Unlike the US where the new Homeland Security bureaucracy was created to anticipate and prevent terror attacks through careful vigilance, monitoring and counter-intelligence post 9/11, India has not even begun to grapple with the subject of modernizing and equipping our services to deal with terror notwithstanding the Parliament attack and the ghastly incidents that have followed with rapid-fire regularity.

RAW, the Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigations, urban police departments – created for administrative and policing chores with specific mandates – are simply not equipped or capable of dealing with urban terrorism. Encounters and confessions in police custody are not the answer. The critical elements are intelligence and prevention. And, believe it or not, the spirit behind the creation of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Poliice Service(IPS) – did create the right conditions for the achievement of these twin goals.

At the pure administrative level, the prevention of terror is a grassroots governance phenomenon. In the last couple of decades this has just about vanished as district bureaucrats and policemen have been forced to neglect their real duties and perform tasks assigned to them by power hungry politicians. In the old days, the District Magistrate, the Superintendant of Police roamed their districts on foot, in jeeps, on horseback. They camped for nights at villages. Their headquarters were open durbars for grievance redressal. They were men and women of the people.

Because they were trusted by ordinary folk in whose interests they slogged day and night they received valuable information. They knew where dacoits would be hiding. They would personally be aware of “bad characters” and bigots and people planning communal violence. They could persuade village elders to take steps to rein in the “badmaashes.” There was a huge two way communication – this is real intelligence – that could help prevent clashes, prevent violent incidents, and above all, lead to the arrest of the real culprits.

Arresting the real culprits is what gives law enforcement the credibility it needs to win the confidence of people and receive valuable intelligence. Arrest the wrong man, and you create enemies out of people who would be your friends and informants.

That is what has happened in India. Intelligence that leads to prevention of violence has dried up because the bureaucracy has moved away from the common man. The common man sees the bureaucrat as an enemy who serves the political master rather than the interests of the needy. This is particularly true in cities. As India urbanizes rapidly, there is an almost total disconnect between city administrations and mohallas and colonies. The police has not been modernized to interact with the huge socio-economic problems and disruptions of the traditional patterns of life and breakup of families that accompanies the mushrooming of cities.

Dealing with urban terrorism certainly requires a strong hand. But the hand can only be strengthened when governmental and police organizations are modernized, reconstituted and decentralized into the neighborhoods where real people live in order to feel and to deal with their insecurities and grievances. That would be the first concrete step against terror. Band aid reactions will not work.