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/
