functions of the Ministry of
Home Affairs is unavoidable. Subjects
not directly related to internal security should be dealt with by a separate
Ministry or should be brought under a separate Department in the MHA and dealt
with by a Minister, more or less independently, without referring every issue
to the Home Minister. The Home Minister
should devote the whole of his/her time and energy to matters relating to
security.
30. It
is after one year in office that I have ventured to outline the new
architecture for India’s security. There are two enemies of change. The first is ‘routine’. Routine is the enemy of innovation. Because we are immersed in routine tasks, we
neglect the need for change and innovation.
The second enemy is ‘complacency’.
In a few days from today, 2009 will come to a close, and I sincerely
hope that we may be able to claim that the year was free from terror
attacks. However, there is the danger of
a terror-free year inducing complacency, signs of which can be seen everywhere. A strange passivity seems to have descended
upon the people: they are content to leave matters relating to security to a
few people in the Government and not ask questions or make demands. I wish to raise my voice of caution and
appeal to all of you assembled here, and to the people at large, that there is
no time to be lost in making a thorough and radical departure from the present
structure. If, as a nation, we must
defend ourselves in the present day and prepare for the future, it is
imperative that we put in place a new architecture for India’s security.
31. Thank
you for your patience and courtesy.”
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OK/KS