Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (3 page)

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The central infrastructure of the IB is supported by subsidiary units, which are generally known as the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB). Some of the units are still described as units headed by Central Intelligence Officer (CIO). These units were basically located in the former territories ruled by the princes and kings. For some reason or other this anomalous situation continues, even though the princely states have been amalgamated with the reorganised states. The cascading field formations travel down to district and sub-division level (revenue unit). In exceptional cases such units are diversified to the police station level also.

Till a decade back the people speaking the language of the state (sons of the soil) basically staffed the territorial SIBs. For example, in the South Indian states the senior and junior echelons of the officers were drawn from within the state only or at best from neighbouring states. Say for SIB Madras (Chennai) 90.5% of the staff was drawn from Madras (Tamil Nadu) state. Some stray officers from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh could aspire to be posted there on grounds of proximity to the home state of the concerned officers. It was the case with states like West Bengal and Maharashtra. Such rigid copying of the linguistic reorganisation of the Indian states was blindly followed well after 1990. Some changes are being brought about in this highly objectionable system, which had endowed the SIBs with narrow parochial perspective.

In the name of maintaining meaningful dialogue with the state police and intelligence machineries a large number of police officers were (still are) brought on deputation from the state police forces. The post independence governments have blindly followed this Imperial system. This system has certain advantages and a lot of inbuilt disadvantages. Indian politics has become segmented on caste, creed and ideological lines. Officers coming on deputation from a particular state often cannot rise above the constraints imposed on them by the environment from which they graduate to the central intelligence department. This has often caused serious perspective distortion.

The perennial philosophers of the organisation, vested interests of the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the political breed have scrupulously maintained the essential ‘police culture’ of the Intelligence Bureau, almost as it were during the Imperial days. In pre-Indira Gandhi days the IB was basically guided by the ‘ear marking’ scheme. This scheme enabled the IB to earmark certain IPS officers while they were under training in the Police Academy. They were earmarked on the basis of their performance in the All India Services Examination, performance in the academy and confidential reports on their shaping up process. A number of brilliant officers, including the illustrious Directors like Hari Anand Barari, M. K. Narayanan, and V. G. Vaidya were inducted through the earmarking scheme. The humble author of this book was also an earmarked officer.

Of course, some officers also were inducted on ‘deputation’ from state cadres. They were later absorbed as ‘hard core’ officers. This system was abandoned after 1970 to accommodate ‘loyal and committed officers’ and also to bring the IB at par with other Central Police Organisations (CPO), like the CRPF, BSF. The IB was opened up as a waiting room for IPS officers from the less glamorous state cadres like Manipur and Tripura, Assam, West Bengal and any other state where the prevailing political culture did not suit certain officers. They used the IB to cool off and to catch up with other opportunities. Such lateral inductions basically depended on political pressure. The IB had lost the privilege of building up its own committed cadre and was compelled to depend on cadre of officers loyal only to themselves or to certain colour of politicians. This policy shift had done maximum damage to the organisation and transformed it to as mundane and controlled central police organisation as any other uniformed force under control of the Union Home Ministry. Since the advent of Indira Gandhi the IB had become an essential adjunct of the Home Ministry and the office of the Prime Minister.

Refusal by the corps of IPS officers and the political masters to allow induction of talents from lateral fields in the academia, media and other specialised streams of study and profession has limited the functional ability of the IB in the face of diversified demand from economic, scientific, information and technology related fields. In the age of computronics, satphone, satcom and other advanced fields of imaging technology the Technical Wing of the IB has become redundant. This fossil is being carried on the back of the IB by inertia. It is required to be urgently remodelled and modified with induction of suitable talents from open market. Lateral induction of specialised talents is likely to widen the horizon of working philosophy and efficiency of the IB. Some efforts were made by the R&AW to adopt an open recruiting policy. But the exercise ended up in the welfare of associates and relatives. The outcome has not seen the expected professional panacea.

The general corps of officers at the cutting edge level (middle and junior) are also required to be equipped with newer tradecraft assets and advanced education and training in information technology and other specialised branches of knowledge like civil and military aviation, complicated weaponry system and some such trades which require attention of the IB in security related matters. International terrorism has transformed the entire spectrum of knowledge base of the terrorist masterminds. To match up with military genius of some of the terrorist masterminds the cutting edge level intelligence officers are also required to acquiring proficiency in such complicated streams of studies. For every small matter they should not run to the outside experts. They should be equipped with basic knowledge of these trades in which the international terrorists are so adept. The average IB officer does not even know the difference between various explosive devices and triggering mechanism. They are not oriented with the techniques of war pursued by the terrorists, mujahedeen’s, and fidayeen fanatics.

It is hoped that sooner than later the political planners and the members of the intelligence fraternity will understand the need for broad basing the foundation of national intelligence and free them from the clutches of captive police working philosophy and techniques.

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The Indian constitution has empowered the States to handle its police forces and organise its criminal and other intelligence services within the ambit of the police infrastructure. Policing in India, especially in British India , had developed along the tradition, and rules and regulations framed by the Bengal, Avad, Punjab, Bombay and Madras models. Some indigenous practices have also crept in certain provincial police forces. By and large the British model has been maintained with minor cosmetic changes. The composite story of the growth of Indian Police and its post-independence evolution is a vast subject of study by a social scientist. Unfortunately policemen themselves or commissions headed by administrative service officers have so far carried out most of the studies. Policing is not merely a law and order problem and problems of men in uniform. Policing is a social problem and it should also be studied by the social scientists.

In spite of existence of several police regulations, the Police Act and a few specific Rules framed by the respective state governments the police forces are controlled by the political hierarchy through the Home Department or the department responsible for general administration. The States have also followed the pattern of the Union Government and maintained firm political grip on the intelligence generating units of the State Police Forces. The State Intelligence Branches/CIDs/Special Branches are supposed to generate intelligence for maintaining law and order and protect the lives and properties of the citizen from the marauding criminals, habitual lawbreakers and the so-called terrorists. These units are supposed to report to the Director General of Police/Inspector General of Police and the Home Secretary of the State. However, the Home Minister and the Chief Minister (very often the CM holds the Home portfolio) is the real boss of these intelligence-generating units, who use these tools of administration to secure their political bases and to spy on their political opponents besides keeping a tab on security and intelligence aspects.

The State Police has under its disposal vast means to generate grassroots level intelligence through rural police, village level administrative machineries and service sector employees of the government. They have at their disposal the local self-government machineries too. The Central Intelligence and Investigation agencies do not enjoy that kind of reach.

It was expected that the Central and State intelligence units would be able to institutionalise a uniform system for cooperation and coordination at cutting edge and apex levels. The reality is different. In spite of the IB maintaining some sort of police format there is hardly any meaningful cooperation between the state and central agencies. The going was smooth as long as the same political party ruled both at the centre and in the states. But the situation has changed. Different parties/coalitions have come to rule in the centre as well as the states. These political satraps have their own ideological, political, and group interests to promote and protect. Smooth exchanges of intelligence take place in very rare instances, mostly related to insurgency, terrorism and attacks against national targets.

The ambience of cooperation had marginally improved after the Bombay serial bomb blasts. But, Pakistan’s proxy war in the North East, Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere in the country has brought out the inefficiency of the informal arrangement between the IB and the state police agencies. Some weak and informal arrangements have recently been reached between the central IB and some State police units. The police units in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have responded more constructively.

However, what is required is a national level institutional arrangement, which has not materialised even after the Joint Intelligence Committee has been revamped and the National Security Council reconstituted. The Intelligence Bureau has also set up a new stream of activity for multi-agency coordination. But these high sounding vocabularies end up in vocabulary itself. The ground level reality is: there is urgent need for re-examination of the entire gamut of intelligence generation process by the State and Central organisations and devising of integrated ways and means for fast communication and interaction.

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There also exists the crying need for cooperation and coordination among the Central Intelligence and Investigation agencies. Certain external challenges to national security, infamous Kargil episode included, have proved that the prime intelligence organisations and investigating agencies have failed to exchange, process and evaluate crucial intelligence continually. Despite the existence of apex coordinating bodies (the JIC, NSC etc) the apex decision-making body, the Union Cabinet, often personified by the Prime Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister, and the Defence Minister has not been able to react in time to stave off grave crisis.

Serious gap of communication between the IB and the State Police on the one hand and the IB and the R&AW and the CBI on the other, had become apparent during security operations in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam and against the Pakistan sponsored Jihadist elements. The most glaring example of total intelligence failure was the Kargil adventure by Pakistan army. The R&AW, the Military Intelligence and to a lesser extent the Intelligence Bureau had miserably failed to unearth the Pakistani design and warn the policy planners. Whatever intelligence was available was not coordinated to cull out a coherent collage. The rest is history.

It is not my intention to dissect the post-Kargil events with a surgical scalpel, though there is ample scope for this. A nation learns its lesson through mistakes. It is hoped that the lessons have been learnt. However, the recent incident at Surankot (Hill Kaka) in Kashmir has proved beyond doubt that India is yet to tighten up its intelligence girdle and work out a near foolproof coordination system. The repeated fidayeen attacks against military and civilian targets also prove that lots of grounds are yet to be covered by our intelligence community and our political masters and institutions are yet to meaningfully tighten the systemic screws.

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Coming to the aspects of systemic screws I would like to highlight the specific aspect of control and command of the Central Intelligence and Investigation agencies. It is proudly claimed that the IB finds a mention in some footnote of the Constitution of India. The IB is a transferred department of British India, regularised as any other bureau and department of the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is treated as a subordinate bureau and there are instances galore to prove that this kitchen bureau has had been used as a chambermaid by the political leadership. This does not speak very high of the democratic practices and constitutional guarantees.

It is funny to note that Article 33 of the Constitution of India was amended in 1985 (Act No. 58 of 1985—[The] Intelligence Organisations (Restriction of Rights) Act, 1985, wherein the IB and other intelligence organisations were placed in the class of Armed Forces in matters of Constitutional rights and organised trade union activities. This was necessitated by unprecedented unrest both in the R&AW and the IB over accumulated grievances. The lawmakers of the country had not felt the need for regulating the activities of the intelligence organisations and making them accountable to the supreme representative organisation of the country; though politicians of different hues have tasted the bitter curd of vendetta by their rivals. India had witnessed the destructive dances of its intelligence organisations during the Emergency regime and the regime that followed. Indian democracy can be as oppressive as the regime of Idi Amin. There is no dearth of evidence to support this statement. Rights of the citizen are more frequently violated even under normal circumstances. A shaky ruler can run amuck and rock the foundation of the country.