Doval warns country of rabble-rousing activism

The new frontier of warfare is about subverting civil society — a euphemism for foreign-funded, rabble-rousing non-government organisations (NGOs) — and IPS officers have to be at the forefront of this battle to keep the nation intact, national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval said in his address to IPS trainees at the SVP National Police Academy in Hyderabad yesterday.

“Wars ceased to become effective instruments to achieve political and military objectives. They are too expensive, unaffordable and there’s uncertainty about the outcome. It is the civil society that can be subverted, divided and manipulated to hurt the interest of the nation. You are there to see that this land is fully protected,” Doval said.

Doval, an alumnus of the academy, was the chief guest at the ‘Dikshant Parade’ of the 2020 batch on Friday which saw 132 IPS trainees and 17 foreign officer trainees participating.

“People are most important. The new frontier of war, which is called the fourth generation of warfare, is civil society,” he said.

Fourth-generation warfare refers to a conflict where the state loses its monopoly on war and is fighting non-state actors e.g. terror groups, insurgents. It is believed to be the fourth stage of evolution in warfare: First-generation warfare refers to the formal battlefield war, second-generation to artillery fire, and third-generation to speed, surprise and infiltrate an enemy’s military.

Doval said,

The NSA emphasised the greater role of police in border management spanning over 15,000km covering Pakistan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

He said managing the 32 lakh square km of India was the responsibility of the police forces. “But it will extend. You will be responsible for the border management of this country. Most of the 15,000 km of borders has got peculiar problems of its own,” he added.

Doval said there were different types of security issues on each border. “There is a border in Pakistan with China or Myanmar or Bangladesh. We have got different types of security-related issues, which are manned by the police and the central police organisations,” he added.

Doval’s comments on greater policing comes a day after the Punjab Assembly adopted a resolution against the union government extending the jurisdiction of the BSF, which the Punjab assembly said was an insult.