Map of a country under threat

The nation’s top government executives are meeting today to review the security situation in the country.

The nation’s top government executives are meeting today to review the security situation in the country. The situation certainly does not lend itself to complacency. A journey from Delhi to Dibrugarh would bring out the reality of the many mutinies that stare us in the face. An email threat of strikes on airports in January places air journeys at some risk. Given that this email was directed at the Air India call centre, the sender is either an insider or a professional terrorist. Both are equally dangerous. Now that the Chopra Committee report is out, the Gurjjars of north India have lost no time in threatening to revive their agitation. As we move further east, a train journey through Lucknow or Varanasi could be a grim reminder of the serial blasts on November 23. In neighbouring Bihar, there have been a series of threats — from Maoists shearing off railway tracks to political activists off-loading passengers from reserved seats. The high crime rate on Patna-Gaya, Mughalsarai-Jhajha, Gaya-Mughalsarai, Barauni-Samastipur and Hajipur-Gorakhpur sections of East Central Railway is now an acknowledged problem, to the general ignominy for the railway police.

Astride the Siliguri corridor you could be at the mercy of Subhash Ghising’s Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) fighting for Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling, or his bete noire Bimal Gurung of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha for a separate Gorkhaland. Once through this areas, the many rebellions in Assam could target you — staged by the ULFA, the Adivasi National Liberation Army or groups in North Cachar and Karbi Anglong, going by such exotic names as Black Jewel.

Further east, in Manipur, the director-general, Assam Rifles — the top security manager of the country’s northeastern flank — was greeted with 17 IEDs during a recent visit to Imphal, while the PLA blew up a civilian bus on December 16, killing seven innocent passengers. In Nagaland, the fratricidal conflict between the NSCN(IM) and the K groups has died down for the moment, but unity continues to be elusive. The insurance companies, in the mean time, are raking in high premiums on kidnapping and ransom (K&R) cover for top executives of the oil, tea, power and retail industries in the Northeast. This is a tacit acknowledgement by the State that it can no longer guarantee the security even of its privileged private citizens.

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In other parts of the country, security forces are facing the brunt of militancy, particularly the Naxals. The jailbreak in Chattisgarh was indeed spectacular; but given the security lapses, it is surprising it did not happen earlier. The Naxals have been ruthlessly targeting police pickets devoid of simple means of radio communications with military precision, questioning India’s much touted claim of capacity-building. The Rs 100 crore allotted to states for modernisation of police forces in 2006-07 and recompense of 100 per cent on Security Related Expenditure remains unaccounted.

The responsibility for this parlous state of security lies squarely on the shoulders of those honourable men who will sit in the haloed portals of New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan today. Complaints on how the Centre is letting down the states by non-Congress chief ministers or how development funds are insufficient, by those headed by the Congress and its allies, will be routine. Many figures will be cited and budgetary expenditure and profligacy, justified. The prime minister may even do some plain speaking. But the outcome is unlikely to be any different from earlier attempts of this kind.

A pledge to deliver security governance by the Centre and the state by depoliticising policing, making leadership accountable and focusing energies on delivering sound governance at the district level rather than seeking political alibis, is what we need today.

The response by the states to the Supreme Court’s diktat to put policing in order has been unsatisfactory. It is time that civil society actors came together and took up cudgels on behalf of the underprivileged — who are the first victims of violence — in order to force the leadership to deliver security and not government doles. For starters, the prime minister would do well to insist that all states which are affected by militant violence appoint a minister of cabinet rank to attend to law and order. In most states, including two Congress-run ones — Assam and Andhra Pradesh — it is the chief ministers who are holding these all-important portfolios.

The writer is a security analyst rkbhonsle@gmail.com