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

CISF Training Sector Hyderabad

Delhi Police marching contingent passes through the Rajpath

That the defence of India has remained in a defunct state is no secret, with hundreds of articles and reams of reports by studies, committees and what have you. Yet, the military has been kept away from strategic policy formulation as well as being part of the higher defence set up of the country including the MoD, as well as the governmental defence-industrial set up. When the first Indo-US Defence Policy Group (DPG) met in New Delhi in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the US delegation which included many military officers serving with the US Department of Defence (DoD). They were truly aghast that the Indian MoD had no military officers on deputation or permanent absorption. Their surprised query to the military members of the Indian side was, "How do you function?" But then this is India and 32 years down the line from that Indo-US DPG meeting there is no change in India.

The current government too with all the talk of everything "smart" is making no move to undertake the desperately needed administrative reforms. Resultantly, we do not have a National Security Strategy, have never undertaken a Comprehensive Defence Review and are at a loss at how to establish credible deterrence against the proxy wars waged on us by Pakistan and China; only some empty sabre rattling, warnings without any weight behind them and seeking counter-terror cooperation from all and sundry much to the applause of our media, while failing to acknowledge that promises of CT cooperation mean little where nations big and small are engaged in sub-conventional conflict in their own interest, and that we have to stand up to it on our own. The Military has always remained gagged anyway. Looking askance at professionalism has been the bane of India's response to security threats both external and internal. In such environment, it is heartening to note that at least someone has questioned 'clerks (read babus) supervising police research'. In this context, N R Wasan, DG, Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) has written to the government questioning his own organization's abilities. BPR&D being the primary arm of the MHA for modernization of police forces, the media quotes this as an embarrassment for the government when Prime Minister Modi is pushing for 'smart policing' in the country. Wasan, who recently shifted from NIA to BPR&D has been categorical in stating that "no quality research can be done, which can be implemented in the modernization of police forces, has been done by the organization" thereby indicating that the organization formed in 1970 is almost defunct.

Now if what Wasan writes is true that no worthwhile research has been undertaken by this oeganization, how can one justify its existence for the past 45 years with its five divisions, and what must be the expenditure over the past four and a half decades with no output? The BPR&D commissions studies/researches on policing issues to individuals/institutes and private and non-governmental organizations. These researches or studies are supervised by BPR&D's own officials (babus) which the government then adopts to improve the police apparatus. Wasan says, "The studies commissioned and approved here are never tracked properly. I have recommended that if an individual wants to do his Ph.D/research on police matters, then it should be properly supervised by a reputed professor of a reputed university. Here, in BPR&D, the researches are supervised by the clerks". Wasan has now issued a directive to the BPRD so that "no new researches/studies will be taken up as of now" till all studies initiated in the past are completed. He adds, "Presently, there is no time limit and researches commissioned long back are either yet to be received or nobody in BPR"D has a clue about them despite money released for the same."

As per media reports, a senior doctor of Ram Manohar Lohia hospital was commissioned to undertake a study titled "Research Study on Fatigue in Police personnel - Causes and Remedies", which he completed long time back, but there were no takers for it in the BPR&D. Significantly, all this has been going on for decades under the very nose of the bureaucrats that the MHA is staffed with. But then there is little surprise considering the MoD too is crammed with unaccountable bureaucrats with little knowledge of matters military. The moot question is whether the government wants "smart" administration restricted to digitization and data links or will it usher in professionalism and go for administrative reforms?