NCTC issue should not be politicised
By Harihar Swarup
There is no denying the fact that India needs a strong anti-terror mechanism; it should have been done much earlier. Still it is not too late and the steps taken to set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre should be welcomed. But, regrettably, it has led to protests by nine Chief Ministers including that of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee who is an ally of the ruling UPA at the centre. It has become a habit with her to oppose anything that the centre does, be it Lokpal Bill or FDI in retail.
It will be sad indeed if an important measure like setting up of NCTC is politicized or experimented as an early testing of political waters by a possible non-Congress, non-BJP groupings of regional Chieftains. Earlier, Navin Patnaik wrote a letter to Jayalalithaa, Nitish Kumar and Chandra Babu Naidu to rally opposition to NCTC. By itself, the NCTC, an idea thrown up in the aftermath of 26/11, envisages a new security architecture that would address the problems highlighted by the state response to past terror attacks. It would ensure that the array of security organizations are not at odds, and work together, on countering terror. From the time, it was proposed, however, the idea was whittled down to address apprehensions that it might encroach on states’ turf.
The objection raised by nine Chief Ministers, including Mamata Banerjee, to creation of NCTC are ill-conceived and motivated. The Chief Ministers wrote to the Prime Minister seeking withdrawal of the decision on the ground that the NCTC’s operational character is in violation of federal relations and would encroach upon powers of the states.
When Mamata Banerjee met the Prime Minister on Thursday, the frayed tempers had slightly cooled down and she did not press for withdrawal of the decision for setting up MCTC. Instead she asked the Prime Minister to put the controversial NCTC on hold till a consensus is evolved.
On his part, Dr. Manmohan Singh, assured her that he would ask home minister, P. Chidambaram, to address the concern of various state governments. Significantly, Mamata clarified that she was not against fighting terrorism. “We are fighting a battle against terror. But if the centre and states do it together, there will not be any scope for confusion.
With the NCTC turning into a major political crisis for the government, the Prime Minister wrote to the Chief Ministers, assuring them that the centre has no intention of usurping the states’ powers. Mamata had good sense to say that she was not against fighting terrorism. However, the states do have a valid bone of contention in the NCTC’s proposed powers to make arrests and searches throughout the country without consulting them. Give that the NCTC will function as a division of the Intelligence Bureau-itself is a shadowy organization without accountability to Parliament-the agency can be misused by the government of the day to harass political opponents. In this regard, there is a case for diluting the NCTC’s powers of search and arrest, as well as reframing its architecture in the interest of greater accountability. For the sake of an effective counter -terrorism mechanism, it is imperative that the states and the centre work together and do not allow petty politics to hijack national security.
The Home Minister, P. Chidambaram has been preparing to give teeth to India’s new NCTC. For years now, India’s intelligence services have complained – sometime with justification-that state governments have been reluctant to act on credible intelligence of counter-intelligence value. Political motives, they have pointed out, have led governments as desperate as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar not to arrest figures involved with Hindutva, Islamist or Maoist groups.
India’s Constitution, Chidambaram has pointed out, makes it incumbent on the central government to maintain internal security. The Ministry of Home Affairs’ proposal to arm NCTC with the power to conduct searches and make arrests derives from this obligation. Chidambaram may be right about Constitution but there are three sound reasons why the mounting concerns over the NCTC must be taken seriously. First, the IB is not the organization that is, or ought to be, concerned with criminal justice. Like other intelligence agencies across the world, its task is to gather the information that the police can use to guide and inform the course of criminal investigation, not to make judgment on whether that intelligence has value as evidence.
Blurring the distinction between intelligence gathering and policing will open up the policy of abuses-abuses for which America’s FBI became notorious. The union government has already an investigative service with nation-wide mandate-the National Investigative Agency. This makes it even less clear why the NCTC needs the same powers. In India, secondly, the concerns are amplified because the IB has historically taken an expansive view of national security-notably, by devoting extensive resources to political surveillance. Handing its power to arrest will expand the possibility of political misuse.
Thirdly, as experts have pointed out, India’s counter terror-terrorism efforts have floundered because the police forces lack the training, resources and manpower needed to conduct effective investigations. Arming the NCTC with the power to arrest will not solve the core problem. Like other intelligence related reforms, the NCTC’s powers ought to have been subject to an informed and vigorous debate in Parliament. It is still not too late to conduct one.
The setting up of NCTC was conceived 11 years ago. The question gained urgency after Mumbai attacks. That outrage showed that India was not just prepared to tackle global terrorism, which needed resources from across the country to coalesce. There was no worthwhile interface between one state and another on security, as chief ministers preferred to guard their respective turf rather than click together to meet a national emergency on the spacious plea that law and other was a state subject, Multiple central organizations showed greater concern for jurisdiction and coordination issues. Real-time intelligence didn’t exist. Pressing logistics clearance, and getting personnel together, was a gigantic task-as one saw during 26/11 crisis. The NCTC help clear these cobwebs, but even as we cry blue murder and accuse other nations of not doing enough to restrain terrorists, was are inclined to do precious little ourselves. (IPA Service)