India’s Home Ministry in Shambles
Events of the past 12 months have completely exposed the incompetence of India’s Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA) lead by Home Minister P. Chidambaram. Chidambaram was transferred from the Finance Ministry to the Home Ministry after the Mumbai attacks during November of 2008. It was widely assumed that individuals like Chidambaram were needed to tackle the tough problem of terrorism facing the country today. But was it the right decision?
Chidambaram is a career politician who has a legal and a business background (Bachelor Laws from the Madras Law College and an MBA from Harvard Business School). From 1985 to 1996 he was a Deputy Minister or Minister of State in the Commerce department. He was briefly the Finance Minister from 1996 to 1998 and then became the Finance Minister again in 2004 under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
His appointment as the Finance Minister in 2004 was rather surprising considering that he has no financial background either in terms of education or in terms of work experience. But it is understandable when we consider that he reports to Manmohan Singh who without question is one of the architects of the modern Indian economy and a financial guru.
But in my opinion Manmohan Singh overestimated the value someone like Chidambaram brings to a department like the Ministry of Home Affairs. As in any country the Home Ministry is the most important ministry in India. The following are the divisions that the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for: Administrative, Border Management, Center-State, Coordination, Disaster Management, Finance, Foreigners, Freedom Fighters & Rehabilitation, Human Rights, Internal Security, Jammu & Kashmir, Judicial, Naxal Management, North East, Police, Policy Planning and Union Territories Division. What type of leadership, organizational or management skills has Chidambaram exhibited in the past that would give us confidence that he is capable of running this huge ministry at this critical juncture?
2009 clearly was the year of the Naxals and the Maoists. These movements are inspired and in some cases have the support of countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. The Prime Minister has mentioned that these movements present the greatest threat to India’s security. But has the Home Minister formulated a policy to effectively combat the Naxal and Maoist movements?
Are we going to make peace with these leaders or are we going to fight them? Should we treat this as an internal security issue and use our police force or should we involve our armed forces? Are we going to talk to some of them and fight the others? The government has the duty to inform the public about how they are going to address this critical issue.
Although Chidambaram was not the Home Minister when 26/11 happened nobody today believes that we are much safer than we were a year ago. Most Indians know deep inside that the only way we can stop the next attack is by luck or by outside help as was the case with the suspected American terrorists David Headley and Tahawwur Husain Rana.
The Home Minister also has done a poor job of prosecuting the case against Ajmal Kasab (technically this falls under the Ministry of Justice but the Home Minister in this case has a big stake in the outcome). It was India’s opportunity to showcase its judicial system to the rest of the world. Instead the whole case has become a circus and a real black mark on the Indian judiciary. The trial looks to the outsider as if it is held in a “banana republic” and not in a country that has a long history of criminal and civil trials and distinguished prosecutors and trial lawyers.
The Home Ministry’s response to the David Headley case and the resulting modifications to the visa rules showed a complete lack of understanding of the real problem. You cannot catch a potential terrorist by modifying the visa rules. You are only going to inconvenience millions of people who are entering and leaving the country every year for various purposes (tourism, transit, business and personal).
Chidambaram should explain how making people wait for 60 days before reentering India will make India safer? He cannot because it doesn’t. This is one of the most boneheaded responses to fighting a serious threat like terrorism that I have ever come across (the other was fingerprinting all Asians travelers upon arrival by the United States immediately after 09/11 attacks).
All of us know what happened during the recent Telangana issue. The Home Ministry initially completely succumbed to the blackmail by KSR. But after some thought the Home Ministery is slowly backtracking from the initial promises.
But as citizens do we not have the right to ask why certain promises were made in the heat of the moment without taking the Indian public into confidence? We now have a sham political process that is setup to come to the already promised end goal which is a separate Telangana state.
Shouldn’t the process precede the outcome? Does the Home Ministry have a policy and procedure in place for anything or is Mr. Chidambaram just making it up as he goes along?
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Category: News & Government
“What type of leadership, organizational or management skills has Chidambaram exhibited in the past that would give us confidence that he is capable of running this huge ministry at this critical juncture?”
None, really. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow we learned that appointments to cabinet posts were made on the basis of one’s closeness to “Sonia Madam”. I don’t think Chidambaram even knows what the departments in his ministry are. Ministers have rarely been appointed on basis of their abilities. It’s usually, sycophancy, favouritism and coalition politics that are dynamics. How else do you explain the presence of Mamata Bannerjee and those idiots from DMK in the government?
“Manmohan Singh who without question is one of the architects of the modern Indian economy and a financial guru.”
I won’t (can’t) comment on the awesomeness of our Prime Minister, but I don’t think he possesses the qualities of a leader. From what one can observe, he doesn’t seem to exercise much control over his ministers. He may be a really nice person, but is he competent enough?
“Prime Minister has mentioned that these movements present the greatest threat to India’s security”
His job is to evolve a policy to combat the menace, not to make such statements. That’s what reporters are for. But he seems to be acting more like a sociology professor than a politician. What’s even more hopelessly annoying is the complete lack of will on the part of the media in grilling the fellow. That’s the problem, we’re all too satisfied by a nice,long speech containing a few hi-fi angrezi words we don’t understand.
But from what one can gather, Chidambaram seems to be going for an out an out offensive, which is going to fail big time, IMO. The Naxals are not these bloodthirsty pyschopaths who do what they do because it’s cool to hate India or something, if anything their rise highlights miserable failures of the entire Union of India,of you and me. Crush the violence, but ensure the reasons these people sought recourse to violence in the first place are eliminated. (That doesn’t mean I support those “left-liberals”, ofcourse. )
“The Home Minister also has done a poor job of prosecuting the case against Ajmal Kasab. It was India’s opportunity to showcase its judicial system to the rest of the world. Instead the whole case has become a circus and a real black mark on the Indian judiciary”
The trial is in progress in a court which comes under the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court. The Union Home ministry has got nothing to do with the trial per se. I would put majority of the blame on the media. By reporting stuff like his defecating times and the colour of his underwear, they’ve made him a superstar, that’s what has given him the audacity to say the kind of crap he does. It’s because we take him seriously. This and the occupational hazard that comes with trying anyone who’s involved in a terror attack having a religious angle in this country. Push the trial too fast,and you might have our zillion rights groups screaming “communalism” and “inhumanity” and all that tripe, not caring for the fact that he killed more Muslims than people from any other religion. (I’m hypothesizing, but I do feel it would have happened.) The Afzal Guru fiasco is a case in point.
” You cannot catch a potential terrorist by modifying the visa rules. You are only going to inconvenience millions of people who are entering and leaving the country every year for various purposes (tourism, transit, business and personal).”
It’s more a knee jerk reaction to the Indian consulate goofup in Chicago. It’s always easier to treat the symptoms instead of the problem :P
“All of us know what happened during the recent Telangana issue. The Home Ministry initially completely succumbed to the blackmail by KSR. ”
I didn’t understand why they listened to him in the first place. Why not just let him die? Nearly a third of India starves every day, yet we don’t see states being created lest they die! And they’re taking this loser seriously! The anarchy argument was invalid because it was happening in any case. Some believe Congress possibly saw KCR as a potential political ally, which I myself don’t believe really, because TRS has hardly any political visibility. Another possibility is the Congress genuinely sees merit in KCR’s argument, i.e. The only way Telangana can progress is through its separation from AP. That is again, a classic example of treating the symptoms while ignoring the problem, i.e. the need for decentralization of power from state to local self-governing bodies. It’ll only trigger demands for more states– Vidarbha, Gorkhaland, Cooch Behar, Bodoland etc. from regions that have (allegedly) received step-motherly treatment from their respective state governments. Again, it’s easier to create more states instead of undertaking the much more difficult(and hence much less appealing) task of examining why the demands originate in the first place.
“Does the Home Ministry have a policy and procedure in place for anything or is Mr. Chidambaram just making it up as he goes along?”
No, not unless Sonia Madam approves :P
Nice blog, btw… I’ll try to follow more often…
Welcome to my site and thank you for taking the time to respond. I agree with you that Manmohan Singh is not a leader in the traditional sense of the word. But on some crucial issues (Nuclear deal with US, Voting against Iran, Staying put on the climate issue) has has represented India’s interests well in spite of tremendous pressure internationally and locally.
You are right about the trail about Kasab. It does fall on Moily and not on Chidambaram directly. But this is not an ordinary trail and the Home Ministry has a tremendous stake in the procedure and outcome.
I can not comment on minor details but I am of the view that we can not take any chance with then security of the country.
At least PC is an educated man.