After Brussels, let's fix gaps' in security

It would be an error for us in India to regard the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels (and in Paris last November), and the discovery of a bomb-making factory in the heart of Brussels city, as disturbing events that concern just the Western world, or just Europe. Well-organised and well-coordinated attacks by terrorists who are prepared to die (through methods like suicide bombing) may be difficult to deter, but in the European case the job of the attackers is made easier by the fact that the European Union is not a security union.

While goods, services and people cross state boundaries freely within EU, not so the output of the intelligence and security apparatuses of the 28 individual EU countries. Institutional structures to support such cooperation are absent. India, a subcontinental economy and polity, too lacks such supportive mechanisms.
Terrorists cross state boundaries with ease after committing a crime.

There is no real-time system of information which can reach all states. The creation of a national counter-terrorism centre (NCTC) was foiled during the UPA’s tenure through sheer cussedness of political opponents who thought a federally-guided institution would eat into a state’s constitutional prerogatives. This was a conceptual problem, in part, as the political class failed to appreciate that modern-day terrorism is far from a law and order matter.

There are other lessons too. Belgium in particular has been scaling back on budgetary spending on police, intelligence and internal security, and lacked the capacity to deal with terrorism (unlike some of the richer European nations like France, Germany and UK). It did not learn even from the Paris attacks although those involved had strong links with Brussels.

India too is crying out for police reforms for decades, and for equipping and training the beat constable and the police station, which will be the first line of defence at the level of intelligence work as well as response in a crisis situation. Budget constraint is just one of the reasons. Jurisdictional friction between security services of the state and the Centre also need to be fixed by amending the laws.

The saving grace for us is the broadly syncretic culture of the Indian subcontinent which has developed over the centuries, and people of different religious, language and ethnic groups have learnt to live in a cooperative fashion, although there are occasional explosions. The Europeans have been too immersed in their individualism, and religion or language-driven nationalism, to offer cultural support to waves of chiefly poor Muslim immigrants from Africa and Asia, who generally end up living in poverty and alienation.