FORFEITING NATIONAL SECURITY FOR TURF

Inter-organisational cooperation and camaraderie is a fallacy which has been propagated for long, laments PANKAJ BHAGWATI

- PANKAJ BHAGWATI

The defeat of 1962 is a psychological watershed in the history of our independent nation. Even today the progeny of VK Menon, the infamous defence minister, avoid in public familial linkages with his persona as do those of General Kaul (the Eastern Army Commander) or Gen Thapar (the Chief of Army Staff) who decided to go on a foreign holiday just prior to the Chinese invasion.

But rather than blame a few, often calamities are manifested through the cascading effects of numerous blunders that have escaped rectification, courtesy the silence of stakeholders. This article is an attempt to bring into limelight one such blunder at the national level which under the blanket of turf is essentially leading to divergence of security alignment and dissipation of our resources.

A bedlam of agencies

India has a myriad of armed entities entrusted with a plethora of tasks which can broadly be classified as policing to maintain law and order, border management and territorial defence. It has the armed forces (army, air force, navy) to protect the nation from external aggression and internal disorders.

Then there are Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), who have been given the mandate of maintaining law and order and border management. We have the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the Railway Protection Force (RPF) in whose gambit falls the task of law and order, and safeguarding infrastructure.

The National Security Guard (NSG) whose function is to carry out counterterrorist operations and VIP security is also a CAPF. Further, we have the border management agencies of Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetian Border Police (ITBP) and the Shashastra Seema Bal (SSB).