India lives in the States. Therefore our young officers equip themselves with knowledge, wisdom and experience about what is happening in various States of our Union and that is the unique privilege that both the IAS and IPS have. At the same time, the unity and integrity of our country is a prime concern and it must be a prime concern of all prominent services of the Union. The fact that our founding fathers of the Constitution designed this structure for the IAS and the IPS which while working in different States we must not lose sight of the value system and of what critical importance it places on strengthening the unity and integrity of our country. When I talk about unity and integrity of our country, we have to reckon with the fact that law and order maintenance is a prime requisite for even sustaining a reasonable pace of development. And without law and order there will be a question mark on the cohesiveness of our nation. And therefore it is your privilege to ensure while working in your respective States all of you will get a chance to work at the Union. Overall wider perspective that while India lives in States and the problems are often not the same from one State to another. But in dealing with those problems, we must not lose sight of the fact that India is one large common market. Our Constitution makers gave us this unique privilege of being a vast common market, that people can move freely from one part of our country to another where goods can move freely from one part of our country to another.
With development, there are also tensions. Because the capacity for development is not uniformly distributed to all our citizens. There are variant capacities. There was the old system, the old caste system when a person was left behind, he could always blame it on his birth. But now we teach in our schools that we are citizens of a unique Republic which prides itself on providing equality of opportunity to all our citizens. But that’s the norm. But whether it is in fact the case or not, I think very often reality is very different from norms, even then we are getting growth rates of 8-9 per cent per annum, there are people who believe they are left out. When they are left out, I think the grievances against the system multiply and some of them take the form of challenging the authority of law and order. The crime rate goes up probably it is inherent in processes of urbanisation that incidents of urban crime will be a problem for quite some time to come and it may be an increasing problem.
Yet another issue I emphasised in my talk to your predecessors last year is the growing problem that we face of terrorism, sometimes supported by forces outside our countries, but we must also recognise that today I think there are dangers that terrorism can become an internal intruding problem as well. This is one area which requires very sensitive handling and I would urge you to devise credible effective strategies to deal with this very sensitive issues. If it is terrorism driven by outside forces or sent to our country it is in some way it is easy. But if the terror modules are to be found in our country and some misguided elements of our society take to that path, I think we have to tackle this problem with all the sensitivity that it requires.
Naxalite violence is yet another problem and Naxalism today afflicts the Central India parts where the bulk of India’s mineral wealth lies and if we don’t control Naxalism we have to say goodbye to our country’s ambitions to sustain growth rate of 10-11% per cent per annum as we all need and as we all aspire that that is the only way that we can rid of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease that still afflict millions and millions of our citizens. So, the tribal areas are today in the grip of Naxalite menace. What causes this disaffection, why some elements of the tribal societies take to that path, they become an easy prey to the Naxalite propaganda, I think there are social and economic causes which are at the roots of this disaffection. And we have to handle this problem both as a law and order problem as also a development problem. And therefore it is very important that if you want various strategies to deal with this menace, you must have the sensitivity to recognise the social and economic roots of disaffection among tribal societies. And this requires an in depth study as I said last year and I repeat we are living in a world where human knowledge is increasing at a pace which was unthinkable even two decades ago. And therefore our Civil Services have to equip themselves well.
Edited excerpts from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to IPS probationers, December 24, 2010, in New Delhi