By Lt. General P.C. Katoch (Retd) Former Director General of Information Systems, Indian Army

Why India has had dearth of intelligence at all levels was best described by former Joint Director IB, MK Dhar in his book 'Open Secrets — India's intelligence unveiled' published in 2005 wherein he wrote that irrespective of which government was in power, the compete intelligence set up was focused on how to do down the opposition parties. Interestingly, the book also described that throughout the tenure of President Zail Singh, his bedroom and office in Rashtrapati Bhavan were bugged and the transcripts of telephonic conversations sent to Congress high command — so much for presidential immunity. It is common knowledge that Prime Minister IK Gujral had banned employment of trans-border human intelligence (HUMINT) sources and successive governments followed suit placing India at more risk with both Pakistan and China waging asymmetric war against us. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) though mandated to operate trans-border sources has not been permitted to do so over the past decade. Whether the present government would permit the DIA too remains a question mark in a setting where R&AW perceives this to be their exclusive domain. The only bright spot was the news that the NSA is refurbishing the intelligence set up, broadening the manpower base pan-India for intelligence operatives and that young well educated youth are volunteering to join up. HUMINT will continue to be the heart, soul and brain of intelligence in 21^st century warfare. It is the HUMINT factor that has enhanced the asymmetric advantage of our adversaries, placing us at serious disadvantage while facing non-traditional threats.

Reliance on TECHINT alone is wholly inadequate albeit it was convenient for past governments to obfuscate lack of a coherent intelligence strategy and mismatched inter-agency synergy and functioning. Within the country, while media encourages the citizen journalist concept, the establishment has no such concept - the feasibility of 'billion eyes on the ground' has never been explored. Hence, in-house intelligence also has gaps that affect homeland security. Lack of HUMINT contributes to our inability to strategize and cope with irregular and asymmetric threats, both national and transnational. This has not only affected covert intelligence gathering but also counter intelligence. We do not even exploit open source intelligence including capitalizing on the considerable Indian diasporas abroad. Ironically, the previous government also dealt a blow to technical intelligence (TECHINT) by disbanding the Technical Support Division of the Army, ostensibly because of fears the wrongdoings of the mafia and the corrupt would get intercepted. HUMINT, TECHINT together with signal intelligence, all source intelligence, duly integrated with modern surveillance technology and processing capacity greatly enhances situational awareness, assists the decision support system and leads to better decision-making. The current environment of growing terrorism and unconventional threats requires monitoring the cyberspace, which is a gigantic task. In this context, Privacy International has recently come out with a report titled 'Tipping the Scales: Surveillance and Security in Pakistan' stating that the Pakistani government has significantly expanded its communications interception activities and that the ISI plans to capture all IP traffic in Pakistan and bridge gaps in laws governing surveillance through new initiatives.

In June 2013, ISI had sought to develop a mass surveillance system by directly tapping the main fibre optic cables entering Pakistan that carries most of the country's network communication data. Interestingly, in 2005 the Japanese Defence Ministry and the Services HQ had switched to generators completely, cutting off main electric supply because CIA could tap into the electric cables five kms away to extract computer data. Interception technologies have advanced far more over the past decade. With the new program, the total intake of data every second sought by ISI would rival state-of-the-art surveillance programs like the British 'Tempora' and America's 'Upstream' programs. What the ISI wants is a complete surveillance system that would capture mobile communications data, including Wi-Fi, all broadband internet traffic, and any data transmitted over 3G. The interception activities are to be seamless that would not be detected or visible to the subscriber. Pakistan has already been routing majority internet traffic through a single core backbone with limited gateways, making it much easier to monitor. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications, including popular services such as Skype and Viber, are also heavily monitored. Since the new system would make available virtually all of the nation's domestic and international communications data for Pakistani scrutiny, it sure is useful to monitor terrorism. But at the same time, this Pakistani capacity would have implications for India especially if India does not have matching capabilities.