Stock responses

Much of what the National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan said at the Munich conference is actually unremarkable. A harsh but not necessarily unfair analysis of his lecture would term it a laundry list of extremely well known methods by which terrorists raise working capital. Even the bit about stock markets that attracted the attention of the media is somewhat underwhelming. The NSA spoke of 8220;isolated cases8221; of terrorists 8220;manipulating8221; stock markets to raise capital via bogus companies. One can find isolated cases of just about anything. So the question is not whether Indian capital markets are hosting jihadi IPOs but why, if isolated cases are all that the nation8217;s top security official could furnish as evidence, he saw fit to dwell on the point.

What the NSA considers valid for inclusion in a speech at a high-profile talkfest is at one level his business. But at another level, given how crucial the NSA8217;s job is and how quickly his words attract public attention, it is the nation8217;s business. Narayanan has in the past spoken publicly about terrorist infiltration in the Armed Forces. His office has expressed worries and sponsored expression of worries about security implications of economic policy, FDI in communications technologies, for example, or about allowing Chinese businesses in some sectors. Two perceptions have dominated following these and other rather freewheeling deliberations in public: first, that the top security establishment may be confusing alarmist public postures for quiet, diligent intelligence work. Second, there may be an anti-free commerce bias among nation8217;s espiocrats.

The observation about stock markets and terror finance engender both these perceptions. The second in particular. One could almost hear lips smacking in certain political-economic quarters as the NSA8217;s quotes got media play. The stock market has been accused of many evils 8212; the terror financier tag can be added to it now. At the least the NSA should have made it crystal clear that the number of vanishing companies 8212; as the government calls outfits that raise capital and decamp 8212; which are only after citizens8217; money is overwhelmingly more than those which are ultimately after citizens8217; lives. That would have provided some perspective on the issue. The NSA can blame reporters for taking off from a short paragraph in a long speech. But the bigger share of the blame lies with the NSA. His job is much bigger.