Well within its rights

While every state runs its own intelligence set-up the MHA maintains a close watch through the Intelligence Bureau (IB) which has state special bureaux (SSB) in every state. The SSBs keep state police and home departments informed about situations which impact on their security. The IB collates and analyses information collected from the SSBs and other sources (including RAW) and keeps state governments advised about matters affecting public order. States can also seek IB’s help on specific internal security problems. Among the MHA agencies which help the states are the National Crime Bureau (NCB) and the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD).

Notwithstanding the states’ responsibility to maintain law and order, the Centre has the much larger responsibility of safeguarding national security, of which internal security is a crucial element. It is the Centre’s constitutional duty to protect states from external aggression and internal disturbance and ensure their governance in accordancewith the Constitution. In the event of political breakdown or a state’s failure to comply with federal directives affecting national solidarity, the Centre may enforce unitary control, when the responsibility for state administration is entrusted to the Governor. The Constitution also empowers the Centre to proclaim an Emergency if the security of India is threatened, whether by external aggression or internal disturbance.

In the backdrop of uninterrupted insurgency in the North-East, the militancy which rocked Punjab, terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence’s "proxy war" against India, the Centre’s responsibility for national security has increased manifold. In the last twenty years internal and external security issues have got so interwoven that the Centre faces responsibility for the management of both.

In this background it is puerile to even remotely question the MHA’s concern with effective internal security management in every part of the country. Over the yearsthe modality of deputing Central teams to the states has been well established. Such teams are deputed to assess losses and mobilise relief in the wake of natural calamities, epidemics, serious communal violence, etc. No political motive or extraordinary significance can attach per se to the MHA deputing a team to study law and order in any state. It is another matter whether such visits have a meaningful outcome except allowing for discussions. They cannot arrive at an operative conclusion by interviewing people or gathering information in the street. Thus such visits cannot form the basis of constitutionally dealing with the situation in a given state.

The information that the MHA needs should be available to it through the IB’s classified reports. IB can be asked to get more on specific aspects. If all the information required by the MHA is not available, there should be concern about the very functioning of this vital Ministry.

Besides its own resources the MHA receives fortnightly confidentialreports from Governors. Reports on law and order and other aspects are regularly received from State Chief Secretaries. Over the years, persons of varying backgrounds have been appointed Governors. Not all maintain the requisite distance from the state political hierarchy or have the competence or inclination to render mature advice to the Chief Ministers.

In the recent past, fingers have been pointed at some Governors, especially when the states they served faced political breakdown. Governors’ reports have been alleged to be politically motivated and disdainful of the law and the Constitution. Side by side, there have been instances of Governors’ well-considered appraisals being put aside, not having been found politically palatable. I recall the case of the Governor of a Northeastern state. As accepting his recommendation to dissolve the state legislature would have been politically disadvantageous, he was asked to modify his assessment. He chose to put in his papers instead. Governors’ constitutionalrole has been seriously eroded. The earlier sanctity no longer attaches to their views. The Supreme Court has laid down stringent criteria about the basis and manner of the executive and Parliament’s dealing with Article 356, relating to the suspension or dissolution of state legislatures. Yet this has not so far deterred Governors or even the Union Government.

Coalitions at the Centre since 1996 survive on the support of small regional parties and individual MPs. This has influenced Centre-State relations, with compulsions for the Centre to be more accommodating of the states. This is worrying. While our democracy is firmly embedded, we have a long way to go to stabilise our polity through the liquidation, mergers and consolidation of the over 600 parties in the country recognised by the Election Commission, and which make a mockery of the electoral process.

There must be no compromise or laxity in the Central government enforcing national security. There can be no question of state governments’ remotelyquestioning the MHA’s duty to monitor every aspect of internal security management. Such a challenge could have disastrous consequences for the Centre effectively ensuring territorial integrity. Party political issues may continue to be contested but let there be no politics in national security management. The MHA’s responsibilities have become more important than at any time in the past five decades. Let it not fail the country.

The writer is a former Union Home Secretary