Set up exclusive ministry of internal security

BL Vohra
Former DGP, Tripura

India is passing through a very difficult internal security situation, apart from external security threats and several other problems. Presently, the Ministry of Home Affairs at the Centre is handling this important matter in addition to various other tasks at hand. Having an exclusive ministry of internal security is something that cannot and should not be delayed any further. This has been and is being advocated by many senior functionaries and other knowledgeable people. Such a step will be of great help. In November 2002, a year after the 9/11 attacks, the US set up a separate department of Homeland Security with exclusive focus on internal security. And they have succeeded quite a bit as no serious terrorist strike has taken place in the US in almost two decades. It’s a huge success.

As on date, the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to its website, deals with Centre-State relations, inter-state relations, administration of Union Territories, official language, Padma Awards, visa and immigration, communal harmony, national integration, Constitutional matters, appointments of people to high offices, and so on. It’s a very long list, long enough to reiterate that the MHA is overloaded with work. Naturally, it cannot pay exclusive attention to internal security, a task of utmost importance.

Let us first list the areas that need attention under internal security, with the caveat that this list will keep on expanding, depending on the internal and external situation. India is a huge country with different problems facing different states, a long international border with two hostile neighbours, Pakistan and China, and a long coastline. Its challenges broadly include the situation in J&K, including terrorists being sent from abroad, left-wing extremism, insurgency in the Northeast, drugs coming from the Golden Triangle in the Northeast and the Golden Crescent in the West, weapons and fake currency coming in from land and sea — now including use of new technologies like drones. Add to that human trafficking, smuggling of all kinds from land and sea, narco-terrorism, terror funding, economic offences, efforts of enemies to destabilise the country, disturbing communal situation, cyber crimes, problems arising out of social media, ability of the enemies abroad to create problems for India, especially by neighbouring countries, including the expected fallout due to the recent situation in Afghanistan, internal enemies, increasing crime, especially against women, children, senior citizens and those belonging to backward, Dalit and tribal communities, inability of the criminal justice system to deliver justice, vested interests of all kinds manipulating institutions to their advantage at the cost of rule of law, total control over the functioning of the police by the political parties in power in the states… The list can go on.

There is, no doubt, a wide range of paraphernalia available with the Home Ministry to handle these situations — uniformed manpower, various intelligence agencies and technical and non-technical support systems. Though the ministry has done a good job so far, the seniormost officials and ministers have to spend quite a bit of their time on the routine responsibilities mentioned earlier. As a result, the internal security issues tend to get neglected. Just two examples should suffice. We haven’t been able to control the violence by left-wing extremism (LWE) for about five decades and the violent insurgency in some states in the Northeast for at least four decades.

As for the first, the LWE, there has been no long-term policy in place and follow-up action vis-à-vis various dimensions, like ensuring tribal rights of all kinds, education and development, inclusiveness, smoothening federal structure that creates coordination problems, bringing on-board different political parties with different ideologies in the affected states, at times having different views on how to tackle this problem, etc. We claim progress in tackling LWE, but there are regular setbacks. One can’t even hazard a guess as to by when we’ll be able to solve this problem.

Coming to the second, the insurgency in the Northeast, sending the Army to tackle the situation has not worked. This model, thought of initially and still continuing, has failed. How is it that our finest institution, the Army, hasn’t been able to sort out insurgency even in smaller states like Manipur and Nagaland for decades, especially when they don’t have any inimical neighbour, like Pakistan, bordering these states? There is only Myanmar on the other side, and it is definitely not hostile to us. Not the fault of the Army, of course, because it didn’t go there on its own. But at this rate, how long will it take for us to sort out this problem, nobody knows. The solution lies in strengthening the local police, which should lead the operations. This approach has shown success in Tripura, but nobody is interested in pursuing it as status quo suits everyone, including the state governments. They are happy to have Central government forces doing the job and not exert themselves. The side-effects of this model have also been disastrous because of the occasional mistakes committed by some Army personnel protected by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), many a times angering the local populace in the bargain. There is no dearth of examples.

Many other problems of internal security have been simmering for long and are regularly emerging. It is, therefore, necessary that an exclusive ministry with specific expertise for day-to-day management of internal security and re-evaluation of past policies as well as formulation of new ones is established by bifurcating the present Ministry of Home Affairs in the Central government. States facing serious internal security issues should similarly have a separate ministry. Only then will things improve.