National Policy on Kashmir & Pakistan sought

Hyderabad, February 17, 2019: Evolving a national policy on Kashmir and Pakistan is the urgent need of the hour to tackle issues related to national security, said Speakers at a seminar on “External Intelligence for National Security”, organized by Social Cause, a think-tank on policy issues, at Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, today. While irrespective of party in power, Pakistan is having specific policy on dealing with India, India is lacking such a policy and every one making it a debatable issue.

In this regard, former head of Research and Anlysis Wing (R&AW) Vikram Sood’s latest book “The Unending Game : A former R&AW chief’s insight into Espionage” was also released.

Presiding over the seminar, former union home secretary K Padmanabhaiah recalled that Pakistan had formulated a national policy long back after realizing they cannot win India over a traditional war, resorting to proxy-war and successive governments have been adopting the same. But, he said it is unfortunate in India we are debating on issuing like talks with Pakistan, Article 370 and Article 35A, in the absence of a national policy.

Asserting that peace is not in the Pakistan’s DNA and no measure of Confidence Building Measures brings change in the attitude of that government, he said India need to tackle Pakistan with firmness.

He said that India’s security is at threat from all sides of our borders and pointed out while China and Pakistan’s are eternal hostile nations, the attitude of remaining nations changes on par with regime changes in those countries. Recalling that number of Pakistan infiltrators are entering India from countries like Nepal, Mayanmar and Bangladesh, he said we need to be cautious with all our borders.

Referring to limitations of intelligence agencies, the former Home Secretary said that they cannot claim their success, but they are mostly known for their failures. With the technology advancement, he said we are getting vast inputs from social media, but the difficult is to classify such knowledge. Collecting information from within our country turning difficult, than from foreign countries, he added.

He suggested on like of most of the countries like US, UK and Russia, India too need to empower our intelligence agencies to resort to actions, but not merely giving the task of reporting.

Former R&AW chief Vikram Sood deplored that India didn’t have a law on the operations of intelligence agencies and it is also having budgetary constraints. Stating that China, US and Russia are spending massive resources on intelligence, he said US intelligence budget is double to India’s defence budget. Indian intelligence agencies need legal empowerment, including accountability, he added.

He said that after cold war US thought there would be no competitor to their global domination. But, slowly US is weakening and powers like China, Russia and Islam radicalism are strengthening in the world, he added. In the beginning, he said US neglected believing that how few agitated Muslims are matter.

With the explosion of internet, he said there is no secrecy and one need not search in borders for information and new technology makes surveillance easy for major powers. Once a date is put on site, he said that cannot be retrieved.

Whatever may be technology advancement, Sood asserted that human face is still important in intelligence gathering, to make intelligence relevant. Stating that he is expecting Russia is reviving as a powerful nation and China, but not Pakistan is our major threat, he said for their own interests China extending all support to Pakistan against India.

He cautioned that radicalization in Pakistna army is going at fast, as both terror groups and army recruitment are coming from same South Pakistan villages.

Lt Gen K Ramachandra Rao and Social Cause president Dr Somaraju Suseela also spoke.