The Third Eye: The enlarged mandate of Intelligence

New Delhi: The task of security is to protect the three assets of the target organisation — physical resources, human power engaged in sensitive work and the exclusive information in possession of the organisation — against ‘covert’ attacks of the enemy and this applies to national security as well where these were described respectively as sabotage, subversion and espionage.

The objective of security can be fulfilled only when there is an ongoing flow of information on the plans behind such invisible attacks — this is called Intelligence that comes from the special agencies established by the nation for that purpose.

With the post-Cold War phenomenon of open warfare giving way to ‘proxy wars’ through the instrumentality of terror attacks from across borders, the use of social media for covert indoctrination for insurgencies and the onset of cyber offensives, the challenge for the agencies had multiplied in the spheres of both human intelligence and tech intelligence.

‘Proxy wars’ have acquired new dimensions such as the use of civil society platforms and lobbies for influencing the opinion for or against a government by building particular narratives, impediments caused to the vital supply chains to damage the economy of the opponent and technological manoeuvring of cyberspace to disable defence and civil systems that are crucial for national security.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) that represents an ultimate advance of Information Technology has taken the security threats to a new level altogether and redefined the role of ‘Intelligence’ in governance, policy-making and capacity building.

There need not be any misgivings that Intelligence would become an instrument for pushing a democratic dispensation towards authoritarianism. What will not let this happen is that security is now a function of the ‘national mainstream’ dependent on every citizen’s support and contribution.

National security was no longer a standalone work of the security agencies only since in an unsafe world the state also has to safeguard the life of its people and take the latter’s help in performing that duty.

Intelligence is facing an added challenge today because the threats originating externally have presently become the prime danger to its internal security.

‘Covert’ operations of the adversaries directed against this country, particularly by the Sino-Pak axis — had been stepped up.

Cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and externally instigated insurgencies in the Northeast had earlier compelled the deployment of the Army in these border states for counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations.

Army used to ‘maximising’ its use of force against the enemy in open combat, had to undergo a process of ‘adjustments’ in working in the mode of ‘aid to civil power’ and minimising ‘collateral’ damage in the form of civilian casualties while operating on our soil.

This made it necessary that the Army conducted intelligence-based operations which made the work of agencies more arduous.

Over the years Army has improved its performance in the border regions and got attuned to working in operational conjunction with Paramilitary forces deployed there.

The Centre has also successfully established an effective grid between the forces of the Central and the State Police.

The role of Police in counter-terror operations has substantially increased and the intelligence agencies of the Centre have also succeeded in getting closer to the ground for helping the local authorities to identify militants, drug agents and ‘infiltrants’ living undercover among the people.

What is needed is a lot of deftness in combining human intelligence with the use of technical resources.

Moreover, even the resources of the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) — sometimes wasted on tracking local politics — have to become available to the central intelligence agencies wherever necessary.

Internal security is an integral concept — it does not admit of divisions between Central and state responsibilities.

A new dimension of Intelligence is that the latter has to now help the regime in framing the policy of integral response cutting across the spheres of military, law and order management and diplomacy — and not remain contented only with ‘reporting’ on ‘threats’. Further, the Intelligence set-up has to find ways of getting closer to the people to garner their cooperation and make them aware of the security environment in their proximity.

Threats related to proxy wars such as terrorism, translate closer to the ground — where people live — and this is reason enough for Intelligence to follow the new mandate that it had to work in closest possible liaison with the local police and other executive arms of the state government.

‘Intelligence from below’ is the new requirement for safeguarding internal security. Ideally, there should be a flow of information relevant to national security from the people as well. The parties must agree to keep national security above politics.

The practice of IPS officers allocated to states being inducted into Central Intelligence at early stages — with the provision that they would be sent to states for in-service experience from time to time — should be revived and strengthened to facilitate the ongoing Centre-State cooperation on matters of national security.

This is a unique advantage available to India for in no other major country a career like the Indian Police Service — offered based on a merit-based national examination — exists as part of a democratic dispensation.

India is a union of states with complete freedom for citizens to visit and settle down in any part of the country and it is therefore incumbent for the governance of the nation to ensure that the same quality of law and order management exists across the length and breadth of India.

This is especially important since law and order management has now become an integral part of the handling of internal security.

That the Intelligence machinery of the Centre and the state reported on its own, on a developing threat to national security in a manner that was comprehensive enough to suggest what integral measures were needed to be taken to counter it in time, has been the traditional mandate of the former.

This is on test because there is a spread of covert plans of the enemy on the ground, the nexus between narcotics and terror has become stronger and the surreptitious channels of transmitting funds to individual operators have multiplied.

The gap between ‘information’ and ‘action’ has to be reduced and since in the Indian context Intelligence agencies did not exercise any Police powers themselves, it becomes all the more important that Intelligence sharing was taken down to local levels of police and other action-taking organisations. This was always attempted.

In the prevailing security scenario, there is a valid expectation that the national Intelligence set-up would actively help the government not only in framing policy approaches but also in devising long-term and short-range security solutions.

The larger function of protecting the integrity and sovereignty of the nation beyond reporting on security threats has added to the responsibility of the Intelligence agencies.

There is a complete identity of purpose between the political executive ruling the country and national Intelligence on the mission of safeguarding national interests as this all belonged to the non-political agenda of governance.

Today the role of National Security Advisor (NSA) in guiding international relations and the framing of foreign policy has become particularly important.

The world is moving towards multi-polarity and the strategy of adopting bilateral friendships and even multilateralism had to adjust to the shifting scenario of who the nation’s friends and adversaries were. An illustration is the deepening Sino-Pak axis which is working primarily against India — it does not cause the same degree of concern to other powers — and had necessarily to be the focal point of India’s response to geopolitical developments and foreign policy issues.

To the extent, that foreign policy itself, by definition, is a product of national security and economic concerns — in that order — the involvement of the National Security Advisor in strategy formulation is now direct and indispensable.

Management of Intelligence agencies itself is somewhat of a challenge because national security does not admit of a wall of division between internal and external intelligence, calls for an integral approach to objectives and the methodology of achieving them and demands a uniform level of professional training across the agencies particularly when the national interests were best served by a policy of ongoing exchange of officers among them.

These practices are being developed further.

Intelligence agencies have been strong on basic principles of ‘management’, particularly in the areas of delegation of decision-making, senior-junior relationships and the system of credit sharing.

Intelligence Bureau may be opaque from the outside but it is fairly transparent in its internal work within the ‘need to know’ parameters.

Our agencies are mission-oriented, free of pursuit of personal and political interests and autonomous in determining what threats to national security are on the horizon at any given point in time.

They are a perfect instrument of the democratic state for keeping the government informed on whatever was adverse for the latter in the security environment, including the impact of its policies in this regard, so that corrective action could be taken by the government wherever deemed necessary.

In the global scene developing around us, India as a nation has to stand on its own to effectively deal with adverse situations and threats.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that in recent times India has rapidly advanced towards becoming self-reliant in this area as well.

Intelligence agencies as the instrument of vigilance of the state have newer responsibilities in helping the country to become both safer as well as more prosperous.

National security is inseparable from ‘economic security’ and this is the logic why the Charter of Intelligence today has expanded a great deal to uncover any enemy operations designed to attack the country’s assets, supply chains and economic lifeline.

The exchange of information between main Intelligence agencies and those collecting economic Intelligence or looking into economic offences has acquired added importance.

There is awareness of these new dimensions of national security and inter-agency coordination accordingly is constantly improving particularly under the present National Security Advisor who is from an Intelligence background himself.

Intelligence agencies have to have subject and area specialists but the latter had to be thoroughly groomed into the tradecraft of Intelligence.

There are tougher yardsticks applied now even to ‘analysis’ for Intelligence production.

Governance, security and economic growth are an integral part of a functioning democracy and there is a need for ‘mainstreaming’ the cause of national security and national interests by launching projects to enhance people’s awareness about them in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution that specifically defines Fundamental Duties too –beyond the Rights.

(The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Views are personal)

–IANS

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