What vice president Hamid Ansari said about making intelligence agencies accountable and how they really hate it should have been said a long time ago. He is saying in so many words the need to put spymasters on a leash.
The career diplomat has framed the issue with finesse. Delivering the RN Kao — the first Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief — memorial lecture on Tuesday, Ansari argued persuasively that a parliamentary standing committee could oversee the functioning of the national espionage network without compromising the imperatives of secrecy that the work of intelligence gathering necessarily implies.
It is an old theme song of people who work for government in sensitive positions that safeguarding national interests would require total secrecy. That is why they oppose something like the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
This need for secrecy is argued more vociferously by intelligence networks and the people who run them than others. There sure are situations when secrecy is all important, but it cannot be in perpetuity and it needs to be scrutinised at all times.
There is both a need and a right to question the efficacy and ethics of their methods. It would in no way endanger national security as those who run the business usually argue.
It is this exaggerated and consequently distorted sense of self-importance that makes intelligence agencies the nightmare that they become in democratic and authoritarian states.
The Indian spy agencies have performed as well or as bad as their counterparts in other countries. As a matter of fact, Intelligence Bureau (IB), R&AW and others are comparable with the US’s CIA, former Soviet Union’s KGB and Great Britain’s MI5 and MI6 in the goof-ups as well as achievements.
They have not just spied on enemies of the state but on their own citizens which is totally unacceptable. Even the information gathered on the ostensible enemies often turned out to be trivial and baseless.
The CIA dossier on Pablo Picasso, the rebel artist who was suspected to be a communist, is a hilarious example of overzealous and mindless snooping.
Ansari has raised a very important issue and this should trigger a vigorous debate, even if it turns out to be rancorous. Perhaps it would be better if it did because then some of the suppressed notions and feelings would have been exorcised.
Comments