An institutional mechanism for effective border management whose complexities today are more profound than ever before, is need of the hour.
NEW DELHI: Recently it was reported in some newspapers that Ajeet Madhavarao Gochade, a Rajya Sabha MP from BJP, has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Home Affairs to create “an all-encompassing Border Management Authority” to deal with every aspect of border management and for the purpose of having a “unified command” in the border guarding organizational structure.
The idea of unified National Border Management Authority for having a structured approach to deal with border issues, does have considerable merit. India has a vast land border as well as a humongous coastline to secure. For securing land borders, it has BSF for Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh border, SSB for Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan Border, ITBP for securing India’s contentious border with China, and Assam Rifles to take care of Indo-Myanmar border.
Additionally, India has Indian Coast Guard, and Coastal Police of respective state police units, to secure its 7500 km long coastline. Indian Coast Guard is under the control of Ministry of Defence, while the border guarding Central Police Forces come under the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
THE PRESENT CONTEXT
If one looks at the present characteristics of India’s border management architecture, India does not have any unified policy for dealing with borders. While India has an extremely stringent policy in place for securing the Indo-Pakistan border, and any kind of illegal intrusion is generally dealt with strong use of force, in case of Indo-Bangladesh border, porosity and vast tracts of unfenced (now being gradually fenced) and riverine borders, coupled with a relatively soft policy, has led to illegal immigration for decades, in addition to sporadic incidences of violence.
While tensions with China led to considerable augmentation of ITBP battalions deployed along LAC, along with major induction of tech-based surveillance capabilities, the Indo-Myanmar border is now being fenced by The MHA to deal with the menace of illegal infiltration and narcotics trade. The Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders meanwhile, continue to be without any fencing. Considerable increase in the number of battalions of SSB notwithstanding, the challenges of this border remain profound. It has often been used by India’s adversaries to sneak in men, money and material, for all kinds of subversive activities.
NEED FOR A UNIFIED NATIONAL BORDER POLICY
It has to be understood that border management is not like managing conventional law-and-order issues. Borders are far more complex with deep ramifications on internal security of the country. In the border regions, be it cross border smuggling of narcotics, fake currencies, illegal arms, illegal infiltration, demographic changes, radicalization of population and exodus of indigenous people, being outnumbered by infiltrators, the impact of each never remain restricted to the borders alone, but gets permeated deep into the hinterland. In today’s era of hybrid war, an effective, synchronised, synergised, and integrated approach is a must for border management, because at every step, the nation’s adversaries are waiting to sneak in Trojan Horses in various forms, to wreak havocs within the country.
India, therefore, not only needs a National Border Policy but also a National Border Management Authority, which would encompass in it, all the border guarding Central Police Forces, and possibly even Indian Coast Guard, as well as representatives of state police forces of all such states with international borders and coastlines.
INTEGRATED APPROACH IS THE KEY
Just as the Indian Armed Forces are undergoing major restructuring with the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff playing a critical role in bringing synergy among them, streamlining operational mandates in a theatre command structure, likewise, the National Border Management Authority may work in formulating policies, take over the overall management of border regions including fencing, defining rules of engagement, immigration, crime control, implementation of welfare schemes, intelligence sharing, taking up issues of border guarding forces with respective state authorities, as also prosecution of alleged terrorists and crime syndicates nabbed from such border regions. Under such a structure, ideally, each of the Central and State Police Units would be reporting to the top brass of the National Border Management Authority, which in turn would be reporting to the Union Home Minister.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT IS A MUST
National Border Management Authority or NBMA should also ideally incorporate the attributes of National Disaster Management Authority, in terms of being the cradle of policy formulation, implementation of tech-based surveillance and spearheading the doctrinal approach of border management.
Ideally, NBMA should be backed by constitutional amendments through acts of Parliament to give it perpetual legitimacy. It is also very imperative that NBMA must also have rights to prosecute. Under the present system, when border guarding forces detain any suspected infiltrator or member of any cross-border crime syndicate, or even suspected terrorists, they mandatorily hand them over to the state police, since law-and-order is a state subject. But can cross border issues be even termed as law-and-order issue? Are they not national security issues? The fate of such cases, when suspects are handed over to the respective state police units, depend entirely on how the state agencies then frame the chargesheet and pursue the prosecution. Influence of local politics and considerations of vote bank, often cannot be ruled out.
PROSECUTING POWER FOR NBMA
In this context, the NBMA would thus make more sense if it is allowed to arrest and prosecute suspects detained in the border regions, through a well-defined policy framework where a clear-cut distinction is made between regular law-and-order duties that would still be with the respective states, while cross-border crime management is handed over to NBMA. Even better, a 5 km-10 km stretch along with international borders should be declared as federal zones for security reasons, even as they remain within the geographical domain of each state.
NBMA can also work in developing an institutional framework for plugging the gaps in border security management, as also help in developing a grid formation for border security. NBMA must also deal with pertinent issues of infrastructure, amenities, interpersonal and psychological challenges that border guarding forces, and their personnel face due to prolonged isolation from families, and strive towards addressing them.
RAISE BORDER INDIA RESERVE BATTALIONS
Ideally, the NBMA must be manned by more of IPS officers with better understanding of security issues, while more responsibilities of managing the Central Police Forces should gradually be handed over to their respective cadre officers. NBMA may even consider raising specialized India Reserve Battalions for Borders, or B-IRB, as second line of defence for India’s borders, recruiting from border states, much on the lines of Arunachal Scouts, Ladakh Scouts or Sikkim Scouts raised by Indian Army.
CASE FOR A CENTRAL MARINE POLICE FORCE
The proposal for NBMA should also consider if the time has come for a Central Marine Police Force for Coastal Policing or create a Ground Force of the existing Indian Coast Guard, which is currently only ship-based. Managing India’s vast coastline is too important a job to be left to states. Even though post 26/11 there has been major augmentation in the capacity of Indian Coast Guard, the infrastructure build-up and manpower in place for coastal policing, which is in the domain of states, leave much to be desired for.
If India has to take the fight against narco-terror to the next level, ensure that its coastlines remain impregnable, then a land version of Indian Coast Guard or a separate Central Marine Police Force is a must, wherein the NBMA would act as the parent entity to synergise the coastal management through effective coordination between Indian Coast Guard, the proposed new force, along with Customs, NCB, the State Police Forces and intelligence agencies.
NBMA is thus not about reinventing the wheel but about synergizing the border guarding forces through an institutional mechanism for far more effective border management whose complexities today are more profound than ever before.
* Pathikrit Payne is a Senior Research Fellow with Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi.
