White Noise
India's thought provocateurs in defence and security matters need to evolve as more active and influential players in the state's decisionmaking process
By Sangeeta Saxena
Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading Washington, D.C. think tank, has called on India to "tailor its Afghan policy to the new situation in Pakistan" in order to alleviate the decades-long competing strategic agendas between Delhi and Islamabad vis-à-vis Afghanistan. It further pointed out that if Delhi "can find even modest ways of working in harmony with the Pakistani government, it could reap substantial benefits in its relations with both countries".
An article titled 'A Warning to the Indian Government: Don't Be Evil!' on the website of the China Institute of International Strategic Studies says India is on a path of confrontation with China and was sprucing its forces along the border areas. The situation is similar to 1962, it says, referring to the India-China war. It also accuses Delhi of working against Beijing and procuring arms against it. The article states that with an accelerated military position over the past few decades, India was looking beyond Pakistan "to realise its ambition of becoming a regional and global power". Further, it claims, India considered China its biggest obstacle.
Triggering debates in the Indian media, these two statements by strategic think tanks of the two biggest powers-the US and China-have not just made India sit up, but also prompted sharp reactions from Washington and Beijing. Which brings us to the question: are the observations and analyses of Indian defence think tanks as astute and, thereby, effective? In the past decade or so, India has become home to an increasing number of think tanks. Inexplicably, however, India Inc. seems to have kept itself at an arm's length from Indian think tanks.
What do Sunil Bharti Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj and Tarun Das have in common? They are all on the board of trustees of prominent foreign think tanks like Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Rand Corporation, The Brookings Institution and the Aspen Institute, respectively. Back home in India, reluctance and bashfulness could perhaps give way to refreshing dynamism were corporate bigwigs induced to come on board the domestic think tanks.
Interactions with the directors of some of these think tanks offer an insight into minds that ostensibly do the thinking for India.
Think tanks are not taken seriously in India
Brigadier (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies
SP's Land Forces (SP's): Last five years have seen the unnecessary mushrooming of think tanks in India. Comment.
Brigadier (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal (Kanwal): The larger the number of think tanks we have, the better we will be as a nation.
SP's: With USI and IDSA already existing what was the need of CLAWS?
Kanwal: USI was never a think tank. It promoted strategic culture through events but not through research. CLAWS stresses on research. Any research should be policy oriented and of course a strategic studies think tank should definitely be research oriented. It should also contribute to national security effort.
SP's: Does the bureaucracy listen to your suggestions and conclusions on various issues?
Kanwal: Bureaucracy realises that there is no harm in listening to the think tanks. We give them the reports regularly. Real distinction I would like to make is that when you are in policy making and execution, you have no time to study. So think tanks become important. Things are looking up in the think tank community in India.
SP's: Does CLAWS have an international collaboration?
Kanwal: Not at the moment. Brahmos has commissioned CLAWS to do a study on sales of arms as a foreign policy tools.
SP's: What is your strength of research scholars?
Kanwal: We have colonels on study leave, and civilian scholars who constitute the strength of nearly 20.
SP's: In USA think tanks officials get incorporated into government positions of importance. When do you see India progressing towards such a scenario?
Kanwal: Cross pollination of bureaucracy and think tanks is not happening in India. That is why think tanks do not get taken seriously. Politicians are blissfully unaware of their existence most of the times. But we are keeping our fingers crossed for things to move in the right direction.
SP's: What are the subjects you research on?
Kanwal: Anything which is of concern to the army and the Para military forces. Terrorism, counter insurgency, border issues, guerrilla warfare, regional security, defence technology and research, NBC issues and defence cooperation to name a few subjects.
SP's: Is there a way in which this awareness is spread into the masses by CLAWS?
Kanwal: We organise seminars, workshops and round table conferences to awaken people to the existing situations in the field.
State funding means end of independent voice
Lt General (Retd) V.R. Raghavan, Director, Delhi Policy Group, and President, Centre for Security Analysis
SP's Land Forces (SP's): Does DPG forward all its research to the MOD and MEA?
Lt General (Retd) V.R. Raghavan (Raghavan): Sure we send every document to the ministries. They get hundreds and hundreds of documents and they go into raddi. There is no system of reading and analysing them. If it goes by name to the secretary and other bureaucrats it gets acknowledged. When highlighted centre pointers go by name to ministers or PMO we get a call.
SP's: Do you feel it is utilised at the policy making level?
Raghavan: Sure, we feel it is utilised at policy level. Publications are reference material and is used in research. Our objective is to influence the policy makers to think. They continuously ask us for information. There are highly competent and professional people in the ministries.
SP's: What are the tasks undertaken by DPG?
Raghavan: We provide as a think tank a collective grouping of ideas and a varied range of opinions. If the think tank does only seminars and workshops it does not make sense. We fulfil the task of collecting reference data.
SP's: USA has think tank officials in important positions of the government. When will India see such a scenario?
Raghavan: US is a very unique system. When an administration goes they take everything. Each President gets in his own strength. In the Indian system with the civil servants, there is no scope for think tank heads to be a part of the governance. US government uses well known think tanks to generate ideas, propagate and generate public discourse and build public opinion. Here it is different as ministries discuss in the Parliament. In US think tanks are run by private funding. Government might commission a study. In India government funding means no independent voice.
SP's: Does DPG get some government funding?
Raghavan: No, we are privately fun ded and we never take money from the government.
SP's: What is the contribution of the corporate to DPG?
Raghavan: Indian corporate sector is still not alive to the concept of funding think tanks. They will spend 50 crores for party funding but will not give 2 crores to an independent think tank.
SP's: In your opinion can think tanks like CLAWS, CAPS and NMF be fearless in research?
Raghavan: They are not think tanks in the true sense of the word. They are services focussed, directly funded by the services and they generate a debate for the services. I am sure it would be difficult to come to negative conclusions about the services. So this means very less or no recommendations for positive changes.
SP's: What are the types of security issues DPG works on?
Raghavan: Social, environmental and sociological security are non traditional security issues we work upon. And all the traditional issues under national and global security are always researched upon.
SP's: Should a think tank like DPG convert itself into a university?
Raghavan: No, I don't think that is logical. We run outreach programmes in universities through which we generate discussion and create an awareness in the masses. We are also translating our books in hindi.
Tremendous synergy with government
Lt General (Retd) P.K. Singh, Director, United Service Institution of India
SP's Land Forces (SP's): What are the unique features of USI, as a think tank?
Lt General (Retd) P.K. Singh (Singh): USI has the most unique history. USI journal is the continuously working, oldest surviving journal in the world. From the day it was formed, Viceroy became the Patron and the commander-in-chief became the vice patron. In 1871 they were looking at the strategic importance of Kashmere. By 1890s Persia, Afghanistan, North West Frontier Province, Burma, Japan, China and Central Asia were thefocus of attention. In 1930s economic and financial aspects of defence were being discussed by USI. Its ability to identify topical interest keeping the world in mind has always been USI's uniqueness.
SP's: What are the current topics USI has been discussing?
Singh: Nuclear doctrine, budgeting, peacekeeping, missile defence, space command, terrorism and many more topics are being discussed by USI and a platform is being created for discussion at a pan-India level.
SP's: Does USI influence policies of the government, on defence and national security?
Singh: We have tremendous synergy with government. We help in creating a tentative road map keeping national and regional interests in mind.
SP's: Apart from publishing journals what are the other activities of USI?
Singh: We have centres for research, strategic studies, simulation, UN peacekeeping, armed forces historical research and many more. Our main aim is preparation of army officers for internal exams conducted by the army. We give a platform to people who do research and write on matters of security. We also publish these studies. We organise seminars, workshops, round table conferences and debates on a lot of important issues.
SP's: Does USI have international collaborations?
Singh: We have foreign institutional dialogues. We are in regular interaction with China, UK, Germany, USA, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Cairo, Jordan, Kazakistan, Uzbegistan and NATO. We also get important delegations from various countries.
SP's: What is the membership profile of USI?
Singh: We have more than 12,500 members. Foreign services, defence services, bureaucrats, academicians, journalists and judges give a vast variety to our membership profile.
SP's: What is the need of having thirty odd think tanks in Delhi?
Singh: Think tanks are like sounding boards to get people from all over the world to ideate. It is good to have so many think tanks as it gives cross section of ideas and research.
SP's: Why should USI not be converted into a university?
Singh: It should be a research centre and can give part time guidance to research scholars. We do not need to be converted into a university with students of all classes around.
|
