INDIAN INTERNAL SECURITY BUILDUP
The article deals with the organisation, management and
operations of intelligence network in reference to India
and its significance in safeguarding the internal security
of the country. Efforts are made to trace the Achilles’
heel in the organisation and functioning of the present
intelligence build-up in India and how it has to be handled
to strengthen the internal security machinery of the country
is discussed in the article with emphasis on selection of
right people, right training, right motivation, right planning
and right preparations before each field action. The intricacies
of intelligence operations are also discussed in three distinct
levels namely intelligence gathering, research & planning and
field operations with reference to their importance to the
internal security.
The police force in India was raised imprimis to tackle crime and law and order problems. Its recruitment, training and on-the field experience programmes stress upon the elements required to tackle those problems. The Indian police organisation, in its stiff hierarchical order and discipline, is geared to meet these challenges. There is little scope in the present police for the growth of an aptitude other than for these déjà vu function. No effort was made to overhaul the police even after security challenges have superated in their primacy in police functions. It should be borne in mind that the demands on the police to meet security challenges are tout a fait distinct from the demands to which the Indian police has long been accustomed. The aptitude required to protect targets from determined esoteric strikes by terrorists is antipodal with the aptitude required for the show of strength, necessary to suppress a loosely knit mob of wankle law-breakers. In spite of these excessive strains on the Indian police, its organisation and resources, due to the dangerous spurt in security threats, it unfortunately has failed to abraid and overhaul its system to face the new challenges. The glitches of the Indian police in internal security are obvious by the fact that Indian soil has become a fertile ground to breed and feed terrorist organisations. Every corner of India has its own terrorist outfit and each of these outfits has proved itself a pernicious challenge to the Indian police. Never, even by chance has the Indian police shown that it can control a terrorist outfit. The fact is that even all armies of the world together cannot bring a terrorist outfit to heel, unless the soft belly of the terrorist outfit is subtly hit embusque by intelligent operations. Sadly, the Indian police is yet to realise this fact.
Sabotage, terrorism and security risks are not phenomena, pro tempore. They are here to stay and the police must know to meet the situations they engender. And threats to internal security, by all means will assume demonic proportions as time advances. The
survival of the police in coming years depends upon its ability to meet the needs of internal security. It has no alternative but to overhaul its passe system, organisation, operational methods, approach to work, training and manpower resources to be able to do so. The faster it is done, the better. For, the inability of the police in successfully handling security challenges is resulting in fatalities almost every day.
The first parameter for preparing the police for the future challenges of the internal security is selecting right people with right aptitude, right abilities and right background. This requires thorough job analysis in the requirements to handle the pertinent responsibilities. Choosing the right man from the motley to inclip him to the ergon forms the foremost need of preparing the police for the impending challenges. It should be realised that the need of such people to the police overweighs the need of the police for these extra-ordinary species. As internal security is a condition of national survival, no law, no fundamental right, no directive principle nor any social welfare ideologies should interfere with the recruitment of the right people. Internal security being a highly sensitive and secretive job, each less than right man inside is a positive risk to security operations. Further , such people are a drain on the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation. Ergo, avoiding people less than right for the job is as important in recruitment as selecting the right person.
The people who fit-in to internal security responsibilities must have an innate trait to give themselves to the job that they take up. They must be sensitive people with a high commitment to their responsibilities with the mental and physical ability to fulfil the task. Men of high intelligence quotient, patience, aplomb and perseverance have to be immanent in their nature. A profound sense of patriotism is an added qualification. However, not many people having these rare qualities are readily available. It must be a sacred duty of the security operators to ingest such rara avis to the organisation wherever they are found and with whatever sacrifice. It is possible only if recruitment to these places are made a postern affair at the highest level without throwing recruitment open to competitions where all types of people sneak in for various reasons. Internal security, more often than not, is an envious profession wherein life is committed to its objectives.
In the circumstances, the indraught to the fold must be agraste with respect and behoofs in form of liberal purses and perks apart from more than generous promotional and death-cum-retirement benefits that behove to the compulsive commitment sine qua non for the job. This helps to widen the latitude of choice by promising a belle vue which is puerile to its demands to the aspirants to this difficile career.
Having suitable manpower is one thing. Preparing them for the future challenges is quite another. It is here that training comes into picture. Training high-calibre, sensitive people is a much more responsible and arduous job. If the training is to prepare them for sensitive job like internal security, the gravity of the task gets further compounded by the addition of another dimension to the responsibility. The emphasis here is to raise the innate traits of the trainees to desired levels. They should be moulded to be highly motivated, knowledgeable, bright professionals with a flair for results. They must be taught to operate without plangent attention and get maximum mileage from minimum basic action. Such a training needs a carefully drawn-up training programme with creative inputs. In sensitive jobs like internal security, grooming manpower including recruitment and training is more vital than the job itself.
Indian security plans lay stress on covering targets with armed men and preventing people from approaching the threatened target. In absence of adequate penetration into the source of threat, none of these tactics can have any impact on the capabilities of a terrorist to strike his target. A human wall around the target is an infructuous show of strength in an age where there are powerful weapons and ammunitions that can penetrate several such layers in a single stroke. Even the best of the snipers protecting a target would be at a disadvantage in feeling a terrorist-to-strike who has all the advantages of time, place, surprise and the mental and physical reflexes to superate both his target and armed protectors. A well-planned terrorist attack fully prepares for all these odd contretemps.
Another important strategy of the Indian security machinery is screening people before permitting proximity to the threatened target. A resourceful terrorist plan can facilely circumvent this with money connections and influence. There are infinite ingenious ways available to a resourceful and imaginative man, determined to reach his target in circumstances where a police force remiss and ineffectual at best and corrupt at the worst is in charge of screening as spotters, his job is facile and custom-made for his aptitude.
The Indian police system lays emphasis on dashing qualities rather than on mental qualities and planning that form the elan vital of security policing. The age-old police traits like a criant show of force and a strict adherence to hierarchical order have a mis-alliance with the needs of security operations where patience, perseverance, calculating mind and imagination was to foresee developments, speedy physical and mental reflexes, unbreachable sang-froid in adverse situations, high commitment to the work in hand, initiative and above all, courage to take responsibility for action decide the success or otherwise of the security build-up. Indeed, these human qualities have to be reinforced with neoteric security equipment including latest communication, transport, information, weaponry and other security –oriented systems. The organisation must have three full-fledged wings in charge of (a) collection of intelligence; (b) process and assessment of security risks; and (c) field operation.
Collection of vital intelligence forms the pith of perficient security operation. An effective security build-up perforce stands on the foundation of strategic intelligence. The ferocity of security basically depends on the quality of intelligence as an input. A security organisation of neoteric age cannot survive without an effective intelligence wing as a backup unit. And key intelligence does not come freely. It has to be extracted at great risks from closely guarded sources by resourceful intelligence operators. Often, such an operation may require years of patient preparation by an undercover to cultivate dependable insiders to the cause. These operations are potential comminations to the mutual relation and ergo intelligence operators are left to their own fate by employers when the operators are caught. Intelligence is a venal commodity and its price can be fixed in monetary terms. Collection of intelligence involves huge expenditure to maintain organisation and communication reticulation, support the logistics of the operations and at times to affect outright purchases as well. It requires a huge army of highly-paid and expensive operators and agents to cover places and groups that are potentially security risks. The success of security back home tout a fait depends upon the quality of the intelligence sent back. In an age of bitter concourse to win over or withhold a piece of intelligence, double crosses or even triple crosses are au naturel. The situation necessitates keeping an ey on these operators from a distance.
The raw inputs from intelligence sources have to be winnowed, classified and processed if found to have security relevance. Intelligence collection sans processing is as good as, if not worse than, not collecting them at all. Raw intelligence throws the national security to the winds by raising a maelstrom, wherein facts and fancies are completed beyond recognition. It blunts the sensitivities of the sleuths and excoriates targets to real danger. The possibility can be avoided by creating a nerve-centre, a command post in the security organisation to process and assess intelligence inputs anent ground realities, past history and known facts. This organisation must be manned by people au fait and capable of reading between lines to arrive at right conclusions as well as invenit strategies in the interests of the internal security. This body must have a flair for research and analysis and knowledge of the internal situation of the country, dynamics of various factors that have bearing on the internal security and possess an insight into minor developments that may blow up into serious security risks at some future date. It must be constituted of carefully chosen professionals with proven records of eximious work and a deep sense of patriotism and commitment to their work and should be directly responsible to the chief of the organisation and work as a high-power advisory body in all matters pertaining to the security.
Field operation is the cutting –edge of the security build-up. Other activities in the organisation are just postern backups to the field operation that forms the mainstay of the security organisation and inclips a vast portion of the organisation’s manpower, equipments, machinery, money, time and other resources. If intelligence operators must have alert eyes and ears, security analysts must have smart mental faculties and field-operators must have smart reflexes inter alia. Only people with exceptional courage and perseverance and dare devilry can behove to this job. Resourceful people with energy and willingness to work hard in tramontane circumstances, rare single-mindedness of purpose and devotion can alone be successful in the dangerous world of field operations. They have to be pollent-willed people with the precinct to risk their lives for the sake of achieving goal. Screening people for these traits is not a facile job. This arduous job has to be performed with great care and caution for the quality of internal security of the land depends upon the work turned out by them. The people who are chosen for the job must be able to provide security to men, places and structures, known to be sensitive and comminuted by enemies, while themselves remain in shades. Speed and surprise are their chief attributes. Resourcefulness to do jobs which appear impossible is their mainstay. Indeed, the demands are too high and this necessitates careful selection and recruitment, efficient training, high motivation and liberal compensation in the form of generous pay, perks and expenditure accounts. The people who play with their lives to meet the objectives of the internal security have to be treated well for the risks to which they willingly submit themselves in the interests of the country and its internal security.
All internal security operations must be part of a raisonne security plan that is drawn out in advance after through research and study of the best available intelligence on internal and external affairs, the geographical position of the country, the internal and external economic situation, likely shifts in foreign relations, objects and intentions of neighbouring countries, the dynamics of ethnic, communal and linguistic interaction within the country and scientific advances in weaponry and other gadgetry, having a bearing on the security matters. The security plan must foresee likely sources of trouble inside and outside the country and cultivate undercover operators at sensitive spots either by its own resources or through agents, often years or decades in advance to keep an eye on developments, feed intelligence and control situations by infiltration to strategic positions. Without this groundwork, no security operation can make much headway.
Any security build-up must stand on two basic requirements; firstly, up-to-date knowledge of the security risks and their starategies and secondly, a security machinery devised to meet specific demands of the specific circumstances. A thorough knowledge of the adversaries includes an in-depth knowledge of their long and short term objectives, their time-to-time aberrations, strategies, expertise, modes of operation, friends, enemies, sources of support, likely change of strategies and their analyses to assess the possibility of security threats and likely targets. Yes, it is a stupendous task involving huge manpower and other resources a grands frais. Yet, it is worth the cost and trouble in the interests of the national security and a far more intelligent and meaningful use of human and material resources than spending them to criminals after they accomplish their pernicious job. Investigation of terrorism-oriented crimes serves practically no purpose and makes no impact on the plan and strategies of a well-planned terrorist outfit.
A security build-up is infrangible only if it is specific for each circumstance depending upon the needs as assessed by security experts from time to time. Security must essentially be an esoteric operation with open eyes and ears and closed mouth; with open mind and closed heart . It must be a shadowy operation rather than a gust of light blinding people around. Intelligent terrorist operators prefer to strike in this gust of light which is what security tends to be. A good and pollent security plan should not have an open set-plan which by all likelihood would be used by intelligent terrorists to their advantage. The pollicitation of a good security plan depends upon its secretiveness, perspicacity and ability to take even a well-prepared and resourceful terrorist operator by surprise.
