Barack Obama
faces bigger terrorist threats to his life than Manmohan Singh. But
we don't see security guards standing behind Obama when he delivers a
public speech. When Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi speaks, ear-phoned
and presumably armed guards stand right behind them. Narendra Modi
or Mayawati (as CM) would not move about without those menacing,
finger-on-the trigger machinegun soldiers encircling them – a
spectacle unseen in any other democracy in the world.
It is true
that no Asian country is in greater need of anti-terrorist mechanisms
than India. But our political class seems to prefer demonstrative
rather than scientific mechanisms. It is as though Z category
announces your arrival at the top while Y category puts you in the
pits. Notice the zeal with which MPs are agitating for the right to
carry a red light on top of their cars. It's all a status game for
our VIPs.
Superimposed
on that is a political game. The Centre and the state governments
have made a mess of our police and intelligence agencies by
converting them into political tools to serve the interests of the
party in power. All political parties want this misuse to continue.
In such a vitiated atmosphere, there was no chance for the chief
ministers' conference on counter-terrorism to succeed. The proposed
National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) remains a non-starter.
An
integrated national policy to fight terrorism is badly needed in
India. Individual states cannot tackle the problem effectively for
reasons like India's long shoreline and common borders with seven
countries, not to mention problems posed by cyberspace. Besides,
several insurgents groups inside the country are receiving weaponry
and strategic support from powerful neighbours. It is an ugly
situation that calls for a no-nonsense professional set-up to tackle
it, like the Department of Homeland Security in the US.
Yet, an
initiative like NCTC does not take off because as many as eleven
chief ministers stand resolutely against it. Their objections are
based mainly on three factors – mistrust of central agencies like
CBI and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), mistrust of P. Chidambaram and
the chief ministers' own interest in using agencies like the police
for pursuing their partisan objectives. All three factors are
steeped in politics and therefore inimical to the wider interests of
the country.
That the CBI
and IB are not seen as independent agencies is a fact. Too often they
have acted on behalf of the party in power and too often ministers
have used them to suppress their own misdeeds or to oppress enemies.
Too many IB chiefs have accepted post-retirement sinecures like
governorships. The lack of credibility of these agencies makes people
suspect that a new anti-terrorism agency will also be misused by the
Centre as it misused the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) which had
to be repealed in 2004.
The
suspicions about NCTC are aggravated by the suspicions about P.
Chidambaram. Perhaps the most unpopular Home Minister in recent
history, Chidambaram enjoys the trust of no political grouping. His
mishandling of the Anna Hazare and Telangana agitations on the one
side and the Maoist movement on the other has raised doubts even
about his capabilities. The Chief Minister of his home state
heartily dislikes him. In the circumstances, his piloting of the
NCTC doomed it even before the chief ministers assembled in Delhi.
Ultimately,
the chief ministers too are political animals with ulterior motives.
They want to abuse their police powers as comprehensively as the
Central government has been abusing its CBI-IB powers. That police
officers openly form associations on the basis of party loyalties may
be a speciality of Kerala. But in other states too they are ready to
please their political masters for return benefits. In the process,
counter-terrorism becomes – like education, road development,
agriculture, spectrum auction and everything else in our country –
an extension of politics, instead of the professional task it ought
to be, conceived and administered by professionals. It's a win-win
situation for politicians, but it's lose-lose for the country.