Strategic Depth - 2 : IRAN

Patriotism is to support your country all the times and your government only when it deserves.

A catch 22 situation for us. There is strong need to keep the Iranian people on our side. Historically Iran has been a long time partner of India and we need to redevelop and strengthen our relationship. Never had we felt a need of a friend in that area than during the Khandhar hijacking fiasco. We had not even one friend to back our claims, support any action that we had contemplated nor suggested any remedies. That incident shook the top thinkers of our foreign policy and forced them to adopt a completely new approach towards Iran. We are now stuck with a position that Iran has or will shortly secure few nuclear weapons making it another atomic power in our neighbourhood. It is again a challenge that we need to make sure that even in the worst case scenario we do not close all channels of communications with the Shiite country. I also envisage that Iran would have far greater role to play in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and other countries having large Muslim Shia populations. For realising what Iran’s full role would be in such countries, we need to have a working knowledge of the Shia history and culture. Shia’s as a community have been persecuted since time immemorial and they see Iran as their natural holy land. It is akin to what Jews think about Israel. This is a major reason due to which Iran has remarkable inroads in Shia dominated areas of different countries including Indian cities like Lucknow, Delhi, etc.

In India Shia’s have been historically been better placed then the Sunni Muslims. They have had far less communal riots, discrimination and perceived lack of opportunities towards their community.

Shia’s world over have been in the forefront of education, knowledge, research and other progressive activities. Even within the different Muslim sects they are known to be the most advanced as far as women rights, family planning, general awareness, etc is concerned. In India they have had good representations in civil services, Army, police and other government organisations. In most such organisations, they have excelled and even retired at ranks like secretaries, DGPs, Lt. Generals which is very heart warming. This reflects the progressive nature of the community at large. They have however the sacrifice of Prophet Ibrahim engrained in them which they revisit every moharrum. This provides them the will and the strength to fight injustice, perceived and as well as real. For Iran as a country, it also serves as a deterrent as far as attacks on them by any other country are concerned. Most Shia’s realise that the Iranian revolution has not been a 100% success but with a dearth of alternates, this seems to be the best available choice. The fact that the world treats them as Arabs is most hurting for the Iranian people. Such a poor knowledge in the west of difference between Persian society and Arab society shocks the Iranian people. They are still amused that the Iranian president has been made most infamous by the west when in reality he does not yield any power in the real terms. He at the most is only the global face of the mullahs who run the Iranian power machine.

The poorly planned, even more poorly executed Operation Iraqi freedom and the resultant civil war has made most Iranian vary of contemplating a change in their government. The mullahs who were seen to be losing their grip on power in Iran have been bought back to the centre stage by President Bush’s Iraq policies. America will realise the complete implications of the fumbled Gulf War II in years to come. It should also be known that US and Iran has started some track II dialogues when Taliban has started ruling Afghanistan. This however proved short lived as the Gulf war II reversed all what had taken so many years to build. It should also be known that Iran has been one of the strongest barriers to the entry of narcotics to the western world from Afghanistan. The Iran border guards have one of the highest death rates while trying to fight Afghan Drug runners and smugglers. This should be viewed in the context of the fact that the best Narcotics come from the southern regions of Afghanistan which also borders Iran. It also is the most lawless of all the areas in Afghanistan and the only place where western powers can stop the activities of drug and gun smugglers is in Iranian territory and not in Afghanistan.

Look at the American track record with Iran. It says a lot to the shocking state in which U.S has been treating Iran and its people. They feel that the American far right then and the neo cons of the current regime in Washington have no other agenda except ruling their land through the creation of a puppet regime in Tehran. The activities of the CIA in league with the G-2 Desk at the pentagon has right from the over throw of the legally elected government of Premier Mossadeq in August of 1953 (Code named Op TPAJAX) to the accession of the Shah of Iran after Mossadeq’s overthrow to supporting the Iraqi dictator during the Iran Iraq war (even when he was using chemical and biological weapons against Iran), led Iranian people to accept the words of the Mullahs that Americans have no other agenda other than to make Iran a U.S backed banana republic. The facts on how the Americans had trained anti Mossadeq forces at Fort Leavenworth in the U.S and coordinated the entire exercise from SIS base in Cyprus has only added to lowering the credibility of any promises that the Americans might given to the Iranian people on the reasons for the impending conflict. The recent revelation that since the last 2 years, CIA assisted by the secret division of the Army’s green berets (who operate on U.S presidential orders within a country “perceived” enemy of the US even when they are not at war) have been scouting the Iranian country side try to finalise the locations of different American tactical bases to be used in the event of an Iran US war. This is in addition to the previous incursions that the Americans did in Iran for installing different equipments to measure the size, weight and even checking if any gasses are leaking from trucks which carry such nuclear materials on all roads which lead to a known nuclear site. These measuring equipment which is camouflaged as stones/rocks, in road signage’s poles and in ditches/culverts have been installed after India was successful in fooling the u.s spy satellites during the 1998 nuclear tests. These are to compliment the spy satellites that failed so miserably during the Indian tests. It is another story that none have detected any nuclear preparedness by the Iranian regime in the last 2 years. Iranians have always followed the IAEA except only once when lied about their links with the Pride of Jhootistan oops Pakistan Mr. A.Q Khan (Mr. Burglar). They have been supplied with some designs of the centrifuge by Mr. Khan and his “handsome young” male Sri Lankan companion in Dubai but that was the first and the last time the Iranian took AQ’s help.

Let us hope that the American people are able to oppose any violent intervention that these neo cons have in their plan for Iran. As for India, we will be faced with one more unstable “neighbour” and one less Muslim regime opposed or cold to Pakistan. In the future, our interests in Afghanistan have been designed to operate mainly through Iran. Iran has even at the best of times been neutral to Pakistan so it is Pakistan who would gain in case U.S backed regime is propped up in Iran.

In spite of all these facts the common Iranian does not have any bitterness towards America. They are more amazed than bitter seeing the way Americans are behaving towards their country. Iranians are not fools that they would not have made preparations to thwart the impending American attack. They in simple terms have been weaving carpets for more than 2000 years. They understand the intricacies of complex issues much more than the neo con crooks like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard pearl, Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld or even their founders Irving Kristol or Norman Podhoretz or Leo Strauss did or do now. They have their own ways and means of equating their war with the Vietnam War of the 60s& 70s.

Strategic Depth - 1 : Wakhan

History is written by winners – Napoleon

What is meaning of the strategic depth that we say we lack? What has been our policy towards achieving it? I will illustrate just one example and try and tell how we are still stuck in the one track mindset that has plagued India since its re-independence from the British in 1947.

Our military policy towards Pakistan has been plagued by the thought that if we achieve military success in west Punjab/Sindh, what is it that we are supposed to do after we have achieved that? My answer is simple take your eyes off the easiest solution. Work out the most radical solution as that might be initially the most difficult but it could offer us the most stable solution. Let us think like the brilliant General K.S. Thimmaiah did 60 years ago and carried tanks into Ladakh. What he did was radical and that too 60 years ago, when we neither had the machinery nor the infrastructure to do the same. Lets us take a look at what Pervez mushraf did during Kargil. He started a war against India not from Kashmir or Jammu (where we had expected and had done some sort of preparation) but he started it from Kargil/Dras areas facing Skardu – Gilgit / Baltistan (all Shia dominated places). The Shia’s in Kargil/Dras have traditionally not supported Pakistan and the Shia’s in Gilgit have traditionally hated Pakistan and so that was a place where our policy makers just thought that pakistani's would never attack. They left those icy heights for gods to secure for us. The reality proved to be totally different; the general started a localised war and that too from these minority dominated areas. For Pakistan, the option is very simple – make Indian bleed with a 1000 cuts. They know that they would be defeated in all forms of warfare but they know that their limited success lies in adopting the most unconventional form of war doctrine. Their policy is to make the initial 2 weeks of blitzkrieg (like shock and awe) as their domain and by the time the Indian’s gather their forces, they would go pleading to their friends in China and the U.S state department to stop the war otherwise they always threaten that they would go nuclear.

What can our response be for such an enemy? Well first and foremost, change the complete focus of our attack policy on the western front. We know the fact that we can dominate the conventional war in Rural Sindh all the way up to balochistan, crossing through the Indus and its vast canals system. The problem is that the entire world knows the same and it is very easy for your opponent to devise a plan (nuclear or conventional) against that. It would also not serve any purpose if we divide Pakistan into different countries. So the realty is that we cannot leave it in a mess as we retreat, we cannot hold on to the land (as it belongs to a sovereign nation and we would be termed as aggressors), we cannot appoint a puppet regime and take out all gas from sui fields for our use and pay for the war. The longer we stay, more the chances that we would loose all goodwill that we have in rural Sindh and balochistan. It really seems like a catch 22 for our nation. But there is a solution, slightly difficult but there is a solution.

Let me first give the objective for the new policy - In any future conflict, reach the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan from Kargil/Dras area. Take back the Gilgit/Baltistan Area from Pakistani control and re merge it into the Jammu and Kashmir state (just for the people who do not know, J&K assembly leaves vacant seats for the Pakistan occupied areas of the state).

What is so important about the Wakhan Corridor that I am asking my country to devise a policy that helps us reach the corridor at any cost?

First let me briefly inform about the history and geography of the Wakhan corridor and its adjoining area.

If any region of the country stands apart, it's the remote, sparsely populated Wakhan Corridor. Carved by the Wakhan and Panj rivers, the 200-mile-long valley, much of it above 10,000 feet, separates the Pamir Mountains to the north from the Hindu Kush (seat of the Hindus) to the south. For centuries it has been a natural conduit between Central Asia and China, and one of the most forbidding sections of the Silk Road, the 4,000-mile trade route linking Europe to the Far East. It also has the distinction of being the place where the sharpest change of clock takes place from Afghanistan’s +4.30 GMT to China’s +8GMT.

The borders of the Wakhan were set in an 1895 treaty between Russia and Britain, which had been wrestling over the control of Central Asia for nearly a century. In what was dubbed the "Great Game" both countries had sent intrepid expeditions into the region. Eventually Britain and Russia agreed to use the entire country (Afghanistan) as a buffer zone, with the Wakhan extension ensuring that the borders of the Russian empire would never touch the borders of the British Raj.

The Persians ruled the region in the sixth century B.C., and then came Alexander the Great 200 years later. The White Huns ruled it in the 4^th century A.D, Islamic armies in the 7^th Century, Genghis Khan and the Mongols in the 13^th Century. It wasn't until the 18^th century that a united Afghan empire emerged and after that came the British, in 1979, the Russians and now the Americans and their allies.

Only a handful of Westerners are known to have travelled through the Wakhan Corridor since Marco Polo did it, in 1271. There had been sporadic European expeditions throughout the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. In 1949, when Mao Zedong completed the Communist takeover of China, the borders were permanently closed, sealing off the 2,000-year-old caravan route and turning the corridor into a cul-de-sac. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they occupied the Wakhan and started construction of a tank track halfway into the corridor. Today, the Wakhan has reverted to what it's been for much of its history; a primitive pastoral hinterland, home to about 7,000 Wakhi and Kirghiz people, scattered throughout some 40 small villages and camps. The only commerce is by Opium smugglers who sometimes use the Wakhan, traveling at night for their own objectives. Some of the areas are so poor and malnourished that something as small as iodine deficiency has contributed to multiple villages being full of people having mental deficiencies.

The Wakhi’s are a wiry tribe who have ancient persian roots and have lived in the Wakhan for at least a thousand years. They speak Wakhi, an old Persian dialect, and adhere to the Ismaeli sect of Islam. Their current borders are shared by Tajikistan, China and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

So what is there for India?

• We take back the Gilgit/Baltistan region which is rightfully ours.
• We would offer hope to the extremely poor and deprived people of Gilgit/Baltistan region. They have after 60 years of Pakistani occupation; fraud Judiciary, fraud infrastructure, a fraud council, etc (they could not expect much out a country which their founder Jinnah had termed as an experiment).
• We cut off the only land link between Pakistan and China.
• We have direct access to Afghanistan and also Central Asia which would help serve our strategic interests.
• It aids our strategic policy of encirclement of Pakistan that has been re enforced by the setting up of Ayni base in Tajikistan.
• It would help reverse the current policy of encirclement of India by Pakistan and China.
• We can strengthen our energy security by creating a pipeline which would carry the central Asian oil and gas thru Tajikistan-Wakhan-Gilgit/Baltistan (North Kashmir)-Kargil/Dras/Ladakh-Jammu-Rest of India.
• We block China's ambitious plan to construct a Beijing-Kabul rail link.
  

If and when we are in a war, start a front in Kargil – Dras – Ladakh region and that too not from a defensive corps/division but a strike corps formation. This strike corps should be well formed and even better equipped with at its fountain head being the special forces/Scouts/strike corps engineers, they being followed by mechanised divisions of regular infantry (High Altitude/Mountain) Troops and then these should be followed by regular forces and regular engineers. As this terrain is harsh and unforgiving, new and unconventional methods of forging ahead need to adopted. These methods maybe creating a supply chain through the frozen rivers in the area (as there are very few roads and this area is a watershed for many glaciers), maybe blocking or even diverting a river to create a dry river bed for our troops to move ahead on it, effective use of force multipliers like UAV, High Altitude-Long Range Guns, Mountain observation posts. The more radical one thinks, the faster our movements would be in such a terrain.

As the places from where the attack can be initiated are limited, we would need to start with the “Fountain head” approach – start from a narrow corridor and then move far and wide by occupying the heights. This way we can effectively control a large area from the mountain tops and block off any future attacks from the Pakistan’s (I hope the nation remembers the strategy adopted by Pakistan in Kargil).

The strength and effectiveness of the campaign will lie in the swiftness of our attack and our ability to reach our objective. This would virtually mean a dash for the Special Forces (path finders) units with a swift follow up by the regular forces. The entire operation has to be operated through the integrated defence headquarters (IDH) and not the DGMO. This is because we would need a completely integrated use of all your strategic assets at the time of his operation. The effective use of our Air Force would be the biggest strength this operation could gain by making the IDH rather than the DGMO handle the entire operation. The faster the path finder forces reach the wakhan, the faster the back up forces and the engineers would need to strengthen the Karakoram highway between shazin to bara khun. They would need to start a branch road to Wakhan from points like Sost or Passu on the Karakoram highway.

The civil departments would also need to be involved by starting immediately hospitals, post offices, Courts, telephones, paying government salaries, adding more jobs; in short getting the life back to normal. Employ as many people as we can (educated or uneducated), have no criteria for selection; just pay each and everyone a small monthly amount. It is always cheaper to have civilians control the area rather than the security forces. The faster normalcy comes on the ground the better our chances would be to have a stable and secure Gilgit/Baltistan under our belt.

History is written by winners – Napoleon

Rajiv Gandhi

1984 Sikh Riots (jab bada pedh girtha hai tho dharti hilti hai), even Bigger bully syndrome Sri lanka Mess - IPKF (what for), that stage managed hit on the head by Sri lankan Guard of Honour Solider, Nepal mess (at one time he blocked all Land supply routes to Nepal – creating the worst possible mess in India – Nepal relations), Pakistan mess (ISI launched OP Topac – policy of 1000 cuts against India – we had no answer to the same, sorry we had an answer “Mein unki nani yaad dila dunga”), Giani Zail Singh Years, Ram Janam Bhoomi mess, Satish Sharma (Mr. 10%) – achraya sushil muni (Holy mess) - , Press defamation Bill, Bofors, India in a mess and on a standstill – Bharat Bandhs every second day, Huge rallies at Boat Club, Strikes by different sections of workers (banks, railways, airports etc). What a period it was.

To be fair to him, when he was appointed P.M (nominated – as this was another hoax on the people and Indian democracy, rajiv was called to head the government even when he was not the leader of the house or deputy leader or the president of the congress party nor was any resolution passed nominating him as the P.M by the congress party), he came with a whiff of hope but he was swallowed into the cess pool called congress. I am always been astonished by a certain group coteries who have been around since 1966 and they have been the ones who made Indira Gandhi promulgate emergency, who got rajiv to do the Ram Janam Bhoomi Mess, who got rajiv to get the Press defamation bill, who got rajiv into bofors? I will not name anyone but just look at a picture of Sonia Gandhi’s Aides and just look at the aides of indira Gandhi and rajiv Gandhi also. These are the very people who have got these leaders into trouble. These are self serving bunch of people who have no love for the party or its leader but they are just serving their own purpose. I can challenge it in any court of law the wealth of these people would have risen sharply when all of Gandhi’s were in power but dipped when they were out of it. It does not mean that Gandhi’s were partners in crime but show the self serving interest of these people. I am saving this with conviction that these people would use Sonia Gandhi till they feel she can deliver and then start creating a next generation of gandhi’s to hang on to. These people have only one thing against them and that is their age. They are now in their 70-80’s but ask any of them to go and become a governor or leave politics, they will starting doing push ups to prove that they have still a lot of energy left in them.

If I have one piece of advise for the Gandhi clan, you know who these people are - just move out of their shadows. Look at a P.M like rajiv, clean family man and with what a majority he came into the parliament and what happened to him in just 5 years. He was a typical case of hero to zero. Why did it happen? Does any one think rajiv was corrupt – ask any one in the bureaucracy or the intelligence agencies who worked under him, they can vouch for his honesty even after the bofors scam but ask them about his family and friends and they all seem to have different opinions then? Mr Satish Sharma, Mr Q, Acharya Sushil Muni – all of them were handling assignments that gave them access to top businessmen, slush funds, state secrets. Who were they and why were they hanging around in the P.M.O? Why did they try their hands in different issues like trying to solve Punjab issue, fertiliser contracts, Airbus contract, HBJ pipeline contracts, etc? Why it was that most of the mega contracts went to Italian companies only during that period and then these companies got none when the gandhi’s were out of office? Was satish sharma, his wife and Mr Q involved? Can the list of maruti dealerships doled out in 1983/84/85 be checked again to find out how many of these were given to congress leadership (friends of the Gandhi’s)?

Pt. J L Nehru

Pt. J L Nehru – NAM, BANDUK CONFERENCE, 1962 WAR, NORTHEAST PROBLEM, 3 STEEL PLANTS WITH SOVIET UNION HELP (THE TECHNOLOGY WAS REDUNDANT EVEN WHEN WE SET UP THOSE PLANTS), 2 BIG DAMS, AIRPORTS – AIRLINES (???????) AND YES ROADS – WELL LETS LEAVE THAT OTHERWISE A LOT OF CRAP WILL COME OUT, PLANNING COMMISSION (WHAT DOES IT DO AND ITS ACHIEVEMENT?), 1959 FIRST DULY ELECTED GOVERNMENT WAS DISMISSED UNDER ARTICLE 356 FOR REASONS KNOWN ONLY TO HIM AND HIS KITCHEN CABINET HANDLED BY HIS DAUGHTER? KASHMIR AND P.O.K – THE UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS / THE LOSS OF OUR NATION’s LAND EVEN AFTER PAKISTAN WAS CREATED OUT OF OUR SOIL? BUREAUCRACY AND MORE BUREAUCRACY? NEPOTISM, DYNASTY – FAMILY BEFORE NATION? CORRUPTION? NO STRATEGIC THOUGHT IN OUR FOREIGN OR EVEN ANY STATE POLICY – THIS IS WHEN ONE OF THE GREATEST THINKERS AND STRATEGIST WAS AN INDIAN – CHANAKYA WHO WROTE ARTHASHASTRA? DID WE TRUST ON THE FAMED INDIAN ENTREPRENURAL SKILLS THAT THEY COULD MANAGE INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIALISATION (EVEN THOUGHT INDIANS DID VERY WELL IN OTHER PARTS OF THE GLOBE)! BADLY MANAGED ARMED FORCES! NO POLICE REFORMS AFTER THE BRITISH LEFT! AND EDWINA………WELL THAT NEEDS TO BE NOT COMMENTED UPON……IN SHORT HE LEFT A CONFUSED NATION.

THESE WERE BIG ISSUES, LET ME COMMENT ON SMALLER ISSUES LIKE OUR TOWNS – WERE THEY PLANNED FOR GROWTH, OUR VILLAGES – DID THEY OFFER ANYTHING TO ITS RESIDENTS, FOR FARMERS WHO TILLED THE LAND (LANDLESS LOT) WERE THEIR ANY IMPROVEMENT IN THEIR LIVES, HUMAN MANUAL SCAVANGERS, DRAINS IN CITIES AND VILLAGES, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, ELECTRICITY, WATER,ETC.

Sorry I forgot to write about Kamala Nehru. She has one quarter of Delhi named after her for reasons only known to the Gandhi/Nehru family. She must have definitely contributed to our independence from the Hospital in Switzerland that she was placed in to cure her from T.B (apart from being the mother of Indira Gandhi). Her letters details how PanditJi ill treated her are not to be mentioned. We have only learnt from our history books that chacha was in love not only with Edwina but also with Kids so 14^th November is children’s day every year. What did he do for the kids except a few DAVP showing him with rajiv and sanjay in his lap?.......Did he give kids free education from primary to post graduate…did the schools that he opened mass produce quality trained manpower comparable to the kids being educated in other comparable developing countries of that period like Korea, brazil, Argentina, Indonesia …look at their social indices today and look at our (we are near sub Sahara Africa)……did he open schools in each village…..are we proud of the kind of schools that were established after independence in out villages? Does a common Indian who has studies in a village school not tell that how bad his school was and the quality of studies were even worse? Had it not been for the sheer hard work and emphasis of education in common Indian families that we have created some bright students through this bad and outdated education scenario (which the politicians claim credit for)?

I am slightly harsher on Pt JL NEHRU for the reason that he had to leave a solid foundation for this nation after his tenure. He was our first P.M and people had a lot of energy and hopes pinned on him. If he had laid a proper state with proper procedures and functioning to the future generations, we would not have had to face this day today. Our centre state relations are in a mess, our cities, town and villages are in a bad state, our cities rank at the lowest ranked cities not even fit for animals to live in. We have no potable water for 95 % of our people when we are the guardian of the Himalaya, 2 mighty rivers, numerous glaciers – let us forget the entire nation – people who stay on the banks of ganga or bhramaputra are not even supplied portable water even once a day.

Politicians who run our cities and states have big egos that even a slight change in improving peoples conditions like paying money directly through central government resources to improving schools in the villages is not allowed by states who say that it is a violation of the federal structure of the nation. No where in this world is such an argument given. All around the globe, aid is generally given from state fund to the counties but when in times of crisis and emergencies like flood, terror, crime etc money is given directly by the centre.

He was loved no doubt was it not partly due to the fact that there was certain romanticism after independence and chacha was riding the same wave. Was it not also due to the fact that there was no credible opposition and lone voice like that of Feroze Gandhi were the only opposition to him? Was it not the fact that only AIR and government media projected him as a saviour and free press was limited to printed newspapers and magazines? This virtually meant that in real terms only 15% of our nations people who could read or write could access any information contrary to what the government media said about chacha? Was chacha no paralysed after 1962 and the government was virtually run by Indira Gandhi and her cronies? Why was Indira Gandhi impeding all moves of Lal Bahadur Shastri and creating a power centre within the cabinet?

I think the year 1965-1966 was a turning point in our nation’s history and what the nation suffered for the next 30 years till 1996 was mainly due to these years. Had Shastri been the P.M for longer tenure, maybe the nation would have moved in a different and a better direction? What started after 1966 was a brazen display of power centric politics and virtual dictatorship? Do we ever ask ourselves why don’t central and state governments in India now generally win election after their term in office? It is the same Gandhi family which is heading the congress, so what difference has taken place. Well the difference is media and education. Both have now moved into the hinterland and people are more aware of their rights. They are not willing to take the crap of dynasty, secularism, communalism or any other isms. They just need a government which listens and implements what it says. They do not care whether your forefathers were chacha Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi.

In short he was responsible for the mess that we are in today.

Central Para Military Organisations

CENTRAL PARAMILITARY ORGANISATIONS (CPO):

Formed by the union to help both Military and Police forces, they seem to have lost direction and momentum as years have passed by. We have succeeded in creating multiple CPO for jobs that do not need more than 3-4 of such organisations.

The new and division of the CPOs should be:

1. BSF/ITBP/SSB/EASTERN RIFLES – This combined border organisation should have an officer like the CDS in the Armed Forces headed by a DG – Borders to oversee their workings.

Make four divisions of the DG - Borders.

The BSF division should be made to handle the North Western and western borders only. They should be removed from the other points of the Border e.g. Eastern, Nepal border. They should have separate wings or sub divisions like Air (surveillance and reconnaissance), Water (rivers, marshes, estuaries etc), Desert, Intelligence, Disaster management etc as each of these is a specialised jobs which they have to ensure with complete dedication.

The ITBP division should be made to handle the North/North Eastern – Himalayan Range borders only. They should be removed from the other points of the Border e.g. Eastern border. They should have separate wings or sub divisions like Air (surveillance and reconnaissance), High Altitude, Intelligence (Human &Electronic), Disaster management etc as each of these is a specialised jobs which they have to ensure with complete knowledge and dedication.

The SSB division should be made to handle the North Eastern (Nepal) border only. They should be removed from the other points of the Border e.g. western or Eastern borders. They should have separate wings or sub divisions like Air (surveillance and reconnaissance), Special Operations (Due to sensitive Nature and high Volume of People using this zone), Jungle, Intelligence (Human &Electronic), Disaster management etc as each of these is a specialised jobs which they have to ensure with complete knowledge and dedication.

The EASTERN RIFLES division should be made to handle the Eastern (Sikkim/Seven Sister states) border only. They should not be given other points of the Border e.g. western or Northern borders. They should have separate wings or sub divisions like Air (surveillance and reconnaissance), Special Operations (Due to sensitive nature and high Volume of People using this zone), Jungle, Intelligence (Human &Electronic), Water, Disaster management, etc as each of these is a specialised jobs which they have to ensure with complete knowledge and dedication.

The training and other courses should be combined as far as possible to help in the better management of resources and manpower.

2. CSF – This should be an amalgamation of CRPF, CISF and any other remaining CPO. They should have separate wings or sub divisions like Air (surveillance and reconnaissance), Special Operations, Jungle, Intelligence (Human & Electronic), Water, Counter Insurgency, Urban Warfare, Riot control, Marshall, Commandoes, Industrial Security, Disaster Management, etc as each of these is a specialised jobs which they have to ensure with complete knowledge and dedication. Each of these divisions need specialised equipments and training to ensure excellence in the assigned jobs. This would also ensure relieving Armed forces of their unnecessary civilian duties.

It needs an air wing as they handle and also would handle in future more of civil strife’s including Naxals, militancy, riots and a reconnaissance wing will help them as a force multiplier.

It needs special operations to act as the operations wing of the central government that till now is being handled by the ill equipped state police forces. It should be one that directly liaise and coordinate with their own and other central intelligence agencies.

It needs Jungle operations divisions as most anti naxal, anti terrorist, etc take place in jungle environment.

It needs Marshall division to handle specific jobs like hunting down untraceable central (Federal) offenders, providing protection to centrally important people, managing and protecting any future central prisons, etc.

It needs intelligence (Human &Electronic) but mostly at the unit or the battalion level to ensure that precious resources are not wasted and duplicity of work with other central and state intelligence agencies does not take place.

It needs an industrial security division to manage security of Airports, Atomic plants and other vital installations.

It needs a Disaster management division as the central government lacks a central disaster management force and heavily relies on the armed force to do the same. To ensure that duality of jobs with the armed forces does not take place; the CSF should handle the basic disaster management using light and medium equipment. As the heavy equipments are very costly, difficult to maintain, difficult to transport and can be used for dual purposes (War and Peace), such jobs should be reserved for the armed forces only.

It should also be noted that separate disaster management divisions (DMD) were allotted to all the border organisations as the areas of our borders are generally of a very difficult terrain and the only help one gets is either of the Armed forces or in future should be of the CPO. The system should be able to function in both modes i.e., with the help of state government and without the help of state government.

The only exception to the CPO structure should be the COAST GUARD. This CPO should be transferred to the Ministry of Defence as their job nature involves more of interaction with Navy than with any other border management department of the country. They should be sub divided into Brown Water, Shallow water, Air, Special Operations, Intelligence (Human & Electronic), DMD and Coastline/estuaries/Marshes Divisions. The coast guard should work with 2 kinds of ships – medium size covering larger tracts and smaller faster boats. The bigger ships can become the cover ships for smaller but faster boats. The bigger ships could be handling up to 150 men and the smaller between 10-30 men. These should be supplemented by UAVs, Helicopters and fixed wing aircrafts. This mother ship can be packed with an array of electronic surveillance equipment with a constant secured link between them and the smaller ships for two way transmission of such data. With the current strength of less than 100 ships the coast guard is the poor reflection of the countries perception and priorities of how to defend its borders. A lot of it stems from the fact that our nation neither had a sea faring culture nor a strong navy. The only exception to this perception is Shivaji, who understood the importance of retaining such an arm in his defence forces.

The concept could work with Navy handling sea beyond 50kms from the coast line, coast guard handling between 50kms till 5kms from the coast line and coastal police handling between shore line and 5kms into the sea (Brown and Blue water navy concept).

The urgent need to have a Coastline Divisions is further highlighted as the countries sea/ocean borders are very poorly guarded. The fact that most of the RDX and other ammunition for the Bombay blasts were bought into the country from the gaps in the coastal protection grid further highlights the need to have such a dedicated division. There is hardly any coastal state where the state government has a coastal police having enough boats to be of any deterrent value. Such costal police divisions if any have to be created to give “compliant” state governments police officers timely promotions and to help guard the vast coastal borders of the country.

The jobs of CPO have become very difficult since they are now being used to handle most jobs that a regular police need to do. What is the logic of using BSF/ITBP for internal policing when they have been created for specific jobs? Does one realise that catching a terrorist at the countries border is far better than searching for him in the by lanes of our cities and towns! Do we realise that the role of BSF is to be the first line of defence in peace time and second line of defence in war time. Their operations even in the peace time have to be coordinated with the armed forces. How many trainings does a BSF man undergo if he is just busy doing internal security duties. The height of misuse of BSF is that their Air wing operates no UAV or drones to secure our borders but operates business jets for their political or bureaucratic masters. This money spent on buying a business jet could have virtually bought two squadrons of day/night working UAV/drones useful for patrolling inhospitable places like Bengal or Assam borders. These jet are not as useful as the ones with the air force as they do have automatic landing rights at defence airfields and can land or park only at the civil aerodromes which are usually serviced by scheduled carriers. We have still not utilised the full potential of the UAV/Drones and still work with the concept of human guard at every possible of impossible place. I take the example of ITBP, such a specific force formed to counter the threat coming from the Himalayan region. This force is the most ill equipped, untrained, mismanaged, over fatigued of all the CPOs. They have no structure in place, their equipment is out dated to say the least, and they work at some of the highest points at the borders but have no specialised school like HAWAS (High Altitude warfare School-Gulmarg). Their armoury is poor, clothing worse and to top it all most of the force hardly have rotational pattern of low altitude and high altitude postings. They like BSF also have a role to play during the War and Peace situations at the borders. The ITBP has the unenvious task of taking out LRPs (Long range patrols) in the Himalayan ranges and the equipment they carry is better forgotten than revealed. Seeing their trainings and organisational structure, I think it would be better if the armed forces plan their War scenarios without considering any significant help from either BSF or ITBP any more than what they expect from the local police force. Far better than them are the Scout regiments of the army which have at least their parent units to fall back upon for trainings, equipments and organizational structures.

CBI – What can be said? It is a sick organisation which is brain dead and only surviving on an artificial ventilator provided the incumbent governments for their own petty political gains. Successive governments including the ones run by the opposition parties did nothing to change the condition of the CBI. A small pointer to this is the fact that all P.M till date have tried to put their men in charge of this organisation, an example of this is Narsimha Rao government got Vijay Rama Rao, Deve Gowda got Joginder Singh and many more got many more which only proves that CBI director is not more than a personal servant or even worse a lap dog of the incumbent government.

Drink the poison and make it a constitutional body like the election commission. It is better if we do it as fast as we can. Change its name to just the central Bureau and create 3 divisions within it, first called the Intelligence Division by amalgamating the Intelligence Bureau, second called the Investigation and prosecution Division much the same as it is today and the Immigration division by moving the FRRO office from untrained, de motivated and rejected police officers to a specialised force run by dedicated bunch of trained men and women.

Why the need to merge the IB into the CB? Well the biggest problem of IB is that it is still a shadow organisation run for, by and because of petty political leaders. It cannot and does not have an enforcement wing nor a prosecution wing or a witness protecting wing leaving all such important jobs on the shoulders of the local police which might be governed by men like Md. Taslimuddin or Md. Shabuddin. Only god and the personal destiny of the witness can save him or her.

As a nation, we are still not in a habit of demanding answers so this state of the CBI is unlikely to change.

UNION BORDER & PORTS MANAGEMENT COMMISSION (UBPMC): For better management of our borders a UNION BORDER & PORTS MANAGEMENT COMMISSION (UBPMC) should be set up.

The Commission should have the following people as their members:

1. UNION HOME MINISTER

2. UNION HOME SECETARY

3. DG of BSF/SSB/ITBP/EASTERN RIFLES/CSF

4. DG - Borders

5. Chief of IB, MI, R&AW.

6. Chiefs of Immigration and Customs Department.

7. Chief of Coast Guard.

8. Lt General Rank position – Borders management/Armed Forces (As a lot of the countries land and sea borders/LOC are manned by the Army, Navy and Air force - a new position of coordinating these land and sea borders within the forces and also with the civilian authorities should be created at the Integrated Defence Headquarters).

This board should on case to case basis invite officers like DG – Border Roads, Chief Engineer PWD/CPWD, DGP Local Police, Customs, State Home Secretary, Chief of AAI/BCAS/NSG/FRRO, etc. As a number of private ports and airports would be coming up in the near future, even the heads of such private ports should be invited in case such a need arises. It should however be noted that border management being a central issue should be tackled with an independent mindset without waiting for the state governments to help in the same.

As some part of our borders is with specialised Army regiments called scouts, an office manned by an officer of the rank of Major General – per Regimental scouts (As total number of jawans and officers in the regimental scouts are at most the size of a Division) should be created for effective management of the Army scout’s concept.

Not much is written about these regiments which have been designed as a specialised back up force for our borders. Most of them like Ladakh Scouts, Kumaon Scouts, Garhwal Scouts, etc have been given the unenvious task of defending inhospitable borders in their respective areas. These borders due to their terrain need specialised people to guard them and who better than the locals to do the job. As the locals reside in such places, their ability to stay long in such areas is legendary. During the kargil war, stories of Ladakh scouts have become tales of legends. Their ability to climb the rugged Karakoram/Himalayan Range during the war put even the hardened mountain goats to shame. Their motivation to fight was far higher than the normal Indian solider. For them it was a fight to defend their unique way of life which has been guaranteed by the founding fathers of our country. This should be the basis of our future organisation border forces and operational planning.

Their main job should be to coordinate the operations of the borders managing agencies, planning and execution of civil, Para military and military projects along the borders.

Policy involving citizenship ID cards, Fencing, creating and maintaining Border Roads and Border Canals/Ducts etc should be handled exclusively by this commission. They should also be involved in developing a central software platform meant exclusively for the requirement of the border CPO’s. This could then be integrated into the central police software. They should not be involved in the day to day operations of the borders but help provide the coordination that currently lacks our borders today. They should also help in the effective coordination of the same with other allied authorities of the state and district.

As this board has nil or very little interaction with the average citizen, the need to include other representative should not arise.

An officer of the rank of Additional Secretary should function as Secretary UBPMC coordination.

The entire concept should work on quality and not on quantity. What has happened last 55 years has proven to us that the concept of employing 100 policemen where 5 were needed served no one except the criminals and terrorists. We would need to realise that policing is the most difficult and different of all governmental jobs undertaken. This has proved to be the biggest failure of the system in the last 50 years. Our democracy has survived, our judiciary has survived, our Armed forces have survived, our fourth estate has survived but our policing has let us down. There has been a total blame game on accepting the problem as it has been. We are a growing nation having 35% population under 25 years of age. This generation is yearning for change and if this change is got from within the system they will start demanding it through other means not generally suitable in a democracy. We need to realise that the entire system will need to be radically changed. Just a mere changing of names or designations in the police force will not help. The new generation is far more integrated with the other more modern countries of this world and for them to understand that the most basic thing in a civil society needs to be changed to global standards. When we can match global standards for phones, railways, airports, technology why cannot we match the same for policing. What has been given above is a part of the global policing concept that most of the countries in the developed world follow. Ours is a difficult nation to govern but then we have moved on from being just recently independent to fast growing democracy. We can’t this dream of our freedom fighters and other founding father of our nation go waste. This is just not a country abut one of the most holy land in the world. It has been the nursery of 4 major religions of this world. No religion has been prosecuted and most religions have thrived in this land. Even minorities communities have ruled this nation for decades and their integration into the society has been accomplished without a hitch.

If we are unable to change the policing, we will have more problems with our law and order in the future. Even today we have a vast fertile area which cannot be cultivated, new industries cannot be setup just because a few criminals are hell bent upon destroying the fabric of that community. We need to ponder over why certain areas of this nation are poor in spite of having vast natural and man made resources in that areas. What are the reasons that industries do not set up factories in such areas and keep their factories hundreds of kilometres away from these areas? To employ productively 50crore (500million) people (working population of India) would be impossible until each and every possible area of this country is industrialised. A place to look at this is china, the way they have cleared the entire country of crooks and thugs has been remarkable and it has ensured that most of their smaller cities and town have caught on to the economic boom that is sweeping the country. This is in mark contrast to India where majority of states are outside the radar of this boom. Large areas in states like Assam, other N.E states; Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, etc have been largely if not totally been left outside the economic boom. This disparity has the potential of a future possibly civil war which would be very difficult to curb. We have been lucky with the fact that most of the people in this country are god fearing and that has largely help the ruling class to linger on with a system that has failed on all counts.

In this nation of 100 crores can the proponents of the current system cite even one common man who supports this stagnant system? This is the chance, the nation is undergoing change and the economy is on the upswing, People are expecting change and what better time then now to do that.

The battle to fight crime and criminal is not the easiest any where in the world but with a small thought and beginning we can achieve a better and a more peaceful society for ourselves and for our country.

Police Reforms in India

POLICE:

The worst this state has to offer its citizen. This kind of a police organisation was started by the British to terrorise Indians into submission. This structure of the police has not been changed since then. Our state is best exemplified by the noted Hindi writer Sh. Phaniswar Nath Renu in one of his books where the villagers of a remote village get to know 6 months after Aug 1947 that India is now independent. The main reason being that the biggest visible sign of the government i.e. the police did not change. The “Daroga” remained as regressive as he was before with the only change being that he saluted the Indian flag rather than the British. For the villagers it really made no difference. The structure where the “gora” sahib remained at the district level above all the day to day hassles and the village/sub district level remained with the “Burra” sahib. The I.A.S / I.PS once touted as the saviours and stabilizers of this nation have reduced to touts and pimps of the Indian politicians. The present structure need to be changed and that too fast.

How to improve and what to do?

Before we write or announce anything about improving the police force, first lesson should be remembered: NEVER GIVE TARGETS TO A POLICE FORCE. The force should be judged on their working and not on the crime/law & Order targets.

To prove this point, what happens to police personnel who handle rape victims counselling, child abuse counselling, senior citizen patrol, youth development, community interaction – how we can give targets to them. They are the real back bone of any police system but they never catch a crook or do anything in active law & order duty. They will be always left behind when the rewards of targets achievements are being distributed. Even in corporate circles, rewards are always a dual edge sword, they can hurt the company more than they can support. We know what rewards do to people; their judgements get totally based on them and them alone. The concepts of team, buddy pairing, etc die because one is so hung up on rewards. This topic needs many more trained and brainy minds to create a solution than just a simple scheme devised by politicians and their bureaucratic government servants.

Remove the duties of checking illegal construction, illegal shops / teh bazari, solving marital disputes, etc from the preview of police jobs. There are enough civic and other agencies handling such jobs. All licensing powers should be removed from the police and be given to a licensing board setup in coordination with the local police, municipal bodies and other civic agencies. Stop the practise of calling regular police for civic jobs like removing encroachments etc and hand over the same either civic bodies or depute reservists to help the civic bodies for such works. Each government department having any thing to do with enforcement of rules should have their own enforcement wings and only in case of grave or break down of law and order should the job be taken over by the local police.

Some examples of changes could be:

Railways – No GRP as the concept of involving the local police of the state in helping protect the railways and paying 50% of their expenses has failed miserably as when ever any thing goes wrong no one from the GRP takes the blame. Most people say about the GRP, that it is a force only to fleece ordinary rail travellers and nothing more. Whatever little safety is there is either provided by RPF or by GOD and nobody else. GRP and everybody else come very late in the order. Make RPF totally responsible for crimes concerning railways and book crimes committed as FEDERAL CRIMES and not state crimes. Railways is not like highways, there are material and people that are transported in big numbers on this system at one go. One big difference is the fact that there are high value assets of the railways that are permanently in place which is not the case in highways.

MCD/DDA or any Municipal Authorities – Removing or checking illegal construction, illegal shops / teh bazari, solving marital dispute, etc should be removed from the preview of police jobs. There are enough civic and other agencies handling such jobs. Stop the practise of calling regular police for civic jobs like removing encroachments etc and hand over the same either to civic bodies or depute reservists to help the civic bodies for such works. Each government department having any thing to do with enforcement of rules should have their own enforcement wings and only in case of grave threat or actual break down of law and order should the job be taken over by the local police. All licensing powers should be removed from the police and be given to a licensing board setup in coordination with the local police, municipal bodies and other civic agencies.

Airports – Specific Body like CSF should be handling all aspects (internal - terminal or external - parameter) of the airport security. Local police is neither trained nor equipped to handle the same. Airports being highly sensitive place having concepts like international area, custom bonded areas, security hold areas which require highly specialised job trainings to handle the same. A local policeman handling all this with his local police thana jobs looks like a work of a super human. We should leave the poor “police constable” from all this.

VIP security – The most critical issue which is faced by the police is the handling of VIP security. This facet of police job requires a much specialised and highly trained unit to handle the same. This needs to be divided into 2 sections – Security provided by the central government and Security provided by the state government. For both the central and the state governments should have exclusive force to handle such a dedicated assignment. For the central level protectees, we have discussed the same with the paragraph of CSF, something on similar lines needs to be setup by the state governments. As the security of the protectees is handled in virtually every possible environment like urban centres, villages, jungles, etc, it is imperative that this agency gets trained by the best people in business. It also needs constant updating on the newer threats on the business by refresher courses. One should compare this to the current scenario where a general duty constable holding a 1940’s carbine or stengun is made to protect a key politician or a key witness, etc. It has been seen in majority of cases that the gangsters have rarely been afraid of these security guards. Most of the time, the hit men have been able to shoot dead the assigned target with the police men guarding them either running away from the crime scene or pretending dead. It is better we start early as we cannot kill a specialised anti terror agency like NSG to protect every sundry person. The scenario is such that Army which is the core of this agency with its SAG (Special Action Group) sends only its second best officers whom the army does not see going very high in the army’s internal setup. The work of a SAG type unit is highly specialised. This not to be confused with the Special Forces already present in the Army. Special Forces are primarily meant for the counter insurgency and war operations and SAG/NSG are meant for the regular anti terror/hijack, etc operations. Roughly translated NSG is the civil side of a coin where SF is the military side. The Army needs to upgrade the Special Forces separately but not at the expense of the SAG/NSG. SAG/NSG is the army’s response to daily terror threat to the civil population at non insurgency infested areas.

Other specific departments like Bus Depots security, postal security, metro security, security of defence & nuclear establishments, parliament security, etc should be handled exclusively by specific agencies and not the local police. Base security for private events, rallies, etc should also be entrusted to security stewards who are trained by the police in their jobs but work at the events under the supervision of the police staff. This can act as a force multiplier for the local police. Care must be taken that units like either the reservist or the PCR division of the police supervise such events without any involvement of the local police.

Some of it has already been segregated from local police with burden of providing security to defence establishment handled being by Defence security corps, CSF handles Nuclear areas, etc. This need to be completed fast as the threats from disrupted elements is becoming more ruthless and sophisticated each passing day.
For the system to have any visible and real change the following should be done with immediate effect:

State Internal Affairs Commission (SIAC): This is the Apex body which should govern the Internal Affairs of the State. This is based on the concept of collective leadership. Collective leadership world over has been preferred to a single point system. Even in judicial cases the concepts of jury or a Bench support this argument. The composition of this body has been done to ensure that no one section of the society (e.g. politician or Bureaucracy or lawyers etc) takes control of this body.

Five members of the commission should include:

1. Home Minister (State) – He/she sits here as the representative of the people. His/her being there is necessary as the politicians would never accept any police reforms till they do not seems to be having the leash of their pet attack “dog”.

2. D.G.P – He/she sits here as the representative of the police.

3. State Attorney General - He/she sits here as the custodian of Law.

4. Leader of Opposition - He/she also sits here as the representative of the people.

5. State Human Rights Commission Chairman - He/she sits here as the upholder of our rights as enshrined by the founding fathers of this great nation.

6. State Home Secretary - He/she sits here as the representative of the bureaucracy.

Governed by Five Members commission:

Mainly duty should be of policy formulation, checking the adherence of the county (district) chiefs to the law of the land, Protection of Civil Liberties, Transfers, promotions and postings of Sub district chiefs and above rank officers, etc. This Commission should have no role in the day to day functioning of the police. They should be like TRAI or IRDA - a regulator working for the betterment of the police force as well as the society. They should advise government on the issues of updating law, force requirements, etc.

Extra care should be taken so that this body doesn’t become bureaucrat or politician heavy as that would kill the very basis of having a fair and public oriented police setup.

An officer of the rank of JT. DGP should function as Secretary SIAC coordination.

Split the police force into two main division

1. Law & Order/Allied

2. Investigation.

Law & Order/Allied

Further divide the Law & Order into the following division:

1. Community Policing: This is the public face of the force and all care must be taken that the best men and women are taken in this division. The officers should all be trained to integrate into a community for effective policing rather than be like a sore popping out of it. Firstly these officers should be recruited on the basis of zones within a state and not at state level. One can argue this on the basis of psychological studies that most human beings have an affinity for either their place where they reside or the country they belong to. The feeling for something like a state rarely comes. How can a person who has no affinity for the place protect the same? These studies have been confirmed and have been the basis of all police recruitment in USA/CANADA and also in most of the western world.

In the Indian context one can look at the following example, how can a person who resides in a place like say Bijnor be willing to go that extra length to protect Delhi. For that policeman his being in Delhi is because of his need for a Job (which he could not find in Bijnor) and treats himself like a temporary migrant. For him, his work finishes the moment he moves out of his office and start the minute he moves in the office. His motivation to change things in Bijnor would be more than to do the same for Delhi. Why can’t the state utilise these feelings productively and change the society for the better? Why can’t such a man be posted in Bijnor rather than Delhi? All our policy makers need to accept these results. These days most Indian cities are cosmopolitan in nature that to think that they would get dominated by one sect or community is thinking too far. The policemen/women feeling for the society can be gauged by a psychological test something that the Armed forces have been doing for years for recruiting their offices. These psychological tests have been a great hit in the armed forces and have stood the test of time. Such test are being used in most western countries where joining the armed forces is not mandatory e.g. Britain.

2. Transport (Highways, Railways, Ports, Rivers, County / State airports etc).

This is where the main terror aspect is visible in day to day lives of the citizen. Never should a group be so strong that they have a feeling of acting anytime, anywhere and never should the citizens have to be at the mercy of these people. This has the potential of ruining the economy of the state or its county. Entire stretches of productive land/Roads can be turned waste by this sort of terror. An example of this problem is the choking of our highways in the day time and being virtually empty in the night. This loss in the total productive utilisation of the road happens due to the fact that a small group of people maybe 4 to 5 can dominate a stretch of highway and terrorise people not to travel by night. If we monetise the loss of the highway not being utilised in the night, we will realise how much the nation loses by such acts. The recruitment for this force can work on divisional lines as the resources required to manage such jobs is greater than community policing. Also the area of operations would be far greater than the ordinary police.

3. Special Operations / Intelligence:

Intelligence: This is the most neglected part of our current force. This is where our nation has no idea of what we mean by dossiers of potential or real terrorist/criminal. We can never understand the concept that the regular policeman being part of the community can gain access to more information about the people living in that community than an IB or a RAW office from some distant place. Dossiers can be kept of potential suspects by local policemen in consultation within the intelligence unit. This can be kept handy in circumstances where it becomes necessary to verify the antecedents of unknown terrorist who do not acknowledge their barbaric acts. As a Local police presence hardly arouses suspicion, they can offer the best inputs on intelligence gathering within their counties.

Special Ops: Split this division from the Intelligence as special operations need not wait for the state intelligence division to give them inputs. The main reason for opening such a division is that there are certain jobs which the Intelligence agencies cannot do directly and need to go through the regular police but same cannot be handled at levels of the community police stations. Jobs like actually nabbing terrorist/filing charges/pursuing cases against them etc have to be handled by such special operations group. Another aspect of their job can be witness protection programme. This has been an important link that we in India have never taken seriously. Most cases end up with no or negligible convictions as victims and witnesses are generally terrorised not only by high and mighty but small/petty criminals also. It is with the help of these petty criminals that most terror/spy networks thrive. We must remember that unravelling terror networks sometimes do not require major resources but small logical techniques to counter such nefarious designs.

4. Reservist / Administration:

Reservist: This division help only the law & order and VIP division of the County/State. Their strength should be higher in places like Delhi (due to large number of VIPs) and Jharkhand (due to the Naxalite problem) and lower in peaceful states like Goa or Himachal. As the nature of job of these reservists is specific, they can be trained on a continuous basis to excel in them. As a lower criterion for recruitment of these personnel can be used to enlist them, they would need to be trained on a continuous basis. This can be done properly as the personnel are detailed to do specific jobs and not the current “GENERAL DUTY” concept that is prevalent in India.

Administration: This is the back end for the entire police force and needs to function well. One must recall how the defence forces felt the need for a robust administrative setup and other back end functions for the ordinary jawan. They realised that for a solider to perform to the best of his abilities, he needed to be assured that all their administrative needs were being handled professionally. For tackling all accounts related issues, they established CDA (comptroller of Defence Accounts) branches for the three services. All these CDA were computerised and networked through intranet/internet. All personnel can access all their salary and other accounts just on a click of a button. This has had a big effect on the morale on all their personnel. In the defence forces personnel problems with the CDA system if any are solved not by the individual jawan but taken up on his behalf by his regiment. The same can be done at the community chief’s office level also.

5. Internal Affairs: This is the department that should report directly to the State Internal Affairs Commission and should be something like the Zebra division in national intelligence services. Its primary job should be to police the policemen. One important point should be noted that this division should not have any collaboration with the other departments or divisions of the police. This department should take no men or material help from the police and it’s budgeting, planning and operations should be handled directly by an officer of Jt. D.G.P level who reports to the State Internal Affairs Commission. This arrangements works well in the intelligent services where IB and R&AW directors / Secretary (R) are junior to the cabinet secretary but still directly report to the P.M. Also there the zebra units of IB/RAW (internal policing) report directly to the Directors of IB or R&AW but even that chain of reporting can be broken on receipt of sensitive information which can be directly reported to the P.M. It may not be practical to run this department like the intelligence services but some good points should be imbedded in the working of this department. The men and women who man this department should be clear of their primary goal, that they are enforcers of the old saying “justice to all, favours to none”. A quasi judicial setup like the court martial (GCM) in armed forces should also be setup in the force. This setup should work directly under the SIAC. Three Officers at least 2 Ranks higher than the guilty officers should constitute the GCM. This will help faster resolution of cases rather than the current practice where the cases get dragged for years leading to low or very poor conviction rate.

Investigation

Anything and just anything which is done would be better than what the situation is today. This aspect is something that most policemen as well as citizens dread. This forms a core of the problem that any state with high levels of violence has to endure. To begin with, the state should create a parallel organisation for investigation as far as possible. There should be some clear distinctions between this and the law & order division.

The demarcation should be as follows:

1. This should be a separate division. This division should report direct to the S.I.A.C and no one else.

2. They should not wear any uniforms.

3. They should not be confused with the prosecution service as their job and prosecution’s job are totally different.

4. Duplicate the rank system of the police force in the investigation set up also although size it as per its own requirements.

5. This should be a target based job. The more water tight the case these fellows can create the better the chances of jail become for the criminal.

6. They should not operate from police stations as investigations are sometime prejudiced by the local police and fair investigations are impossible in such circumstances.

The reasons why such an independent force needs to be created,

1. We need a professional set up who just does the job of investigating the actual crime, the motives, the evidences collection, etc.

2. The question arises as to why can’t this be done by the ordinary cop or the detective division and the answer is 1. the cop is untrained 2. over loaded 3. ill equipped 4. can have a vested interest.

We need a force that is specifically trained for the job, has a sound judicial knowledge of evidence gathering with a mindset of gaining conviction from it, is not loaded with regular policing activities, ordinarily does not have a vested interest as his interaction with public and government is limited, can be trained and re trained on newer scientific values and methods when need arises, easier to equip the force with the most modern and scientific methods in investigation as far as possible.

What is the situations now, the ordinary cop has to go to the scene of crime (most cops avoid going there as they would have to fill up tons of papers, report to court for the next 5-10 years of his life – no matter where ever he/she is posted, his/her comes in contact with all kinds of elements against whom he/she does not get any protection from his/her department). What happens next, he/she is untrained in any scientific evidence collection, so the moment it reaches the prosecution office, he is hounded by acquisition of corruption and poor evidence gathering. This does not stop at this first level, as it then moves to the courts where he/she faces the ire of the judge for the same. Look at a person who is just 12 pass or a B.A from some college where they did not have the teachers coming to teach and had to work in the teachers fields to get pass marks are now told to gather DNA, Chemical samples, etc from the scene of crime. Is there no thought in all this?

The system should simple and have clearly defined working rules. As soon as a scene of crime is found, the first to come after the initial cops should be the investigators. They should be equipped with men and machines to reach the scene of crime within 15-30 minutes in any part of country. This is necessary as most of the evidence has to be collected in the golden hour of the incident (this is not to say that it cannot be done later on nut that would only increase the cost and waste more time and manpower and engage even more expensive equipment for a longer period of time). After clearing the scene of crime, they should then get in touch with the prosecution office and create the case if it is deemed for further investigation and criminal justice proceeding.

Thus onus of gathering, storing, cataloguing and investigating the evidence in a scene of crime should be therefore totally rest with this division.

Levels of State Police:

D.G.P (Rank of Lt. General)

Something like CDS (Main reference to the state government/Internal Affairs Commission on all police matters ,also part of the internal affairs board of the state government. His main job should be helping the state make and update policies. For others he should be the main guide for all uniformed police officers under him/her. His position should be like Lord Krishna in Mahabharata, never involved directly in any conflict or procedure but always around to correct or laud when things go that way.

JOINT D.G.P (Rank of Major General) / Head of Division

His main job should be that of Heading the division, secondly coordination within the division that he is heading and secondly at the level of inter division coordination. This process would eliminate the multi layer authority that is prevalent at the top in bureaucracy currently.

COUNTY (District) CHIEF /HEAD OF SUB DIVISIONS like Special Ops, Administration, etc (RANK OF Brigadier)

An upgrade from the current position of an SSP (rank of Colonel) for the county chief will help get the necessary experience and knowledge in running the county professionally. This upgrade would help the county chief get more clout in gathering information and providing help mainly due to his seniority than what is possible today. He would be heading different divisions in his county making him the focal point at a level much nearer than what is there today. Today the convergence is at the level of the police chiefs of the state (D.G.P) as there are Add D.G.P’s handling individual branches like Intelligence, railways, Law and Order, etc. This delays information access and disbursement which is critical these days.

SUB COUNTY CHIEF (RANK OF Colonel)

This position should involve supporting the County chief with effective managing the county police. They should help coordinate and support the efforts of the community chiefs with the inputs available and help maintain the standards set by the County chief/Jt. DGP/DGP/State Internal Affairs Commission. They should work as the a) Personal Staff officer (Heading the office of the county chief/Handling Administration-Internal Affairs/Office Coordination) b) General Staff officer (Coordinating the county operations). Once they garner the experience of working in the staff offices, these officers could then be promoted to head the Counties.

COMMUNITY CHIEF (RANK of Lt. Colonel)

Currently this position is at the level of the Inspector (3 star JCO/Army equivalent-Subedar major). This is one of the most pathetic situations of Indian Police systems where a person who has no professional expertise handles most of the jobs at the public interface levels. As this will be the biggest and probably the most shocking change in the system, Question will arise as to why the post needs to be staffed by a Lt Col rank officer? The answer is very clear and simple, this position is one where the chief of police/Local politicians/MP/MLA try and make the best use of the current S.H.O’s level officers for their own selfish interests. The situation has reached such levels where even contempt proceedings by superior courts against them fail to get them to implement its directives. This promotion of rank of the community chief to a Lt. Col equivalent will push up the quality of policing at the public interface levels. The right kind of direction and leadership which is currently missing will get infused in the system. The pattern of using the size of the area as a bench mark for keeping this position under a JCO rank officer should be changed. The benchmark should be the population of the community as that is the real reflection of how well the system can be governed. Imagine if size is used as a criterion then areas like Ladakh or Thar Desert would need 10 times more than the current number of police stations for hardly 20-25 peoples each under their jurisdiction.

JOINT LAW & ORDER OFFICER or JOINT INSVESTIGATION OFFICER (RANK OF Major)

A promotee from the second rank in the police service, he or she should be able to take in charge of at least larger community locations like special zones, special buildings of strategic and national relevance, etc within a community area. He or she should be able to bring in the expertise and experience that one expects an officer with 10-12 years of service to have.

DEPUTY LAW & ORDER OFFICER or DEPUTY INSVESTIGATION OFFICER (RANK OF Captain)

A promotee from the first rank in the police service, he or she should be able to take in charge of at least smaller police positions like special small zones within a community area. He or she should be able to bring in the expertise and experience that one expects an officer with 5-6 years of service to have.

ASST. LAW & ORDER OFFICER or ASST. INSVESTIGATION OFFICER (RANK OF Lt)

This should be the lowest level which should have any interaction with the public. As policing is a very complicated job, they should be recruited and trained on the lines of a commissioned officer and not on the lines of an ordinary jawan. The officers need to be trained in new law, order and other crime control techniques. For any level in the force to succeed, it would need right kind of back up in form of better electronic surveillance, better intelligence gathering, and better crime scene analysis techniques. The officer on the street needs to realise that what ever good he or she does, the backup in the other departments would work to complete his job. Each district not only need police stations but independent mobile and static Crime scene analysis labs, Mobile and static electronic surveillance equipment, mobile and static command posts and other allied crime fighting equipment. He or she needs to realise that in case he is hit or even lays down his life on the job, his or her family would be taken care of. This is the support that is currently missing in the system.

AGE / PROMOTIONS: Change the retirement age from 60 to 45. The system should work in this way.

1. Reduce the retirement age to 45 for the rank of Community Chief (Time Scale Promoted). This should be something on the lines of grade review/performance review with numerical scoring system used in all his ACRs since he/she joined the force. If he does not meet the criteria for further promotion, then retire him at that age. This would have the best effect as we would expect younger officers interacting with the people in the community. On the field newer ideas would be able to move around in the system.

2. In case the officer meets the required criteria for promotion to become Sub District Chief, then promote him to become the same for a period of 5 years maximum (age 50).

3. In case the officer meets the required criteria for promotion to become District Chief, then promote him to become the same (age 53). If he does not meet the criteria, retire him at the post of Sub district chief.

4. In case the officer meets the required criteria for promotion to become Jt. DGP, then promote him to become the same for a period of 3 years maximum (age 56). If he does not meet the criteria, retire him at the post of District chief.

5. In case the officer meets the required criteria for promotion to become DGP, then promote him to become the same for a period of 4 years maximum (age 60). If he does not meet the criteria, retire him at the post of Jt. DGP.

In case the officer reaches the post of community chief at the age of 42 then he/she should be given a proportional increase in the tenure to that post. This way the operational jobs mainly till the level of Community chiefs will get handled by relatively younger officers and the more strategic jobs mainly above the community chief get handled by more senior officers. New ideas can get floated in the field jobs as younger officers get a chance to become field chiefs. An average age of promotion of 4-6 years (time scale promoted) or 2-3 years (Board promoted) can be maintained for any police officer. This pyramid type structure can work towards improving the quality of people at the top.

All the officers should have passed through all levels. There should be no structural intake from outside at senior levels. If the Police needs certain talents that are not available in their setup then they can call in specialist who can work in the system as OSD (officer on special duty) on temporary duty. If this specialist provides a tremendous value addition for the organisation, then he/she can be absorbed in the system. This however should not be made into a periodic process like Deputation in IB or R&AW. The biggest difference between deputation and OSD system is that in deputation one has to apply but in OSD his/her specialisation is observed by the organisation and then an offer is made to the person. This somehow is very similar to the AL QEIDA recruitment process

The concept of policing is totally different from the role played in other uniform services. They need to have the best placed structures in place. The biggest reason being the fact that they are the most public face of any government in India. All promotions until the level of Community Chiefs should be based on ACRs and time bound methodology only. The best Human resource brain should map out a points based matrix chart for all police promotions. To give incentive to hard and exceptional officers, a method of departmental examination and service medal based promotion should be worked out. After this rank the focus should on ACR, Physical and Mental abilities along with the grades attained while doing various departmental courses and examination.

CURRENT POLICE FORCE:

As for the current force, get a psychological and physical analysis done for the entire force. It is possible that 95% of the force will fail the same and it would not be possible for any sane government either centre or state to replace all of them. The way out of this is to get this current police force as reservist police or riot control battalions or VIP duties in the state. Change the uniform of all police for especially the reservist so the chance of mischief by disgruntled elements is greatly reduced. If we do not allow such a radical change in the setup to work the there is no way that you can make a quality difference to the policing in India. For a serious problem like the police functioning, a serious and quick solution needs to be worked out. There is no other way a menace like this can get solved. The power brokers are entrenched too deeply in the system to root them out suddenly. This change is based on the ancient Indian saying “Kill the snake and save the stick too”. Remove post like D.G.P (Housing, Modernisation, Administration, Law & order, Crime etc). The state should have one D.G.P so that he or she is able to work full all his concepts about modern policing. This multi D.G.P setup has given the state a chance to politicians to reward even the Bad ACR officers and punish the good officers by pushing them into useless positions like D.G.P Housing etc. This way they could always say that they are not removing any honest and upright officer from service nor are demoting him or her.

An example of the excess posts created in the force same came to light when an UP cadre IG rank officer (“deptt of rules and manuals”) recently became a “Drag Queen”. One needs to know what has been the merit of this officer to get promoted to the rank of an IG. Why has a department of Rules and Manuals created at the police headquarters? What is the work that this IG handles? Does this department need an officer of the rank of a Major general (Handling a Division of nearly 10,000 personnel) to head what can be handled directly by some junior officer. One needs to take a critical look at the state of Maharastra where small cities have police commissioner rank officers heading the show there, whereas those areas are generally be governed by DCP rank officers. For e.g. Nashik has DCP/SP/SSP Nashik – he looks after nashik, then Jt C.P/DIG – Nashik, then IG-Nashik Range. The system has been built in such a way that all I.P.S will retire a minimum as IG’s even though they may have had adverse remarks against him/her in his/her entire career. Better still is the fact that in case the officer feels that his promotion is getting blocked, he just moves over to any P.S.U as vigilance officer or some I.G/D.I.G in any C.P.O. There he enjoys full luxuries and benefits of the P.S.U / C.P.O maintaining all along his job security, improving the chances of getting his ACR on track and finally waiting for an opportunity to get back into his original cadre. The worst part in this is the C.P.O setup where the officer doesn’t know any job or ethics of the force but gets into prime positions. The direct C.P.O cadre always curse the fact that when the hard operations based postings have to be given, it is they who have to take them but when they reach the top D.I.G and above level softer positions, it is the IPS officers who take all those posts. Since the beginning of the Central paramilitary organisations, it has never happened that any of them have been headed by a CPO cadre officer. Really strange if we compare it with a setup like Army where to think a Non Army man heads the Army would be virtually day dreaming. Imagine an officer of the rank of DGP of Bihar or UP police is made to head a specialised force like the NSG. The officers in these states are mostly in the top chair due to their superior qualities in deft political handling rather than their policing abilities. Does the head of N.S.G require any specific skills or is it just that he needs to be an I.P.S officer close to the powers in the centre? How many situations of the NSG kind has the officer handled in his tenure will not be rocket science? What that officer can do in the specialised forces like NSG is anybodies guess? It has led to a situation where army has already stopped sending its best men for the NSG. It is an unwritten law that no officer who has done staff college is sent to the NSG which in other way means that the officers who are likely to make it to the Brig and above ranks are not sent to the NSG. Nothing can be more sad then this. We need to immediately change this as the quality of a premier organisation like NSG has already started to suffer. No army chief is willing to sacrifice his best officers to work under an IPS led organisation. Our policy makers need to act in this on an S.O.S basis.

RECURITMENT:

This is a disaster as far as the current procedure is concerned. We have for a single organisation four levels of recruitment: IPS, the PCS, the SI and the constable level.

IPS: Why is it needed? Whom does it serve? How does it help? Why can’t PCS level recruitment do the job of the IPS? How has it helped the independent India in the last 55 years? Can’t we do without it?

PCS: Why was it started? Who does it help? Is it not a replica from the White man handling cream jobs and selected brown men loyal to the raj handling slightly better assignments than their other non loyal peers? Why can’t it do the job of the IPS if recruited and trained in a professional manner?

SI: What is difference between PCS and SI level in job description? Aren’t they the beast of burden? Aren’t they corrupt, unprofessional and unchangeable level of the police force? What career prospects has the system devised for them? If one is just looking at the level of educational qualification for this level, then is it not the same as IPS and PCS officers have?

Constable: What did we have in mind when we continued after independence with this untrained, poorly paid, unprofessional, most corrupt public face of the police and also the government? What does “GENERAL DUTY” job assignment signify when this level of the organisation is the one which is the first one to confront a scene of crime/terror/dispute, etc?

The solution is to end the 4 levels of recruitment and change it as follows:

1. Club IPS/PCS/CPO exams and hold the same under an all India banner monitored by the UPSC. After successfully clearing the training at a central government run facility, split the group into two services the C.P.S and the S.P.S. The C.P.S would stand for central police service and S.P.S stands for state police service. The C.P.S officers would handle central forces like C.S.F, C.P.F, etc and S.P.S should be handling the concerned state police organisations only. In case that the C.P.S finds that there are good officers in the S.P.S, they can offer an option of getting absorbed in the C.P.S cadre at a later stage. The method of choosing a county/organisation for the successful candidate has to be based on factors like mental ability, physical ability, domicile, post vacancy, his/her choice, family hereditary rights (if father, grandfather, etc have worked in the same county/organisation) – something that is very similar to the officer recruitment/regimentation in the armed forces. A psychological test has to be made mandatory for all staffers who wear a police uniform.

2. Close down SI level recruitment.

3. Stop constable recruitment for all public interactive duties and open it only for reservist/Guard duty/Ceremonial/Mounted police, etc. Recruitment done at the state level but staff is trained at centrally run schools.

The current organisation setup has strangled all our efforts in reforming the system. A mere change in designations or procedures will not help and the system needs to be either dismantled and then rebuild or if nothing else be totally revamped.

TRAINING:

This area spells a disaster for the country. The best way forward is that centre takes over all the state police training colleges and runs them like a central institute. This would not be opposed by the states as most states are hardly in a condition of run them properly. Currently even if the central government supplies the state governments with specialised weapons or equipment for their police force, their effectiveness is limited due to the limited knowledge of the men and women who operate these machines. The training academies can be run under the command of the central police training academy division. This will ensure a standardisation in the level and quality of trained policemen and women through out the country. Training is provided only once to a policeman with very few officers being an exception. Open specialised police training colleges and make the scores achieved in these colleges as the benchmark for promotion at all the levels. Make these courses in line with the current duties performed by the police officers. Make refresher courses for even the basics that are taught at the Police training Colleges. I can make a rough estimate of courses an Army officer takes during his working career (IMA, Infantry school/combat college, junior command, commando school, Staff college, Higher command, National defence college, etc). This does not include any refresher courses like High Altitude, CI ops or even war games that enhance your already acquired skills.

I know that what I am writing now might look insane but ask some one in 1910 if he/she thought if India would be free, ask someone in 1980 that would be have something as simple as a phone on demand, they would say are you crazy, ask someone in 1980's ("Hindu" rate of growth years) if we would be running at 8% + growth in a year.......I do not think they would have said yes....so my country men and women, try and keep on trying because if you do not try you would be condemned to live like this.