If the 9/11 attacks woke up the West to the threat of global terrorism, the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai forced it to acknowledge and focus on India’s security concerns vis-à-vis its neighbourhood. It also exposed India’s under-preparedness in combating asymmetric warfare of such scale.
The ease with which the 10 Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) gunmen sailed across the Arabian Sea, from Karachi to Mumbai, and went on the rampage in the city for four long days, exposed the gaping holes in India’s maritime security, the chinks in its internal security grid, and the inadequacy of its counter-terrorism infrastructure and local police.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The terrorists entered Indian shores from Pakistan undetected by hijacking an Indian fishing trawler. Since then, the fishing community living on the shores have become a key element in the national maritime security apparatus.
Goa being a vital coastal State, the security agencies are ensuring active participation of State’s fishers in the State’s coastal security plans.
In fact, the Navy and the Goa Police have gone on record saying that the fishermen are the “eyes and ears” of the security agencies as they are out in the sea most of the time and are aware of friendly and hostile boats sailing in our waters.
Overall, the maritime security of the country, including of the island territories, is far better today than in 2008. After the attacks, the Cabinet immediately approved a new and overhauled maritime and coastal security.
Although the new architecture did not entirely incorporate all the recommendations made by the Navy and Coast Guard, it was nevertheless a historic move that has forever changed the structure of maritime security in India.
The new security structure gave additional and new responsibilities to maritime agencies and police; provided for the acquisition of additional assets (ships, aircraft, boats);funded the creation of new infrastructure, such as coastal radars, Automatic Identification System (AIS), National Command Control and Communication Network or NC3I, Joint Operations Centres and an information collation and fusion centre; and mandated setting up of marine or coastal police in all coastal states, introducing better monitoring and identification mechanisms for fishing crafts and fishermen.
The Indian Navy was made responsible for the maritime security of the country, (which included both coastal and offshore security) but with an ill-defined authority over other maritime agencies, such as the Coast Guard, marine police, customs marine wing, maritime intelligence agencies and port authorities, of which there are nearly 17, both at the central and state levels.
There has not been an incident of successful breach of maritime security anywhere along the long coastline ever since. This is the best indicator of the success of the new security structure.
One reason for this transformation is improved inter-agency coordination and synergy. All the security agencies are also more serious and alert in responding to maritime security incidents.
Even after all these efforts, 16 years down the line, we see that there are chinks in the armour. The biggest weak link perhaps is the State’s Coastal Security Police, which has been grappling with adequate boats to chase down suspicious trawlers at the high sea.
The Goan fishing community feels most threatened by the LED fishing boats entering illegally into Goa’s waters and indulging in indiscriminate fishing. Traditional fishermen have raised vociferous opposition to the deployment of powerful LED lights by trawler boats. These bright artificial illumination systems, they allege, are indiscriminately luring and vacuuming up a wide range of marine species and rapidly depleting fish stock.
But the Goa Coastal Security Police doesn’t seem to have succeeded in staving off this intrusion of fishing trawlers from adjoining States due to shortage of patrolling boats.
In fact, there have been instances when fisherman Francisco Fernandes – popularly known as Pele, at times had to take the coastal security police in his boats to intercept fishing boats straying from other States into Goan waters.
The traditional fishermen of Goa are now questioning that if the coastal police is unable to stop infiltration by fishing boats from other States, how will it stop terrorists entering Goa’s shores?
Being a key player in ensuring maritime security, the Coastal Security Police should be exuding more confidence about its abilities to protect the shores, which does not seem to be the case right now. The Centre and State government have to do more to strengthen this key marine security force to prevent a repeat of 26/11 attacks.
The lessons of 26/11 have led to changes in our security policies, but as maritime threats evolve, better use of new technology, inter-agency cooperation and capacity building will be essential to secure India’s maritime future.
