Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

depend substantially on the restraints withinwhich they function. ‘Accountability’ hasbecome the new byword of intelligence reform,and many have quickly lifted current westernmodels of parliamentary oversight as the newpanacea for the ills that follow from the misuseand abuse of the intelligence apparatus. Likemany of our hasty and borrowed ‘solutions’,however, this reflects a misunderstanding both ofthe original ‘models’ and of the ground situationwithin India. Efforts to impose Parliamentary andCongressional oversight in the West have proved,at best, cosmetic in impact, and Western agencieshave remained susceptible to misuse under anaggressive political executive – the case of thedistortion, indeed, fabrication, of intelligenceon Iraq’s WMD capabilities, by both US andBritish intelligence, is an obvious, though notisolated, example. The business of intelligencewill remain, by its very character and mandate,secret. It is unlikely that the relatively immatureinstitutions of Indian democracy would be anymore successful than their Western counterparts,in creating an effective system of parliamentaryoversight though, given the profile of electedrepresentatives in India and the polarized natureof the country’s politics, any such system canbe expected to be far more disruptive of theagencies’ operational effectiveness.The most effective system of restraints would beone that is based on professionalism, efficiencyand integrity of the agencies and their operations.Once again, invasive intelligence gathering andoperations are legitimized by their outcomes.Where intelligence operations result in arrests,if there are clear convictions, within acceptabletime frames, through transparent judicialprocesses, such actions would find broad publicvalidation. Where intelligence-based operationsresult in protracted detentions with negativeor inconclusive judicial outcomes, publicopposition to such actions increases, even aspurported ‘victim communities’ become moreresentful and potentially radicalized. Again,where particular intelligence initiatives are seento serve transparent national interests, they will bepublicly validated; where they are seen to servepartisan and perverse political interests, they willbring the broader powers of the agencies underincreasing and intense scrutiny.This raises the question of one of the most glaringlacunae in India’s present system of intelligencegathering: the very limited quantum of evidentiaryintelligence – intelligence that can stand up tothe scrutiny of the Courts. Such evidentiaryintelligence, and the meticulous documentationof processes that lies at its foundation, has nowbecome an urgent imperative for all intelligenceoperations, both to secure the visible outcomesthat are a necessary component of legitimacy,and to exclude the misdirection and abuse ofintelligence resources. The future legitimacy ofagencies will depend on the integrity of processand the broader integrity and credibility of theagencies and their operations.It is abundantly clear that, given the very widemandate of intelligence agencies within theframework of Indian democracy, and the risingimperatives of a greater efficiency and integrityof processes, current capacities across theboard – human, technological and material – areall drastically insufficient. Given their presentprofiles, it is simply impossible for existingagencies to fulfil their necessary functions, and todevelop processes and records that would meetthe demands of integrity and professionalism.This deficit of capacities lies at the very heartof the failure to meet the requirements ofdemocracy – both in terms of the tasks that are tobe concluded and of the nature of processes thatmust be maintained. This problem also lies at theheart of many of the abuses that are criticized,particularly by the human rights lobby. The shortcuts become a necessity when the capacity,capability and endurance to run the full courseare lacking.The established judicial and human rightsnarrative in India has attributed the denial offreedom and suppression of rights to an excessand consequent abuse of power vested in stateinstitutions, and has thus sought to progressivelyconstrain and emasculate these. A counternarrativedemands greater and greater impunityfor state agencies to counter rising threats tosecurity. Both these positions are a completemisreading of both reality and the imperativesof constitutional governance. The cumulativebrutalisation of the Indian state is a consequence,not of any excess of power, but of a progressiveerosion of capacities and capabilities. It is notThe Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue 47