A lament for India's lapses

Former member of the Indian Police Service, Ved Marwah, makes a startling disclosure right at the start of this book, his second since he retired from service and completed his stint as governor of a clutch of northeastern states. “I am myself aware of the fact that my own selection for these posts (sensitive security-related assignments) had been made for reasons other than my merit or suitability for the job,” he confesses.

Later he argues how the many shortcomings in the decision-making process and the government’s administrative and political system are responsible for the security problems the country faces today in different regions. This is the theme which runs through the entire book. It was not a matter of coincidence, he writes, that every time he was asked to take up a sensitive security-related post, he had to join at a very short notice, virtually without any briefing. He had to learn about the intricacies of the job through trial and error.

 

Mr Marwah was part of the country’s security establishment for well over three decades. His analysis of what ails our security administration, therefore, deserves to be taken seriously by anyone who wishes to understand why and how the government’s record in handling the security situation leaves a lot to be desired. Living up to the reputation of a police officer, who does not know how to mince words, Mr Marwah comes to his diagnosis of the problem without the customary beating about the bush that other security analysts revel in.

He argues that a ‘generalist’ culture has permeated so deep in the country’s administrative system that the government has begun believing that even important security posts do not need special skills or experience. His analysis appears like an anguished cry of a retired police officer. You do not need be very imaginative to guess who his targets are. Consider what he says on how the appointment of an IPS officer takes place for an important post. “An Indian Police Service officer is expected to be an expert on all security issues and capable of holding any security job, just like an officer of the Indian Administrative Service can hold any of the top jobs in finance, home or defence without ever having served in these areas in his or her entire service career,” he points out.

Now, retired IAS officers will never complain about this. Indeed, they take pride in the fact that an IAS officer’s major qualification lies in his ability to take on any job at short notice — from deciding on allocation of wheat and rice for the rural poor to deciding on what India’s stance will be at the G-20 meeting to determine reforms in the governance structure for multilateral financial institutions. Now, this approach has been roundly criticised by various expert committees of the government. However, no IAS officer has so far pointed out that the generalist approach has done a lot of harm to India’s ability to improve governance and delivery.

It is in this context that Ved Marwah’s book will make a mark for itself. Few can disagree with his assessment that the generalist approach for security-related posts has led to a piquant situation. Neither the minister in charge of the department is an expert on the issues he is expected to handle, nor is the department head experienced enough to provide the requisite leadership. As he concludes at one point in the book, “In many stances, it was, and is, like one blind man leading the other.”

Worse, he argues, even the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008 have not galvanised the government into action. The government continues to shift the focus away from the shortcomings in its own security apparatus and is busy highlighting the “external linkages” that were responsible for the attacks. This is a serious indictment of India’s security establishment and coming as it does from Ved Marwah, the authorities must take note of this analysis and apply correctives without losing any time.

Apart from issuing this timely warning on the need for a major overhaul of the political and administrative system and offering an interesting perspective on India’s security administration, the book merely treads familiar grounds already covered by several other experts in this field. To be fair, though, Mr Marwah analyses the security challenges in Jammu & Kashmir and northeastern states from his own perspective and the analysis is enriched by the many incidents, anecdotes and the personal experience he encountered during his long career as a police officer in different capacities in states and at the Centre. His account of tackling insurgencies in the two northeastern states, where he was governor, is also replete with details of political interference and government apathy in taking early steps to resolve a crisis. However, there is nothing in those details to make you sit up.

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INDIA IN TURMOIL
Jammu & Kashmir, the Northeast and Left Extremism

Ved Marwah
Rupa & Co
352 pages; Rs 395