Even to a layman, the word intelligence denotes exclusive information or special knowledge linked to some out- of-the-normal doings or profile of an individual or an organized group which were not visible on the surface or known in the open. One keeps this knowledge to oneself unless it has an adverse personal bearing, requiring the in- dividual to seek the support of someone else — possibly in authority — to do something about it. Today, the internal security scene in the country, marked by surreptitious operations of anti-national elements working on behalf of an external adversary, has made it necessary that the citizens to realize that the new kinds of threats like terrorism, urban Naxalism, communal violence triggered by agent provocateurs, promotion of undesirable activity under the cover of a civil society forum and use of drug trafficking for fund- ing underground enemy agents, are meant to harm both the nation as well as its people and that a new level of responsibility has arisen for them to watch out for any such unusual activities and discreetly share that knowledge with the custodians of national security. This can, however, happen only if trustworthy arrangements are built by the latter to quietly utilize this vast public resource of information of intelligence value.
The call of the time universally is for a nation to make sure that in addition to the fundamental work of intelligence agencies of accessing secret information on the hidden plans of the enemy, there is inflow of in- formation from the enlightened public in a manner that the State would be able to make good use of it for the cause of national security. It is not known how the ‘Fusion Centres’ catering to this need is working for Homeland Security in the US but there is no doubt that citizen awareness is going to be of great help in a situation where more than the threat of an open military attack, the danger of trans-border covert offensives of the enemy are becoming the order of the day. India has particularly been a target of these for a long period now. All intelligence ultimately is information but all information is not intelligence. Intelligence is information with the special stamp of containing a futuristic indicator of hostile activity. It is a new paradigm of internal security that openly accessed information often contains elements of intelligence that an enlarged scan and analysis could muster to the great advantage of security. Open-source information has traditionally been a valuable store for reading trends that are relevant to security issues. Social media and cyberspace have acquired new-found importance now in as much as comprehensive scrutiny of the same could help in detecting the footprints of an adversary. WhatsApp groups with foreign links, notably directed from Pakistan, came to notice during NIA investigations into the recent terror acts of Amravati and Udaipur. Exploiting communal conflicts for generating militancy and recruiting terrorists using faith-based motivation has become pronounced casting an added burden on Central and state intelligence agencies, of keeping track of the socio-economic scene in an area and examining in depth if any attempts at ‘radicalization’ are being made.
The intelligence function of police stations, not only for organized crime but also from the angle of national security, is now extremely important the Centre-state cooperation for strengthening the same should be seriously pursued. This in turn will help keep India an open, democratic, and easily accessible country. An upshot of this new security paradigm is that the role of the state police goes beyond the maintenance of law and order and includes keen participation in the safeguarding of internal security as well. Investigation of crime could sometimes unearth valuable leads of intelligence value on the security front. This added dimension of work requires an upgrade in the quality of the police force in the country. In the era of proxy wars, the army is being utilized on our own soil in counter-terror operations and for putting down insurgency movements. To avert collateral damage, intelligence-based actions are a must. Close collaboration among civilian intelligence agencies and the DMI has to exist and this is being successfully worked on here. Apart from the periodical meetings between the chiefs of intelligence on both sides and the meetings of the Strategy Planning Group (SPG) now chaired by the NSA, which are attended by the service chiefs, liaison between the local army units in the field and the representatives of SIB on the ground has to be kept up.
