Coming to the basic question of resources allocation and the manner in which the nation’s internal security apparatus is structured, it is here that we have to make some difficult decisions. Despite repeated requests from the police leadership, police remains a “non-plan” subject. This means there is very little systematic allocation of resources for improving our police infrastructure. Investments in the police are naturally accorded a lower priority in our vote-bank and pork barrel driven system of resource allocation. Now with an enormously successful finance minister at the helm of the union home ministry, it is hoped that the perennial resource crunch facing our police forces becomes a thing of the past. The voices of outrage expressed by India’s corporate titans in the aftermath of Mumbai must address this issue. The middle classes of India must be prepared to forgo some part of the subsidies they enjoy in areas of health, education, power, energy and the public distribution system for finding the resources needed to improve our internal security capabilities.   

The second issue is the legal and constitutional issue of letting the police, and law and order, remain as a state subject. The threat to the union is too immediate to hide behind this historical anomaly. Unless there are nationally mandated standards of basic policing, and there is a basic synergy between the different state police forces and central agencies, we will never be able to either prevent or respond effectively to future attacks. Tougher laws with stringent safeguards against abuse and well equipped agencies with a national mandate are unavoidable choices that will have to be made.

The third issue is that our policy making bodies need to be revamped. To give you an example, the union home ministry is the apex policy making body for all police and internal security related matters.  However out of the 25 odd officers of joint secretary rank and above in the ministry of home affairs (MHA), only two of them are professional police officers with any field experience, and their real influence on policy making is debatable. Other nerve centres of the decision making structure, namely the PMO and the cabinet secretariat are equally bereft of professional internal security expertise. The present NSA is a distinguished intelligence officer, but he is an honourable exception, as there is no pride of place to professionals with direct experience of policing in the field. The same situation prevails in the states where home departments pride themselves on keeping police professionals away from policy making. The political executive cannot leave police professionals out of the critical loops of internal security policy making.  

The fourth issue is the de-politicisation of the day to day working of our police and intelligence agencies. For the police, urgent implementation of the reforms outlined in the Supreme Court judgment of September 2006 are a must. For our intelligence agencies, we may like to consider a system of parliamentary oversight similar to the one in place in the USA to prevent them from becoming a tool of partisan politics. This would require an enormous change of mindset from our political classes, but without this change, India’s police forces would never be able to rise to the challenge posed by anti-national forces with any kind of institutional credibility.  As a policeman, I cannot help but feel growing rage and anger at the repeated assaults on the idea of India. If Mumbai 26/11 is able to create a national mood for effecting the changes outlined above in a time bound manner, it would be the most apt tribute to all the innocents who lost their lives. Otherwise it would be business as usual.

The writer is a senior police officer.

These are his personal views