A few months ago, while researching for an article on intelligence, I spoke to a former additional secretary who had served in the cabinet secretariat with great distinction. His response was "I never speak or discuss matters pertaining to intelligence in India." It is an interesting response considering the fact that India's intelligence community is incestuous at a certain level, therefore, detrimental to its ability to be dynamic and progressive. Most retired bureaucrats who have served in either of the intelligence services will write reams about how our neighbouring states are a threat to us, but will rarely write on what can be done to counter that threat by our intelligence agencies. They will analyse world or regional events threadbare, but will rarely talk or even hint at the systemic failures within our system that exposes us to external or internal threats.
In the lack of such soul-searching within the public domain, our intelligence set up continues to function without any oversight or performance-oriented auditing. As a result, the system throws up short-term methods such as "encounter specialists" who serve a purpose but cause more harm, sometimes irreparable, to the system than good.
M
ost argue that intelligence, being secretive, cannot be put under credible oversight. But in democracies such as the United States of America as well as the United Kingdom the US Senate and the British Parliament have committees that have extensive budgetary as well as operational control over the intelligence agencies. In fact, within the US Senate there is a group of eight senators who have access to the highest and most secretive intelligence available in the land so as to determine whether the budgets have been justified by the quality of intelligence that has been produced in that particular year.
In India, many will argue that even the idea of such an oversight committee in Parliament is absurd. Can we really trust our otherwise "corrupt" politicians with such sensitive data?
But aren't the intelligence agencies already under the de-facto control of the politicians? After all, isn't the Intelligence Bureau answerable to the Home Minister and isn't the R&AW answerable to the Prime Minister's secretariat? Wouldn't it be preferable to expand the ambit of control a little more to ensure that an independent body, such as a parliamentary committee conducts an objective oversight of these agencies?
After all, we do vote for the same politicians, and willingly accept any law that they have debated in Parliament. We approach the same politicians when we differ with them on policy issues, and depend upon them to be the architects of such lofty notions such as "foreign policy". We proudly point out to all and sundry that we are a democratic society and nation where civilian control over the military is taken for granted in sharp contrast to our Western neighbors…
The case for parliamentarians could go and on, but the fact is, they already have access and oversight to intelligence, and a capacity to misuse the existing apparatus. Instead, wouldn’t it be better to give them an oversight role that also makes the misuse of intelligence that much more difficult and the intelligence gathering apparatus accountable?
Which is why, is it too much to ask for such a Parliamentary committee, sworn to secrecy, that could ask a Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB), for example, to explain why despite having passed a budget for Rs 1000 crores the IB failed to warn against the train bombings or the terrorist attack in busy marketplace in Delhi and other such simple questions? Instead, only the Home Minister, the National Security Advisor or the Prime Minister gets to ask these questions, far from public scrutiny, and the debate ends there, within the four walls of North and South Block in a maze of opaqueness that would make Stalinist Russia look like a free-wheeling democracy.
E
very member that I met from the intelligence community voices a single frustration: Lack of funds, decisions and recognition of the work that they do. They also point out how nepotism has now become the hallmark of progress within the agencies. If that is the case, what is the quantum of harm that it is doing to the security establishment from within?