India has just announced the launch of a National Task Force in its latest major reappraisal of its military needs. But will the government follow up?
Exactly a decade after India’s first inter-ministerial review of the higher management of its national security took place, New Delhi has once again decided to order a reappraisal of its security architecture.
The announcement by the government that it would form a National Task Force to assess the current state of the country’s national security management system is perfectly timed. India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood is in a state of flux—the United States has made public a definite timetable for its drawdown from Afghanistan, while the Arab world, important for India in a number of ways, is in turmoil. All this is happening as New Delhi grapples with an increasingly assertive China.
Headed by seasoned bureaucrat-diplomat Naresh Chandra, the Task Force has several former soldiers and statesmen as members. But the team has no easy task ahead of it, and the demands on it are far different from those faced by earlier teams in the six decades since India attained independence from Britain.
Specifically, these earlier reviews were based on a reactive posture, born out of specific setbacks and events. The 2001 review, for example, was ordered two years after India was caught unawares by intruding Pakistani forces in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1999. That localized skirmish had the potential to escalate into a full-fledged war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
The Kargil face-off prompted the formation of a Group of Ministers, which suggested several new systems and processes to refine India’s national security. While many of those recommendations have been implemented over the past 10 years, some crucial decisions still remain on the back burner.
One of these is a key recommendation to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as a single-point military adviser to the government, a suggestion that has remained unimplemented largely because of inter-services differences and reluctance on the part of political parties to take this tough decision.
When I spoke with the outgoing chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal PV Naik, recently, he told me that ‘there is no need for a CDS in India for the next five to ten years,’ as it would end up sparking off another round of intense debate in strategic circles.
But a more pressing problem for India’s security has been the lack of an effective intelligence coordination group, a problem that has cost India dearly. A body was set up in mid-2001 to coordinate and task intelligence and annual evaluation exercises. However, the group became inactive in less than four years. Sadly, the reality is that the Mumbai terror attacks could perhaps have been avoided had this organisation still been functional.
Another reform, aimed at allocating ‘one force to one border,’ is also far from having been completely implemented. The idea had been to give responsibility for each of India’s numerous borders to one dedicated force so as to encourage greater accountability. Accordingly, the federal Border Security Force was supposed to guard India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the 175-year-old Assam Rifles were allocated the difficult India-Burma border to monitor.
Photo Credit: US Navy
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Frank
I do not understand why India has to keep Kashmier. The longer you occupying Kashmir, the more trouble you will have.
Nini Hala
Govt under Sonia Gandhi (Manmohan Singh is a showpiece) is not serious about national security. This Task Force is organised in a meaningless manner. The only purpose that it will serve will be to provide pay and perks to few retired bureaucrats and generals.
John Chan
40% of Indian children remain chronically malnourished. 40% of all the fruits, vegetables and food grains grown in India never make it to the market. How about India spends some money on improving food transportation infrastructure instead of buying those useless killing machinery?
Nobody is threatening India; only India is rattling sable to anyone in sight. Paying tens of billions to those rich war merchants for the useless killing weaponry is no substitute of looking after the wellbeing of the citizens of India. Indian bloggers should ask why the appalling food crisis in their nation is not being looked at instead of asking why India’s military is not powerful enough.
Jadar Maxpouf
Oh quite. Indians are clearly unaware of the age old governance adage “Either this or that, but not both”. How the Indian government can consider increased frequency and brutality of violent acts of terrorism against it’s citizens as ‘a’ concern just befuddles, yes, befuddles me. Someone needs to tell these people that we are ‘allowed’ to have only one entry in our list of priorities. Thank you for your insight kind stranger, thank you kindly.
Varunesh Swaha
Yes because eradicating starvation has been the time proven anti-terrorism measure.
Frank
They look like bad guys.
Grant
It’s never easy to reorganize a military, even in more cohesive nations.
captainjohann
Why India did not attack Pakistan after Kargil inspite of socalled Hindu nationalist BJP ruling at centre and troops massed at border? It is the ‘ lACK OF POLITICAL WILL” Why Haji Pir pass was given back at Tashkent? Why Indira Gandhi gave away to Bhutto 1 lakh POWs without any written agreement for LOC at Shimla? Why Manmohan singh signed agreement with Gillani about Balochistan?Why we were humiliated in 1962 by China?
Has India learnt any political lessons? Does any of the children of politicians ever serve in Services and at borders?
Was Naresh Chandra a successful bureacrat? No. But he was a successful political bureaucrat who occupied plum posts in Union of India due to his political connections. Does his recommendations will ever be be implemented by politicians?
Also India’s problem is Internal Security and also maritime security where even SriLanka shows thumbs due to India’s weakness vis a vis china and Indian business not knowing anything about National security. They pushed Rajiv Gandhi to enter Sri Lanka without finishing the job of creating Tamil Elam. Ironically when LTTE killed him we went to opposite pole without bothering about genuine Tamil minority rights within unified Sri Lanka.
Nepal is another story similar. today we have a friendly bangladesh and Manmohan is pouring dollars in Afghanistan where the leadership is calling Pakistan as brother without any dollars and Indian pumps dollars to help ISAF which is running away. Manmohan even annoyed Bangladesh while he cannot open mouth about wahabism in Saudi arabia and its funding of Indian wahabies.
The fault lines in Indian national security is mainly poltical and influence of Import lobby in brass of Indian armed forces.
sudipkr
100% agree with you.