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ISSUES BEFORE THE NATION
SECURITY, DEFENCE AND FOREIGN
POLICY
I. The BJP/NDA Failures
The BJP-led
NDA Government has a record of grave failures on the
management of national security, foreign policy and defence.
The NDA Government has subjected the national defence forces
to avoidable crises, whether it is in Kargil or futile
deployment of our armed forces on the Indo-Pakistan border
for nearly a year and at enormous expense.
The BJP/NDA
Government has not taken any steps to reform and reorganize
the defence forces, despite a series of recommendations made
by expert committees, which it set up after the Kargil war.
The BJP/NDA
Government has failed to modernize and update the equipment
and logistical facilities of our defence forces. It
has failed to reorganize and restructure the institutions of
higher command of our defence forces, despite there being
national consensus for such reforms and restructuring after
the Kargil war. It has failed even to effectively
utilize resources amounting to nearly Rs 24,000 crore
sanctioned by Parliament to modernize our defence systems.
Despite tall claims about high priority being given to
defence, expenditure on defence as a proportion of GDP has
fallen to an all-time low of 2.12%. There has been a massive
neglect of maintenance, leading to very large number of
accidents to airforce planes and fire accidents in ordnance
depots.
The BJP/NDA
Government’s management of India’s national intelligence
institutions has been equally abysmal. There was the
unpardonable failure in acquisition and utilization of
advance intelligence about the hijacking of the Indian
Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar, and about
pre-empting the intrusions of the Pakistani Army into Kargil.
The BJP/NDA
Government failed to ensure necessary connectivity between
intelligence agencies and the armed forces and the Ministry
of External Affairs. Suggestions to remedy these
failures made by expert groups, like the Subrahmanyam
Committee, are languishing on the shelves, with no action
taken.
The BJP/NDA
Government’s policies related to Pakistan have been a saga
of contradictions and confusion. Whether in Lahore or
at Agra, the BJP/NDA Government showed a singular lack of
advance preparation leading to disastrous consequences.
Because of this lack of foresight, Lahore was followed by
Kargil and Agra led to a fresh phase of accelerated tensions
in Indo-Pak relations. The BJP/NDA Government completely
failed in containing and countering terrorism sponsored by
Pakistan.
The BJP/NDA
Government’s Pakistan policy has been full of contradictory
extremisms and ambiguities. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s
trip to Lahore was followed by Pakistan’s perfidy at Kargil.
Despite this, General Musharraf was invited to the Agra
Summit, which was a fiasco. This was followed by the
terrorist attack on Parliament, resulting in Shri Atal
Bihari Vajpayee declaring: “Now India would fight the
Pakistani menace to the finish.” A few months later,
all of a sudden a peace initiative with Pakistan was
undertaken. The claim of the Prime Minister that
normalization of relations with Pakistan is his most
important achievement is ludicrous. The fact is that the
Prime Minister and his government have lacked clarity,
consistency and conviction while dealing with Pakistan.
Of equal
concern has been the BJP/NDA Government’s policies towards
the USA. They have been charcterised by a lack of
transparency. Till this day, the country has never been
taken into confidence about the outcome of several rounds of
discussions which Shri Jaswant Singh as Minister of External
Affairs had with Mr. Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of
State of the USA. Sadly, a great country like India
has been reduced to having a subordinate
relationship with the USA where the USA takes India for
granted. This is the result of the BJP/NDA Government’s
willingness to adjust the US priorities and policies without
giving due attention to India’s own vital foreign policy and
national security interests. The declaration of Pakistan as
a non-NATO ally by the USA recently exposed the BJP’s claim
of a “paradigm shift” in Indo-US relations. This declaration
caught the Government of India by surprise. The subsequent
protests by the Government of India have been very
weak and have lacked credibility and conviction. The BJP/NDA
Government has failed to take the country into confidence
about the national security implications of the new tie-up
between Pakistan and the USA. It has also failed to dispel
the widely-held fears that India has accepted the mediator
role for the USA in Indo-Pakistan relations.
There has
been no clarity in the BJP/NDA Government’s Jammu & Kashmir
policy. At one time, its thinking was that the principal
problem in J&K was Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism
and proxy war and that there could be no meaningful
discussions on the subject unless cross-border terrorism was
stopped. Yet both at Lahore and more recently at Islamabad,
the BJP/NDA Government has agreed to discuss the territorial
status of J&K with Pakistan. As regards talks with diverse
shades of public opinion in J&K itself, once again there has
been no consistency or transparency in approach. From time
to time, the BJP/NDA Government has appointed a series of
special envoys to discuss the future of J&K with various
political groups. However, the country has never been taken
into confidence with regard to their mandate and terms of
reference. No wonder, the atmosphere of serious discussions
has been missing and talks with separatist groups like the
Hurriyat have not made any headway.
Finally, the BJP/NDA Government has deliberately and
mischievously used tensions with Pakistan to polarise our
own society and call into question the patriotic credentials
of a very large number of our countrymen and women. The
Deputy Prime Minister is on record as having said that only
the BJP can make peace with Pakistan because that would make
it acceptable to the religious majority in our country. This
is a dangerous and pernicious argument and is an extension
of the “two-nation” theory first put forward by the RSS
almost eight decades back. The fact is that it is the Jan
Sangh/BJP/RSS that has always stymied serious efforts made
in the past to bring about reconciliation with Pakistan (and
China). This obstructionist past cannot be disowned.
II. THE CONGRESS
AGENDA
Defence
Safeguarding
India’s territorial integrity and unity against overt or
covert external aggression is the supreme responsibility of
the Government. Fashioning clear defense policies with
precise consensus in priorities is required for the purpose.
Keeping the nation’s armed forces fully prepared, backed up
by necessary resources is important.
The Congress, if elected to power, will:
1.
Speedily
implement the recommendations made for the reforms and
reconstructing of defense organizations and the armed forces
of the country.
2.
Congress will
integrate the Defense Military with the Headquarters of the
three services (Army, Navy, and the Air Force) with
uniformed officers being given a participatory role in the
formulation of defence policies and the higher management of
national defence.
3.
The Congress
will allocate necessary financial resources for the defence
of the country. Including special allocations for research
and development and modernization of defence technology for
the country. The functioning of the DRDO will be reviewed so
as to impart a new element of dynamism.
4.
The Congress
will take steps to develop and deploy human resources for
national defence.
5.
The Congress
will take necessary steps to fine tune the higher command
for India’s nuclear and missile capacities.
6.
The Congress
will safeguard and maintain these capacities at appropriate
level in the context of changing security environments,
particularly in the Asian region.
7.
The Congress
will improve the terms of service and serving conditions of
the armed forces personnel.
8.
The Congress
will also give special attention to the re-settlement and
welfare of retired personnel from the armed forces of the
country and their families. A separate Department of
Ex-Servicemen’s Welfare will be established in the Ministry
of Defence and cooperatives of ex-servicemen will be
mobilized extensively in tasks of nation-building like
afforestation, literacy, management of ration shops, etc.
9.
The Congress
will attend to organizational problems, which have for long
affected the armed forces, and will take purposive action to
resolve these problems in terms of recruitment, ensuring of
appropriate levels in the armed forces establishments.
10.
The Congress
will rationalize the salary and pension payments to the
armed forces with the objective of maximum benefit to armed
forces personnel, responsive to the higher responsibilities
of national defence which they discharge.
National
Security
The Congress
perceives the national security not within the narrow prism
of the purely military context. It has political, economic,
social and developmental dimensions.
The Congress
will formulate and implement a comprehensive
multi-dimensional national security policy, which will cover
vital aspects of energy security, food security, good
governance and countering centrifugal trends affecting the
country.
The
institutional arrangements made by the BJP-led NDA
Government have been cosmetic. In substance, national
security is not underpinned by structured and systematic
institutional arrangements. The National Security Council,
which was established since 1999, has not functioned with
institutional cohesion. Important national security
decisions have been taken in an ad hoc manner involving just
a few individuals without utilizing the Cabinet Committee on
Security, the Strategic Policy Group (comprising key
secretaries, service chiefs and heads of intelligence
agencies) and officials of the National Security Advisory
Board. There has been no systematic interaction between the
Strategic Policy Group and the National Security Advisory
Board (NSAB). Nor there has been any regular interaction
between National Security Advisor and the NSAB.
The Congress
will institutionalize regular meetings of the Cabinet
Committee on Security. It will ensure systematic and
institutional interactions between the National
Security Advisor, the Strategic Policy Group and the
National Security Advisory Board.
The Congress
will ensure necessary connectivity between the intelligence
agencies of the Government of India and the National
Security Advisory Board, as well as between the intelligence
agencies and the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs.
The Congress
will undertake periodic functional audits and reforms
of various institutions responsible for national security.
In particular, it will undertake a restructuring of the
intelligence agencies of the Government of India to improve
its human resource basis with multi-dimensional expertise.
It will ensure modernization of functional capabilities of
the intelligence agencies with appropriate modern
technological equipment and facilities.
The
recommendations made by the Experts Group to reform the
Intelligence Agencies after the Kargil War, and which have
been hanging fire for the last four years, will be speedily
implemented. The Congress will ensure not only efficiency of
but also accountability by the intelligence agencies.
Terrorism and insurgency have emerged as serious security
concerns in several parts of India. The activities of
extremist groups in the North-East and in the tribal regions
of Central India pose a serious challenge. The Congress will
implement a comprehensive multi-faceted strategy to cope
effectively with the twin challenges of terrorism and
insurgency. The national security network will be modernised
and streamlined, paying particular attention to intelligence
gathering, respect for fundamental human rights and
sustainable social and economic development which reinforces
successful security operations.
Foreign
Policy
The most
important task of the Congress would be to retain for India
freedom of options in conducting its foreign relations, in
response to India’s national interests in a world which is
in transition and ferment. This is the essence of India’s
foreign policy on which Jawaharlal Nehru built a national
consensus, a consensus that has been eroded during the
tenure of the BJP-led NDA government.
The Congress
will fashion a foreign policy rooted in the abiding
principles of equality among states, commitment to peace,
attention to economic well-being and to the defence of the
country.
The Congress
will infuse Indian foreign policy with political realism and
calibration, making it responsive to the changes in
international situation and global power equations.
The Congress
will attach the highest importance to fashioning equations
between India and the major powers of the world, for mutual
benefit, for tempering trends of unilateralism, and for
creating a world order for maintaining equilibrium in
interstate relations.
The Congress
will attach high importance to India’s relations with the
United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation,
China, Japan and the ASEAN countries.
The Congress
will allocate the highest priority to nurturing and
expanding relations between India and its approximate
neighbours in all respects.
The Congress
will strengthen and expand the activities of SAARC to make
it an effective regional organization, serving the
objectives of peace, stability and well being of the peoples
of the South Asian Region. It will work toward the
establishment of a South Asian Parliament. It will take up
major regional projects in water management, energy and
other vital areas.
The Congress
will improve and expand strategic relations between India,
on the one hand, and the USA, European Union, Russia, Japan
and the ASEAN region, on the other.
The Congress
will give particular attention to fashioning a stable,
working, cooperative relationship with Pakistan under the
framework of the historic Shimla Agreement of 1972 and
subsequent agreements and confidence-building measures
initiated by later Congress governments well upto 1996,
while remaining alert about India’s defence requirement, and
being firm in responding to any threats emanating from
Pakistan.
Keeping in
mind the special relevance of Central Asia, West Asia and
the Gulf, the Congress will work for enhanced cooperation in
political, economic and technological spheres with countries
of these regions.
The Congress
will continue the process of normalizing, strengthening and
expanding India’s relations with China, which is the most
important factor affecting Asian security and stability. The
Congress will continue and increase the momentum of the
initiative that the Congress Government took between 1988
and 1996 to ensure a stable and mutually cooperative and
beneficial relationship with China. The Congress will move
forward purposively to resolving the boundary issue with
China in a practical manner, by systematic and continuous
negotiations.
The Congress
is deeply committed to the UN and its ideals and objectives.
The Congress considers reforming the UN system, restoring
its central role in the maintenance of international peace
and security, and in making organs of the UN more
representative, in conformity with its enhanced membership,
on matters of high importance and priority. The Congress, if
voted to power, will forge purposeful consultations for this
purpose with other member countries of the United Nations to
meet these objectives.
The Congress will give the policy of non-alignment a new
direction keeping in view political and economic changes
that are taking place in our region and elsewhere.
Management
of India’s relations with other nuclear weapons powers is an
important task, given India’s nuclear weapons and missiles
capacities. Special attention would be given to
enhance India’s credibility as a responsible nuclear weapons
power and for forging equations with other such powers, to
stabilize the international security environment. The
Congress will take the initiative to have credible,
transparent and verifiable confidence-building measures in
treaty form to minimize the risk of nuclear and missile
conflict with Pakistan and China. While doing this, the
Congress remains committed to an agreement on a time-bound
non-discriminatory international agreement on elimination of
weapons of mass destruction. The Congress would participate
in consultations and negotiations to put in place effective
international agreements for this purpose.
The Congress
considers international terrorism a phenomenon of high and
critical concern. The Congress will support all
efforts at international action to counter this menace in
any form.
The Congress
will be firm and decisive and prompt in responding to
terrorist violence structured against India. The
Congress will give special attention to cultivating
relations with countries in Africa, South America and Latin
America. Equal attention would be given to nurturing
relations with countries of the Asia Pacific region, like
Australia and New Zealand.
The Congress
will revive purposeful efforts to strengthen India’s
relations with other regional groups like ASEAN and APEC.
The Congress will strive to create an international economic
order in which processes of globalization under the WTO
arrangements will be devoid of the aberrations that have
characterized the process over the last decade. The
effort would be to ensure that the orientations of the
globalization process are also responsive to the
requirements of development and distributive justice amongst
the developing countries of the world.
A Final Word
The
fundamental objective of India’s foreign policy would be to
safeguard India’s security and vital strategic interests.
The endeavour would be to form a national foreign policy
based on informed national consensus, particularly on
important issues of development, defence, nuclear issues and
the requirements of a stable and secure international order.
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