Is Archana Ramasundaram adequately trained and experienced enough to head a crucial organisation such as the SSB, whose roles are vastly different from law and order?

Although the appointment of Archana Ramsundaram as the Director General of the Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) has received rave notices in the print and electronic media, there is truly nothing extraordinarily unique about her selection. The belief that because it is for first time a lady officer has been entrusted with such an important assignment, does not originate from the laid down selection criteria. As a senior officer from Indian Police Service, she was entitled to it.

But our problem is with the selection criteria and the claim of an Indian Police Service (IPS) member as a routine. The key to the syndrome is the level of the bonding between the leader and his followers. Let us examine this relationship in India’s police and paramilitary forces. At the apex, all police and other paramilitary organisations in India work under the leadership of officers of the IPS, drawn from a central cadre. Except for the state police forces, where this IPS officer commences his career for a very brief period as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) and briskly moves upward to become a Superintendent of Police, in the other paramilitary police organisations, the entity of the IPS officer is not seen at a rank below the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG). There also, he comes without field experience.

In case of Archana Ramsundaram, she has never served in the SSB and as far as one has read, neither in any other paramilitary organisation. She starts with a handicap, unless the objective is to use her services as a non-playing captain.

The questions is, is this lady, who is a senior officer from the police background, adequately trained and experienced enough to head a crucial organisation such as the SSB, whose roles are vastly different from law and order? This is not a case for equality, but suitability. Why did we not expose her in paramilitary roles either in her career and develop her potential? She should have given the opportunity to physically lead a body of combatant policemen into a collective group exercise such as that of a counter terrorist strike force, or a counter insurgent force.

With such a void in her grooming, how does she gear up and prepare for the rising phenomenon of terrorist strikes or, in the same vein, deal with the armed conflict being waged by the Maoists and insurgents, where teams of Commandant rank or even junior officer-led forces are fighting a fourth-generation war? A war, which is asymmetrical, is characterized by the actions of small groups of people, and where small highly-maneuverable and flexible forces dominate, trying to overwhelm the security forces internally and psychologically. Should their guidance come from a chair-bound boss calling the shots without never having encountered or even trained for such a scenario in the past?

The current SSB, after all, is the derivative of an erstwhile Special Service Bureau, also recognised with the acronym SSB, which in its new avatar became an independent border guarding force by virtue of the Sashastra Seema Bal Act, 2007.

It is a truthful view that the SSB never had to abdicate its role, in spirit and style, from what it was assigned to, when set up in early 1963 in the wake of the war with China in 1962. Its primary task then was to prepare the capabilities of the populace in the border areas for resistance through a continuous process of motivation, training, development, and welfare programmes in its activities in India’s north-east. The other equally important task was to inculcate feelings of national belonging among the people in the border areas. The force has left a legacy of “tradition of bonding and brotherhood” and that, in fact, helped it in adapting the force to its newly-assigned role to promote sense of security among the people living in the border areas; prevent trans-border crimes; unauthorised entries entry or exit from the territory of India; and prevent smuggling and other illegal activities.

Both Nepal and Bhutan, on whose borders the SSB is positioned, are characteristically built on the lines of “kingdoms”, despite political changes having swept them from their moorings. The structures of the regimes continue to work on traditional lines. Always under economic stresses, these frontline states look up to India for succour and support, both at individual and state levels. There is an inherent incapacity in their systems to guard against activities of criminal organizations, several of whom are systemically and deeply involved in human trafficking, gun running and, of course, smuggling of counterfeit currency and drugs. The border guards of the SSB are now required to contend with these threats as a way of life, whilst they have to keep their ears to the ground for new emerging schemes of the criminal. The SSB has been nominated as the “leading intelligence agency”

The organisation had its difficult periods during the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and in tracing its tentacles within the armed Naxal groups in India. The Bhutan border, although currently peaceful, had to be guarded against the Bodo rebels seeking shelter and base. What still remains a challenge for the vigilant SSB guards are the likely re-emergence of Maoist activity in these countries and the instinctive intent of these groups to seek allies within their Indian counterparts waging a relentless war on the Indian state.

And that would be inevitable because irregular wars, low-intensity conflict or even acts of terrorism leave a lasting legacy in the form of arms, explosives and, most important of all, a violent culture. It affects generations of men, women and children. The warlords and their combatant following languish in the society. There arms and the destruction material remains with them and are mostly parted for money. This process seriously impinges on development and the security of people and has to be watched for.

The tasks are complex and varied and to strengthen their hands, the government of India has conferred comprehensive powers to the SSB personnel for autonomous operations within a belt of 15 km in the states of Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh straddling the IndoNepal and Indo-Bhutan borders.

Over and above this, the government at the Centre regularly employs the SSB during counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the anti-naxal operations in Jharkhand and Bihar.