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22 May 2014

India’s Next Cabinet Committee on Security-Credentials Imperatives

Paper No. 5704 Dated 20-May-2014

By Dr Subhash Kapila

India’s national security management and directions suffered extensively in the period 2004 to 2014 due to its ineffective Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) with limited strategic vision, limited national security expertise, and insensitivity to India’s threat perceptions.

That India’s national security has been set back by a decade is now widely accepted going by the critical commentaries swamping the public domain about lack of India’s war preparedness to face India’s major military threats from China and its strategic protégé and spoiler state in South Asia.

India’s military asymmetries with China have yawning gaps endangering India’s security and rendering India vulnerable to China’s political and military coercion.

India’s military superiorities over Pakistan which earlier checkmated Pakistan’s unrestrained military adventurism today stands whittled down and Pakistan has significantly narrowed the differential of India’s military superiorities.

India’s responses to Chinese intrusions into Indian Territory and Pakistan Army’s atrocities on Indian soldiers in border incidents were allowed to pass timidly without any substantial responses. This chiefly arose from the timidity of the outgoing CCS for whom the political appeasement syndrome even extended to appeasement of India’s military adversaries.

India’s defence infrastructure on the Tibetan borders against China are years behind schedule due lack of firm directions, control and inter-agency coordination flowing from the CCS. This severely restricts the operational movements and flexibility of Indian Army’s postures.

The outgoing CCS failed to stand upto the Finance Minister’s annual cuts of around Rs. 10,000 crores of the Defence Budget every year just before the presentation of the Annual Budget to balance the budget deficits. This set India’s defence acquisitions back by a decade.

India’s intelligence failures during the period 2004-2014 are glaring and especially in relation to terrorism strikes and internal security. The CCS was a hapless spectator and glossed over these failures. The CCS neither was it accountable itself nor sought accountability from the intelligence agencies.

The outgoing CCS failed to implement effective and coordinated “Border Management” on the Northern borders by allowing the Home Ministry to impede the Indian Army’s constant pleas that the Indo-Tibetan Border Police be placed under its operational control for effective and integrated ‘Border Management’. No wonder the Chinese intrusions into Indian Territory increased.

The list is endless and this litany of CCS failures can go on and on. Suffice it to say that the outgoing CCS composed of exclusively Congress Party political leaders failed to provide strategic directions, strategic postures including foreign policy thrusts, allowed India’s defence preparedness against China and Pakistan to suffer by their acts of political commission and omission.

Worse still the outgoing CCS failed to arrest the politicisation of Armed Forces appointments by a meddlesome Defence Ministry civilian bureaucracy and the same bureaucracy widening the “Severe Distrust” that has constantly plagued India’s civil-military relations which no political dispensation has been able to transform due to political expediencies.

The CCS is the apex level Government body which is responsible and logically be “Accountable” for India’s external and internal security in its most comprehensive connotations--- from realistic deciphering of India’s military threats and intentions of its military adversaries, ensuring strong defence postures and war preparedness to thwart them, ensuring adequate defence budget to sustain the foregoing, indigenous defence production and defence infrastructure development along India’s borders for effective operational responses.

The CCS is chaired by the Prime Minister, and comprises of the Defence Minister, Finance Minister, Home Minister, and the External Affairs Minister. The National Security Adviser is in attendance and the attendance of the Armed Forces Chiefs can be called for when required.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won a decisive mandate in India’s General Elections 2014 chiefly because of his impressive dynamism, his reputation for decisiveness and his strong sense and sensitivity for India’s “National Honour”. The Indian Republic has reposed immense faith in him and that PM-Designate Modi would provide robust leadership and “Will to use Power” if need be to protect India’s sovereignty and that it is not trifled by China and Pakistan.

PM-Designate Narendra Modi as he sets about to constitute his Cabinet needs to pay particular attention to selecting his Defence Minister, Home Minister, Finance Minister and External Affairs Minister as this ‘Core Group of Ministers’ would constitute the new CCS.

In selecting his ‘Core Group’ Prime Minister Designate Modi needs to recognise the imperatives of selecting a dynamic group of political leaders who match his strategic vision, decisiveness and come equipped with a strategic vision and a good grasp of matters military and national security.

The new CCS, it follows, from the drawbacks of the outgoing CCS outlined above, should be composed of Ministers reputed for strong loyalty towards Mr Modi, so that they are in complete synchronisation with his strategic vision of a strong and powerful India and also have a good working relationship amongst them.

While it is the new Prime Minister’s prerogative to select his ‘Core Group of Ministers who will constitute his CCS, an ideal shortlist from which he should select, in popular perception, gets narrowed down to Shri Rajnath Singh, Shri Arun Jaitley, Shri Arun Shourie, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad Shri Amit Shah, Shri Manohar Parrikar, Smt Vasundhara Raje and former Army Chief V K Singh.

All of these political leaders have earlier written or spoken about national security, internal security and external affairs thereby equipping them to be ideal members of the new CCS in the offing. All of them also do not seem to be carrying political baggage which would develop into dead-weights obstructive to PM Designate Modi’s strategic vision and dynamism.

The cardinal principle in selection should not be political expediency or achieving political balance within the political party but constituting a strong and professionally competent ‘Core Group of Ministers’ that can bring back India‘s national security neglected for a decade.

Further PM Designate Modi would be well advised to review the entire national security set-up existing but to begin with the imperatives of an effective CCS with imperative credentials suited to the national security challenges confronting India is an immediate priority.

India under the dynamic leadership of PM Modi needs to get over the daunting task of sweeping away the debris of ten years of national security neglect and the gaping “Civil Military Relations Distrust” which has made India that much more vulnerable in terms of political and military coercion to Pakistan and China and its standing as a notable Asian power.

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