Whose homeland? Whose security?

Just read this on Tehelka... At an internal seminar conducted by the Indian Army's think-tank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies in March 2011, Home Ministry officials identified India's growing population of young people as a potentially significant security "challenge".

Let us try to understand the scale of their concern... India is expected to add a whopping 241 million people of working age to its population between 2011 and 2030, compared to China's probable growth of just 10 million during the same period.

The only reason the governing system in general - and the security apparatus in particular - should view a "growing population of youth" as a "liability" and not an "asset" is because a larger population is more difficult to control.

This control-driven mentality is clear from the solutions that are being proposed by the Home Sectretary, GK Pillai: "This increasing population requires better policing measures and judicial intervention." India apparently requires an additional 800,000 police personnel, many more judges, and the country also needs "to churn out good lawyers".

The sum total, or at least, the essence of his solution is this: More laws. More interference. More enforcement.

The "us" (government) vs "them" (governed) divide pervading in the corridors of power could not be more obvious. Population-control policies and practices are first a hangover from the colonial past, and later aped from the so-called democracies of the Western Hemisphere.

The seeds of a highly intrusive government are perhaps already sown in India.

How else can one explain the Homeland Security System being set up in India - with its barbs clearly pointed INWARD?

Take Rolta, for example. It is a private company with 32.59% FII (foreign institutional investor) ownership, and 41.91% ownership resting with just 10 individual shareholders. Rolta's services are aimed at the full alphabet soup of security and intelligence agencies in India.

And many of their technologies and services are clearly directed at the citizens and residents of India. For example, "Rolta provides systems to cater to lawful interception of communication be it IP Traffic, Cellular Traffic, Satellite Communication or Radio Communication." And their services "portfolio also includes systems that can undertake Data and text mining in real time." In other words, "spying".

But of course, they'll tell you all of it to keep you and your family safe... The question is, safe from who?