The Hindu Business Line : Whither aviation security?

Mumbai 26/11 has changed the lives of all those living in the unprotected world. The cocooned community of the VVIPs is, of course, oblivious to what the common man has to undergo. 10,000 NSG commandos protect a mere 250 “people’s representatives” while for every 10,000 people of a billion population we have a solitary policeman with a lathi or a .303 rifle. This is the free India Mahatma Gandhi dreamt of.

When you see all the gun toting commandos protecting these chosen few, one can imagine what the Father of the Nation would be thinking. Today, what ten men did on 26/11 is holding a billion lives to ransom. The recent threat to the Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai airports is a perfect example of what terror can do to paralyse a system.

When Indira Gandhi abolished the Privy Purses in the late 1960s, democratic India was given the impression that everyone was equal. The corrupt political system has ensured that we have a new class of royalty. This is borne out by the list of people who are exempt from undergoing security checks.

Restricted exemption

In late 1980s, Mr P. Chidambaram, had issued a circular as the Minister of State for Home, in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. That list exempted just five categories from undergoing security check: The President & the Vice-President; the Prime Minister; Speaker of the Lok Sabha ; Supreme Court Judges and Governors. The circular clearly mentioned that all others, including Union Cabinet Ministers, had to undergo airport security checks.

Compare that with the list today. Even the families of current and past politicians figure in that list! The system has become a mockery. Recently, a Union Minister slapped the manager of a private airline at Patna, for releasing the flight on schedule. The Minister came to the airport five minutes before departure!

All these so-called VIPs have their secretaries or their drivers check in for them. And the security personnel are ever obliging to stamp their boarding passes, even without the presence of the passenger! This has become a status symbol, just like the number of AK-47 wielding commandos around you.

Recent events have shown the politicians in poor light. They should also read what another great person, Martin Luther King Jr., said : “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”.

Will the new Home Minister restore the original circular and make all Indians equal? Will he give orders to the airlines that the check-in should be done only by the travelling passenger?

Changing face of security

9/11 changed the face of air travel. Security in airports around the world has seen a major change. Even in the strictest of searches, body search is carried out only when the x-ray detector indicates something. We continue to have the time-consuming, and sometimes humiliating, body searches. This causes enormous delays. Are our airports equipped with sub-standard x-ray equipment that cannot detect explosives? Several airports have human psychology trained personnel to monitor the CCTV.

Unfortunately, we either have equipment that is not in working order or there is no one monitoring it. The CCTV recording of the CST station in Mumbai is a clear indicator. The terrorists could have been intercepted much before they caused loss of lives if only there had been qualified personnel monitoring it.

George Santayana, a philosopher and poet, said in 1905: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. In the aftermath of Mumbai 26/11, what has been revealed is the failure to act on prior intelligence leads.

There have been no lessons learnt in 60 years! After the bomb blast in Birla House on January 20, 1948, a professor from Ram Narain Ruia College, Mumbai, had informed the then Chief Minister that a conspiracy was in place to assassinate Gandhiji. When Sardar Patel wanted to increase the police protection, Gandhiji refused, saying that he could not permit his prayer meetings to be violated with police guards. He clearly stated that his life was at God’s mercy.

Gandhiji was assassinated by a single gunman. What is surprising is that despite the definite and concrete information that the authorities possessed they failed to trace and arrest the conspirators and frustrate their plan. Doesn’t this evoke a sense of déja vu today?

Our airports are crowded with casual workers with temporary security passes. They are also at the mercy of contractors for their meagre wages.

Going by the extent of defaults by big players such as the major airlines, it is possible that wages are not paid. Aren’t these workers liable to be tempted? They enter the airport through secondary gates and not through x-ray machines. Tests have proved that a small piece of plastic explosive can blow up a jetliner to pieces.

Five years back, a workshop under the auspices of the COSCAP-South Asia (Co-operative Development of Operational Safety and Continuing Airworthiness), a wing of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), was conducted in Delhi.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Directorate General of Civil Aviation and all airlines were part of the workshop. The head of the security division of ICAO detailed the several recommendations from the ICAO Security manual, amended after the 9/11 attack.

We are yet to implement any of them. Crisis management should not feature only when there is a crisis. Preventive management is required. Inflated paranoia and phobia manifestation can only increase the fear among the travelling public. Determined action is required in a fixed time-frame.

Nobel laureate John Steinbeck said “I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security — out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction”

Aren’t we sitting ducks unless we streamline the system?

(The author is an airline captain with 35 years flying experience. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)