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

Through the Eyes of an IB OfficerShri DC Pathak , IPS (Retd.)It is a measure of professionalism of India’spremier Intelligence agency, the IntelligenceBureau, that it acknowledges the continuity ofits existence since its inception a century and aquarter back as an instrument for safeguardinginternal security. The evaluation of the threatscenario may have changed from time to time,as it always happens in the security domain, butthe concepts and value systems that guide thisnational intelligence organization have remainedunaltered. This is simply because for IB, the goalof serving the sovereign remains constant.For me, it is a recall of over fifty years- a mix ofserious challenges, a ring-side view of how ademocratic State is governed and some funnymoments as well. I served as DIB at a time whenthe IT revolution had just announced itself,transforming, among other things, the systems ofcommunication so important for an intelligenceorganization. I took over as DIB in mid-1994 andthe cell phones arrived in India only in 1995. I sawthe transition of lB into the Age of Information,before which the best that could be done wasto transmit information through encryption onteleprinters.It was in May 1960 that I reached the NationalAcademy of Administration at Mussoorie forthe first Foundation Course, in which all CivilServices were brought together for a 5-monthjoint orientation programme. It felt like the wholeof India was there, boys from the South who didnot know that Mussoorie was a cold place, otherswho could not draw a line between red wine andcoke, and a few from the Cambridge Tripos whohad problems communicating with the lessermortals. The experience was delightful and a greatenhancer for everybody. The Foundation Courseis one great policy decision of the Governmentof India, as it has helped to produce a lastingsense of kinship amongst the Civil Services to thebenefit of the nation. Years later, as DIB I wouldrun into ‘batch mates’ serving as Secretary toGOI or as the Chief Secretary of the State and the‘Mussoorie days’ would make all the differenceduring those interactions.From Mussoorie to the National Police Academyat Mt. Abu was like shifting to the harsh realitiesof life. Every IPS officer mentally accepts that theyear-long course only as a ‘one time event’. Thetraining programme at Mt. Abu was efficientlyrun, promoting a deep brotherhood of ‘friendsin distress’. For me, a kind of bookworm, it waslike I had reinvented myself. I got the highestmarks in horse-riding and musketry, which wasa great achievement, considering that I hadnever touched a firearm and had never gonenear a horse ever.It was not long after Mt. Abu that I landed as ASPCity, Jaipur, my first posting in Rajasthan. I livedon a floor above the Kotwali PS. I also recall thatsenior officers like Sr.SP and Range DIG wouldoccasionally do the checking of night patrolsthemselves. The police had a firm grip on the lawand order situation in the capital. I rememberthe 'Police Week' we once organized with theobjective of bringing the police and the publiccloser to each other. At a widely attended publicfunction, some slogans were displayed. One ofthem, scripted by the Sr.SP, Shri Bhawanimal,read, ’Friendly but not familiar’. I firmly maintainthat this is the maxim that the Police organizationsanywhere in India must follow to keep themselveson course. In a democratic dispensation Police isthe only coercive arm of the State, and it ought tobe friendly to all law- abiding citizens but beyond‘approach’ for an offender. We need to work forre-establishing the institutional importance ofPolice for creating equality amongst citizens.My next major shift in job, that proved to be acareer switch, came in 1964. It was in early Maythat year, I was ASP, Ganganagar City when Ireceived a phone call from the Inspector General ofPolice, Rajasthan, Late Pt. Govardhan, informingme of my selection for Intelligence Bureau. ThePolice chief spoke to me on a note of pride thatone of his officers had made it to a career inthe country’s premier Intelligence organization.Those days only the first few in the yearly batchof IPS officers were considered for a long-rangeThe Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue 53