Securing India

India emerged as an independent country 67 yrs ago after successfully ending the colonial era and gave itself a democratic constitution. The strategy and structure of governance was in line with the democratic ethos that the Indian national State is known for centuries. We know that the management theory of strategy that follows the structure and structure must always be suited to execute the strategy.

In following this maxim India gave to itself a democratic setup, periodical elections and also expert agencies to take care of its emergent challenges to work because of its historical experiences, especially its emergence as a nation with an inimical neighbour called Pakistan and its emergence as one of the key factors in the international politics because of its huge population and potentiality to alter the international politics. India’s role as a regional player in power politics in the subcontinent and also in Asia started immediately after its independence with the first Prime Minister being an External Affair Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru took lot of interest in Asian Unity and he was one of the main artist of the Panchseel Principles.

It used to be said during those days that India’s non-alignment is nothing but an international explanation of Gandhian principle of non-violence. Be that is it may, non alignment movement suited in the cold war arena for three region Asia, Africa and Europe namely Yugoslavia, Egypt and India playing key roles for nearly a decade and half after India’s independence. Even though India fought Chinese war in 1962, with Pakistan another war in 1965 and Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. The Challenges to national security emerged much more serious in 1980s and still continue to be there. The following can be delineated as the most important challenges to national security.

>> The national security challenges from anti India elements abroad including terrorist organizations like L.eT, Jaish-i-Mohd etc.

>>The cyber criminals.

>>The economical offenders.

>>The inimical agencies of foreign states.

>> The insurgent groups of North East.

>> The separatists groups of Kashmir and some North East separatist groups

>> The Left Wing Extremist elements in the Central India and southern India

>> The local communal groups including the Rabbit communal organizations like banned SIMI and its later avtar as Indian Mujahideen.

>>The Indian Mafiosi, which is there in almost all the emerging cities of India including areas which are known for commercial and political importance.

>> The bureaucratic politicians’ mafia nexus as has been evidently pointed out by the N N Vohra committee in a report.

Thus the 10 above challenges to National Security are very serious in nature and they play a vital role in different parts of the country both in time and space relational matters. While there is no point in offering volumes of explanation, historically there, emergent trends etc were all these ten challenges.

I would like to focus on here on two aspects namely 1) Left Wing Extremism and 2) Cyber Criminals as the key challenges to the national security of India and international Security of India also because of two simple reasons (1) The left wing extremism is older than India’s independence in its challenge to Indian States or the State in India and the (2) India being an emerging economy cyber criminals and cyber terrorism is a natural challenge as it is happening elsewhere in the world. While the rest of eight challenges can be handled by an improvement in governance and strict adherence to principles of effective criminal justice system. These two challenges to the national or internal security require lot of innovative thinking and equally innovative implementation of those policies.

Left Wing Extremism also known as Naxalism and Maoism in different parts of the country started in 1940s with the first uprising of the people on massive scale in the Telangana region of Nizam’s independent State in South India and it continued for nearly 6-7 years and with the intervention of Indian Army and Police under the leadership of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel this was controlled and along with this the Rajak Kanoon and which is counter to this which has launched by Nizam Government was also caressed.

However, the seeds of Left Wing Extremism movement can be taken back to 1920s in the forest and tribal regions of Coastal Andhra and Telangana when Alluri Sitarama Raju who was a revolutionary led the tribal movement in the southern part of India. Similarly in the northern part of India we have Birsa Munda movement and the tribal uprising in the Chota Nagpur belt which has also got elements of tribal rights which later assumed the role of the naxal movements in 1960s and maoist movement in 1980s, 90s and now maoist movement is serious challenge from 21st Sept 2004 onwards with the clubbing of South India People War Group and North India MCC.

Thus Left Wing Extremism is an old problem which has got various challenges like the tribal issues, the land distribution issues, the crop issues, the land-man relationship issues, the governance issues, the compensation issues, the mineral policies, the industrialization issues, the extraction of national resources issues and the corruption issues specially in the light of recent scams that emerged in the Coal Sector and the other mine resources like Bauxite mining etc.

The second most important challenge which requires attention is cyber security and cyber terrorism. With increasing emphasis on e-governance there is every possibility that entire systems and processes of banking, finance, administration, security related issues can be put to a risk if you don’t have adequate measures of security in meeting the challenges to the cyber space in India.

While India has been using the cyber space related technology and has been in the forefront in using the information communication technology revolution for its administration and also indulging both in private and public sector in tremendous application of its research and project consultancy work, it is a remarkable journey that today 1/3 of Indian population is internet linked; mobile telephony and almost three-fourth of active population are in possession of a Cell phone connection.

Thus the information communication technologies made the communication an all India phenomenal which reduce the cost and today one can possess a cell phone with lifelong free SMS and with very little amount that is required for the outgoing calls. While information and communication technology empower the Indians who are living in rural areas and tribal areas in accessible areas, there is always a possibility of an attack on the privacy, as well as fundamental rights of these groups and also to spread communal venom and confuse the people through SMS and web-site uploading, you-tube transmissions.

A recent example will explain this better. The North-East population in Bangalore were frightened by the illegal activities of an ultra-right organization in parts of Karnataka which resulted in huge amount of exchange of SMSs and opinion in cyber space which resulted in mass exodus of North-East population who are working and studying and contribute to the economy of Karnataka in the Bangalore- Mysore region. Later on it took lot of efforts by the government both at Karnataka and all India level to remove the communication effects and to establish the normalcy and to bring back the concept of faith to the north-east population so that they can return back to their place of work namely Bangalore.

Thus the cyber space has got both potentiality to vitiate the environment and also at the same time if it used correctly to detect and to anticipate and to totally neutralize various challenges. One example is of yesterday’s origin where in the chief of the Indian Mujahidin was arrested from abroad as a follow up action of the arrest of the Yasin Bhatkal which was involved in multiple blast incidents in different parts of the country.

To conclude, India has got the talent to naturalize various challenges to its internal and national security. It is suicidal if there is complacency and a self-congratulatory syndrome of staying in comfort zones and expecting others to do the dirty work as Chankya rightly pointed out It is important that the state should treat its citizens as its own children and nurture them to the concept of security because it is ruler’s primary job is to reassure the ruled or the citizens of his concern for them through action and not through propaganda.

By Dr B N Ramesh, Director/IG, CRPF Academy, Gurgaon in http://egov.eletsonline.com/2014/04/securing-india/