CIAO DATE: 7/99

What Constitutes National Security in a Changing World Order? India’s Strategic Thought _*

Shri Jaswant Singh

CASI Occasional Paper Number 6
June 1998

Center for Advanced Study of India
University of Pennsylvania

I. India’s Strategic Thought

Of what is born a country’s strategic thought? Is it the by-product of a sense of nationhood? Is it the by-product of nationalism alone? Or does it require the mechanism of a functional state? And what if that sense of nationhood, as in India’s case, is in essence non-territorial? There is one other characteristic: India’s nationhood being essentially civilizational, a strategic thought to protect its territory has not emerged. Additionally, since this Indian civilization is entirely non-proselytizing, whether in the ecclesiastical or the temporal sense, there has never existed a strategic thought to guide the conquest of new lands. A functional and assertive state is thus a primary essential for strategic thought and its evolution. But this has not been the Indian historical experience. A sense of nationhood, predating the evolution of Western nation-states by many millennia, has certainly existed. But Indian statehood has been episodic and only incidental. Thus patriotism, as an emotion toward the nation, has always been in abundance, but not the craft of strategy to preserve or to further the interests of the state.

It is evident, therefore, that strategic thought has to be born principally in the crucible of nationhood; but then it has to be crafted as interlocking strands of action through the organs of the state. Of course, strategic thought is nurtured by common historical experiences; watered, too, by racial memories, the trials and travails of a people, embedded in their very psyche, as it were. Obviously it is also a product of geography, being rooted in and developed by its fixity, indeed by the demands of preserving the inviolability of the geographical boundaries of the state. The integrating roles of civilization, culture, and faith sustain a nation’s strategic sense and enable it either to grow and meet the challenge of altering circumstances, or to fail. Strategic thought will be absent, or irrelevant, if it be not accompanied by a sense of high nationalism.

In 1947, India inherited many disadvantages—the accumulated minuses of many centuries—but one great advantage, that of resurgent nationalism. India had been a subject nation for too long, its very nationhood therefore described as illusory. Its many languages were derided, as was the great wealth of its literature. Indian industry was in the process of being destroyed, its cultural fountains almost shut down. India, in 1947, carried the psychological burden of many centuries of military reverses and of consequent servitude. As it was not master of its own inherited, “partitioned” geography, its history, too, became captive to the convenience of alien interpretations. And in any event, its historical tradition was entirely bardic—oral, really. India does have its heroes, and we remember them, but only occasionally, nostalgically really, almost as if in mythology. Monuments of national endeavor, such as the great forts, abound, but we look upon them as mere sites, not as sources of inspiration. Our historical consciousness has a strange fixity in Porus, or in Rana Sanga, in a Haldighati or a Panipat; they all seem so chivalrous, yet so far away, and thus perhaps not entirely relevant either. We scarcely use them even as building blocks of strategic thought. Quite why, I still cannot fathom. Perhaps upon attaining independence we sought a more modern, less medieval, more occidental nationalism.

At the conceptual level, this was a profound error. Suicidally (almost), we searched for the sustaining roots of our own nationhood, but in alien idioms. In any event, by then, the land had been geographically fractured and our new identity remained undefined: India, Bharat, Hindustan—what were/are we? The momentum of freedom carried us for a few years, but we were not building on it; we were simply drawing upon our reserves. In the process, we dissipated the high nationalism of Independence.

The dramatic horror of the manner of the ending of World War II in Asia, our confusion with Gandhian pacifism, and the lure of the moral tones of nonalignment relegated strategic thinking to an irrelevancy. We thought that all that warfare and strategy were about were individual valor and bravery; we thought “our soldiers are the best in the world.” (Yes, they are, but is that all?) We thought, besides, “What does India, well-meaning India, have to fear from any quarter?” To my mind, this was, in turn, both a consequence and a cause. This mentality was the consequence of a failure to evolve an Indian state, and became the cause, in turn, of failing to do so even after Independence. Also, that defining catalyst in the evolution of nation-states in the West, the Industrial Revolution, had entirely missed India; our historical experience was thus altogether different. But we did not recognize that.

Perhaps inevitably, therefore, with no inheritance of strategic thought, with our land vivisected geographically and otherwise; equally, with scarce incentives for conceptualizing independently such a thought, with our political leadership either ignorant or unconcerned or both, an evolution of this irreplaceable ingredient of statecraft remained limited in the extreme.

That is why conclusions such as those of George Tanham, widely disseminated throughout the international strategic community, did not seem to greatly surprise or even pain anyone in India. Nor did it result in any other reaction, even one of correction. The implications, however, of this seeming inability of a people of great antiquity and cultural resilience are grave and cannot be escaped.

Wars, historians have noted, are decided by three factors: terrain; the difference in the levels of armament technology; and the character, attitude, and approach of the contending sides. The terrain is a given, and technology can be improved, but the last cannot easily be remedied. And this last has been India’s main deficiency, the principal reason for the lack of any intelligible national strategic thought.

From the first military clashes in our recorded history to the final overthrow of the Mughal Empire—that is, from 326 b.c., when Alexander prevailed over Porus on the Jhelum, to the skirmishes of 1857—India “lost” to waves of aggressors, principally because the notion of the “territory” of an “Indian state” was just not there; nothing, therefore, had to be defended at all costs. It was simply a foreign invader that was to be confronted and that, too, through a high-civilizational sense of chivalrous warfare, in the belief that our opponents would also fight in the manner to which we subscribed. Invaders down the ages routinely, therefore, outmaneuvered us because we remained wedded to the tactical doctrines of honor and of movement dominated by the war elephant. Neither repeated losses nor long periods of subjugation taught us the needed lessons.

The invaders from Inner and Western Asia, who won their wars essentially by outmaneuvering opponents on their fast and agile Khorasani horses, upon attaining Delhi promptly forgot the secret of their own military success, and in turn took to the ponderous elephants. Thus, the Turkish Sultan confidently faced Timur on the outskirts of Delhi because Wazir Mallu Khan had 120 war elephants and Timur had none, and was swiftly beaten by the latter’s strong cavalry. And Akbar invariably fought his many battles, starting with the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556, when he was but thirteen, atop his favorite war elephant.

Because of our convictions about honor and chivalry, or conversely, because of the absence of resolve to finish off the enemy when the opportunity arose, our adversaries routinely got the better of India. The most egregious example, of course, is that of our gallant Prithviraj Chauhan, victor over Shahabuddin Ghauri in sixteen battles for Delhi—on each occasion never pursuing the Afghan, as Sri Jadunath Sarkar has ruefully noted, beyond Bhatinda—a failure that cost him his life and his domain in the seventeenth encounter.

This lack of resolve is also perhaps because in our mind, shaped by a forgiving cultural milieu, war has always been regarded as an uncivil and undisciplined activity. In other words, warfare has been thought of as basically a physical, not a mental or moral, contest. British historians beginning with Orme, chronicling Robert Clive’s military successes, have been appalled by how unthinkingly their Indian adversaries fought.

Cultural habits die hard. Habits of mind are not easily amenable to change. Resonance can be found in the Indian military record since Independence, and particularly in the government’s, and by extension the public’s, habitual disinterest in the larger, more profound, aspects of national security—except in crises precipitated by military emergency, when the government and the people suddenly become attentive. But by then, of course, it is either too late to alter the course to disaster, or, because of inadequate strategic thought or faulty strategic reasoning, our “success,” too, becomes short-lived.

Yet it would be an error to fault India alone. Historical experience elsewhere has not been far different. The development of strategic thought in the USA, for example, has also evolved episodically, and at a pace that was determined by the growth of the “statehood” of these United States: the peripheries first and only much later, in the twentieth century, a regional, and only then a global, vision and thought. In Europe, too, the same pattern is found. And here I wish to quote from an essay of Tom Nairns, reviewing Martin Thom’s Republics, Nations, and Tribes. Beginning with a broad sweep, Nairn then focuses on Europe:

Over most of the early Modern Globe—in the Mogul and Chinese Empires, in Islamic countries—the literate classes had lived in a retrospect of carefully gilded imperial and religious statehood. They inherited dynasties which were either “immemorial” or had succeeded other(s).... Their accompanying faiths were ... delimited only by a shifting frontier against outer “barbaric” idolatry or unlettered animism. But 17th and 18th century Europe was different.... One crucial element ... lay in [it] being organized not by nation(s) but by city-state(s).... Country rarely meant “nation” in anything like the modern sense; its core significance was always “city,” the civilized nucleus which really counted, with or without what Machiavelli called its contado or distretto—an attached countryside that might be useful but was never essential....

Thus there arose what Thom calls the “tribe-nation,”

a fateful post-Napoleonic idea-system which developed unstoppably east of the Rhine, spread to Central and Eastern Europe and then more patchily and belatedly to the extra-European and post-colonial world of the 20th century.

He continues with the thought thus:

The now forgotten persistence of small-scale civic identities meant that the idea of federations and confederations of these entities also endured as a competitor to nationhood. The revolt of the United Provinces in the Netherlands had updated this conception, and after 1776 the American upheaval was at first interpreted in a similar way. All these tendencies served both to forestall and conceal the deeper current gathering momentum.... But this could not long endure: Clausewitz’s total war flattened it; then industrialization shattered its stilted partitions more decisively, and delivered the remains over to the new national leviathans.

As for a “changing world order,” yet another thought from Martin Thom is worthy of pursuit, regarding what is happening at the level of nation-states:

Something profound did end around 1989, even if it wasn’t History; hence another world should be gestating in ways broadly analogous but probably much more rapidly, leading us into a futurity as surprising and unforeseen as that of the first round of industrialization and nation-statehood. It remains hard to see how any contemporary and future statehood can remain other than (as) a by-product of nationalism’s moment in history; that is, all-embracing, numinous, cultural, democratic, and deeply personal in meaning.

 

II. Nation, State, and Sovereignty

Before proceeding further, to India’s perceptions about strategy, there is a need to dwell briefly on what I hold to be a vital consideration: current concepts about sovereignty. It is not a very fashionable category, this nationalism or sovereignty. In this era of globalization, of eroding sovereignties, of course, we have to reexamine most of our perceptions. How much free play exists, for example, in international economic and political relations for nations to be able to assert their sovereign will? In a very real sense, where markets are dominant, where currency rate fluctuations are beyond state control, where money is electronic, and where investments are transnational, the pursuit of economic and political sovereignty to which we are historically accustomed is simply not there any longer. To conclude from that, however, that the state is irrelevant, or that nationalism is dead, would be premature. Nationalism remains an index of the strength and will of a people, as that inspiring sentiment which persuades the citizen to see beyond the self.

We must, in the same light, reflect consciously on the positive aspects of the functioning of a state. Despite the obvious assaults on these institutions, the erosion of the authority and power of a state, the loss of monopoly that it has suffered in regard to both state power and military power, at least the welfare role of the state remains. Admittedly, as economics strengthen, the role of the state diminishes, as does the primacy of political activism. The pattern, however, is not uniform globally. What works in Switzerland as the role and function of the state, for example, cannot work in India. The state as a political organism may well have diminished in its relevance and role in the Occident, but that is not so in the Orient, where the state is a continuing factor of great importance.

 

III. State, Society, Citizen, and National Security

There is need then to analyze the deficiencies, too, principally of the above parameters, for they constitute the primary building blocks of strategic thought. Notwithstanding the failure of independent India to create a wholly effective state, there does exist an edifice inherited from the British. The nature of this state, its relationship with Indian society and with the citizen, has a direct bearing on India’s total national commitment, and hence also its national endeavor. Quite outside of political particularism, we have to reflect on what the Indian state has currently become. If the state comes to be seen as uncaring, and even if this occurs only in appearance rather than in reality, then the consequences would not be rewarding for the country.

Let us accept that in these times the interrelationship between the citizen and the state has become altogether more material. Thereafter, should the state conduct itself in a manner such that the citizen finds, or even perceives, that the state has failed in its commitments and obligations, then there is every likelihood of the citizen withdrawing his or her allegiance. This manifests itself at various levels and in various forms, from the most mundane to the noble. It is because of this failure that our grievance redressal systems clog. And even if they actually do not, but convey only an impression of the state’s insensitivity to the citizen’s aspirations and expectations from the state, then, too, the citizen will tend to withdraw allegiance. That is an unfortunate reality of the materialism of our times.

It is because of this that India has witnessed periodic explosions of discontent in different parts of the country. The classic examples by now are, of course, Jammu-Kashmir, Assam, and Punjab. If I am not burdening this paper with earlier examples, it is only because the point that I wish to make is sufficiently well illustrated above.

A word, too, about state and society in the nearly unique arrangement that India has. The overarching concept of Indian nationhood is sustained essentially by the strength of Indian society, with an inter-positioning of the state. A conclusion follows: at the cellular core of its nationhood lies Indian society. The strength, then, of Indian society is the strength of the very bone structure of its nationhood. If that society were to be enfeebled, whether because of the insensitivity of the state or an uncaring and exploitative attitude by it, then the core would be weakened. In turn, then, the total national endeavor in times of challenge and crisis would also be affected. That is why I often reflect on how in India, the Indian state, the last entrant and essentially a political variable, has currently become the greater enemy of Indian society.

Having spent some time examining the concepts of nation, state, society, strategy, and their evolution in India, there is the need to examine at least some of those integral aspects of national security which collectively and interdependently contribute to the development of strategic thought. Obviously this paper cannot attempt to cover all of them. The emphasis will thus be only on the following: economy, foreign policy, defense policy, infrastructure, and the nuclear issues.

 

IV. Economy: The Principal Dynamic

The principal global dynamic is now economic, supported by and interdependent with technological innovation. Changes resulting from this new dynamic, global in their effects, nonetheless have differing impacts on different societies, polities, and military powers, and on all the other integral components of nations’ abilities to safeguard their security. The velocity of this change, though unprecedented in its totality, varies from one country to another, dictated largely by different individual applications of it. The constant, however, remains the vital importance of economics.

Though it is evident that economic prosperity does not “always and immediately translate into military effectiveness; still, all the major power shifts in the world’s military power balances have followed alterations in the productive balances [of nations].” More importantly, “victory has always gone to the side with the greatest material resources.”

That is where a dilemma confronts nations. If they be economically weak, or poor, or if their economic strength declines in direct relation to the challenges they face, then obviously their authority is enfeebled both internally and internationally. This then compels them “to allocate more and more of their resources into the military sector, which in turn squeezes out productive investment, and over time leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear burdens of defense.”

This is a cruel spiral, relentless in its logic. It is also precisely the dilemma that we face in India. Our choice is not between security and economic growth; it is really security through economic growth. We cannot choose one or the other because they are interdependent. We have to achieve national security through a much more dynamic and effective economic growth. I do not wish to engage in sterile debates of the “defense versus development” variety; we simply do not have that option. The challenge to India is direct: how to convert these two into complementary categories?

The demand upon our statecraft is to reconcile an apparent conflict between the demands of the economy and the imperatives of national security. I believe that, as with other nations, we too have to recognize that the more we push ahead with economic growth and expansion, the more such a development, by itself, will generate a “power-political” dynamic. It is really the enhancing of our total economic endeavor that has to be improved, accelerated, and better managed, for this alone can give the nation the kind of security that is its just and due destiny. It is, then, a hard but self-evident fact that a judicious disposition of available resources might involve reordering some of the present defense priorities. Can we skip this awkward dilemma? Not really, for India cannot be a strategic lightweight; conversely, it cannot be a heavyweight, or a great power, if its economy is feeble.

We well recognize that in this era of diffused sovereignties, nations have to be far more flexible in their attitudes and in their approaches to where exactly the line of pure sovereignty—if there be such a line—lies. Yet again, the only measuring mechanism is that of vital national interests. Short of that, however, lies an enormous, largely gray area in which the choice of nation-states is influenced directly by the factor of economic self-interest. As national interests regarding trading rights, for example, assert themselves, inevitably some of the larger economies tend to swallow the smaller. India is currently passing through a phase of shifting from one to the other. As a nation, we have changed our economic gear, but only that. Our aspirations and our national destiny are to join the fast track, to compete against the powerful engines of the global giants. Until such time as we are able to match their capacities, occasionally we will have to suffer the indignity of being shouldered out, pushed, blocked, or thwarted in our endeavors. These efforts at “restraining” India will take many forms, and often they will be galling to our sense of national pride. That is why in this period of transition, what will be needed of Indian leadership is steadfastness, a sense of pride about India, and clarity of purpose. It would be self-defeating to be deflected from the centrality of our aim simply because the difficulties of the present appear so overpowering.

This phase of a curtailment of choices is the very period in which some important national security issues may become buried under the incapacity of our governments of the day. India has to be continuously mindful of this danger and guard against it.

 

V. India’s Foreign Policy

There is an opening thought here: Around the autumn of 1989, just when the rest of the world was moving into the period of the great meltdown, a collapse of the fixed order of things which had come into being since at least the end of the Second World War, just then India, perhaps typically, chose to move into a phase of internal political uncertainty and rearrangement. Precisely when India needed clarity and vision from its governments, that is exactly what was found wanting. Indeed, governance as such became a casualty. In consequence, the demands of internal politics superseded the management of India’s external affairs.

Thus, as we now move towards the twenty-first century, we seek a reliable order out of this apparent and existing disorder of polycentrism. The power shift that we witness today is not simply geographic, it is also conceptual. What, then, are these new integral aspects of power in today’s international relations? For example, can any nation today impose its will on another? And if it can, then how? Have not, therefore, knowledge and economics overtaken the purely military component of power? India ought to reflect deeply on what went wrong in the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) experiment, or where the United Nations and the USA went wrong in Somalia, or why Europe and the West fumbled for so long against the disorder in the Balkans. Again, nearer home, why is it that Afghanistan has descended to the worst kind of tribal anarchy, and this despite superpower intervention? Or is it precisely because of that intervention? The Indian subcontinent has an inherent order and an equilibrium, perhaps even a dynamic disequilibrium. Therefore, to permit any force to intrude, in any form, results inevitably in prolonged destabilization.

In a post-nonalignment world, what is it that India seeks? Essentially, India searches for that philosophical base for our foreign policy from which we can distill our national objectives and, thereafter, construct a harmonious conduct of diplomacy in service to vital national interests. Are we moving away from a confrontationist defense policy to cooperative security, or is that too idealistic? Is it balance of power, or dominance, the supremacy of one, that is the emerging global scheme? Are we entering a new phase of ever-widening spheres of influence? Or shall we have to contend with circles of hegemonies? And are we on the crossed lines of any of these potential contentions? In Kissinger’s words, between the “idealistic aspirations of mankind, the reality of human nature, and the imperatives of national interests lie some yawning chasms.” How do we bridge them so that our national security interests are best subserved? Simply because the problem is complex is not sufficient reason to avoid addressing ourselves to it. That is also why it will not just go away.

Two additional thoughts, briefly put across. First, that strategic frontiers of a power do not always coincide with the geographic delineation of its boundaries is a sufficiently well-established aspect of international relations. Therefore, what holds for others holds for India as well. Which takes me to my second point. India’s strategic frontiers lie where its national interests do. In the realm of strategy, compartmentalization into the purely diplomatic, military, or economic is entirely ineffective. A challenge to vital national interests can only have one response: total. It is axiomatic, then, that India has to give definition to these interests. How else can India’s strategic frontiers be even outlined? And it is this absence that strikes me as the critical, defining failure of the fifty years of India’s independence. For this conclusion to be sustained, even a cursory examination of the manner in which India managed the strategic challenges to its national interests in the past half-century would suffice.

The strategic situation, globally and in Asia, remains in a state of flux. The influence both of regional alliance systems and of the dominant global power has declined since the end of the Cold War. For India, state-centric perceptions, state influence, and sovereign national interests can be the only guideposts of policy; this is the inescapable reality of today.

 

VI. India’s Defense Policy

For many years now, in fact, for five terms in Parliament, I have been seeking from successive governments a clear, intelligible, comprehensive and reliable enunciation of our defense policy.

I offer but two, somewhat lengthy, quotations. The first, the reply of the Government when, as Chairman of a Committee of Parliament, I had asked them to explain their policy. This was in 1990-91. In April 1995, I again asked the Government to clarify their policy. The then Prime Minister, as Defence Minister, responded. I quote both statements in full without any additional comments.

In 1990, the then Defence Secretary stated during evidence:

I would submit that perhaps we have not been able to convince the honourable committee through our various notes that there is a policy. It is perhaps not defined in the manner that the committee were looking for.

He further added:

There is a document called the Operational Directives. It is a fairly comprehensive paper, which is issued from the Defence Secretary to the three Chiefs of Staff. It seeks to bring about as clearly as possible, under given circumstances, the threat situation which has been visualised in consultation not only with the three Services but the various agencies, the Ministry of External Affairs, as necessary with the Home Ministry in consultation with the Prime Minister’s Office and finally it is approved by the Defence Minister. We have such a document, which has been in existence for a considerable period.

We found on closer examination that the contents of this document required considerable change because of the enormous change that has taken place or is taking place not only in our near immediate vicinity but all round. We have, in the past year or so been getting the views, comments, perceptions of the three Services and have prepared a fresh document which has been very closely examined by the various concerned authorities in the Government. We found that there are a large number of areas where we were not in agreement. We set up a group of Senior Officers to sit together and come to a debated view on the basic minimum definition of what the country perceives as existing or emerging threats. That document is virtually finalised. It is now to go to the higher echelons.

Now if you ask is this the Defence policy, I would not be able to say the answer is in the affirmative because India’s Defence Policy, to the extent that I can venture to make a statement, from 1947 onwards, more precisely from 1950 onwards, has been basically a policy to defend our territory, our sovereignty and our freedom and no more than that. But from time to time, vis-à-vis our immediate neighbours, vis-à-vis Bangladesh at a point of time and vis-à-vis Sri Lanka more recently, the policy proceeded to grapple with the problem as it arose. Whatever kind of background we may be able to build up in consultation with various concerned authorities, I venture to submit that it may not still be of the kind that the Committee have in mind.

The policy must be clear and this should be subject to debate. I am afraid that may not be there for the moment. But still there is an ongoing and continuing effort on all fronts, within the Services, within our Ministry. We are interacting with the various concerned departments and organisations of the Government. We are trying to proceed very rapidly in that direction. The recent decision of the Government to set up the National Security Council was another step in the same direction. It should not be left merely to the household of the Ministry of Defence or a few other concerned organisations to come to whatever view they think as most accurate. We have to try to expose the perceptions and the concepts to academics, to people from various walks of life, retired civil servants, retired Defence Service officers, academicians, people from the Universities and parliamentarians who have been interested in the subject. So what is ultimately established as the national perception of what requires to be done, would be fairly well tested, on a broad basis.

On 16 May 1995, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Shri P. V. Narasimha Rao, stated:

Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would only confine myself to a few matters, a very few matters impinging on the defence policy of the Government and I would like to take the House into confidence and explain these things to the best possible extent, to the extent I can.

Sir, the first criticism has been rather an extraordinary kind of criticism to say that we have no National Defence Policy. I would like to submit very respectfully that this is not true.

We do not have a document called India’s National Defence Policy but we have got several guidelines which are followed, strictly followed and observed, and those can be summed up as follows:

To defend our National Territory over land, sea and air, encompassing among others the inviolability of our land borders, island territories, offshore assets and our maritime trade routes.

• To secure an internal environment whereby our Nation State is insured against any threats to its unity or progress on the basis of religion, language, ethnicity or socio-economic dissonance.

• To be able to exercise a degree of influence over the nations in our immediate neighbourhood to promote harmonious relationships in tune with our national interests.

• To be able to effectively contribute towards regional and international stability and

• To possess an effective out-of-the-country contingency capability to prevent destabilisation of the small nations in our immediate neighbourhood that could have adverse security implications for us.

This policy is not merely [sic] rigid in the sense that it has been written down, but these are the guidelines....

I think no more explanation or elaboration is needed....

 

VII. Infrastructure

The word “infrastructure” itself says all. Unless the structure be sound, how can we construct upon it an edifice of strategic thought? I have chosen to examine only one aspect of infrastructure: energy. This is only an illustrative, and not exhaustive, attempt. Critical issues such as food, water, environment, national transport systems, telecommunications, and the state of our civil defense are not examined here, not because they are not important aspects of our national security but simply out of practical considerations of space, time, and audience fatigue.

Regarding energy, here again I quote extensively, this time from a Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy. This I do for two reasons: first, because it says comprehensively and succinctly what I wish to say, and secondly, as Chairman of the Committee and the author of this Report, notwithstanding the immodesty of quoting oneself, I find it easier.

Energy is security; deficiencies in this critical strategic sector compromise national security. The major issues in the energy sector are the absence of an integrated long-term policy; inefficiencies in energy supply and utilisation; an unsustainable energy mix; acute scarcity of developmental capital; a lack of rational energy pricing; insufficient environmental considerations combined with demonstrable sectoral changes which are in line with reforms in the economic, industrial and investment policies of the Government—these issues are all critically inter-dependent.

In the energy sector, the overriding need continues to be for the enunciation of a long-term strategy, leading to the adoption of that strategy. This would entail adoption of an overall energy policy that is marked by optimum economic utilization of the nation’s resources, that is “user-friendly,” that duly accounts for the nation’s special needs, and that is conscious of the debilitating consequences of a shortage of capital. This would be a policy that combines growth in the energy sector with conservation, is uniform in its application throughout the Union, is environmentally conscious so as to sustain development, and addresses itself simultaneously to correcting existing imbalances and preparing for the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Table One: Proven Energy Reserves
Unit	India	World	India as percent of the world
Coal (bmt)	64.9	1078.1	6%
Oil (Bbb)	5.87	1000.9	0.59%
Natural Gas (tem)	0.735	124.0	0.59%
Hydropower (MW)	94,000	na

The table above reveals that proven reserves of oil and natural gas are small, accounting for less than 0.6% of the global reserves. We are relatively rich in terms of coal and hydropower, but their exploitation is constrained by factors such as poor quality of coal, environmental concerns, interstate water disputes in cases of hydropower, and nonavailability of financial resources.

The overall indigenous production of commercial energy increased from 53 mtoe in 1972-73 to 165.6 mtoe in 1992-93, at an average annual growth rate of about 6%. While coal accounted for as much as 64% of total energy availability in 1972-73, its share has declined to 58-60% in the last two to three years. In direct contrast to this, the share of oil has increased from 2% to 9.8% during the same period.

India is a net importer of energy, particularly oil. In 1992-93, imports of energy accounted for about 16% of the total commercial energy availability in the country. Net crude oil and petroleum product import increased from 12 MMT in 1970-71 to 28 MMT in 1991-92. The value of imports of petroleum, oil, and lubricants increased sharply from a mere 9% of the total export earnings to 78% over the decade from 1970-71 to 1980-81, an increase that largely stemmed from sharp hikes in the international price of oil. Thereafter, this percentage declined to 19% in 1986-87 (an all-time low for the decade), mainly due to the softening of oil prices in the international market, only to increase gradually to a level of 27% in 1991-92. A disturbing aspect of this dependence is certain forecasts which indicate that if all inputs remain unchanged, this percentage could go as high as 75% by the year 2010. The consequences of such a development are self-evident.

 

VIII. Nuclear Issues

The problem in this critical field, directly influencing India’s nuclear policy, is entirely of its own making. In 1974, with the underground nuclear explosion, India demonstrated an ability, but disclaimed the intent. In retrospect, the step is to be faulted on both counts—of having the capability and yet none of the advantages. India ought not to have held such an experiment at all—simply an explosion as a capability-demonstrator—if it intended to deny the capability straight thereafter. By demonstrating the ability, India had effectively and explicitly entered the world of nuclear capability. Had we straight thereafter conducted a series of other such tests and established clearly our ability, then it would have been easier to cope with all the confusion of subsequent years, these current international pressures, and all the other difficulties of today. Instead, we went into a nuclear trance; pretense replaced policy. In consequence, India has suffered the ill effects of both: of being suspected of being a nuclear weapons possessing power, and not really being one. Our options, in the process, have also been severely curtailed. In the decade of the 1980s, again from our own mishandling of the situation, we permitted yet another neighbor to confront us with a competitive posture. As if in response, we then granted to Pakistan the status of strategic nuclear parity—exactly that which had been the avowed purpose and intent of Indian policy to deny for decades. Now, in the 1990s, we repeat our performance. Having successfully tested the IRBM capabilities of Agni, we sit back, whether out of piety or pusillanimity I am unable to tell, and unconvincingly announce that it was “merely a technology tester.”

The world is much more complex now. Our difficulties therefore are also far more intractable.

The principle is clear, the challenge to Indian statecraft unambiguous: how to find a stable and credible equilibrium between India’s own perceptions of its national security, and just and valid international concerns about weapons of mass destruction. It is through seeking this balance that India has to formulate for itself a policy on various aspects of this involved issue.

There are then some additional inputs. The first is national security. In meeting this obligation, policy formulators have to judge the matter through only one prism, that of the security of the nation. The currency for the conduct of international relations being called “power,” even a single threat to national interests, existing or potential, enjoins upon policymakers the adoption of a policy that would meet the threat effectively. That obligation is born of an objective reality, not dreams of what the world ought to be.

Secondly, all restrictive regimes such as the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), the Nuclear Suppliers Group, or restrictions on research in space are not allies of Indian national interests. Therefore, when we examine related matters, we must do so only in the above light. It is my belief that global nuclear disarmament, a freeing of all humanity from the perils of all weapons of mass destruction, is a goal so worthy of attaining that we must strive unceasingly for it. But this noble goal cannot be reached if the route to it is through the exclusivism of nuclear apartheid, in which some nations have more rights than others, in which the security needs of some override those of others, and in which arguments about the global good become subservient to the national good of a few. India surely cannot accede to this. It is an unjust arrangement that cannot be rationalized simply because the global arrangement of power is today weighted as it is. The situation does not permit India the luxury of an uncertain response. Also, if the challenge is global, then an answer does not lie in the regional.

On the fissile material question, we need some explanatory details. I am informed that roughly 20 kg of highly enriched Uranium, or 5 kg of Plutonium, is all that is required to make an atomic bomb. The technology for that is fairly well known, and also fairly widespread. The production of this fissile material is, however, much more complex. Let me also add here that 1 kg of Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239 can provide almost 24 million KW of energy. One tonne of these materials could produce, and would charge, a 1000 MW reactor for a whole year. In the case of fast-breeder reactors, what is consumed would be rebred by a factor of 1.5. In others, the factor is much smaller, roughly about 0.5. And India faces a critical energy deficiency. The power position is actually perilous.

 

IX. Conclusion

What is this “changing world order"? Change there is, self-evidently, but is there any order in it?

Order can emerge either as an expression of the global community, or as an imposition of the will of one, or of a few; there exists no historical precedent for any third alternative. It is against this backdrop that India has to address itself to shifting relations among the world’s major powers. I find the emphasis on “shifting” to be only too apt. There is at present no fixedness. What we are witnessing is a rearranging of many interests—national and regional. Globally, an apparent contradiction exists between our attempts at a universal economic order, in the form of the WTO (World Trade Organization), and a virtual political anomie; between our efforts at a harmonious and equitable globalization of the world’s economy, its resources, and its productive talents, and continuing political discord. Can the economic succeed even while the political falters? We cannot attain one and abandon the other, because they are infectious, too, both of success and of failure. There are, then, among others, at least two additional factors of global import. The mightiest industrial and military power of our times is yet unable to define an intelligible role for itself. Is it to lead a global order? Can that be in the image of the USA alone—only its aspirations, and its national interests? Or is it to rearrange a new balance of power, and that, too, as its sole determinant? Underlying this search, behind all these quests, stands the ethos of the land and its people, yearning to find the moral in international affairs.

If we search for a balance between moral imperatives and the unquestionable imperatives of national interests, then, as an irreducible minimum, we find that we have to move away from our exclusivist perceptions to inclusivist concepts. We have to leaven our idealism with geopolitical realities. It is not simply a balance of power that we seek; it is a balance between imperishable human values and undeniable national needs. That is why today, as in yesteryears, in Kissinger’s words, “Foreign policy must begin with some definition of what constitutes a vital interest—a change in the international environment so likely to undermine the national security, that it must be resisted no matter what form the threat takes or how ostensibly legitimate it appears. During its heyday, Great Britain would have gone to war to prevent the occupation of channel ports in the Low Countries even if they had been taken over by major powers governed by saints.”

We are witnesses to this period, therefore, as one of American ascendancy. Today, it is largely American interests that determine the shape of things. But in that alone is no lasting basis. Therefore, are we going to be able to work out at least the lowest common denominator of collective good—which is where, and in which context, we examine not simply these shifting relations among the world’s major powers, but the concept of power itself? We will have to examine, too, not only the agency that we have created for global order, the United Nations, but also its contribution to the rearranging of relations among nations.

Among the many unanswered, even unasked, questions, these at least are some that engaged my thoughts as I reflected upon India’s strategic thought leading to national security in a changing world order.

 

Postscript: June 1, 1998

Since Independence, India has been a staunch advocate of global nuclear disarmament, participating actively in all such efforts, convinced that a world without nuclear weapons will enhance both national and global security. India was the first to call for a ban on nuclear testing in 1954, for a nondiscriminatory treaty on nonproliferation in 1965, for a treaty on non-use of nuclear weapons in 1978, for a nuclear freeze in 1982, and for a phased program for complete elimination in 1988.

Fundamentally, the country continues to adhere to the principle enunciated by India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who informed the Parliament on 2 April 1954 that “nuclear, chemical, and biological energy and power should not be used to forge weapons of mass destruction.” In 1965, India, along with a small group of nonaligned countries, put forward the idea of an international nonproliferation agreement under which nuclear weapons states would agree to give up their arsenals, provided other countries refrained from developing or acquiring such weapons. This balance of rights and obligations was not accepted. In the 1960s, when India’s security concerns deepened, it sought security guarantees, but the countries India turned to were unable to extend the expected assurances. India’s Parliament, having debated the issue on 5 April 1968, was assured by the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi, that “we shall be guided entirely by” enlightened self-interest and “considerations of national security.” As a result of India’s experience, therefore, it was made clear that New Delhi would not be able to sign the NPT. And this decision resulted in the PNE (peaceful nuclear explosion) of 1974.

Traditionally, India has been an outward-looking country. Indian representatives have worked in various international forums, including the Conference on Disarmament, for universal, nondiscriminatory, and verifiable arrangements for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, many of these initiatives were not accepted by the nuclear weapons states, who continue to hold these weapons essential for their own security. What has emerged in consequence has been a discriminatory and flawed nonproliferation regime. This affects India’s security adversely.

For years India continued to convey its apprehensions to the international community. The decades of the 1980s and 1990s, meanwhile, witnessed the gradual deterioration of India’s security environment, principally on account of nuclear and missile proliferation in its neighborhood, where nuclear weapons increased and more sophisticated delivery systems were inducted. India was thus left with little choice but to develop the capability that it had demonstrated in 1974, twenty-four years ago. On 11 May 1998, therefore, India conducted three nuclear tests in the Rajasthan desert. These were a fission device, a low-yield device, and a thermonuclear device. And on completing the planned program of underground nuclear tests, India conducted two more sub-kiloton tests on 13 May 1998. The tests were carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary. The measured yields obtained were in line with expected values, and this completed the planned series of tests.

The decision to undertake this limited series of tests was taken after due consideration of all factors relevant to India’s national security. These tests were intended not to threaten any country but to address the security concerns of the Indian people and provide them with necessary assurance. India’s nuclear policy, marked by restraint and openness, has not violated any international agreements either in 1974 or now, in 1998. The restraint exercised for twenty-four years, after having demonstrated our capability in 1974, is in itself a unique example. Restraint, however, has to arise from strength. It cannot be based upon indecision or doubt. The series of tests recently undertaken by India has led to the removal of doubts. The action involved was balanced, in that it was the minimum necessary to maintain what is an irreducible component of our national security calculus. It also needs to be restated that India has exercised and will continue to exercise the most stringent control on the export of sensitive technologies, equipment, and commodities—especially those related to weapons of mass destruction. India’s track record has been impeccable in this regard.

India is now a nuclear weapon state. This is a reality that cannot be denied. It is not a conferment that we seek; nor is it a status for others to grant. It is an endowment to the nation, its due, the right of one-sixth of humankind. India does not intend to use these weapons for aggression or for mounting threats against any country; these are weapons of self-defense, to ensure that India is not subjected to nuclear threats or coercion. India is a civilization that has been outward-looking and is an independent, nonaligned country whose long-demonstrated commitment to multilateralism is reflected in its active participation in various organizations. This engagement will continue, with a strong and stable India seen as a responsible and engaged member of the international community. The government has, subsequently, announced that India will now observe a voluntary moratorium and refrain from conducting underground nuclear test explosions. India has also indicated its willingness to move toward a de jure formalization of this declaration, while it would be prepared to consider being an adherent to some of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But this obviously cannot be done in a vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities. India would also be ready to participate in the negotiations for the conclusions of a fissile material cutoff treaty.

 

Endnotes

*: This essay was originally prepared for a panel on “What Constitutes National Security in a Changing World Order?” at The Future of Nuclear Weapons: A US-India Dialogue, held by CASI in Philadelphia, May 5-9, 1997. The June 1, 1998 postscript was added following India’s underground tests of five nuclear devices in May 1998.  Back.