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Posted: Thu, Feb 3 2011. 1:00 AM IST

An architect of India’s
nuclear doctrine
Elizabeth Roche
K. Subrahmanyam, widely described as the doyen of Indian strategic thinking and
one of the most respected voices on global security issues, passed away in Delhi
on Wednesday. Deemed an authority on security issues, the prolific 82-year-old
writer and columnist was at the time of his death chairman of the Prime Minister’s
task force on global strategic developments. He had recovered from cancer but
succumbed to lung and cardiac problems.

“He declined the trappings of power to work in a think tank,” said close associate
and head of the National Maritime Foundation C. Uday Bhaskar , referring to
Subrahmanyam’s two terms as head of the Institute of Defence Studies and
Analyses (Idsa)—in 1968-75 and 1980-87. “He was the father of India’s nuclear
thinking.”

B.G. Verghese, another close associate and former editor of the Hindustan Times
and The Indian Express, said during his association with Idsa, Subrahmanyam
“nurtured generations of scholars”.

Narendra Sisodia, Idsa’s current head, described Subrahmanyam as an

“intellectual genius”.

“From being considered pro-Soviet, he became one of the biggest proponents of

the Indo-US partnership. He was also influential when it came to the (landmark
2008) Indo-US nuclear deal” that has seen the ties between the one time
“estranged” democracies warm to the level of “strategic partners” Sisodia added.

Amit Mitra, secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce

and Industry (Ficci), in his tribute praised Subrahmanyam as an “iconic figure”
and “master strategist”.

“I still recall the day in 1969 when he came to the Delhi School of Economics to
debate the issue of the economics of the atomic bomb and its strategic value,” 
Mitra said. “Over the decades, he became the game-changing thinker, respected
for his clarity and strategic thinking to maximize India’s interests in the global
matrix.”

A stickler for detail and discipline, Subrahmanyam joined the Indian

Administrative Services in 1951 and held several top positions including those of
home secretary, Tamil Nadu; additional secretary, cabinet secretariat; chairman,
Joint Intelligence Committee (1977-79); and secretary, defence production
(1979-80).

Verghese recalled his first meeting with Subrahmanyam in 1966, soon after
joining then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s office as information adviser. “In
1966, within three months of Mrs Gandhi taking office as prime minister, China
conducted its third nuclear test and the Prime Minister was called upon to make a
statement in Parliament. This led me to suggest the need to set up a group that
might spell out the political, security, technological and economic aspects of a
national nuclear policy. I then invited a small group a week later for a
brainstorming session over lunch. But who could speak from the defence angle?

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Someone named a bright deputy secretary in the defence ministry, K.

Subrahmanyam. And so I contacted him,” he said.

Known for his formidable intellect and razor-sharp analyses, Subrahmanyam, or

“Subbu” as he was commonly known, was respected by political parties across the
spectrum.

He was appointed convener of the first National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in
1998 that was constituted by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Atal Bihari Vajpayee
government and then as the head of the Kargil Review Committee in 1999.

This was followed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling him to head the
Prime Minister’s task force on global strategic developments.

The first NSAB produced the draft nuclear doctrine, which the Vajpayee
government adopted in its entirety, said Verghese.

It now governs all policy aspects relating to usage and deployment of nuclear
weapons, including the key “no first use policy”.

As head of the Kargil Review Committee, Subrahmanyam was tasked with

investigating how hundreds of Pakistani infiltrators, including army regulars,
managed to establish themselves in Kashmir’s Kargil region, many kilometres
inside the Line of Control (LoC) in 1999. It took more than two months and the
deaths of some 500 Indian soldiers to evict the infiltrators.

He was a strong votary of India developing a nuclear deterrent—something that

earned him the title of “prime nuclear hawk”.

“I  was gradually persuaded by Subbu’s logic that the nuclear non-proliferation

treaty and its affiliates made for an unequal and unfair world and that without a
credible minimum deterrent of its own, India would never be able to grow to its
full stature and potential. That forecast was indeed borne out by subsequent
events,” Verghese recalled.

He frequently lamented the lack of a strategic vision among India’s political class,
“a view I agree with,” Verghese said.

He is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. His second son, S.
Jaishankar, is India’s ambassador to China.

Aman Malik contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2007 HT Media All Rights Reserved

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 file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/Celebrating the man who had no private ag...

Celebrating the man who had no private

agenda
Tarun Das / New Delhi February 4, 2011, 0:42 IST

I was late coming into his life but, very quickly, he became my Guru, teaching
me what strategic issues are, what foreign policy can achieve, what building
India in its totality meant, what partnerships could bring to the table for India
and others, and so on.

His last calls to me, last week, on the same morning and
evening, were about President Obama’s State of the
Union address, his reference to the ‘Sputnik’ moment and
the relevance of India and USA working together to
achieve this. Mr Subrahmanyam’s direction to me was to
work for this, in the US and in India.

My first engagement with ‘Subbu, Sir’, was in a defence

ministry committee, on the proposal for a National Defence
University (NDU). He took our group through the process of understanding its
role and importance with reference to other similar institutions in USA and
China. And, as his health problems started, leading to General Satish Nambiar
standing in for him, the report made a clear case for setting up the NDU.
Ironically, the Government has taken years and years to take the NDU forward
but a couple of days ago, there was a news item that land in Haryana has been
identified for the proposed NDU. It should be dedicated to Subrahmanyam.

A far more intense relationship evolved in 2005/2006 when he led the PM’s
Task Force on ‘US global strategy: Emerging trends and long-term
implications’. Subrahmanyam chaired and led. I was part of his seven-member
team. His leadership was just amazing. He went into history to help each of us
understand US strategy over decades and, then, to discuss and determine
what India’s strategy should be on each key issue — defence, economy and
trade, energy and technology.

The chairman set a tough time deadline, which called for two-day meetings
every two weeks. It was an incredible experience. And, the process included
meeting everyone from whom we could learn and understand on issues relating
to our scope of work. When the report was done, with a great deal of personal
dictation by him, we had the privilege to make a presentation to the PM and his
team of senior officials for nearly two hours. Much of what has happened in
Indo-US relations flows from the thoughts and ideas of Mr Subrahmanyam.

Another area he influenced enormously was the whole process of Track-2

Dialogue, even though he, personally, could only personally participate once in
Jaipur. He taught us the value of Track-2, the ability to speak freely, to listen to
equally frank views on India from our counterparts, and the impact of all of this
on building mutual, shared, understanding.

In discussing Indo-US defence cooperation, which he felt was extremely

important now and in the future, he once famously referred to the inglorious
past when “the Americans would not give India even a screw”! This shook up
everyone at the Dialogue, as he delved into his phenomenal memory to share
anecdotes and true stories of past experiences.

Over the years, Mr Subrahmanyam came to teach us, more and more, of the
vital importance of India being strong, based on two pillars. Economic strength
and military/defence strength. And, this strength was crucial to earn global
respect and credibility. A weak India was not good for India or the world. But, a
strong, balanced, mature, centrist India, a non-threatening India, was critical. A
simple message, yet to be implemented with the seriousness it deserves.

He believed, as I understood him, that India must not be isolated. India must
work in partnership. And, a key partnership in his view was with the US,
because of India’s own national interest. Defence, economy, energy and
technology agendas of India always led to the USA. This message is being
followed, slowly but steadily.

A man with a towering mind. A deep sense of history, as well as of the future. A
meticulous person. A ‘national’ as well as ‘international’ man. Of high integrity

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and strong purpose. He is living proof that you can contribute from outside
government to shaping a nation’s thinking, policies and action. I salute Mr K
Subrahmanyam, a man with a national agenda and no private agenda.

The writer is former Chief Mentor, CII

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Engaging Security
Posted By Paul Sonne On June 15, 2005 @ 12:00 pm In Asia & Australia,Issue 4.3,Politics & Society,World Politics | Comments
Disabled

Priyanjali Malik

P.R. Kumaraswamy, ed.

Security Beyond Survival: Essays for K. Subrahmanyam
Sage, 2004
281 pages
ISBN 0761932674

In looking at strategic debates within India, perhaps the more surprising fact is not that K. Subrahmanyam actually speaks
the language of ‘national interest’ in a land where such voices tend to be drowned out by declamations of ‘Gandhian’ and
‘Nehruvian’ ideas, but that his ideas are still considered unrepresentative even as India tries to carve out a position of global
influence for itself. It’s not for lack of effort, however. Though still a controversial figure, Subrahmanyam is widely
acknowledged as the doyen of Indian strategic thinking. 1 is collection, brought out on the occasion of his 75th birthday,
acknowledges his efforts at pushing the Indian elite (who presume to lead debates on matters of pressing concern to the
country) to engage with Indian security. Until the late 1960s, strategic studies in India was a backwater, unfrequented by
the intelligentsia who tended instead to focus more on economics and development, perhaps a justifiable bias given the
economic realities on the subcontinent at the time. It was also the product of the postcolonial country’s recent history, where
security, until just two decades earlier, had been defined in terms of gaining independence. After 1947, parliamentarians
found themselves not only having to change course from fighting against the British to running the country, but they also had
to come up with foreign and security policies for an independent India (whose borders did not conform to the state whose
independence they had fought for). This task was left to India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Meanwhile
parliamentarians, with the help of the Indian intelligentsia, set about putting in place an administrative machinery for the
new country, either by adapting old colonial structures, or creating new ones.

In hindsight, the lack of serious engagement with strategic matters at the time is breathtaking. By then, India had fought
three wars with its two largest neighbours and was soon to be embroiled in a fourth. China, arguably the source of greatest
Indian insecurities at the time, had slipped into the nuclear club sanctified by the conclusion in 1968 of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. The level of debate in response to these developments was rudimentary at best; one parliamentarian, Nath Pai, was
finally driven to remark in Parliament after the first Chinese nuclear test that ‘[i]nstead of making a very dispassionate and
calm assessment of the Chinese possession of this dangerous, deadly weapon, we have been indulging once again in
sentimental platitudes, confusing the whole issue, and unnecessarily dragging [into the debate] Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru, and, for good measure, Lord Buddha and Samrat Ashoka’. 1 In many ways, India was now paying the
price for excessive dependence on Nehru: under his guidance, certainly up to the China débâcle, India’s defence policy was
its foreign policy. Nehru, as foreign minister, had largely crafted both. After his death and especially in the wake of China’s
nuclearisation, Parliament found itself forced to tread hitherto unfamiliar territory. Against this backdrop, after taking over
as Director of the government-funded Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) in 1968 (a post he held until 1972,
and then again from 1980 until his retirement from the Indian Administrative Service in 1987), it took some time for
Subrahmanyam to stir things up. In fact, it was not until the 1990s that a coherent debate on Indian security began to take
shape. In many ways, therefore, this book is a fitting tribute to a man who has worked tirelessly to jolt Indians out of their
customary strategic somnolence to engage with the nitty-gritty of defending ‘India’.

Security Beyond Survival is a collection of eleven essays written by people who have interacted with Subrahmanyam over
the years and who to varying degrees share his interest in seeing a proper debate on security take root and flourish in the
subcontinent. The topics covered are matters on which Subrahmanyam has written on and spoken of extensively — from the
broad overview of Indian security down to the fine details of India’s relationships with her neighbours. The only exception,
perhaps, is the last essay, ‘A Rather Personal Biography’, by his son Sanjay. In providing a brief sketch of the man behind
the reams of newsprint that bear his by-line, along with the shelves of books that have been written, co-authored or edited
by him (the collection also contains a ‘select bibliography’ of Subrahmanyam’s work which alone runs to eleven pages), this
essay anchors the discussion in the person behind the name, thereby bringing the review round full-circle: this is a debate
carried out by individuals as individuals. And Subrahmanyam, to his credit, has always encouraged a multiplicity of voices,
even if the cacophony brings forth those who do not agree with him. Even when disagreements threaten to derail consensus
— as it was feared might be the case when the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which was tasked with producing a
draft nuclear doctrine after India’s nuclear tests of 1998, began its work with Subrahmanyam managing a group of thirty
individuals and several large egos — he remained firm that individual opinions should not be obliterated in the need for
conformity or unanimity. 1 is is as it should be. India is too large and diverse a country for any single view-point to pretend
to speak for the whole population, and if there is one area where this collection fails the person it honours, it is in not
providing a discordant view from a scholar who disagrees with him. It would not diminish Subrahmanyam’s contribution to
Indian strategic thinking; in fact, it would be a testimonial to the reach of his work.

Subrahmanyam himself has spoken of the need for a healthy debate in India which can produce an informed, long-term
approach to strategic matters. Not only has there not been a single White Paper on defence in the country, but the one and
only public report on defence matters — the Kargil Review Committee Report — has not been formally discussed in
Parliament, despite the fact that the report highlights an almost total intelligence failure and emphasises the urgent need for
India to engage with the implications of its and Pakistan’s overt nuclear postures after their nuclear tests of 1998. As
Subrahmanyam remarks in exasperation, the country’s indifference to examining defence in any meaningful way is a means
of ‘abdicating responsibility’ for supporting the armed forces in defending the nation. 2 These gaps are most visible in the
area of long-term policy setting, which has fallen victim to the lack of any institutionalised forum for a thorough examination
of India’s interests and goals in the medium and long term. One contributor, D. Shyam Babu, goes so far as to distinguish
between ‘long-term policy’ and ‘long-term thinking’ (in ‘National Security Council: Yet Another Ad Hoc Move?’), admitting
that there has been little of the former in the Indian approach to national security. And long-term thinking can easily slip into
a policy of postponing difficult decisions. India’s approach to nuclear policy is especially apt in this regard: the ‘option’ that
existed between 1968 and 1998 was for some the embodiment of long-term thinking; harsher critics have of course referred
to the ‘option’ as the absence of any policy, sheltered behind the comfortable language of restraint which allowed a
postponement of any final decision on a commitment to either permanent abstention or nuclearisation.

This lack of meaningful engagement with security is reflected at the institutional and academic level. As P.R. Kumaraswamy
points out in his article, ‘National Security: A Critique’, there is a serious dearth of independently- funded think-tanks in India
which can be relied on to provide an ‘outside’ view to balance government thinking; most of the non-official centres and

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institutes that focus on strategic affairs depend to some extent on state funding and tend, however reluctantly, to get
co-opted into the system. That Subrahmanyam pushed the limits of the system from the inside is no guarantee that those
who follow in his footsteps will be similarly able to jog government thinking out of its comfortable and customary grooves.

In a way, Kumaraswamy throws down the gauntlet in his opening article when he laments the paucity of informed analysis in
the wider strategic debate in India. For some Indians it is enough that India survives. If India is to become more than an
ever ‘emerging’ power, or is to make the transition from a regional power to a global one, it will only do so on the back of a
long-term engagement with security and with India’s global position as it is and not as Indians wish it to be. Yet any synergy
that might develop between, on the one hand, the government and bureaucracy who shape and implement policy, and on
the other, academia and the attentive public who critique these issues, is completely undermined by a culture of secrecy that
dominates South Block (the building that houses the Ministries of Defence, External Aff airs and the Prime Minister’s Office);
the resulting academic efforts remain sadly ‘uninspired’ at best. As he remarks, ‘[d]espite the prolonged nuclear debate,
proliferation of scholars and unending stream of writings, two of the classic works on India’s nuclear policy have been written
by Western scholars’. And it is true that scholars of India’s past, present and future nuclear posture would be well advised if
pointed in the direction of George Perkovich’s India’s Nuclear Bomb and Ashley Tellis’s India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture:
Between Recessed Deterrence and Ready Arsenal in furthering their understanding.

This points to a conundrum: there is evidently, as Kumaraswamy observes, a reasonable amount of discussion on some
strategic topics. Yet bringing a lot of musicians together and instructing them to ‘play something’ will not produce a
symphony. There is a lack of focus in Indian debates on security. As Subrahmanyam explains, in the three or four years
after the ‘Tehelka’ scandal (on defence procurement) broke, much has been written about ‘Tehelka’ and the political
implications of the story, but very little has actually been discussed about the defence-related ramifications of a sting that
was meant to probe kick-backs in defence deals. 3 This is nothing new in India. When the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT) was being negotiated in the mid-1990s, several rainforests-worth of newsprint were devoted to big power politics
being played out in Geneva, with very little space dedicated to the strategic implications of a treaty that would potentially
seriously undermine India’s nuclear ‘option’ by forever denying it the freedom to test a nuclear device. Perhaps if Indians sat
down to discuss the implications of a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT), which the Vajpayee government promised to
negotiate after the 1998 tests, and which is being worked out at the Conference on Disarmament at the moment, there
might be grounds for hope that the Indian strategic debate is finally coming of age.

Quite apart from not pushing the government on matters of defence as they occur, there is also a curious acceptance of the
government’s insistence on secrecy. The armed forces have been calling for a declassification of the histories of the 1962,
1965 and 1971 wars, along with the records of the Indian Peacekeeping Force to Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. These requests
have met with a stony silence, which is echoed by the complete disinterest that the strategic community displays in these
matters. This is completely baffling: are the Indian armed forces expected to learn from the military histories of other
nations which draw on material that has been declassified after a suitable quarantine period? Perhaps a start can be made in
returning periodically to the war with China to examine what went wrong. Rajesh Rajagopalan’s essay, ‘Re-examining the
“Forward Policy”’, takes a tentative step in this direction by opening the debate on whether India’s ‘forward policy’ of the
early 1960s was a provocative or defensive measure. The essay raises several questions, especially in challenging the
almost accepted version that India was caught completely unawares by the Chinese attack in October 1962, when in fact
New Delhi had been preparing (albeit weakly) to defend against Chinese incursions along the border from 1958, after Indian
intelligence reported on a Chinese road in Aksai Chin in the Western Sector of the disputed border. Yet, without access to
intelligence reports and the subsequent inquiries into the failures of the war, we will never be able to look at the full picture.
Forty years after the event, the need for such complete secrecy over this war is no longer defensible; nor, indeed, is the
Indian public’s acquiescence in this veil of impenetrability. Indeed, Rajagopalan remarks without the slightest trace of irony
that until the Chinese archives are opened up we may never know what motivated the Chinese to attack in 1962 instead of
diplomatically asserting their claim to the territory earlier, in response to Indian maps showing the disputed territories as
Indian. Considering the barriers to scholarly research that keep scholars out of the Indian archives, it might be more fruitful
to look within our own records to see what went wrong when the warning signs were apparently visible for all to see.

Of course, the secrecy that shrouds India’s military history pales into the limpid light of day in comparison with the
covertness that marks India’s nuclear policy. It is a measure of the complete lack of information that surrounds all matters
nuclear that India’s nuclear tests were immediately denounced by critics as a tactic by the BJP to bolster their coalition unity
and win further electoral support. In fact, in his first columns after the tests, Subrahmanyam wrote at length about how the
nuclear tests of 1998 were the cumulative product of several governments’ work, going all the way back to the nuclear
estate established by Jawaharlal Nehru. (It is astonishing that Indians had apparently forgotten that the country had actually
crossed a fairly significant technological and military line in 1974 when it tested its first atomic device, the semantics of
calling it a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ notwithstanding.) Not much has changed since May 1998 as far as the level of
informed debate on nuclear policies is concerned, but one is not sure whether this has more to do with apathy on the part of
the Indian public and strategic community, or if this reflects a continuation of the policy of secrecy by the state, or indeed, is
a product of both factors.

Unfortunately, this collection does not really further this debate. There is one article on nuclear risk-reduction by Michael
Krepon, but it leaves one feeling slightly cheated since he spends over half the article discussing the Cold War before
admitting that the dynamics in South Asia will probably be very different from those that prevailed in the West. However,
Krepon does open up the debate in pointing out that the triangular relationship of China, India and Pakistan will make it
immeasurably more difficult to arrive at some sort of modus vivendi. Furthermore, managing the nuclear relationship will
require a long-term engagement with confidence-building measures that cannot be limited to grand pronouncements and
symbolic measures designed to ‘assuage foreign audiences that leaders in South Asia are capable of managing their
differences’. It requires a commitment to staying the course and fully understanding the implications of building – and
destroying – bridges of trust between the three countries. A large part of the impetus for creating these links will of course
have to come from the attentive publics of these states; but for that, there needs to be an informed debate on nuclear
issues. As the Kargil Review Committee Report (which was largely written by Subrahmanyam) and a subsequent internal
assessment by the Army revealed (parts of this were leaked to the newsweekly Outlook), the Kargil encounter was the
result of several failures, the most prominent amongst which were a colossal intelligence break-down and the sense of
complacency that overt nuclearisation would guarantee a nuclear peace in the subcontinent. 4 Indeed the current level of
complacency, disinterest even, over India’s nuclear policies is worrying to say the least. History should not show that the
debate on India’s nuclear policy was just about ‘going nuclear’; now that the rubicon has been crossed, it is imperative that
India’s strategic community engage meaningfully and in a sustained fashion with the implications of this development.

In the end, this is a book about strategic issues, and as such, it does continue and fuel the debate. Perhaps the biggest
tribute to Subrahmanyam’s infl uence and his legacy lies in the fact that the contributors to this volume span the globe,
attesting to his having reached out to a wide audience. Even if, as Selig Harrison remarks (in ‘KS: A Personal Impression’),
Subrahmanyam’s candidness tended to unsettle Americans, who are more comfortable with the usual polite obfuscations of
most Indian diplomats, in the end, his refusal to couch his understanding of India’s ‘national interest’ in anything but the
terms of realpolitik forced them to engage with this man who never believed in anything but plain-speaking. It’s not a bad
legacy to reflect on.

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Priyanjali Malik is a DPhil student at Merton College, Oxford, writing her dissertation on the debate over India’s nuclear
policy in the 1990s. Prior to this, she worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London after obtaining an
MPhil in International Relations from Balliol College, Oxford, in 2001. She gained her first degree in English Literature from
Princeton University, where she found herself after growing up in Calcutta, India.

Notes
1. Lok Sabha Debates, 3rd Series, 35.6 (23 November 1964).
2. Author’s interview with K. Subrahmanyam, New Delhi, January 2005.
3. Ibid. The ‘Tehelka’ scandal erupted when an on-line newsportal, Tehelka, conducted a sting operation in the latter half of 2000 to expose the payoff s
to politicians in arms deals. In the upheaval that followed, the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, was forced to resign as he too was implicated in
‘Operation West End’. See http://www.tehelka.com/home/20041009/ our_story.htm [1]
4. See, Saikat Dutta, “What’s the Secret?”, Outlook, 28 February, 2005.

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HOOT file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/Farewell to Bomb Mama.htm

Farewell to Bomb Mama

As a team of incurable pacifists, we were naturally wary of the distinguished-looking

editorial consultant who was introduced to us as the father of the Indian bomb. VIDYA
SUBRAHMANIAM on the journalistic side of defence analyst K Subrahmanyam.

Posted Tuesday, Feb 08 18:19:44, 2011

For the movers and shakers of the international security

establishment, he was the last word on Indian strategic thinking. To
his critics, he was the nuclear hawk, who pushed India to get the
bomb, thereby irreversibly overturning the Nehruvian consensus
on disarmament. But to us, a handful of editorial writers who worked
with him in the Times of India (between 1995 and 2003), K
Subrahmanyam was our dear “Bomb Mama”.

As a team of incurable pacifists, we were naturally wary of the

distinguished-looking editorial consultant who was introduced to us
as the father of the Indian bomb. And yet over time, as we
interacted with him, we felt blessed to have him in our midst. His
institutional memory was phenomenal; he could recall dates, time
and events, stretching back to half-a-century and more. But most of
all, we were impressed and touched by Bomb Mama’s humility, his
amazing ability to treat each one of us as equal and his complete
disinterest in personal advancement of any kind.

With Subrahmanyam and the rest of the team placed on opposite

sides, the morning editorial meeting was invariably a riot. But while
he steadfastly held his ground, he was never dismissive of the
counterview, no matter that it came from the junior-most edit writer.
Instead, the counterview would be rebutted in the next day’s
column. Only he knew and we knew that the “critics” he took swipes
at in the column were actually us!

He was on first-name terms with a host of world leaders – a fact we

got to know one day when he casually referred to a conversation
with a certain Henry. Puzzled we asked, “Henry who, Sir?” Kissinger,
he said, as if we were all buddies with Richard Nixon’s Secretary of
State. It didn’t occur to him that not everyone had access to the
world’s who’s who.

Subrahmanyam never missed his deadlines for edits and signed

pieces, though he was severely diabetic and had a crippling heart

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condition. A day after a major heart surgery he sent in an editorial

written from the hospital bed. His hospital trips became more
frequent after he was diagnosed with cancer but he would not let on
that the piece he had sent across was written after a debilitating
chemotherapy session. Bomb Mama wrote in long-hand. Once the
text was so indecipherable that I called him. He was at the hospital
and his glasses had gone missing. I gently admonished him for
writing in this state. His reply was that he saw it as a challenge and a
test of his endurance.

Bomb Mama was a beguiling combination of child-like curiosity and

sagely detachment. He watched indulgently as the younger brood
agonised over designations and the size of their cabins. One summer
day I found him leaning against a desk in the open area, furiously
writing out his edit for the day. His own cabin was occupied by two
young interns who had no idea they had displaced India’s venerated
security guru. To him the fact was of no consequence.

When Subrahmanyam’s blood sugar level fell, he loudly munched his

peppermints regardless of the occasion: it could be a tediously-long
meeting called by the paper~s management or a VVIP "gracing" us
with his visit. He lived simply, South-Indian style, and though
honours and recognitions came to him, he turned down most of
them. He declined the offer of a Padma Vibhushan, and when the
journalist interviewing him - on his reasons for refusing a coveted
State honour - struggled to frame the questions, he sportingly wrote
out the questions and the answers.

Prime Ministers went to his house to meet him. He was the

Chanakya whose counsel was sought. But for us, he was our Bomb
Mama, fiercely attached to the 30-odd jars of pickles that sat atop
his fridge and animatedly discussing the best way to make thayir
sadam (curd rice).

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A Farewell to India's Henry Kissinger - By Rory Medcalf | Foreign Policy file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/Farewell to India's Henry Kissinger.htm

A Farewell to India's Henry Kissinger

K. Subrahmanyam's pragmatic recommendations had a direct bearing on some of New Delhi's most
profound national security decisions of the last half-century.

BY RORY MEDCALF | FEBRUARY 3, 2011

India's most respected guru of strategic and nuclear affairs, K.

Subrahmanyam, passed away on Feb. 2, 2011, at age 82. In his lifetime,
he came to wield a profound global influence that few Indian policy
thinkers can claim. His analysis of India's difficult strategic environment
was repeatedly borne out by events; his pragmatic recommendations had
a direct bearing on some of New Delhi's most profound national security
decisions of the last half-century.

Subrahmanyam's career as scholar, advisor to governments, and

policymaker spanned the pivotal six decades from India's independence
to its emergence as a major power. And his forging of a realist worldview
in the nation of Gandhi and Nehru -- and his ability to make his ideas
consistent with their thoughts -- was central to that development. He was
an early and controversial advocate of New Delhi developing an atomic bomb, although he also advised the
government to shackle it with an explicit policy of "no first use" -- in both cases, his advice won the day.
Although he was labeled a nuclear hawk in the 1970s and 1980s, both in the domestic press and in international
nonproliferation circles, he later surprised many by becoming in recent years India's most prominent voice in
support of the campaign for a nuclear-weapon-free world championed by U.S. elder statesmen Henry Kissinger,
George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn. But this position was actually consistent with his larger goal -- for
India to work credibly on the global stage. In this sense, to be a player in the anti-nuclear game, it helped to have
actually achieved building the bomb.

Age did not ossify his thinking. Once a pointed Cold War critic of U.S. policy, Subrahmanyam strove successfully
in his later years to convince skeptical compatriots that rapprochment with Washington -- underpinned by the
historic 2010 U.S.-India civil nuclear deal -- would be a great victory for India's national interest. In one of his
final media interviews, he defined this partnership of democracies as a natural way to counter both
authoritarianism and Islamist extremism. The United States, he said, "does not have much of an option but to
make India its leading partner."

Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam arrived in New Delhi from his southern home state of Tamil Nadu in 1951. He

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was then a young recruit to the elite Indian Administrative Service, a chemist with a piercing intellect who had
achieved top scores in the highly competitive national civil service examination. After the 1962 border war with
China -- a humiliation for Nehru's India -- and the shock of Beijing's subsequent nuclear tests, the young
Subrahmanyam sharpened his interest in security issues. By 1966, as a midranking defense official, he had
become a player in an informal committee on India's nuclear policy options, and two years later, he was
appointed to head a new think tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, meant to fill what was then a
glaring gap in Indian security research and policy innovation.

From this post, Subrahmanyam made a name for himself with bold statements to India's civilian and military
establishment. He warned, for instance, about Indian military unpreparedness before what became the 1971
conflict with Pakistan and -- as Indians proudly call it -- the "liberation" of Bangladesh. But his most forceful
foray into India's hesitant national security debate was his advocacy of nuclear weapons. In his landmark study,
India's Nuclear Bomb, George Perkovich notes that in 1970 -- the year of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty -- Subrahmanyam openly called for an Indian nuclear deterrent against possible future coercion by
China. Extraordinary at the time, this view became the official rationale for the 1998 nuclear tests and now can
be assumed to inform New Delhi's strategic policy as China's rise continues apace.

But, again, it would be grossly unfair to caricature Subrahmanyam as a China hawk. In 2009, he prominently
championed an Indian naval chief who had urged India not to impoverish itself by trying to compete directly
with superior Chinese military might. Instead, both argued, a restrained, affordable strategy of asymmetric
deterrence should suit India just fine.

As he joined the recent global chorus of pro-disarmament realists, this herald of India's atomic arsenal changed
his focus, though not his fundamental thinking. I knew him through his later work on nuclear abolition,
including his support for a revival of Rajiv Gandhi's 1988 global disarmament plan, and I recall him arguing
over lunch at his beloved India International Centre a few years ago that interdependence was helping render
large-scale war between major countries obsolete. Instead, there was a new danger: nuclear terrorism.
Subrahmanyam had once claimed to be comfortable with Pakistan's nukes, as a stabilizing tool of mutual
deterrence, but it seems that the threat of atomic jihad was a consequence nobody in 1970 could foresee.

He also expanded upon a long-overlooked part of his own intellectual mantra: Nuclear weapons were not for
fighting. Indeed, he argued, the case for nuclear abolition could be advanced by establishing dialogue between
militaries, in which they would come to agree on the "unfightability" of nuclear war. One suspects he had a hard
time selling this idea to his interlocutors in Pakistan, a country that sees its own nuclear armory as a weapon
designed to balance and deter India's stronger conventional forces.

In any case, the most obvious shift in Subrahmanyam's outlook came with his approval of Washington's
embrace of New Delhi as a strategic partner during the George W. Bush's administration. Once the wheels began
moving on the U.S.-India nuclear deal in 2005, there was suddenly no more need to speak of "nonproliferation
ayatollahs" enforcing "nuclear apartheid" -- terms Subrahmanyam, incidentally, is said to have coined.

There was, of course, much more to his career. He served as chairman of India's Joint Intelligence Committee
and held several senior bureaucratic positions, responsible at various times for defense production and for his
home state of Tamil Nadu. He had a second stint as director of IDSA in the 1980s, was a visiting professor at

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Cambridge University, and held senior editorial roles in the Indian press. Internationally, he served on
multilateral study groups and was a prominent figure in the Pugwash movement against nuclear weapons and
warfare.

After a Pakistani incursion at Kargil led to war in 1999, Subrahmanyam headed a wide-ranging review
committee into preventing future such security breaches. It called for major reforms to India's defense and
intelligence apparatus -- some of them eventually implemented. And as convener of a National Security Advisory
Board, he saw his thinking on a restrained nuclear posture reflected in India's draft nuclear doctrine -- much of
it incorporated into formal policy in 2003.

All the while, his work was informed by a deep sense of modern-day dharma. Accolades and wealth were not his
goals. His ethos was democratic and egalitarian. Already long retired from formal government service, he is
reported to have declined a national honor in 1999 on the grounds that journalists and bureaucrats should not
accept such awards, lest it affect their impartiality. Although his official roles were mostly in service of Congress
Party governments, he commanded respect across India's political spectrum.

Subbu, as he was affectionately known, will be mourned by generations of Indian officials and strategists. Many
knew him personally as a mentor. He will be remembered as the grandfather of Indian foreign-policy realism.
And however history may judge his ideas, his influence, intelligence, and sense of duty are beyond question. The
emerging India needs more like him.

Save big when you subscribe to FP.

Rory Medcalf is program director for international security at the Australia-based

Lowy Institute for International Policy.

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Friends, admirers remember Subrahmanyam

Express news service Posted online: Sun Feb 13 2011, 01:41 hrs
New Delhi : K Subrahmaniyam, India’s best known strategic expert who died earlier this month, was on Saturday
fondly remembered by friends and colleagues who recounted how he was a single-man thinktank — and a
formidable one at that — and how his thoughts and writings made definitive impacts on the country’s strategic
policies.

At a memorial service that was attended by a large number of associates and admirers, speakers recalled his life
and services and how he was the “strategic guru” at a time when the country had none else.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, retired diplomat G Parthasarathy,
journalists Shekhar Gupta and Inder Malhotra, and Air Commodore Jasjit Singh were some of the people present at
the meeting.

Menon also read out a message from the Prime Minister in which Manmohan Singh described Subrahmanyam as a
dear friend and close advisor. The Prime Minister said he always looked forward Subrahmanyam’s views on
security-related matters.

Describing him as a man of great principles, Jasjit Singh said the four years he had spent with Subrahmanyam at the
Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) had altered the course of his life. Subrahmanyam was the man
who had built IDSA over the years, heading it between 1966 and 1975 and returning as director again in 1980. And
yet, when he was required to state which institution he was associated with, while accepting an appointment as
Nehru Fellow at Cambridge, he had sought permission from Jasjit Singh, his successor at IDSA, to name IDSA as
his institute. Singh said he had told Subrahmanyam that the entire IDSA will feel let down if he didn’t.

Retired diplomat G Parthasarathy, who has had family ties with Subrahmanyam for decades, said the the best thing
about Subrahmanyam was that he always encouraged an independent viewpoint and healthy debates. Parthasarathy
said this was reflected in Subrahmanyam’s family and recalled how he had once visited the family home when
Subrahmanyam was engaged in a fierce debate with his grandson. “I felt odd to have stepped in to a family
argument but I was told this is an everyday affair in the household,” he said.

Menon said he had acquired great respect for Subrahmanyam in the very first interaction with him way back in 1972.
He said after delivering a lecture on why it was crucial for India not to cut its defence budget, Subrahmanyam had
patiently heard him, then a 23-year-old, currently a completely opposite argument.

Editor-in-chief of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta said he had never been formally associated with him in any
capacity but recalled how, because of his own passion about defence related issues, he had grown up reading
Subrahmanyam’s articles hidden in his textbooks. “In the eighties, Subrahmanyam was the one who was formulating
strategic policies, implementing it and the only one writing about it,” he said, adding that the remarkable thing about
him was his ability to keep secrets. Subrahmanyam was a columnist with The Sunday Express.

Subrahmanyam’s son, Sanjay said his father was not an academic but an intellectual. “He would always encourage
us to think and test us. We could sometimes out-fact him but never out-argue him,” he said.

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HindustanTimes-Print file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/A gentleman Brahmin.htm

Shiv Visvanathan, Hindustan Times

February 06, 2011

First Published: 22:12 IST(6/2/2011)

Last Updated: 22:14 IST(6/2/2011)

A gentleman Brahmin
It's a strange paradox of life that sometimes when someone who agrees with you dies, you shrug in sadness, but when an opponent you have
disagreed with passes away, you want to salute him. For someone raised in the alternative tradition of pluralism and peace, K Subrahmanyam was
the opponent. He literally founded defence studies in India, differentiated it from international relations, gave it an identity and a different
competence.

I never knew him but I loved hearing stories about him from colleagues, relatives and friends. One was from an Indian Civil Service officer in my
college days. The gentleman, fondly called 'Annaji', had retired from service and was still known for his alertness and curiosity. One day, almost
nostalgically, he said, "Wonder what happened to a young man I knew. He did chemistry I think. Subbu. He is the one to watch. He will go far." I
think the comments were prescient because Subrahmanyam became one of the great policy intellectuals of our era.

When one mentions the word policy intellectual, one thinks of PC Mahalanobis, Sukhamoy Chakravarti, Pitamber Pant or MS Swaminathan.
Subrahmanyam stands tall even in this tribe. He took the idea of defence and rescued it from illiteracy and panic after the 1962 China defeat.

At that time, I worked at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), which was vociferous in its critique of him. My senior colleagues
tried to create a sociological picture of him. They argued he was like all displaced Tamil Brahmins: having no power in Chennai, the Tamil Brahmin
was the source of a hawkish ideology. As a generalisation, it was true, even insightful. But Subrahmanyam, for all his nationalism, escaped such
stereotypes. Like my senior colleagues at the CSDS such as Rajni Kothari, Ashis Nandy and Giri Deshingkar, KS understood power. And like them,
he was never seduced by power. But the former critiqued policy, KS made it. Subrahmanyam stood at the centre of power as an immaculate
maverick. He was never tempted by it. He never fetishised it. He could dissent with equal ease as he did during the Emergency.

He could stand up quietly for his ideas. In that sense, he was a presence without being a performance. He was a strategist in all senses, but tactical
enough to realise when change was essential. He was a patriot who lived out the travails of the Indian Nation-State at its most vulnerable moments.
He was neither overtly left or right. What made him maddening was that he was utterly matter of fact about it. He played caretaker and trustee of
defence policy and created, at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), the nursery for independent and autonomous ideas about
defence. He was the ideal policy intellectual as a role model, and yet unique enough to deny imitations.

My former colleague and a leading China hand, the late Giri Deshingkar, was constructed as an intellectual foil to

KS. Yet, two stories I heard from Giri best capture KS. Giri was a creature of habit. He worked hard the whole day needing his drink at six in the
evening. One day I saw him hurrying out at five. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Subbu's son is getting married I have to be there," adding,
"Subbu, he is one of us." It was a tribute to an adversary as a friend.

On August 24, 1984, the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Lahore and onward to Dubai. I walked into Giri's corner room soon after and found
him reading Subrahmanyam's hijack diaries marking its key points. "What a man," said Giri. "He gets hijacked and produces a meticulous diary
while everyone produces complaints. It's the Brahmin in him... Subbu was never an opportunist. But look at the opportunism of the man. He sees the
hijack as a learning experience!"

Deshingkar saw 'KS the Brahmin' as a hero. This was a sense of the Brahminic not as a caste orientation or in the sense of ritual or status. It was the
Brahmin as advisor to kings: learned, scholarly, true to the mandarin code, yet distant from the seduction of power, austere, productive almost as a
form of everyday discipline, prolific beyond 60 where the word retirement was an epithet for lesser mortals.

I must confess that for a peacenik and an anti-nuclear activist like me, Subrahmanyam was anathema. I felt the KS who talked peace had no sense
of peace movements. I could not understand his pro-nuclear stand and my ambivalence to the man stemmed from this. I felt he was separating the
ethical and the tactical. I guess he probably felt there was a touch of romance about people like me. He was probably more aware of India's
vulnerability in an age that produced the genocidal impulse of a Kissinger or the epidemic of terrorism. Yet KS was always the hawk who advised
nuclear restraint; a discourse that sees the Nation-State as vulnerable allows little focus for civil society views of vulnerability.

I remember during the heyday of the United Nations University projects on militarisation and demilitarisation, Rajni Kothari asked me to take over
the little magazine on militarisation and demilitarisation in Asia. He jokingly added that he was setting up one 'Tam-Brahm' to fight another. There
was no prejudice in what Kothari said. It was a challenge to civil society views of peace to meet the standards of integrity that KS had set. Even in
his absence, he was a presence. Even as an opponent, KS almost became the muse.

KS died fighting cancer. I am sure if he had time he might have produced a systematic book on that too. But I guess the nation kept him absorbed.
He towered over other hawks because of his vision and his professionalism. Yet deep down he represented a style of Brahmin scholar-bureaucrats.
One will always miss him for the austerity, the inventiveness and the integrity he brought to public life.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist. The views expressed by the author are personal.

file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/A%20gentleman%20Brahmin.htmhttp://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/659334.aspx
© Copyright 2010 Hindustan Times

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He dared to break down silos, change national security

discourse
C. Raja Mohan Posted online: Thu Feb 03 2011, 04:57 hrs
New Delhi : K Subrahmanyam, who shaped India’s national security polices for more than four decades, passed
away here today. He was 82.

Subrahmanyam advised all prime ministers starting from Indira Gandhi on foreign and defence policies and had a
decisive impact on India’s nuclear strategy and national security management. Above all, he got India to appreciate
the logic of power in international affairs.

As he boldly battled cancer in recent years, he summoned his innermost energies to persist in the promotion of
critical thinking about India’s national security. He was determined to make a difference until the very last.

As India rises on the world stage, Subrahmanyam’s contribution in getting its security establishment to ponder the
nature of power and its political purpose will long outlast him.

A relentless advocate of a powerful India, he was also strikingly detached from power and its many manifestations in
the Delhi Durbar.

Unwilling to be co-opted by the allures of office and privilege, he spoke the truth to power, often risking his
owncareer advancement.

His refusal to implement the draconian Emergency laws as Tamil Nadu’s Home Secretary in the mid-1970s
underlined his strong sense of right and wrong.

In turning down the Padma Bhushan award some years ago, Subrahmanyam was affirming an unfailing capacity to
distinguish between the ephemeral and the enduring.

His greatest reward was in schooling three generations of bureaucrats and politicians, diplomats and journalists,
scholars and spies in thinking through the challenges of national security and in helping to construct contemporary
India’s strategic community.

As a member of the Indian Administrative Service, which he joined in 1951, Subrahmanyam held many positions in
the Indian establishment.

These included the head of the Kargil Review Committee, He dared to break down silos, change national security
discourse Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Secretary Defence Production, Convener of the first
National Security Advisory Board, and Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

His extraordinary influence on policy, however, did not derive from the bureaucratic positions he held. It came from
the power of his intellect, the courage of his convictions, and a rare capacity to mobilise elite opinion.

Some of his peers used to describe Subrahmanyam as ‘Swayambhu’. With an intellect that was self-manifest, he did
not need an official position make an impact on national security policy.

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He was unaffected by the many political and ideological labels that were hurled at him so very often. His unremitting
focus was on defining and promoting India’s national interest.

Because he understood the power of ideas, he was always ready to break the barriers of conventional wisdom.
Subrahmanyam will be long remembered for rescuing the Indian world view from the intellectual confusion that
reigned in Delhi after the death of Nehru. He injected much needed realism into India’s world view since the
mid-1960s.

If he was utterly austere, totally upright and completely detached in his persona, Subrahmanyam was forbiddingly
intense in any intellectual engagement.

As he became the unofficial intellectual spokesman for India’s policies in the 1970s and 1980s, his foreign
interlocutors were often unnerved by his ferocious debating style.

Those who got to know him a little better figured out that there was nothing personal in his policy contestations. All
that mattered to him was the advancement of India’s interests. No wonder he leaves a large number of admirers
around the world.

Just as he was prepared to question the opinions of his seniors, Subrahmanyam was ready to engage his
junior-most colleagues in any argument.

A child-like curiosity and openness to new ideas never deserted him. They made him young at heart until the very
end of his life.

Subrahmanyam always insisted that real power was not about holding office, but affecting change — in the policies
and mindsets of the Indian system. Nowhere was this more evident than in India’s nuclear thinking that he changed
single-handedly.

Stepping into the great Indian nuclear debate after China’s first nuclear test in 1964, Subrahmanyam mounted a
successful campaign to prevent India from signing away its nuclear weapon option by joining the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Calling atomic weapons the “currency of international power”, he became the foremost proponent of India exercising
its nuclear option.

Yet, he did not turn nuclear weapons into a fetish. When Rajiv Gandhi ordered the building of nuclear weapons in the
late 1980s, Subrahmanyam was instrumental in drawing up a strategy of restraint.

He emphasised the irrelevance of American and Soviet nuclear doctrines and insisted that India must focus on
building a limited but credible deterrent.

One of his greatest passions was the reform of India’s security sector. His consistent advocacy resulted in the
creation of the National Security Council system in 1998.

While many of his contemporaries tended to repeat the old foreign policy mantra after the Cold War, Subrahmanyam
sought to recalibrate India’s premises to the changed international context.

A strident critic of US policies during the Cold War, Subrahmanyam was the first to see the opportunity to build a
new partnership with the United States in the last two decades.

His enthusiastic support for the controversial civil nuclear initiative during 2005-08, was critical in tilting the balance in
favour of the Indo-US deal.

He transformed India’s national security discourse by breaking down the separate silos that once dominated the
landscape. When he started writing on foreign and defence policies in the 1960s as the Director of IDSA, he
confronted resistance from many official quarters.

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The Foreign Office, the Defence Ministry and the Service headquarters were all outraged by the young IAS officer’s
temerity to write on subjects that were considered beyond public discourse.

If academia was irritated at a civil servant’s foray into the study of war and peace, it was appalled at
Subrahmanyam’s prolific writing for the popular press.

The persistent effort to create a strategic community, an unending quest for an efficient national security policy, and
the rich imagination of a strategy to claim India’s rightful place in the world, make Subrahmanyam’s intellectual legacy
a lasting and formidable one.

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Style: Size: Width: More

India’s Strategic Trajectory in a Life

By Sadanand Dhume

February 9, 2011, 9:25 am

K. Subrahmanyam (1929-2011), widely regarded as the founder of strategic studies in India, died in New Delhi last week. Predictably, his passing has attracted a
spate of obituaries, most of which emphasize his role as the first head of New Delhi’s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, his early espousal of India’s nuclear deterrent, and his impact on a
younger generation of foreign and defense policy thinkers. Two of the best are by C. Raja Mohan, the most highly regarded Indian foreign policy expert of his generation, and Rory Medcalf of the Lowy
Institute in Sydney.

Subrahmanyam’s life also encapsulates just how far the U.S.-India relationship has come over the past 20 years. For decades, Subrahmanyam’s espousal of nuclear weapons—albeit in small numbers,
as a minimal deterrent—and sympathy for India’s close ties with the Soviet Union made him the archetypal Indian Cold Warrior. But by the end of his life Subrahmanyam was one of the most articulate
and influential voices in New Delhi arguing for a closer relationship with Washington based on a shared interest in combating the “challenges of jihadism as well as one-party authoritarianism which
denies pluralism.”

The U.S.-India relationship still has some way to go before the rhetoric about it matches reality, but Subrahmanyam’s life is nonetheless a reminder of how far the two countries have come.

Image by OutlookIndia.com.

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HindustanTimes-Print file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/K. Subrahmanyam (1929-2011)- the dean of...

HTC, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, February 02, 2011

First Published: 21:53 IST(2/2/2011)

Last Updated: 00:26 IST(3/2/2011)

K. Subrahmanyam (1929-2011)- the dean of Indian strategy

K Subrahmanyam, a man often referred to as the dean of Indian strategy, passed away on Wednesday.

No other individual was so strongly identified, at home and abroad, as the face of Indian foreign and defence policy. In the days when India was
seen as an economic basketcase and a marginal player in the international system, Subrahmanyam spoke and wrote for years on the need for India
to think and act like a great power.

It must have been a matter of pleasure that in the last years of his life that the economy began to show an ability to match his vision.

Says Ambassador Arundhati Ghose, “While we looked only at present crises, Subbu pushed people to think strategically. He saw ahead of most of
us and had an incredible ability to see forward.”

He is best known for his advocacy of an Indian nuclear deterrent going back to years when this was a minority position in the country.

Subrahmanyam was a thoughtful nationalist. He pointed out the dangers of signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but urged India keep its
nuclear stockpile small. He knew stability required Pakistan to develop its own nuclear weapons, but successfully made the case for India to adopt
a no-first use policy.

Subrahmanyam sought to construct security policies for India that were crafted to fit the strategic environment India faced. An Indian strategy could
not be based on aping the West or following ideologies of third world. And it had to be based on existing, not past realities. Soviet relationship made
sense during Cold War, he argued. A strong US link was logical after it.

Because Subrahmanyam insisted strategy had to be all about a careful weighing of India’s interests, he was prepared to debate and explain his point
of view with anyone. Says professor Amitabh Mattoo of Jawaharlal Nehru University, “He had all the qualities of a great guru. He was completely
egalitarian, willing to explain his case and hear you out.”

He served the state in many different varieties as an IAS officer, including secretary defence production and chairman of the joint intelligence
committee. Later, he saw himself as a journalist and public speaker on India’s foreign and defence policy, identifying himself with civil society so
strongly he declined a Padma Bhushan in 1999.

His reputation was such that in the 1984 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight to Lahore, the hijackers tried to argue during their trial that
Subrahmanyam’s presence on the aircraft proved New Delhi had engineered the whole thing so he could “examine Pakistan’s nuclear installations.”

file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/K.%20Subrahmanyam%20(1929-2011)-%20the%20dean%20of%20Indian%20strategy.htmhttp:
//www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/657741.aspx
© Copyright 2010 Hindustan Times

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K. Subrahmanyam (1929-2011)
02.03.2011 · Posted in Personal History

In many ways, and for many people, he left an indelible impression.

To those who met him—and to thousands who came to know him through his prolific newspaper columns and regular
television appearances—K. Subrahmanyam was an extraordinary individual. Growing up in a peripatetic household in
provincial Madras—his father was a school teacher and administrator—Subrahmanyam was known as “Ambi” or “Mani” to
his family. Later, friends and colleagues in Delhi referred to him as “Subbu” or “KS”. To us grandchildren, he was simply
“Thatha”. My earliest memory of him was not at a seminar at IISS, a discussion in the India International Centre lounge, or a
visit to his former office in Sapru House. It was in a basement of our home in suburban Washington one December in the
mid-1980s, when he came bearing bounteous gifts for his young grandchildren. “Who needs Santa Claus,” I remember
thinking as I observed the tall man with a shock of white hair taking considerable interest in helping me assemble my new
toys. “I have my very own.”

KS brought that same sense of generosity to his professional life, displaying a kindness that was not always discernible to
those whose first impressions were often overshadowed by his stern demeanor and intimidating reserves of knowledge. At
the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), which he directed for many years, he supported the efforts of many
individuals outside the traditional hierarchy, including young academics with controversial political views and government
employees considered too junior to write. A good idea deserved to be heard, he felt, no matter who came up with it. The
same spirit was evident later in his career too: a number of promising young scholars, many of them doctoral candidates,
have told me how impressed they were that he would make the effort to attend, and actively participate in, their research

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presentations. The large number of people who consider him a mentor, and their wide age range, is a telling sign of his
remarkable willingness to encourage individuals, regardless of their age or background.

KS was also frustrated by that same sense of rigidity that he sought to overcome. Although he attempted to incorporate IDSA
more closely with Jawaharlal Nehru University, he was prevented from teaching there on the grounds that he did not have a
doctorate, or a higher education in political science or a related field (his highest degree was an M.Sc. in chemistry). He was
the first to appreciate the irony that Cambridge—where he was later made a professor—had no such qualms about his being
appointed.

While he was controversial, and his views often polarizing, KS rarely—if ever—engaged in
personal criticism in public discourse, although he was occasionally the object of heated invective. Two years ago, he wrote a
pointedly reproachful note to me related to some posts on this blog, where I had mentioned individuals by name whose
arguments I disagreed with. Although he couched it in terms that he thought I would find more appealing—that certain
people may not be accustomed to personal criticism—his view was that even mentioning individuals in policy discussions
risked personalizing debates and eroded a sense of collegiality within the strategic community. That sense of collegiality at a
time when criticism and debate have become more personal on blogs, Twitter and television talk shows was upheld almost to
a fault: it explained the sometimes roundabout and passive beginnings to his articles—”It has been said that…”—before he
proceeded to systematically demolish a certain viewpoint.

KS may never have used Twitter and did not have a blog, but for someone who grew up in a household without electricity or
a transistor radio, he took surprisingly well to new forms of media and mass communication. During the Bangladesh war, he
made appearances on All India Radio and later featured on television, both on Doordarshan and subsequently on the many
cable news channels that sprung up. The move from think tank scholar to newspaper columnist was considered unusual when
he made that transition, and the present host of regular columnists on strategic affairs in India have followed a trail that he
was among the earliest to blaze. Although he continued to write his columns in long-hand, never being much of a typist, he
became a prolific online reader, signing up to a large number of mailing lists, which he followed assiduously. A number of
people were surprised when he, an eminence grise now in his late 70s or early 80s, would approach them and discuss some
article they had written in an obscure publication and circulated only on a private listserv.

But perhaps the most remarkable characteristic that marked KS was his ability to tailor his views to the times, often against
prevailing orthodoxy. This was seen most markedly in his calls for an Indian nuclear deterrent, but his advocacy of a minimal
deterrent once India had achieved a nuclear capability, as well as his defense of a close relationship with the Soviet Union
during the Cold War followed by ardent support for the U.S.-India relationship in the post-Cold War era. He understood,
earlier than most, the importance of liberal economic reforms for national security, and more recently made impassioned
pleas for changes in Indian governance and political culture. Again, his understanding of the need for change was reflected
in his personal life as much as his professional one. The product of a traditional household, KS was no rebel. He went to
Presidency College in Madras, took the civil services exam and joined the Indian Administrative Service, becoming a family
breadwinner at an early age while staying near his aging parents. But although he remained an avowed vegetarian and was
well-versed in Hindu religious texts, he was also an atheist. When many of his generation remained wedded to orthodox
traditions such as arranged marriage and urging their children to pursue educational and professional opportunities in
traditional fields such as engineering and business, his views on these subjects was extraordinarily liberal. He found it a
source of pride, rather than embarrassment, that his children and grandchildren were civil servants, diplomats, economists,
historians, architects, filmmakers and lawyers and that they were married to individuals who were American, French, Dutch
and Japanese.

But while there are many lessons one can draw from his life and work, my colleague at Pragmatic Euphony may have
articulated the most important one (on Twitter, where else?): “The best tribute to K Subrahmanyam would be to not fossilise
his thoughts or propagate his views as a dogma. We Indians are masters at both.” KS would have been the first to agree.

Further Reading

Sanjaya Baru in the Business Standard

C. Raja Mohan in the Indian Express

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Foreign Affairs
K. Subrahmanyam`s letter to an Indian student
Rakesh Krishnan Simha February 2010
Chapter :1

It was in 1992 that I received a letter from K. Subrahmanyam, India’s top strategic affairs expert. It was
one of the proudest moments of my life because I held him in very high esteem and believed that he was
perhaps the only person in India who had a strategic vision.

The contents of the letter are not important and I don’t even know if it is still safe in my ancestral home
in Kerala or if the tropical humidity has reduced it to mulch status. The exact date or month is now lost in
the by lanes of my brain but I do recall that I was in my final year at university when I took out a sheet of
paper and penned a long letter to Mr Subrahmanyam, who had an edit page column in the Economic
Times, which I used to avidly follow.

Among other things, I requested that he write about why India must leave the Commonwealth of Nations.
In my letter I asked Mr Subrahmanyam to write about the anger and frustration that patriotic and proud
Indians felt about our country’s continued membership in a club that meant nothing to us. Why was India
staying in an organisation which only provided some residual glory to Britain, a country that had pillaged
and ravaged India for 190 years? It was a constant affront to us.

I argued that India’s membership in the Commonwealth allowed the British to deny and disown their
vicious colonial role during which an estimated 84 million Indians died due to wars, British-made
famines, wholesale slaughter and plain genocide.

Also, the Commonwealth Games provided an excuse to British officials to descend in hordes on the host
country and inspect facilities like they owned the place. Strutting about like puffed up peacocks they
condescendingly approved stadiums and hostels or made arrogant comments. Then there was the undue
importance given to the British queen and the queen’s baton, which made us feel sick.

I never expected a reply. I thought such unsolicited letters were chucked into the newspaper’s dustbin
seconds after they arrived. How wrong I was! Only four years later when I myself became a journalist
did I come to know that even the largest circulation magazines got only a handful of letters per issue?
Indeed, my letter must have been gratefully received at the Economic Times and handed over to Mr
Subrahmanyam.

So imagine my surprise when the postman delivered a letter from India’s leading strategic affairs guru.
Judging by my delight, my mother thought I’d got a job or a cheque from one of my doting aunts! In a
country that produced few non-sporting heroes, Mr Subrahmanyam was my idol.

Mr Subrahmanyam thanked me for the letter, and wrote that he was indeed aware of the incongruity of
India’s membership of the Commonwealth. He promised to write about it one day at an opportune
moment. Of course, the project remained on the drawing board. Perhaps he forgot about it. Perhaps he
never had the time to write about it when more pressing matters like nuclear bombs, high-stakes
geopolitics and defence demanded his attention.

But why do I have this lingering doubt that perhaps he wanted to write but couldn’t? Having worked in

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the mainstream Indian media for over a decade I feel if Mr Subrahmanyam did write about the
Commonwealth, the editors would have spiked the article. More likely, he may have been told that the
peg is missing. This is a favourite word freely employed by Indian editors, who believe an opinion article,
no matter how exciting or important, does not deserve publication if there isn’t some connection to
ongoing events. In the Indian media, views must correlate to news.

Mr Subrahmanyam’s passing is indeed a great loss to India. Strategic thinkers like him come once in a
lifetime. It is doubtful India’s feckless political class has even read, let alone implemented, his advice on
strategy. The Indian government has, in fact, failed to make public the report of his task force on India's
strategic development. The modern-day Chanakya of Indian strategic policy must have pressed for
nothing less than a massive expansion of Indian influence and military might around the world. That is
something not palatable to the backboneless politician whose tribe dominates New Delhi. During an
international conference on geopolitics many years ago, a foreign diplomat was exasperated by India’s
totally supine performance in global affairs, to blurt out: “There is the former superpower (Russia), the
sole superpower (the US) and now the reluctant superpower.”

Over 2300 years ago, Chanakya, the master of statecraft, was able to unite India into a powerful empire
because he had as his follower and friend the courageous King Chandragupta. However, sadly his
modern-day avatar was resigned to watch a succession of Indian politicians willing to accept a
marginalised role. India’s reluctance to sit at the global high table really wound up Mr Subrahmanyam. He
couldn’t bear to watch third-rate ‘powers’ such as Britain, France and Japan strut around the global
stage, meddling in developing countries. When a senior Indian editor wondered how he was able to write
so prodigiously and passionately, he replied, “It's easy. I just have to watch CNN or BBC and I get so
angry that I have several things to say!”

But what the great man wrote won’t go waste. The next generation of political and military leaders will
surely share Mr Subrahmanyam’s vision to make India the pre-eminent power in the 21st century.

(About the author: Rakesh Krishnan Simha is a features writer at New Zealand’s leading media house.
He has previously worked with Businessworld, India Today and Hindustan Times, and was news editor
with the Financial Express.)

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‘Obama does not have much of an option but to make India its
leading partner’
Shekhar Gupta Posted online: Tue Oct 26 2010, 11:35 hrs
Ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India, leading defence analyst Dr K Subrahmanyam speaks to The
Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk, on the Indo-US relationship and dealing
with China.

Shekhar Gupta: I am in front of South Block and my guest is one of the longest, oldest members of this
hallowed building and someone who shaped its mind on India’s strategic policy making, India’s entire
worldview for more than five decades now—Dr K Subrahmanyam. The world is a very different place now...
from when you came here in the ‘50s.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Yes, very much so. When I came here, within a couple of years, we had Bulganin (Nikolai)
and Khrushchev (Nikita) visiting Delhi and that was the time the Indo-Soviet relationship started developing. And that
was also the time when the US’s relationship with Pakistan intensified.

Shekhar Gupta: As we talk now, in a couple of weeks, Obama’s coming. The third US president in a decade,
when the previous one took 25 years. So, it’s all changed... for the better?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Very much for the better, no doubt about that!

Shekhar Gupta: So what are Obama’s options? Does he have his options closed, no choice?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: No, I think Obama will be developing his options. His challenges today are from two
sources—one is from jihadi inspired terrorism and the other challenge is that China has become the second power of
the world and is trying to catch up with the US. China is the only major country in the world that has not accepted
democracy as its value system. Even Russia has. And therefore, a more powerful China expanding into Asia, South
Asia, West Asia and East Asia is posing a challenge to the US and is trying to counter the influence of democratic
powers. And how to deal with this challenge is something which should preoccupy Obama.

Shekhar Gupta: And when this comes up, what should Dr Manmohan Singh be telling him?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I think they have already said that they share these value systems. The main point is, how do
these democratic countries, which today form 50 per cent of the global population, counter this value system—of the
two challenges of jihadism as well as one-party authoritarianism which denies pluralism. I think the only way of doing
this is for them to get into a network of partnerships. Because this is not a military threat and it cannot be dealt with
by a military alliance.

Shekhar Gupta: It’s also a philosophical and a political threat.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Yes, and therefore, it is for the other democratic powers to get together and apply their
combined efforts creatively to counter these challenges. And there can be a lot of cooperation among them in terms
of exchange of intelligence and combined efforts to stop flow of financial resources to jihadi people. These things are
quite possible. And the more democratic powers assert themselves, it will have its own impact within China because

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as it has been pointed out, a country which has reached this level cannot go further in innovation unless it
democratises itself. Therefore, the Chinese are worried about it, the rest of the world should increase pressure on
the Chinese.

Shekhar Gupta: So, if India and America come together, as you are saying they logically should, this will not
be some old fashioned kind of alliance with military implications against another power, it’s a philosophical
alliance to maybe moderate the conduct of another power?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Yes, in fact the engagement of China should be intensified. Commerce and trade with China
should grow. And the only way of effectively countering China’s authoritarianism is to expose the Chinese population
to democracy in a more and more intensified manner.

Shekhar Gupta: So, if that is the idea, and I think that idea took root about 15 years ago and got underlined
with President Clinton’s visit and is now growing, you think Obama coming in place of Bush is a setback?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: No, not at all. In fact, Bush looked at India in terms of classical balance of power and Bush’s
framework was still a 20th century framework.

Shekhar Gupta: And in a manner, a bit imperialistic?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: In a manner that the US was an exceptional country and the leader of the world. I think
Obama understands much more this need for a network of nations, in which all other nations will have to cooperate
and that the US cannot any longer exercise its leadership vis-a-vis China unless it has a partner in terms of a
knowledge reservoir, because China has got four times the population of the US. And therefore when the Chinese
start producing engineers, doctors, technicians...

Shekhar Gupta: Or fighter pilots?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I’m not so much worried about the military aspects because militarily, the US can still
maintain its lead for some time to come. But the US can be number one only if it has its lead technologically and
organisationally. And this cannot be done unless the US has a partner, which is equal in population with China, is
democratic, pluralistic, shares the same value as the US, with which US already has a population to population
relationship. Indians contribute to American growth and American technology and American organisational skills. And
therefore, Obama does not have much of an option but to make India its leading partner.

Shekhar Gupta: After having lived through decades of hostility, when life was very simple—America was
hostile, Soviet was an ally—how tough was it to bring about a paradigm shift?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I would say that the shift came about in a very natural manner to the US because most of the
things that happened to the US, all in a way are kind of nemesis.

Shekhar Gupta: Why nemesis?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Well, they went and dealt with Vietnam in a particular way and it blew up on them. They
allied with Pakistan to create jihadism.

Shekhar Gupta: The earlier jihad, good jihad, if I may say so.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: And the jihadism has blown up on them. For 30 years, they helped China become the factory
of the world and China’s advance today is now challenging the US. And therefore, to a considerable extent, the US
has turned itself against the mistakes it had perpetrated. And so far as we were concerned, we always admired the
US and from the very beginning, Nehru went and addressed the US Congress, in which he pledged that if freedom
was in peril and endangered, India will not stay neutral. And therefore, we didn’t have any problem in becoming
friendly with the US.

Shekhar Gupta: How does our record with the ‘70s square? Our voting record on Cambodia, Afghanistan,

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the Prague Spring? It was quite disgraceful.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I would only apologise or feel defensive about Prague and Hungary. Cambodia, I would still
say that we were right. Supporting Pol Pot is one of the greatest disgraces for American democracy. We opposed
him. Therefore, we have nothing to apologise for. Similarly, on Afghanistan, it is the Americans and the Pakistanis
who have created this jihadism. We virtually stayed out of it.

Shekhar Gupta: But could we have nuanced our earlier Afghanistan policy better? In the ‘70s and the ‘80s?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: No, we tried our best. After all, when the Soviets moved into Afghanistan, which was a result
of the provocation by the Pakistanis and the Americans, Indira Gandhi sent special envoys to Zia-ul-Haq—Swaran
Singh went there, then Narasimha Rao went there. We tried our best to reassure the Pakistanis. But they weren’t
looking for reassurance. They wanted to become a nuclear weapon power, which is the price the Americans had to
pay in order to get Pakistani support. They had to look away from the Chinese arm in that. And once the Pakistanis
got nuclear weapons, they didn’t want to just drop it on anybody, which is what the western strategists talk about.
The Pakistanis got the derivative of nuclear weapons, which was terrorism. And they are using the derivative
terrorism not only against US but against the US, UK and Europe.

Shekhar Gupta: Using the backup power of nuclear weapons?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Deterrent power gets them the shield. And therefore, they are able to use terrorism as an
instrument of state policy.

Shekhar Gupta: So to that extent, they were successful?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Till today, yes, they have gotten away, but I don’t know for how long.

Shekhar Gupta: You look far ahead. I’ll ask you three questions. First of all, when could you anticipate this
turn in India’s position in the world —in ‘70s, ‘60s, ‘50s, ‘90s? When could you anticipate this?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I would say only by mid-90s.

Shekhar Gupta: And before that, when Mrs Gandhi met Reagan?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: No, that was a balancing act. Reagan was being nice to Mrs Gandhi, and at the same time
permitting Pakistan to get nuclear weapons.

Shekhar Gupta: But she did break ice with him?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: There was a time when the Reagan administration was nice to Mrs Gandhi.

Shekhar Gupta: So mid-’90s is when you saw the change coming? That’s when they say Dr
Subrahmanyam’s tone also changed because you led the intellectual drive, isn’t it? The third stage of the
rocket of Indian foreign policy again came from you.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: All that I would say is that yes, I started writing about it but there were others as well who
contributed to it.

Shekhar Gupta: And three Prime Ministers.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Narasimha Rao, in a sense Rajiv Gandhi, but much more so Narasimha Rao and Manmohan
Singh. Both Vajpayee (Atal Bihari) and Brajesh Mishra also contributed.

Shekhar Gupta: Now my second question, again looking ahead. You say Pakistan has been successful so
far. Where do you see Pakistan with this strategy, five years or ten years from now?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: They’re playing with a venomous snake. And there is no doubt about it that one of these

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days, the snake is going to bite them. And the Pakistanis are going to pay a high price, when the various jihadi
organisations are going to turn on the Pakistani state and the Pakistani army. One of them has already—the
Pakistani Taliban. But it is only a question of time when others also do.

Shekhar Gupta: My third and last question. If you read accounts of Nehru’s conversations with Eisenhower,
in one of those, Eisenhower is very worried about what the Chinese are doing in Korea...the Chinese have
taken prisoners and he’s very angry about that. And Nehru makes a very interesting and prescient
statement—he tells him not to be neurotic about communism. He says that the seeds of destruction lie
within the ideology of communism. But for Nehru to say that in the early ‘50s was prescient.

Dr K Subrahmanyam: In a sense, Nehru was prescient. Nehru started cultivating the Soviet Union mainly because
even in the early ‘50s, he saw that the Soviet Union and China will not get along with each other and therefore, if we
have to have security vis-a-vis China, we had to cultivate the Soviet Union.

Shekhar Gupta: So Nehru was not an ideological fool?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: Nehru was perhaps one of the most pragmatic and realist politicians.

Shekhar Gupta: So, when there is conversation today between Dr Singh and Obama, what tone do you see
it taking? Do you see some of the same conversation happening, although Obama is different from
Eisenhower and Dr Singh is different from Nehru?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I don’t think Obama has to be convinced that he’s facing a Chinese challenge. Of course, he
himself has called Pakistan a state afflicted with cancer. And therefore, he doesn’t have to be convinced that he’s
facing these challenges. The point is that they have got to devise ways and means of how to respond to these
challenges. That will be the job before them.

Shekhar Gupta: And if you see Bob Woodward’s latest book, does it look like he has it in him?

Dr K Subrahmanyam: I am very positive about Obama. I think he’s a highly intellectual person and he can think
through problems.

Shekhar Gupta: I can see that you’re optimistic. And I can see that you’re optimistic not just five years
ahead but 10 years ahead, so hopefully we’ll have more conversations as we go ahead and hopefully
everybody will still be getting wisdom from you. And as usual, following you. For 50 years, nobody in this
country has been able to stay ahead of you and may it remain like that.

Transcribed by Ayushi Saxena

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Our strategic asset

Inder Malhotra Posted online: Thu Feb 03 2011, 05:29 hrs
In the death of K. Subrahmanyam at age 82, India has lost its premier and pioneering analyst of strategy and
national security, who was a national asset in every sense of the term. As George K. Tanham said in his famous
1992 monograph, Indian Strategic Thought, this is one area in which this country has been conspicuously deficient.
(Indeed, this is what KS — Subbu to friends — had told him when Tanham was researching his subject.)

Only after the traumatic border war with China in the high Himalayas did the Indian establishment wake up to the
need for strategic studies, until then considered superfluous. KS played a stellar role in filling this glaring and
disastrous gap. Even today the bulk of the Indian strategic community consists of those who learnt the craft from
him. He has, no wonder, often been called the Bhisham Pitamah of Indian strategic studies.

By the time the first think tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses or IDSA, was established, with a
retired major-general as its director, KS was a deputy secretary in the defence ministry. Some time earlier, the
founder-director of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Alastair Buchan, had come to
this country to look for Indians who might learn something at his organisation. His choice fell on KS and the late Sisir
Gupta, who died at a relatively young age. In 1968 Subrahmanyam, an IAS officer of the 1951 batch, was appointed
director of IDSA; and since then neither he nor the institute looked back. What he made of the IDSA in seven years
won national and international kudos.

In 1975, Indira Gandhi, who appreciated his good work, told him that for the sake of his career he must spend some
time in his state, Tamil Nadu, previously called the state of Madras. He arrived there on the day the Karunanidhi
ministry was dismissed during the Emergency and president’s rule was imposed. He was appointed home secretary.
In this critically important position he absolutely refused to be a party to any of the Emergency’s excesses. For this,
a senior Congress MP, O.V. Alagesan, sharply criticised him in Parliament.

In 1978, when he returned to the Union government, Indira Gandhi was out of power and the Janata was ruling. He
was appointed chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat. In
that capacity he endorsed the finding of the Research and Analysis Wing, the foreign intelligence agency, that
Pakistan’s nuclear programme was no longer peaceful. But he firmly disputed the agency’s belief that our western
neighbour had adopted the plutonium route.

As became obvious, KS was right in thinking that Islamabad was using centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment.
He also saw to it that a five-year defence estimate was prepared by the JIC and considered by the cabinet. That
was the first and the only time that such a thing happened.

When Indira Gandhi was back in power in 1980, KS was defence production secretary and was also presiding over
a committee to select the submarine to be introduced in the Indian navy. The new government, for its own reasons,
wanted to remove him from this job. He was offered a post, director of the Indian Institute of Public Administration,
that did not suit him. Luckily, the prime minister realised that Subbu’s encyclopaedic knowledge of high strategy and
matters military could be best used by sending him back to the IDSA as director with the rank of secretary to the
Government of India.

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To appreciate Subbu’s yeoman services to India, one has to go back to March 1971, when the Bangladesh crisis
exploded with the force of the cyclones that abound in that country. At first there was an outcry for immediate
military intervention. Then the mood changed and the establishment believed that the Mukti Bahini would liberate
Bangladesh, and India need not do anything.

It was KS who fought against this complacent assumption. In a confidential paper, that inevitably leaked, he argued
that there was an “opportunity of a lifetime to cut Pakistan to size” that must not be missed. When top officials at the
defence ministry objected to such writings, he told them that as head of a research institute he had to be frank and
open, and if they felt that officials should not do it, he was prepared to resign from the IAS.

In UN committees and elsewhere, KS defended the

Indian position on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and made no secret of his belief that India must go nuclear.
Those in the know are privy to his contribution to the weaponisation of the nuclear programme.

Subbu headed the Kargil Review Committee, whose excellent report has been implemented only partially. Later,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited him to chair a task force to formulate Indian policy in the context of the
current world order. Sadly, that valuable report, submitted several years ago, remains classified.

Needless to add, Subbu was a prolific writer almost to the very end, and the books he wrote or edited, the papers
he presented to national and international gatherings and almost endless newspaper articles penned by him would fill
several shelves of a commodious library. He was blessed with a phenomenal memory and an equally prodigious
capacity for work. Whenever in doubt about any fact, I rang him up and, as a kind and gracious friend, he gave me
the information I needed in a jiffy.

Born in a family with modest means at Tiruchirapalli on January 24, 1929, Subbu studied chemistry at Madras, now
Chennai, before joining the IAS. His first years were spent in the panchayati raj department in the state; but from his
school and college days his interest in matters military was acute. He is survived by his wife, Salochana, three sons
and a daughter. One of his sons, Jaishankar, is India’s ambassador to China; the second, Vijay, is a secretary in the
Union government; and the third, Sanjay, is a professor at UCLA. Evidently, genes do travel.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator

express@expressindia.com

2 of 2 3/6/2011 1:40 AM

Photo: yax3way7
INTERVIEW
The new currency of power
A discussion on strategic affairs with K Subrahmanyam
NITIN PAI & ARUNA URS
K SUBRAHMANYAM’S “passion for national in-
terests,” P R Kumaraswamy writes in the preface
to Security Beyond Survival, “never blinds him to
India’s follies. The respect he commands among
students of national security is primarily a reflec-
tion of his own ‘competence, knowledge and
originality in thinking’, to borrow his own words
albeit in a different context. In his myriad of roles
as an officer in the Indian Administrative Service,
head of a strategic think tank, media commentator,
and a prolific writer, he has always exceeded the
standards set by his peers.” Last month, Pragati sat
down with Mr Subrahmanyam for a wide ranging
conversation on the geopolitics of the 21st century,
the role of nuclear weapons, India’s national inter-
est, military modernisation and much more.
Geopolitical strategy
Many Western strategists contend that America’s uni-
polar moment is giving way to multi-polarity. But you
have argued that the world became multi-polar with the
collapse of Soviet Union. Recently, Parag Khanna put
IN DEPTH
forward a thesis arguing that US power is on the de-
cline and that the EU and China will be the new ‘poles’.
How do you see the future shaping up?
It depends upon the time frame: if you are per-
haps talking about next 15 years, Parag Khanna
has a point. If you take the 30-40 years, then the
Japanese, Europeans, Chinese and Russians are all
going to age. The proportion of working popula-
tion to non-working population becomes unfa-
vourable. This automatically will lead to certain
amount of decline. These countries then have to
rely on migrants. Europeans might get more mi-
grants from the southern Mediterranean; Japan
perhaps will welcome some from the Philippines.
The Chinese are going to face a major problem, as
they will be an ageing society with skewed sex
ratio. Russia will grapple with the growth of its
Islamic population and decline in the white Rus-
sian population.
The only two countries that will be relatively
young will be America and India. America will
remain young because of immigration. India will
PRAGATI - THE INDIAN NATIONAL INTEREST REVIEW 10
IN DEPTH
India has to leverage this situation
and change the US-EU-China tri-
angle into a rectangle. Until then
it is in our interest to help Amer-
ica to sustain its pre-eminence.
be still behind the ageing curve by about 50 years.
All projections are set to change under these cir-
cumstances.
During the next two decades, Americans will
be looking to augment their brain resources to
compete with China and the EU. India is the natu-
ral reservoir for them. This will enhance India-the
US relationship. We don’t have any clash of
national interest with the Americans. There are
some issues that usually arise because of America's
dealings with third parties such as Pakistan. But at
a time when the government-to-government rela-
tionship was not good, we still saw about two mil-
lion Indians settling in America. If things improve,
this trend will get stronger.
India has to leverage this situation and change
the US-EU-China triangle into a rectangle. Until
then it is in our interest to help America to sustain
its pre-eminence. After all, in a three-person game,
If America is at Number One, China is at Number
Two and we are lower down, it is in our best inter-
est to ensure that it is America that remains Num-
ber One.
Does the Indian government realise the need to trans-
form its foreign policy in the light of the sharp changes
in India’s geopolitical status over the last two decades?
Is a conscious rethink necessary or will it just happen
by itself.
We have not fully thought through the notion
of our foreign policy reflecting our rising status. I
have said that knowledge is the currency of power
in this century—that is my own perspective. The
task force on global strategic developments that I
headed also points out the same. However, the
final report is yet to be released by the govern-
ment. These ideas are still under development and
are yet to be accepted by significant number of
scholars within the country. These changes will
take place over a period of time and we can very
well say that we are in an initial stage of a very
long process.
Nuclear Weapons
Yes, you have argued that warheads and missiles are
not the currency of power in the 21st century: rather it
11 No 14 | May 2008
is knowledge. But strategic weapons are responsible for
stability: in a sense, aren’t they international public
goods funded by taxpayers of India, China, US and oth-
ers that are enjoyed by the rest of world?
Many people thought that these were public
goods and perhaps many continue to think so.
This is a very paradoxical situation. I used to ex-
plain to people that I myself represent that para-
dox. I have been convinced for a long time that a
nuclear war cannot be fought. In conventional
warfare, the war takes place in a limited space and
various key decisions are taken outside that lim-
ited space. If a nuclear war is unleashed, there is
no space outside. Where and how will one take a
decision to terminate this war?
The Americans used to tell me that they have
thought through this problem and they claimed to
have found a solution, till of course the early 80s,
when scholars like Bruce Blair started asking ques-
tions about command and control in a nuclear war.
Then in 2005, Robert McNamara confessed that he
too had been holding on to the same position ever
since he was defence secretary (1961-68) but he
could not articulate it as this stance went against
the entire NATO policy. In a sense, there is a cha-
rade about it in the whole world. Kissinger advo-
cated the use of tactical nuclear weapons in his
PhD thesis. He, along with a number of former
senior American officials, is now pleading that the
world should eliminate nuclear weapons.
While I am convinced that a nuclear war is un-
fightable, as long as the next person is not con-
vinced about it, I have to be cautious. The only
way to persuade others is for us to have a weapon
ourselves. When I formulated India's nuclear doc-
trine, many questioned the need for one as none of
the five nuclear powers had a doctrine. I believed
that we owed an explanation to the people of India
and the world as for a long period of time we had
considered nuclear weapons as immoral and ille-
gitimate. The doctrine says: we still consider nu-
clear war cannot be fought and use of nuclear
weapons is illegitimate and therefore the "no first-
use" policy.
But the NATO’s doctrine seems to be still living in
1970s.
True, in 1999 when the NATO doctrine was be-
ing discussed, the Germans and the Canadians
pleaded to include no first-use but the rest of them
refused.
But you cannot eliminate a weapon that is
deemed to be legitimate. The first step towards
elimination is to delegitimise the weapons. The
first way of delegitimising is to acknowledge the
possession of weapon for deterrence but not for

warfare, that is, a no first-use policy. The 1925 Ge-
neva Protocol against chemical weapons did not
prohibit possession, it only prohibited the use, or
rather, first use. It was only in 1993, 68 years after
the protocol was signed, that all countries agreed
to eliminate these weapons. Therefore the route to
elimination of nuclear weapons is through dele-
gitimisation and it starts with "no-first use".
National Interest
How would you define India’s ‘national interest’?
First and foremost, the state has to ensure 9-10
percent economic growth. Secondly, it has to en-
sure that poverty is alleviated and eliminated. Fi-
nally, to achieve these two, we need good and ef-
fective governance. All these factors are symbioti-
cally related and I would consider these as the
most important components of national interest.
Once we have achieved this, the Indian entrepre-
neurship will ensure India's success.
Doesn’t this interpretation contradict Morgen-
thau's. Modern Western Realists define the national
interest as the survival and security of the state.
Morgenthau was writing about developed na-
tions. I do not think he was even conscious of pov-
erty as an issue. The basic principles of what he
wrote are quite good but it needs to be revised un-
der present circumstances. He was writing at a
time where forcibly grabbing territory as well as
resources was a major factor in the calculations of
nations.
The Marxists criticise the notion of the ‘national
interest’, arguing that it is merely an euphemism or
proxy for the interests of the ruling class.
Meaningless—Marxism itself was hijacked by
apparatchiks resulting in a Marxist state where the
best cloth from Europe was procured for politburo
members and suits were made by the best tailors.
This was considered a non-elitist policy. Mao Ze-
dong imported blue films and it was non-elitist.
The problem is that once people are appointed to
positions of power, whatever has to be done is
done through them. Whether they have the peo-
ple's interest in mind while taking decisions de-
pends on their values and beliefs regardless of
whether it is a Marxist or a non-Marxist state.
There is no mechanism by which foreign policies
will be made by the masses. Even in democracies,
a party can publish its foreign policy manifesto but
there is no way of ensuring its implementation.
Lessons from national experience
Looking back over the decades, what would you say
were the best and worst moments?
IN DEPTH
The first step towards elimination
is to delegitimise the weapons.
The first way of delegitimising is
to acknowledge they are for deter-
rence and not for warfare.
One of the best moments was on 16th Decem-
ber 1971, when we achieved success in Bangladesh
and the other has to be split into two—18th May
1974 and 11th May 1998, when we conducted nu-
clear tests.
One of the worst moments was on 18th No-
vember 1962. I was then working in the defence
ministry, when I came to know that Prime Minister
Nehru had written to President Kennedy asking
for American aircraft to operate from India soil
against the Chinese. This was when India itself
had not even used its own air force. The imposi-
tion of emergency on 25th of June 1975 was the
second worst moment.
What were the learning points from 1962?
It is a learning point in a big sense. We had an
army whose leadership was immature as they had
been promoted too rapidly. They were incapable of
handling such situations. This was true not only of
military but also of the diplomatic community and
to some extent it was true of politicians including
Jawaharlal Nehru. He was persuaded that it
would be either a full-scale war in which case
other major nations were expected to support In-
dia or that it would remain as patrol clashes. That
the Chinese could calibrate the operation so very
carefully, mainly to humiliate him, and then with-
draw, was something that did not occur to him. It
was a very masterful strategy of the Chinese who
took full advantage of Cuban missile crisis.
Have the lessons been learnt?
No. Take the liberation of Bangladesh as a case
study. Pakistan held free and fair election in De-
cember of 1970 under a mistaken assumption that
nobody would win a clear majority and the army
would still be able to manipulate the country. I
was convinced that the army would not hand over
power and that we had to be prepared for prob-
lems. Then came the hijacking of the Indian air-
craft that was blown up in Lahore after which
Pakistani planes were banned from Indian air-
space. The Pakistanis started building up troops in
Bangladesh and the ships were going via Co-
lombo. Everybody knew about it. But we didn’t do
PRAGATI - THE INDIAN NATIONAL INTEREST REVIEW 12
IN DEPTH
anything to warn our armed forces to be ready till
25th March 1971 when Pakistanis began the crack
down (See page 21). When asked to intervene on
30th March, the Indian army requested for more
time. When they got the time that they needed,
they did the job beautifully well. But we did not
anticipate this eventuality.
Let us take Kargil as another example. In the
Kargil committee report, we have said that the
Cabinet Committee on Security should have a
regular intelligence briefing by the Chairman of
the Joint Intelligence Committee. But the govern-
ment has not accepted this. There is no sensitivity
to intelligence in India. The top decision-makers
do not get themselves briefed on the state of af-
fairs. They only expect to get an update if some-
thing happens. This attitude still persists and this
is a major weakness.
The whole attitude to intelligence needs to
change. Professor Manohar Lal Sondhi used to say
that since I was the chairman of the Joint Intelli-
gence Committee, I should have nothing to do
with academics! During the second world war, all
the intellectuals were in intelligence. American
professors used to encourage students to join the
intelligence community. Even today, I see many
CIA advertisements in university campuses across
America.
But when I ask people in Jawaharlal Nehru
University to consider a career in intelligence, they
simply refuse. Many consider it unethical.
Military modernisation
In our recent issues, Pragati has focused on the mod-
ernisation of India’s armed forces. It is clear that a criti-
cal aspect of national security is suffering from apathy,
and neglect. And procurement scandals—which get a
lot of media attention—appear to be the tip of the meta-
phorical iceberg. Is there a way out of the mess?
Modernisation is a complex process. I have said
in the Kargil committee report that we have not
modernised decision-making process ever since
Lord Ismay prescribed it in 1947. Our military
command and control have not changed since the
second world war. While we are talking about
buying modern equipment, the force structure and
philosophy go back to the Rommel’s desert cam-
paign and Mountbatten’s South-east Asia Com-
mand. Nobody has done anything about it.
Now there is talk about the Chief of Defence
Staff (CDS) model. It pains me to hear this. The
British adopted the CDS system, as they would
never fight a war on their own. CDS is not an insti-
tution for us. Ours should be the Chairman of the
Joint Chief of Staffs and theatre commands below
him.
13 No 14 | May 2008
Apart from that, the entire arms industry is
now getting concentrated. The European arma-
ment industry is being brought over by the Ameri-
cans. Only the Russian armament industry is in-
dependent of that. There is no way that we will be
able to produce everything for ourselves. Given
the threats we face, we have to think strategically
of what we should buy and what we should de-
velop. We can’t say we are going to buy 126 air-
craft and this will not affect our future aircraft de-
velopment philosophy. It is going to have a very
serious impact. Instead of buying defence equip-
ment ad hoc, on the basis of what is the best avail-
able price, we should bear our long-term strategic
vision in mind and start expanding the capacity
judicially.
The whole problem of procurement is the re-
fusal of the country to accept that the issue is of
political corruption. However perfect the proce-
dures are, the corruption takes place outside South
Block. Tinkering with procedures will not end cor-
ruption. The solution might lie with campaign fi-
nance reforms.
Isn't military bureaucracy, like any other bureaucracy,
status quoist and resistant to modernisation?
This raises another point. A civil service recruit
becomes a district magistrate in six years and is in
charge of a district of a million people but an army
recruit gets independent charge only after 18 years
of service. Why should it take 18 years for an army
officer to progress to that level? During the second
world war, a man with five years experience was
leading a battalion into battle. With eight years of
experience, one would command a brigade. This
anomaly has been grossly overlooked.
Isn’t there such information asymmetry about these
issues, the public doesn’t even know what questions to
ask and politicians have their own agenda? What is the
the way out?
It is going to be difficult. At least 30 or 40 years
ago, there was time and inclination among our
members of parliament to ask questions and dis-
cuss these types of issues. Today very little serious
business is done in parliament. It has become a
political arena for confrontation among different
political parties. Modernisation does not begin
with procurement of latest equipment. Before that
we have to think through the structure, organisa-
tion and methods of functioning. Equipment
should come last in the order of priority.
Nitin Pai is editor of Pragati. Aruna Urs works for a
risk consultancy.
KS Subrahmanyam : A tribute

Ramana [Bharat Rakshak Forum]

http://bharat-rakshak.com/

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/

K.Subrahmanyam, the doyen of Indian strategic thinkers passed away on Feb 2., 2011
at the age of 82. Since then many rich tributes have been written by those who knew
him. Unlike them I did not know him face to face. I knew him by occasional e-mail
only. To me he was Bishma Pitamaha and Chanakya personified due to his
unwavering focus on Indian security and his vast knowledge of statecraft. He left a
deep impact on my thinking about strategic matters. We don't know much about his
early life except from the tributes written about him, Meera Shankar writes he was
inspired as youth with Nehru's “tryst with destiny” speech. Soon after he stood first in
the 1951 IAS batch at a young age. We don't know about his personal life but P.R.
Chari recalls he put himself through college and took care of his siblings. All these
show his humble beginnings and his sense of family. He must have been outstanding
in his state cadre that he was moved to New Delhi in ten years. After that there was
no looking back. Over a career spanning the next two and half decades he dominated
the Indian strategic community with his clear thinking and level headed decisions on
matters of national interest. He headed the IDSA for two terms. After his retirement
he took up writing to educate and inform the general public about strategic matters.
He was on many Track Two groups to carry dialog with interlocutors all over the
world. After the Kargil war, he headed the Kargil Review Committee which led to
many reforms. He was appointed to head many task forces to continue to provide the
benefit of his knowledge and experience. He strode the Indian strategic scene as a
colossus for fifty years. He was truly the Eminence Grise of India.

KS was encyclopedic in his knowledge and willingly shared it. He was a realist but
his realism is based on Bhisma's teachings in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata
and not any recent Western thinker. He knew the writings of the different authorities
in international affairs and their limited applicability to Indian situation. He was
singularly driven in his quest to advance Indian interests. His forte was strategic
decision making at national level way before it became a discipline. He had an innate
ability to provide a balanced decision taking into account the risks and rewards
together with available resources. His recommendations were clear and unambiguous.
He wrote numerous books, newspaper articles and developed a body of strategic
opinion. He taught without appearing to teach as Rory Medcalf recounts. And every
shisya of his felt he had his undivided attention. A true mark of a guru.
The Sixties were a tumultuous decade in which India saw three wars on two borders,
lost two Prime Ministers, had a massive devaluation and saw the nuclear ground
shifting from beneath her feet. The question earlier in the Fifties was, when would
India test and not if. The Sixties saw China race ahead with its nuclear tests and to
add to the insecurity the NPT was being pushed. In those uncertain times KS emerged
with a clear view of how to deal with the issues. Of his many accomplishments he
had three main ones. First by advocating keeping India out of NPT he ensured the
scientists had the time to develop expertise and allow the political leadership to
exercise the nuclear option. Secondly by advocating intervention in East Pakistan, he
ensured that the military threat on western borders is minimized. Recall in 1965
Pakistan resorted to armed force twice in Rann of Kutch and Kashmir. And thirdly
supporting the Indo-US nuclear deal he envisaged the end of the sanctions in place
after the 1974 test. He thus worked to ensure the tryst does not turn into a mirage.

There is no direct evidence of a grand strategy of the modern Indian Independence

movement. There is no single document that describes the endeavor. However one
can infer from the speeches, writings and actions of a pantheon of national leaders
like Tilak, Gokhale, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru that there were three
goals of the movement. The primary goal was to end colonial rule and get rid of the
British. The secondary goal was to create a modern Indian state and reclaim its status
prior to the beginning of the colonial era. The tertiary goal was to prevent further
fragmentation of the sub-continent.

KS belonged to the generation that implemented the second an third goals which are
still a work in progress. One can understand his world view through this prism. We
realize how his actions and support furthered these two goals. The support for the
nuclear option is part of the creation of the modern Indian state and all the power that
goes with it. Modern India was not to be subject to coercion ever again. His support
for Indian interests by tilting towards Soviet Union was due to the US support for
Pakistan and later China. Later when the FSU collapsed he rightly concluded that
India needs to remove the US mis -perceptions which plagued the wilderness 90s.
When the Bush administration offered the nuclear deal he seized the opportunity to
remove the sanctions in effect since the 1974 test.

Over the last two years he was advocating the development of a knowledge economy
that would develop synergy with the US to take the engagement to the next stage. He
foresaw the US demographic shift would require Indian knowledge resources to
retain competitiveness. He also advocated good governance as a way to reduce
disparity and dissipate the million mutinies inside India. There are still a few issues to
be resolved: Af-Pak connundrum, dealing with rising China with an economically
spent US, new dawn in the Middle East so on and so forth.
It would be a fitting tribute to follow through these ideas and realize his resolve to
ensure the tryst with destiny happens. While we remember him in words we need to
be true to his teachings and develop a holistic approach to issues within India and
globally to realize a better world. He will be missed and lives on through his
disciples.
Challenges to Indian Security

By K. Subrahmanyam *

It is indeed a great honour and privilege for me to be asked to deliver this memorial
lecture to recall the services of the first Indian Chief of Army Staff. At that time the
office was still called the Commander in Chief. I met him briefly as an IAS
probationer in 1951 when he visited the Metcalfe House IAS Training School.
Otherwise, I had no opportunity to meet him or interact with him. I joined the
Defence Finance in 1954 and thereafter developed continuous and intense interest in
India's defence. In those days some two-three years after he laid down his office you
heard in the corridors of the Army Headquarters stories of his punctiliousness.
"Kipper would not have approved of it" was the usual comment when there was the
slightest dereliction from form or the high meticulous standards he expected in
matters of decorum. I have heard it said that the he did not approve of an officer
carrying the round cylindrical tin of cigarettes. It must be a flat cigarette case that
fitted tidily in the side pocket of the uniform jacket.

But the story I cherish most about General Cariappa as he was then, was his
encounter with Mahatma Gandhi. While undergoing the course in the Imperial
Defence College in London as a major general in early 1947, General Cariappa was
quoted as advocating that Jawahar Lal Nehru and Jinnah should meet to work out a
solution without partitioning India and in any event division of the Indian Army
should be averted. Gandhiji criticised him for a military man expressing views on
politics in his weekly column in The Harijan. When General Cariappa returned to
India he called on Gandhiji who was staying in the Bhangi Colony. When he reached
Gandhiji's cottage, the meticulous solider took off his shoes before entering the hut.
Gandhiji who knew enough about soldiering having served in the battle field in South
Africa during the Zulu war, told him that his shoes were part of his uniform and
therefore it was not proper to take them off. The General replied that according to the
Indian tradition a person did not wear shoes in the presence of a deity, mahatmas and
saints. After some polite conversation, General Cariappa came to the point. He told
Gandhiji, "I cannot do my duty well by the country if I concentrate only on telling
troops of nonviolence, all the time, subordinating their main task of preparing
themselves efficiently to be good soldiers. So I ask you, please to give me the child's
guide to knowledge-tell me please, how I can put this over, that is, the spirit of
nonviolence to the troops without endangering their sense of duty to train themselves
well professionally as soldiers. "Gandhiji replied, "You have asked me to tell you in
tangible and concrete form how you can put over to the troops the need for
nonviolence. I am still groping in the dark for the answer. I will find it and give it to
you some day." You will find this story in Pyarelal's book "Mahatma Gandhi: the Last
Phase". Pyarelal was Gandhiji's private secretary at the time.
This was the honest answer of the apostle of nonviolence to the first soldier of the
independent India. He did not have an answer on how to defend India using
nonviolence. This happened in December 1947. Next month the Mahatma was
assassinated. Even as Gandhiji was searching for an answer how to use nonviolence
in defence, he approved and indeed strongly supported the use of the Indian Army to
defend Kashmir against Pakistani invasion. Brigadier L.P. Sen obtained Gandhiji's
blessings before he flew down to Srinagar to assume his command.

It would have required enormous moral courage on the part of General Carriappa to
raise the issue of nonviolence in defence with the Mahatma. It is a pity that this
exchange between the Mahatma and the General had not been publicised widely. This
exchange made it clear that Gandhiji who successfully practised nonviolence in the
offensive mode vis a vis the British Raj which was on the defensive, had not solved
the problem of application of non-violence to defence and therefore, as was
demonstrated in Kashmir, was prepared to support the use of the Indian Army in
defence. Even today this exchange has not been made known to most of the people in
the nation. If that had happened, the wide-spread belief that Gandhian values were
responsible for the neglect of defence in the earlier years of our freedom would not be
there. In fact, Gandhian values and approach have been used as a convenient alibi by
people who did not understand Gandhi. The Mahatma, as he himself made clear
often, was not a pacifist. He always maintained that violence was better than
cowardice.

I start with this exchange between General Cariappa and the Mahatma because even
53 years after our independence there is no clear understanding among our leaders,
our political class, our bureaucracy, business establishment and intellectuals about the
nature of the security problems India faces. This is illustrated by the fact that though
India has declared itself a state with nuclear weapons and the National Security
Advisory Board's nuclear doctrine has been publicised, there has been no significant
debate on this vital security issue in the country among the political parties and in the
parliament. So is the case with the Kargil Review Committee's report. This is the
situation after this country has fought five wars. The problem with our country was
not the Gandhian approach and values but our centuries old indifference to who rules
us. There is a well known saying "What matters if Rama or Ravana rules". That was
why a few hundred horsemen descending down the Khyber Pass could overrun the
subcontinent. The East India Company could use Indians to conquer India. When
Queen Victoria issued her proclamation in 1857 it was widely welcomed. Even today
the same indifference permits a largely corrupt political class to be elected and deny
this country the pace of growth and prosperity it deserves. An American writer has
highlighted that Indians lack the tradition of strategic thinking.

Mr Altaf Gauhar an eminent Pakistani Columnist, who was information adviser to

General Ayub Khan, wrote a series of articles in the Pakistani daily Nation in
September and Octoberr 1999 after the Kargil War under the title "Four Wars and one
Assumption". He argued that Pakistan started all the four wars under One assumption
which was articulated by General Ayub Khan. The latter genuinely believed "as a
general rule Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of hard blows at the
right time and place." Today Pakistani generals write about bleeding India through a
thousand cuts. They have been talking about fatigue setting in the Indian Army
because of its continuous deployment in counter-terrorist operations and its efficiency
as a fighting force in consequence. Lt General Javed Nasir, the former head of the
Inter Services Intelligence Wing wrote in early 1999 that "the Indian Army is
incapable of undertaking any conventional operations at present, what to talk of
enlarging conventional conflict". It was this mindset which led to the Kargil
adventurism.

This country has been facing a nuclear threat arising out of China's proliferation of
nuclear weapon capability to Pakistan from mid-seventies. Even as Prime Minister
Moraji Desai renounced India's nuclear weapon option and nuclear testing in the UN
Assembly Special Session on Disarmament in June 1978, Pakistan on October 5,
1999, in News International, the present Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Abdul Sattar,
the former foreign minister, Agha Shahi and former air chief Marshal Zulfikar Ali
Khan have disclosed that Pakistan conceived its nuclear weapons programme in the
wake of its defeat in 1971 war and it was India-specific. They also assert that the
value of Pakistani nuclear capability was illustrated on at least three occasions, in mid
1980s, in 1987 at the time of the Indian Army exercise, operation Brass Tacks, and in
April-May 1990. The Kargil Review Committee Report confirms the 1987 threat
officially conveyed to India through Ambassdor S.K. Singh, posted in Islamabad, and
of fears of possible Pakistani nuclear strike in 1990. Yet the country's media,
academia and the Parliament have not bothered to discuss the nuclear dimension of
the security issue. It would appear that one of the most difficult challenges to Indian
security we face is the general indifference to security on the part of our elite.

Recently the Times of India managed to obtain a copy of the History of 1965 War,
compiled by a team of historians commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and put it
on the internet. Though this history was ready for public release in later eighties and
the Ministry of Defence and Army headquarters were keen on releasing it, its
publication was vetoed by the Committee of Secretaries. This highlighted that among
our bureaucracy and political leadership there is not adequate appreciation of using
history of past wars, campaigns and lessons derived from them as learning aids. Even
today, 37 years after the report was submitted to the government, the Henderson-
Brookes Report is still being kept under lock and key. This secrecy is not attributed to
concern about national security. It arises out of callous indifference to national
security and laziness to go through the original document and decide whether its
release would in any way adversely affect our security. Same approach is holding
back the release of the history of 1971 war as well.

Such indifference to history also comes in the way of the development of correct
understanding and appreciation of the adversary's mindset. In the absence of such
understanding, assessments of the present and future course of actions by the
adversary military leadership becomes, that much more difficult. All this arises out of
a non-professional and generalist approach to national security on the part of our
political and bureaucratic leadership with some rare exceptions. The Kargil Review
Committee has recommended that the National Security Council, the senior
bureaucracy servicing it, and the service chiefs need to be continually sensitised to
assessed intelligence pertaining to national, regional and international security issues
and therefore there should be periodic intelligence briefings to the Cabinet
Committee on Security with all supporting staff in attendance. There is reluctance
both on the part of politicians and bureaucracy to devote time and effort for the
purpose. It is considered adequate if people are briefed when the need for it arises.
This attitude is similar to the one exhibited by some political leaders who raised the
question as to what was the threat that developed in 1998 that necessitated the nuclear
tests. In this approach there is a deplorable lack of understanding that the best way of
tackling a threat is to anticipate it well in advance and to be well prepared to meet it.
Starting preparations to counter a threat after it has materialised is the surest way of
inviting disaster. That means there is no understanding of the concept of lead time
needed for preparations. This indifference to carry out regular periodic assessment of
security threats on the parts of our political class and bureaucracy and communicate it
to the nation is at the root of overall insensitivity of our media, academia,
parliamentarians and the public at large to the problems of national security. This
Indian mindset is not a secret to our adversaries. Therefore, they cannot be blamed if
they attempt to exploit this weakness of ours. When I refer to bureaucracy it includes
the uniformed community as well.

This tradition of not anticipating the threat in advance and not being prepared to meet
it and to attempt to counter it after it had assumed serious proportions is what Air
Commodore Jasjit Singh calls the Panipat Syndrome. The rulers of Delhi waited till
the enemy advanced down to Panipat and then went out and gave battle. It would
seem that the political and bureaucratic class of independent India had not drawn any
lessons even from the three battles of Panipat, let alone the recent wars of 1948, 1965
and 1971.

Yet another serious challenges this country faces to its security is the tendency of our
political class and the media, to a certain extent, to politicise issues of national
security in a partisan manner. In all mature democracies, basic issues of national
security are kept above party politics. If there are debates in the US on issues like the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that is not about national security but about
the nature and extent of offensive posture to be adopted to advance their foreign
policy interests. In those countries since there are frequent alternating changes of
parties in government and opposition, the ruling party generally keeps the opposition
informed of major developments in the field of national security. In India this does
not happen.

One can understand our Prime Minister keeping the development of the nuclear
weapon a closely guarded secret not shareable even with their own senior cabinet
colleagues. However, when the tests were conducted in May 1998 it was obvious to
every well informed person, that while the credit for taking the decision to test should
go to the ruling coalition, it could not have developed the weapons in the 53 days it
was in office. That credit should go to those parties which provided the previous
Prime Ministers. If only the ruling coalition had displayed enough grace to invite
those former Prime Ministers to be present while making the announcement, the
nuclear issue would not have created the controversy it did. While the previous Prime
Ministers had a compulsion to keep the programme a secret, there was no reason why
they could not have educated their party men on the realities of the international
nuclear order. Even today no political party leadership exerts itself to educate its
members and its second and third rung leaders on international and national security
issues. The result of this pattern of behaviour is that the Congress party indulged in
severe criticism of the nuclear tests when the maximum contribution to the
developments of nuclear weapons and missiles were by Prime Ministers belonging to
that party.

This politicisation reached its peak during the Kargil conflict and continues to this
day with adverse consequences for our national security. During the previous wars in
1948, 1962, 1965 and 1971, there were failures of intelligence, assessment of
intelligence as well as in policies. There was criticism of the government of the day
by the opposition. Very rarely was the criticism directed against the army and
individual officers, though various accounts of the campaigns do reveal serious
mistakes committed including the dissolution of 4th Indian Division at Sela-Bomdila
without joining battle. Yet, very rarely one saw the kind of campaign that is now
being carried on in certain quarters. In a democracy, the conduct of defence in terms
of policy, management and procurement must be subject to criticism. But the degree
of personalisation of criticism now being generated cannot be termed as constructive.
This, it would appear, is attributable to the politicisation of national security as part of
extremely partisan politics. Many of those in the media are committed political
activists and therefore their political commitment colours their reporting and
comments. The earlier generations of media persons had their political preferences
but were scrupulously objective in their reporting. Perhaps, this present phenomenon
may prove to be a passing phase. Perhaps, it may not.

The Indian democracy can accept such criticisms. The only risk is our adversaries
may be misled by them and indulge in adventurism. One may recall the Nazis were
misled by the Oxford Union passing a resolution in the thirties that they would not
fight for the king or the country. A few years later many of those Oxford graduates
became the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain about whom Churchill said "Never
was so much owed by so many to so few." This kind of negative writing in our media
might have led Pakistani generals to talk about the fatigue in Indian Army and initiate
the Kargil adventure. Therefore, without in anyway departing from high democratic
norms and abridging the freedom to report, the government and the Armed Forces
have to carefully assess the impact of such reports and to take corrective action,
where necessary in terms of information campagin. Transparency is the best policy
and strategy. Unfortunately this is yet to be fully appreciated as is evident from the
counter productive government security deletions in the Kargil report and holding
back the appendices and annexures. Many of them were published documents in this
country and in Pakistan.

This is an era of coalition politics and we have a coalition of over a dozen parties.
Many of them are regional parties based on linguistic and even caste and communal
considerations. With some rare exceptions most of the members belonging to these
parties are largely interested in local issues affecting their constituencies and not very
much in international and national security issues. This is understandable. Some of
them become members of Parliamentary Standing Committees on defence and
foreign affairs. One hopes that gives them some opportunity to widen their horizons.
However, there is no institutionalised mechanism for their being able to acquire more
knowledge and background in these fields. Unlike in other established democracies
where there are a number of publications on foreign policy and defence issues by the
Government every year outlining assessments and policies and periodic briefings,
there are none in India except the routine annual reports which only give sketchy
accounts of what happened in the previous year rather than what is likely to happen
and what the country should be doing.

Again, in other established democracies there are think-tanks manned by specialists

who have access to government information on a graded basis. Often, the think-tanks
are given contracts for studies to be done for the government departments. They have
to be provided all necessary information by the government to carry out such studies.
In India, the government has a tradition of not even sharing the time of the day with
any non-official, autonomous, academic institution. Often officials do not even share
informaion with their colleagues who have a need to know.

Nor our media have many people who specialise on defence, though of late a start has
been made. In the West, the defence and foreign policy establishments hand out every
day so many stories, usually a tacit relationship develops between the government, its
agencies and the media. Even while being critical the media in those countries does
not have an adversial relationship with the government and its agencies on national
security issues. This is not always the case here.

The net result of all these factors is inadequate attention to problems of national
security. The responsibility for this situation rests squarely on the successive
governments and the national security establishment. The NDA government began
with a proclaimed commitment to national security of a much higher order than its
predecessors and established a National Security Council, (NSC) a National Security
Advisory Board and a Strategic Planning Group in 1998. A new beginning was made
and there was a break with tradition in first setting up a Kargil Review Committee
and then publishing its report. Then came the group of ministers to revamp the entire
national security framework as recommended by the Kargil Review Committee. The
four task forces set up by them have completed their work and submitted their reports
promptly. It is expected that the group of ministers will act equally promptly and
come up with their recommendations. Hopefully the country is likely to witness a
progressive revamping of national security framework for the first time since
independence. That is encouraging news.

But while the structures may get reformed and updated, the problem of attitudinal
change towards national security is beyond the scope of this group of ministers. That
is a matter for political leadership at the highest level. The media has commented that
the NSC set up in 1998 had hardly met. The NSC and Cabinet Committee on
National Security (CCNS) has, with one exception, the same composition in terms of
five cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister. The Secretariat for CCNS is the
cabinet secretariat while for the NSC it is the NSC Secretariat.

The two bodies have however totally different roles. The CCNS is a decision making
body which has to focus on current security problems. It has also to approve
decisions on current equipment procurement. The NSC has an advisory and
deliberating role to develop long term future oriented perspectives and to direct the
ministries to come up with their policies and recommendations to the CCNS and to
monitor their implementation. Because of this role the Deputy Chairman of the
Planning Commission is also a member of the NSC. In order to play this role
effectively it needs long term as well as current intelligence assessments. Its
deliberations and advice on long term policies will have to be based on such
assessments. It would appear from the reports that NSC has not met, that in this
country, without a tradition of strategic thinking and without interest in national
security on the part of our political class, it has not been found easy to get over the
inertia and switch to a culture of anticipatory planning for national security. There are
many reasons for it. Our intelligence agencies have not been equipped and oriented
towards long term forecasting. Our foreign service is mostly geared to react to
immediate events. Policy planning has never taken off in that ministry. The Joint
Intelligence Committee and long term intelligence assessments have never been
given due importance because of the lack of interest in anticipatory security planning.
The chiefs of staffs, being operational commanders do not have adequate time for
long term future oriented thinking. The Ministry of Defence has burdened itself with
house keeping functions of the armed forces which are best left to them and has not
been conditioned and trained to think through long term international and national
security issues. Therefore, there is not sufficient awareness in the government that the
country is not equipped to plan long term national security policy. At best it is
equipped only to carry out short term and current national security management. This
is a crucial challenge to Indian security. Because of this grave lacuna the National
Security Council is not able to function after it was formally set up two years ago.

The tragedy is that even the nature of the illness has not been diagnosed. Only the
symptoms are being treated. That by itself, no doubt, is to be welcomed, but it will
not produce a permanent cure. The situation is likely to become further complicated
with the new role we have envisaged for India as a state with nuclear weapons, an
emerging economic power on high growth trajectory, a strategic partner of major
powers, a global player, an aspiring permanent member of the security council and an
increasingly democratising and federalising polity. We are to achieve all these
objectives as an open society.

There is inadequate realisation in this country that achieving these aims will amount
to a major alteration of the status quo in Asia and the world and therefore there will
be a lot of resistance to it from both within and outside the country and the interaction
of forces hostile to such development within and outside the country. In conceptual
terms, steering India towards the goals outlined above, smoothly and safely with
minimum damage is the basic security challenge to India. If that task is to be
successfully tackled there has to be a long term coherent thinking on the risks and
threats we are likely to face and long term planning to deal with them. Let us
enumerate the threats and risks and how to deal with them briefly.

The Indian leadership accepted the need for nuclear deterrence from early eighties
when Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi initiated the nuclear weapons programme in
response to Pakistan-China nuclear proliferation axis which had the tacit
acquiescence of the US. India declared itself a nuclear weapons state after the Shakti
tests in 1998. The National Security Advisory Board has come out with a draft
nuclear doctrine. In my view, understandably because I was the convenor of the
Board, the doctrine is the most logical, most restrained and most economical. But it is
only a draft doctrine. Strategies, policies, targeting plans, command and control, all
need to be worked out. It is not enough if the country has nuclear weapons. It should
be able to project credible deterrence. Deterrence involves some aspects of
transparency and others of opacity. Therefore there is an urgent need to work out the
correct mix. A partially visible command and control structure is an essential
ingredient in deterrence. Demonstration of capabilities is yet another. A robust and
secure C4-1 system is the third. A clearly ordained political and military succession is
fourth. A demonstrated involvement of political leadership in command and control
exercise is fifth and so on. Not only should these issues be addressed. They should be
seen to be addressed.

Fortunately, if we take him at his word, General Musharraf agrees with our Prime
Minister that there are no significant risks of nuclear weapons being used in war
between the two countries. Logically, he follows that perception with the proposition
that even large scale conventional wars are unlikely. Our recent preparedness should
further reinforce this perception of his. We should continue our efforts to dissuade
him from thinking about a large scale conventional war by having a visible dissuasive
capability. However, General Musharraf does not rule out proxy wars. Last year in
April 1999, he predicted that while nuclear and conventional wars were unlikely the
probability of proxy wars was on the rise. He was in a position to assert it most
knowledgeably since at that time, his mercenaries were infiltrating the Kargil heights.
His attempt at 'salami slicing' in Kargil ended in disaster. Therefore India should be
prepared to face proxy wars in future as it has been doing for the past 17 years. Till
now and as of today the proxy war is being fought by India on the basis of ad hoc
improvisation. Surely there is scope for a comprehensive and integrated strategy
against proxy war waged against this country. Counter terrorism needs societal
mobilisation and effective intelligence effort. Various steps in counter offensive
operations will have to be thought through, the most important being in the field of
information campaign.

Those who wage proxy war against this country take advantage of our weaknesses.
The faultlines in our society are exploited. Our borders have been porous. Drugs,
man-portable arms, terrorists, fake currency and illegal immigrants are able to pass
through. Neither are our sea shores always effectively guarded. Seven tonnes of high
explosives could be landed on Maharashtra coast in one instance. Our air space too
was violated with impunity when arms were dropped at Purulia. This country has
contributed the term 'politician-bureaucracy organised crime nexus' to political
lexicon. Political cum bureaucratic corruption is rampant in the country because of
the role money and muscle power play in elections. Corruption at lower levels cannot
be effectively tackled when there is corruption at higher levels. A widely corrupt
society cannot provide good and efficient governance. A corrupt and misgoverned
polity is highly vulnerable from the point of view of national security. It is like a body
affected by the AIDS disease. The immunity to resist infections drops and the body is
liable to various kinds of diseases. Foreign intelligence agencies can make use of
organised crime, like narcotics barons, money launderers and smugglers to infiltrate
arms and terrorists. Some years ago, Pakistani press published an interview with one
of their drug barons, Haji lqbal Beg, who boasted that he sends the drugs across to his
friends in India who shipped it to Europe and America. A CIA report gave details of
the activities of Pakistani drug barons and their transactions via India. They did not
evoke much response in this country.

In 1997 in a talk in Georgia University, US Defence Secretary William Cohen said

that since the US was going to build an unrivalled defence force he expected its
adversaries to hit at US indirectly through international terrorism. In our case too,
since we are reversing the trend of cuts in defence spending and are initiating
programmes of defence modernisation, we should expect our adversaries to wage a
campaign of terrorism and proxy war. The corruption and lack of good governance
provide opportunities to our adversaries to exploit our vulnerabilities. Therefore there
must be adequate popular awareness in the country of the fact that corruption and
misgovernance are national security threats.

Cynics would argue that there is corruption all over the world including in many long
established democracies. After all a company in one of the best governed countries in
the world, the Bofors, indulgued in corruption in this country. The result of that
corruption has been a virtual paralysis of decision making in our defence
procurement for years with adverse impact on our preparedness. Those countries,
however, even while having the same problem of corruption, do not have neighbours
who wage proxy war and campaign of terrorism against them. Very few of them are
as multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious ad multicultural as India is. Those who
are corrupt and therefore look away for a consideration, from legitimate law
enforcement and politicians who shield organised crime barons in exchange for large
sums of black money to fund party coffers to contest elections, may not realise that
their corruption amounts to treason and endangers national security. It is the duty of
the state and the government to create that awareness.

As Indian economic development accelerates, one must anticipate the adversaries of

India to target it and one of the ways in which it can be done is by subjecting the
country's economic symbols to terrorist attacks as happened in Mumbai in March
1993. Mumbai recovered in a remarkably short time, but imagine the consequences
and impact of such attacks simultaneously carried out in a number of cities of India.
That would hit the business confidence of foreign investors. I do not want to convert
this into a lecture on terrorism and proxy war and would only emphasise that
terrorism can be directed against Indian economic development. Our long term
anticipatory planning for national security must take this into account and our
business community should be sensitised to this and their support be mobilised to
deal with this threat.

The recent report on police reform brings out clearly how politicisation of police
forces in the states has led to failure in law enforcement. I mentioned earlier how the
resulting misgovernance is a grave vulnerability in our national security. But do we
tell our political class this simple truth and what damage they are doing because of
their wayward governance? This is not a political question but a national security
issue.

The present Home Minister promised to bring out a White Paper on the activities of
the Inter Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan in this country. That was a
welcome move and would have helped to sensitise our population to the threats of
proxy war, terrorism and subversion they face. This would have contributed to
societal mobilisation. But for reasons that are not clear or cannot be logically
inferred, the publication of that White Paper has not happened. It is alleged that its
publication would expose the sources of our intelligence agencies. It does not speak
highly of our drafting and communicating skills if a White Paper on the activities of
the ISI in this country cannot be published without revealing the sources. This again
highlights the mindset which does not have a comprehensive understanding of
national security and the need for societal mobilisation in defence of our security.

If we are able to initiate the process of long range future oriented assessments of
threats and challenges to our national security what will be the areas of our concern?
The foremost concern should be the security of our communications and the
transactions in our economic institutions. There have been cases in the west where
millions of dollars were robbed from banks by computer hackers. Recently after a
visit to the United States the Minister Mr Mahajan said that our entire banking system
could be wrecked by our adversaries if we do not take adequate precautions to protect
our communications and that would be far worse than an atom bomb on a city. He
was no doubt right. But unfortunately in this country there is not sufficient awareness
about the need to protect our communications through encoding. Instead some vested
interests are attempting to delay and derail efforts to increase the carrying capacity,
the bandwidth for telephonic and computer communications. There, again, is no
attempt on the part our of national security establishment to educate the population at
large, both, on the need to rapidly improve our connectivity as well as the need for
awareness to protect own individual communications.

If this is not done expeditiously, not only will the vulnerabilities to our economy
increase in all negotiations between our economic institutions and outsiders we shall
be at a disadvantage since the outside world is in a position to tap any information
stored in a computer connected to internet and transmitted through telephones.
Recently, France accused the US of allowing its business establishments to have
access to information gained by their intelligence collection satellites meant for
military purposes. I am afraid there is a lot of complacency in respect of this security
challenge. It is felt that we have a large reservoir of people with skills in software
engineering and we know all about it.

The revolution in military affairs (RMA) is the future of war, if and when it takes
places. This is application of information and sensor technologies to improve the
accuracy of weapons, obtaining real time information on the adversary and using the
information superiority to protect and defend oneself and severely damage the
adversary's capability to prosecute the war. One saw the application of some aspects
of RMA during the Gulf and Kosova wars. But there is further scope for advances in
this area. There are both offensive and defensive aspects in this field.

Arising out of these challenges is the issue of India preparing itself to meet them in
terms of next generation weaponry which will incorporate information technology,
microelectronics and sophisticated sensors. Today's defence production
establishments under the Ministry of Defence are incapable of producing the next
generation weaponry equipment. The private sector in India is today far ahead of
defence production establishments in capabilities in these areas. Therefore planning
to involve private sector in such defence production should start right now.
Unfortunately there is not much evidence of either the Defence Ministry or the
private sector being fully cognisant of the nature of problems they will be facing.

Till now security planners in India were attempting to carry out their tasks on the
basis of their past experience or what they learnt from the industrialised countries.
Often there was a time lag in absorbing the experience of industrialised countries
after analysing what would be applicable to our security environment. As mentioned
earlier, our understanding of national security was not future oriented. Even in the
rest of the world where countries have a strategic tradition, the common saying till
recently used to be that generals were used to preparing to fight the last war. It is no
longer possible to deal with the problems of national security on the basis of past
experience only, though that experience is very valuable as a learning process.
Today's national security challenges call for thinking ahead to anticipate which state
and non-state actors entertain hostile intentions towards our state, our society and our
value systems and what they are likely to do and to devise ways and means of
checking them. Therefore it needs future oriented research into international,
national, political, social, economic and technological developments to keep abreast
with the thinking of potentially hostile state and non-state actors. This is why in other
countries national defence universities have been established and scholarly research
is carried out to enable the national security establishment to keep a step ahead of the
potential adversaries. Unfortunately the recognition that national security today calls
for high intellectual inputs and is not a routine bureaucratic management exercise by
both people in uniform and civilians, is yet to develop in this country. That raises
further questions of training, periodic refresher courses, updating of knowledge and
information for officers in the defence and intelligence services and to the civil
servants. The present culture of generalism has become outdated and counter-
productive.

There will be many in this country who will ask whether all this is necessary and
whether these steps will not lead us towards becoming a garrison state. I am a liberal,
totally abhor violence in any form, hate the nuclear weapons and would like nothing
better than a world without enemies and weapons. I am committed to a good
government, democracy, equal opportunities to all, affirmative action to speed up
upward mobility of hitherto disadvantaged sections of society, an equitable economic
order, secular and casteless society, total elimination of corruption and maximum
human rights to every one. The issue is how to move towards that world. A section of
our people argue that we should set an example to promote that world. I agree
wholeheartedly. However, we are not living in an island continent without the rest of
the world actively impinging on us. We cannot afford to ignore the intentions of
others, benign and hostile, towards us. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, lying on his bed
of arrows, while in the process of choosing the moment of his death, taught Pandavas
the principles of statecraft. He told them "Nobody is anybody's friend. Nobody is
anybody's enemy. It is the circumstances that make enemies and friends. "Thousands
of years later Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary reenunciated the dictum
in words which every student of international relations is taught "There is no
permanent friend, there is no permanent enemy. There is only permanent interest." In
fact, in this country this dictum is better understood in domestic politics but no it so
much in foreign policy. Therefore, while we should try to pursue a non aggressive
policy, one of good neighbourliness and of friendship and cooperation and promote
the concept of 'Vasudeva Kutumbakam' (the whole world is a family) we will not be
fair to one-sixth of mankind if in the name of such professed idealism we sacrifice
their security, safety and interests. Very often such posturing becomes a convenient
cloak for incompetence and mediocrity.

This is where the Gandhiji-Cariappa interaction is highly relevant. Gandhiji was an

apostle of nonviolence and went on a fast in 1948 to compel the Government of India
to release the money which was Pakistan's due. Yet, he strongly supported the Indian
Army going into action to save Kashmir because he found there was no alternative to
the use of violence against wanton aggression. At another point, Gandhiji said
forgiveness adorned a soldier, and added, but only the strong could forgive. A mouse
being torn by a cat could not claim to forgive the cat, he argued. If the world is to be
reshaped and values of peace, freedom, international cooperation and justice are to be
promoted only the strong can do it and not the weak. One should have a realistic
assessment of the international situation as it exists not as one would like to fantasise
it to be. The international community has legitimised the nuclear weapons and the use
of force without declaring war. When countries are harassed by international
terrorism and proxy wars, by narcotics traffic and organised crime often posing as
noble causes, the international community often looks away. In trying to counter
these efforts to wreck and derail our development process, no doubt, excesses often
occur. There can be no disputing that they should be curbed. But that cannot be done
by abdicating the basic responsibility of the state to counter and overwhelm the
criminal and anarchistic forces. There are grounds to complain that the problems of
use of force in a fair and just manner with restraint and effectiveness have not been
addressed. But that is part of the overall problem of indifference to issues of national
security, incompetence and mediocrity in governance.

It is often argued that this country should not be spending money on armaments and
national security efforts before tackling our poverty. Some others are of the view that
because our poor have no stake in this country, society and polity and since our
politicians have to reflect the views of the constituency of the poor, they are
indifferent to national security. These are superficial and illogical arguments mostly
meant as alibis for 'lotus eating' attitude of our political class. It is estimated in this
country some 30 per cent of the people are below poverty line and 70 per cent are
above it. One would therefore expect that 70 per cent should have a stake in national
security and they should be on guard that external as well as internal hostile forces do
not further disrupt our economic development. Secondly, if adequate resources have
not been applied on the ground on education, health, water supply, housing and job
creation, it is not due to disproportionate diversion of resources to national security
but due to the fact, as stated by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, only 15 paise
out of every rupee spent reaches the poor. The rest is siphoned off by the politician-
bureaucracy-organised crime combine, which I have already termed as one of the
major national security threats. Therefore those who overlook this diversion of
resources meant for poverty alleviation and provision of basic needs through
corruption and ask the country to reduce its national security preparedness are only
helping the continuous robbing of the poor. Very often such lobbies are assisted by
funds from abroad from sources which are interested in diverting attention away from
the real reason for lack of speed in eliminating poverty, namely corruption and the
imperative need for our national security preparedness.

In these circumstances the responsibility for rectifying the present situation,

increasing the popular awareness of the problems of national security and initiating
the whole package of measures to safeguard our security and accelerate the political,
social, economic and technological developments which are two sides of the coin of
promoting a just social order, is with the government and particularly the NSC.

The cabinet secretariat resolution No. 281/29.6.98/TS of April 16, 1999 stated "The
Central Government recognises that national security management requires integrated
thinking and coordinated application of the political, military, diplomatic, scientific
and technological resources of the state to protect and promote national security goals
and objectives. National security in the context of the nation, needs to be viewed not
only in military terms but also in terms of internal security, economic security,
technological strength and foreign policy. The role of the council is to advise the
Central Government on the said matters".

If the NSC is not able to fulfil the role prescribed for it, that becomes a challenge to
national security. Therefore it is necessary to analyse why it has not been able to fulfil
that role and what could be done to ensure that the NSC can play that role.

The NSC and CCNS have two distinct and complementary roles. The NSC has to
look to the future. According to the cabinet resolution the NSC is to cover external
security, security threats involving atomic energy, space and high technology, trends
in the world economy and economic security threats, internal security, patterns of
alienation emerging in the country, especially those with a social, communal or
religious dimension, transborder crimes and intelligence coordination and tasking.
Broadly, it covers the areas I had earlier enumerated as those posing security
challenges.

This task of the NSC cannot be carried out without a dedicated staff which will have
adequate expertise and will be able to develop holistic future-oriented perspectives
and submit them for deliberations of the NSC. In the light of those deliberations, the
NSC will advise different ministeries and organisations to come up with their policy
reommendations. Those, in turn, will be considered by the CCNS and decisions taken
thereon. Unfortunately, this has not happened and the NSC has not functioned at all
in the absence of a fully developed staff support. The present NSC staff was the old
JIC staff with some marginal additions. That staff has to discharge its earlier function
as the intelligence assessing body at a time when failure of assessment process has
been under intense criticism. Further, the same staff provided secretarial support to
National Security Advisory Board, the Kargil Review Committee and the four
taskforces set up to review defence management, intelligence, border management
and internal security. It is quite obvious that adequate thought has not been given to
develop an appropriate staff for the National Security Council to function effectively.
It is therefore not surprising that the council has not been functional.

The task cannot be performed by the ministries offering their inputs and their being
coordinated. The ministries are focussed on the present and are not equipped to
undertake a holistic long term view of various security issues. The generalist system
of civil service in this country inhibits the civil servants acquiring the required
expertise in most of the ministries. The country has not developed the culture of
contract research and our civil servants are not used to sharing information which is
necessary to have successful contract research. In fact information handling is an area
of grave weakness with our civil services. As mentioned earlier they are reluctant to
share even the time of the day.

It is understandable that for a country where the political class and the bureaucracy,
including the uniformed one have not developed adequate familiarity with the total
concept of national security, as is evident from the NSC being formed only 52 years
after independence, there will be teething troubles, various infantile ailments and
adolescent problems in the development of NSC and its full effective functioning.
What is worrying and of concern is that it has not even let out its first cry since its
birth. The amateurish experiment of V.P. Singh set back the concept of NSC by many
years. One is worried that an NSC on paper without any activity will prove fatal to
future holistic national security management in this country.

There is the Sanskrit saying 'Yadha Rajas Thatha Praja'-as is the king so are the
subjects. If at the topmost political level there is an attitude of casual approach to
national security one cannot expect the bureaucracy, the parliament, the media and
others to pay more meaningful attention to national security except when the issue is
used as a political football. President Truman talked of the buck stopping in his
office. In our system the buck stops with the Prime Minister. Therefore, the
responsibility for the present unsatisfactory situation of casual approach to national
security vests with the Prime Minister and his immediate advisers in matters of
national security. I am not saying it in a spirit of criticism. I am aware that last two
years, have seen many steps forward in this area including the setting up of the NSC.
I am pointing out the deficiencies with a view to help, not only to diagnose the
problem but to prescribe the treatment. I have some credentials in this field. I have
devoted more than 40 years of my working life to advance Indian national security in
a holistic manner. I have advocated and campaigned for setting up NSC for the last
30 years. I would not like to see the experiment fail. Therefore let me detail my
suggestions to activate the NSC.

I have gone on record that in my view it is difficult to do justice to both the

responsibilities of the offices of the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and that
of National Security Adviser. However, I shall not press that point any further.
Whether the chief of a government can have his utmost confidence in one or more
persons is a matter no one from outside can prescribe. It has to be left to him, though
my preference is clear. If he chooses to have only one person to man both posts then
the work has to be organised in such a way and structure and processes of the NSC
should be so devised as to ensure smooth functioning of the NSC. There are very well
tried out organisational principles to deal with the problem. Today there is a well
established and adequately staffed Prime Minister's office. But there is no adequately
staffed NSC office under the NSA. The present NSCS, the old JIC is part of the
Cabinet Secretariat. Let its old name be revived and let it focus more effectively and
exclusively on intelligence assessment. That is a full time and enormously
burdensome responsibility. The NSA requires independent dedicated staff to activate
the NSC.

The NSC must have a regular time table to meet on a prescribed day in a fortnight at
the initial stage and once a week a little later. The members of the NSC will arrange
their tour programmes keeping that regular meeting in view. The NSC should have
comprehensive intelligence briefing in each meeting to be followed by a discussion.
The Chiefs of Staff and intelligence chiefs and the concerned secretaries should
attend these meetings. These discussions should be free for all ministers and official
and should not follow the cabinet procedure where the official speaks only when
spoken to. It is quite possible that the discussion that follows would generate
perspectives for studies, sensitise the NSC to anticipate future situations and promote
more intensive interaction at the top levels of bureaucracy. At the initial stage, with a
staff which is new and still to acquire expertise, it may be necessary to set up task
forces to come up with studies on various issues. In this respect the recent experiment
of setting up task forces is a valuable one. In about two to three years time a
reasonably well trained staff will be in place. Simultaneously, a number of
autonomous think-tanks have to be encouraged and research in universities on
national security issues should be supported. One of the problems we have is that the
national security management is not looked upon as a long term issue in which the
capabilities have to be developed over a period of time. Each Cabinet looks upon it as
an issue limited to its term of office. The NSC or the Prime Minister should hold
regular periodic meetings once in three or four months to brief other parties in the
Parliament and keep them informed through a regular supply of literature. The NSC
secretariat should also ensure that when major policy statements are made they are
made available to all political leaders and bureaucrats and they should be informed
that that was the government's policy and no pronouncements should be made in
adhoc and off the cuff remarks. Therefore, a lot more attention has to be paid to the
information policy of the Government on matters related to national security.

Perhaps I will be told in our system described by Professor Gallbraith as the only
functioning anarchy, all this is not possible and I am out of touch with political
realities. That, in my view, is an alibi for not making the necessary effort. That is an
abdication of the responsibility of the leadership. For decades I was told that India
could not afford to go nuclear, mostly by people who have not taken the trouble to
study the subject.

This is the right moment to start the effort to make the NSC work. Thanks mostly to
efforts of this government, India is entering an era in which it is called upon to play a
global role and is poised to enter into a high growth trajectory. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of this government to lay strong foundations for a national security
planning structure and to start training cadres who will later on man the posts in that
structure. The present cadre of generalist civil servants cannot do it.

The development of the awareness to initiate the tasks constitute the core challenge to
our national security. The present 'stop-go' attitude of casual approach to it in normal
times, and fingerpointing at the time of crisis, has got to change by leadership efforts.
Bringing about these attitudinal changes, setting up an appropriate national security
planning structure and organising the training of cadres are more difficult tasks than
to test the nuclear weapons in May 1998. There is no point in just listing out various
security challenges if the country continues to lack the mechanism to assess the long
term implications of each one of those and plan our responses to them.

These vital challenges of bringing about attitudinal changes towards our national
security and taking steps to get the NSC working have been neglected far too long.
The country cannot afford to continue this way much longer without paying high
costs. Let me hope that the leadership will pay immediate attention to these basic
challenges.
Indian Nuclear Doctrine

by

Dr K Subrahmanyam
Defense Analyst Consulting Editor
(Times of India & the Economic Times)
1. Background

Why should India have a nuclear doctrine? No other nuclear weapon power has
formulated a nuclear doctrine and debated it in public. This is a very legitimate
question. India is unique not only in formulating the doctrine and releasing it for
public debate it is also the country which had agonized on going nuclear weaponwise
for over three decades before finally conducting the nuclear tests and declaring itself
a nuclear weapon state. All other countries took their decision to acquire nuclear
weapons in utmost secrecy - whether they were democracies or dictatorships. No
other country has had a record equal to India's in campaigning against nuclear
weapons and yet at the end of it all India has felt it had to declare itself a nuclear
weapon state. The nuclear doctrine has become necessary to explain to our own
people and to the rest of the world why India, in spite of its sustained campaign
against nuclear weapons became a nuclear weapon state. Obviously the nuclear
weapon tests of May 11, 1998 could not have been prepared for and conducted within
53 days of taking office by the BJP led coalition government. The tests ranged from
sub- kiloton tests to a thermonuclear test. The nuclear scientists thanked not only the
present government but all previous Prime Ministers for supporting the nuclear
weapons programme. They also declared the weaponisation had been completed.
Therefore the country must realize that the Indian nuclear weapons programme was
not just the programme of the BJP led coalition but a national programme nurtured
over the years by Prime Ministers belonging to the Congress Party , Janata Dal and
the United Front besides the BJP. The rationale of such a programme supported by a
majority of the parties and the considerations which compelled India to go nuclear in
spite of its long opposition to nuclear weapons have not unfortunately been explained
to our own country and the world. The purpose of the nuclear doctrine is to do that.

Recently three distinguished Pakistanis who have occupied very high offices in that
country came out with the disclosure that in Pakistani perception their nuclear
capability deterred India from attacking Pakistan on three occasions in 1984, 1987
and 1990. Their article "Keeping nuclear peace" appeared on 5th October 1999 in
THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL. The authors are Mr. Agha Shahi, Mr. Abdul Sattar
former and present foreign minister and Air chief Marshal Zulfikar Ali Khan.
According to this article, in 1984 India was planing to attack the Kahuta nuclear
installation. In 1987 the Indian military exercise "Operation Brasstacks" threatened
Pakistan and in 1990 the Kashmir militancy started. When Pakistanis claim that in all
these cases their nuclear capability deterred India they imply that they conveyed an
implicit or explicit nuclear threat to India. In January 1987 Dr. A.Q Khan did give an
interview to Mr. Kuldip Nayyar in which a threat was conveyed. In 1990 the
Pakistani behaviour led to the US President dispatching his special envoy, Mr. Robert
Gates to Islamabad and Delhi to defuse what was perceived by them as a crisis.

According to various US accounts the Pakistanis did project a nuclear threat at that
time. These claims of Messrs Agha Shahi and Abdul Sattar and Air Chief Marshal
Zulfikar Ali Khan are not new. Earlier in 1993 then Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq
Khan said the same thing. Other leading Pakistanis have also made similar assertions.
Pakistan does not claim that India ever threatened them with nuclear weapons and
Pakistani assertions about Indian conventional threats are not substantiated. Therefore
the logical conclusion is that Pakistan had been posing a nuclear threat to India since
mid eighties even according to the Pakistanis. This threat was repeated on August 23,
1994 by Mr. Nawaz Sharif in a speech at Nila Bhat in occupied Kashmir when he
said that as ex Prime Minister he was in a position to assert that Pakistan had the
bomb and it would not hesitate to use it if India attacked the occupied Kashmir. One
may recall that during the Kargil war there were many implicit nuclear threats from
Pakistani Ministers and officials.

Pakistan had unleashed a proxy war in Kashmir since 1989 without bothering about
the alleged Indian conventional superiority. India was unable to take any proactive
action against Pakistan for its sustained proxy was as was done in 1965 by Prime
Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. That was because the Indian conventional superiority
was only on paper. In 1989-90 a portion of the Indian Army was deployed in Sri
Lanka. During 1990-93 Indian Army had to be deployed in Punjab in support of
antiterrorist compaign carried out by the Punjab Police. Thereafter from 1993
onwards the Indian Army was deployed on the North-east as well as in counter
militancy operations in J&K. The situation was asymmetrical in Pakistan's favour.
Their politicians and the Army were flaunting their nuclear weapons in public.
Through their proxy war strategy they had tied down sizeable portions of the Indian
army leaving India with very little margin of its conventional superiority. The
Pakistani military and political leadership had also sedulously fostered a myth that
Pakistanis were superior to Hindus in fighting qualities. Mr Altaf Gauhar, the noted
Pakistani columnist has explained this in his article of 5th September, 1999 titled
"Four wars and one assumption".

The Pakistani strategy vis a vis India goes back to the seventies Bhutto launched his
nuclear weapons programme in January, 1972, months before India took the decision
on the Pokhran test. The aim was to neutralize the Indian conventional superiority. As
early as 1980 the Pakistanis told Professor Stephen Cohen, the noted American South
Asia specialist that a Pakistani nuclear capability would not only neutralize an
assumed Indian nuclear force but also Indian conventional superiority and would
enable Pakistan to reopen the Kashmir issue and at a time when the Indian
Government was weak and vacillating, to seize Kashmir in a bold and brash move. In
order to achieve this goal Bhutto negotiated an agreement with China in June 1976 to
obtain China's technological support for Pakistanis nuclear weapons programme. In
1981 Pakistan was able to persuade the US Administration that in exchange for their
support to US military assistance to Mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan the US should not interfere in Pakistan's nuclear programme. Pakistan
thereby gained active Chinese technological assistance and tacit US connivance for
their nuclear weapons programme by early eighties. As soon as Pakistan was able to
assemble its first nuclear weapon it started adopting an aggressive policy towards
India, fully confident that it was in a position to engage India in a continuous proxy
war and terrorist campaign and this country would not be able to counter it
effectively. This is the Pakistani factor is our nuclear decision making. Unfortunately
some people in this country easily succumb to the Pakistani and western propaganda
that the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme is a response to the Indian
programme. From early 1980's the Indian Prime Ministers were aware of the Chine-
Pakistan nuclear axis and the US connivance of the Pakistani nuclear weapons
Programme. It is in those circumstances Mrs. Gandhi first ordered a nuclear weapon
test in 1983 but cancelled it under US pressure.

The Indian nuclear weapons programme-not a programme of maintaining an open

weapon option-was continued under Rajiv Gandhi, V.P Singh, Chandra Sekhar,
Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. They are in fact entitled to all the
credit for nurturing the programme and bringing it to the advanced stage when a
whole series of weapon tests could be undertaken on May 11 and 13 1999. Earlier,
Prime Minister Narasimha Rao also ordered a nuclear weapon test in December,1995.
He too had to cancel it under US pressure. Therefore the view that the conduct of
Indian nuclear tests in May, 1998 or India declaring itself a nuclear weapon state was
a departure from the national consensus of keeping the option open is liable to serious
challenge. On the other hand it would appear there has been a consensus among
successive Prime Ministers from Mrs Gandhi to Mr. Vajapayee belonging to the
Congress, Janata Dal, United front and BJP that India should become a nuclear
weapon state. This needed to be brought out into the open. This is one of the
objectives underlying the publication of the nuclear doctrine.

2. Legitimization of nuclear weapons

The Nonproliferation Treaty was advertised to the international community as a Cold

war arms control measure and therefore an interim arrangement. However in 1995
that treaty was extended indefinitely and unconditionally. Very rarely there are such
treaties of indefinite duration. By extending the treaty unconditionally and
indefinitely the nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nuclear weapon powers were
legitimised indefinitely and unconditionally. The 1995 extension of the Non
proliferation treaty made it clear to the world that the five nuclear weapon powers
had no intention of moving towards global nuclear disarmament. They had succeeded
in perpetuating a global nuclear apartheid. No realistic Indian leader could afford to
ignore this major event and still continue to believe that there will be elimination of
nuclear weapons in the near feature. Non can he afford to ignore the China-Pakistan
nuclear proliferation axis and continued US connivance of that axis. Therefore Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao ordered the nuclear tests of December, 1995. What he was
compelled to defer under US pressure was carried out by the BJP government in May,
1998. It should be noted that the previous Prime Ministers V.P. Singh, Narasimha Rao
and I.K. Gujral never criticized the nuclear tests.

The nuclear weapon powers were trying to foreclose the possibility of India going
nuclear by promoting the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. They tried to arm twist
India by including it in the list of 44 states that must sign and ratify the treaty to bring
it into force even after India indicated that it would not sign the treaty because it
affected adversely its national security interests. Let us reflect on what was being
imposed on India, Pakistan gets a nuclear weapon design tested and proved by China
and continues to get nuclear and missile technologies from that country in violation
of its obligations under the Nonproliferation treaty. The US continues to look away.
Other nuclear weapon powers are disinterested bystanders. Therefore India had to act
early and that had to be done before the US was able to develop an adequate
understanding of the new government's decision making style and methods.

3. The Nuclear doctrine

The evolution of Indian nuclear doctrine has been going on from early 90s. Just as the
nuclear weapons programme was based on a national consensus so also the Indian
nuclear doctrine. The origin of no first use goes back to Rajiv Gandhi - Gorbachev
declaration of 1986 and the statement declaration made by Dr. Raja Ramanna, as
minister of state for defence in the Rajya Sabha in May, 1990. The minimum credible
deterrent too has been discussed both in official and nonofficial circles in late eighties
and early nineties. Prime Minister V.P Singh appointed a Committee in 1990 to
analyze and advise on these issues consisting of Mr. Arun Singh, late General
Sundarji and the present lecturer. . Late General Sundarji had been advocating the
principles of no first use and minimum deterrent through his writings including his
novel "The Blind men of Hindustan". Therefore those who ascribe the nuclear
doctrine entirely to the present government are apparently not fully familiar with the
past history of the evolution of this doctrine.

The principle of no first use highlights that India does not propose to use the nuclear
weapons as currency of power or for nuclear blackmail. The principle of no first use
in analogous to the right of self defence in law. While murder or deliberate killing of
a person is a crime, defending oneself against another person's attempt to kill is
totally justified. So long as nuclear weapon powers keep their weapons there is
always the risk of such weapons being used or threatened to be used. In 1971 at the
end of the Bangladesh war the United States dispatched a nuclear armed and nuclear
powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal in an attempt to
intimidate India. The Pakistanis claim their nuclear weapons deterred planned Indian
attacks thrice. Therefore in such an international security environment the no first use
is a non-provocative and totally defensive policy. No first use is the first step towards
delegetimization of nuclear weapons. The Geneva Protocol of 1925 was a no first use
treaty in respect of chemical weapons. Thereafter the chemical weapons were used
only in situations of asymmetry when the aggressor had it and the victim did not. If
only all other nuclear weapon nations accept the no first use doctrine that would
automatically eliminate the risk of use of nuclear weapons and over a period of time
lead to total elimination of the weapons. No first use is the most meaningful step by
step approach to delegitimization and elimination of nuclear weapons. Very
influential sections of US scientific community have come round to support the no
first use doctrine.

Pakistan has declared repeatedly that it would not accept the no first use doctrine.
This is understandable because from the beginning Pakistan' s aim was to neutralize
the Indian conventional superiority and use nuclear capability as a shield behind
which it could prosecute proxy war and campaign of terrorism against India. They
also entertain hopes of seizing Kashmir at an appropriate moment when the Indian
government is weak and vacillating. There are some people in India who question the
wisdom of no first use policy. They also point out that the west never accepted the no
first use principle and even the Russians who accepted it earlier in 1982 have gone
back on it now. Therefore the basic philosophy behind no first use has to be
explained.

4. The No First Use Doctrine

In the west, from 1945 to 1985 the dominant view was the nuclear weapons would be
used in war like other weapons before. Long ago the American strategist Bernard
Brodie characterized the nuclear weapon as an absolute weapon and argued that from
then on the main task of the armed forces was not to fight wars but to prevent wars
from breaking out. In spite of such sane and sober advice most of the western
establishments developed a strategic nuclear theology which envisaged the use of
thousands of nuclear warheads, from tactical battle field nuclear weapons to megaton
city busting ones. It took the West forty years to realize that it is not feasible to fight a
nuclear war on the lines of a war with conventional weapons. In 1985 President
Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev of the Soviet Union declared jointly that a
nuclear war could not be won and therefore should not be initiated.

This was not just a platitudinous statement but had profound military logic
underlying it. It one side fires a few tactical nuclear weapons the other side will be
under compulsion to fire all the tactical weapons it has, for fear of losing them to
further strikes. This has been described as "use them or lose them'' compulsion.
Because of the reach of the missiles in a very short period of time most of the theatre
missiles would also be fired under the same kind of compulsion. When hundreds of
such missiles and warheads are fired there is bound to be escalation to resort to
strategic missiles within a short period of time. Conventional war is about the
controlled use of force to secure certain preferred goals. In nuclear war it is difficult
to keep control over firing in view of the reach of the missiles and the extremely short
time span in which hundreds of thousands of weapons of such destructive power and
capable of damaging the environment will be used. There are hypotheses about the
nuclear winter which will set in as a consequence. In retrospect it is clear most of the
nuclear strategy advocated up to the eighties lacked basic rationality.

There is better understanding about the extent of fightability of nuclear wars there
days. Following the attempted coup in the Soviet Union in August 1991 President
Bush ordered drastic reduction in the tactical. nuclear weapons and retrenchment of
forward deployed weapons which were exposed to high risks. This was followed by
similar action by USSR. Though tactical nuclear weapons still exist in the arsenals of
US and USSR they do not have the role which was assigned to them in the first four
decades of nuclear era. These days one does not expect a country to initiate a tactical
nuclear strike since that would lead a more severe retaliation from the adversary
armed with nuclear weapons and further escalation.
The essence of deterrence is the ability to persuade the nuclear adversary to believe
that even it he struck first there will be retaliation which will cause unacceptable
damage to him. Therefore it is the credible survivability of the retaliatory force which
generates deterrence. Maintaining a posture of keeping the option to strike first, if
practiced by two nuclear adversaries will generate perpetual tension and increase the
probability of accidental nuclear war or even unintended release of weapons. That is
the lesson of the cold war. It was such a posture resorted to by both sides that resulted
in an arms race, continuous tension, hair trigger alert of weapons and very high costs
in terms of command and control.

India needs nuclear weapons only for deterrence through retaliation and therefore
India does not have to maintain a policy of having the option to use the weapon first.
India has enough capability to deal with conventional threats without having to
threaten use of nuclear weapons.

The nuclear threats India faces have to be viewed in perspective. It is mostly in terms
of threat of use rather than actual use of the weapon. Since 1945 the nuclear weapon
has not been used. As has been earlier pointed out, Pakistan and US have resorted to
threats of use. The probability of US resorting to such a threat again is very low while
that from Pakistan continues to be quite high. Even during the Kargil conflict the
Pakistani politicians and officials indulged in such threats. India's credible minimum
deterrent is in a position to thwart Pakistan's designs in this respect.

China had declared a no first use policy initially. Subsequently it has tended to water
down that policy. In spite of that, one does not expect China to resort to nuclear
threats or use of nuclear weapons. Since it is a weak nuclear power vis a vis the
United States one does not expect China to legitimize the use and threat of use of
nuclear weapons. In the next few years with the development and deployment of
Agni missile India should be in a position to have a credible survivable deterrent vis a
vis China. Often in the game of nuclear deterrence comparisons are made with the
deployment postures and policies of two foremost nuclear weapon powers during the
Cold war era. Such comparisons are inapt. While US and USSR in their mutual
confrontation could afford to ignore all other nuclear actors it is not possible for
India, China and Pakistan to do the same. They have to take into account they are in a
world dominated by powers with much larger nuclear arsenals and therefore their
own freedom to act is restricted by this overall nuclear environment. All the nuclear
weapon powers consider the use of nuclear weapons by other nations to be against
their own interests. These factors have to be taken into calculation by powers like
China, Pakistan and India.

5. Credible Minimum Deterrent

At present there is no technology which can successfully intercept ballistic missiles.

Therefore there is no way in which a nation can defend itself against or forestall a
nuclear attack. Deterrence through credible capability to carry out retaliation
inflicting unacceptable damage is the only rational strategy against a nuclear threat.
The credibility of retaliation is at the heart of such strategy and that credibility in turn
depends on the survivability of the victim's retaliatory force. Survivability is ensured
through mobility, dispersal, camouflage and keeping it out of the aggressor's
observation capability. All over the world this has been achieved by having the
nuclear weapons distributed among aircraft, sea and land based missiles-known
popularly as the strategic triad. With increasing capability for satellites to spot the
land based targets the trend is to move away from fixed silo based and aircraft based
systems to sea based submarine and land mobile systems. More survivable the
retaliatory systems are a country can do with less weapons as a credible deterrent.
This is the reason why the Indian nuclear doctrine has prescribed a triad system
consisting of air, land and sea based elements. Unfortunately this has been criticized
by some as just copying the Western policies and postures. These critics have not paid
sufficient attention to the latest developments in satellite surveillance technologies
and the increased accuracy in the guidance of missiles.

The Indian nuclear weapons programme goes back to early '80s. The programme has
been supported at a modest pace. There has been no arms race in the last two
decades. In fact the Indian defence expenditure as percentage of gross domestic
product was brought down from around 3.3 percent down to a little over 2 percent
during the period India was going nuclear. There was no significant increase in
defence budget in 1998-99. If at all there is an increase this year that will be mostly
due to the Kargil war and the need to make up the voids in Armed forces' equipment
stockpiles arising out cuts in defence budget in the last decade. The arms race in the
Cold war era took place between the richest democratic country in the World which
could afford to spend on armaments and a totalitarian country which could afford to
spend money on defence at the expense of its economic growth and development
since it was not a democracy. In the case of India our defence expenditure will be
strictly limited by the public opposition to unaffordable levels of defence
expenditure. Therefore our missile and nuclear programmes will be limited by the
pace of expenditure we can afford. For instance Chine did not get into an arms race
with the United States during the seventies and eighties when it had a minimum
credible deterrent. The nuclear arms race was among powers which had global
policies and interests. Purely for purposes of deterrence a modest build up within
affordable means would be adequate. Pakistan is in no position to engage in an arms
race with India because of its economic conditions and China is in any case building
up its armaments vis a vis the United States and therefore India is not likely to be a
major independent variable in the Chinese security calculus.

6. Viability of Deterrence

Further the US and USSR were locked in a global ideological conflict. Both of them
treated their confrontation as a zero sum game. China is no longer an ideological
power and the Sino-Indian equation is not a Zero Sum game. Though Pakistan aims
at disintegration of India using religious extremism and terrorism India does not aim
at the destruction of Pakistan. Therefore it is totally unrealistic to transfer the super
power arms race analogies to the India-China-Pakistan equations.

Some people question the viability of the doctrine of deterrence. They cite that India
had always opposed it in the past. That no doubt is true. Even now India would still
prefer a world without nuclear weapons. But India cannot afford to ignore the harsh
international realities. The first and foremost is the international Community has
legitimized the nuclear weapons and all nations except four-India, Pakistan Israel and
Cuba - have joined the indefinitely and unconditionally extended NPT. The entire
international community is a multitiered nuclear security order. At the top are the
nuclear weapon powers. At the next level are their military allies, the NATO countries
and Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea which have the nuclear deterrent
protection of the US. In the tier below there are the countries other than the nuclear
weapon powers and their military allies who are all members of the Organisation of
Security and Cooperation in Europe and are partners of peace of the nuclear weapon
powers. In the tier below that are those countries which have agreed to legitimize the
nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees extended under the scheme of
nuclear weapon free zones. All Latin American countries, African countries, the
ASEAN and South Pacific countries are in this category. Nineteen countries from
Pakistan to Kenya are under the jurisdiction of the US Central command and V fleet
which have nuclear weapons. Therefore whether we like it or not the entire
international system has been incorporated into the international nuclear security
order. The choice before India is to be an autonomous actor or being dominated in
this order. India correctly chose the former option.

It is totally unrealistic to expect that India will be able to prevail against this
international nuclear security order subscribed to by all nonaligned countries. So long
as the rest of the world have adopted nuclear deterrence as the dominant security
paradigm Indians who constitute one sixth of humanity are entitled to security under
that paradigm. It is totally irrelevant whether we approve of it or not in ethical terms.
So long as the rest of the world has adopted it we can safeguard our security only by
operating on their belief system.

Whether deterrence will prevail and be effective for ever or not it is difficult to say.
However it appears to have been effective in the last fifty five years. The nuclear
weapon has not been used after its first twin use over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945. It is a widespread belief in the Western world but for nuclear weapons
there might have been a third world war. Never before in history has there been a
precedent for the Paris Peace Conference of November 19, 1990 when two rival
blocks of nations armed to the teeth, with enough nuclear weapons on each side to
destroy the civilization several times over and having confronted each other for well
over four decades made peace with each other without having fought a war. This
unique outcome is ascribed to nuclear deterrence by many observes.

Though there is an overall understanding about the doctrine of deterrence among the
people at large yet sophisticated and nuanced understanding of it is much more
restricted. For instance in popular view it is expected that deterrence would operate
only if the two sides have some approximation in the sizes of their respective
arsenals. Because of this perception questions are raised whether India would ever be
able to deter China given its lead in weaponry over India. Deterrence is a very much
more complicated concept. To Illustrate it let me cite what happened in 1961 when
US had 5100 weapons and the Soviet Union only 300. The former had a seventeen to
one superiority. The US planned a total disarming strike on the latter. When the plans
were ready the US Defence Secretary asked the joint Chiefs of Staff whether they
could guarantee that no single Soviet weapon would reach US soil during the course
of the operations. The joint Chiefs said that was not possible A few weapons were
bound to hit the US. That was enough to deter the US from launching the planned
attack when they had seventeen to one superiority. That was why the former US
National Security Adviser Mr. McGeorge Bundy later declared that one H-bomb on
one city was unacceptable damage.

Today the US weapon superiority over China is more than one hundred to one. Yet
China feels that it is in a position to deter the US. It is against this background the
Indian strategists with some exceptions feel that a minimum credible deterrent is
good enough to safeguard Indian security and they agree with the Western strategic
thinker Professor Kenneth Waltz that more is unnecessary when less would be
adequate.

7 . Pakistan and Nuclear Deterrence

Some others have raised the question whether nuclear deterrence favours Pakistan
and whether it was able to launch the adventurous Kargil aggression because it was
emboldened by the overt nuclear deterrence established in May 1998. The mutual
nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan has been in existence since 1990 and
the Kargil aggression was only an extension of the proxy war Pakistan has been
waging against India for the last ten years. It was well known in strategic literature
from the fifties that even with nuclear deterrence operating between two nations what
was called "Salami slicing" was always possible "Salami slicing" is description of an
aggressor just moving in and seizing limited areas of territory which would not
provoke a nuclear retaliation since the victim of aggression would not consider his
stake so high as to risk escalation to nuclear level. It is for this purpose the US
developed what they called the strategy of flexible response-combination of
conventional and nuclear capabilities to deal with all contingencies without undue
risk of escalation. The Indian nuclear doctrine also calls for highly effective
conventional military capabilities to be maintained to raise the threshold of outbreak,
both of conventional military conflict as well as that of threat or use of nuclear
weapons.

Pakistan launched its Kargil aggression presumably in the confidence that nuclear
deterrence would ensure that India could not use its conventional forces across the
line of control as it did in 1965 for fear of escalation to nuclear level. Pakistan
presumably felt that once it had seized the Kargil heights it would able to secure an
internationally promoted cease-fire leaving it with some Salami slices of Kargil
territory. It also hoped to bring this about by resorting to nuclear blackmail. Pakistan
did not interpret the lessons of the history of nuclear era correctly. The international
community does not favour a nation gaining out of nuclear blackmail tactics and
altering the territorial status quo. The Eastern and Western blocks of nations agreed
on this principle in the Helsinki declaration which laid down that no frontier and no
line of control in Europe should be altered by use of force. India dealt with Pakistan
using the flexible response strategy. India had enough technological capability to
counter Pakistani aggression without crossing the line of control. Its air strikes and
artillery brought down havoc on Pakistani invaders. The international community led
by the US disciplined Pakistan as per the Helsinki rules and ensured that Pakistan did
not gain out of its nuclear blackmail. The result for Pakistan was the loss of its
democracy and fourth martial law. Pakistan stands Isolated today. In other words the
Kargil war proved that nuclear deterrence works in India-Pakistan context and it
enabled India to punish Pakistan for its Salami slicing tactics and established that the
international community would not permit the aggressor to gain out of nuclear
blackmail during the era of overt nuclear capability. When the nuclear deterrence was
only covert in late 80's and early '90 s Pakistan boasts their blackmail worked and
deterred India. That would clearly demonstrate that overt nuclear deterrence in more
beneficial to India than the covert one.

8. Civilian Control on Nuclear Weapons

The Indian nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the weapons would be released only
under the authority of the Prime Minister or his designated successor. That would
imply that there is no intention to delegate the powers to use the weapons to any
subordinate formation as was done in other nuclear weapon powers. It was such
delegation which increased the risks of accidental and unauthorized use of weapons.
These risks are brought down to a minimum level in the Indian scheme things.

The no first use policy does not go with tactical nuclear weapons since forward
deployed tactical weapons can easily be destroyed in the adversary's first strike. The
no first use would also demand that the weapons should normally be kept out of the
reach of first strike capability of the adversary. Therefore the policy reduces the risks
arising out of forward deployment and higher costs of command and control arising
of such deployment.

India will build up its credible minimum capability over a period of time without
unduly taxing its economy. India has already a credible retaliatory deterrent against
Pakistan and there is no immediate Chinese threat which would warrant a crash build
up of capability vis a vis China. Just as that country took its own time to build up its
deterrent vis a vis the US India too can do it in an unhurried way. If India expedites
its economic liberalisation there are reasonable expectations of this country's
economy growing at 6-7 percent growth rate. Therefore a defence burden of around 3
percent of a reasonably fast growing economy should be able to accommodate the
additional expenditure to build up a credible minimum deterrent over a period of
time. In the sixties and seventies a lot of Western writings used to emphasize that
India could not afford to develop nuclear weapons because of the expenditure
involved. Those doomsayers have been totally belied by the history of Indian weapon
development at very modest costs. Similarly now the doomsayers are predicting India
cannot afford a credible minimum deterrents and associated command and control.
They are bound to be as wrong as they were in the past. The Indian nuclear doctrine
has so far not been criticized for what it actually says. It has been criticized for what
people impute to its underlying policies and postures and that is being done without
any evidence to support the assertion. There is no doubt that for this situation our
successive Prime Ministers and the sycophantic political culture of the country are
largely responsible. While perhaps it was necessary for our Prime Ministers to keep
the exact status of India's nuclear weapons programme a secret they should have
publicised the threat to the country arising out of nuclear Pakistan, the Chinese
support to Pakistan and the US connivance and encouraged a healthy debate on the
nuclear issue.

Since they did not keep their own parties and the public informed and they did not
encourage their own respective partymen to learn about these matters we have the
spectacle of Congressmen opposing the nuclear programme largely nurtured by the
Congress Prime Ministers. The same is true of many Janata Dal and United Front
people also. One would expect these people to question their past Prime Ministers on
why they nurtured the nuclear weapons programme and what should be our nuclear
doctrine. Instead the issue is distorted through the prism of party politics and there is
very little meaningful debate in the country. Even after the nuclear tests our media
and academia are looking at the issue in partisan political terms and not from the
point of view of overall national security which is supra partisan in most of the
developed democracies.
The country is now a nuclear weapon state with nuclear warheads which can be
delivered by aircraft and land based missiles. Pakistan and China are not going to
give up their nuclear weapons. India finds itself in a unique position of being situated
between two nuclear weapons states which have an ongoing nuclear weapon
technology relationship between them. In these circumstances it is incumbent on all
of us who want to ensure this country is able to pursue its economic, social, political
and technological development in conditions of peace and security to debate the
nuclear security issue in realistic terms and help to formulate the nuclear doctrine. In
the western countries universities played a significant role in this respect . So should
our universities and academic centres of excellence like the IITs.
Copyright © 2002. IIT Kanpur Alumni Association
A doyen among strategic analysts

by B.G. Verghese

Subbu, as K. Subrahmanyam was popularly known, died with his boots on. He
reflected, wrote and discussed current events and their implications for the future
until the last even as he gamely battled a terminal illness. He will be remembered
with respect and gratitude for having tutored two generations of Indians to think
holistically and strategically. That will be his enduring monument.

A member of the Tamil Nadu cadre of the IAS, Subbu was a young Deputy Secretary
in the Department of Defence Production in Delhi when I first met him in 1966. I had
just left The Times of India to join Indira Gandhi as her Information Adviser. Soon
thereafter China exploded its third nuclear device — the first having been in 1964 —
and preparations were afoot internationally to draft a non-proliferation treaty to limit
nuclear weapons to the five nations that had tested up to date. This would effectively
bar others, including India, from joining the exclusive nuclear club.

The official Indian response to these events seemed vague and confused and it
appeared to a mere outsider like me that the problem had simply not been thought
through. Conflicting and compartmentalised thinking was evident with everybody
pulling in different directions and no studied effort to build a consensus or frame
clear options.

I accordingly took the bit in my teeth and did a note for the Prime Minister urging a
holistic study, noting that the Opposition in the Lok Sabha had sought a firm official
commitment to build the Bomb and Foreign Minister Swaran Singh’s had been that it
was intended to develop the knowhow and technical capability for the purpose.

Homi Sethna, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), whom I knew,
happened to drop into my office and plaintively remarked that the AEC was being
administratively hamstrung. I took the cue and invited him to lunch the next day for a
brainstorming session to which I proposed to invite some others. In the result, Sethna;
S. Gopal, Director, Historical Division of the MEA; Pitamber Pant, Head of the
Perspective Planning Division of the Planning Commission; Romesh Thapar, then a
close confdante of Mrs Gandhi; K.Subrahmanyam, a promising young official who I
had been informally told was an appropriate person to invite from the Defence
Ministry, and I assembled at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. We formulated the outlines
of what might be done after going round the table garnering preliminary insider
inputs on the technical, economic, diplomatic, political and security parameters.

I reported the outcome to the Prime Minister and her Secretary, L.K. Jha. A week
later, at an AEC meeting chaired by the Prime Minister in Bombay, tentative approval
was accorded to a study on a nuclear weapons and missile programme. Vikram
Sarabhai had taken over the leadership of the AEC from Homi Bhabha, who had
tragically been killed in an air crash. Subbu was thereafter to remain a continuing link
and the most persuasive, eloquent and indefatigable advocate of India’s nuclear
weaponisation, placing his arguments in the wider and rapidly evolving regional and
global security and strategic context.

The theroretical basis for his strategic thinking was refined and deepened when, as
Director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, Subbu had time to read,
travel, interact and seminar with some of the best minds on the subject anywhere. He
was reasoned, not merely polemical, something that even his intellectual opponents
admired. He was a regular at Pugwash meetings and other Track II engagements,
notably the India-Pakistan Neemrana Initiative, where his powerful advocacy came
into full play and where he was heard with rapt attention by leading Pakistani
interlocutors.

Heading the Joint Intelligence Committee gave Subbu insights into areas out of
bounds to most. It was no surprise that he was closely consulted and actively
involved in the final phases of the country’s nuclear programme that climaxed in
1998 with Pokhran-II, to which Pakistan, not unexpectedly, responded in kind.

He was natural choice to lead the first National Security Advisory Board which
produced a national threat assessment and a national security doctrine after extensive
debate. Subbu had strong views but he never sought to impose them on others
preferring, patiently, to build consensus. This was evident in his deft handling of the
NSAB debate on prescribing a nuclear doctrine for India posited on no-first use, a
credible minimum (second strike) deterrent, and a triad-based (air, sea and land)
delivery system. These recommendations were accepted by the government without
demur.

Few perhaps know or recall a very incisive paper on the Kashmir question that Subbu
wrote, maybe in the 1980s. This deep interest combined with his security-intelligence
background led to his being appointed chairman of the Kargil Review Committee,
with Lt-Gen K.K. Hazari (retd), and me as members and Satish Chandra, Secretary,
National Security Council Secretariat, as member-secretary. Many scoffed at what
they perceived to be the limited and innocuous terms of reference of the committee
and its lack of judicial powers or those of a commission of inquiry. All it was armed
with was a letter from the Cabinet Secretary to all concerned, civil, military,
intelligence and others, soliciting full cooperation and candour.

The result was astonishing, Subbu decided that all those invited to depose should
meet the committee and be given a transcript of their remarks which they were then
invited to correct, amend or rewrite with whatever additions or excisions they desired
and submit the amended version under their signatures. The formula inspired
confidence and worked wonders. The responses were utterly candid and much was
revealed that might have otherwise remained hidden. Security deletions were effected
in the main report and 22 Annexures but that was nevertheless a frank and open
account of events and assessments.

The report was accepted by the government, which set up four Task Forces to flesh
out the salient recommendations with regard to higher defence management, internal
security, border management and intelligence. These, too, were broadly adopted and
set in motion a major overhaul of structures, procedures and archaic doctrines that
had remained sacrosanct and untouched since the British left.

The fallout of the Kargil Review Committee was perhaps Subbu’s greatest
achievement even if much of it remains work in progress.

The man will be missed. His work and ideas will not fade.
RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a clever wit, and a good man file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a c...

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Home > RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a clever wit, and a good man

RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a

clever wit, and a good man
By News Desk
Created 1969-12-31 19:00

RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a clever wit, and

a good man [1]

Jason Overdorf [2]February 3, 2011 00:00

Subhead:

India's Holbrooke succumbs at 82 after shaping India's foreign policy for decades

Byline:
Jason Overdorf

Committed, courageous and consistent in his abiding engagement with national security and
the global strategic environment for almost 50 years, K Subrahmanyam , KS or Subbu, as he
was better known, who passed away on Wednesday, reports India's Economic Times
newspaper [3]. Subrahmanyam will long be remembered for his singular and distinctive
contribution to 'Bharat Raksha,' the defence and protection of India and its core interests, the
paper said.

I had only just met KS, when I was invited to a discussion panel at the Delhi-based Institute
for Defense Studies and Analysis that he was chairing. My attendance was predicated on
the event being off the record, so I didn't take notes, but I was struck by the precision of the
signature KS wit, his straight shooting, and the readiness with which he had dropped his
anti-US position and taken up a contrarian point of view on China -- about which he went
away from his supposed stance as a hawk and preached an engagement based on "soft
power."

I called him soon afterward, and I was hoping to make him a regular source. But the next
time I phoned, he informed me that he was feeling too ill to talk, and I wished him good
health--only to read yesterday that he never got better.

Below is the text of that last interview:

1) You mentioned that Obama has little choice but to make India America's leading partner.
Why is that so? Based on current behavior, do you think the US realizes it?

Because China has become the second power in the world, and the Chinese are interested
in closing the gap and becoming the number one power in the world. If the US doesn't want

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RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a clever wit, and a good man file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a c...

to lose its pre-eminent position as technological and economic power, it must race with China
and keep ahead of China in knowledge generation. In order to do that, since China has 4
times the pop of the US, and has started outproducing the US in engineers and scientists,
the US has got to draw on a reservoir of talent. The only reservoir of talent that is English
speaking and has the same value system as the US is india.

2) How do you foresee the India-China-America-Pakistan relationship developing in the

future?

It's not a four-way relationship. Actually, China in its drive for power has used North Korea as
a launchpad, and armed North Korea with nuclear weapons. China has armed Pakistan with
nuclear weapons, and Pakistan, in turn, protected by its nuclear shield is using its derivative,
terrorism, as an instrument of politics against India, the US and Europe.

The two non-democratic forces, China's authoritarianism and pak's fundamentalism, are
allied with each other. China is the only majorpower in the world that is not democratic. It is a
question of democratic versus anti-democratic forces. Today, half the pop of the world lives
under democracy.

3) I'm interested in your idea that the Indo-US alliance vis a vis China will not be a
NATO-type, deterrent-based partnership....

Those are all 20th century, bygone tyupe of things. People must realize that the Cold War is
over. Because people don't understand this, both in the American and Indian
establishments, the Americans are saying you have to do this because we had this
legislation in the cold war. Similarly, India says our because of our traditional stance of
non-alignment, we need to remain autonomous. They need to think this through. The real
question is: Is the future world order going to be governed by democratic values or one party
state values.

4) It seems to me that China's success in foreign policy shows that we were naive to think
that the days of realpolitik ended with the Cold War. In that context, how important are the
"shared values" that both India and the US keep emphasizing?

Realpolitik is different from Cold War politics. Most of the PLA is still under the Cold War
mentality. But I'm not saying contain China, I am saying intensify engagement with China.
We have got democracy as our weapon. This challenge should be met by new methods.
Therefore the world has got to mobilize on the values of pluralism, secularism and
democracy and meet China's challenge and the jihadi challenge of Pakistan.

5) Has China changed the game for foreign policy in Asia -- and even Africa -- with its
aggressive embrace of realpolitik?

That is the reason why the only way of countering China and its expansionism and at the
same time generating pressure on the Chinese population ... is for the network of democratic
powers to emerge and internationally press democratic values using information technology.
Don't contain China, engage China. Get more Chinese tourists to your place, let them be
exposed to democracy. It's not classical realpolitik.

6) How can the US and India cooperate to influence China without presenting the
threatening image of encirclement or containment?

Next Obama is going to Indonesia, an Islamic country which is pluralistic and democratic. He
should get Indonesia into such a network. South Africa, which has got a Mulsim population,
Bangladesh, which has a Muslim population, but it's Supreme Court has struck down
Islamism.....

2 of 3 3/6/2011 1:44 AM
RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a clever wit, and a good man file:///M:/Rokw/Scribd/KS/RIP K. Subrahmanyam -- a good source, a c...

7) Are there any concrete steps that you see as "musts" for Obama's visit to India, in order to
keep the strategic partnership moving forward?

Everybody has got his own choice as what should be the must do items. Somebody thinks
it's the UN Security Council, somebody thinks its the export controls.

My point is to look beyond all these steps. If you agree on the big picture, then you can tell
the bureaucracies to please forget about the Cold War, please forget about the past
framework that we have, and please understand that the US and other democratic nations of
the worlds are partners in promoting a democratic, secular world order.

Publish Date:
Thu, 2011-02-03 (All day)
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3 of 3 3/6/2011 1:44 AM
Welcome to Sify.com http://www.sify.com/news/printer_friendly.php?a=lcenakaedgj&ctid=2...

K Subrahmanyam - Strategic Guru

2011-03-06 05:30:00

K Subrahmanyam (1929 - 2011), the strategic guru for most Indian security analysts who passed away on Feb 2 after a long
struggle with diabetes and cancer combined the finest qualities of head and heart. A civil servant who shunned the trappings of
power in a hierarchy obsessed society - he opted for the monk like austerity of the think-tank. Sapru House on Barakahmaba
Road in New Delhi was where I first met KS in 1987 when he was in the last phase of his tenure as the Director of the IDSA. His
name was familiar from the many thought-provoking edit page articles he wrote and I had also heard him occasionally on radio.
Unlike many of his peers, he had an easy relationship with the uniformed fraternity and encouraged me in my own study at the
time - the aircraft carrier and the relevance of naval-air for India.

Over the years I got to know KS better and was amazed by his formidable intellect, wide and eclectic reading - and above all, a
razor-sharp memory that could recall names, events and dates with amazing attention to detail. In those years, the relatively little
understood nuclear issue was central to the Indian strategic discourse - and KS was the prime-mover in the public domain. His
numerous articles in the IDSA journal - Strategic Analysis and the major dailies informed the policy maker and educated the lay
person and laid the foundation for a more nuanced understanding of the post Hiroshima nuclear cross that the world had to
bear and its realpolitik contours.

In the early 1990's there were many occasions when KS - then a newspaper columnist exhorted the GoI to resist all kinds of
pressures and inducements to renounce the nuclear option. Sanjaya Baru - then edit page editor of the Times of India played a
valuable role in shaping the national discourse on the subject - and two phrases that KS introduced to the lexicon were 'nuclear
apartheid' , and the 'Ayatollahs of the Potomac' . Both were invoked to show up the invalidity of the NPT on one hand , and the
obduracy of the non-proliferation zealots in Washington DC who were determined to cap, rollback and eliminate the nascent
Indian nuclear program.

For me personally the most cherished period will be the fortnight long visit with KS to the USA - soon after the May 1998 Shakti
nuclear tests - when the relationship with the Beltway had hit rock-bottom. Ambassador Naresh Chandra was our
plenipotentiary in DC but India was totally ostracized at the time - for having dared to exercise the nuclear option towards
weaponisation.

The GoI decided to send a group of Indian analysts and former diplomats (including the late Mani Dixit) and I was chosen to
accompany KS in the fall of 1998 as the first two-man trial balloon. At the time when all doors were closed to India, Stanley
Weiss of BENS and other well-wishers of India in DC enabled us to set up some critical meetings. In the first leg of the visit, KS
visited the State Department while I went to the Pentagon and our mandate was to explain why India had embarked on the
Shakti tests. Subsequently we did a veritable whistle-stop tour to Chicago, New York and Boston where meetings were
arranged and KS - despite his medical constraints was always on the ball - a good 10 minutes early for every appointment and
full of vigor and enthusiasm - to explain the Indian compulsions. Occasionally in his wry manner, he would talk about the deeply
entrenched fundamentalism of the non-proliferation lobby in the USA - and why he referred to them as the 'ayatollahs of the
Potomac'.

However KS never held any rancor or malice against the USA and as later events proved, he was among the first to applaud
and welcome the rapprochement between India and the USA. Again I was fortunate to be associated with KS for an extended
period. In late 2005, the GoI constituted a Task Force to review 'Global Strategic Developments' - soon after the historic
Bush-Manmohan Singh July 2005 civilian nuclear - and KS was appointed Chairman. When he asked me to be his Member-
Secretary , I readily agreed - and this year will remain the most valuable period for me personally. The Task Force had as
members, India's best and brightest across many disciplines - and KS led the team in his characteristic way. Every meeting was
a glorious learning experience - and greater the pity that the GoI chose to keep the TF Report under wraps.

In the course of preparing the TF report, we had some interactions with the Delhi durbar - and one could discern why KS was
often disappointed and dismayed. His piercing strategic vision and the single-minded advocacy of national power not devoid of
principle was blunted by the pusillanimity and pettiness of the great Indian octopus - the impervious politico-bureaucratic edifice
of South Block and its myopic vision. By C Uday Bhaskar (ANI)

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1 of 1 3/6/2011 2:55 AM
The Hindu : Today's Paper / OPINION : Strategic thinker par excellence http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article1151411.ece

Today's Paper » OPINION

Strategic thinker par excellence

Siddharth Varadarajan
K. Subrahmanyam – PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN
K. Subrahmanyam – PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN
Intellectual progenitor of the Indian nuclear weapons programme and by far the most influential strategic thinker of
his own and subsequent generations, K. Subrahmanyam's enduring contribution was the coherent intellectual
framework he helped provide for the country's foreign and security policies in a world buffeted by uncertainty and
changing power equations.
He died in New Delhi on Wednesday after a courageous battle against cancer. He was 82.
In a long and distinguished career that began with his entry into the Indian Administrative Service in 1951,
Subrahmanyam straddled the fields of administration, defence policy, academic research and journalism with an
unparalleled felicity. His prolific writings — contained in thousands of newspaper articles (including in The Hindu),
book chapters and speeches over four decades — touched upon a broad range of global and regional strategic issues
and invariably generated fierce debate in India and abroad. But it was his early — and even controversial — advocacy
of India exercising the option to produce nuclear weapons that made governments and scholars around the world sit
up and take notice of his views.
Subrahmanyam's first formal involvement with the Indian nuclear establishment began in 1966 when, as a relatively
junior bureaucrat in the Defence Ministry, he was asked to join an informal committee tasked by the Prime
Minister's Office with studying the strategic, technical and financial implications of a nuclear weapons programme.
Soon thereafter, he was made director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), a post he held from
1968 to 1975. He was one of the first analysts to sense a strategic opportunity for India in the emerging crisis in East
Pakistan and his public articulation of this well before the 1971 war led Pakistani officials to see him eventually as a
Chanakya-like figure who managed to contrive their country's dismemberment.
Born in Tiruchi on January 19, 1929, Subrahmanyam returned to his home state of Tamil Nadu to serve as Home
Secretary during the period of the Emergency. An honest and upright administrator, he considered the Constitution
and the liberties it embodied to be of higher value than the political directives of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and
the Congress party. At a time when his counterparts elsewhere in the country became willing accomplices to the
suspension of civil liberties, Subrahmanyam used his powers to shield those being targeted. Many years later,
during the Gujarat carnage of 2002, he was one of the few members of the strategic community to write about how
the country would pay a heavy price if it failed to uphold the rule of law and the right to life of all its citizens.
He returned to Delhi in the late 1970s and ended up working as Secretary, Defence Production during Indira
Gandhi's second tenure as Prime Minister. Differing again with the government on an issue of principle,
Subrahmanyam was eased out of the Ministry of Defence and returned to the IDSA as director. Though intended as
a punishment posting, he took to his new assignment as a duck to water. Through his efforts, the institute emerged
as India's premier think-tank with a large number of scholars, many on secondment from the armed forces,
conducting research on defence and foreign policy issues.
Journalism
After retiring from the government in 1987, Subrahmanyam continued to write on security matters, eventually
joining the Times of India as a consulting editor. Journalism was in many ways his true calling. Affectionately
known by his colleagues as “Bomb Mama”, in reality Subrahmanyam was far from being a nuclear hawk. He wrote
on a range of issues, including on spiritual and religious matters and loved nothing more than to discuss national
and global issues with his younger colleagues.
He was in favour of India acquiring nuclear weapons and argued forcefully during the international negotiations on
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty against India's accession. At a seminar in Washington at the time, he famously
denounced American critics of India's stand as the ‘Ayatollahs of Nonproliferation'.
And yet, he did not believe it was absolutely essential for the country to conduct an actual weapons test. When
Pokhran-II came finally in May 1998, Subrahmanyam was taken by surprise but accepted that the government's
hand had been forced by the manner in which the United States had tried to foreclose the country's nuclear option.
At the same time, he said that India should immediately announce that it would never be the first to use nuclear
weapons, a position the Vajpayee government accepted.
After the Kargil war, he headed the Kargil Review Committee which was tasked with recommending an overhaul of
the Indian national security and intelligence apparatus whose failings had allowed Pakistani soldiers to occupy high
altitude posts in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides a host of systemic reforms, Subrahmanyam argued in favour of India
establishing a National Security Council but was disappointed by the structure of the institution that the National

1 of 2 3/6/2011 1:48 AM
The Hindu : Today's Paper / OPINION : Strategic thinker par excellence http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article1151411.ece

Democratic Alliance regime created. He nevertheless agreed to head the first National Security Advisory Board and
was also instrumental in the NSAB's formulation of India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine.
A realist in his strategic thinking, Subrahmanyam was one of the first to understand and discuss what the
emergence of a multipolar world order – his preferred term was “polycentric” — meant for Indian foreign policy. He
argued that India had the capacity to improve its relations with all global power centres. At the same time, he sought
to leverage American interest in India's rise by pressing for the removal of restrictions on nuclear and high-tech
commerce.
He also believed the emergence of an economically interdependent world meant the era of military conflict between
the great powers was a thing of the past and that economic growth and internal strength would be far more
important determinants of national power than mere military might.
For one who worked in government for many years, Subrahmanyam prized his independence which he saw as the
key to his integrity. I have had three careers, he once said when asked why he had turned down the offer of a Padma
Vibhushan — as a civil servant, a strategic analyst and a journalist. “The awards should be given by the concerned
groups, not the Government. If there is an award for sports, it should be given by sportspersons, and if it's for an
artists, by artists”. The state, he believed, was not qualified to judge different aspects of human endeavour.
Subrahmanyam, of course, excelled in all his endeavours. True to form, his most creative period as an analyst came
after he was diagnosed with cancer. In his death, India has lost one of its most perceptive strategic minds. The void
will be impossible to fill.
He is survived by his wife, Sulochana, his daughter Sudha and his three sons, Vijay Kumar, Jaishankar and Sanjay.
Much more than a mere advocate of Indian nuclearisation, K. Subrahmanyam was instrumental in
shaping the country's foreign and security policies in the post-Cold War world.

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Subrahmanyam spent all his life teaching Indians strategic thought

TNN, Feb 3, 2011, 01.33am IST

NEW DELHI: It was 1977. A group of senior bureaucrats were debating the fate of Pakistan president Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Naresh Chandra,
former cabinet secretary remembers saying he thought Bhutto would be let off after Saudi Arabia pleaded for his life. K. Subrahmanyam
disagreed. "Zia has no choice but to execute him," he said. He was right.

Subrahmanyam, ("Subbu" to everyone) who died on Wednesday just turned 82. But when faced with his fiercely forceful personality, the last
thought in your mind was his age.

Many famous commentators, analysts and strategic experts from around the world have been reduced to gibbering when he successfully cut
through their intellectual arguments. As India evolved in the past couple of decades, Subrahmanyam was out there, leading the strategic
thought brigade. "We have lost our foremost strategic analyst," said Ronen Sen, former envoy to the US.

His years as a civil servant, he was secretary, defence production, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, among others, gave him an
intimate knowledge of India's external security matrix. But his reputation was primarily as India's "strategic guru" and that's how he will be
remembered.

K. Subrahmanyam never said what you expected him to say.

He could silence your uninformed rambling with a withering look and a caustic remark that was little short of devastating. In the next moment
though, he could turn around and graciously acknowledge an intellectual hit. Raja Mohan, journalist, who counted Subrahmanyam as his
mentor, said, "Subbu never suffered fools, but equally entertained no rancour or malice". Ronen Sen said, "What I valued was his ability to
listen which were a function of his fine human qualities."

He would happily engage you in discussion even if you held a view that was the polar opposite of his. And it didn't matter whether you were the
national security adviser or a junior reporter trying to soak in complex strategy. Subbu was committed to educating Indians about the
importance of strategic thought. It led him to drive long distances to talk to JNU students in the 1970s. The same spirit of education prompted
him to write reams in major newspapers and lecture at innumerable seminars even when he was quite ill, to teach Indians how to respond to
international events.

Inder Malhotra, journalist, and one of Subbu's close buddies recalls how George Tanham, ( RAND Corporation) came to see Subbu when he
was doing a study on Indian strategic thought. Subbu told him, "What can I say about something that doesn't exist?" It would take a few more
years for Manmohan Singh to articulate the same complaint in despair. That's what Subbu sought to change. Through his articles and studies
he whittled away at Indians' strategic naivete, regarding it as a national weakness.

Swaminathan Aiyar brought in Subrahmanyam as a journalist into The Economic Times. "Many journalists have trouble coming out with even
two column ideas in a week, but Subrahmanyam wanted to write almost every day, so wide was his repertoire and so deep his enthusiasm. I
once asked how he came up with so many ideas. He replied "It's easy. I just have to watch CNN or BBC and I get so angry that I have several
things to say!"

In 2005, Manmohan Singh commissioned Subrahmanyam to head a task force on India's strategic development. It would be his last official
report but it remains a classified document. In an interview to online magazine, Pragati, Subrahmanyam said, "We have not fully thought
through the notion of our foreign policy reflecting our rising status. I have said that knowledge is the currency of power in this century. The task
force on global strategic developments that I headed also points out the same."

As the first convener of the newly constituted National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) Subrahmanyam led the effort to formally articulate
India's nuclear doctrine, which was formally accepted by the NDA government.

It was Subrahmanyam who first articulated India's discomfort with the global nuclear regime under NPT, which he believed was unfair and
against India's interests, calling it "nuclear apartheid".

One of his self-confessed happier moments of modern Indian history was the 1998 nuclear tests. But six years hence, Subrahmanyam was also
the first to endorse a nuclear deal with the US, countering stiff opposition from erstwhile supporters. For all those who had labeled him
"pro-Soviet" in earlier years, he was now "Mr USA". Subbu shrugged off all such badges.

He was a democrat at heart, and some of his most difficult years was during Indira Gandhi's emergency. As home secretary, Tamil Nadu, (he
was shunted off), Subbu refused to obey a number of her draconian orders. But the same Subbu counted December 16, 1971 when Bangladesh
was created, as one of Mrs Gandhi's greatest achievements.

For the last decade, Subrahmanyam battled several debilitating illnesses - dismissively. He would be in hospital one day, and the next, be the
first to arrive at a seminar on nuclear deterrence, looking impatient. C. Uday Bhaskar, who worked with him, recalls having to tell him, "Subbu
Sir, please don't come so early. You make everyone uncomfortable."

Personally, Subrahmanyam never much cared for the attributes of the power circle, which is so attractive to many of his peers. He wore his
austerity naturally, even once sending his son back home in a bus refusing him a lift in the official car.

Subbu's regret, if he had any, would probably be that the Indian bureaucratic and political system was so ossified as to be impervious to new
ideas. The Kargil Committee Report may have been released but both NDA and UPA governments have sat on 17 annexures __ they contain a
wealth of historical evidence about the inside story of India's nuclear weapons programme, as told by the protagonists. Even Manmohan Singh
has failed to make public the report of his task force on India's strategic development. As Subbu himself observed, it would take time for India's

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strategists to take in these ideas. But it will be longer in the absence of the report.

Box:

* Born January 1929

* Joined IAS (Tamil Nadu cadre), 1951
* Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Defence, 1962-65.
* Rockefeller Fellow in Strategic Studies, London School of Economics, 1966-67.
* Director, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, 1968-75.
* Home Secretary, Tamil Nadu, 1976-77.
* Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee and Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, 1977-79.
* Secretary (Defence Production), Ministry of Defence, 1979-80.
* Director, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 1980-87.
* Jawaharlal Nehru Visiting Professor, St John's College, Cambridge, UK, 1987-88. Nehru Fellow, 188-90.
* Consulting Editor, Business and Political Observer, 1990-92.
* Consulting Editor, the Economic Times, 1992-94. Consluting Editor, The Times of India and The Economic Times, 1994-2004.
* Member, UN Secretary-General's expert group on the Indian Ocean, 1974.
*Member, UN intergovernmental exper group on Disarmament and Development, 1980-82.
* Chairman, UN study group on Nuclear Deterrence, 1986.
*Convenor, National Security Advisory Board.
* Chairman, Kargil Review Panel.

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Browse: Home / Opinion / To a Guru (KS): A Personal Tribute

To a Guru (KS): A Personal Tribute

Written by: IPCS

By Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dipankar Banerjee

We were at our Fifth Annual India-NATO Track II Dialogue when the sad news reached us of the demise of Shri K
Subrahmanyam. The conference paused to pay a silent tribute to the doyen of Indian strategists. KS had inspired and taught
generations of Indians how to look at the world and shape strategic choices. A true Guru in the best traditions of India.

But, in that minute’s silence my mind went back to early 1973, when I met KS for the first time at the IDSA. I was a young
major with admission to study at the King’s College, London after the Staff Course at Camberley, UK and I sought his
advice. He would have had a hundred things to do, but spent a better part of an hour explaining to me what to study and how
to go about it. It is another story that the Indian Army then had no scheme for study leave and I could not go, but he had
inspired me enough to convince me to devote time in the future to learn about war and peace beyond the mere management
of conflict. It remained with me for a decade and a half.

It was in late 1987 that I joined the IDSA after the NDC Course when KS had just left charge, but was still around. My
posting was under the provision of the Defence Minister’s Monday morning conference note, which KS had engineered, to
spare an officer of flag rank from each service to spend time at the IDSA. For the next two decades and more he was the
guiding light. His legendary patience, invariable courtesy, formidable memory, power of deep introspection and analyses
have all been written about now by many people. I never saw him once lose his temper; except to some several western
scholars who would confront him over some matter. In a few well chosen words and through his immense power of
reasoning, he would demolish them in a couple of minutes. Yet, having seen him do that on so many occasions, I suspect that
they all considered that a badge of honour and recognition.

On return from England in the late 1980s he used to come to the IDSA regularly. He would sit in a hard-back chair without a
table in the Deputy Director’s office and on a clip board write out an article for the editorial pages of leading newspapers in
Delhi. Shakuntala (Jasjit’s Secretary) would type it out by 1.30 pm and we waited to see it published the next day. It was his
prolific writing, regular participation in conferences and seminars during this period that shaped India’s strategic thinking
perhaps most of all. This is a debt that the nation can never repay.

Whenever we had the occasion to travel together to foreign lands or in India we would benefit immensely from his guidance
and advice. I particularly looked forward to his comments over dinner or during travel. Some thoughts would occur to him
and he would recall with total clarity decisions or events of long ago and explain them to us. Or, discuss some history of the
evolution of nuclear policy that would make things easy to comprehend.

We would of course invariably ask his advice before major presentations or in forming our ideas on a particularly knotty
subject. With patience and again remarkable clarity he would explain the various issues. In later years he was to suffer long
from his many ailments, but I have never heard him complain once. Even on very bad days he would attend conferences and
share his insights with the junior-most scholar.

In all his articulation he brought a remarkable pragmatism guided solely by national interests. He is among the very few

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scholars of any nationality, who has had the ability to change with the times. When the strategic environment changed or
national interests so dictated, he would cut through the non-essentials and formulate strategic choices unencumbered by
previous conceptions.

I have only one regret. In autumn 1999, as the Executive Director of the South Asian think tank the Regional Centre for
Strategic Studies, I had the occasion to organize the largest gathering of the brightest young South Asian and Chinese scholars
in Sri Lanka. I invited KS to deliver the key note address and he readily agreed. In that troubled era after Kargil I was
convinced that his wise words would cut through the intense regional hostility prevailing at the time and help create an
environment of stability if not peace and introduce a new strategic discourse in the region. It was not to be. KS was appointed
the Chair of the Kargil committee and he regretted that he would have to miss this conference as the Government of India
had asked him to expedite the report.

When India emerges as a leading global influence in the near future, as it surely must, it would be KS’ contribution that
would be the most significant.

Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dipankar Banerjee

Mentor, IPCS
email: dbanerjee@ipcs.org

About the author:

IPCS

IPCS (Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies) conducts independent research on conventional and
non-conventional security issues in the region and shares its findings with policy makers and the public. It provides a forum
for discussion with the strategic community on strategic issues and strives to explore alternatives. Moreover, it works towards
building capacity among young scholars for greater refinement of their analyses of South Asian security.

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IANS
K. Subrahmanyam: Toasting the Chanakya of our times
2011-03-06 05:30:00

It was the summer of 1986. I attended a roundtable discussion on United States-India relations hosted by the Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, chaired by its director, K. Subrahmanyam. The featured speaker was the
influential and well-regarded Michael Mandelbaum of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns
Hopkins University.

During the course of a lengthy response to the visiting scholar's presentation, Subrahmanyam blurted out, 'Michael, you don't
know what you are talking about.' Along with a motley crowd of students, scholars, Indian and American officials present, I
cringed and sank into my chair. Many of us didn't have the nerve to look up to see if the red blood corpuscles had drained from
Mandelbaum's face, but after that the American kept his comments to a minimum and quickly concluded the session.

That was vintage Subrahmanyam - unapologetic, acerbic, curt and conclusive.

It was, of course, not the first time I had witnessed what, in an academic setting, can be charitably regarded as plain
impertinence. As a student of international studies in New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University who routinely attended
Subrahmanyam's lectures, I was familiar with his seemingly intemperate style, often accentuated by the perpetual frown that
bore through his prescription glasses. One look at the stern face was enough to deter even a conscientious or professional
dissenter untutored in clear thinking or articulation from opening his mouth. It was not unusual that most of the discussions in his
seminars were often restricted to ways of agreeing with him.

Nevertheless, there was no way one would miss a chance to hear him - he was compelling, persuasive and, for me, infuriatingly
engrossing. His sharp and analytical mind was backed by a crystal clear perspective of history, fastidiously assembled
repertoire of facts and meticulously conceptualized thesis. But if that was all one took away from him, he'd still come up short - a
cantankerous sidelined-bureaucrat-turned scholar. But what made Subrahmanyam a pre-eminent strategic thinker of modern
India was his ability to define India's place in the world and the means to carve it out without any ideological or moral
accoutrements - everything for him, and consequently for India, must flow from a cold calculation of power and national
interests.

This second and purposefully cynical facet of Subrahmanyam's mindset escaped many of his detractors, both in India and
abroad, including this writer, at least until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War, when he provided a doctrinal
framework for India's seamless transition from the clutches of anti-American non-alignment to a post-communist world
dominated by a single superpower. Till then, he could have been, and often was, mistaken for any of the supercilious and
argumentative Indian Administrative and Foreign Service officers who routinely projected on themselves the imagined greatness
of their country -- something that did not correspond to realities on the ground.

But Subrahmanyam digressed from India's politico-bureaucratic establishment that was shaped by anti-colonial struggles and
the Cold War. That is remarkable in itself, considering that he belonged to the generation that was compulsively suspicious of
the West, cautiously sympathetic toward the East and pronouncedly committed to anti-imperialism abroad and democratic
socialism at home. For Subrahmanyam, on the other hand, the guiding maxim was steeped in pristine realism, which recognised
no permanent friends or permanent enemies, but only permanent interests.

The first Gulf War and India's balance of payments crisis in 1991 provided the perfect foil for him to advocate a change of
direction for India, even as New Delhi was still grappling with the contingencies stemming from a collapsing Soviet Union and
the emasculation of the Non-Aligned Movement. Subrahmanyam was probably the first to see the writing on the wall. Months
before US-led coalition forces launched Operation Desert Storm, when many of his counterparts were still discussing how
America, in a replay of Vietnam, could be humbled in a prolonged hot war in the desert, Subrahmanyam predicted in an article in
The Times of India that Saddam Hussein's Iraq would be defeated in a matter of days, not weeks or months, by the sheer
invincibility of American military weaponry.

If America's emergence as the lone superpower -- thanks to its dominant position in the global economy and its unquestioned
technological supremacy in both the civilian and military sectors - demanded New Delhi's reassessment of its alliance with an
eviscerated Moscow and estrangement with a triumphant Washington, in Subrahmanyam's strategic thinking, it also
underscored the need for India to remain steadfast on its nuclear posture. Through the 1990s, even as he advocated close ties
with the US, he was resolutely against compromising on issues like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

He never doubted that resisting American pressure on nuclear weapons was a condition for developing healthy relations with
the US under a new world order where there was no countervailing power. Although he did not advocate the second nuclear

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tests, Subrahmanyam's unstinting support thereafter for US-India nuclear agreement and forging of a strategic partnership with
Washington were a logical extension of the nuclear and security doctrine that he conceptualised, crafted and codified.

His non-ideological credentials and intellectual prowess, unencumbered either by ornate prose or academic jargon, provided a
doctrinal format on which India's strategic community could shift from its anti-American and anti-capitalist focus to embracing a
new course defined by non-confrontational nationalism and economic globalisation. It was not surprising to see the left
ideologues who dominated the foreign policy and strategic affairs establishment in India pick up his treads and go on to renew
their careers with a decidedly pro-Washington bent, while the thinker himself remained characteristically and resolutely
committed to the pursuit of a polycentric world.

It was the same apolitical integrity that made him decline the government of India's Padma Bhushan award -- he felt bureaucrats
and journalists should not accept honours that could compromise their independence. One can only guess what he must have
felt about the host of Indian media personalities and foreign policy pundits, several decades younger than himself, gleefully
lobbying for and accepting a whole range of government-minted honours.

It is such intellectual honesty and self-confidence that helped him bounce back even higher every time he was sidelined or
marginalized by the insecure in the echelons of power. In a way, he proved that even in Indian bureaucracy that is flush with
brittle egos, excellence cannot be suppressed. It also helped that despite being a forceful personality, Subrahmanyam did not
take himself seriously or take other contrarian views to heart.

Here's a toast to the Chanakya of our times.

(The writer is editor of the New York-based News India-Times)

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