Indian Defence Review

There has been much commotion in the media about the terrorist strike on the Pathankot IAF base; infiltration astride the IB by the terrorists, their getting into the base, the action, casualties, time taken to clear the area, press briefing by Defence Minister at Pathankot, Prime Minister’s visit to the IAF base, so on and so forth. Actual happenings on ground have so many varying narratives (the presstitute of army coup fame too joining in) that the common man would be confused what to believe or lose interest.

The media has already refocused on to Azhar Mehmood, future of postponed Foreign Secretary level talks, few boundary light not working on the IAF base with speculation about some inside links, and the like. But the mere fact that all strategic assets were flown out of the IAF base before the terrorists actually entered it on January 1 indicates that the assessment of the IAF base being the target was accurate and correctly acted upon. Examination and analysis of the Pathankot terror strake would possibly go on for months but are best left to the NIA and the policy makers to examine and handle.

One wonders if the NSG is adequately equipped with night vision (they were not during 26/11 and did not even have corner shots) and carried Bomb Disposal Suits. It is common in India to rapidly expand forces without concurrently catering for authorized equipment; adopting a policy of sharing the ‘poverty’ of equipment. Incidentally, when have the Special Ranger Groups (SRGs – 100% police and CAPF) ever been used in an operation when their stated task is to secure the perimeter before the Special Action Groups (SAGs) go in? The SRGs are many time more than the SAGs but are largely being used for VVIP protection (which is not their task) or cooling heels while drawing a NSG allowance (25% of basic pay) and other multiple perks, akin to SAGs. There is no particular reason the DG NSG should be a police officer when the SAGs are army personnel on deputation unless there is yet another fear psychosis that the NSG may join an army coup?

Among all the above media commotion comes a news report that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, following the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase is considering a proposal to create a separate department or ministry of internal security on the lines of the Homeland Security apparatus in the United States. Though the report does not cite any government source, the mention of “department or ministry” is intriguing because if only a department, it would possibly be within MHA but under overall control of PMO, as was the case during the tenures of Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narsimha Rao. As per the report, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has viewed with concern the failure to act on specific intelligence input about a possible attack on the Pathankot airbase and appalled at the lack of coordination between various government departments and agencies during the attack. The report adds that the announcement of the new structure for dealing with internal security is likely to be made very shortly.

It is noteworthy that while during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure Chidambaram was Minister for Internal Security, he as Home Minister during UPA II while projecting the case for NCTC had also recommended setting up a separate Ministry of Internal Security. The mere fact that such recommendation came from the Home Minister himself, who had also headed the department of internal security earlier, indicated that the MHA with its vast responsibilities cannot adequately cope with the growing threats to homeland security, and a department for internal security may not be adequate. What emerged from media reports at that time was that the idea of Ministry of Internal Security was shelved at that time because it was felt it would give too much power to whoever was the Minister of Internal Security – the euphuism ‘too much power’ being on the same analogy as not appointing a CDS and keeping the military out of higher defence organizations including the MoD because of fears of the proverbial ‘army coup’. The NCTC which was required decades back was nipped in the bud due fears of its misuse by the Centre.

Unfortunately, lack of political consensus and absence of strategic thought has been the bane of India. That is why we are neither a ‘hard power’ nor a ‘soft power’ and despite being subjected to proxy wars over three decades, have done little to establish credible deterrence against irregular forces, even as both China and Pakistan have upped the ante. Chinese intelligence has put together nine northeastern insurgent organizations under the United National Liberation Front of West, South, East Asia (UNLF of WSEA) to keep our northeast on the boil, aside from supporting and arming PLA of Manipur and the Maoists. The Pakistani proxy war narrative has been given fresh fillip with even foreign analysts acknowledging that JeM has been revived by the Pakistani military, results of which are visible through the cross-IB terror attacks in Gurdaspur and Pathankot.

Hafiz Saeed who has a $10 million US bounty on his head roams freely, even observed coordinating anti-India actions in close proximity of the border. Pakistan’s ISI is notorious for its links with some 14 major terrorist organizations. It has always had firm links directly with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda’s off shoot Haqqanis. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the main 26/11 perpetrators, continues to be treated as royalty by the Pakistani administration by accounts in Pakistani media. That Pakistan continues to protect Dawood Ibrahim wanted by India is another issue. Pakistani national Mullah Asim Umar, head of AQIS is also sheltered in Pakistan. Can we forget Musharraf rewarding Ilyas Kashmiri with Rupees one lakh for trans-border beheading – as reported in Pakistani media? Not much has changed in the Pakistani military.

The Maoist insurgency is nowhere near its end. In 2010, STRATFOR had indicated that ISI had established business relationships with Maoists (mostly through third parties like ULFA or Bangladeshi militant leader Shailen Sarkar) to sell arms and ammunition and for using Maoists bases for anti-Indian activities. To add to all this, internet and technology has empowered the terrorists, aside from ever increasing threats of cyber and CBRN terrorism. Whatever be the shape of the new organization for looking after internal security, it needs to come up speedily. Establishment of the (NCTC) needs to be speeded up concurrent to combining intelligence agencies like National Investigation Agency (NIA), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Aviation Research Centre (ARC), National Crime Record Bureau and the like,. If we do not aim for 100 percent cohesion and synergy, only partial aims will be achieved.

Currently, the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) has started functioning but its efficiency needs to be optimized by expanding it into the NCTC. Further, since irregular threats are borderless, defence intelligence too must be co-opted into the NCTC / MAC. This is absent today.

UHQs need to be established in all affected States – Chaired by CM, with senior representatives of Military (where applicable), CAPF, Police, intelligence agencies, representatives of Services intelligence, military advisor, Ministers / representatives of Public Works, Education, Health, Agriculture, Irrigation, Forests, Mines etc. Similar smaller UHQs should be replicated at District level.

There is a need to evolve comprehensive Intelligence Acquisition Plans as also create State level State Counter Terrorism Centre (SCTC) under UHQ, linked to NCTC through the NATGRID. While planning resources, the importance of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) should not be lost; it is the best resource in CI and CT environment.

Bottom up intelligence should come through the SCTC to ensure a cohesive picture and negate one-upmanship. The closure of Army’s Technical Support Division (TSD) has been a major mistake, adverse effects of which are indicative by the narcotics mafia facilitating terrorist infiltration. NCTC and SCTCs would require capacity building for automated intelligence collection (voice, data, video), automated analysis with an automated decision support system to undertake short, medium, long term assessments and automated dissemination of real-time intelligence and common operational picture to concerned entities on need to know basis. Needless to reiterate that the new set up would need a functional operations room manned 24 x 7 by professionals.

Most importantly, the powers that be need to keep in mind that the hybrid threats that America faces are far less than India because of its geography. Our internal security requirements are far more complex and need total cohesion with catering equally for external threats. Mere focus on internal security would not meet our requirements in coping with hybrid and asymmetric threats. To this end, the US model of Homeland Security will need to be tempered to, which the Chinese may describe as – “Indian Characteristics”. Continued failure to address restructuring of our higher defence structures including the MoD would addressing the issue of security only partially. Finally, our recurring utopia that the Pakistani military will get over her obsession of waging proxy war needs to be given a burial. We must create credible deterrence against it, in addition to diplomacy.