India often debates internal security as if it were a technical problem of policing numbers, weapons or budgets. It is not. It is a problem of governance architecture. In a country where several states are larger than most nations, internal security is no longer merely a departmental responsibility. It is a strategic function. Yet at the state level—the arena where most security challenges actually unfold—strategy remains under-institutionalised.

Start with scale. Uttar Pradesh has a population larger than Brazil’s. Maharashtra’s economy rivals that of many middle-income countries. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat run ports, airports and industrial corridors plugged directly into global supply chains. Border states manage migration, smuggling and cross-border crime. To expect a chief minister to personally synthesise raw security inputs from police, intelligence, prisons, transport, revenue, social welfare and cyber units—while also governing health, education and the economy—is unrealistic. The problem is not authority. It is cognition.

Crime itself has outpaced institutions. It is no longer local, linear or slow. Narcotics networks straddle states and borders. Cybercrime collapses geography altogether. Financial fraud, organised violence and ideological radicalisation increasingly intersect, often incubated online before manifesting offline. The cost of entry for criminals has fallen; the speed of adaptation has risen. By contrast, state responses remain procedural, sequential and rule-bound. They are good at reacting to incidents, less good at anticipating patterns.

This is not a failure of policing. It is a limitation of design. Police forces are built to investigate crimes, maintain order and enforce law. They are not designed to act as strategic think tanks for political executives. Intelligence units collect fragments, not whole pictures. Departments function within mandates, not across them. The result is a governance paradox: plenty of information, little synthesis.

Federalism compounds the problem. India’s Constitution assigns law and order to the states, but threats do not respect jurisdiction. Cyber fraud rings operate across multiple states. Narcotics routes link border regions to interior cities. Radicalisation networks traverse languages, platforms and regions. Coordination exists—through meetings, task forces and letters—but it is episodic. No single institutional actor is responsible for continuously integrating security inputs across departments and borders and translating them into actionable political choices.

In most large federations—from the United States to Germany—sub-national governments long ago accepted that security requires strategy, not merely enforcement.

Meanwhile, the political environment has hardened. Chief ministers today govern under relentless scrutiny. News cycles are unforgiving; social media amplifies rumour into fact; opposition leaders weaponise ambiguity. Security incidents are judged not just by outcomes but by speed, coherence and narrative control. A delayed or poorly contextualised response can inflict more political damage than the incident itself. In such an environment, episodic briefings and bulky files are blunt instruments. Political executives need continuous situational awareness, not post-fact explanations.

This is where a state security adviser becomes indispensable—not as an overlord, but as a strategic brain. The role is often misunderstood. A security adviser is not a super-policeman, nor a parallel power centre. Operational command must remain firmly with the police and line departments. The adviser’s value lies elsewhere: in synthesis, foresight and integration.

A well-designed security adviser filters noise from signal. He or she scans across departments, identifies emerging trends, flags risks before they become crises, and presents the chief minister with structured choices rather than raw data. In effect, the adviser converts fragments into judgement. This is not glamorous work, but it is decisive.

Crucially, such a role strengthens institutions rather than undermining them. By improving coordination and clarity, it reduces ad-hoc interference and knee-jerk reactions. Departments retain autonomy; investigations remain insulated. The political executive, better informed, is less tempted to micromanage.

Experience alone, however, is insufficient. Modern security is no longer only about force. It is about understanding how crime interacts with technology, economics, sociology and perception. Cybercrime demands familiarity with digital ecosystems. Radicalisation requires insight into psychology and identity. Organised crime thrives on regulatory arbitrage and political economy. Media dynamics shape outcomes as much as arrests do. An adviser without academic depth risks mistaking anecdote for pattern and intuition for strategy.

The ideal security adviser therefore blends field credibility with intellectual rigour—someone who has seen the ground but can also step back from it. Such individuals are rare, but not mythical. India has produced them in policing, intelligence and the armed forces. What is missing is not talent but institutional demand.

Other domains have already recognised this logic. States appoint economic advisers because markets are complex. They rely on legal advisers because law is intricate. Security, despite being politically more consequential than either, is still treated as something that will somehow manage itself through hierarchy and habit. That assumption is increasingly untenable.

The objection, often unspoken, is political. Security advisers make chief ministers more dependent on expertise and less on instinct. They impose structure where improvisation once sufficed. They also create records—of warnings given, risks flagged, advice tendered—which is uncomfortable in systems accustomed to plausible deniability. Yet mature governance demands exactly this discomfort.

India’s internal security challenges are not likely to diminish. Urbanisation, digitisation, migration and geopolitical churn will ensure that threats remain hybrid and fast-moving. States will remain the first responders, whether they are prepared or not. Governing a country-sized state without a dedicated security brain at the top is no longer prudence. It is wishful thinking.

Institutionalising the role of a state security adviser will not eliminate crime or prevent every crisis. Nothing can. But it will improve the quality of decision-making when it matters most. In security, as in economics, foresight is cheaper than failure. India’s states would do well to learn that lesson sooner rather than later.

( The writer is former DGP, Haryana. )