INDUSTRIAL SECURITY MANAGEMENT *

IN TAMILNADU
Dr.D.MUTHUSWAMY

INTRODUCTION

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and Industrial Security is one

critical area, which calls for unrelenting attention being bestowed upon.
The fundamental concept of ‘Security Systems’ or ‘Security Services’
denotes care or vigilance or constant watch, but its connotations,
applications and dimensions have undergone perceptible changes with
every succeeding ‘technological leap forward’. Several security experts
reiterate that security both as a concept and as an activity is much more
than mere ‘watch and ward’. Contemporary circumstances have
necessitated a high degree of strategic and tactical operations in the
area of security duties if they are to be truly effective. This is more
because of the changes in the socio-economic and corporate-industrial
environment in India and all over the globe.

The term ‘industry’ is generally used in a restrictive sense to mean

‘production organization’ (Lambert 1963). Etzioni (1969) also delimits
the term to mean ‘economic organization’. The Industrial Disputes Act,
1947 of India also defines the term ‘industry’ to mean any business,
trade, undertaking, manufacture, or calling of employers and includes
any calling, service, employment, handicraft, or industrial occupation or
avocation of workmen. Such organizations engaged in the manufacture
of goods and rendering of services may be either capital-intensive or
labour-intensive or both. The growth of world into a work shop on
account of industrialization highlights the need to take utmost
precautions and care to safeguard men and material from all kinds of
hazards, losses, and threats, either internal or external or both, without
which the ‘functional pre-requisites’ (Parsons 1951) would remain
without being met. This fundamental requirement is both biogenic as
well as sociogenic because the principle ‘survival of the fittest’ applies to
organizations as it applies to individuals. Industrial Security may
therefore be defined as the state of industrial undertakings being secure
from real or potential dangers to which they are normally exposed. It
aims at securing and protecting the industrial installations from
damages, destruction, mischief, industrial espionage, industrial
sabotage, subversion and all other risks and threats which are capable of
endangering the lives and properties.

As Gough (1969) observes in a different context relating to

entrepreneurs, a distinct class is called into being, in all industrially
advanced communities to undertake the function of industrial security
and safety. While security services could be brought under the
classification (i) domestic, (ii) national, (iii) corporate and (iv)industrial ,
the industrial security is delimited as related to (i) preventive (ii)
protective, (iii) detective and (iv) punitive aspects of industrial
undertakings. Industrial security depends upon a large number of
factors such as the actual location of the industry, nature and
composition of the population, nature and characteristics of personnel
employed in such an industry, influence of labour on various unions and
above all the professional standards of the industrial security personnel
and the types of equipments to press into service to guard against all
‘seen as well as unseen’ situations.

Industrial Security in its broader context includes industrial safety. When

safety considerations are at a discount, the cost of negligence is
enormous, calamitous and often immeasurable and long lasting,
affecting even the future generations. The accident in Chernobyl in the
erstwhile U.S.S.R, for example, rocked the entire world. The fire that
broke out in the North Sea Oil Platform and nearer home, the Bhopal has
disaster and large-scale fire accident in the Indian Petrochemicals
Limited call for eternal vigilance. While wide ranging analyses and
in-depth studies follow such mishaps at the national and international
level, recurrence of such incidences is an indicator of how ill-prepared
we are in combating or containing such events.

Administratively or economically it is not essential that every type of

industry should be accorded the same type of security coverage. The
threat to any industry needs to be identified and assessed in order to
determine the degree and quantum of protection warranted. This will
help devise the security measures that may actually be required for the
industry under consideration. While devising security measures, the twin
principles of ‘need based security’ and ‘security in depth’ will have to be
borne in mind.

Industrial security management comprises of two major areas, namely

security services and intelligence services. The security services include
uniformed personnel or guards who perform routine activities and
whose services are nonetheless essential. The duties of such industrial
security service personnel include physical checking of personnel and
property within specified parameters in accordance with set procedures
and organizational methods.

The Intelligence wing is vital and involves highly sensitive areas of

operations. It deploys security personnel in civilian cloths (without
prescribed uniform) and focuses on information gathering, intelligence
activities, and uses subtle and covert methods involving flexible
procedures. Investigation and intelligence activities are more
information oriented, while security activities are situation oriented. The
intelligence aspect of security management, however, is still in nascent
stages in some organizations and in totally absent in many industrial
undertakings in India. But this area constitutes the very foundation of
any industrial security system.

THEORETICAL ISSUES

Emile Durkheim (1933) considered to be one among the ‘sociological

trinity’ and whose name is associated with functionalism was
preoccupied with gaining an insight into social order. Functionalism is
inextricably intertwined with the question of social order. It enquires as
to how order is maintained in society?

Talcott Parsons (1951) evincing interest in the pattern of interaction and

cooperation, believes that all social systems are confronted by two sets
of problems. Parsons delimits the problem of the system as related to
the external environment and to the internal interactions. For him,.
Adaptation and goal attainment constitute the former and integration
 and latency constitute the latter.

Smelter (1972) suggests that in reality certain sub-systems or institutions

serve the homeostasis of a system better in the process of internal
dynamics of organizations.

Selznick(1948) considers the concept of organizations as cooperative

systems emanating from adaptive social structures made up of
interacting individuals, sub-groups and informal plus formal
relationships.

Merton (1958) applies the means-ends scheme to show the disjunction

between cultural goals and institutionally acceptable means of attaining
them. The discrepancy between ends and means is seen as a basic
source of frustration and recalcitrance.

Social control is to be seen as a social process or mechanism that

counteracts deviant tendencies. Though social order is thought of as
conformity to norms, counteraction of deviance promotes social order.
Parsons’ (1951) conception of social control toes the line of thinking of
the old conception promoted by Ross (1896, 1901). Viewing professions
as ‘mechanisms of social control’ in the sociological sense, Parsons
considers that professions forestall deviance.

INDUSTRIAL SECURITY AND MANAGEMENT THOUGHT

Scores of issues hinge upon the process of industrialization,
management thought and socio-economic development. Scientific
studies of those issues bring forth better and efficient knowledge, its
application in various walks of life and thus help raise the living
standards of the people. The West has taken to industrialization, and its
concomitants, namely, modernization and urbanization unequivocally
as a way of human progress over the two previous centuries. The West
induces, and the developing world also volunteers to this
industrialization process perhaps in an interactive way.

In the course of industrialization of a country, there exist two differing

perspectives. Some consider industrialization as an evolutionary
process and others argue it to be an interventionist exercise without
 which socio-economic advancement will come to a grinding halt. In
whatever form industrialization takes place, it is a confluence of land,
labour, capital and organization, according to Adam Smith. Necessarily
these issues of industrialization constitute what may be called industry
making. Once industry making is completed, industry-dynamics sets in
and management thought squarely focuses on it. The classical theorists
of management thought left the problem of industry making to the
economists and assumed the existence of industries as a ‘given’ for
them. Such an assumption of management process leads them to
concentrate more on the human organization of the industry than on
the material organization. Henry Fayol, the founder of management
process school, after his wide ranging experiences in South African
firms, espoused functionalism in his seminal book General and
Industrial Management. His intentions expressed therein were to
initiate a theoretical analysis appropriate to a wide range of
organizations, industrial or otherwise. Fayol’s (1957 , p vii)) ideas about
managerial activity are presented in the context of his writings on
industrial organizations. The totality of activities of an industrial
organization, big, medium, or small, can be divided into the following
groups:-

1. Technical activities: Fayol ascribed technical activities to production,

manufacture, and adaptation. These are basic to progress of the
organization and goal attainment.
2. Commercial activities: Just an efficient production, management of an
industry requires commercial activities pertaining to buying, selling and
exchange. Fayol points to acumen and decision-making, a thorough
knowledge of the market and of the competitors, foresight and law as
necessary for ensuring the success of the organization.
3. Financial activities: For Fayol, capital is a pre-requisite for personnel,
plant, raw material, expansion of industries and so on. He wanted
search for and optimum use of capital.
4. Accounting activities: Fayol maintained that efficient accounting
system, providing an accurate idea of the organization’s financial
condition, is a powerful managerial instrument.
5. Security activities: Fayol was insistent that it was necessary to
safeguard the property and persons against theft, fire, flood and all
social disturbances including strikes in industries.
6. Managerial activities: For Fayol, (1957, 19) Planning, organizations,
command, coordination and control constituted the essentials of
managerial functionalism.

It can be seen from Fayol’s enumeration that the first four activities
pertained to material relations of production in industry-making and
industry maintenance. The sixth activity, for Fayol, pertained to human
relations of production in industry-making and industry maintenance.
The linkage between material relations of production and human
relations of production was sought to be achieved by Fayol (1957, 41)
by ensuring the security activities of the organization.

However, neither Taylor nor Weber, the other two classical theorists of
management, looked into security activities seriously. It is not that they
ignored, sidestepped or bypassed that question. It is possible to assume
that despite the importance of security activities having been
recognized by them, they would have bestowed more attention on the
important issue of managerial functionalism. Similarly, later
organizational schools of thought, human relations school, Decision
Making School, Systems School, Socio-Psychological School-had all
assumed the imperatives of security in industries and did not elaborate
on it (Gager 1960, 72-80). In Motivation and Personality, Abraham
Maslow (1954), hinted at the psychological dimension of security of an
individual as an industrial worker, but not upon the security of the
industry itself. Even the more recent advocates of development
dynamics and policy dynamics had not spent their time on the theme of
industrial security (George 1972).

In developing countries, the size, quantum, shape, complexity and

problem of both industries and industrialization vary. It is necessary here
not merely to look upon material relations of production and human
relations of production as a whole or in individual industries, but also to
deal at some length on physical security of the industrial system as a
whole as well as in individual industries. However, an individual
industrial making and industry maintenance in developing countries
vary enormously, it is better to do case studies in a preliminary way in
order to theories upon industrial security at macro level.
Industrial security system that is in its embryonic stage in India has the
dual function of promoting order by repelling deviance emanating from
the internal as well as external environment of the organization. The
various theoretical issues and problems enumerated above, among
others, are germane to the subject under consideration.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major aim of the study is to have an understanding of industrial

security pattern in India. The objectives of the study are as follows:
1. To trace the evolution of the industrial security system in the
pre-independence period of India.
2. To narrate the problems of industrial security system in the
post independence era.
3. To describe the industrial security systems brought about by
the Central Industrial Security Force.
4. To identify the different types of security system in operation
in industrial undertakings.
5. To evaluate the effectiveness of the industrial security system
obtaining in India and to suggest measures for the
improvement of the same.
METHOD AND PROCEDURE

In keeping with the objectives of the study, the primary data are
generated through responses from the personnel in management
and rank and file and from the personnel engaged in security duties
in four industrial undertakings located in and around Chennai
(Madras) to set structured questions from an interview schedule. The
interview schedule consisted of fourteen parts dealing with several
aspects of security arrangements available in those four industrial
undertakings. Data with regard to the attitudes of the security
personnel towards security management by the respective
management of the undertakings are also collected by way of
informal discussions. The data for the present study are also obtained
from officially published reports touching upon industrial security
aspects. In addition periodicals and records maintained by the
respective industrial undertakings are also consulted.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

Insofar as the method of deployment of security personnel is

concerned, it can be broadly categorized as under:
1. Proprietary system, by which it is meant that the security
personnel deployed are on the pay rolls of the employing
organization.
2. Contract System which refers to a scheme in which services
of security personnel are lent for a consideration to an
industrial organization by an outside agency specializing in all
aspects of industrial security.
3. Mixed System, which refers to method of deployment of
industrial security personnel partly on the direct pay rolls of
the employing industrial organization and partly on the pay
rolls of an outside security agency from whom services are
borrowed for a consideration.

The findings are analyzed relying on relative frequencies. Out of

four institutions selected for field investigation, three are in the
private sector and the last one is in the public sector. While
identifying the industrial undertakings, care is taken to ensure that
there is no overlapping of the types of industrial security system in
vogue in such industrial undertakings.

DATA ANALYSIS

Sociological research with its various approaches has brought out

certain methods such as descriptive, analytical and experimental.
The present study is a combination of both historical and analytical
account based on empirical facts.
The study is carried out in historical perspective along with the study
of a cross section of the respondents in the employ of the
organization coming under its coverage. The historical perspective
of industrial security system covers the pre-independence period of
India as well as the post independence period.
CHAPTERIZATION

The introductory chapter brings out the importance of the study of

industrial security in the context of phenomenal industrial advancement
after the advent of India’s independence. This chapter also includes a
review of literature on industrial security, and a description of the overall
research design.

Chapter two traces the evolution of the industrial security system in

pre-independence period of India.

Chapter three restricts itself to consider the post independence

industrial scenario in India leading to the establishment of Central
Industrial Security Force.

Chapter four discusses the salient features of the Central Industrial

Security Force and its association with the industrial organization under
study. Critical evaluation of the main activities and achievements of
Central Industrial Security Force are made in this chapter.

Chapter five is concerned with the proprietary, contract and mixed

forms of industrial security system currently in vogue, especially in
Tamilnadu.

Chapter six brings the curtain down by making a summary of the

findings. Besides this, keeping the future in mind, the implications of the
study are presented for the design and management of industrial
security in India.

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*Synopsis of the thesis submitted to the

University of Madras in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in Sociology under the Supervision of
Dr.C.S.RANGARAJAN.