Executive Summary

India has evolved an enormous national security system comprising the colonial-era police system in the States, the Army, Navy and Air Force, Central Armed Police Forces, as well as a vast intelligence apparatus. These forces are managed by a generalist bureaucracy and a political class who have shown little specialised interest in their task.  Over the years there have been several efforts to reform and overhaul the national security system. Not surprisingly, the impetus for this has sometimes been the consequence of defeat or a sense of failure. The task force on national security, popularly known as the Naresh Chandra Committee (since it was chaired by former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra), has been the latest of these iterations. This was set up in 2011 and submitted its report in mid-2012. However, till now the government has failed to act on its recommendations, which cover the entire gamut of national security issues. As the report remains classified, this paper seeks to examine the issue through publicly available information, as well as through discussion and debate of issues that have formed the substance of several reports of special parliamentary and official committees since the 1990s. It concludes that there are serious structural constraints in the way of India being able to carry out the deep reform that is needed in its national security system.

From the time of its independence, India has sought to reform its national security system. It began with trying to Indianise the British-era armed forces and intelligence system, followed by the modernisation imperative arising from the U.S.-Pakistan alliance in the mid-1950s. Subsequently, reform came in the wake of numerous wars — the disastrous one of 1962, the draw of 1965 and the victory of 1971.[1] But it is the nuclear tests of 1998, a mini-war in Kargil in 1999, a decade’s discussion within the strategic community and the arrival of a Bharatiya Janata Party that led to the first comprehensive reform effort through the Kargil Review Commission and what is called the Group of Ministers (GOM) report of 2001.[2] Despite these efforts, the system has remained dysfunctional. This has manifested itself in India’s vulnerability to not just terrorist attacks, but cross-border incursions, as was the case in Kargil. Its mobilisation of 2002 and its lack of a military response to the Mumbai attack of 2008 have been attributed to the lack of readiness of its armed forces. Many of these issues were aptly summed up in the 2010 book by Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, the title of which— Arming without Aiming —almost seemed to suggest that India was doomed to maintain a policy of “strategic restraint.”[3]

By 2011, it was clear that many of the reforms pushed by the GOM had only been partially implemented. This was because, given the way the government works, once the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has adopted a course, it is generally followed, but subsequently, decisions and directives are re-interpreted to undermine the basic thrust of a particular reform.

Many of these issues formed the context in which the National Security Task Force 2011, popularly known as the Naresh Chandra Committee (NCC) was created. Equally important were the strategic changes, for instance the rise of China, in India’s neighbourhood and beyond. This was accentuated by the 2008-2009 economic crisis, which lent a sense of urgency to Indian planners, who were painfully aware of the inner weaknesses of the system.

About the Author

Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, looking after its National Security Initiative. He has been a journalist specialising on national and international politics and is a commentator and columnist on these issues. As a reporter, he has written extensively on internal security issues as well as relations with Pakistan, China and the United States. He was most recently a member of the Task Force on National Security chaired by Mr Naresh Chandra to propose reforms in the security apparatus of the country. He has been the political editor of The Times of India and has worked with other major newspaper groups in India. He has been a member of the National Security Council’s Advisory Board and is the author of two books on the Kashmir issue and several papers in professional journals. He has also been a participant in several track 1.5 and track 2 dialogues. He is a graduate of St Stephen’s College, Delhi University, and obtained his PhD from the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He has been a Visiting Professor at the SIS, JNU, as well as a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.