Security has two important facets: proximate and peripheral. The SPG or now the CRPF caters only to proximate security, while the peripheral one is the responsibility of the local police. Peripheral insecurity adds to the problem of proximate security. To avoid that, the SPG does advance security liaison by visiting the places the way the VVIP cell of the IB used to do.
Reality check: Like the SPG, will the CRPF perform advance security liaison or merely accompany the Gandhi family like bodyguards?
Vappala Balachandran
Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat
The withdrawal of protection by the Special Protection Group (SPG) to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and family has been described as ‘vendetta politics’ It is compared to a similar step against Rajiv Gandhi by the VP Singh government in December 1989. Although Cabinet Secretary TN Seshan had ordered the extension of the SPG cover by three months after a high-level review on December 4 1989, Vinod Pande who succeeded him on December 23, 1989 reversed it as it was not allowed under the SPG Act, 1988. This was permitted only in September 1991 by the Chandra Shekhar government by amending the law after the assassination on May 21, 1991.
The Justice JS Verma Commission, which probed the security failure leading to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, had referred to the December 4, 1989 meeting in its 1992 report, adding that a legal solution could have been found to extend the SPG cover. Besides accusing the Tamil Nadu police of blatant neglect with regard to security precautions, the Commission also blamed the VP Singh government for ‘arbitrarily’ withdrawing the SPG cover within a month of its taking over without any fresh security assessment.
Parliamentary debates on May 14, 1993 mentioned P Chidambaram’s repeated pleas and meetings with the then Secretary (Security) for reinstating SPG protection to the Prime Minister. Not mentioned openly but whirling in intelligence circles was a rumour at that time about that officer’s personal animus against the PM.
The NDA government which also decided to withdraw SPG cover to the Gandhi family from November 8 this year took care to avoid being charged with ‘arbitrariness’ like in 1989 as it has claimed that the decision was taken after a ‘detailed security assessment’.
At the same time, we need to realise that security in this interconnected world has many nuances and not necessarily connected to legal subtleties or a person’s official government status. A person may be out of power, yet be the most threatened individual than even the highest political dignitaries in a country. Thus, one needs to traverse beyond the realm of politics and legal quotients in making an assessment on security issues affecting high personages like the Gandhis who are perhaps the only family in the world to suffer two assassinations within a decade like the Kennedys. Their international status would be evident by the courtesy calls most foreign dignitaries make on them during their official visits to New Delhi.
That is the reason why the London Metropolitan Police (MET) guards high personages, including unidentified persons. They guard former Prime Ministers John Major (1990-97) and Tony Blair (1997-2007) even during international travels unconnected with any British government work. A report in The Telegraph (September 8, 2010) said the MET spent 128 million pounds in 2010 for protecting such dignitaries, including former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf staying in London. In 2012, US President Obama amended the Former Presidents’ Protection Act to give life time protection to former Presidents and spouses, altering the 10-year restriction after retirement.
The Verma Commission report and the 1993 parliamentary debates give further reasons why a security downgrade would affect the quality of security. The Congress had to repeatedly move the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi to get security assistance each time Rajiv Gandhi moved out. As a result, the former prime minister who was elected with the largest majority of 414 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984 had to travel to Manipur with one Delhi Police guard.
The report castigates the then government and its agencies for merely exchanging notes without taking any step to protect the former PM. It mentions that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) started warning about the danger to his life as the 1991 elections approached. In April 1991, it warned of LTTE threats through explosive devices. A few days before the Sriperumbudur address, they conveyed that an attempt would be made ‘during an election meeting’. On May 20, the IB requested the state police to control access to Rajiv Gandhi and also urged the Home Ministry to give him NSG cover. There was also a state intelligence warning on ‘garlands and bouquets’. All these fell on deaf ears.
The 1993 parliamentary debates also saw opposition members indulging in political polemics in defending the VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar governments who were accused of security neglect. Jaipal Reddy, who was then a minister in the Chandra Shekhar government and also in the UPA-II, laid blame mostly on the Tamil Nadu Congress for breaching security instructions. The omissions included lack of coordination between the police and the organisers, ineffective access control, no sterile area, erection of single barricades, inadequate lighting and uncontrolled movement of people behind the rostrum.
These points are relevant even now as our politics has become more divisive and polemics sharper. The Verma Commission blamed the short-lived VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar governments for the withdrawal of SPG cover ‘without provision for a suitable alternative for proximate security’. What could be the ‘suitable alternative’?
Security has two important facets: proximate and peripheral. The SPG or now the CRPF caters only to proximate security, while peripheral security is the local police responsibility. Peripheral insecurity adds to proximate security problems. To avoid that, the SPG does advance security liaison (ALV) by visiting the places like how the IB’s very efficient VVIP security cell used to do. An ALV can cure loopholes by briefing the local police. The local police are attentive to the SPG with its elevated status in the national security realm.
At Sriperumbudur, both proximate and peripheral security broke down. The question is whether the CRPF would do the ALV or merely accompany the Gandhi family like bodyguards, leaving the onus on the local police, who may not be very cooperative, especially in non-Congress ruled states? Would the local police be as attentive to the Central Reserve Police Force as they used to abide by the SPG suggestions?
The last question is whether the CRPF team would be given access to last-minute threat intelligence? At Sriperumbudur, the IB had the last mile intelligence which got clogged in the inattentive bureaucratic pipeline for which a popular Prime Minister had to pay a heavy price.