The internal security of a country is not an abstract concept. It involves wide-ranging issues, including but not limited to, domestic security and civil defense, societal security and safety, and emergencies arising out of manmade and natural calamities. Recently however, internal security is conceived in narrower terms, often limited to terrorist activities and the prevention of it.
In a country like India, for a discussion on internal security to be meaningful, it is imperative to include aspects concerning domestic security and societal safety. Though India is not an exception to external as well as home-grown terrorist threats, the pivotal point that determines the country’s internal security ultimately rests upon the citizen’s confidence of the state machineries, particularly concerning those that are expected to prevent the abuse of fundamental rights.
Within its geographical expanse, India is home for diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic interests. So is the assortment of conflicting issues that a melting pot of diversity creates. The statements made by the Union Home Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram and the Home Secretary, Mr. Madhukar Gupta, in the Chief Ministers’ meeting currently being held at New Delhi, admitting this stands proof to this fact.
In addition, there is an increasing divide between the classical haves and have-nots in the country. The myriad issues that stems out from such a population and the maladministration or mismanagement of these problems is in fact the largest component of internal security in the country. The 2007-2008 annual report of the Home Ministry admits this fact.
The opportunity provided by this chaotic environment is a flourishing ground for secessionists, rebels and terrorists. It is a fact that these groups have thus far succeeded in convincing considerably large sections of the population to believe the anti-state sentiments and ideologies advocated by them. Addressing internal security is thus addressing the people.
Shortsighted politicians who thrive in corruption and nepotism mostly dominate urban India. Institutions and the bureaucracy these politicians control have assimilated the character of the political class. Local police are misused to the meanest possible degree to silence voices of opposition. Corruption in the police extenuates breach of law. Torture and ill-treatment of the citizen by the police is common practise. This has created mutual mistrust between the members of the ordinary public and the police.
In the states where the police in practice are replaced by para-military units, the violence committed by these units against the ordinary citizen is left unaddressed. For example, the Home Ministry admits that in a span of 13 years, from 1994 to 2007, it has received only 1,158 complaints of human rights violations from the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Out of this, not surprisingly, the Ministry has found that 1,085 were false accusations. But human rights organisations and the media has documented the disappearance of more than 2,800 persons, 820 cases of custodial deaths and 3,460 cases of torture and inhuman treatment including rape in custody, in the state during the same period. This documentation appears to be closer to the reality than the government record. Similar contradiction of fiction and fact exist concerning the state of affairs in the north-eastern states.
The Naxalite activities that affect many parts of the country find its mass-based bedrock in the continuing neglect of the state and the central administration of the rural population. For the administration, the Naxalite movement is a growing menace, but for the poor, the Naxalite offers the fictional solace of redress. When people are oppressed and their access to resources denied resulting in starvation, malnutrition and deaths from starvation, it creates a flourishing ground for anti-state ideologies.
In India land reforms with statutory land ceiling is a much-required change. The discussion regarding a national land reforms law is still in its early phase and faces stiff opposition from most state governments. Often, criminal acts of the property owners against landless peasants, particularly in the so called ‘cow-belt’ states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Haryana goes unpunished with the connivance of corrupt police officers and politicians. Unfortunately, politicians from these states have a dominant role in policy decisions made in the country.
So far, attempts made at various levels to separate the local police from unwarranted political control have failed. Police on the other hand, has let the politicians to exploit them so that they, irrespective of their ranks, could continue enjoying impunity. The result of this chaotic environment is continuing human rights violations like torture, ill-treatment, denial of the right to food and caste based discrimination in the country. Most of these human rights issues affect the poor, who forms an estimated 70 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion population.
Any discussion about the internal security in India has thus to essentially deal with policing. Instead the mere creation of a new central agency, often referred to as ‘super police agency’, is not an adequate solution. It is in this context, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, addressing the Chief Ministers’ conference has brought up the idea of effective community policing.
For the ordinary citizen to assist the law enforcement agencies without fear, what is essentially required is a confidence building exercise, consciously orchestrated by the government. For this, it is also imperative to address the issue of corruption at a national level. A considerable change has also to be brought in the basic infrastructure provided for the law enforcement agencies. The state of affairs where local police stations do not even have a functioning telephone must change. The central government must ensure that the financial resources provided to the states to modernise the police is in fact spend for the intended purpose.
A strong central government that functions within the constitutional framework available in India to ensure the proper management of the states can achieve these targets with consensus obtained through political diplomacy. These are the issues, among others, that must be discussed in the conference of the state Chief Ministers. Spending time by merely accusing the neighbouring countries in hampering the internal security of India would be an opportunity wasted.
