'Tough laws' or hollow metastructures like the NIA are no solutions to terror. What is needed is greater efficiency and capability in the execution of the quotidian tasks of anti-crime and anti-terrorist intelligence and operations, policing, enforce
There was, however, much partisan posturing and, despite the enthusiasm ofmany a long-in-tooth expert, it can safely be said that these twoinstrumentalities have now already exhausted much (if not all) of theirpotential utility -- neither can be expected to have any significant impact onIndia’s capacities to counter the relentless waves of terror that willinevitably come in the foreseeable future; the passage of these Bills has,however, served to deflect the attention of an uncomprehending public and anuncritical media from far more pressing CT imperatives.
Within the political calculus -- if there are no early repeats of Mumbai26/11 -- this may just get the parties over the hump of the coming GeneralElections with no extraordinary pressure to do much more.
What is not understood, when imitative remedies such as the NIA are proposed,is that every ‘solution’ occurs within a particular resource configuration.Simply saying that America has prevented attacks after 9/11, so we must do whatAmerica did, is plain stupid. America does not have Pakistan -- the epicentre ofglobal terrorism -- as its immediate neighbour.
America has launched two major wars purportedly with the objective ofcontaining the ‘sources of terrorism’ abroad. And, with a GDP of USD 14.14trillion and a population of just over 300 million, its resources are, incomparison to India’s, with a GDP just pushing USD 1 trillion and a populationof 1.2 billion, virtually limitless.
Specifically, the FBI’s annual budget stands at USD 7.1 billion -- to matchthis for India’s population, we would need to envisage an expenditure of atleast four times as much. The Centre’s outlay under ‘policing’ currentlyamounts to just USD 3 billion. While the total allocations for the NIA are stillto be defined (indeed, would hardly have been estimated, given the haste andincoherence that attended the drafting of the NIA Bill) reports suggest that the‘initial budget’ is to be a paltry Rs 20 million (about USD 423,000) as‘non-recurring expenditure’ and Rs 30 million (about USD 634,000) as‘recurring expenditure’ for the present financial year.
There is also some talk of carrying our imitation further to create a Department(or Ministry) of Homeland Security in India as well. It would be useful toremind ourselves that this department’s declared Budget in the US amounts toUSD 44 billion (excluding the budgets of the various agencies and departments itcoordinates and controls). Its ‘secret’ budget is described by sources as‘without limit’. The US also spends USD 650 billion on defence alone, withina total expenditure bill of USD 2,730 billion. The total annual outlay of theunion government in India amounts to just USD 150 billion.
Efforts to imitate American ‘solutions’ have already created a number ofutterly dysfunctional agencies at the centre over the past years, including theNational Security Council (with its ponderous ‘secretariat’ and advisoryboard), the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Department of Net Assessment andthe National Disaster Management Authority (imitating the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency).
Most of these institutions remain under-manned and under-resourced across allparameters, and operate under ambiguous mandates, with little effective orstatutory authority, and every one of them has failed to secure the objectivesof its creation.
But this is entirely counter-productive since terrorism is a complex andongoing offence and the distinction between ‘major’ and ‘minor’incidents can be misleading. Major conspiracies often comprise a succession ofminor offences, eventually culminating in the final strike. On the other hand,if the NIA’s mandate was to be expanded (at some indeterminate point in thefuture) to cover every offence relating to its charter -- that is,"offences affecting the sovereignty, security and integrity of India,security of state, friendly relations with foreign states and offences underActs enacted to implement international treaties, agreements, conventions andresolutions of the United Nations…" -- this would yield tens of thousandsof case every year, and require thousands of skilled investigators within theAgency.
It is useful, in this context, to note that the Centre has failed to providethe requisite manpower and resources even for a comparatively tiny CentralBureau of Investigation to fulfil its relatively insignificant mandate.
It is useful to pause here, for a moment. The CBI has suffered chronicmanpower shortages, which are particularly acute at the level of senior officersand investigators. At top levels, all three posts Special Director/AdditionalDirectors, for instance, are currently vacant. Two posts of Joint Director arevacant, out of a sanctioned strength of 18; the deficit at DIG level is 12 of 38posts; 22 of 100 posts in the rank of Superintendent of Police (SP) are vacantor held in ‘additional charge’. Crucially, current vacancies at the level ofInvestigating Officers (IO), the cutting edge of the Agency, number 91, againstan unspecified total strength.
The CBI’s manpower profile, moreover, is a complete muddle, with officersdrawn on deputation from entirely unrelated services -- the State Police Forces,the Central Paramilitary Forces, and other Police organisations. By the timethey begin to learn the ropes of investigation, the time for repatriation totheir parent departments, or, at senior levels, for retirement, looms at hand.
Against such a background, how can it even be imagined that the NIA would rise,fully formed, functional and efficient, from the womb of the earth? Given theCentre’s disastrous record of institution-building and the management ofexisting institutions, scepticism -- indeed, cynicism -- is not only reasonable,it is inescapable. The NIA can only cannibalize existing organisations --already suffering from acute skill and manpower shortages -- for a smallmanpower component in the foreseeable future.
Even in the long run, there will be inflexible caps to its capacities forrecruitment of suitable personnel -- caps that now afflict virtually everyGovernment organisation at specialised and supervisory levels. In the relativelysmall pool of educated resources in the country (India has an abysmal 9 per centHigher Education Participation Rate, compared to 35 to over 60 per cent in mostWestern countries -- and 6 to 7 of this 9 per cent would be unemployable, giventhe quality of general education), a diminishing proportion is now willing tojoin the Government, despite a continuous dilution of standards in mostservices.
In its present form, consequently, the NIA is destined to irrelevance. A morecomprehensive mandate, however, is an impossibility within the prevailingresource configurations. Moreover, several provisions -- including thoserelating to the NIA’s authority to supersede State investigative agencies --may attract Constitutional impediments, and are certain to be challenged whenthe very first cases are taken up by the NIA. Further, it is not clear how an‘investigative agency’, whose role comes into play after a crime has beencommitted, is going to prevent future attacks.
What is argued here is not that the NIA can have no conceivable utilitywithin the architecture of counter-terrorist strategy, but that it can have noimmediate utility within the circumstances currently prevailing in India; thatthis cannot be a national priority; and that the NIA that India is currentlycapable of putting up (in terms of manpower, resources and skills) can have noplausible bearing on the trajectory of terrorism in India.
Moving on, it is, indeed, astonishing that the very political formation thathas been vociferously arguing for over a decade that POTA was ineffectual incontaining terrorism -- their favourite phrase was, "POTA could not preventthe attack on Parliament" -- is now offering a ‘tough anti-terrorismlaw’ as a solution to terrorism. It is, of course, obvious that the oppositionto POTA was inspired by electoral calculations, and it is the case that thesecalculations may have changed dramatically after Mumbai 26/11.
Regrettably, the half-truth of that original argument remains inescapable. Acounter-terrorism (CT) law is as ‘tough’ as its implementing mechanism.Within the degraded policing and security environment in India, and the equallydebilitated justice system, a ‘tough law’ will be of no more than marginalutility, if not entirely toothless, in fighting terrorism.
The disturbing reality is that, far from offering any ‘solution’ toterrorism, the NIA and ‘tough law’ Acts simply confirm that India, today, isa country utterly consumed by irrational belief systems and unexamined faiths.What we see here, is a triumph of form over content, a kind of strategic vastushastra -- a symbolic shifting about of doors and windows, a shuffling ofspaces, that has no realistic impact on the strength or utility of the edifice.
It is not possible, here, to give a detailed critique of each of theseproposals. It can be said, however, that most of these are, at best, marginallyincremental, and, at worst, entirely misdirected.
The decision to locate ‘elite’ NSG units in several strategic and urbancentres across India, for instance, -- what can accurately be described as the‘Rambo model’ of response -- is ill-conceived. The idea is that these smallcontingents of this ‘crack’ force would quickly be able to smash up anyterrorist group that may have the audacity to attack. Regrettably, it can beanticipated that the terrorists will not do us the courtesy of attacking wherewe are prepared for them; consequently, delays in actual deployment of the NSG-- while they may not be as interminable as was the case in the 26/11 attack atMumbai, will still remain significant.
Worse the NSG’s present record at Mumbai does not support a very positiveassessment of its capabilities. Even if the delay in arrival at the incidentsites is discounted, the awkward reality is that, considering the sheerprotraction of the incident and the magnitude of damage just eight terroristsinflicted with small arms and grenades, their eventual neutralization can hardlybe considered an exemplary operational success.
While the various initiatives and sanctions announced can, at best, help inmarginally augmenting capacities, it also remains the case that theirimplementation is, itself, suspect, given the government’s past record.Specifically, one December 20 report in the Indian Express suggestedcomprehensive failures even in utilizing funds allocated for security upgrades.For instance, of Rs 7.15 billion allocated for the Police under ‘planexpenditure’ in the current financial year -- largely for acquisition ofweapons and equipment -- Police organisations under the MHA had spent a mere10.7 per cent.
The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), the apex technicalintelligence body set up on the recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee,had spent, till November this year, just Rs 1.95 billion of a total allocationof Rs 24.20 billion. The NTRO received Rs 18.5 billion in 2006-07, of which it‘surrendered’ (as unspent) Rs 14.14 billion on the grounds that it could not‘finalize’ purchase of required communications equipment.
Sanctions and allocations, consequently, have little bearing on capacities andimplementation within the Indian system. As one Western commentator notes,"You don’t deserve any praise for doing what you're supposed to do. Butin India, bureaucrats who actually do their jobs are virtually heroes."