archive: Was there an intelligence failure?
Was there an intelligence failure?
B. Raman
Frontline
July 30, 1999
Title: Was there an intelligence failure?
Author: B. Raman
Publication: Frontline
Date: July 30, 1999
Only a detailed retrospective study, after the ejection of all the
Pakistani invaders in the Drass-Kargil-Batalik sectors of Jammu and
Kashmir, could bring out the complete picture of what went wrong with
India's national security management in this area before May 6, 1999
and how Pakistan's proxy invasion remained undetected until that day.
However, even at this stage one could make certain observations of
relevance. The first is that Pakistan's proxy invasion took place in a
sector which received low priority from the managers of national
security for many years.
India has a system of holding a periodic review of border security
management in different sectors along the Indo-Pakistan and
Sino-Indian borders in order to identify gaps in trans-border security
and take corrective action. It was as a result of such reviews that
projects were undertaken to fence India's borders and the Line of
Control (LoC) with Pakistan in Jammu, Punjab and upper Rajasthan, to
intensify desert surveillance in Rajasthan and Bhuj and to step up
coastal surveillance off Gujarat.
Unfortunately, such reviews were essentially preoccupied with
trans-border security in the Sindh, Pakistani Punjab and
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). Equal attention was not paid to
trans-border security in the Northern Areas of the Pakistan sector,
consisting of Gilgit and Baltistan.
This was the result of an assumption that Pakistani infiltration from
the Northern Areas into the Drass-Kargil-Batalik areas was the least
likely in view of (a) the difficult terrain and the high ridges; (b)
difficulty of access to these ridges from the Pakistani side; and (c)
the unsympathetic attitude of the local population on the Indian side,
mainly Shias and Buddhists to Pakistan. Hence, the infiltrators would
not get local support.
The recent events have, however, proved this assumption wrong.
Consequently, focus on trans-border surveillance in the Ladakh area
was concentrated across the Sino-Indian border and little attention
was paid to trans-LoC developments in the Northern Areas.
The second observation is that there were major gaps in India's
knowledge of the Northern Areas. Indian intelligence was better
informed on POK but had difficulty in collecting human intelligence
from the Northern Areas because:
(a) There is very little trans-border traffic across the LoC in this
sector in the form of relatives exchanging visits or traders and
smugglers clandestinely crossing the LoC with their goods;
(b) Officials posted in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad or
visitors from India are not allowed to visit this area;
(c) The Government of India too follows a very restrictive policy by
not allowing the people of these areas to visit their relatives and
friends in the Kargil tehsil. As such, no one approaches the Indian
High Commission to obtain visas;
(d) The Northern Areas has very limited facilities for higher
education. As a result, migration from there to earn a living abroad
is not common. The Mirpuri diaspora in the United Kingdom and the
United States, which is a useful reservoir of intelligence recruits
for monitoring developments in POK, has practically no migrants from
the Northern Areas.
These difficulties leave little scope for collection of human
intelligence and hence, one has to depend on technical intelligence.
Unfortunately, till recently, not only successive governments but the
intelligence community itself gave low priority to these areas even
for strengthening the technical intelligence capability.
Development of human sources in Chinese society is very difficult. It
is comparatively easier in Pakistan, except in the Northern Areas and
in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). As a result, in the
allocation of resources to strengthen the technical intelligence
capability, technical surveillance of China was always given top
priority, followed by Sindh, Punjab and POK areas of Pakistan. The
Northern Areas hardly received any attention.
Since no infiltration or invasion from the Northern Areas was
apprehended, no detailed thinking went into gathering information
about the areas either by the intelligence community or the Joint
Intelligence Committee (JIC) or the inter-departmental committees
concerned. Alternative ideas, such as taking advantage of the presence
of a large Ismaili community in the Northern Areas which is well
looked after by the Aga Khan Foundation, the only non-governmental
organisation allowed by Pakistan to work in this area, have not been
explored.
Gilgit and Baltistan have a large population of Punjabi and Pakhtoon
settlers, many of them ex-servicemen, who were brought in by the
Zia-ul-Haq regime in order to reduce the Kashmiri Shias to a minority.
Until 1992, the Najibullah Government in Kabul, with good contacts
among the Pakhtoon settlers of the Northern Areas and POK, was a good
source of information regarding the goings-on in these areas. But
after the overthrow of Najibullah in April 1992, this source dried up.
India's present intelligence focus in Afghanistan is non-Pakhtoon
centric.
The third observation is not specifically related to Indo-Pakistan
relations and Kargil, but is of great relevance to toning up the work
of the intelligence community in order to prevent similar surprises in
the future. This is about the good performance of the intelligence
community on strategic intelligence and its unsatisfactory record in
the matter of tactical or preventive intelligence.
Strategic intelligence alerts the Government to changes in policy and
strategy among other administrative decisions, but tactical
intelligence gives details of action actually taken in the
implementation of changes of policy, strategy and so on. Strategic
intelligence makes one wiser but does not help in preventing
disasters. Some examples in illustration would be in order:
* The intelligence community alerted the Government in 1988 that Rajiv
Gandhi was on the hit-list of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) and hence there was a threat to his life. But it could not
collect tactical intelligence regarding the action actually taken by
the LTTE to carry out its plan.
* The intelligence community reported in the second half of 1992 that
the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had directed its surrogates in
India to emulate the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and concentrate on
economic targets and that the first attack might be on economic
targets in Mumbai, but could not get details regarding the how, where
and when of the attack. As a result, the Mumbai blasts of March 1993
caught them napping.
* The intelligence community had been telling the government since
1994 that Tamil Nadu was becoming a major centre of the activities of
the ISI and Islamic fundamentalist parties, but was clueless about the
preparations for the Coimbatore blasts of February 1998.
* Intelligence knew the background of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the new
Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff, and his reputation as a rogue
elephant and his links with Islamic extremist organisations, but could
not forecast his Kargil adventure.
Indian intelligence's poor record in tactical intelligence is owing to
its poor progress in penetration operations. Unless one penetrates the
ranks of an adversary, whether it is another country, a terrorist
organisation or a religious extremist group, one cannot get details of
the adversary's plans of action. Apart from the Pakistani Army
regulars, the present invaders in the Kargil sector consist of the
cadres of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Laskar-e-Taiba, the Al Badr,
the Al Qaeda and the Hizbul Mujahideen.
Of these, the Laskar has its presence as far down South as Hyderabad
and has been taking local recruits for training in secret camps in
Kashmir or in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Had any Indian intelligence
agency penetrated this organisation by taking advantage of its
recruitment pattern, we would have been better informed of its plans
in Kashmir.
Why this difficulty in penetration? Is it because of defective
recruitment of intelligence officers, inadequate training and poor
modus operandi, or are there other reasons? These questions have not
received the attention they deserve. The Indian intelligence community
is supposed to have had the longest period of interaction with the
LTTE, but despite this it has not been able to penetrate it.
The fourth observation relates to the capability in technical
intelligence, generally considered the most authentic form of
intelligence. There are certain forms of technical intelligence
capability that help in the collection of strategic intelligence, and
certain others that help in tactical intelligence. The recently
released recordings of the telephone conversations of Musharraf from
Beijing are a good example of strategic intelligence collection
through technical means. These recordings gave clinching evidence
about the Pakistan Army's involvement in Kargil. All international
telephone calls pass through satellites and it is relatively easy to
monitor them if one has the equipment. No penetration of the
adversary's set-up is required in order to monitor wireless
communications or telephonic communications through satellites.
Land-line telephone communications, such as a telephonic conversation
between a General in Rawalpindi and his subordinates in Skardu, are a
more important source of tactical intelligence, But it is much more
difficult to intercept land-line communications inside a country than
to intercept international telephone calls made through satellites.
For interception of internal telephone calls one may require physical
access to the line to be monitored. Unless one is able to penetrate
the telecommunications or military set-up of the adversary, one may
not be able to get useful tactical intelligence through technical
means.
The fifth observation relates to the lack of adequate attention paid
in the intelligence community to the need to diversify its sources of
procurement of technical equipment and to indigenise capabilities.
Diversification and indigenisation have made satisfactory progress in
respect of equipment for electronic monitoring, but not in respect of
aerial reconnaissance, for which dependence on Western sources is
disturbingly high, particularly since the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
Such equipment and expertise may come with an informal condition or at
least an understanding that what is procured could be used only for
the surveillance of China and not Pakistan, which is not desirable.
Over the years, the defence forces have either indigenised their
equipment or benefited from the friendly relations with the former
Soviet Union and the present Russian Federation for reducing their
dependence on Western equipment and expertise. But similar efforts
have not been made by the intelligence community. As a result of their
close interactions with their Western counterparts in the past, they
let themselves be infected by the basic Western suspicions of
Communist countries and this has stood in the way of their
diversification.
The sixth observation relates to relative threats to the nation's
security from China and Pakistan. China's nuclear and missile
capability, its military linkages with countries such as Myanmar, and
its historic irredentist impulses make it a high priority area for
intelligence focus, but it is not a threat to India's national
security in the same sense as Pakistan is. After China gave up in 1979
its policy of supporting the insurgencies of foreign Communist
parties, destabilisation and balkanisation of India has not been a
motivating factor in its policies towards India.
In the case of Pakistan, not only religious extremist organisations
such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Laskar-e-Taiba, but even the
state, its armed forces and intelligence agencies are motivated in
their actions by a compulsive urge to promote destabilisation and
balkanisation of India. This urge poses the greatest threat to India's
national security and will continue to be a matter of major concern
for many years, whatever be the cosmetic improvement in bilateral
relations. By overlooking this urge in moments of unwarranted euphoria
or misplaced generosity, India will be doing a great disservice to
national security, as has already been done in Kargil.
The seventh observation is that feelings and noble sentiments have no
place in intelligence policy formulation; it has to be based on a
clinical and unemotional analysis of the nation's interests and
threats to national security. For nearly 50 years, the intelligence
policy on Pakistan was based on the assessment that the greatest
threat to national security arises from Pakistan's Punjabi mindset and
laid stress on the need for close interactions with the non-Punjabi
sections of the Pakistani population for intelligence collection and
for inducing restraint in the behaviour of the Pakistani Army in
Kashmir.
In its uncritical enthusiasm for Nawaz Sharif after he returned to
power in February 1997, India diluted this policy in order to befriend
the Pakistani Punjabis in general and Sharif in particular; it has
paid the price for it in Kargil.
The most important components of the national security management
apparatus are the assessment and follow-up machineries. Even the best
of intelligence collection agencies cannot protect national security
if the assessment and follow-up action are not up to the mark.
This was the main lesson brought out by the Lord Franks Committee of
the U.K., which inquired into allegations of intelligence failure with
regard to the Argentine occupation of the Falklands. It exonerated the
British intelligence community and the Navy and held the Joint
Intelligence Committee exclusively responsible for the disaster.
One need not be surprised if a post-mortem into the Kargil invasion
brings out a similar conclusion.
Whatever be the ultimate finding, one cannot deny that attention to
the micro aspects of the functioning of the Indian intelligence needs
immediate attention.
(B. Raman is a former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat,
Government of India.)
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