( Written at the request of Editor, Rediff.com )
B.RAMAN
The Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is presently
celebrating its 125th anniversary, and the Research & Analysis
Wing ( R&AW), the external intelligence agency which came into being in
September 1968, will be having new chiefs for a period of two years from January 1,2013.
2. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet,
headed by Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh, is reported to have chosen Shri Asif
Ibrahim, an IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, to head the IB and Shri
Alok Joshi, an IPS officer of the Haryana cadre, to head the R&AW.
3.Both are highly experienced and competent
officers who will do credit to the two organisations. While the experience of Shri Asif Ibrahim has been in his State and
the IB, that of Shri Joshi has been in his State as well as in the IB and the
R&AW.
4. The two officers will be heading their
respective organisations at a time when they will be implementing the
recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Task Force on National Security,
submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 last. The Task Force report contains
important recommendations for the revamp and modernisation of our national
security set-up, including the various agencies of our intelligence community
and the agencies responsible for cyber security.
5. This is the first revamp being undertaken 10
years after the earlier revamp undertaken after the Kargil conflict of 1999.
The effectiveness of the new revamp and modernisation will depend on the
co-operation between the agencies of the intelligence community in the
implementation. Both Shri Asif Ibrahim and Shri Joshi have a well-established
reputation as excellent team players and this should help in the smooth
implementation.
6. They will be heading their agencies at a time when
globally intelligence agencies are re-strategising their charter. For 10 years
after 9/11, their focus was largely on counter-terrorism. As a result, the
focus on area studies somewhat suffered. There is now an attempt to pay more
attention to area studies without diluting the focus on counter-terrorism.
7.Non-traditional threats to national security form
an important component of this new strategy under formulation. Cyber
security is one of the non-traditional
threats receiving increasing attention. Protection of our national security and other critical
infrastructure from cyber threats orchestrated by State and non-State actors is
now an important task of the intelligence community as a whole. Shri Ibrahim
and Shri Joshi will be required to pay leadership role in the matter along with
their other colleagues in the community. The reported fact that Shri Ibrahim ,
apart from being an expert in counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and
counter-intelligence related intelligence tasks, is also well-versed with cyber
security should be of help to the Government in this regard.
8. Shri Ibrahim will be taking over at a time when
the exercise for the revamping of our counter-terrorism architecture has run
into a road-block due to political mishandling of the creation of the National
Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC). In whatever form the NCTC is ultimately set-up
to meet the sensitivities of the State Governments, the Multi-Agency Centre of
the IB set up under the post-Kargil
revamp will be an important core of it. Better co-ordination and understanding
between the IB and the State Police under Shri Ibrahim’s stewardship would be
important in this regard.
9. Both the IB and the R&AW have previously
been headed by officers belonging to non-Muslim minorities. This is the first
time since 1947 that a Muslim officer will be heading the most important agency
of the intelligence community. Many countries in the democratic world have been
debating for some years now how to give better representation to religious and
ethnic minorities and women in the intelligence profession and how to enhance
their leadership role.
10.The nomination of Shri Ibrahim to head the IB is
not only a recognition by the Government of his record and competence, but but also an acknowledgement that the time has come
to give this debate greater prominence and meaning in our country. Not only
religious and ethnic minorities, but also women are inadequately represented at
leadership levels in our intelligence community. This needs to be rectified. (
28-11-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (Retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India.
