INTERNAL SECURITY- CHALLENGES AND APPROACH

In an age of sabotage and terrorism, no man, no place and no structure is really

safe; no time of the day or night can be construed as safe. With the increasing

complexity of human society with increasing claims on the limited resources of the

world, the kettle of human life Is spilling over with organised hatred and violence.

Terrorism has become an international phenomenon. Accrescent unemployment makes

terrorism popular by giving the unemployed youth a raison d’etre for life and an ideology

to pursue. The lopsided material growth of 20 th century life at the cost of contentment

and inner peace have endeared to man the thrills and adventures of the life that fills up

his inner void. New scientific inventions give man such sophisticated mechanisms and

machinery that he can do anything he wants without being personally present at a place.

Each man has potentially become a power-centre and he can build or destroy the world he

lives in. The rise in hatred and violence, compounded with man’s dangerous power to

wreak vengeance, has made internal security an unsure field. It has become the primary

challenge for the police force, replacing its hitherto main functions of crime control and

maintenance of law and order.

The threat to internal security is posed by highly trained and motivated volunteers

belonging to highly organised and resourceful terrorist outfits. The unenviable task of

providing protection to men, places and structures from these committed zealots with the

choice of time, place and target in their favour and any number of sophisticated methods
and techniques of strike to choose from, continually sap the manpower, machinery and

other resources of the police. Even in the advanced countries the police find it difficult

to cope with the problem. The police should have led in modernisation techniques with

the antipode marching to keep pace. Unfortunately, it is not so in the Indian situation.

The reaction of the police to terrorist threats is desperate mobbing and covering

the target at best and diffident immobilisation at the worst. Their inability to penetrate

terrorist organisations has put it at a costly disadvantage. Their failure to draw up

detailed long-term plans to meet terrorist challenges handicaps them in their operations.

Internal security cannot be guaranteed sans a sound knowledge of the terrorists’ way of

functioning.

SPASMODIC APPROACH

An internal security machinery working in a void often gives rise to ludicrous

security reactions. Anonymous calls or letters in most unlikely situations are attended to

with a desperate mobilisation of men and machinery without scrutinising the call or the

letter, and everything ends up as a hoax. An anonymous Kannada letter claimed to have

been written by the LTTE was received in Mysore with the threat of blowing up the KRS

dam on the intervening right of August 14 and 15, in 1991 and was later followed with

similar threats of blowing up the Vidhana Soudha on the same night. Somebody

wellversed with the LTTE objectives, expertise and method of operation would have

dismissed the calls and the letters as a non-even. But the Karnataka police had to be
prepared for an emergency because it was not equipped to handle internal security

problems with courage and confidence. It is not wrong to be ready to meet threats but,

the action should be subtle without fanfare and unnecessary show of strength. Desperate

reaction may prompt mischievous elements to shoot similar missives almost daily. Can

the police react to all those letters similarly? It is subtle planning and low-key operation

that make security possible. All security arrangements must be preceded by through

research and detailed plans. This is completely forgotten in the Indian situation.

Not many are involved in an expertly drawn-up operational plan of sabotage. It

is quality that counts and not quantity in both sabotage and security operations. Those

who really execute the sabotage are highly motivated trained and competent individuals.

The larger the number, the smaller the chances of success because of human nature,

coordination problems and higher chances of leakage. Also it involves the problem of

providing security and escape routes for more men in the post-operational period. No

number of policemen can stop a highly motivated and trained man from sneaking up to

his target and destroying it. What is required is not companies of policemen, but a

handful of highly qualified and motivated men of experience with an intelligent,

thoroughly drawn up security plan, based on reliable intelligence inputs about the objects

and operational plans of the adversary. Everything except these salient features is

present in the responses of the Indian police to security challenges.

Indian security plans ignore the cardinal principle of a good reticulation, namely

providing security without coming in the way of the normal life of the target except
where unavoidable. The essence of security buildup is protection with minimum

inconvenience to the concerned. But Indian security sleuths feel otherwise. They believe

in taking charge of the target, be it a place, an installation, or a person and dictating

terms as though the security is given in exchange for freedom of movement and action.

And all this for inadequate security. But even national leaders have traded their image

and popularity for this supposed safety.

It is argued that the Indian security system is effective in discouraging the less

resourceful terrorist outfits from attempting strikes and preventing half-hearted attacks.

The argument is not convincing for the simple reason all terrorist outfits worth the name

are extremely resourceful with objectives, plans and strategies and a complete

commitment to carry out their operational plans. No target is out of their reach. If a

target is not struck for a long time, the reasons can be only three, a) the outfit has not

really intended to strike, b) the outfit is yet to equip itself c) that security sleuths could be

exclusively covering the target making a strike impossible.

India should reach a stage where the third reason which is an exception now

becomes the rule. The failure to capture Sivarasan and Subha, suspects in the Rajiv

Gandhi assassination case, is a recent event. The chance intelligence, as early as in

August, 1991, that both extremists were holed up with others in a ramshackle house at

Konanakunte in Karnataka did not enable the Indian security forces to catch them alive

with all the time, resources and the element of surprise at their disposal.
 This reflects on the serious loopholes in the field of security planning in India.

Instead of inventing an undercover strategy to draw the extremists out or entering their

den as friends with the help of undercover agents, the police failed to surprise the

suspects and surrounded them. What happened was not only the suicide of the extremists

which was expected but the operation to nab the culprits virtually ended there.

The reason for such bungling is that Indian security operation does not go much

beyond the multiple crack forces-Black Cats, National Security Guards, Special

Protection Group and so on. Indeed, these crack forces are important but they are only

the ammunition and not the weapon. An exhaustive internal security plan on which all

security strategies and operations are based must be the gospel of the internal security

religion. Sadly, India is yet to have such a macro-plan to guide its security sleuths.

PROBLEMS

The problems of security are manifold. First is intelligence collection. Often, true

and false information are so much entwined that it is impossible to distinguish one from

the other. Even if a piece of information is identified as true, it loses its value standing in

the midst of useless material. That isolated piece of information is removed from the

adversary’s action plan and when pursued leads to wrong conclusions and dangerous

situations. Continued research is a must to utilise the information in action . This again

depends upon the skill and experience of the individual or group of individuals who

handle the job. Often, both the research and analysis are carried out under the pressure
of time because of the proximity of the threat. Both intelligence and its source must be

kept a closely guarded secret. Any leak may prompt an adversary to modify his plan

which will annul the security operation. This creates problems of mobilisation and

deployment without rousing suspicion. The men to handle the security operation should

be handpicked for competence and probity. Their antecedents and recent activities

must be closely examined before they are cleared. It is the failure of security agencies

to effectively carry out such preparations that cost Indian Indira Gandhi.

The briefing of security operations about their job itself poses a problem. The

time of briefing must be carefully chosen so that while the gap between the impending

operation and the briefing gives sufficient time to the operators for preparation, it must

not be too long. The timing of briefing and development must be decided at high levels

to ensure perfect secrecy. And, how much can be told? Security operation basically

involves the creative initiative of the operator. His success depends upon the ability to

assess the situation and pursue a better course of action without loss of time. Success

also depends on how much briefing must be made to operators at various ranks and

levels and how much information and background knowledge can be fed to them. Here

again, liberal outlets for vital information create security risks. The primary requirement

of any security operation is a thorough study and analysis of intelligence and other

inputs, a comprehensive plan of operation with flexibility to meet contingencies.

Timing is an essential ingredient of security planning and decides the success or

failure of an operation. It lends the element of surprise.

 Not that everything traditional is irrelevant today. For instance, the strategy of

quadruple deployment-static guards, armed pickets, mobile patrols and striking forces for

a static target. Standing guards, personal security officer, inner cordon, outer cordon and

striking force are deployed for a human target while for a mobile target a security officer,

escort, piloting and striking force will form the skeleton of the system. However, it

should be borne in mind that this strategy in no way replaces specific security strategies;

it only complements them.

Security, its challenges and counter strategies are ever-growing phenomena. An

effective strategy must foresee challenges and arm itself in advance. The country faces

challenges from the Kashmiri separatist movement in the North, the Akali separatist

movement in the West, the ULFA in the East, the LTTE in the South and the naxalites in

the Centre. The number of new security outfits coming up is an indication of India’s

concern but then the accent is misplaced on quantity in the form of a new security outfit

every time a serious security breach shakes the country, rather than on improving the

quality. Until the country learns the basic lessons of modern security, tragic deaths and

destruction are bound to continue.