Ubiquitous
Christmas of 2014 had been christened Good Governance Day by the newly-elected NDA Government. Offices had been kept open to…
Many might share the views expressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Rajnath Singh at the recent Hyderabad meeting of police chiefs that there is need for coordination between the Centre and state forces.
The pressing need for such an effort was felt in the North-east as early as 1992 when the North-east Security Coordination Centre was formed with its headquarters at Shillong to foster rapport and share information.
But it ran into trouble soon enough when the Mizoram police stormed a Hmar rebel camp in Assam’s North Cachar hills without consulting the latter. Two years later came the Coordination Centre under the Meghalaya director-general of police, but Assam and Manipur saw in it the dilution of their authority and the idea was dropped. Yet in 1997-98 another unsuccessful attempt was made.
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In 2003 when the BJP was in power at the Centre, there was a report on the plan to create a multi-agency centre to improve the intelligence apparatus and it seemed well conceived, but this too did not take off. All this because of inter-services rivalry. No police force would like to be under the Army’s command.
Today police duty is not confined to maintaining law and order. Apart from urban insurgency, ethnic clashes and extortion, they have to handle the growing drug menace, cyber crimes and also protect VIPs.
They need to be specially trained, if need be by the Army, and their problems need to be taken care of to encourage better performance. Despite the generous flow of Central funds in the past, much needs to be done in terms of the force’s modernisation. It is also time for the Centre to change its old perception that the Army is an indispensable quotient for overall peace in the North-east.
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