Shedding Shibboleths Indias Evolving Strategic Outlook

heddinj
hibboleflis
India's ~oltint ifrafetic Outlook
K. Subrahmanyam
with
Arthur Monteiro
WORDSMITHS
Delhi
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SHEDDING SHIBBOLl!'ll!S: INDIA'S EVOLVING STRATEGIC O UTLOOK

by K. Subrahmanyam
First published, 2005
ISBN 81-87412-13-5
Copyright C 2005, Author

All rights reserved.
Published by
Arthur Monteiro
for WORDSMJ111S
N 11, Xavier Apartments, Saraswati Vihar
Delhi 110034
Tel: (091) (11) 2702 6452 Fax: (091) (I I) 2702 1009
e-mail: wordsmiths_ in@yahoo.co.in
Cover illustration
Amit John
Printed by
Caxton Press, New Delhi

Gro.d .
Lt-DeJ~1
1/11/0ll
Preface
Tbe Sbakti tests and the developments thereafter, such as

major reforms in defence administration and policymaking, the realign-
ments in India's relations with other major powers, a new Indian world.view
and consequent adjustments in Indian foreign policy, have been bailed in
many quarters as constituting a major shift in the Indian strategic approach.
The pmpose of this book, based on my writings from the mid- l 980s to
1998, is to highlight the international developments of that period that
shaped the Indian response and to demonstrate both the continuity and
changes in the evolution of Indian strategic outlook. On the ground, the
policy was evolving faster than in its public articulation. The Indian prime
ministers were building the nuclear arsenal even as they vociferously
advocated nuclear disarmament, and their adaptation to the unipolar world
bad started even as they were demanding a polyccntric system. For all
practical purposes, the doctrine of non-alignment was given the go-by in
the late 1980s. Though in pragmatic terms the Indian strategic outlook
was continually adjusting itself, there was a disconnect between such prag-
matism and making forward-looking assessments, strategizing policy and
articulating it to carry the country along to optimize its foreign and defence
policy perspectives. In this a strategic thinking deficit exists in India.
Though the Congress prime ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Nara-
simba Rao nurtured the nuclear weapon programme, the nuclear tests
when conducted were opposed by significant sections of the Congress
party itself Non-alignment was never an ideology but only a strategy to
meet the cballenges of the international bipolarity. Therefore it was logical
that the end of the cold war and emergence of globaliz.ation would call
for appropriate modifications in Indian strategic outlook. When this
happened from 1991, the inevitable changes in policies were sought to
be interpreted as major ideological shifts. This lack of clarity in strategic
thinking bas resulted in less than optimum exploitation of international
resources available for India's development There appears to be a strong
vested interest among the Indian political class to discourage development
of strategic thinking in the country in the area of international security
and international economic and technological relations. Our politicians
display extraordinary skills in strategic realpolitik in domestic politics,
where different parties anarchically interact in total defiance of democratic

vi Preface
norms laid down in the Constitution. Perhaps this total preoccupation

with domestic politics is respona1ble for the sad neg)cct of strategic tboo&!Jt
on India's external security and development as a player in the inter-
national marketplace.
The purpose of this book is to focus attention on this crucial deficit in
strategic thinking. which exacts a significant cost from the nation. It is,
by and large, a critique of status-quoist thinking and procedures. Hence
its title.
While the facts pn:sented here, the analyses, the findinp, and the
recommendations are all mine, J canmt claim to be the sole author of
Ibis book. Much of the credit goes to Arthur Monteiro. Arthur suggested
in 2001 that I write a book on Indian Natiooal Security. I declined. Theo
be wanted permission to work on my writings in various newspapers and
journals to bring out a book:. I readily agreed, prescribing a cut-off point-
May 1998, the Sbalcti tests. My intention was to highlight the logic and
thinking that led to the Shalcti tests and all that followed thereafter.
Most of the articles on which the book. bas been based were written in
the Tunes oflndui, the Economic Times and the Business and Political
Observer. Being based overwhelmingly on newspaper articles the book:
docs suffer some major deficiencies. While the coherent worldview of
the author is evident the book: docs not constitute a tightly argued sing)~
focus thesis. It is somewhat discursive. Secondly, the Sbalrti tests and the
reforms in decision-making following the Kargi.l Committee report have
dealt with a number of issues raised in this work. In my view, the issues
have not been effectively and adequately dealt with by the NOA (National
Democratic Alliance) government. Another book covering my critique
of those efforts is called for.
lnder Malhotra and I have shared a common worldview for over three
decades. I am grateful to him for writing a generous introduction, which
sets out very broadly how I strayed into the field of strategic studies and
bow I became a journalist on strategic issues. While Arthur bas done his
best to keep to my original phraseology and language style, the final text
is bis, a splendid job. Rewriting the original ocwspaper articles and shap-
ing them into coherent chapters involved a comprehensive understanding
of the worldview of the original author. I am grateful to Arthur for
displaying such understanding and bis extraordinary persistence that made
this book possible.
New Delhi K. Subrabmanyam

9 March 200S
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.Introduction
BY INDER MALHOTRA
To say that K. Subrahman~ereafter, to save space,

~ s the doyen of the Indian strategic community, indeed the originator
ofstrategic discourse in India, is to state the obvious. Single-handedly, he
has played the pioneering role in making this country conscious of the
need to think about national security and to do so strategically, and that in
a milieu where the very concept ofstrategic studies was absent. Some call
him Bhishma-Pitamaha of the slowly expanding tribe of serious students
of strategy- as in the two festschrifts published for his 75th birthday in
2004. Two of the younger generation of strategists who learnt their craft
from KS and have made a mark, Mohammed Ayub and C. Raja Mohan,
have made this point eloquently in A Bouquet of Tributes: Subbu at 75,
compiled by C. Uday Bhaskar.
No less important than the yeoman services he has rendered this
country-not least in the bureaucratic labyrinth of which he was a denizen
as an IAS officer of the 195 I batch-is the high respect KS has enjoyed
among the international cognoscenti. Stephen P. Cohen is on the mark
when he says that "Subbu, the most important strategic thinker of India"
is also "one of the handful of the world's truly original writers and speakers
in this arena". More to the point is Cohen's assertion that until the post-
1998 dialogues between Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott "no other Indian
had the same impact on American officials, scholars and strategists" as
KS had. In fact. to many of them "Subbu was India" (emphasis in the
original). Even those in the U.S. who considered KS to be anti-American
and worse respected his "formidable intellect, an unequalled mastery of
facts and sense of humour''.
What the state of strategic and security landscape back home was
before KS's reign as the strategy Guru began is best described by George
Verghese, eminent journalist and scholar who was much later to be a
member of the Kargil Committee that KS beaded. At the release of the
second festschrift in KS's honour, Security Beyond Survival (Sage, 2004),
George disclosed a secret of the early years of the Indira Gandhi era when
he was her Information Adviser (IA). In May 1966, George said, four
months after Indira became Prime Minister, China conducted its third

viii Introduction
nuclear test, causing the usual concern, consternation, confusion, and

cacophony, but generating no coherent debate. The Cabinet's committee
on matters ofsecurity-then still called the Emergency Committee of the
Cabinet, as it bad been renamed at the start of the war with China in
1962-duly met, with its 'top advisers', civilian and military, in attendance.
But the desultory discussion remained inconclusive.
The Prime Minister asked her IA if he could seek the advice of some
persons knowledgeable on the subject-a tall order. George didn' t know
where to begin until someone told him that there was a Deputy Secretary
in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) named Subrahmanyam who would be
his best bet Others, besides KS, that George contacted and conferred
with included Homi Setbna of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), S.
Gopal who was then head of the External Affairs Ministry's Historical
Division, Pi~ber Pant of the Planning Commission and Romesh Tbapar,
a senior and respected journalist who was then known to be in Indira
Gandhi's 'inner circle' but later fell from grace.
What questions this group might have raised will never be known.
For soon afterwards, an enterprising reporter, n1nning into the Prime
Minister, asked her whether the 'committee' she bad set up to formulate
nuclear policy had reported to her. That put paid to the infonnal consulta-
tions such as they were.
Here let me add-in parentheses-that seventeen years ago, at the LBJ
Library at Austin, Texas, I read the American record of conversations in
Washington between the legendary Homi J. Bhabha and his U.S.
interlocutors, headed by Spurgeon Keeney, shortly after China's first
nuclear test in October 1964. The record quoted Bhabha as having said
that when he briefed the Cabinet's Emergency Committee on the Chinese
test and its consequences, he got the impression that "some of those present
did not understand what was being discussed".
One more digression, on a personal note. Leave alone the time when
George Verghese was consulting KS and others but even much later I
neither knew him nor of him, which is a reflection on me not on KS. I
first met him at the Rabindra Nagar (New Delhi) house of S.K. Singh,
then Director looking after the Disarmament portfolio in the Ministry of
External Affairs, in the latter half of 1968. SK' s introduction----that taking
a break from the civil service, KS had taken over stewardship of the
n?VlY formed Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA)-did
not make much impression on. me because the Institute then was an
unknown entity. However, a brief conversation of about six minutes with
KS dazzled me, with his fusillade of brilliant ideas lucidly expressed. I
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Introduction ix
was then working in Calcutta (now Kolkata) where I returned and then
moved to Bombay (now Mumbai). Apart from hearing occasionally that
KS was breathing new life into the IDSA I had little contact with him.
It was a series of his articles in the IDSA'sjoumal in 1970, forcefully
advocating acquisition of nuclear capability by this country without delay
that won my abounding admiration for him. I also recngniud in him a
1cindred soul, which needs explaining. 16 October 1964-about five months
after Nehru's passing from the scene-was a historic date for this country.
For within a span of a few hours on that day China's first bomb went up
at Lop Nor and at the Kremlin Nikita Khrushchev went down. The next
day KS, still in the MoD, submitted a 'Top Secret' note to the Defence
Secretary urging the Government to appoint a committee beaded by Homi
Bhabha to study the implications of the Chinese bomb for Indian security
and India's response to the challenge.
A week earlier, in my weekly Political Commentary in The Statesman
(9 October 1964), I had pleaded for a nuclear weapon programme on the
ground that the Chinese mushroom cloud was about to appear over the
Himalayas and India could ignore the consequent threat to its security
only at its peril. Reading KS's 1970 articles I recognized the difference
between his deep knowledge of the underlying intricacies of the nuclear
problem and my expression of what was essentially a gut feeling, both of
us arriving at the same conclusions. On my next visit to Delhi therefore I
met KS in the company of Girilal Jain, our inunml friend and my senior
colleague. I discovered then that KS could be very generous with his
time a quality that many others have also appreciated-and any discus-
sion with him could be highly stimulating. After April 1978, when I
returned to Delhi to be Resident Editor of The Times of India, mere
acquaintance with KS developed into a close and rewarding friendship.
KS's 'nuclear articles' bad created a sensation but this was over-
shadowed by the sudden eruption of the Bangladesh crisis. But when the
balloon went up in the then East Pakistan--twelve days after Indira Gandhi
was sworn in as Prime Minister for the third tim~New Delhi did not
have even a contingency plan to deal with the crisis. As usual, the air was
thick with discordant sounds-ranging from demands for immediate
military intervention to sermons about the immorality of interference in
the internal developments in a neighbouring country.
KS then wrote a paper advocating that the tragic situation in that part
of the subcontinent was the "opportunity of a century" to help the
Bangladeshis to liberate themselves and cut Pakistan to size. The paper
that he had discussed, among others, with Jayaprakash Narayan, was not

X Jntrodvction
meant for publication. But its contents somehow found their way into the
columns of The Times, London, and drew wide international attention.
Pakistan took it very seriously. Its Foreign Secretary, Sultan Mohammed
Khan, in his talks in Moscow in October 1971 with the vC1el'lln Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, cited KS's thesis as pan of bis
'evidence' to prove that India was 'hell-bent' on 'breaking up Pakistan'.
Even before the Bangladesh crisis blew up, KS had reali7.ed that to
spread security consciousness across this vast country it was not enough
to tum out research papers. The message had to be taken to a wider
audience. He therefore accepted with alacrity the invitation of the
Hinduslall Times (H7) to write for it regularly. For all his perspicacity,
however, KS did not foresee the trouble he was courting. Relatively minor
was the rebuke to him of an elderly and respected professor who said that
academics like the two of them must not demean themselves by writing
for newspapers but should confine thermelves to learned journals.
More serious was the stonn some of bis writings created at the Army
Headquarters. llis full-page review in HT of the book by B.N. Mullick-
Intelligence Chief virtually all through the Nehru era-on the war with
China in the high Himalayas, My Years with Nehru: The Chinese Betrayal
(Allied, 1971), particularly irlced the Generals. They were unhappy with
KS's views on the military's performance during the month-long fighting
and with his well-reasoned assertion that, contrary to the Army's stance,
there was no failure of intelligence. They protested to the MoD that an
IAS officer had no business to write articles critical of the Armed Forces
and the Government. But KS held his ground and told the Defence Secre-
tary K.B. Lall that he was writing not as an IAS officer but as Director of
the IDSA, an autonomous think tank, though wholly financed by MoD.
Impressed by KS's articles, K. Rangaswamy, the retired Political
Correspondent of The Hindu, asked him to write a weekly column for a
news and features agency be was then running. (Rangaswamy tried to
persuade KS to leave the IDSA and the IAS to join him in running, and
later taking over, the agency. Luckily for the IDSA and the country, KS
resisted the temptation.) KS's column, published in many newspapers
across the country, proved very popular and the demand for his writings
escalated, especially when the Bangladesh War drew near. The flow of
visitors to his office in search of knowledge and infonnation, to whom
he was unfailingly helpful, also swelled. The bulk of the newcomers
were press persons. By patiently educating them KS enabled them to
report on operational matters with an objective petspective and to avoid

Introduction XI
bowlers-fairly frequent initially-such as that a company of Mukti

Babini 'bad routed a whole battalion of the Pakistan Anny'.
Shortly after Dacca (now nhaka) became the free capital of a free
country, KS and ooe of bis brighter younger colleagues, Mohammed
Ayub, co-authored a book, The Liberation War. Ayub bad quite properly
put on the title page of the manuscript KS's name before bis own. KS
promptly reversed it telling the younger man that it was 'universal practice'
for co-authors to be mentioned in alphabetical order. "I bad a feeling",
recorded Ayub much later, "that be would have done the same even if
my surname began with the letter Z and would have found a convincing
argument for doing so."
One of the regular visitors to the IDSA those days was Major-General
(retired) 0.1(. Palit, one of the early writers on matters military and also a
member of the lnstitute's Executive Council. As a part-time publisher for
a while Palit bad first brought out a collection of KS's articles on the
Bangladesh War and concomitant diplomacy. He bad then tried bard to
talk KS into writing a full-length book on military history, grand strategy,
doctrine or whatever, but failed. For long years be voiced his frustration
over bis failure to overcome the 'mental block' of the 'original and
innovative thinker' who otherwise was an astonishingly prolific writer.
This book, besides being of immense value to all readers, should
particularly please General Palit, though it was not penned as a book but
is a compendium of KS's writings on the multiple aspects of national
security over a period of more than a decade, beginning with the time
when the Cold War was winding down to the time India conducted its
nuclear tests in May 1998. Remarkably, nothing that was written then bas
been changed in any way in the light of succeeding developments. Also,
unlike many other authors, KS does not merely analyse the security
challenges India faces but boldly sets out bis policy prescriptions. Some
of bis prognostications have been borne out by the course of events, but
not all. But the relevance of what KS bad commended to the country then
remains largely intact even today. In short, Shedding Shibboleths between
bard covers is far more rewarding to the reader than was perusal of bis
discourse in instalments.
KS's present work is driven by the daunting knowledge of facts and
relentlessly logical analysis that have been his hallmark for more than
half a century. His ability to take an lndocentric view of the changing
world scene and its inevitable impact on this country without ever being
chauvinistic adds lustre to his work. Equally welcome is his persistence

xii Introduction
in taking a clinically pragmatic rather than an ideological or a didactic

view of every situation.
These days some friends complain that, having taken a 'principled
s1and' against the United States in the past, KS has now become 'soft on
America'. I try to explain that this is not so. In fact, KS remains sharply
critical of unilateralist and arrogant U.S. policies, including the mess
that the Bush administration has made in Iraq. All that be emphasizes is
that virtual unipolarity is the ground reality round the globe, and India
like other players on the world stage would do well to make the best of
this situation. More often than not my friends' argument peters out in
puzzlement. It is a different matter that many of KS's American inter-
locutors, who used to find it hard to conceal their distaste for bis views on
questions like nuclear proliferation, now admit frankly that be was right
and they were wrong.
Since KS reflects on and discusses every issue in an overarching
framework-a useful feature of his book is that it hammers home the
point that corruption, bad governance, media management, and other such
problems are inextricably intermixed with the nation's security-the range
covered by him is so wide as to be intimidating. Therefore, in introducing
the intellectual delight that Shedding Shibboleths is, I will have to be
rigorously selective.
••••
The book's title encapsulates its basic message: that the worst enemy of
sound decision-making on national security and defence is stubborn
addiction to old, obsolete ideas or slogans. Unfortunately, experience
underscores the inability of the Indian State and most Indians to shed
outdated shibboleths. It seems to be an incurable malaise. For while it is
difficult to put an idea about the needs of national security into the heads
of disinterested politicians or overconfident generalist bureaucrats, it is
virtually impossible to get it out once it is lodged there. A radical change
in the surrounding circumstances, including the international context and
even national requirements, simply does not seem to matter.
To cite an example: there is the ferocity with which several of those in
authority continue to cling not only to the idea of non-alignment but also
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This may be truer of the Congress-
led United Progressive Alliance governn1ent, to say nothing of the Left
Front that supports it from 'outside'. To a lesser extent, the Vajpayee
government, too, found it necessary to invest in NAM both rhetoric and

Introduction x111
diplomatic energy. When Jawaharlal Nehru first propounded the doctrine

of non-alignment it was indisputably the best possible methodology to
safeguard the security and paramount interests of the newly independent
country that had limited power and even less prosperity in a world fro7.en
into two bitterly hostile power blocs. But non-alignment soon be:came a
mantra to be chanted in season and out of season. Ironically, in the
aftennath of the 1962 War Nehru himself had to tell Parliament that he
couldn't be "non-aligned against myself'! Similarly, it suited Indira
Gandhi to describe the 1983 NAM Summit in New Delhi as the "world's
largest peace movement". She knew well that the assembled delegates
from more than a hundred countries would make a beeline for the UN in
New Yorlc to pass resolutions-<>n Afghanistan, Cambodia or whatever-
totally at variance with what they had unanimously voted for in the Indian
capital. Derelict then, the Non-Aligned Movement is now reduced to a
relic of the Cold War era, but its supposed virtues endure in the entrenched
Indian mindset.
•••
•
Appropriately, the first of the six sections of_KS's book-consisting of
seven essays on subjects ranging from the state of security structures and
revamping of intelligence on the one hand to Defence R&D, production,
imports and expenditure on the other- focuses on the vital question: Does
India have a strategic perspective? Perhaps inevitably, the discussion begins
with George K. Tanharo's seminal study, Indian Strategic Thought: An
Interpretive Essay, of which the main conclusion is that this country
lacks strategic thinking and is content to have a "predominantly defensive
strategic orientation". Since the contents of Tanham's report are well
known and have been widely discussed over the thirteen years since its
publication, these need not be discussed at length.
It needs to be mentioned, however, that Tanham's perfectly valid
thesis came under attack from two diametrically opposite directions.
Pakistani officials and academics fell on him like a ton of bricks protesting
that India's ' pretence' of a lack of strategic thinking was a classic case of
'Hindu deceit' and a camouflage for its hegemonic designs in South Asia.
This was, perhaps, to be expected. Somewhat surprisingly, however, many
Indians, including retired defence and civilian officials, evidently hurt by
his findings, told Tanham that be was wrong. After all, they asked him,
wasn't Chanalcya a strategic thinker of the highest order? And hadn't the
Battle of Mahabharata been fought in accordance with the best principles

xiv lntrodw:lion
of warfare? A3 KS points out gently, these patriotic souls were oblivious

of the irony that they bad nothing to say about the Indian strategic tradition
during the twenty-~ centuries since Clumakya, leave alone the much
earlier epic battle at Kuruk.shetra.
The key question is whether matters have improved since Tanbam'a
plain ~king, endorsed in his 1992 National Security Lecture at the
United Services Institution by General K. Sundarji. The answer, alas, ia
that this hasn't happened despite proliferatioo of think-tanks on security
and strategy, the plethora of writings by retired military men, increased
interest in the subject by newspapers and 1V channels and even SQIIIC
attempts to reform the higher managf'IDCDt of defence as a consequence of
the report of the Kargil Committee over which KS ~ided. This verdict
is indeed a nmning thread in KS's book, and its implications and
ramifications are bound to crop up as we go along.
Meanwhile, ~ of the many pertinent poin~ made hy Tanbam uxl
examined closely by KS merit attention. First, that Indians "do not see the
difference between being a great COW1try- which (India) is-and a great
power". Allied to this is his second observation that Indians are
"insensitive" to their immediate neighbourhood. What greater proof of
this could there be than that it took the royal takeover and abrogation of
democracy in the Himalayan Kingdom on the eve of the now cancelled
SAARC Summit in Dhaka for New Delhi to take note of these usually
ignored neighbours?
Tanharn's third point elaborated by KS centres on the melancholy
fact that the military in this COWltry does not participate in policymaking,
with inescapably deleterious consequences. This was said in the early
1990s and there bas been no material change in the situation even though
we have bad a National Security Council for more than six years, the
NSC appointed by the short-lived V.P. Singh government in 1990 turned
out to be stillborn. The existing NSC was made virtually dysfunctional.
Its very concept was distorted by the appointment of the then Prime
Minister's Principal Secretary as the National Security Advisor (NSA)
as well, the merger of the Joint Intelligence Committee with the NSC's
Secretariat, and holding of only one meeting of the full Council throughout
the Vajpayee years. To cap it all, a unanimous decision taken by the
solitary meeting of the NSC was never implemented. Nobody cares to
explain why. The kind of impact the NSC and its (non)-working bas bad
on the public mind was demonstrated vividly during the debate following
the tragic death of J.N. ('Mani') Dixit during which the very need for the
NSA or the NSC was questioned even by 'seasoned' opinion-makers.

Introduction xv
No less depressing is the complete absence of any worthwhile change

in the structures, personnel policies, and -working pattern of the Anne<!
Forces. The introduction of the Integrated Defence Staff to assist the
rotating Chairman of the Chiefof Staffs Committee has been of little help
because there is no Chief of Defence Staff or permanent Chairman of
Chiefs of Staff. In short, the new structure amounts to an arch without
the coping stone.
KS's account, based on personal knowledge of the various ad hoc
efforts to form some kind of a security brains trust during Rajiv Gandhi's
time, is hilarious and exposes how casual the attempts were. Rajiv
assembled an interdisciplinary group of which KS was a member. An
innovative feature of the IDG was the inclusion in it of the Chief Ministers
of Assam and Kerala. Among other members were the Cabinet Secretary,
the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the Chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission and the two Intelligence Chiefs. After about
a year, it abruptly stopped meeting. A Strategic Planning Group, organized
by Anm Singh as Minister of State for Defence, was also wound up
shortly after it was formed. It is also entirely typical that few shed any
tears over the damage done to the Defence establishment's 'normal work',
such as it is, by the pernicious practice of Prime Ministers taking over
the Defence portfolio for long stretches. For eight years between 1980
and 1995, the PM was also his DM. The PMO was burdened with a
mountain of files it had no time to look at. Moreover, in Arun Singh,
Rajiv had a Minister of State of competence though the two later drifted
apart. P.V. Nara~imha Rao, the PM who held charge of the Ministry of
Defence the longest, chose someone whom no one ever accused of being
familiar with matters military.
In his essay on "The Arms Bazaar" KS debunks the widespread notion
that if arms transactions take place only between governments, the
shenanigans of middlemen would be eliminated. After pointing out that
heads of state make no bones about pushing their countries' exports of
armaments (he has quoted chapter and verse to make his point), he
concludes that arms imports have got mixed up with needs for political
funding in the importing countries. Consequently, "kickbacks in major
arms deals are a fact of life". The preference of the armed forces, he says,
is usually for imported equipment. This creates problems if only because
the country is committed to self-reliance in defence. Of this the Defence
Research and Development Organization (DRDO) takes full advantage.
In its anxiety to get the order to produce the weapon system indigenously,
DRDO deliberately understates the development costs, biting more than it

xvi /nJrodvction
can chew. EDOffllOus cost and time ovenuns are thus built into the
situation. Those awarding the projects are generally so ill-infonned that
they swallow the DRDO's often laughably low quotations.
Even so, in his assessment of the DRDO's work during the 1990s, KS
bas b«n over-optimistic and hence in error, at least in some respects. To
be sure, the DRDO bas struggled against very heavy odds and achieved
much. But KS's praise of its performance in the area of missiles is
excessive. In fact, after a good start on the Integrated Missile Development
Programme, sanctioned in 1983, progress bas been tardy. This is parti-
cularly true of the most important of missiles, the Agni. So far we have
tested Agni-2, with a range of 700 km, only a few times though even the
most advanced COW1tries insist that a new missile must be tested at least
two dozen times. Agni-3, with an expected range of 3000 km, remains in
the realm of the future. It is doubtless true that the Indian missile develop-
ment programme bas progressed in an intensely hostile international atmo-
sphere. We therefore have to develop state-of-the-art technologies entirely
on our own, unlike Pakistan that bas received virtually finished missiles
from China and North Korea, giving that country the edge in missilery.
What is true of missiles is true also of DRDO's other ventures. For
instance, the much-hyped Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is, in the words
of a critic, long on publicity and short on performance. During the uncon-
scionably long period when the question was when would the LCA fly or
whether it would take off at all, the joke used to be, 'if horses can fly,
why can't the LCA?' The story of Arjun, the main battle tank. is similar
to that of the LCA. On completion, years after schedule, it weighs 59 tons.
According to a commentator, "No sensible commander wants to operate
it in the soft sands of Rajasthan o.- in the well-irrigated plains of Punjab."
Against this backdrop, it would be appropriate to discuss at this stage
KS's appraisal of Nehru's contribution to strategic thinking though the
chapter is in the book's last section. Both KS and I belong to the genera-
tion that grew up under Nehru's magic spell and was proud to serve as
his battalions. We held him in the highest esteem but not uncritically. KS 's
summation of Nehru is thus clinically objective. It should also be an eye-
opener to those who, for many years, have fancifully been blaming Nehru
for a great many 'sins', including this country's 'military weakness'--e
charge that acquires verisimilitude in view of the disastrous border war
with China. The reality, as KS argues convincingly, is exactly the reverse.
In the first place, the fact that Nehru succeeded in laying firm founda-
tions of the modern and secular Indian State, wedded also to liberal
democracy, was a giant leap in suengthening Indian security. Younger

lntrothu:tion xvii
readers can have no idea of the daunting circumstances in which he

achieved this. There were, first of all, the massacres and mass migrations
accompanying Partition. Millions of refugees had to be, and were, rehabili-
. tated over a remarkably short period. The more than five hundred princely
states were merged with the Indian Union smoothly enough except
Kashmir over which Pakistan has fought three wars and remains engaged
in a proxy war despite the simultaneously ongoing peace process. The
police action in Hyderabad was a relatively minor matter. Communist
insurgencies, linguistic riots, secessionist movements in not only Nagaland
but also Tamil Nadu, and-acute food shottages amidst a foreign exchange
crunch were other grim problems be had to cope with. At no stage, despite
pressures to the contrary, did Nehru waver tiom the basic tenet that India's
foreign and security policies would be governed by 'national interest', not
by ideology. Those who accuse him of being 'soft' on the Soviet Union
over its invasion of Hungary in 1956, while being harsh on Britain, France
and Israel for their aggression on Egypt over Suez, conveniently forget
that this country then needed the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council
over Kashmir.
In "grand strategic tenns", Nehru's greatest contn"'bution was the doc1rine
of non-alignment, as has b«n noted above. It was not for nothing that in
1962 this country could get military aid from both the West and the
Soviet Union. The Sino-Soviet split that Nehru foresaw earlier than any
other statesman was a material factor in Moscow's policies towards India
though this was briefly eclipsed by the Cuban missile crisis that somehow
coincided with the Chinese invasion of, and withdrawal from, Lada1"' and
NEFA (now called Arunachal Pradesh). Nehru's second most important
contribution to the nation's security was to make the country aware that
defence and development were inseparable. His peroration in an illumin-
ating speech to Parliament in 1956 was: ''The equation of defence is your
defence forces plus your industrial and technological background, plus,
thirdly, the economy of the country, and fourthly, the spirit of the people."
This, incidentally, was thirty-six years before Bill Clinton's famous four
words, "It's the economy, stupid."
During the same speech Nehru also said that any defence based on
imported military equipment was a "very superficial type of defence"
because the supplier could at any time stop the flow of spare parts and
impair the defences of the importing country (as indeed happened to
Pakistan in 1965). From this followed Nehru's drive to produce a whole
range of defence equipment under licence and build a strong Defence
R&D ~mething his successors happily persisted in. In fact, KS's

xviii llllrOdt«:tion
•
marshalling of incontrovertible but usually ignored f ~ h u lbc
doubling of the strength of the Indian anned forces before 1962, re-
equipment of the Air Force and Navy and the start of a host of production
lines in diverse IIRll&-dcmolisbcs the notion that Nehru ncglectcd defence
prcparedncss.
India's armed forces arc deservedly lauded for being apolitical, a
proud distinction in I rqpoll riddled with iept"ated military coups. ft WIS
Nehru who cnsw-ed this, through his towering stature, mass popularity,
skilful building of democratic institutions and finn resolve to keep "the
armed forces away from the rough and tumble of politics". According to
KS, this was the first Prime M.inistcr's third most important contribution.
On the obverse side of the balance sheet, the first entry is the failure to
"think through the dimensions of coercive diplomacy in the post- World
War U era". What happened in relation to China is a telling example of
this. Nehru had convinced himself that while the Chinese might engineer
minor clashes and skirmishes along the border, they would do "nothing
big" because a larger conflict could develop into a world war. It apparently
did not occur to him that Mao Zedong and his cohorts would plan a short,
sharp punitive campaign at the end of which China would llll)nuDCC:
unilateral withdrawal. At work here was an underlying problem of great
significance: Nehru was a great communicator but his communication
was largely one-way. His views, values, assessments, and ambitions were
duly msdc lmown to all conccmcd, but be took DO initiative to elicit the
opinions of those whose job it was to implement his policies and indeed
to participate in decision-making But then the trouble, in KS's words,
was that there were "very few" among his political colleagues, civilian
and military bureaucrals, and in the Intelligence services "who could engage
him in debate and thus stimulate his thinking".
Nehru's second major failure, DO less tragic, was somewhat pn1.Zling.
He was the author ofboth the doctrine of symbiosis between defence and
development and initiator of central.iz.ed planning in India. He never tired
of teUing the country that its defence would depend on the strength of its
economy and technology. When, in the aftcnnath of the 1962 War, there
was an outcry for a 'Plan holiday' and diversion of all available resources
to defence, be flatly refused to do so. And yet be curiously refrained from
including defence planning in the overall five-year plans. In the final
analysis, however, in Nehru's record pluses far outweigh minuses.
•••
•
KS's five essays on "Nuclear Matters" constitute, perhaps, the core of"

Introduction xix
this wide-ranging book. The critically important, if also controversial,

nuclear issue bad come to the crunch by the start of the 1990s. Dissimula-
tion and mystification about this country's nuclear policy could, and did,
go on, amidst bi7.arre official secrc:cy and the public's utonishing gulli-
bility. But a decision on what to do next could not be evaded.
For one thing, it was becoming clear that the nuclear haves were
determined to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NP1}--it
wasn't known then that the extension would be permanent and
unconditional-with a view to perpetuating their monopoly on nuclear
weapons. Their plans to enforce the C.Ompreheosive Test Ban Treaty--
rejected in the end, ironically, by the Senate of its protagonist, the United
States-were also in place. For another thing and this was vastly more
important-successive governments in New Delhi were painfully aware
that by 1988 Pakistan bad developed its bomb, with China's generous
help and America's ill-concealed acquiescence. In KS's unusually mild
words, the Indian Prime Ministers "did not inform the people" (no surprise
this because they did not share their nuclear policies even with senior
cabinet colleagues or the military top brass) but mercifully did what
needed to be done. Indira Gandhi initiated the nuclear weapon and missile
programme (she bad conducted the first underground detonation in May
1974). Rajiv Gandhi continued it and P.V. Narasimba Rao brought it
"fully into operation" (something Atal Bebari Vajpayee admitted only
after Rao's dead> in late 2004). Meanwhile, the Janata Oal prime ministers,
V.P. Singh and Chandrasbekhar, as well as those belonging to the United
Front, Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral, bad lent the programme "their full
support". It was this, and not some kind of magic wand, that enabled the
Vajpayee government in 1998 to conduct the Shakti series of nuclear
tests or Pokhran-11 only fifty-four days after it came to power. It is
necessary to add here that Pakistan's decision to go nuclear was taken,
as KS underscores, on 24 January 1971 at Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's famous
meeting with Pakistani scientists at Multan under a marquee. This was
some nine months before Indira Gandhi authorized her scientists to go
ahead with Pokhran-1, a decision that was influenced considerably by the
intimidating mission of the Ente,prise-led U.S. naval task force in the
Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh War.
KS has given us not just an outline of the evolution of Indian nuclear
policy but the entire history of the Nuclear Ago-in almost all its impli-
cations and ramifications-with admirable brevity and clarity. Indeed
what we have here is the essence of hundreds of thousands of words be
has written and spoken over decades in a Herculean (and not always

•
xx l1tlrodvcti01t
appreciated) effort to educate his compatriots in the complex and often

deliberately distorted nuclear issue. To do so in just fifty-eight pages is
nothing short of a tour de force. He begins with the dawn of the atomic
era with the awesome Trinity test at Alamogordo in New Mexico on 16
July 1945 that drove the project director, Robert Oppenheimer, to recite a
verse from the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit, "I have become Death, the
destroyer of worlds". Hardly three weeks later these chilling words were
turned into stimning and heart-rending reality at Hiroshima and Naguaki
What KS has to say on this subject requires the widest dissemination
because the flux of time has tended to obscure the unspeakable horrors
of this infamy. He has quoted incontrovertible evidence, inch>ding extracts
from declassified U.S. documents, to establish that there was no military
justification for nuking the two Japanese cities. But evidently the U.S.
establishment had made up its mind to use the bomb on Japan. That may
have happened in the heat of a long-drawn war. But it surely is strange--
as KS emphasizes-that at the sombre ceremonies on the fiftieth anni-
versary of Hiroshima no diplomats from the U.S. or its western allies
were present. And only a last-minute intervention by President Clinton
averted the special issue of a stamp by the U.S. postal department to
glorify Hiroshima. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt
Gingric.h, a Professor of History, blocked an exhibition on Hiroshima
planned by Smithsonian in its Aerospace Museum in Washington.
Gingrich, in fact, declared that Hiroshima would make Americans "proud".
,It is doubtful if this mindset does not persist in the world's mightiest
country.
One of the numerous points that stands out in the wealth of material
that KS has set out about nuclear "realities", proliferation and so on, is
that on nuclear weapons nations say one thing and do something radically
different. While other countries take this in their stride, most Indians
haven't yet got used to this fact of life. China, for instance, embarked on
its nuclear weapon programme at a time when Mao Zedong was proclaim-
ing that nuclear weapons were "paper tigers". Nehru, visiting Beijing in
October 1954, was shocked when Mao explained to him the Chinese view
that even if a nuclear war killed 300 million people in China there would
still be enough Chinese to rebuild a glorious civilization.
In this country the 'prohibitive' , 'crippling', and 'bankrupting' costs
of nuclear weapons were cited for long years as the clinching reason for
abjuring them, even though KS had been arguing all along that these were
grossly exaggerated. It is noteworthy therefore that he cites the cost of
China's nuclear programme for a decade beginning 1957 at $4.1 billion
"Google
D1g1t1zeo by
Orlgmal frcm
ltttrodMction xxi
(at 1957 prices). Rrmarkably, China mobilimd resources of this magnitude

at a time of a grave economic crisis following the collapse of Mao's
Gteat Leap Forward. It was in this context that Foreign Minister Marshal
Chen Yi made his renowned rcmar1c, at a meeting of the Chinese leader-
ship in 1961, that the nuclear programme must go forward "even if the
Chinese have to pawn their trousers". Chen said that as Minister for
Foreign Affairs "I still do not have adequate back-up. If you do come up
with the atomic bomb and guided missiles I can straighten ·my back."
There is notable similarity between this remark and a statement, around
the same time, of the British Labour leader and shadow Foreign Scc1etary,
Aneurin Bevan (also quoted by KS) that, in the absence of the British
nuclear bomb, he would have to go to international conferences "naked".
To tbcsc I might add the revealing comments of Mao and Zhou Enlai
immediately after the first Chinese nuclear test Zhou, a mandarins•
Mandarin, told Marshal Nie Rongzben, who was in charge of the nuclear
programme, ''Unless we make the big bang, they don't listen." This,
according to Han Suyin, was a "prettification" of Mao's observation: "A
loud fart is always more effective than a long lecture."
I vividly remember a seminar in the mid-l 980s, presided over by
P.N. Faksar, at which this countty's nuclear policy was discussed behind
closed doors. A firm opponent of exercising the Indian nuclear option,
highly disdainful of the "bomb lobby", quoted a retired Indian Major-
General to the effect that nuclear weapons had not been used since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and except during the Cuban missile crisis,
there had been no threat of their use. KS's reaction to tbcsc words of
wisdom was typical. Some people, be said, confused the extent of their
own ignorance with the limit of human knowledge. He then went on to
quote chapter and verse to point out nearly a score of instances of brazen
threats to noo-nuclcar powers ofuse of atomic weapons by nuclear weapon
powers. He bas recounted more of tbcsc in the book. What be pointed
out then and bas repeated now is that the U.S. threatened non-nuclear
China with the use of nuclear bombs at least twice, first in 1953 (incident-
ally, this threat was conveyed to Beijing through New Delhi) and then in
1958. China's nuclear weapon programme, he asserts citing Chinese
sources, was a "direct response to the U.S. nuclear threats".
The exchange at the Delhi seminar should enable me to dispose of a
nmning theme ofKS's critics who are not as numerous as his friends but
whose nmnbcr isn't negligible either-that besides being "hawkish" he is
also "needlessly abrasive". Then: is just a dash of truth in this magnum of
exaggeration. In any case, the pejorative ''hawkish" was largely shorthand

xxii /llll'Od,,ctio,,
by thole who oppoeed his nuclear policy prC&Cilptiod for the countJy
without having the ability to counter his compelling arguments in favour
of going nuclear. With this issue now out of the way because India is a
nuclear weapon power and a responsible one, to boot- in the words of
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-the "charge" of being hawkish bas
fallen into disuse. As for abrasiveness, the matter is simple. Many, besides
me, have testified to his exemplary patience with those wanting a serious
discussion with him for any length of time, often at very short notice.
But there is a point beyond which he does not suffer fools gladly and
when provoked can express himself sharply. However, I have never heard
him use unparliamentary language.
More 011 the same point: a senior American diplomat. based in Delhi,
ooce spoke to me in high dudgeon about one of KS's articles. "Your
friend K. Subrahmanyam", be said, "is the limit He calls us racists. He
says that we would agree to the total eliminatioo of nuclear weapons ooly
when the population of African-Americans looks like exceeding that of
the whites. I'm through with him." Six months later he and I were lunching
together in Washington when he suddenly remarked, apropos nothing, "I
say I am sorry I lost my cool about Subbu's article on nuclear
disarmament" May be, by then he bad talked with George Pcrkovich, an
outstanding expert on nuclear affairs, who bas recorded that while he did
not at first agree with Subbu's point about blacks becoming 5 I per cent of
the U.S. population, the more he reflected the more he rcaliz.cd that ''raco-
colour, as it were plays a (role) in U.S. policy, in the policies of other
cowitries, including India, and in my own thinking." (Incidentally, KS
makes it a point gracefully to acknowledge that the argument about the
corrclatioo between the United States' nuclear policy and the composition
of its population was first put forward by C. Raja Mohan.)
This is even truer of his blwit statement that the white racists of South
Africa gave up their nuclear arsenal only because of the inevitability of
black majority rule. Both Air Commodore (retd.) Jasjit Singh and I were
present when in Pretoria, in 1995, he deflated the all-white Disarmament
Division of the South African Foreign Office which was exhorting us to
follow their example.
To revert to the evolution of Indian nuclear policy, such as it then
was, Pokhrao-1 was conducted on 18 May 1974 when Indira Gandhi was.
•
in deep trouble at home as also under 90D1C international pressure. This
should explain why she did not authorize a second test that should
logically have followed. At the same time, rivalries and dissension within
the AEC were getting outof hand Then the Emergency intervened. It

/nll'r>dw:ti,on xxiii
led tn Indira Gandhi's defeat in the 1977 General Election. Morarji Desai
who replaced her bad, in KS's words, "no interest in the development of
nuclear energy or nuclear weapoos". He bad, in fact, been outspokenly
critical of the 1974 "nuclear blast". Not surprisingly, he became the only
Indian prime minister to renounce India's nuclear option. He did so in a
speech to a special sessjon of the UN General Assembly in June 1978,
assuring the world body that he would not conduct even peaceful nuclear
experiments. KS discloses that Desai had read out parts of this speech to
a meeting of his cabinet a day before leaving for New York though the
matter was not on the agenda. In any case, it is doubtful if Desai's
colleagues paid attention to what he was saying. It was President Sanjiva
Reddy who, on reading the text after Desai had already left, got alarmed.
He cabled his Prime Minister dissuading him from making the commit-
ment he had planned but obviously to no avail. -
However, KS gives Desai full and fully ileserved cmiit for having
" stood finn"-after only a "brief initial vacillation"-against full-scope
safeguards despite strong pressure from Jimmy Carter. Equally cmiitable
was Desai's refusal to be trapped into the stratagem of Nuclear Weapon-
Free Zones. For several years Ziaul Haq had used the ploy of a "nuclear
weapon free South Asia" to mislead the world, including a very large
section of the Indian intelligentsia, into believing that Pakistan was being
"reasooable" without evoking a similar response from India. Zia, in fact,
made the same suggestion in six different ways, as if the nuclear problem
in the region was confined to a watertight compartment extending from
Peshawar to Jessore on the India-Bangladesh bonier and that China's
nuclear might and indeed the global nuclear situation had nothing to do
with the subcontinent Regrettably, this nonsensical notioo persists, even
to the extent that a former Foreign Secretary made the astounding sugges-
tion that India and Pakistan 11hould adopt Libya as their role model!
Highly pertinent (and amusing) is KS's reference to Atal Behari
Vajpayee's role over the nuclear issue as Minister of External Affairs in
the fractious Janata government Before assuming this positioo Atalji was
a supporter of the nuclear weapon programme, as he became once again
after the Janata Party's collapse in less than three years. But throughout
the Janata regime, he unequivocally supported Desai's anti-nuclear policy.
Ironically, Vajpayee also joined Desai on the losing side in i,te Cabinet
Committee on Political Affairs on the question of revival of the Indian
nuclear programme after it had become clear that Pakistan had already
embarked on building the bomb!
Time and again KS bemoans the utterly chaotic procedures and

xxiv Introduction
methods of taking decisions on nuclear policy and strategy then existing.

Strangely, his complaints received no attention from the powers that be.
Indeed, what can one say about a state of affairs in which the Chairman
of the AEC and the Secretary to the Prime Minister were sent to Moscow
and Washington chasing the chimera of a "nuclear umbrella" while
keeping the Ministry of External Affairs in the dark? Acute embarrassment
inevitably followed this quixotic exercise but no one cared. Noting that
nuclear security policy in India was not within the jurisdiction of "any
ministry, department or agency", KS went on pll"Nling for the setting up
of a National Security Council. Such a body alone, he argued, would be
able to coordinate inputs from nearly a dozen Ministries and Departments,
not to say anything about the three Armed Forces, and take an integrated
and long-term view. His expectation was perfectly logical. But life in this
country is not always dictated by logic. The rude reality is that though the
NSC has been in existence for more than six years little has changed as
far as decision-making on nuclear security goes. All of us fall prey to
believing that hope will triumph over experience and end up by being
proved wrong. To a hard-headed realist like KS this must have been
particularly galling.
I may be forgiven for jumping far ahead of the time the book ranges
over. Among the singular services KS has rendered the Indian State and
the country in general-during his years in the government as the builder
of the IDSA and after retirement as a prolific journalist and comment-
ator--0ne merits special applause. It was his contribution to the formula-
tion of India's "Draft Nuclear Doctrine" about a year after this COW1try
declared itself a nuclear weapon power. He was then Convenor of the
National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) attached to the NSC. The
Board's twenty-seven members worked hard on the doctrine no doubt,
but a great many of them have told me that the moving spirit behind the
crucial exercise was KS. Painstakingly and patiently he brought about a
consensus within the NSAB, which presented the Government with a
unanimous document. Mercifully, the draft doctrine was published
quickly, and after avoidable delay adopted, almost entirely, as the nation's
Nuclear Doctrine. Its contents are known well enough to need
recounting-which brings me to my main point about this aspect of the
nuclear issue. It is that the doctrine eventually accepted by the Government
(and not opposed by any political party even though it has never been
discussed in Parliament) is hardly different from what KS had been
recommending long before the 1998 nuclear tests.
The Indian nuclear doctrine, he wrote more than once, should rest on

,.. ' ._
/lllrod,,ction XXV
four pillar&-----(1) No First Use; (2) aedibleo, minimmn detenmt; (3) civilian
control of the weapons; and (4) commibDCllt to nuclear disarmament.
These four points underpin the doc1rine now in force. On each of these
four parameters, KS wrote at length during the 1990s, explaining its
rationale and significance He even discusaed what the precise siu of
the credible minimum deterrent should be and met head~ the objections
of those who felt that by opting for No First Use this countty would be
exposing itself to the risk of accepting the first hit: it would thus be
encouraging a "potential aggressor to resort to adventurism". I need not
go into details: just one specimen of his exposition should suffice. "In
1961", he writes, "the U.S. bad 5100 nuclear warheads and the Soviet
Union only 300. The U.S. made plans for a total disarming strike on the
Soviet Union. But the plans were abandoned when the U.S. Chiefs of
Staff could n o t ~ (the White House) that no Soviet weapons would
get through. Deterrence is in terms of what damage a countty is prepared
to accept to achieve its aim. If Pakistan cannot accept the damage that
will be inflicted on it in a retaliatory strike, it is effectively deterred. What
applies to Pakistan can easily be extended to other cases." The credibility
of the deterrent, he adds. is not based on mere numbers but, essentially,
on its swvivability. Swvivability ensures that no nuclear aggressor,
however powerful, can be certain that his first strike would eliminate all
the weapons of the opponent, and that the opponent's nuclear weapons
will not get through and cause "unacceptable damage to the aggressor".
This uncertainty is at the "heart of deterrence".
Remarkably, the only expression included in the Nuclear Poctrine on
the question of "survivability of the deterrent" and not found in KS's
earlier writings is the "triad" of nuclear assets based on land, air, and sea,
including those deployed under water. And thereby hangs a tale.
Not to put any gloss on the typically Indian situation, almost as soon
as the draft nuclear doctrine was made public, efforts also began to
downplay, if not disown, it. The Americans bad taken particular objection
to the concept of"triad". Evidently to placate them, the Minister of External
Affairs, Jaswant Singh, declared that the draft doctrine was a mere
"academic exercise". For months the document was shoved aside to gather
dust. But eventually wiser counsel prevailed and it was adopted as the
countty's official doctrine.
••••
So far I have critiqued only twelve chapters in the book. There arc thirty-
one more, which just cannot be dealt with at comparable length; hence

XXVI Introduction
the compulsion to be rigorously selective and terse. Yet each of KS's

essays cootaios a critical mass of knowledge and infonnatioo of intetest
to both the analyst and the historian, they cannot be dismissed casually
either. I have therefore grouped these under three broad beads: events
and issues of great and continuing significance globally; matters of crucial
importance to this country; and a miscellany of the rest.
The appropriate point of departure for this purpose is KS's portraiture
of a "momentous decade", as be calls the 1990s, doubtless a period of
epochal and monwnental change. His description of the years 1989--91 as
"far more revolutionary" than the "French, Bolshevik and Chinese
revolutions" is not a hyperbole. Although the brave era of decolnnintion
bad preceded the dawn of the 1990s, the world bad never before wi1neSSed
the kind of transfonnation that took place during the three years under
review. The changes moreover were not only revolutionary but also non-
violent. The events moved at such dizzying speed that the international
community was left vertiginous. The Cold War ended as abruptly as it
bad begun. Thirty-five nations divided into rival power blocs and "armed
to the teeth" decided to reduce their nuclear weaponry by half. The Soviet
Unioo disintegrated, leaving the U.S. as the sole superpower, with profound
consequences that are being played out in Iraq and many other places
right now. In South Africa, the execrable system of apartheid was
dismantled. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent reunification
of Germany were also defirung events. The era of ideological struggle
that bad begun in 1917 virtually came to an end notwithstanding the
"professed allegiance" of China and a few other countries to Communist
ideology. Partly as a result of this many local wars-from Cambodia to
Angola-also ended. The Oslo Accord between Israel and the PLO,
though yet to be fully implemented, was signed on the south lawns oftbe
White House in 1993.
In his assessment of Mikhail Gorbachev's role in the Soviet Union's
collapse, KS bas taken note oftbe problems the last Soviet leader was up
against, such as the absence of democratic tradition and the continuing
hold on the Russian mind of the Communist party. "Gorbachev's failure
was inevitable, but it was a magnificent and heroic failure", concludes
KS. The Chinese model of economic reforms through the medium of
"creeping capitalism" was not available to Gorbachev. Deng Xiaoping,
who bad suffered heavily for being at odds with Mao and was restored to
power only after Mao's death, could succeed because the Chinese
Communist party, in disanay after the ignominious failure of Mao's

..
XXVII
"crazy" Big Leap Forward and even crazier Great Proletarian Cultmal
Revolution, did not have a pervasive hold on Chinese minds, unlike the
CPSU in USSR. Furthermore, even before Mao's passing there was
"continuity of interaction" between the market-oriented overseas Chinese
community and the mainland, a feature ''totally absent" in the Soviet
system. KS also pinpoints the unleashing of ethnic divisiveness in the
wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. The Stalinillt myth that the USSR
was a voluntary union of republics "with a right of secession" was blown
sky-high. The people's pent-up resentment against the tyranny of the
Moscow-based over-centraliud system came into play. Ethnic chauvinism
got a big boost
On the Vietnam War and its lessons KS has several pertinent points to
make. One, that Vietnam's victory over mighty America ended Clause-
witz's concept of war being a viable inst:nnnent of politics. A poor and
backward country of pea.Wits took on the Americans and forced them to
evacuate Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, in such panic that many of the
American soldiers and civilians clung to the skids of the departing
helicopters. The eminent Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, compared this to a
"butterfly getting the better of a rogue elephant in combat". KS says that
no country other than Vietnam bas bad the distinction of"inflicting military
reverses on three permanent members of the Security Council----the French
(Dien Bien Phu, 1954); the Americans (1975); and the Chinese (1979)".
He quotes Robert McNamara, Defence Secretary at the height of the
Vidnaro War, as saying years later that the U.S. government was "ignorant
of Vietnamese history and culture and failed to comider political, military,
financial and human r.QSts of its deepening involvement" in the war there.
Worse, it failed to cut its losses and withdraw when this could be done
without undue damage to its own security or that of the Western world,
because it did not want the world to believe that it was weak.
Evidently, America learnt little from its folly in Indochina. Else, just
a year before the Khomeini revolution in Iran, the U.S. president wouldn't
have described the Shah as a "pillar of stability in the region", when
the establishment in this country was giving the Shah no more than three
years, according to KS. But if the Americans failed to learn the necessary
lessons, some others drew wrong ones. One was the widespread belief,
assiduously applied to the first Gulf War in 1991, that any ground war the
Americans would get involved in would be long-drawn-out and extremely
costly to the U.S., especially after body bags started reaching home.
What happened to this prediction is now behind us.

XXVIU Introduction
••••
Mind-boggling changes in the world were bound to lead to changes in
international equations. KS bas addressed this subject comprehensively.
He bas pleaded for rethinking on lndia-U.S. relations. At the end of the
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezz.a Rice's recent visit to this country,
things have moved far ahead of what looked possible some years ago and
this bas happened largely along the lines KS bad anticipated or
recommended. Relations between this country and China today are also
friendlier, and economically more productive, than was thought possible
during the 1990s even though those expecting an early breakthrough
over the boundary issue are being over-optimistic. Moreover, China's
continuing assistance to Pakistan's missile programme poses a problem
for this country that Beijing just refuses to address. In this context, it
should be no surprise that one of KS's several chapters pertaining to
China bas the theme of "Countervailing China". Another takes note of
the "mercurial" nature of U.S.-China relations. In his analysis of the
"Japan-U.S. tango", KS points out that in some circumstances Japan
could go nuclear. That country, be stresses, bas both fissile material for
nuclear weapons and long-range missile capacity. With its main interest
in nuclear energy, Japan has a very advanced nuclear programme and
handles more plutonium than any other country. Japan's rocket technology
puts it among the first five nations. "If it chooses .. . Japan can easily
transform itself into a nuclear weapon and missile power." In the mid-
1990s, when these lines were written, this appeared "an unlikely event''.
With North Korea's emergence as a nuclear weapon and missile nation
the situation has changed dangerously from Japan's point of view.
•••
•
Of abiding interest are some of KS's essays under the rubric "Alarm
Signals". Three of them, inextricably interlinked, are on TetTOrism, the
Jihad phenomenon, and the Labyrinth of Drugs. Written long before
9/11, much of what he said then yet retains both relevance and resonance.
Everyone is talking of the U.S.-led "global war on terrorism". Pakistan
is hailed as a "key ally" in this war: yet its cross-border terrorism in this
country is winked at. New Delhi's complaints about "double standards"
in this respect evoke evasive responses. Years ago KS had written, "When
Air India's Kanishka was sent down the Atlantic, the industrialized world
was not sensitive enough to the implications of international terrorism.

/nlrod»ctiofl lWX
But when a PanAm or 1WA airliner is exploded, they reali7.e it is inter-

national terrorism and demand mobilization of global effort." What an
irony it is that these_tines are being noted just as reports oo the curious
judgement of a Canadian court acquitting the two prime accused of the
Kanishka outrage are coming in. On another vital point about terrorism,
KS draws attention to the argument advanced by some human rigb1s
groups claiming the starus of ..combatants" for terrorists. If terrorists are
indeed combatants engaged in a war against the State, he adds, a natioo
like Israel could argue that the elimination of command and control of
the terrorist side "is a legitimate act of war and the killing of the wife and
children of (a terrorist) constitutes inescapable collateral damage". He
has given half a dozen examples of how India has handled terrorism with
"far greater restraint and quiet heroism oo the part of the people than
analogous acts in the western world". Even after Pakistan's prolooged
proxy war in K.uhmir, the Indian security forces have not used artillery
or helicopter gun-ships against terrorists, foreign or indigenous.
By citing several instances, KS has turned the spotlight on the close
connection between terrorism, insurgency (leftist or rightist), low-intensity
conflict, and drug production and trafficking. Governments purporting to
be totally opposed to both drug trafficking and terrorism often promote
both for their own ends: the notorious Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan
years is a classic example. The Indian subcontinent, afflicted with a string
of insurgencies, is at the crossroads of both the Golden Triangle and the
Golden Crescent, which makes life rather easy for narco-terrorists. '30th ·
KS and I were invited in 1990 to speak at the silver jubilee celebrations of
the Border Security Force (BSF). The entire top brass of the BSF and
odler paramilitary forces, past and present, were there. The Pakistan-backed
Sikh insurgency in Punjab was on, and it was no secret that drug smugglers
and terrorists were engaged in a cosy relationship of mutual support and
benefit I raised the question whether large-scale trafficking in narcotics
could occur without collusion between the smugglers and the security
forces and politicians. Every top cop present claimed to be utterly unaware
of any such activity!
As for Pakistan's role, KS quotes a convicted Norwegian drug
trafficker and a Japanese drug scout to the effect that they had been able
to operate because of their links with the former Governor of the NWFP,
Lt-General Fazle Haq, and members of General Ziaul Haq's "family".
Then follows a stunning list of Pakistani military officers-including
Zia's personal pilot and personal banker- who were actually arrested
red-handed. Only one of them was serving a fourteen-year sentence

xxx lnJroduction
because he was arrested in Norway. Major Zahooruddin Afridi and FIL-

Lt. Khairur Rd!man, caught with hundreds of kilograms of heroin worth
millions of dollars, escaped from military detention.
KS's analysis and assessment of Islamic fundamentalism and its
adherence to the concept of jihad take note of the divisiveness within
Islam, based on oil wealth or lack of it, sparse or large populations,
sectarianism, and so on. In spite of all the talk about Muslims constituting
an nmmah (community of Believers) and all Arabs constituting a nation,
"most of their insec•Jrity arises out of intra-Muslim and intra-Arab
animosities". The longest war after World War Il, lasting eight years, was
fought between two Islamic countries-Iran and Iraq. It was the Pakistani
Brigadier (later General) Ziaul Haq who, in the service of the King of
~ordan, massacred the Palestinian refugees in that country during the
Black September of 1970.
Discussing non-military threats, KS underlines that these can be
potentially more catastrophic than even a. massive clash of highly sophis-
ticated arms. Writing under the title "Intimatioos of the Future", he says,
the "core international issues for the future, now that the world bas survived
the threat of nuclear holocaust, are going to be how to save the planet
from the advetY impact of climatic change and ecological problems (such
as desertification, destruction of rain forests, toxic wastes, pollution of
water and air, etc.)". The chilling message of an international conference
held in Toronto in June 1988, endorsed by KS, is that the "ultimate
consequences of climatic change could be second only to (those ot) a
global nuclear war". C'.lirnatic warming, rising sea levels, greenhouse gases
and depletion of the ozone layer are stark perils to human health and
welfare that do not seem to be getting the attention they deserve. In the
long list of non-military threats KS includes population explosion, "with
the attendant consequence of population movement (that would) create
tensions, turbulence and violence". The validity of this apprehension is
borne out by the hugely restrictive policies the developed nations are
adopting to discourage immigration from developing countries and even
trying to send back the immigrants who have settled there for decades. ·
While welcoming the 1reod towards the expansion of democracy and h\DD8D
rights to increasing numbers of people across the globe, KS stresses the
need to so manage the "transition" as to avoid violence and destabilization
caused by religious fundamentalism (a "major destabilizing and counter-
humanitarian factor'), linguistic or ethnic chauvinism, authoritarianism,
underdevelopment and grinding poverty resulting from grossly unfair
distribution of wealth.

UXl
.
When KS wrote oo this tbcmc during the 1990s, be noted that there
were then at least fifty countries in the developing world that were either
"military-ruled or military~". Their nwnber bas declined but at
what cost? Also, as in the case of terrorism, so in that of the spread of
democracy, there are double standards. While there is loud talk of Iraq
eventually becoming a "model of democracy for the Greater Middle
East", no one bas much to say about the need to democratize Saudi
Arabia. General Musbarrafs reneging on his solemn promise fl) shed his
military uniform bas also been lmlted with great indulgence.
On matters of particular interest to this country are KS's two short,

succinct chapters, "The Ghosts of 1962" and "The Truth about 1971",
together with a comprehensive essay on "Revamping Intelligence".
Brushing aside all carefully fostered myths, especially about 1962, he
puts his finger on the heart of the matter. Right from 1949, the Chinese
leadership-political and military, with several of the top leaders having
held important positions in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) earlier-
was "totally focused on national security". This was far from being the
case in India, where political and military leaders, with inadequate experi-
ence of security management, could think of fighting either patrol clashes
or a full-scale war with the northern neighbour. It did not occur to them
that the Chinese could be innovative enough to mount a quick thrust,
inflict military hwniliatioo on this country, and then withdraw unilaterally.
A fortnight before the Chinese marched down the Himalayan slopes Mao
had reviewed the plans at a meeting with Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Deng
Xiaoping, Marshals Ho Lung, Liu Bocheng and other military leaders.
By comparison, Indian discussions on the impending storm were "casual".
Nehru, says KS, was not a good judge of men. Consequently, at a
critical time the country bad a Chief of Army Staff "who could not pull
his weight", an "ineffective" Army Commander, a "flamboyant but inexpe-
rienced" Corps Commander and a "highly decorated but burnt-out''
divisional commander. Krishna Menon, a "novice in national security
management'', made things worse by his abrasiveness and penchant for
creating cliques in the armed forces and playing favourites. Against this
backdrop, on 17 November 1962, the famous 4th Division, "superior in
numbers and equipment to the Chinese force, sullied its legendary reputa-
tion for valour earned against Field Marshal Rommel's Afrilca Corps during
the Second World War". It simply dissolved without a fight at Sela. The

xxxii Jntrodtlctum
unpardonable mistake of not using the Air Foree against the Chinese KS
attributes to Nehru's "loss of nerve". The Prime Minister allowed himself
to be "misguided" by the advice of the American Ambassador: the
Americans knew that the Chinese were in no position to operate their
fighter aircraft from the high-altitude airfields of Tibet
Nothing could have exposed the appalling state of Indian intelligence
at the time of the trawnatic experience better than two incidents KS cites.
On 30 April 1962, Beijing issued a threat that New Delhi did not.
comprehend. After listing fifteen alleged new intrusions made by Indian
troops, the Chinese note declared that the PLA would resume patrolling in
the disputed area from the Karakoram pass to Kongka-La, suspended since
the hostilities in 1959. The note added that if Indian forward movement
continued, the PLA would patrol all along the border. In any other country,
remarks KS, such a note would have made the intelligence assessment
machinery ''burn midnight oil"; but not in this country.
Similarly, on the Government's request the Intelligence Bureau (IB)
bad given it an assessment based on experience, that the Chinese bad not
used force against a line of Indian posts set up to prevent further Chinese
encroachments. No one among the recipients of the "top secret" assessment
bothered to ask what if there was "discontinuity" in the pattern of Chinese
behaviour. What KS does not reveal in this essay is that around the same
time the IB bad sent another note to the effect that the Chinese Comu.1-
General in Calcutta bad told West Bengal Communist leaders at a dinner
at bis residence that if Indian intrusions into Chinese territory did not
end, China would have to take "strong action".
There was also the problem of the strange military mindset that
probably influenced the politicians, too. As expressed by so competent a
soldier as General K..S. Thimayya, in a magazine article in July 1962, it
was that India could not fight China on its own because there could be
no Chinese invasion of this country without the support of the Soviet
Union. The Sino-Soviet split was by then wide open, but seemed not to
make much difference to our security specialists. As it happened, thanks
to the coincidence between the CUban missile crisis and the border war
in the Himalayas (was it by accident or Chinese design?), the Soviet
Union did give its Indian critics an opportunity to snipe at it. It did so by
talking, for a few days, of its "Chinese brothers" and "Indian friends".
However, by the end of the Cuban affair, Moscow had resumed its support
to this country, including its supplies of military hardware. Yet long
after the hopes of"massive military aid" from the West had been belied
and arms shipments from Moscow continued to flow in, military top

Introduction xxxiii
brass persisted in the belief that "Commies will come to the aid of
Commies", as KS has duly recorded.
KS takes notice of India's China War, an utterly perverse view of
1962 by Neville Maxwell, and then controverts Maxwell, citing in the
process the excellent scholarly work of Roderick Macfarquhar wbll calls
the 1962 conflict as "Mao's India War". In addition, be cites a very useful
Chinese source-a book by Zhu Zhongli, wife of an important Chinese
functionary who bad the temerity to submit a paper to the top leadership
on the need to settle the boundary dispute with India through peaceful
means only and was penalized for this. Equally revealing is Nikita
Khrushchev's account in his memoirs, "I believe it was Mao himself who
stirred up the trouble with India. I think he did so because of some sick:
fantasy. He bad started the war with India and now be wanted to drag the
Soviet Union into the conflict ..."
Pointing out that Maxwell's warped work on the India-China conflict
was published when the West was about to change its policy of antagonism
towards China, KS argues that the idea obviously was to give the world a
"very distorted perception". He regrets that the Government in New Deihl
did nothing to counter Maxwell's mischief. Similarly, South Block sat
band on hand when, at the start of Pakistan's proxy war in Kashmir, the
British author Alastair Lamb came out with a book on Kashmir. Lamb's
tale was that India had "conspired to obtain the accession of Kashmir
fraudulently". This leads KS to penning a dissertation on "Media
Management". Its substance is depressing. For he says, while information
in public domain is a "powerful tool in diplomacy, administration and
economic management'', and western countries make full use of it, India
doesn't do so at all. So much so that while the U.S. and Britain declassify
their secret documents about India regularly, this country never does,
shamefacedly violating the thirty-year rule. A consequence is that even
Indian historians are compelled to write contemporary history of their
country on the basis of archival material released by the West!
On the 1971 War KS is brief and so will I be. His opening paragraph
says it all, with a revealing quote from the memoirs of Anatoly Dobrynin,
the veteran Soviet diplomat who served as Ambassador to the U.S. for
more than twenty-six years. "In 1971", records Dobrynin, "the Soviet
Union diplomatically intervened and obtained assurances from India that
it would not carry out a major attack on West Pakistan, and communicated
this to the United States." KS confirms this from his own knowledge as
an insider. Particularly fascinating is his account ofseveral conversations
with Y.B. Chavan during the fourteen-day fighting. Again and again KS

XXXIV llllr'OdMctwn
told Cbavan that instead of making the fighting in West Pakistan a

"slogging match" India should make a major thrust into Sind and rach
up to the Indus. Every time the polite though wily politician found a way
to confuse the issue. What the then Director of Military Operations,
Major-General I.S. Gill, told KS also substantiates Dobrynin's claim.
No wonder that through most of the Bangladesti War, V.V. Kuznetsov,
the highly influential Vice-Foreign Minister of the USSR, was ensconced
in the Soviet Embassy in New Delhi.
From this it follows that the noise Hemy Kissinger and other Americana
continue to make about this country's alleged intention to destroy West
Pakistan in 1971 is a falsehood, intended perhaps to justify the sending of
the Enterprise-led task force into the Bay of Bengal. In my view, this
also confirms the suspicion that the Soviet "advice" or pressure had
something to do with the rather unsatisfactory nature of the 1972 Simla
Agreement between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
••••
In rounding off this Introduction, not without brief comment on some of
the compelling parts of the book., no matter how hard I try some crucial
matters are bound to be left out The great and growing significance of
sea power, for example, is too important a subject to be ignored, if only
because the seas-quite apart from the mind-boggling seabed resources--
have become both a source of conflict and the medium for it Then there
is the whole issue of the safety of sealanes and cbokepoints, accentuated
by the rising and competing demands of energy and dangers of terrorism
011 high seas. KS's essay on "Maritime Peispective" comprises his writings
and contributions to international seminars that rebutted the post~old
War belief of the major industrialized nations in the "declining role" of
the navies, paradoxically accompanied by their determination to retain
adequate sea power to be able to start "interventionist" wars like the one
launched against Iraq in 1991.
Most of these pieces were written when many countries, Australia in
particular, were talking about India's rising naval power and calling it
"intriguing". KS told them the facts of life---principally China's fast
growing naval might and its deployment in the Indian Ocean-to set the
record straight It was a period when Time magazine ran a cover story on
India's navy and .Kissinger was propounding his thesis that India was
bound to "return to old policies of the British Raj" seeking an "influential;
if not dominant role in the arch extending from Aden to Singapore".
This gladdened many Indians but KS demolished it brilliantly. A policy

Introduction uxv
that worked when the power controlling India "ruled the waves" would be
impracticable in a radically changed situation. Another notable point KS
made on maritime issues related to the South Atlantic War launched by
Margaret Thatcher. The British Navy was able to "bottle up" the entire
Argentine Navy in its ports after a British nuclear-propelled h\Dlter-killer
submarine torpedoed General Belgrano, the Argcn~ cruiser.
•••
♦
In late I 993 KS went to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of .Adminis-

tration to speak to the probationers on security threats and interests as
well as India's economic and technological progress. He was struck by
the change in the prevailing atmosphere and mood from forty-two years
earlier when he and his fellow-probationers ''brimmed with zest and
pride on being members of the premier service (the IAS), which was to
help build newly independent India". The first question a probationer
asked him at the end of his lecture was whether political conuption
wasn't an "internal security threat" and a "major impediment to the
country's progress".
. Delving into the reasons for the precipitate decline in the standards
and ways of the bureaucracy, KS gives the pride of place to a theme he
has been hammering home ever since I have known him. He laments that
the civil services of independent India, especially the IAS, blindly follow
the "gencril.l.ist tradition" of the ICS, the steel-frame of the British Raj,
but with a crucial difference. The IAS has never had the esprit de corps
that was the hallmark of the ICS. Politicization of the bureaucracy has
also played havoc with it. Gone are the days when an aggrieved junior
officer went to the Chief Secretary in the state or the Cabinet Secretary
in New Delhi. Now they make a beeline for the political bosses, with the
result that politicians and bureaucrats often collude to take decisions on
lucrative projects for "superior non-technical reasons". Not long ago, a
distinguished former member of the service stirred the hornet's nest by
describing the IAS as "polished call girls". KS also bemoans what he
calls the Vilaamaditya syndrome, according to which as soon as anyone
occupies an official chair he becomes an all-knowing paragon of wisdom.
"The civil services of today," he says, "have my sympathy because they
are functioning in an environment that is much harsher than the one in
which my batch mat.es and I served." He reckons that there are in the
civil services "about 15 per cent who are of sterling quality; 15 per cent
willing to join the corrupt politicians in looting; and 70 per cent partly
moulded by the system".

xuvi/~
In his charming piece 011 "Conuptioo Worldwide" KS bas several

mcssagr;s. First, that Indira C-andbi might have been self-serving when
she prooounccd that corruption was a "global pbeoomenoo", factually
she was right Just consider some of the shocking scams 'ICIOSS the globe
at the time of writing in the early I 990s that be bas cited by way of
illustration. The list includes the snmning closure of the BCCI. controlled
by Hasan Abedi, a fiiend of Pakistani General Zia and a financier of the
clandestine Pakistani nuclear programme; the simultaneous collapse of
the savings and loans institutions in the U.S.; the swallowing ofpensioo
fimds by Robert Maxwell; and illegal reimbursements of massive stock
e,ccbange losses to powerful clients with linkages with organiud crime
in Japan, which overshadowed our own Harshad Mebta's gargantuan
loot at the Stock Exchange. The saga of corruption in Italy over the ages
is climaxed by the scandals with which the .. w1eot Prime Minister
continues to be charged, apparently without losing sleep. The list of the
developing countries' leaders who enriched themselves fabulously at the
cost of their people is also long, extending from Mobutu of Zaire to
Suharto of Indonesia to Noriega of Panama and countless others. KS's
second point is that all scams all over the world have close links with the
political culture of the countty concerned. The shenanigans of the BCCI,
including clandestine operations, in the U.S., for instance, were made
possible by the support of the "highly influential pillars of the Democratic
Party establishment". The nexus between politics, organized crime, and
W1ending scams may have been exposed to the light of day more effec-
tively in Japan but it exists everywhere. Where would politics in Italy be
without the Mafia? The Nawaz Shariffamily's involvemeot in the colossal
swindling of the Pakistan Cooperative Bank is no secret Thirdly, KS
Wlderscores that while in other countries the wrongdoers do get punished,
this hardly happens in India The last time a senior official here was
imprisoned was in the 1950s. In Japan in 1995 the Supreme Court
confirmed the conviction of former Prime Minister K.akuei Tanaka; he
escaped serving the prison term by "dying in good time".
••••
Unipolarity versus multipolarity is a major international issue now, as it
was in the 1990s. Understandably, KS's writings during the last decade
were based on the situation then existing. Surely, it bas changed under
George W. Bush who, unlike bis futber, wallows in the unilateral assertion
of American power and seems determined to preserve American bege-

/"'1'0d,,ction UXV1J
mooy for as long as be and his DCCM:OIISCl'V8te cohorts can. Even so,
KS's point that the world is essentially "polyccntric" remains valid. The
U.S. is doubtless the most powerful country-militarily, economically,
and technologically-but its might is not unchallenged. Moreover, othcr
centres of power, the European Union, China, RW1.1ia, Japan, and India,
cannot be written off. On the contrary, as KS underlines, according to
most estirnatel, l,y 2020 the seven largest cconomics would be the U.S.,
China, Japan, India, Germany, Indonesia, and South Kon:a. ..In oCbcr
words, five out of lhesc G-7 will be in Asia. In total economic weight
they arc likely to far outweigh the U.S. in the intcmatiooal community."
It is politically incorrect to say what KS bas done in his essay oo the
"Obsolcsccncc of the Non-Aligned Movement", but then be bas never
been dcterml by such consideration. His admirable piece on ..Renewing
the UN", though based on writings dming the 19908, is an excellent
guide to what Indian policy should be now that the reform of the UN
system, including the cnlargcmcnt of the Security Council's permanent
membership, is on the table. Once again those in the power structure
would be displeased with his pica not to make too much fuss about the
right of veto. KS is right in saying that let the Security Council be made
truly rcprcscntative of the majority of the world's population first, and
attmdant problems would take care of themselves in course of time. On
veto his pctspective is that the P-S arc unlikely to agree to share their
privilege of veto with newcomers: but ways can be found practically to
end the use of veto.
Tbrcc oCbcr points need to be made. most tersely, before concluding
the Introduction. First, KS saw through the u~y illusory nature of the
much-hyped "peace dividend" after the end of the Cold War earlier than
most other observers did. Secondly, his delightful essay on the futility of
war is best read in full rather than fleetingly summarized by me. Thirdly
and most importantly, KS tries patiently to educate the t,ltt.ding hearts
that go on arguing that if only Indian diplomacy could take care of the
problems with the neighbours, the country could drastically cut the defence
expenditure and divert the savings to development. He tells them that
diplomacy and military power arc mutually reinforcing, not each other's
substitute. At a seminar some years ago, I was constrained to make this
point somewhat sharply to an economist who bad also been envoy to a
European country. In answer to his persistent pica for letting diplomacy
solve India's dcfeocc problems, I had to tell him that diplomacy not backed
by adequate\lllilitary power was not worth the price of an ambassador's
single handhgala suit.

xuviii Introduction
Writing these pages bas been for me both an honour and a pleasure. It is
now for KS's readers to partake ofwbat the Swedes call a smorgasbord
(a spread of delicacies) that he bas served them as.rood for thought. And
if I may take the liberty of mixing my metaphor and blurring the dividing
line between solid and liquid victuals, K.S's book is like vintage wine. It
shouJd be savoured slowly, not tossed down like a tot ofvodlca.

Abbreviations
ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile (Treaty)

AEC Atomic Energy Commission
AIDS acquired immuno-dcficiency syndrome
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
ARF ASEAN Regional Fonun
ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations
AWACS airborne warning and control system
BSF Border Security Force
BW biological warfare
CBI Central Bureau of Investigation
CBM coofidence-building measures
CCPA Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs
CDS Chief of Defence Staff
CEERI Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute
CFC chloro fluoro carl>on
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CISF Central Industrial Security Force
CISR Council for Industrial and Scientific Research
comint communication intelligence
CPC Communist Party of China
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CRPF . Central Reserve Police Force
CSCE Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe
CTBT Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
cw chemical warfare
DRDO Defence Research and Development Organiz.ation
EEC European Economic Commission
elint electronic intelligence
EU European Union
EW electronic warfare
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
GDP gross domestic product
GNP gross national product
humint human intelligence

xi Abbreviations
lAEA Intematiooal Atomic Energy Agency

IAS Indian Administrative Service
m Intelligence Bureau
ICS Indian Civil Service
IFS Indian Foreign Service
IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies
IIT Indian Institute of Technology
INF Intermediate Nuclear Force (Treaty)
IPS Indian Police Service
ISi Inter Services Intelligence
ITBP Indo-Tibetan Border Police
KT kiloton
LAC Line of Actual Control
LCA light combat aircraft
LIC low-intensity conflict
LoC Line of Control
MBT main battle tank
MEA Ministry of External Affairs
MFN most favoured nation
MI-6 Military Intelligence (espionage department)
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MoS Minister of State
MOX mixed oxide (fuel)
MT megaton
MTCR missile technology control regime
NAFTA North American Free Trade Area
NAM Non-Aligned Movement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command
NPT Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
NSA National Security Agency
NSC National Security Council
NWFZ nuclear weapon-free zone
OAU Organi1.ation of African Unity
ODA overseas development assistance
OSCE Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe
PM Prime Minister
PMO Prime Minis~'s Office
PNE peaceful nuclear explosion
R&D research and development

Abbreviations xii
RAW Research and Analysis Wing

SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SALT Strategic Anns Limitation Treaty
SAM surface-to-air missile
sigint signal intelligence
SIPRI Stockholm International Peace Reserach Institute
SSM surface-to-surface missile
START Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
WMD weapons of mass destruction
WTO World Trade Organization

Contents
I. INDIAN STRATEGIC PERsPEcnvE

1. Does India Have a Strategic Perspective? 3
2. The Making of a Security Policy Structure 18
3. Defence R&D and Production 29
4. Defence Expenditure 42
S. The Arms Bazaar 54
6. Structure and Pcnonocl Policy of the Armed Forces 60
7. Revamping Intelligence 72
n. NuCI.BAll MAI IER.S

8. A Genie Let Loose 89
9. Nuclear Realities 94
10. Nuclear Proliferation 109
11. Nuclear Miscellany 117
Nuclear Fallacies 117 • Nuclear Weapon Free Zones 120
• History of Nuclear Threats 122 • The Legality ofNucloar
Weapons 123 • Test Ban 126 • No-Firit-U,e 128 •
Nuclear Disllrmamenl 130
12. India's Nuclear Quest 134
ill. AN EPOCHAL DECADE

13. The 1990s: A Momentous Decade 149
14. The Erui of an Empire 151
15. Saddam's Folly, 1991 158
16. The Lessons of Vietnam 168
17. The Taliban Enigma 174
18. China under Deng Xiaoping 178
19. The Non-crisis of 1990 193

xliv Contents
IV. CHANGING EQuATIONS

20. The Prospect for India-Pakistan C:BMs 201
21. Countervailing China 216
22. Rethinking IndilHJS Relatioos 229
23. Mercurial China-US Relations 241
24. The Japan-US Tango 245
'
V. ALARM SIGNALS
25. Iotimatioos of the Future 255

Climatic Change 257 • Population Movements 263 •
International Instability 264 • 'Discriminate Deterrence' 269
26. Terrorism· 272
27. The Jihad Phenomenon 284
28. Corruption Worldwide 289
29. The Labyrinth of Drugs 295
30. Maritime Perspective 306
VI. REFLECTIONS
31 ." The Ghosts of 1962 319

32. The Truth about 1971 .. - 328
33. The Haemorrhage io. Kashmir 331
34. Coups io Pakistan 341
35. Ways of the Bureaucracy 345
36. Media Managenieot 356
37. The Indian Dream 361
38. Obsolescence of the Non-Aligned Movement 371
39. Renewing the UN 382
40.. A Polycentric World 397
41. Nehru's Contribution to Strategic Thinking 406
42. The Illusory Disarmament Dividend 414
43. The Futility of War 420
Index 429

I
Indian Strategic Perspective

1
Does India Have
a Strategic Perspective?
A, India-US relations started warming up with the

winding down of the cold war, and the armed forces of the two coontrv:s
slarted to intea....t more c:loeely than before, the US Depmbncnt ,,fDefence
commissioned a project on "India's Future Strategic Role and Power
Potential", entrusting it to the RAND Corporation. (The RAND Corpora-
tion's irnag.: in India is of a hawkish institution.) linlike our pol.icy-
rnaken, the Americans believe that fonnulating policy vis+vis another
countey should start with some understanding of that country's pis.
policies and strategies. To-, teem was beaded by George K.. Tanbam, and
included Stephen Cohen and Jonathan Pollack. Members of the team
visited India individually and interacted with the Indian lltrategic commun-
ity. Tanham published an article on "The Indian Strategic CUiture" in the
Washmgwn Quarterly of winter 1992. (His study appeared at the same
time as the celebrated Pentagon study which appeared in The New York
Tunes of 8 March 1992 and referred to India's hegemonic ambitions in
South Asia and the need to curb them.) Tanbam later came out with his
study ~ Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive &say. The study
focused on the historical, geographic and cultural factors influencing
Indian ,trategic thinking: How India's past hall shaped present-day conccp--
tions of military power and national security; bow Indian elite view their
strategic position vis-a-vis their neighbours, the Indian Ocean, and great•
power alignments, whether the Indian thinking follows a reasonably
consistent logic and direction and what this might imply for India's long-
term capability to shape its regional security enviromnent.
Tanham's .main point was that India lacks strategic thinking. lt has no
strategic planning institutions. He at1ributes this lacuna to India's historical
and cultural development. Throughout most of its history, India has hem
on the strategic defensive. Indians have exhibited little taste for conquest
or expansion beyond the subcontinent. The Indian approach to strategic
planning has hem "reactive" rather then "active". He wrote:

4 Slteddilrg Sllibboktlis
JndilDS \ave not been great ICralegic thinkm or ~.:lopets vf strategy, although
Ibey have been profound thinkers in many ocher fields ... (their) view of life as
unpredictable did not lead lNtilOS to see the need for strategy IDd even if they
bad, Ibey would have bca, 1mlikely to p.owed because if the future is unknown
IDd unknowable why plan?
He listed the complexities and paradoxes of Indian ,itrategic thinking as
follows:
• No formal government efforts or institutions exist to develop strat-
egies for India On an ad hoc and programmatic basis, Indians have
produced the strategies and policies reviewed in the study.
• Military and ccooomic power exists alongside widespread and abject
poverty. Indians see poverty as a condition of life and maintain that
it bas nothing to do with military might
• Indians are often assertive in their views and postures; at the same
time their strategic thinlcing tends to be defensive. 1
• Although the Indian government denies that it is seeking power in
d)c international hierarchy, many of its actions are seen as contri-
buting to the aggrandisement of its power.
• India argues for the legal and moral equality of all nations, yet it
looks down on smaller states and seeks a permanent seat in the UN
Security Council.
• Indians are proud and exbemely sensitive. They believe that India
I. Tanham's mnart about Indians being assertive in their views and postures
mninds me of the period between end-1962 and early 1963 in the weeks following
China's attack oo lodia Our Press then was fWJ of 1epor11 of "'massive milllary
assiSlance" flowing in from the West. Tbefe was severe criticism of Jawaharlal
Nehru trying to maintain in Parliament that the Soviet Union was still our friend and
that be WIS seeking military hardware from that country as we11. Our top military
brass (I WIS then a Deputy SecretaJ}' in the Ministry of Defence) asserted that
"commies and commies" (the Soviets and the Chinese) would always stick together
and it was foolish of Neluu to trust the Soviets. I rccommended that they read the
boob 011 the Sino-Soviet conflic:t by William Griffiths and Donald Zagoria. Tbcy
did DOC, but remained coovinccd about the unreliability of the Soviet Union. A.8.
Shah brought out a boolc: highly critical of Ncbruvian policy. The "massive military
assistance" from the West was not sustained, but the Soviet Union proved a reliable
defence suppliet". This was because the Soviet Union and India then .shared mutual
strategic intercsta Mth regml to Maoist China and its expansionism. In spite of the
often reiterated misperccptions in the West, India did not become an ally of the
Soviet Union nor did it wholeheartedly embrace Soviet political and economic
ideology. India tonic a completely independent stance in the Bangladcsb war, on the
1974 nuclear explosion and on Afgbanistao And that WIS an India much weaker
than it WIS a decade earlier.

Does India Haw a StraJegic Penpective? S
meri18 international status by virtue of i18 culture, size, population,

achievements since independence, and resent being ignored and
undervalued by the important nations of the world despite these
attributes. Yet Indians appear insensitive to the feelings of their
smaller neighbours and seem to ignore the s~le fact that the size
of their country alone elicits feelings of insecurity in the region.
• Indians tend to be suspicious, fearful of betrayal, and envious of
their neighbours, yet they value truth and spiritual morality.
• Indians esteem their past empires. The Indian elite are alleged to
have inherited the "imperial" mind set of the British. India never-
theless ranJcs among the world's most strident anti-imperialists, as
it decries the oppressiveness and evil of western colonialism.
• Indians can be expedient and pragmatic in their foreign policy and
strategy; but they like to emphasize the moral and spiritual aspects
of India
• Hinduism is one of the most tolerant and encompassing beliefs in
the world, yet today one finds so-called fundamentalists or, more
accurately, militant and fanatical Hindus. Westerners have difficulty
understanding how adherents to this tolerant diverse religion can
adopt fundamentalist positions. Most Indians believe that the word
fundamentalism does not apply to Hindus.
• India is culturally old but politically young. It reveres its old, unifying
culture. At the same time, it is struggling with serious separatist
problems. .
• India would like to be the friendly peacekecper of the Indian Ocean,
but it is building up its military power to dominate the region.
• Indians feel proud and strong, yet insecure and hemmed in by hostile
forces. India's growing strength reassw-es them, but they fear the
encircling Islamic fundamentalism and the uncertainty of the post-
cold war world
• Indians are fiercely independent, but fear of encirclement almost
demands that they have powerful friends, such as the Soviets. They
seem somewhat lost without the Soviets but they are trying to
maintain good relations with Russia and are courting the United
States.
• Much is changing in India but much remains ~e same. Indians are
quick to accept the modern materialistic life, but deep within they
retain many old and basic beliefs. They consider culture the basis
of modem Indian national political identity. Giving it up yet retaining
Indian identity poses serious problems and tensions.

6 Shedding Shibboleths
• Indian culture, with its cyclical concept of time and its view of life
as unfathomable and hence unpredictable, does not lead Indians to
see the need for strategy.
• There is almost no example of India sending military forces outside
the land borders of the subcontinent except to defend the British
Empire.
• The speed, range, precision, and devastation of modern weapon
systems are rapidly changing the nature of war, and making the
traditional Indian strategic defensive postures more difficult. It is
risky to sit and wait for an opponent to attack today and will be
even more so tomorrow.
• Strategic and tactical W811llllg will play key roles in a defensive
posture. It is imperative that defence be prepared to launch
immediately.
• Often. offensive defence is the best defence. This has not been the
traditional Indian strategic attitude.
On the Indian nuclear policy George Tanbam wd,
Based on this analysis of Indian strategic thinking, one might conclude that the
Indians may not address the problems seriously until a real crisis arises. On the
other band, if the Indians seriously want a nuclear capability, they must develop
a strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons. Some say that a small group
of civilians is developing this prerequisite, but the leadership bas remained
silent on _the matter. One might also surmise that Indians may be considering
reactive or defensive strategy and tactics to deter an opponent, to stop a major
enemy breakthrough, to cut the passes in the Himalayas or to assist in an Indian
counter attack. ·
The military have not participated in policy rnakiog, but some military
commanders evidently may oow have instructions on the use of nuclear weapons
in war under certain circumstances though these are sealed until ordered to be
opened by the civilian government This presents an awkward situation, as the
military maioll\io that they are unaware of the programme, can make oo plans,
l!ave received DO geoeral gtiidance for the use of the weapons and DO command
and control system appears to exist.
The present governmental secrecy, the Indian inclination not to plan ahead,
and the deliberate policy of ambiguity make an accurate analysis of the effect of
nuclear weapons oo Indian strategic thinking and strategy difficult and unreliable
at this time, at least to any outsider without intelligence information. In the next
year or so, however, the government will probably take some action and perhaps
even issue some policy statements. Certainly there will be more public study and
discussion of nuclear strategy, and the United States will want to follow these
developments.
Four points emerged out of this study.

Doa lndi4 Haw a StraJegic Penpective? 1
1. India lacb sttatcgic thinking, and lacks institutional structures for

it.
2. Without bothering about such strategic thinking, Indians consider
that their country deserves to be treated as a great power.
3. Indians do not see the distinction between being a great country-
which it is-end a great power.
4. Indians ve iruu:mi~ve to their immMiate environment.
In sum, it is a country which bas grand ideas about its place in the
world. It does not invest effort on thinking about it. It ill insensitive to its
immediate neighbourhood. For all these reasons, it is likely to be in
conflict with its neighbours.
When Tanbarn put forward bis thesis in a seminar held by the Institute
for Defence Studies and Analyses in Delhi in February 1994 to an
audience comprising a large number of retired defence and civilian
officials and academics, the majority contested his thesis. Did not India
have Chanakya as a strategic thinker? they asked. True indeed, but
Cbanakya lived some twenty-three centuries ago. What of the centuries
after him? A second s1Jand of defensive argument was that non-alignment
constituted a strategy. 2 General Sundarji, however, delivering the United
Services Institution National Security Lecture, 1992, spoke approvingly
of George Tanham's thesis. He cited the Nehruvian disdain for matters
military and Field Mmsbal Manekshaw's views on lack of long-term
strategy to reinforce bis thesis.
In other democratic countries, governments issue white papers or analog-

ous documents fiom time to time outlining their assessment of the inter-
national situation, their long-term goals and objectives and the strategy
they propose to adopt These are debated in their parliaments, media and
8C8demic institutions. This process results in a general national consensus
on foreign and defence policies. And so, there is a continuous process of
updating data, reviewing their assessments and developing mid-course
corrections. All this may not oecessarily contribute to a correct perception,
2. 1bae is no doubt that ooo-alignment bad stralegic content, and the concept
lillllQl!ii•ssed boCh foreign and defence policies. But the debacle of 1962 proved that
India did not think through the strategic coosequences of non-alignment doctrine.
Even ao, India did not do badly in the security spheR and. hence, our present reactive
strategy bad not exacted a high price from this country, was the defensive argument.

8 SJieddiJtg Sltibboletlu
but it does contribute to a coben:nt policy and ability to correct mistak-ec.i

and, above all, an overall national capability to clearly articulate
perceptions, goals and objectives of the nation. In India, in spite of our
functioning as a democracy for five decades, there is no system of
government coming out with white papers and documents, sharing its
assessments, spelling out our goals and objectives and our policies to
achieve them. In the absence of clearly formulated policies, other nations
are likely to interpret our intentions in a worst-case scenario. Two glaring
examples of such misperception in the early 1990s were our so-called
naval expansion-which never took place-and our nuclear policy. On
the latter, General Sundarji was an advocate of minimum deterrence in
India at the time, and the case he made out was more plausible than what
most others did. He continued to be active with bis pronouncements on
strategic issues, unlike the majority of his contemporaries. He was also
prepared to engage both the American and Indian strategic community
in a dialogue, and he was an articulate seminarist. In the absence of
government policy documents, General Sundarji's formulations of contin-
gent nuclear strategy for India tended to be accepted by the westerners,
Pakistanis, and others. Therefore, a view gained ground that India's
nuclear policy was the minimwn detenent policy advocated by him.
Surprising as it may seem, in India, a former Chief of Staff bad no input
in government policy-a reality the rest of the world just cannot fathom.
In this age of coercive diplomacy, they also will not take at face value
the assertion that, in India, there is hardly any interaction between
diplomats and civil servants on the one hand and Service officers on the
other, that there are no arrangements for training or giving orientation
courses for senior civil servants above the rank of joint secretary or
military officers above the rank of brigadier; that even more importantly.
matters like the nuclear option are kept so hush-hush that in the mid-
l 990s, our Foreign Secretaries, Defence Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff
who bad retired recently, bad no idea about the status of our nuclear
option. Outsiders to the country, therefore, only concluded that this was
a devious Hindu plot of strategic deception.
Surely, in the light oftbe fracas that Anny Chief General Rodrigues'
interview to The Pioneer created in early 1992, they should have known
better. Matters came to such a pass in this episode that the Defence
Minister bad to reassure Parliament that the Anny Chief was committed
to government policy! Even for a serving general it would have been
difficult to say what exactly was that policy, considering that, shortly
before, we bad three different pronouncements on our nuclear policy-

/Joa Indio H~ a Slralqic Penpectiw? 9
by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Extcmal Affairs, and the Defence
Minister. lflhe G\..DCial played down the Pakistani threat, it was because
the government had not come out with policy documents setting out
tbttat IWCSSD.kmts and its strategy to deal with them. Had such documents
been available on defence, as well as other areas, including our nuclear
policy, the pn:dicament in which the Army Chief gave an assessment
perhaps slightly at variance with that of the gc,veanmeot would not have
ansen.
During the seminars we have bad with Americans, the other side is
able to cite authoritative government publications in support of their
arguments. The Indian side cannot mat.ch with similar citatiom from our
official publications. The annual reports of the ministties are not only
pedestrian, but just recount the developments of the previous year and
give no clues to future policy. Our ministers' speeches in Parliament
rarely contain precisely formulated policy inputs, being merely replies to
pointll raised hy the members. The members OD their pan rarely press the
government on policy issues. In the absence of well-formulated
government policy and relevant docwnentation, there are wide variations
in the perceptions and understanding among our politiciam, bureaucrats,
media persons and academia. Others exploit this weakness.
In 1992, the Estimates Committee of Parliament, in its 19th report OD
the Ministry of Defence presented to Parliament, commented scathingly
OD the state of affairs regarding defence force levels, manpower, manage-
ment and policy making, system of higher direction, aid to civil authority,
and system of redress of grievances. The committee was informed that
the Indian defence policy was to defend India's territory. In a typical
understale!nent, the committee said it was a needless oversimplification.
It deprecated the fact that the country fought four wars and launched
armed operations in and at the request of neighbouring countries without
a clearly articulated and integrated defence policy.
The committee was deeply disturbed at the absence of a national
security doctrine, which should lead to such a policy. It also distinguished
the operational directives to the three Services from a policy on national
security. Directions and tasks must necessarily flow from a well-defined
policy, or else tasks to be performed by the armed forces would tend to
be guided by ad-hocism, it was pointed out. (In actual fact in India,
opei ational directives are usually drafted in the Services headquarters.
They then go up to the ministry for vetting, and are grandiosely issued as
Defence Minister's operational directives to the Services.)
The committee correctly concluded that in the absence of political

10 Shedding Slubboleths
direction, the Defence Minister's meetings with the Chiefs of Staff and
meetings held at the Chiefs of Staff Committee level would tend to be
routine. The Defence Ministry admitted before the committee that
decision-making could become more effective if realistic defence plans
were fonnulated on the basis of clear national security objectives and
military aims. The committee was apprised that for expenditure, only
annual plans provided a firm basis for decision-making. In other words,
there was no meaningful long-term planning. In any other democratic
country, this kind of report would have called for what the Americans
call a Blue Riband Commission and the British a Royal Commi!l.'Jion. In
this country the report was shelved.
Unlike in India, where the government has no time for think-tanks,
universities or media persons, in the US and to some extent in other
countries, such institutions wield considerable influence in policy-making.
There is "the mechanism of revolving door" by which with every change
of administration, those in US think-tanks move into government and
vice versa. The think-tanks get contracts from the government for carrying ·
out policy studies, which thereafter become inputs for government policy.
The US Congress has a significant number of research staB: who
prepare briefs for various committees of the House of Representatives
and the Senate. They, in turn, malre extensive use of materials generated
by the think-tanks. The US intelligence organizations also contract studies
out to universities and think-tanks and they are further processed by
analysts of the intelligence agencies. In our government people come
and go, and because of rapid turnover, our bureaucracy-with some
exceptions-cannot have a historical pe,spe.,tive of any major issue.
There has been enormous resistance to fostering think-tanks in India,
going back to the 1950s and early '60s. Partly, this is due to an ingrained
complex among our politicians and bureaucracy. Our politicians and
bureaucrats entertain the illusion that they know more about overall Indian
foreign and security policies than the think-tank people and academics in
India. Most of our leaders, including Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi,
listened to the advice of western strategists, but would not even engage
in serious discussions with Indian thinkers on the subject. They could
not even sec that over the last five decades the strategic community of
the West had developed a slant in nuclear issues, and because of the
immense power of the western media many aspects of it had come to be
accepted all over the world, including the developing nations. This style
of functioning resulted in our leaders being manipulated often by sections
of the western strategic community to advance tbeir pet ideas. Behind

Doa lnma Hai,e a StraJqic Pff7p«tive? 11
the much-trumpeted six-nation initiative of India, Sweden, Mexico,

Greece, Argentina, and Tanzania in the early l 990s were the
Parliamentarians for Global Action, and among them a small group of
relatively liberal (by western standards) strategists. Like many odler such
initiatives, it becarn" another flash in the pan.
Averse to interacting with Indian thinlcm, our policy-makers also
lack the confidence to allow our think-tanks and ecadernics to interact
with the western academies. Either they think they will not be able to
match their western counterpans or will not toe the government policy
often fonnulated in simplistic terms. But they become great liberals
advocating no bar to interaction once they leave the government If some
of the politicians get back in governmo1t, they once again dutifully endorse
the policies of restrictiveness in interaction advocated by their
bureaucracies. Yet another amusing aspect is that the incumbent members
of bureaucracy often sit in judgement on their erstwhile seniors, who
having retired from service take part in some of these acadernic inter-
actions, and presume to conclude that those seniors cannot be relied on
to safeguard our national interests zealously enough. They hardly realiu
that a couple of years later the same fate will overtake them.
In 1986, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command told
me that while five h1mdred officers of Pakistani Armed Forces visited
the Pentagon every year, hardly a doi.en Indian officers did He wanted
to rectify that 1mbalanced situation. Palcimnis have a distinct advantage
here. Apart from greater interaction between US and Pakistani strategic
establishments, American scholars undertaking South Asian studies find
that they receive wanner welcome in Pakistan than in India. As one of
them put it, while he was received by General Ziaul Haq hirnSt!lf in
Pakistan, be could not get interviews at levels higher than a joint secretary
in India. It may also be noted, in parentheses, that the furore created in
this country by Robert Hardgrave's publication on the continget1t ~ ' > S
following a possible sudden removal of Mrs Gandhi from the political
scene put off many US academics.
The US has initiated and sustained strategic dialogue with Russia and
China both among senior service officers and civilian strategists. These
countries have equipped themselves adequately for such dialogue with
their large policy research and strategic institutions meant to feed into
the government their scholarly inputs. In tum, there is continuous feedback
from the government to the scholars in these institutions. In India, this
culture is absent, partly because of the hesitancy of the generalist bureau-
cracy, both military and civil, to interact with the academic community,

12 Slu!dding Sllibboletlis
and the academic community's reluctance to interact with the govemmeot.

Some of the best minds from the American universities go to the CIA.
the intelligence and research wing of the State Department or for brief
tenures in government. The US also developed a constituency in this
country through fellowships awarded to various scholars, some of whom
arc influenced by US views. Besides, most of the books used in India for
teaching political science and international relatioos, including strategic
studies, arc American. Time, Newsweek, Reader's Digest, The Economist
and the Far Eastern Economic Review exercise great influence on our
elite. Many of our periodicals (not so much newspapers) model themselves
on these western publicatioos.
Most of the industrialized countries today supplement their official
diplomatic and strategic interactions with significant non-official dialogue
at academic and media levels. Gorbachev's peace offensive was strength-
ened by the seminars and conferences hosted by the Soviet research
institutions. Soviet academicians like Velikbov, Sagdeev, Kapitsa,
Goldansky, Primakov, Zhurkhin. Titarcoko, etc. did as much u-if not
more thao-the Soviet diplomatic community, to spread the Gorbachev
vision. The entire US strategic thinking in the post- World War II era has
been dominated by the academic researchers. The armed forces of these
countries facilitate their bright and up-and-coming officers to acquire
high academic qualifications, and many of the Chiefs of Staff and senior
officials after their retirement arc able to occupy chairs in universities
and academic research institutions. Even peace movements in the indus-
trialized countries draw a significant proportion of their leadership from
senior ex-servicemen and ex-academic strategists.
In India, the government does not have a tradition of getting security
issues examined by an expert panel and issuing policy documents on that
basis. In other advanced countries, a study on a country's security scenario
would be entrusted to a high-powered group of people, not bogged down
in day-to-day work in the government but from outside with expertise in
the subject and in a position to devote themselves whole-time to come
out with such a study in a short time. Once such a report is issued, it will
be generally accepted and not subjected to nit-picking by the bureaucracy
again. India made an experiment with the Arun Singh committee reports;
experience in that matter is somewhat daunting. In other countries, once
a report on a security subject is issued, all decision-makers, media persons,
academics and the entire bureaucracy have a common line on policy. In
the absence of such a tradition in India, politicians, bureaucrats, media
persons and academics will intelprct policy (ifat all there is one) according

Does India Haw a Stnuegic Penp«tiw? 13
to their uode,staoding and make their cacopbooous pronouncements. No

doubt this gives us the limited advantage of confusing our interlocutors,
but it bas the major disadvantage of confusing our own people.
India has reached a status in the international community where it bas
to comciously develop necessuy capability to act with other major natioos
at different levels and through different channels. The government bas to
take the initiative to broad-base our international interaction. Our
Parliament is entitled to be presented with docwnents, and not merely
treated to speeches of ministers written by middle-level bureaucrats. Our
bureaucracy bas to give up its philosophy of genera1ism and start specializ-
ation in different areas. Our cowitrymen have been used to the pheno-
menon of edunitioo ministers asking educationists to improve educatiooa1
standards, and bealth ministers appealing to the public to improve health,
implying thereby that they have no responsibility in the matter; but that
approach never worlt.ed, and never will.
Also, unlike in other mat\R democratic countries, in India there is no
tradition of the ruliog party taking leaders of other parties into coofideoce
and keeping them informed of all major decisions and moves in foreign
and defence policies. Even the prior.iple of collective responsibility of
the Cabinet does not obtain, since there is a high degree of centralization
in decision-making in the PMO. On nuclear and missile issues, the secrecy
is absolute. These have been the exclusive privileges of successive prime
mioistm, and they have ensured that there is no structured decision-
making in tiles,, matters. At the highest bureaucratic levels, decision-
making is compartmentaliud so that no bureaucrat has a complete
overview. lbis strategy of decision-making has no doubt ensured that
our adversaries are kept in the darlc; but so have been our own bureaucracy
and politicians. The problem is compowidcd when there is a change of
government There are risks of a departing prime minister not fully briefing
his successor on such issues. The general belief that the top-level civil
servants would ensure continuity may not necessarily hold. Added to
this is a further risk of getting a prime minister with no background and
knowledge whatever in foreign affairs or security issues.
••••
In western cowitries, where changes of governments take place often
and the incoming governments annowice radical changes in defence
policy, they can do so because there are academic research institutions
which do elaborate work on alternative defence policies and they also
have st.oog links with political parties. For instance, the Committee on

Present Danger, a very conservative group consisting of academic experts,

retired officials and ex-servicemen. influenced President Reagan's defence
policy, including the decision on the Star Wars programme. The British
Labour Party draws on academic expertise to debate on Britain's future
nuclear policy. They adopted a policy of unilateral renunciation of nuclear
weapons; and after losing the general elections and following an intense
debate in the party retraced their steps.
In our set-up, there is a vast distance between politicians and research
institutions: the former are even more distant from our ex-servicemen.
The ex-servicemen themselves, unlike in the western countries, are not
organi:red to do research on alternative defence policies and lobby for
them among the politicians. The politicians are also aware that defence
and foreign policies do not evoke as much interest among the electorates
as issues like price rise, local developmental problems, language, job
reservations and emotive issues related to religion, etc. Consequently,
almost all manifestoes read alike on the issue of national security. Even
if the rhetoric may vary because of the commitments of particular set of
drafters, the substance will not, in implementation.
Our bureaucratic administrative set-up also contributes to this
consensual drift. In other countries debates on defence policy in the
legislatures, the Press, the academic institutions, the political parties and
the government have often their origin in the debates within the
bureaucracy, both military and civil. The differences in views, sometimes
generated because of interaction between an intellectual bureaucrat and
a knowledgeable researcher, slowly seep out and lea4 to alternative
policies. In our country the bureaucracy, both civil and military, are
generalists whose capabilities are limited to administration and
management and do not extend to innovative policy formulation. When
occasionally a Sundarji or Arun Singh appears on the scene they become
subject matter of intense controversies and the system reverts to business
as usual once they leave. To have alternative defence policies there must
be alternative world views, views of the world and long-term assessments
of how our security environment would develop. These are not available
in the government, in academic research institutions with rare exceptions
and, above all, among politicians. Therefore all governments, irrespective
of their party affiliations and manifesto rhetoric, on assuming office will
have to shape their defence policy on the basis of the recommendations
of the Chiefs of Staff. Among our senior Service personnel there is
remarkable consensus· in threat assessment and on measures to deal With
assessed threats, which invariably are short-term.

Does India Have a Strategic Penpective? IS
The new Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), the new

Prime Minister and Defence Minister (when changes take place) are
presented the same threat assessment and measures to counter them as
the previous CCPA, PM and Defence Minister by the same Chiefs of
Staff. While the Cabinet Secretary, RAW chief and even Defence
Secretary may be changed, thanks to the apolitical tradition of the Indian
anned forces the Service chiefs will not be replaced with any change of
government. 3 So the continuity of defence policy is ensured even as
governments may come and governments may go.
There are other objective considerations as well, which preclude a
wide range of options for Indian political parties in defence policies.
The Indian defence policy is essentially a reactive one unlike those of other
major powers. Where a nation has an active defence policy it will have a
choice of options. But a reactive policy where the country's requirements
of forces, facilities and equipment are determined by the threats posed
by its neighbours, the margin of manoeuvrability is limited irrespective
of which party is in power.
Often people talk of using diplomacy to supplement a country's military
capability. This no doubt is a theoretical possibility. In practice, it is far
more difficult to use diplomacy to enbanr.e security unless that diplomacy
is backed by meaningful capability. Diplomacy can supplement, and can
never substitute for, a nation's defence policy.
Defence is one area where there is a large national consensus in India.
This is partly reflected in the total absence of debate in the country on
the subject. A few who criticize the defence budget outlay usually have
no constructive alternatives to offer. Often their arguments are too
contrived to be taken seriously, as for instance when it is argued that
India is over-armed by comparing its defence outlay and its forces with
those of all neighbours, except the largest neighbour, China.
•••
♦
In 1968, when the Institute of Defene:e Studies and Analyses (IDSA)

started functioning, with its first publication in June 1968, this country
had hardly any literature on issues relating to national and international
security. The United Services Institution journal was the only one in
existence. In those days, no senior officer wrote for that journal. General
3. The first removal of a serving Chief of Slaff for political considerations happened •
in December 1998, in the case of Admiral Bhagwat.

D.K. Palit was the only military author known outside India. The IDSA.
though established by the then Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan with the
enthusiastic support of the then Chief of Army Staff, General J.N.
Chaudhuri, and Defence Secretary P.V.R. Rao, faced the hostility of the
defence services once Chavan moved out and the other two retired.
Serving defence service officers were debarred from having any contact
with the institute. This was rectified only in 1986. The institute bad to
fall back upon retired service officers and academics who bad speci11Jirnl
in international relations to sustain its activities.
The crucial difference between the IDSA and foreign think-tanks was
that the former got its grant from the government-but not the- time of
the day. The latter bad to raise their own resources, but bad access to
government information. In the US, UK and other western countries, the
people in the govemment have no hesitation to contract out studies to
think-tanks and then use the findings as they think appropriate in
government policy-making. In India, both the civilian and military bureau-
crats do not have adequate self-confidence to contract out such studies
and use them effectively in policy-making.
In western countries, think-tanks and strategic studies have flourished
on the basis of interaction between the government (including intelligence
agencies) and academia. The former contributed the data, the latter their
specialization and time; and the result was the enormous growth of
literature in strategic and security studies. Further, only when governments
and military establishments look ahead, plan for long-term future and
think in terms of contingent offensive operations could the intellectual
establishment provide theoretical rationale for their plans and concep-
tualiu offensive strategy and counter-strategy. Our government, however,
bas bad no strategic culture, and bas never thought or planned ahead,
and never offensively. They never even thought through adequately about
the adversary's contingency plans vis-a-vis this country so that some
conceptualization could be done even defensively.
Even so, since the early 1980s some headway bas been made in
generating literature on national security in the country over and above
the efforts of IDSA. The Bangladesh war was followed by a number of
personal accounts of Service officers. The Sri Lanka operations too
produced a good crop. Quite a few senior officers have published their
memoirs, including the one of Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal brought out
posthumously due to the loyal efforts of his wife. Officers---notable ones
being General Brar, General Sardeshpande, General Depinder Singh and
General Afsir Karim-have not flinched from conllpversial .. debates .

Dou Jflllja Have a Slrategic FoYpeetive? 17
lbinp have improved even in the publication of journals dealing with

Dltiooal security. Defence expenditure, force structure, equipment acquisi-
tion, naval future, nuclear strategy, insurgency and internal security are
subjects that attract the attention of most of the contributors. But only a
small minority have taken interest in intemational security issues. The
IDSA has often been charged with paying more attention to intemationai
security issues than to India's immediate security problems, especially
by those who have n:sisted interaction between the government and IDSA.
The institute is known in the n:st of the world mostly for its views on
intemational security problems, particularly the nuclear and missile proli-
feration. The institute brought out annuals in 1969 and 1970 and then it
stopped, for want of contributors. The IDSA quarterly, which originally
put the IDSA on the world map, also ceased publication for the same
ffllSOD.
The government's interaction with the media and academic institutions
has to undergo a qualitative transformation in terms of greater glasnost.
More academic policy research institutions need to be sponsored and
orientation courses for higher-level military and foreign service officers
need to be organized. The quality of instruction in political science,
international relations and defence studies in the universities needs to be
improved. Dozens of such departments exist in the country, but they
hardly produce any worthwhile literature.
Our private sector, too, needs to be educated in internatiooal relations
to take full advantage of the changing international political climate for
trade and technological purposes. The world is changing fast and govern-
ment cannot be conducted in the traditionalist way if India is to have its
due place in the international community.

2
The Making of
a Security Policy Structure
Security is a much larger concept than defence, which is

only a component of it, though a crucial one. The conventional definition
of security has been the preservation of the country's territorial integrity
and sovereignty and ability to p111Sue its own developmental process
without external intervention and pressures: in other words, pursuit of a
country's values without external interference. In the present-day world
that definition appears inadequate and static because of the pace of
changes taking place all over the world, the interconnectivity of different
issues and, lastly, the ecological concern about the future of space station
earth. Overpopulation, malnutrition, underdevelopment, environmental
degradation, and the greenhouse effect affecting the climate are all inter-
connected issues posing a grave threat to humanity. In such a context,
security has to be redefined as management of change in an orderly way
and harmonization of conflicting interests, views and perspectives between
different groups within the nation and among the nations. Dogmatic
attitudes, whether political, religious, sectarian or ethnic and the resistance
to non-violent and orderly but necessary change are the biggest security
problems we face. Ignorance of current objective realities, the conditioned
reflexes based on traditionalist belief systems and egocentric assertions
that particular faiths, political systems or values are the sole embodiment
of truth divide humanity and create problems of insecurity.
A non-violent nuclear-weapon-free world must be our long-term goal
for our nation and the world. Without the creation of a cooperative world
order humanity cannot have military security, food security, energy
security, humanitarian security, and ecological security. However, while
many of us in India largely subscribe to this view-at least verbally-
and so do many other nations, still the enonnous overburden of belief
systems, that have been rendered obsolete but not yet so recognized by
billions of people and their leaders, have to be taken note of. We have to

The Malcing of a Security Policy Structure 19
safeguard our developmental process from adventurism based on such

miscalculations and also attempt to operate on and modify non-violently
such obsolescent belief systems of such peoples and nations to progress
towards a cooperative non-violent world order. In the interim, irrespective
of our values and goals, we have to be on guard. A certain level of
defence effort is inescapable even as we should continue to explore the
possibility of getting more efficiency out of our defence outlays and over
a period of time attempt to reduce it in cooperation with our neighbours.
In the developing world, in and around India we are likely to see
increasing turbulence due·to the process of transfonnation from the present
poverty-ridden stage and wide income disparities, with most nations
having unrepresentative regimes denying hwnan rights to various sections
of their population, to a more equitable and just order. Increasing emphasis
on ethnic identity and demands for autonomy, compounded by the
communication and transportation revolutions are bound to keep many
developing nations in turmoil in the foreseeable future. Narcotics and
terrorism are additional factors posing threats to security of nations on a
global scale and calling for cooperative international action. Unfortun-
ately, some nations appear to make use of trade in narcotics and terrorism
in pursuit of their narrow policy goals. Pakistan and other adversaries
have been targeting India's secularism and multiculturalism and have
been carrying on a campaign to fragment India. They also aim at India's
economic growth by increasing insecurity among foreign investors and
targeting the infrastructure. India as an open society has many vulner-
abilities, particularly because of sections of our people attempting to
convert the Indian civilization and culture into an imitation of western
Semitic religious cultures. All these factors highlight the need for vigilance
on the security front conventionally interpreted.
Development in a comprehensive sense is the other side of the coin of
security both at national and international level. A nation, in order to
sustain its development, needs security, both external and internal. While
external security is largely military related, internal security problems
arise mostly out of non-military factors, such as economic underdevelop-
ment and political dissidence--often expressed violently with or without
external support-arising out of religious, sectarian, linguistic, tribalistic
and other factors. The Inga Thorsson committee, comp~sing a group of
28 intergovernmental experts commissioned by the UN in 1982,
concluded that while military security of all nations would be enhanced
by ilisaffllament, especially among the excessively over-anned nuclear
weapon powers, internal threats to security would be significantly

20 Shedding Sltibbolew
I
attenuated by an accelerated process of cooperative development,
envisaged in the concept of the new international economic order.
•••
♦
The framework of India's security policy was developed in the aftermath

of the Chinese attack in 1962. Other major international events that had
significant influence on our security policy were the two wars with
Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, the Chinese nuclear developments, the
Pakistani acquisition of nuclear weapons, the new weapon technologies
and their spread to our neighbourhood. Successive governments never
bothered to develop an overall assessment of the international security
environment to fonnulate a coherent philosophy for our security and to
derive long-term security policies from that. Consequently, our defence
effort has been ad hoc and reactive, based on perceptions of near-term
threats on the basis of current equipment acquisition by Pakistan. Nor is
there adequate coordination among defence·R&D, civil R&D and industry
and between defence and civil industries. These defects are attributable
to the following lacunae in our policy-making set-up.
I. Our politicians do not specialize in various subjects as their counter-
parts do in other democratic countries. Their contribution to defence
policy is mostly delays in decision-making because of their inability
to tackle effectively this intricate subject
2. Our anned forces officers have a rapid turnover in senior echelons.
They are kept long in their careers in junior posts and transit too
fast through senior posts, with the result that while they make good
field officers and commanders, they do not get adequate opportun-
ities in long-range planning.
3. Our civil service is notoriously generalist and operates on the basic
axiom that the chair one sits on provides the person with all knowl-
edge and wisdom he needs for his job.
4. Our intelligence services are also generalist, lack assessment capabil-
ities, and are not properly and effectively directed.
5. Above all, ·there is no person in the whole Government of India
who devotes full-time attention to national security in all its compre-
hensiveness, differentiated from its component aspects such as
defence, foreign policy, internal security, technology, intelligence
and industrial preparedness.
Defence portfolio itself has been a neglected one, often the Prime
Minister keeping it as an additional portfolio to himself. Nehru did that
'
The Making of a Securily Policy Structure 21
following the death of Gopalaswami Ayyangar. Indira Gandhi revived

that practice in 1980. Thereafter, in the fifteen years till 1995 we had the
Prime Minister doubling as Defence Minister for over eight years. In
1995, during the parliamentary debate on demands for grants for the
Ministty of Defence a question was raised about the appropriateness of
the Prime Minister keeping the portfolio of defence. Nara.<1imha Rao said
that the cwrent situation demanded it, but some members of Parliament
expressed the view that with a large number of other portfolios under his
charge and increasing centrali7.8tion of decision-making in the Prime
Minister's Office (PMO), he was too overloaded to do justice to the
important task of managing the defence services.
At one time the Services thought that having the Prime Minister in
charge of defence would give them direct access to the head of government
and enable them to obtain increased allocations for defence. In reality, it
b«-£ame counterproductive to have the Prime Minister in charge of the
portfolio. Their access to the Prime Minister did not become easier. On
the other hand, the advantage of having a senior cabinet minister repre-
senting the Services' point of view was also lost since the Minister of
State (MoS) for Defence lacked clout. Further, the files which required
the approval of the Defence Minister started piling up in the PMO and
an extra layer of bureaucracy there had also to be dealt with.
A cabinet minister in independent charge of defence can sign papers
for submission to the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA)
and thereby compel the Cabinet Committee, including the Prime Minister,
to take note of major issues within his ambit. A Prime Minister looking
after defence as a part-time job lacks the time for that, and since Service
Chiefs and Secretaries have less access to him than they would to a full-
time Defence Minister, decisions are bound to be delayed. (The problem
worsened when the CCPA was abolished and the accretion of numerous
portfolios in the hands of the Prime Minister increased centraliution of
decision-making in the PMO. The Policy Planning Committee in the
Cabinet Secretariat was dissolved because the Prime Minister and his
secretariat had no time to read its reports even while they were dealing
with a mass of trivia, and the Defence Planning Staff could not function
in the absence ofa government-accepted long-range threat assessment.)
During his short tenure as Defence Minister, C. Subramaniam tried to
promote long-term defence planning, especially in defence R&D and
defence production. Accordingly, he approved a scheme to set up a
Defence Production Planning Board. But he was the Defence Minister in
an interim government. In the best democratic tradition. he directed that

the scheme should be resubmitted to the newly elected government. This

was done, but nothing came of it.
During Morarji's time an attempt was made to improve procedures
for defence planning. This was the creation of the Committee for Defence
Planning (CDP) under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary. Earlier
in 1973 and 1975 two ad hoc apex groups under the chairmanship of the
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission were set up to prune the
defence plans. The Cabinet Secretary, Nirmal Mukherjee, and the Defence
Secretary, Sushital Banerjee, felt that a pennanent Defence Planning
Committee to advise the Defence Minister and through him the CCPA
would be an effective improvement. The committee included the three
Chiefs of Staff, Secretaries of Defence, Defence Production, Finance,
Planning Commission and Foreign Secretary as members. The Scientific
Adviser to the Defence Minister and the chief of external intelligence
were permanent invitees. The chairman, IlC, an Additional Secretary in
the Cabinet Secretariat, was the member-secretary. The CDP did not
report directly to CCPA but to the Defence Minister. It was the task of
the Defence Ministry to have long-term intelligence assessments and
five-year defence plans finalized by the CDP piloted through the Cabinet
Committee. One such exercise was done in 1978. Subsequently, after the
return of Indira Gandhi to office in 1980 and her taking charge of the
defence portfolio, the CDP's role diminished and it became a body to
approve individual schemes.
R. Venkataraman took over as Defence Minister in February 1982.
With a background in economic development planning he was predisposed
to having structured planning in defence. But the Chiefs of Staff were
lukewarm to his effort at creating an interservice planning machinery.
The existing procedures were good enough, they said.
During this period, various suggestions were examined for creating a
National Security Council (NSC). Everyone accepted in principle that it
would consist of the five CCP A ministers (Prime Minister and Ministers
of External Affairs, Defence, Finance and Home), and their Secretaries
including the Cabinet Secretary, the three Chiefs of Staff and the chiefs
of intelligence. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and
the Planning Secretary would be invited when required. But the problem
came about the Secretariat of the NSC. The Prime Minister alrea:dy had,
in the Cabinet Secretariat, an adviser on security. The politicians did not
want a political figure to be an NSC secretary; the Cabinet Secretary did
not want a bureaucrat.
After Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister and Arun Singh became his
Parliamentary Secretary, an innovation was tried out. An interdisciplinary

The Making ofa Security Policy Slructwre 23
group was established under the chainnanship of the Prime Minister

with the then Chief Ministers of Kerala and Assam, Arun Singh, the
Cabinet Secretary, the chainnan of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the
two chiefs of intelligence, the Chief Economic Adviser, the Chairman,
AEC, the director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
(myself) and with the chairman of the IlC (upgraded to Secretary level)
as the member-secretary. It was an informal discussion group which
conducted brainstorming sessions on various national security issues.
Within a year the group stopped meeting.
Arun Singh, as MoS for Defence, also promoted a strategic planning
group under the chainnanship of the Prime Minister who was also at that
time the Defence Minister, and it never met. Simultaneously, a Policy
Planning C.Qmmittee was set up under the chainnanship of G. Partha-
sarathi. That had as members three ministers of State (Defence, External
Affairs and Home), the chairman, Economic Advisory Council, the
Cabinet Secretary A.K. Damodaran, a former secretary of the Policy
Planning Committee, and myself. The Foreign Secretary and the Secretary
to the Prime Minister were permanent invitees. The committee met seven
or eight times and produced policy papers. It was wound up by the end
of 1985.
Policy planning in External Affairs went back to 1966, when a division
under a Joint Secretary was created. It got upgraded in 1975, when the
veteran diplomat G. Parthasarathi was made its chairman. During the
Janata period it was under an Additional Secretary and again it got
upgraded in 1983 under the chainnanship of Parthasarathi with the rank
of a Cabinet Minister. After 1985, when the Policy Planning Committee
was wound up, it came once again under the charge of an Additional
Secretary and continues to he so today.
Under the stewardship of Arun Singh as MoS for Defence with the
Prime Minister holding the defence portfolio, some long advocated steps
were initiated. The new Chiefs of Staff Committee accepted the proposal
for the creation of a Defence Planning Staff, composed of officers from
the three Services, Defence Research and Development Organivition,
and the Ministries of Finance and External Affairs under the chairmanship
of an officer of the rank of Lieutenant General. However, it could not
function effectively as there used to be very rapid turnover of personnel:
in just three years (1986-89) the head of the Defence Planning Staff was
changed thrice and so also the other personnel. (A similar indication of
the speed of rotation is that in eighteen months between 1989 and 1990
we had three Ministers of External Affairs and two Foreign Secretaries.)
During this peri6d the need for long-term intelligence assessment as

the basis for defence planning and to develop fifteen-year pe1spectiv~ was
accepted by the Chiefs of StaffCommittee. The Scientific Adviser started
to play an increasing role in decision-making on long-term equipment
planning, though this process had commenced with Raja Ramanna
becoming the Scientific Adviser in 1978. The integration of the Associated
Finance with the Defence Ministry was completed and Finance (Defence)
became Defence (Finance). The period 1983-89 also saw a steady rise in
defence expenditure both in absolute and relative terms. It was also marked
by an inflow of a variety of high-technology equipment into the forces.
It is also possible that prime ministers who have seen their cabinet
colleagues approve decisions without bothering to study their implications
or even knowing what it is they are agreeing to may have developed a
cynical attitude towards structured decision-making. Venkataraman used
to express his views trenchantly on issues that came up for consideration
in the cabinet even when they did not pertain to his ministry; his colleagues
cattily called him "Mr Know-all" behind his back. Others with analytical
minds offered analyses without committing ~Ives to a point of view
lest it should affect their political future.
In the US, the NSC was set up when that country assumed the role of
international policeman. Even as centralized economic planning became
anathema to the US, long-term planning for maintaining US supremacy
in the world was vigorously pursued. Worldwide intelligence collection
through CIA and NSA (National Security Agency, which collects
electronic and signal intelligence globally), long-term intelligence assess-
ment, long-term weapon R&D and· acquisition, and an NSC to direct
these activities became a logical follow-up of the US role as the leader
of NATO and the foremost hegemonic power of the world. In the Soviet
Union, long-range defence planning to defend the revolutionary State
against its capitalist enemies was the core of overall planning encompass-
ing development and defence. Against the advocacy for setting up an
NSC in India on similar lines as in the US, the prime ministers, defence
ministers, senior service officers and civilian bureaucrats would ask
whether the existence of an NSC in the US led to wiser and effective
decisions. During the Cuban missile crisis President Kennedy appointed
an ad hoc Excom (executive committee) to deal with the crisis and did
not use the NSC. The Pentagon Papers reveal how the President and a
few of his courtiers could lead the country into a non-winnable war.
Later on, when Secretary of State George Schultz and Secretary of
Defence Casper Weinberger objected to the Iran-Contra deal in the NSC
meeting, the President, his NSC staff and the CIA director bypassed the

The Making of a Security Policy Stnlctwe 25
NSC and went ahead to implement the decision. During the Carter period
the NSC was dnm!nated by Brzezinski, who ignored all the warnings
that emanatl'ld from below on Iran. Nixon and Kissinger ordered the
Emerprise mission against lodia and tilted in favour of Pakistan againSl
the State Department's advice. One could compile a list of decisions by
US Presidents and their national security advisers taken against the advice
of senior cabinet officers, which turned out to be costly mistakes. An
NSC by itself cannot remedy the ills of ad-hoc decision-making. In the
US the system has come to be known as imperial presidency. In lodia we
have been having an imperial prime · · · it did not begin
with Rajiv Gandhi.
In 1990, the Janeta Dal govetmneot proposed setting up an NSC, but
in that proposal decisi011-making was compartmentaliud into defence,
foreign policy, and other strategic issues. There was a strong bureaucratic
interest in preventing the setting up of an integrated staff which would
assist the proposed NSC in developing holistic strategic policy. The
Chinese example, where they use their economic clout and the lure of
trade to maximize their strategic advantage was not taken note of, nor
the tenets of our ancient wisdom, which prescribes that in dealing with
adversaries and friends a ruler should use all four aspects of strategy-
sama, dhana, bheda, dhanda (.-.ngagement, buying off, dividing the enemies
and force as the last resort). Nothing exposed the wifamiliarity of our
higher-level bureaucracy to integrated decision-making in national security
as did the proposal during the Janata Dal rule to use the nc chairman as
part-time NSC secretary.
A basic principle in national security decision-rnaking is that intelli-
gence collection, intelligence assessment and policy fonnulation should
not be mixed up but kept separate. The temptation to use the nc as the
secretariat came about because the senior bureaucrats never learnt to
distinguish between intelligence collection and intelligence assessment.
Since there was not much attention paid to intelligence assessments it
was felt that the chairman of the nc could spare enough time to be
secretary of the proposed NSC. That was the surest way of n1ining both
intelligence assessment and security policy fonnulation. In no other
democratic country are these two functions combined.
Most senior bureaucrats being unfamiliar with the structure and
flmctioning of an integrated national security decision-making set-up,
have strong biases rooted in parochial loyalties to the offices they hold.
Therefore, any NSC set-up recommended by the secretaries' committee
will naturally look like a horse designed by a committee a camel.

26 Shedding ShibboletJrs
In the absence of a structured national security decision-making

apparatus, leaders tend to be influenced by parochial and short-term
political considerations. It is not clear, for example, how far the politics
of Tamil Nadu influenced the central leadership in its dealings with the
L"I"l'E (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and in extending support to it
The Tamil Nadu politicians, with their regionalist traditions and orienta-
tion could not be expected to have an overall national security pe1spective.
The result was that the i..."I"I E was nurtured, fed, financed and armed by
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, a fact known all over the world. Subse-
quently, Premadasa's hatred for India was more than that for the L'l"l"E.
He thought he could manipulate the Tigers to get the Indians out and buy
Prabhakaran with arms worth Rs 200 million. Both Rajiv Gandhi and
Premadasa were assassinated by the L"I"l'E. According to a report in the
Indian Express, the Tamil Tigers were trained in the use of surfuce-to-
air missiles by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Indian
government though they were not supplied with the missiles. (It appears
the L"I"l'E later procured them from Ukraine.) The i..."I"I E had been active
in Tamil Nadu and had indulged in acts of terrorism, but that it might
pose a threat to civil aviation in both Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu was not
taken into account.
Similar to the Indian support to L"l'l'E recoiling on India was the
support and encouragement of the leadership of the Congress party to
Jamail Singh Bhindranwale. He and his followers subsequently let loose
a reign of terror in support ofKhalistan and the government had to resort
to Operation Bluestar. Similar mistakes were committed in Kashmir, alien-
ating the people and facilitating the terrorist operations of the Pakistani
ISi (Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence). All three instances were
mistakes from the point of view of national security. All three major
political misjudgements happened one after the other within ten years,
and most of the responsibility for these decisions vests on Indira Gandhi
and in two cases-Sri Lanka and Kashmir-on Rajiv Gandhi as well.
There were a number of Tamil groups and parties which were strug-
gling for the cause of Tamil autonomy. These included the respected
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) headed by Amrithalingam and
various splinter groups, including the L'I"l'E. It was obvious between
1983 and 1987 that the L"l'IE was trying to eliminate the various rival
groups through violence and emerge as the sole resistance group. Its
violent activities spread into Tamil Nadu. The fascist tendencies of the
L"I"l'E leadership and its commitment to an independent sovereign state
of Eelam were well known. An independent sovereign state of Eelam

The Makmg of a Secwrily Policy Slruchlre 27
across the 18-mile wide Palk Straits was not in India's national interest,
yet the decision was taken to continue to nurture, feed, finance and ann
that fascist and terrorist group.
Earlier, in 1964, the nc was reorganized, upgraaed and put under the
Cabinet Secretariat. However, the crucial recommendation that the
chairman and secretary of the committee should be from an intelligence
background was not implemented. Again in 1965 the intelligence on
Pakistan raising a second armoured division and having built viaducts
under irrigation c.anals was ignored Besides, the Anny Chief thought of
the counter-attack on Lahore as a purely Anny operation and did not
inform the Air Force, with the result that the latter suffered avoidable
losses. (Air Chief Marshal Lal bas some bitter comment on this in his
book My Years with the L4F.) Though intelligence was available that
Pakistan was very low on ammunition India threw away a stunning victory
almost in our hands and agreed to a cease-fire. 1 In 1971, in spite of all
clear signals about the possible outbreak of civil war in East Pakistan
and Pakistan building up its forces between January and March 1971,
there was no interaction between the political executive and the armed
forces. When the Pakistan Anny cracked down on 26 March 1971 the
Indian armed forces were totally unprepared for action. It took them
seven months to get ready. In 1974, there was no discussion on the
international implications of carrying out the peaceful nuclear explosion
(PNE). The result was that the Prime Minister developed cold feet after
the only test and yielded to the arguments of her aid-addict advisers,
who hardly understood the game of international trade-offs between
economic and strategic considerations. A year later, Indian intelligence
bad all the warnings about the impending coup against Shaikh Mujibur
Rahman. It was handled as a matter restricted to the jurisdiction of the
intelligence agency and the authorities c;oncerned in the nc. The Defence
Services and the Ministry of External Affairs were kept out, with the
result that when the assassination took place India could not take coherent
and purposeful action.
The absence of a national security decision-making· structure also
I . The US bad provided the Pakistanis with six weeks of war wastage ammW1ition,
at US rates, under the US military aid programme. The Pakistanis bad rapidly used
up their armour and artillery ammW1ition in the first ten days of the war. By the time
the UN Security Council resolved on a cease-fire-after two weeks of fighting--
Pakistan bad exhausted most of its armour, artillery and air warfare ammW1ition.
When the war began, India bad 120 days worth of war wastage ammunition, and bad
hardly used up some IO per cent.

makes it difficult to have institutinoaliud memories. When there are

discussions today about the inadequacy of protection for Rajiv Gandhi at
a time when there was a change of administration. the failure of the
Congras Party itself in not demanding adequate ~tection for him when
the Chandrasekhar government was dependent on Congras party support
is partly attributable to this lack of institutiooal memory and structured
process of national security decision-making.
While I have been in favour of an NSC I have had no illusions that it
would, by itself, improve tl\e quality of our decision-making in the area
of national security. Nor can the quality of decision-making on national
security be separated from that in other areas of national policies. Many
Service officers think that the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff
(CDS) would significantly improve decision-making. While I consider
that a full-time chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee is inevitable
at some time in the future, a CDS without creating appropriate integrated
planning staff would just be an ornamental office.
Any national decision-making structure will be only as good and as
efficient as the leadership wants it to be and the persons who staff it We
have had a Planning Commission for five decades, yet we know how its
proper functioning is hampered by ad-hocism at the highest level and
our economic development plans are also being formulated without
attention to the likely developments in the international system. In all
democratic polities it is the prerogative of the leadership to select the
highest-level political, military, and civil bureaucratic executives, and
logically, one must expect the leadership to fill these posts with people
with a compatible world view and view of the world That is an essential
prerequisite for democratic functioning and planned progress. But in the
sultanate that is India, the tendency with some exceptions is to man most
of the top posts with sycophants, careerists and yes-men.

3
Defence R&D and Production
In the early 1920s, when faced with a financial crunch

oo R&D expenditure, the celebrated scientist, Lord Rutherford, swnmoned
all his colleagues and told them that since there was not much money
they should start thinking bard. In India's history, in two areas there
were pwpose-oriented missions to absorb technology- atomic energy
and space. Both were successful, though atomic energy ran into difficulties
because of the technological barriers erected after the Pokhran-1 test
(1974). Those missions were achieved when our private sector industry
did not have adequate capabilities and, therefore, the government had to
take the initiative.
There is a school of thought in this country that but for the PL-480
imports of the 1950s and early '60s our Green Revolution might have
come about earlier. But for the availability of Soviet arms on soft terms
of credit and relatively cheap prices, perhaps, our own defence R&D
might have accelerated. Preference for successive imports of licensed
technology and neglect of development of R&D have been among our
major national weaknesses. The country has not designed a motor-cycle
or a small car. Though both India and Japan obtained automotive techno-
logy transfer in the early 1950s, Japan ·has become world leader in auto-
mobile industry, and India imports that technology from Japan. In our
industrial and administrative culture, vested interests in imports of
successive generations of technology tend to develop.
In the 1950s, the collective wisdom of our Air Force, defence R&D
and Ministry of Defence started the HF-24 project for a princely sum of
one crore rupees. We all know what happened to that aircraft development
The aircraft had an excellent design, but the engine was underpowered.
The government of the day, in unforgivable stupidity, would not spend a
few million pounds necessary to upgrade the engine to requisite power.
Subsequently, the story was repeated for our tanks, our missiles, and our
LCA project But that is not peculiar to our defence. In the l 950s there
was much talk about our producing the cheapest steel in the world. I
don't have to tell you what happened subsequently.

In the absence of institutionaliz.ed structure of long-range planning,

rapid turnover of personnel and generalist orientation of civilian and
Service bureaucracy, there is inadequate accountability in the system.
For instance, why should the country have to face a situation where
advanced trainer aircraft have to be imported at the cost of billions of
dollars? Who were responsible for such an important decision not being
taken on time, so that the aircraft could have been designed or even
license-produced in the country on schedule? In recent years, preference
for large-scale defence imports has also got entangled with raising funds
for political purposes.
The proposition that India should not try to invent the wheel again,
but try to buy technologies available in the market, has its limitations.
There is no alternative to self-reliant development in aerospace,
computers, sophisticated electronics, nuclear and biotechnology. There
is a perennial struggle within the government between those who favour
imports of sophisticated weapons, and others who would like to develop
self-reliance and indigenous production. The import lobby includes politi-
cians with an eye on hefty kickbacks and bureaucracy, both military and
civil, who also are not beyond temptation. R&D, which has an interest in
indigenous development, has to make out a strong case against imports.
There is a persistent tendency among them to understate the development
cost and unit cost in order to forestall the strong pressures for import
This is the basic reason for the low estimates offered at the initiation of
the R&D proposals. When DRDO promised to develop a tank for Rs 50
crore or a modern combat aircraft for Rs 560 crore, knowledgeable people
would have laughed at them. Regrettably, there is inadequate expertise
among the Services, Ministry of Defence and Defence (Finance) to chal-
lenge the deliberately understated projection of development costs by
R&D.
Indian R&D on weapons involves far greater effort than that put in by
the scientific community in developed countries. Many materials, instru-
mentation and subsystems are available off the shelf in those countries,
while in India many of them have to be developed from scratch. For
instance, in the West they have a choice of engines around which they
can develop their tanks or aircraft. In India the engine had to be speci-
fically developed for the weapon system concerned. There is also the
advantage in the industrialized countries of availability of a wide network
for subcontracting research. In India this is just beginning, partly thanks
to the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
As DRDO gets a project sanctioned based on gross underestimation

Defmce R&:D and Prodliclion 31
of costs, it bas an inbuilt element of time overrun and cost overrun. If a

project is uooer-estirnated at one-fourth the real cost the magnihlde of
flow of research effon also gets automatically determined by the sanc-
tioned estimate. That, in tum, means <>ptimwn research manpower not
being applied to the project. And the project gets stretched over time.
The number of prototypes produced are also limited to a low single
digit If a prototype gets damaged or desttoyed during ttials, the project
is in abeyance until the next prototype is produced. There are also
prolonged negotiations between the user and R&D on compromises in
performance parameters. Having sunk so much money in development,
it is difficult to tum back.
Another problem in our R&D is that projects are initiated in the light
of weapon sy~ems developed elsewhere. A more practical approach
would be to initiate such projects on the basis of new technologies UJMler
development that are bound to get incorporated in weapon systems likely
to emerge a decade or two hence. The problem starts with the DROO
basing its research orientation on the GSQRs (general staff qualitative
requirements) of the Services.
The GSQR, it may be noted, did not come in the picture in making
the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb, various missiles, the Stealth bomber,
nuclear-propelled submarines, etc., and GSQR is not always the criterion
for selecting a weapon. Neither was there talk of GSQR in selecting
MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-29, 130 mm Soviet gun, T-SS, T-72 and PT-76
tanks, F-class and Kilo-class submarines, Petya-class patrol vessels,
missile boats, Su-7s, the French Mirage 2000 and the whole series of
Soviet surface-to-air missiles and surface-~surface missiles. Also, much
of the missile development in India could even simply be a case of the
Services going along with what the DROO said it could deliver.
Soviet weapons were available on attractive prices and terms, they
were a reliable source of supply, and the Services needed them. For
Soviet weapons it used to be difficult to obtain performance data in
advance, though matters have now changed.
It is near impossible and unrealistic-«> draw up staff requirements
and ask the foreign producer to meet them wholesale. For a mass-produced
item like the gun, its basic design is already sealed in the country of
origin, after it is selected from among the available alternatives. Some
specific modifications, however, are feasible. In the alternative, Indian
R&D would need to incorporate them. Foreign manufacturers, after all,
mass-produce their equipment, following a basic design. Attempted design
changes later prove uneconomical. An instance is the British putting in

32 Shedding Shibboletn.s
their Rolls Royce engines in the Phantom aircraft they obtained from the
US: it was much costlier than an aircraft with an American engine. Also,
purchase of a gun is not in the same class as purchase of a submarine.
The latter is ordered only in single or double digits, and the manufacturer
can be asked to custom-build them. 1
From independence till 1978 GSQR applied only to indigenous
development of weapons, of which there were not many. We were solely
dependent on the British (with occasional exceptiom for French Ouragon,
Mystere and Alize aircraft, the Alouette helicopter, AMX-13 light tanks,
the US recoilless gun, the Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun, the French
120 mm mortars). After 1965 came the US-led arms embargo. Thereafter,
mostly the Soviet Union became the source of supply, and we had to
· make do with what was available. India also bought Abbot self-propelled
guns from the UK and SS-11 anti-tank missiles from France, again without
GSQR.
Indigenously produced items were, however, subjected to GSQR.
Among these were the 76 mm mountain gun, 105 mm field gun, Marut
aircraft, Ajeet trainer, HPT trainer, Arjun tank, light combat aircraft
(LCA), naval vessels such as Godavari- and Khukhri-class ships, and
various radars.
In drawing up their GSQR. the Services compile the best performance
characteristics of a particular category of weapon system produced in
different industriali;n,d countries, and make that their staff requirement.
To combine all these characteristics in a single system is asking for the
moon: it is simply unaffordable. When a Service starts with such GSQR
for indigenous R&D, the latter has to come back every now and then and
explain why the combination is infeasible, and ask for concessions on
specifications. This needlessly delays matters and leads to cost and time
overruns.
For imported equipment, whatever may be the Services staff require-
ments, the choice is limited to what is available in the market. For a ··
medium gun, for example, some of the parameters are range, shell weight,
accuracy, ability to shoot and scoot, burst fire capability and degree of
automation. An important factor if the equipment is to be produced in
this country under licence, to which the Service concerned may or may
I. Even here, a...igning weightages to different performance characteristics is

subjective and tticlcy. It is also difficult to determine the exact trade-offs in points
among different characteristics. This author faced this problem when he was, in
1979--80, chairman of the submarine selection committee. The final selection was
made by bis successor.

Defence R&D and Production 33
not pay adequate attention, is further development potential in the weapon

keeping in view likely changes in the battlefield environment.
As long as the Soviet Union was the source of equipment, controversies
oo equipment selection were minimaL The equipment may have lacked
the sophistication of its western counterparts, but any ·grouse on this
score was muffled in view of the low prices, and long-term credit with
low interest rates and rupee payment arrangement. Controversies almost
invariably accompanied a decision to make a large purchase of western
equipment, especially where it was mass-produced in more than one
countty. The Jump jet Harrier and the anti-submarine carrier V'uaat had no
competitors and so were free from controversy, though some questioned
the need for acquisition itself. The Jaguar had a competitor in Mirage
F-1, the HOW submarine in Kockums, and the Bofors gun in the French.
British and Austrian guns.
Two sets of parameters are involved in weapon selection, relating to
tactics and technology. They also interact. New technology generates
further development in tactics. For instance, till the US artillery-spotting
radar was developed, neither burst fire nor shoot-and-scoot capability
featured high on the tactical perfonnance requirements of the medium
gun; now they rank high in tactical evaluation. Various gun developers
have, therefore, to focus on burst fire, increased automation in deploying,
targeting, loading and firing and cross-countty mobility for the gun, with
an auxiliary power unit. As the artillery spotting radar spreads and the
time for counter-fire comes down, that will in tum lead to compulsions
for stepping up burst fire, more rapid shoot-and-scoot, and consequently
greater automation capabilities. In terms of tactics, it might ~ t in
guns being deployed more dispersed than in batteries and regiments as
of today.
Up to the 1960s, India was acquiring weapons that had been in service
for some time, had been debugged and had proven themselves. MiG-21 ,
F-class submarines, Sukhoi-7, T-72, Mirage 2000 and MiG-29 were,
however, weapons that had just been introduced. The advantage in the
latter case is that the weapon will be current for a longer time. The
w.eapons may also have further development potential: MiG-21 was an
instance. A disadvlllltage is that the weapon system would have to undergo
debugging of various minor mechanical glitches that any new mechanical
system is bound to have. Sometimes. circumstances may not also permit
effective tactical use of the system: Sukhoi-7 is an ·instance.
The 155 mm medium gun was under development in Austria, Britain,
France, Sweden, and as an international effort by the US and other

34 Shedding Slubbolellas
countries. It is also a basic weapon for the Army. India tried to induct it
at the prelimiruu:y stage of development. In selecting it, a etueial consider-
ation was bow current it would be in the battlefield environment of I 0-
15 years after purchase. There can be further developments, such as
longer barrels of a lighter and tougher material, more sophisticated ammu-
nition, new propellant, etc., which the weapon system should have the
capacity to incorporate.
In the interests of promoting indigenous weapon R&D, the unattainable
GSQRs need to undergo modifications. Probably, the R&D people know
this at the beginning, but accept the GSQR given mainly to get the project
launched in the hope that, subsequently, they will be able to persuade the
Service concerned to relax on the unrealistic QR initially prescribed.
This kind of game between the R&D and the Service leads to avoidable
loss of time in finalizing the design of the system.
In its tum, the DRDO needs to be practical and result-oriented. It
took up as many as 989 projects in the 1980s, and dropped 618 of them
after a review in 1989. In other words, the DRDO had burdened itself
with too many low-end projects, and did not focus decisively on certain
major projects. In terms of cost overruns, the LCA was sanctioned in
1983 at an estimated cost of Rs 560 crore for development; the cost in
1995 was estimated at Rs 2,188 crore. The Arjun tank development
projectwassanctionedatRs 15.50crorein 1974;in 1995itwasexpected
to cost Rs 280.80 crore. (Along the way, the Army twice changed its,
GSQR.) The integrated guided roi8$ile development project was originally
sanctioned for Rs 388.83 crore. ,
Deci,sion-making in prescribing QRs tends to be highly personali:n-4:
often. with changes in Service leadership QR tends to be changed
depending on personal predilections. The civilians in the MoD or Defence
(Finance) have very little role to play in the decision, the entrenched
philosophy being that user is king. User may be king, but the king must
have a culture of collegiate decisi01'-roaking.
Chiefs of Staff, with brief tenures and preoccupied with operational
COIDIJl!Uld of the forces and day-to-day administration, are disinclined to
focus on long-range equipment planning. This results in QRs being altered
frequently, often tailored to the changing priorities of successive Chiefs
of Staff or their principal deputies. Similarly, as Chiefs and their deputies
change, choices in imported equipment also tend to change. One set of
people preferred the French 155 mm gun and another, the Swedish Bofors.
One set of people purchalled Tiger Cat missiles; the successors found
them poor performers. Equipment selection is so subjective that the IAF

DejeN:e R&D and Prodw:tion JS
did not opt for the Gnat aircraft or the Mi0•21, preferring instead the
F-104, which was not accepted for service in the US Air Force itself.
For the same reasons, there was delay in the induction ofSoviet F-class
submarines in the early l 960s since preference was for the British Oberon,
which in any case was beyond India's reach in view of our foreign
exchange constraint Similarly, after insisting on having seven or eight
"silent'' SSK submarines from West Germany of the HDW class, it was
found in the late 1980s that the Soviet Kilo-class submarines, which
were available at the same time, suited our needs much better.
Forty Mirage 2000s were pureha.,erl in great hurry with options to
buy more and even to manufacture them in this countty. The Mi0-29s,
which are today recogniz.ed by the IAF to be as good if not superior to
Mirage 2000s, were available then at a much lower price. Moreover,
they could be accommodated in the matrix of lndo-Soviet rupee trade.
The Services may say that SSK and Mirage decisions were not their
own. But they would have betn in a far better position to resist external
pressure if there was a collegiate planning mechanism.
Servicemen are professionals in fighting wars. As far as new high-
cost technologies are concerned, they, especially the fighting services
fiom which the crucial decision-makers are drawn, are generalists. Speci-
fying performance characteristics, and evaluating modem equipment, both
require very high skills. For instance, those skilled in high technology
would have pointed out in 1978 that Jaguar was an obsolescent aircraft
and the next generation of aircraft- Mirage 2000, Tornado, F-16 and
F-18s-were about to roll out within the next two to three years.
Till 1986, most Chiefs of Staff did not accept that there was any need
for an integrated planning staff. They felt that decisions concentrated in
themselves, processed through the equipment directorates and their senior
· deputies, would suffice. In the Ministty of Defence, or in its attached
finance wing, the generalist civilians are in no position to go into technical
merits of the equipment DRDO can do so, but it has started playing a
role only recently: it acquired enough credll>ility in offering a sound
technical appraisal only around the mid- l 980s.
An integrated planning staff was created in 1986. But it was too small
and the change-over of personnel too rapid for the staff to be effective.
There were proposals for planning for each Service and for the armed
forces as a whole, but nothing tangible came of them. Other democratic
countries appoint from time to time high-powered commissions to go
into structural and procedural deficiencies in defence management and
attempt to improve matters. The US had its Packard Commission in the

mid-l 980s. The British defence set-up was thoroughly overhauled by

Michael Heseltine, who joined Margaret Thatcher's cabinet as Defence
Minister in 1983. In India, we are still living with the system of defence
managr.ment devised by Lord Ismay in 1947.
••••
While it was right for us to have gone in for licensed production of MiG
aircraft, frigates, Bofors guns and submarines, why did we not absorb
the technology and develop capabilities to design the equipment of the
successive generation? Because such planning culture is a stranger to
our defence establishment. Our defence planning focuses on listing out
what equipment and weapon systems the forces would need in the next
10-15 years. So also, some technological visionaries enumerated areas
in which our technological capabilities should be exercised. But hardly
any thought has been given to how this country is to prepare industrially
to equip itself to be self-reliant in defence 15-20 years from now. That
should be the crux of our defence planning.
Part of the answer is also in our R&D management culture. In the
western countries, the industry interacts continuously with the defence
services, and the industry R&D comes up with their ideas of next-
generation equipment, new technologies and innovations that could be
incorporated in them. On the basis of their interaction, the qualitative
requirements of equipment are drawn up. They do not have to look over
their shoulders to see what others are doing since they are working with
state-of-the-art technologies. US business provides significant portions
of the funding for various think-tan.ks engaged in national security studies.
In the 1960s, Herman Kahn used to hold two-three day sessions for
business executives on nuclear strategy. In India the development of new
equipment is not state-of-the-art. In our equipment development, whether
it is a thermonuclear weapon, missile, aircraft or tank, our effort is to
catch up with something that already exists elsewhere. Given the stage of
evolution of our industrial technology, our R&D capabilities and our
defence planning culture, this is inevitable, and will remain so for the
foreseeable future. While in those countries import is not an option for a
new generation of equipment to be introduced into the Services, in India
it is always an option-an attractive option for quite a few decision-
makers.
In the 1960s and '70s, even China was producing most of its equipment
on the basis of licences obtained from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In

India, the civil industry could not help much in defence production. One
experience of trying to subcontract parts of a carbine to civil industry in
the mid-1960s failed. Most of our equipment came &om the Soviet Union.
They were paid for in DOD-convertible rupees, and compared to world
prices for analogous categories of equipment, they were very cheap.
That was the time when a concerted effort should have beet, made to get
not merely Soviet equipment, but the Soviet know-bow and know-why.
But there was no long-term defence technology planning. The Services
selected particular equipment without giving thought to successive
generations of that category of equipment. Once a particular equipment
bad been bought tbcrc was no thinking about what would succeed it
some twenty or thirty years tbcncc. Attempts to introduce such planning
were resisted since tbcrc was strong preference to ad hoc selection of
equipment, preferably by import. Even today tbcrc is no comprehensive
equipment planning which looks at every item in our inventory and decides
when it comes to its rcplaccmcnt, whether that is to be designed and
made in the country, produced in the country under licence, partly
imported and partly license-produced, or wholly imported. Till such
planning ~haoism is in place, it is not realistic to talk about self-
reliant defence production.
Industry in private sector will need to be dominant in future defence
self-reliance. At present, our private industry's expectations arc, by and
large, in terms of subcontracts for materials, components and subsystems,
the lead coming from the defence production establishments. That may
have to be a necessary first step. But we have to plan for our private
sector playing a role in producing complete equipment systems in future,
especially in areas so far oot covered by our defence production
establishments.
There is oo justification for government to do things which can be
done more efficiently and economically in the private sector. There may
have been justification to have ordnance factories for clothing, general
stores and automobile vehicles in World War II and in the first thirty
years of independent India, but not now. There should be a strategy to
run down that labour force and put these assets to alternative and more
productive uses. New weapon systems are increasingly going to be guided
by space-based monitoring and guidance systems. In dealing with proxy
war and terrorism too, sophisticated monitoring systems play a crucial
role. The country needs to develop measures to defend itself against
cyber attacks as well. In such circumstances, it is unrealistic to think of
defence production department as the sole agency to equip the country.

Our industrial capabilities have not reached a stage, and our R&D
base is not yet sufficiently developed, for us to aim at attempting to
develop all our defence requirements in this country. We have to rely on
licensed production mostly. Because the cost of development of weapon
systems has skyrocketed, most of the armament firms in the West have
sought mergers to expand their R&D base, to spread the risks involved
in high development costs, ·and to diversify production. Some mergers
have been across national borders. Self-reliance in defence is the objective
to strive for; self-sufficiency can be just a fetish. There are perhaps three
countries in the world self-sufficient in defence-US, Russia and France.
All others obtain varying quantities of their defence equipment from
outside. This outside dependence may be by way of outright imports or
collaborative production arrangements with other countries.
There are advantages in seeking collaborative ventures with annament
firms abroad, in which our skills can make useful contribution in terms
of cost reduction to the foreign manufacturer of main equipment For
new equipment to be license-produced in the country, the private sector
should be encouraged to participate in its production. Initially it can be
in terms of a joint venture between defence and private sectors, with
progressive disengagement by the government. Private sector ventures
involved in information and electronics technologies that come close to
dual-use technological capabilities should be identified and their potential
to enter into defence-related production should be explored. lnfonoation
technology and electronics, two areas which are likely to play a significant
role in future defence equipment, are today dominated by the private
sector. So also the engineering industry.
It is the lack of steady orders, and at the same time the need to keep
the production capacity live for crisis situations, which make· the
production of weapons and ammunition unattractive for civilian industry.
Since there is no long-term institutionalized planning of defence produc-
tion and there are no exports, there is always insecurity among the labour
about retrenchment after the production run of a category of equipment
is completed. When a new weapon is introduced, the total requirements
of the Anny should be met within a few years so that all units can have
standardized equipment, and ammunition up to authorized reserves be
produced within the matching period. Therefore, the orders for such
equipment and ammunition cannot be at a steady rate over a long period
of time. In the period of re-equipment with a new weapon and build-up
of reserve stockpiles, orders will be for full capacity of the production
establishment. Thereafter, there will be a long period of lean orders

unless there is a security crisis or export orders. This cycle will be repeated
when the next generation of weapons and ammunition is to be inttoduced.
One way of overcoming it is to develop a dual capability to make use of
the productioo assets with some additional machinery to produce civilian
goods, so that during the lean period the labour force and the capacity
can be used to produce civilian goods. Many countries of the world do
it In the US, there is a system of government owning the facilities, and a
contractor operating it for a period of time to produce the weapons and
ammunition stockpiles as per requimneot, and then ceasing production.
Such a system requires involvement of private sector industry on a large
sca1c.
••••
Atomic energy and space departments had the advantage that there was
coUDtrywide recognition that in these two areas there was no alternative
to indigenous R&D effort and that these technologies could not be
obtained through imports. The DRDO had to struggle all the time with
the import lobby. The DRDO was started by D.S. Kothari in 1957 during
V.I(. Krishna Menon's tenure as Defence Minister. Thereafter it was
headed by very eminent physicists and a metallurgist and an engineer-
A.S. Bhagavantam, B.D. Nag Cha™:DnJTi, M.G.K. Menon, Raja Ramanna,
V.S. Anmachalam and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam-ell of whom came from
outside to lead the fledgling organinition. Under Ramanoa's stewardship
the Scientific Adviser was made Secretary of the department In that
sense, the DRDO matured into a full-fledged nf88Dinition much later
than sectors like atomic energy, space, civilian science and technology,
and electronics. The future of Indian defence R&D, however, looks bright
because there are likely to be increasing restrictions on exports of high-
technology equipment to countries like India.
In spite of our administrative and industrial cultures not being R&D-
fiiendly, defence R&D has made its mark spectacularly in the integrated
missile development programme-Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag. Two
programmes which have attracted a lot of flak are the Arjun battle tank
project and the LCA project Both have suffered from frequent changes
in specifications, underestimation of costs of projects, and continuous
threats to choose imports over indigenous R&D. Successful R&D projects
that have attracted public attention have encompassed, among many
others, a world-class modern sonar (Apso), torpedoes, subsystems of
fiigates, armed light helicopter, Indira low-level radar, variety of bombs
and ammunition (including FSAPDS anti-tank ammunition), modern

40 Shedding Shibboledis
armour, improvements to BMP vehicles, electronic warfare equipment,

satellite communication systems, to special clothing for chemical warfare
environment. Thnusands of crores of rupees worth products designed by
R&D arc being rolled out annually by the public sector undertakings and
c:,ntnallC"' factories.
Since there is inadequate appreciation of India's defence R&D achieve-
ments, let us go into some details of the Agni programme to get matters
in perspective. Agni is the product of the integrated missile programme
of the DROO and is one of a family of five miMiles Agni, Prithvi,
Akash, Trishul, and Nag. All except Akash were tested successfully by
the end of 1990, and were developed within a short period of six years.
In 1984, when I discussed this programme with the director, A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam, I expressed scepticism about the time schedule be gave me;
happily, my scepticism was not justified. In any other country, such a
remarlcably successful programme would have generated a significant
amount of literature, especially on the management of the R&D.
India is not following the missile development programmes of other
countries and producing copies of missiles produced elsewhere. The
missiles arc based on contemporary, state--of-the-art technologies. The
programme bad to be undertaken in a hostile international environment
in which seven industrial nations-the US, Oinada, Japan, the UK, France,
West Germany and ltaly- fonned the missile technology control regime
(MT~) to deny the technology to other nations.
The DROO, anticipating the introduction of the MTCR, started in
1983 to develop critical technologies whose imports would be denied to
it. These technologies were still being shaped in advanced industrial
countries for their missile programmes. They included focal plane array,
millimetre wave radar system, W-band impact diode, C-band phase
shifters, and carbon-carbon preforms. Various R&D laboratories,
academic institutions and industries were coopted into the programme.
Among these were the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,
CEERI (Pilani), 11T (Delhi), 11T (Kharagpur) and Osmania University.
Only three other countries have perfected the carbon-carbon preform
technology necessary for the nose cone of Agni. Millimetre wave seeker
and guidance system, now in an advanced stage, are other such pioneering
successes. The focal plan array sensor, required for the anti-tank missile--
which involves arranging 10,000 sensor elements of mercury .-.a,Jmium
telluride crystals in one<entimetre square-is under development in
DROO and can detect temperature differences of even one-tenth of one
degree centigrade. Another high-technology project is the phased array

Defence R&:D and Production 41
radar configured for tracking multiple targets and command-guiding

multiple mipilcs simultaneously. This goes into the Trishul system. This
radar has multiple arrays, each with several thou.wid ferrite phase shifters
operating at different frequencies. MTCR prohibits transfer of these
frontier technologies.
The then Defence Minister, R. Venlcataraman (later President), gave
a tremendous boost to the missile programme with one of his decisions.
Once he had satisfied himself that the Indian scientific community had
the capability of developing missiles, he directed them to go about it not
sequentially but simultaneously, as part of an integrated missile prog-
ramme. Because of this crucial management decision, such major achieve-
ments were made in such a short space of time.

4
Defence Expenditure
For many Indians, a reduction in defence expenditure is

a hope ardently to be wished for. How far is this possible? Experience
both here and elsewhere has shown that ad hoc cuts in defence expenditure
affect preparedness and cause much greater disruption than the cut itself.
Hence, it is time to have a close look at our defence spending and find
ways and means of first containing its growth and levelling it off before
attempting to reduce it gradually in terms of percentage of GNP.
For this, two aspects of defence expenditure need to be examined.
One, how much defence expenditure is enough to ensure reasonable
security? Two, bow do we get the maximum value for the money spent?
In 1962, India spent less than 2 per cent of GNP on defence and some
14 per cent on developmental outlay. We then bad an average growth
rate of 3.5 per cent, which Raj Krishna called the Hindu growth rate. By
1978-79 the savings rate went up to 24.7 per cent of GDP and came
down to 20.2 per cent in 1987-88. The growth rate was 3.6 per cent in
1987-88, and was estimated at 9 per cent for 1988-89, mostly because
of 20 per cent increase in agricultural production over the previous
drought-affected year. The 1989-90 rate was not expected to exceed 4
per cent. In the same year, the defence budget was at 3.8 per cent of
GNP. Defence spending throughout the 1970s was around 3.3 to 3.5 per
cent of GNP. Between 1962-63 and 1985- 86 it crossed 4 per cent mark
only once in the mid-l 960s. It did not do so even in the year of the
Bangladesh war. .
Defence expenditure and annual growth rate may or may not be
correlated, but there is no dispute that foreign exchange resources utilized
in defence, if they could be diverted to development., could result in
improving the growth rate, provided certain other necessary correlative
policies are adopted. In recent years, the increase in non-Plan expenditure
is as much, if not more, due to rise in interest payments on debt, and rise
in police expenditure, as it is on account of defence expenditure.

Defence Expendilure 43
lo deciding the defence expenditure, we need to keep in view. the

following considerations:
l . The threat perception, in immediate and medium terms.
2. The requirements of modernization. Armed forces not adequately
equipped with modem equipment are likely to give the nation a
false sense of security, which is waste of money.
3. Defence expenditure should not be at the cost of development
4. Since defence expenditure is largely consumption expenditure, the
nation should consider how the optimum requirement could be
accommodated within the consumption sector through appropriate
taxation policies and mobilization of resources.
5. Every effort should be made to look at defence and development
efforts together, to ensure that maximum return is obtained from
both. Compartmentalization of defence and development results in
considerable waste.
The major reason for our security tension with our neighbours is not
because of conflicts of national interests or territorial disputes- though
it is often projected in those terms---but the dissonance between India's
secular, democratic, federal, and linguistically autonomous system and
the polities around our country which do not accept these values. The
tension among the major powers lessened only after the USSR and Eastern
Europe started to liberalize and de-ideologize their foreign policies. This
has not happened in our neighbourhood. Our problem with Pakistan is
not the ratio of forces but its psychology. In 1947, 1965, and 1971,
Pakistani forces were proportionately smaller than ours; yet they started
wars on the basis of their belief that one Pakistani was equal to SCYeral
Indians. Though one thought that Dacca put an end to that myth. once
again one hears talk of political will in Pakistan matching up with military
will, the ideological orientation of the Pakistan Army and the concept of
offensive defence. We cannot unilaterally determine our defence effort.
To a considerable extent, what our neighbours do influences it.
The faster India progresses the greater will be its impact on our
neighbouring states. The authoritarian ruling elite there will see India's
example as having a destabilizing effect on them. There is bound to be
tension between India and its neighbours till they become democratic,
more pluralistic and humanitarian. Gorbachev could trigger off such
changes in Eastern Europe because the USSR dominated those countries.
India lacks that advantage. Our neighbours could experience greater
turbulence in terms of demands for representational government and

44 Shedding Sltibboletlu
democracy (Nepal, Bangladesh, Tibet and Myanmar), for greater

autonomy, linguistic, political and ethnic (Pakistan, Tibet and Xinjiang
in China, the Chins, Shaos, Kacbins, Karens, etc. in Myanmar, Chakmas
in Bangladesh, the Terai population in Nepal, the Nepali population in
Bhutan and the Tamils in Sri Lanka), and secularism (in all nations
around us). We should not intervene in any of this turbulence, but at the
same time safeguard that our polity and developmental process are not
affected by any spillover from our neighbours or their problems (as
happened regarding Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistani infiltration in Jammu
and Kashmir in 1965, or the Chinese attack in 1962) and lead to escalation
vis-a-vis our country. This is, in essence, our security problem and threat
to our security in political and strategic terms.
In such circumstances, what should be our strategy to buy adequate
security at the lowest possible cost? Of the five wars that India fought till
I 998, four were on the basis of ad hoc and ready responses. In 1971, the
adversary permitted us eight months to prepare. This will not happen
every time. In 1962, 1965 and 1971, more than the war and the expenditure
of war, what disrupted our development was the sense of insecurity
preceding, during and after the war. It led to unplanned expenditure. It
would make better sense to have a steady expenditure and a posture of
credible deterrence which gets stabilized and permits us to pursue our
development without undue perturbation. Even if we want to level off
defence expenditure or cut it, it bas to be planned for carefully, with
adequate lead-time.
After the 1962 debacle it was not our high defence expenditure which
stood in the way of our economic development The defence expenditure
was still a modest 3.3 per cent of GDP. It was the sense of insecurity of
the years after 1962 that came in the way of satisfactory economic manage-
ment. When a nation cannot assure the basic security needed for peaceful
pursuit of commerce and industry, foreign investors will not invest, and
the foreign tourists will get advice from their governments to keep out of
it There is symbiotic relationship between security and economic develop-
ment. The Asian Tigers did not achieve their spectacular economic growth
at the expense of defence expenditure. South Korea spent 5.1 per cent of
its GNP on defence in 1985, 4.4 in 1990 and 3.8 in 1991. The correspond-
ing figures for Singapore are 6.7, 4.9 and 5.4 and for Malaysia 5.6, 3.7
and 3.7. There bas to be a situation-specific optimization between security
expenditure and economic investment.
One problem in our financial planning or budgeting on defence is that
an overall, total, integrated threat assessment picture, and the

Def~ Expendibln 4S
consequences of actions taken in the coming year in regard to the defence

budget, are not presented to the Cabinet Committee oo Political Affairs
(CCPA) or the FiM~ Minister. It is said that the defence estimates of
1989, for example, were communicated to the Ministry of Defence and
the Services ooly a couple of days before the budget was presented. This
type of ad-bocism results in cutting down on main~ The men are
all there, and the committed expenditure (such as pay and allowances,
food, stores already ordered, etc.) cannot be cut. Cut in maintenance
expenditure is false economy, and affects the forces' preparedness.
Having a larger force than can be sustained within the budget is
counterproductive. That would generate a false sense of security. It runs
down the efficiency of the forces and demoralizes them. Singapore,
Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia did not commit India's
mistakes of neglecting defence. They never put forward the untenable
argument that rapid economic growth necessitated a rundown of defence
capability. They ensured their security in two ways. They entered into
explicit and implicit security alliances with the US and other western
powers and, in addition, kept up their defence expenditure at an even
level. They are engaged in defence modernization. Since their primary
security concern is China, they have taken necessary diplomatic steps to
create the Asian Regional Fonun to engage ChiM-in a security dialogue
along with all major world powers. Within such overall secwity frame-
work. the ASEAN countries provide an atmosphere of secwity and
stability to facilitate the flow of foreign investments. China bad a period
of low defence expenditure in the 1970s and '80s before its economic
growth took off. China ensured its secwity through its nuclear shield.
In no country of the world are defence and development pursued in
such compartmentaliud fashion as happens in India. Here we are trying
to develop sophisticated supersonic aircraft without having a civil aircraft
industry. We are attempting to develop a variable compression engine
for the tank without bothering to design ordinary automobile engines. I
am not against those sophisticated R&D efforts. But why is it our planners
have consistently refused to look at the industrial requirements of our
defence and see bow much standardi7.ation they could achieve with civil
products so as to achieve overall economies? Why are not area develop-
ment plans in the border areas dovetailed with border roads development?
In the US the entire highway development in the 1950s was a defence-
led one.
Also, as we modernize and step up the firepower of our anned forces
and their mobility we should tty to make our forces leaner by reducing

46 Shedding Shibbolellis
the manpower-to-machine ratio. In Israel it requires around 120 persons

to maintain a modern aircraft in operation, in France around 160 and in
India above 200. There is significant scope for reduction in manpower
and increasing efficiency. Total integration of defence and developmental
planning wil) lead to economies of scale in production of high-tech
materials and equipment and also may lead to obtaining some returns on
defence outlays, such as utiliz.ation of the services of ex-servicemen,
area development around border roads, integrating naval and civil
maritime activities, civil and military aircraft production, etc. Once we
are confident of our deterrent capability as seen by others, we can intensify
our diplomatic efforts for confidence-building measures with China and
Pakistan in conditions of stabilized deterrence in their and the rest of the
world's perceptions.
In 1965 on 6 September, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri presiding
over the National Development Council directed that the five-year plan
under preparation should be oriented towards defence support. Accord-
ingly, the Defence Ministry prepared two documents. The first was on
infrastructure such as roads, communications and other support needed
for defence. The second was on defence production. A number of working
groups were set up with all other relevant ministries and the Planning
Commission. The reports were submitted to the Planning Commission in
the hope that the recommended action would be incorporated in the five-
year plan. The Planning Commission gave its blessings and then informed
the Defence Ministry (Department of Defence Production) to take up the
individual schemes with the ministries concerned. That was the end of
the effort of giving a defence orientation to the five-year plan.
Defence planning involves the following steps and tasks. First, there
has to be a long-tenn strategic assessment which has to be updated
annually. Secondly, there has to be a clear understanding of doctrines of
war that are continuously evolving. Thirdly, a supplementary long-term
assessment of technological development in the area of defence is also
called for. The fourth step is a threat assessment taking these into account.
That must be followed by a political direction of the tasks for the defence
forces, with certain priorities assigned to objectives. The political
executive should also determine the level of resources it is willing to
make available not only for the next year or two but over the period of
next five years. The Ministry and the Services have to evolve alternative
packages of forces, facilities, and strategic doctrines keepfng in view the
resource constraints.
Within such an overall system there has to be continuous micro-
Dlgltlzeo by Google Original from

Defence Expendibue 47
planning for individual weapon and equipment systems, includmg the

interface between new systems and tactical and, in some cases, strategic
doctrines. What the various reports of the Comptroller and Auditor
General highlight is not so much the ad hoc manner in which individual
weapon systems are acquired as the total absence of a coherent system
of planning in defence. Lacking such a system and lacking political
direction towards an integrated long-term strategic policy, all that the
Services and the Ministiy can do is to maintain defence preparedness in
relation to developments in India's neighbourhood as a linear extra-
polatory exercise.
Thanks to its scientific community, India today can devise a strategy
which will progressively reduce the defence burden. The new generation
of missiles, under development and testing, give us an opportunity to re-
evaluate our strategic and tactical doctrines and enable us to move increas-
ingly towards a posture of defensive defence with sufficient deterrent
capability. The aircraft and the tank changed tactics and strategy in World
War II. Accw-ate missiles, seeker warheads, observation satellites, recon-
naissance capabilities, higher rate of firepower, and electronic warfare
will make the tactics inherited from World War II totally obsolescent in
the years to come. So will be the current organiutional patterns of armed
forces, their composition, C3I (command, control, communication, and
intelligence) infrastructure and the Army-Air Force interphase in opera-
tions. Thinking through these problems will bring forth ways and means
of increasing the firepower-to-manpower ratio in all three Services and
reduce their manpower. This cannot, however, be done without stepping
up our outlays on R&D, new missiles, reconnaissance capabilities,
electronic intelligence (Elint) and communications intelligence (Comint).
When the defence budget is to be cut, necessary insurance steps have
to be taken for our security. The reduction should be planned for carefully
and the Chiefs of Staff should be taken into confidence about the govern-
ment's future intentions and asked to prepare themselves.• The second
step is for the government to obtain a comprehensive assessment of the
international security situation in and around the subcontinent in Asia. It
should then ask the Chiefs of Staff to come up with their alternative recom-
mendations to safeguard Indian security, giving them a fairly clear indica-
tion of.resources likely to be made available for the next five years.
I . However, the Service Chiefs, with their tenures of three years----oftcn less-are
so preoccupied with adroini•lrative chores and planning for immediate operatiooaJ
contingeocies, they have no lime to devote to long-tenn planning.

48 Sheddutg Shibboleths
Thirdly, the government bas to come out with a new manpower policy
for the anned forces. This policy should be framed taking into account
not only the reduced manpower requirement of a leaner and meaner but
a more equipment-intensive force. It should also take into accowt the
additional manpower requirements for paramilitary and other security
forces to deal with the increasing problems of counter-insurgency, couoter-
terrorism, and law and order. There have been proposals•to have such a
force, lightly anned, specially designed for such purposes, instead of the
Anny, which it is agreed on all sides, should be kept out of continuous
internal security deployment. Fourthly, our government must also take
some hard decisions on defence R&D so that it is not subject to aimless
fluctuations and cuts.
•••
♦
Parliamentary governments generally provide less information to the

public on defence than presidential governments like the US. In a parlia-
mentary system, the administration is directly responsible to the legisla-
ture, and in most of the western parliamentary democracies, the leaders
of opposition are generally taken into confidence on all major decisions
on defence, besides the regular annual reports and policy statements
submitted to Parliament. Since the US system functions under the principle
of separation of powers, with the President not being directly responsible
to the legislature, the latter demands far more detailed information from
the administration. This information is provided through the annual
posture statement of the Defence Secretary, the annual report of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, testimony before a number of congressional committees,
and reports of congressional research services, office of management
and budget, etc. This vast quantity of public information is supplemented
by executive hearings of congressional committees, where the present-
ations are classified.
The scale of information output in the US corresponds to the activities
undertaken. The magnitude ofR&D .and weapon procurement activities is
so colossal that the administration has to release 95 per cent of infol'IOlltion
in order to keep the vital 5 per cent really secret. Since the US Congress
votes funds for various syst.ems item-wise and the Defence Department
and the Services have to justify before Congress the programmes over
the years, the Services have developed think-tanks which employ highly
qualified analysts to help present the case for a specific programme
optimally. To deal with such sophisticated presentations the various

Defena Expendmue 49
congressional committees, too, hire highly qualified analysts on their

staff. This happens both in the De~ce and State Departments. The
debate between the legislators and the administration, both underpinoo:I by
highly qualified research staff, overflows into the press. The congressional
debate generates enormous information output and analyses in the US.
Parliamentary governments cannot replicate this. The scale of
opetatioos is also vastly lower. Even where parliamentary committees
exist, the procedure adopted is more by way of information sharing rather
than debate contributing to decision-making, the latter being the adminis-
tration's sole prerogative. Even so, there is significantly more information
sharing and debate in western democracies than in India.
Debates on defence in Parliament and the Press in western democracies
reflect debates within the government-The data and the lines of aigument
put forward by-parliamentarians, analysts and journalists in public rmanatc
from within the government from the civil and military bureaucracies
because they alone have the information. When there are major disagree-
. ments among the bureaucrats, they not only pursue their debate within
the government in committee rooms and files; they also quietly leak out
enough information to generate a debate outside. In India, this does not
usually happen. Yet, whenever there have been controversies in public-
the Jaguar acquisition, the German submarine contract and the choice of
155 mm guns--they all reflected the debates within the bureaucracies
inside the government
One reason why there is less debate on our defence projects within
the government bureaucracy than in western democracies is that the
decision-making loop within our Services is still very much hierarchy
oriented, and the choices available to our Services are extremely resbi"1ed.
Mostly, our forces are acquiring equipment which has alre!idY entered
into service elsewhere and, consequently, the nee4 for the equipment
itself is very rarely in question. When it is questioned, as in the case of
the carrier acquisition in the mid-I 980s, some debate spills out from
within the government into the open. Secondly, because of economic
constraints, the choice of equipment often narrowed itself-the Soviet
offer. Where choices were available-as with strike aircraft or 155 mm
guns-divergent views became public. In case the country is designing
new equipment on its own there is more debate, well-informed or not, as
in the case of the Arjun tank or the LCA.
Hardly IO to 12 per cent of the money in our defence budget goes for
new equipment. The rest goes for manpower and operational maintenance
and costs. Just as the non-Plan expenditure in the civil sector does not

50 Shedding Sltibboleths
geoerate much debate, and most of the discussion is devoted to Plan

schemes, so also in defence budget 85 to 90 per cent of the expenditure
on personnel and operation maintenance and costs <:annot attract much
attention. The coocept of zero.base budget is expected to result in scrutiny
of such expenditure to examine possible economies and cuts. Experience
elsewhere, however, shows only marginal benefits in this exercise.
The debate in the Indian context has to focus on defence policy and
the general thrust of defence planning. The changes in our strategic
environment and anticipated trends, the nature of threats we face,
alternative available strategies, the composition and structure of the forces
and facilities needed, the long-term R&D and industrial efforts necessary
for the chosen strategy are appropriate subjects for policy debates. No
classified information is involved in discussing these issues: the govern-
ment could well take the lead by presenting a policy paper to Parliament.
If the thrust of our defence strategy is to avoid war and dissuade our
neighbours from launching adventurous actions with an escalatory
potential, some publicity of our capability is beneficial. That will infuse
confidence among our people; and the openness of our infonnation will
challenge our neighbours to reciprocatc>-it would in itself become a
confidence-building measure. The adversaries' disinformation thrives in
circumstances of opaqueness on our part.
Most of the infonnation necessary to prepare an annual policy
statement is no secret for our adversaries. It is also available in high-
priced newsletters and specialized information services published abroad.
Only our civil and military bureaucrats and politicians, who are babes in
the woods where such literature is concerned, would classify it as top
secret; not the rest of the informed world.
A policy presentation on defence to Parliament is useful from yet
another point of view. Most of our politicians and senior bureaucrats,
both civil and military, move into their positions with little or no back-
ground in the field of national security, making for ad boc pronouncements
and policy initiatives.
In our defence effort, we are moving out of pure reactivism and towards
a policy framework containing elements of deterrence (not necessarily
nuclear) and dissuasion. At the same time our extemal and internal security
environments are becoming increasingly interactive. These changes need
· to be explained to our politicians, parliamentarians, media, academia
and even to our Services personnel, whose instruction has so far been on
routine lines.
If such enlightened initiative by government is absent, there is bound

Defe,,c,e ExpendiJure SI
to be increased pressure from various quarters to cut back on defence

spending. While the demand to exercise vigilant control over defence
spending to reduce waste, to make our defence build-up gradual and
cost-effective and to avoid knee-jerk reactioos is reasonable and should
be welcomed, if the government refuses to share information in the interest
of enlightened public debate, it is only likely to lead to emotional reactions,
motivated attempts at disinformation, and the use of imported arguments
about India spending disproportionately on defence. We have a good
case: we need not fight shy of putting it across effectively.
••••
To not a small extent, much of the public brouhaha on India's supposedly
excessive defence expenditure comes from disinformation spread by
foreign think-tanks with a reputation for objectivity.2
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) was estab-
lished witb an endowment by the Swedish parliament to celebrate I SO
years of peace for Sweden. Its report for 1994, that India imported S 12,235
million worth of arms during 1989-92, was picked up by the UNDP
(United Nations Development Programme) in its Human Development
Report 1994 and commented upon adversely.
Since 1983, when I was director of the Institute for Defence Studies
and Analyses (IDSA), the institute has been challenging the SIPRI data.
SIPRI had published in successive years in the early 1980s that India
imported $2,000 million worth of 155 mm guns from the US. I had
pointed out to them that this was incorrect and showed them the Indian
government's denial. They relied on a speculative report in the New
York Tunes. In 1995, the director ofIDSA, Air Commodore Jasjit Singh,
again took up the issue with SIPRI with reference to the recently published
figures of Indian arms imports. SIPRI said that the figures were not
2. SIPRI and nss (Loodon) get their data primarily from CIA sources. A British
commercial firm is the ocher organiwino on the job, and collects the information
mostly from arms manufacturers and shipping channels. This information is
disseminated through different agencies and presented in packaged forms. The arms
manufactum'S are interested in leaking out the information to stimulate competitive
buying in countries in the neighbowbood of the initial buyer. The CIA makes available
what it collects to the US goverumeotal agencies, including the ACDA. The US
government provides this information to Congress during various bearings. The CIA
also shares the information with the western governments, who in tum disseminate
the information to non-official research institutions. Some institutions which claim
to be objective contract out to collect the information from US congressional sources.
Digitized by Google Original from

actual prices of weapons that bad been paid in any panicular deal. The
figures were computed to develop trend iDdicator values for weapons for
which costs were not available, and were estimated on the basis of
technical comparisons of weight. range, speed, year of first production
with weapons for which the costs were available. The IDSA director
requested SIPRI to elaborate on its methodology and offered to publish
that in the IDSA Journal. Ian Antony of SIPRI contributed a general
essay on the difficulties in computing accurate data on anns transfers,
without ex.plaining how the data on India were compiled The IDSA then
brought out a monograph, "Conventional Anns Transfers", which put
together Antony's essay with two critiques of SIPRI data and method-
ology. India was not the only country aggrieved by SIPRI's figures.
According to Antony, the Cz.ech Republic, Germany, Japan and Russia
had also complained.
' What SIPRI had been doing was to attribute to the Russian, French
and British equipment that India had been buying the costs of what they
considered as the equivalent US equipment This resulted in the kind of
figures illustrated below.
Item Price paid ($ mn) SIPRI figure (S mn)

Mirage 2000 23 33.348
"Jaguar 12.5 16.674
MiG-29 11.5 35.37
MiG-21 I.I 12.50
Il-76 33 145.06
An-32 3.59 14.29
11-38 7.8 28.58
There were also errors about the quantities of equipment India

acquired, as illustrated below.
Item Actual figure SIPRI figure

An-32 98 126
11-76 15 20
T-72 tanks 288 500
An-124 Condor 0 contracted for 3 contracted for
SIPRI added up all its errors, and came up with the figure that India
had bought weapons worth $10,969.11 million, whereas India's purchase
was in fact worth $3,742.9 million. SIPRI's figure made India the largest
arms importer.

Defence Expenditure 53
There are similar distortions on SIPRl's accounts on India's R&D.

The government bas told Parliament that the sanctioned cost of the LCA
project for full-scale engineering development was Rs 2,188 billion; till
January 1994 Rs 6.49 billion had been spent; and the estimate for 1993-
94 was Rs 1.6 billion. The SIPRI Year Book 1994 gives an estimate of
Rs 20 billion as having been spent.
For 1993, India declared 'nil' imports to the UN anns register. No
export to India was reported by any arms-exporting country, including
Russia. But SIPRI reported imports of $2,146 million for that year. The
only defence imports that year would ha~been for the production in the
ordnance factories and defence public sector undertakings. This import
requirement would be placed at $3~350 million.
Earlier, in its Yearbook 1992 SIPRI cited India as the largest anns
importer of the world for 1987- 91. The figures as given were, in million
dollars: 5475 (for 1987), 4009 (1988), 4461 (1989), 1607 (1990), 2009
( 1991 }-a total of $17,561 million. India outranked Saudi Arabia
($10,597 million) and Iraq ($10,319 million). For the same five years
the Indian defence expenditure was, in millions of rupees, 124,965,
129,878, 142,000, 154,375, and 165,157. It is difficult to fit in the arms
imports figures in ivpee values in the budgets since they constitute around
60 per cent in the first three years. The stores budget of the Indian armed
forces is nearer 30-40 per cent, of which imports .are only a iraction.
Curiously, the Bofors gun deal, running into several hundreds of
millions of dollars and originating from Sweden, did not feature in the
list of India's anns imports. On the other hand, all Dornier aircraft were
shown as military imports, while the majority were meant for civil
aviation. Some years earlier, before the Bofors deal was signed, SIPRI
attributed to India an import of $2 billion from the US for the same
155 mm gun. In those days, that fictitious figure pushed up India's ranking
as an arms importer.
Since India does not release its relevant figures, outside agencies
come up with their own unrealistic figures and the rest of the world tends
to accept them. International public opinion and the diplomacy of other
countries towards this country are influenced by such exaggerated figures.
The leadership in India does not appear to have calculated the costs of
its policy of silence. This counterproductive attitude on transparency is
to be traced to our politicians' inadequate knowledge in matters of national
and international security and the generalist orientation of our bureaucracy,
both military and civil.

5
The Anns Bazaar
When it is a~ged that some of those who have been

urging the country to diversify its anns purchases were influenced by
anns agents, it implies that if anns transactions take place between govern-
ments, it eliminates the middlemen and rids transactions of kickbacks.
This is a simplistic view. Anns transactions do not take place in free
market conditions, and invariably imply politico-strategic aspects. The
wpplier nation can block a transaction on political as also security consi-
derations. A country can argue that a particular anns transaction is politic-
ally undesirable and goes against its traditional policy; that the equipment,
especially of advanced state of technology, may get compromised, and
also certain related weapon systems or subsystems should not be released.
The manufacturer bas to get over these hurdles, through influencing
politicians and officials. In the recipient country, the decision has to be
similarly influenced in favour of a transaction. Politicians may be
persuaded or may need to be influenced: they might say that a particular
country needs to be given preference for political considerations.
Anns manufacturers usually consider attempts to influence politicians
and officials (both civil and military) as essential. They retain agents in
recipient countries, who may not appear publicly as middlemen. Running
down a rival's equipment is part of the sales tactics. So called "investi-
gative reports", published in newspapers giving relative merits of equip-
ment, and alleging that undue influence is being exercised in favour of
certain equipment, are other tactics. Recall, for instance, the apparently
learned and analytical articles published during the Jaguar- Mirage contro-
versy or the medium gun deal. In 1983, a full-page Insight team article
appeared in The Statesman denouncing the Austrian gun.
The glossy defence literature and defence analysts play a role in
pushing arms markets. Usually, the magazines are subsidized, both directly
and through advertisements. Many western strategic institutions are also
beneficiaries of the munificence of major armament firms. Articles are
published in these journals running down indigenous R&D efforts (like

The Arm., Bazaar SS
our main battle tank, light combat aircraft or missile programmes),

purchase of equipment from the Soviet Union and advncating greater
reliance on western equipment. The elite in a developing country,
including some ex-Service officers who are not adequately familiar with
the intricacies of weapon evaluation, do get taken in.
British prime mioisten have always been effective salesmen of British
arms whenever they went on foreign tours. In India, people would recall
the Westland helicopters, subsequently found substandard, were passed
on as part of aid in the mid- l 980s. Margaret Thatcher secured the largest
arms sale contract from Saudi Arabia. During his visit to India in January
1993, John Major canvassed support for the sale of Hawk trainer aircraft
to India. On his way back, he stopped in Muscat and Saudi Arabia and
concluded successful arms deals.
Prime mioisten and heads of state of all industrialized arms-producing
countries do not hesitate to act as arms salesmen. Olof Palme of Sweden
and Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria, who had great reputation as
advocates of peace, did not hesitate to canvass for the sale of 155 mm
gun to India during their visits to this country; Palme was more successful.
The fallout is the Bofors scandal.
Some of these countries, like Sweden and Austria, assert that they
have a policy of not selling arms to countries in areas of tension and if
there are possibilities of a war involving the buyer country. No country
buys defence equipment unless it anticipates the need to use such equip-
ment in war, however low the probability. The contention that it is proper
to sell war equipment to a country which may not ~ it in the immediate
future, and not when it needs it urgently as it expects a war, is hypocritical.
Luckily for us, substandard equipment has not been foisted on OW'
forces. The Lockheed deal with West Germany led to that country manu-
facturing an aircraft rejected by the US Air Force itself, the F-104
Starfighter. More than two hundred German pilots perished in crashes,
including the son of a defence minister. The provision of substandard
ammunition by King Farouk infuriated the Egyptian army, which on
losing the war with Israel seized power in 1952.
When deals involve hundreds of millions of dollars, delays of even
days cost money, and the executives of armament firms cannot afford to
spend days in Delhi waiting for appointments. Agents, with access to
government circles and media personnel and proven competence in public
relations, fix appoin~ents with ministers and high dignitaries, watch the
movement of files and give the necessary push. Agents also come in
handy as persom with adequate knowledge about the procedures, decision-

making process, attitudes and behaviour patterns in the target market (in
this case the Ministry of Defence).
Kickbacks in major anns deals are a fact of life. Lockheed bribed
Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands, Prime Minister K.akuei Tanaka of
Japan, the then defence minister of West Germany, Indonesian generals,
and Italian government leaders. Samuel Cummings of lnterarmco and
Adnao Khashoggi are typical products of this kickback culture. The French
are known to grease their way to large anns sales. In the late 1980s,
there were references to large kickbacks in UK-Saudi arms deals and
the Prime Minister's son's name was mentioned.
Most western annament ftnns take it for granted that hardly any arms
transaction can be conducted with developing nations without having to
pay kickbacks. Kickbacks on an arms deal are the surest opening to
intelligence penetration of our national security apparatus. Politicians
and senior bureaucrats (both civil and military) who receive kickbacks
render themselves vulnerable to blackmail by external intelligence
agencies, which operate in close liaison with major annarnent ftnns.
From kickbacks on individual deals, the external intelligence agencies
can proceed to apply pressure on highly and vitally placed persons to get
information out of them, compromising the country's security. Some
scandals are deliberately leaked out to apply pressure on certain other
highly placed individuals.
Henry Kissinger has spoken of getting information on India's plans
during the Bangladesh war from a cabinet-level official. The cultivation
of such sources involves prolonged effort and careful nurturing over a
period of time. Many agents of foreign annarnent ftnns, perhaps unwit-
tingly in some cases, play the role of talent scouts for foreign intelligence
agencies.
Espionage rings, with tentacles into the Defence Ministry, have as
their target the decisiOP-making process for large defence purchases. It
has been publicized that the Army Headquarters made recommendations
in favour of the French gun in the 1980s six times. Why it became
necessary to make the recommendation so many times, and on what
grounds it was turned down by the Defence Ministry each time, must
remain a mystery.
In early 1993, a former intelligence chief of France claimed that India
buying 40 Mirage 2000 aircraft of French origin in the 1980s was an
instance of the success of French intelligence. It may well be true that in
the first half of the 1980s our decision-making apparatus was quite porous.
The centralization of decision-making in the Prime Minister's Office

The Arms Bazaar 51
(PMO) made it a logical and easy target for all espionage agencies in
India. Since a number of money-raising transactions for the benefit of
the party were also believed to be happening around the PMO, it was
perhaps difficult for cowiter-intelligeace organizations to focus on the
activities and accretion of wealth of low-level officials in the PMO.
The French claim, however, seems a little exaggerated. The Mirage
2000 deal was concluded in a one-horse race. The US did not offer F-16
aircraft to India. Northrop did some commercial lobbying to sell its
F-20s to India, but the IAF would not look at an aircraft that had not
been accepted by the US Air Force. The Indian defence minister sowided
the visiting Soviet defence minister Marshal Ustinov in February 1982
about MiG-29, but the latter hemmed and hawed, presumably because
the aircraft was not fully developed yet. Indira Gandhi was under pressure
to acquire a detenent capability vis-a-vis the F-16s the US was then
delivering to Pakistan. Naturally, the French got the deal. Their espionage
may have been of some help, but hardly likely to have swung the deal
decisively.
The game of intelligence in commercial deals, including arms deals,
is, however, double-edged. In the process of canvassing for the Mirage
2000, the French may have lost something. They were nursing a large
lobby to sell their 155 mm gwis to India The crackdown on Coomar
Narain espionage gang and expulsion of the French defence attache and
recall of the ambassador put them at a disadvantage in early 1986, when
the medium gun deal came up for consideration. Their earlier behaviour
did affect their credibility. For a long time, the French gun was also
nmning a one-horse race, having conditioned a large number of the people
concerned to favour it. The French presumably lost their access to
information that could have made them offer a better deal than Bofors.
The Americans have an advantage over others in securing anns deals.
With the vast CIA network at their disposal, they first make available
scary intelligence to the country concerned and then sell it anns and also
promise a security relationship. This way they have been able to divest
Saudi Arabia of a good proportion of its oil riches and still sell more
arms to it on credit.
Often in transactions involving sensitive technology or weapons, very
delicate considerations are involved. In 1992, there was a case where a
top executive of Ferranti, a large firm involved in defence high technology
was convicted of misappropriation of hundreds of millions of dollars
and illegal transfer of defence technology to South Africa. A former
deputy director of the CIA wrote to the judge concerned to show him

58 Shedding Sllibboleths
leniency since be had in the past been very useful to the US intelligence
community.
••••
The then Defence Minister K.C. Pant announced in early 1989 that the
government was planning to export defence equipment, marking a
· departure for India's armament production industry. Barring occasional
sales worth a few crores, India has not figured in the world's arms bazaar,
even though it has one of the largest arms industries among developing
nations. China, North and South Korea, Egypt and Brazil are developing
nations who have entered the market in a big way. They made immense
profits through sales of arms during the Iraq-Iran war. India resisted the
pressure from both sides, and the temptation. Pakistan advertises its
ammunition in many defence magazines of the West
This is a highly competitive market. The countries that can pay ready
cash, notably the oil-exporting countries, look for state-of-the-art equip-
ment. If India is to sell its latest equipment, it will have to invest on
creating larger capacities. Normally, the capacity is determined by the
production required to meet the country's projected needs over an 8-10
year period. In contrast, the French typically create two to three times
the capacity needed to equip their own forces. They handed over the first
batch of Mirage 2000s to India even before the French Air Force had
any significant number of this aircraft, displaying the priority they give
to exports. Can the Indian armed forces wait while export orders are
filled? Will our finance ministry agree to sanction much larger capacities
than needed for our own forces?
Countries selling arms are not unduly bothered about how the
adversaries of their arms recipients view these sales: they are willing to
sell to them as well. Can we withstand such displeasure? An assessment
of the political costs will depend on the image we wish to project, and
our calculations of financial gains on a case-by-case basis.
The Chinese have been prepared to sell unconventional weaponry
such as missiles. When the Minister made his announcement, it was not
clear whether India would be selling latest weapons like infantry combat
vehicles (ICV), T-72 and Arjun tanks, and unconventional weapons like
the Prithvi missile. (Selling ICVs and T-72s would have required Soviet
concurrence.) Whether a country that hesitated to conduct Agni missile
tests for fear of international repercussions would be selling Prithvis and
Trishuls around the world remains to be seen.

The Anm Bazaar 59
Arms sales often require.extension of credit or counter-trade arrange-

ments. The US, France and Britain extend credits; the Soviet Union and
China are agreeable to counter-trade. Extending credit would be difficult
for India; counter-trade is more feasible, but it will depend upon what
the arms buyer has to offer in return. .
Arms trade is not like any other commercial transaction. Very often the
selling countries throw in sweeteners like large-scale training programmes.
That is usually a major selling point. Also, often but not necessarily
always, arms trade is associated with kickbacks in both recipient and
selling countries. We have not been able to become a major exporter of
arms, perhaps because we are still learning how to organize kickbacks.
We had a chance to learn when the Shah ruled Iran: when his own
downfall came, he was in the preliminary stages of inducting this country
into that phase.
Arms importers in the developing world may be categorized into four
groups. The first are those which have surplus cash and can pay for the
arms imports across the counter. These are the oil-exporting countries
and high-income developing countries such as ASEAN, South Korea,
Taiwan, etc. They generally opt for western armaments.
The second category comprises nations strategically significant for
the US, to whom credit is extended. Pakistan was till recently in this
category. There are others in Latin America and elsewhere. With the
cold war coming to an end, these transactions have slowed down. France
and Sweden extended credits to India for purchase of Mirage 2000 and
Bofors 155 mm guns.
The third category used to be importers from the Soviet Union who
also obtained long-term credit.
The fourth·category are developing nations involved in ongoing wars
which find it difficult to obtain imports because of certain political reasons
(such as Iran and Iraq) and were, therefore, compelled to purchase any
armament from any country.
Even if India opted to sell arms it would not be entering a seller's
market. It is possible for this country to establish itself over a period of
time as exporter of low- and medium-technology military hardware. That
may yield not insignificant export earnings. But if we are to emulate
China, we should be prepared to sell a range of missiles we are currently
developing. Nag, Trishul, Akash, and Prithvi are likely to have markets.
If that is to be done, we have to plan deliberately for additional production
capacities to accommodate exports.

Structure and Personnel Policy
of the _._.,.____ed Forces
•
General Colin Powell was a four-star general at the age

of 52, and was nominated by Presipent Bush for the post of Chait t11an of
the Chiefs of Staff Committee. The Soviet Army Chief, General Mikhail
Moiseyev, was also around fifty when he reached the top. In the US and
the USSR, the selection for the top post is made after superseding several,
sometimes more than ten, people. This does not evoke adverse press
comment; the Senate invariably approves the President's nomination. If
a person becomes Chief of Staff or Chair rnan of the Chiefs of Staff
Committee in his early fifties, he should have become a Major General
in his early forties, and a Lieutenant Colonel in his early thirties. The US
and Soviet systems permit promotions very rapidly to the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel in cases where a person is thought to merit that kind
of advancement.
In India, we have developed a. badition of promoting an officer after
he crosses 57 to be the Anny Chief, not allowing him even three years in
the job. An officer, commissioned at the age of 20, has to wait for at
least seventeen to eighteen years to become Lieutenant Colonel, when he
is very nearly 40. He becomes Brigadier in his late forties, Major General
in his early fifties, and Lieutenant General around 55 or 56. Having
perpetuated this structure and career profile, Army officers complain
about a Lieutenant Colonel being equated with an Under-Secretary, a
Brigadier with a Director and a Joint Secretary with a Major General. In
the IAS or IPS, an officer becomes a District Magistrate or Superintendent
of Police or a Battalion Commander of an Armed Police Battalion in
about eight years of service or less. By the time the Army promotes an
officer to Lieutenant Colonel, an officer in the IAS or Foreign Service is
Joint Secretary, which is the policy-making level.
During the world wars, promotions were rapid and officers with six
years or less of service becarne Lieutenant Colonels and led battalions
.....
Original from
Structure and Personnel Policy of the Armed Forces 61
into battle. Instead of tJying to think through the problem of how to

promote meritorious officers rapidly, the anned forces demanded and
got cadre reviews, which resulted in upgiadation of a n,1mber of senior
posts. The results of the cadre reviews, even according to many Service
officers, have been bizarre~ Battalion commanders were upgraded to
Colonel, with the result that middle-aged men, instead of agile youngsters
in their thirtjes, are leading our jawans into operations. So many senior
posts have been upgraded that an Anny Commander with Lieutenant
General's rank has under him some eight or ten officers of the same
rank. No one would expect that kind of rank structuring to lead to smooth
functioning of formations.
The upgradation in the senior posts carried out
•
in the cadre reviews of
1980 and 1984, also, could not be matched by the nonnal intake of
officers, particularly through short service commissions. The lingering
shortage of officers at the cutting edge of the anned forces it was 9000
in the rank of Captain in the Army, 900 in the rank of Squadron Leader
and below in the Air Force, and 700-800 officers in the Navy in 1992-
is, in part, a result of this lopsided policy (the other reason being the
military service losing its attraction for much of the cream of youth). It
has also led to battalions being led by officers in the middle forties, and
in turn has affected the operational effectiveness of troops, as noticed in
the IPKF campaign in Sri Lanka.
The cadre review came about this way: In 1978, disgt t,ntled armed
police battalions, CISF and the CRPF mutinied. The Army was called in
to suppress the mutiny, which it did expeditiously. The Janata govetaament
then decided to improve the policemen's conditions of service. Then it
became necessary to do so also for the armed forces. The principle was
that the men of the BSF should have somewhat better service conditions
than the police, and the anned forces better than the BSF. Then police
officers pressed their demands focusing on upgradation of posts. The
demand originated from the cadre management practice in the IAS, where
all officers move from one grade to another on the basis of seniority; in
very rare cases only is an officer's promotion held back. Our political
leadership in the 1970s, advocating a committed bureaucracy, brought
about this mediocratization. Toe IAS has five grades; there are, in addition,
the posts of Chief Secretary in the state and Secretaries to the Union
Government. The ICS had only a junior scale and a senior scale, and a
few posts on salaries higher than those, filled on merit. To promote
whole batches of IAS men to super-time scale (equivalent of Joint
Secretaries in the Union govei11ment), and Additional Secretaries grade
~
Original from
in the Union government, the state govetaaments started to upgrade posts

in the states wholesale. It also helped them to shuffle out and ·s~deline
independent-minded officers. From the IAS, this practice spread to the
IPS. As the political parties ruling in the states increasingly opted to
'
politicize the administration, they felt the need to co-opt the police service.
more than t.hey did the IAS. Following improvement in service conditions
of the police personnel in 1979, the Central Police Services also de1nanded
and got wholesale upgradations. The armed forces decided to follow
suit. They made their demands at a time when the government could not
resist them and also it had to act very quickly.
No doubt the officer corps of the a11ned forces had legitimate
grievances about service conditions, relating to the premature retirement
age of the officers, housing, schooling and educational facilities for their
children, and sluggish career advancement. An officer in the armed forces
took eighteen years to get independent charge as Battalion Commander,
while in the IAS and IPS it happened in six years.
The best part of an army officer's career, the first eighteen years, are
spent in various low-ranking posts before becoming Lieutenant Colonel,
which used to give him independent responsibility. Now even that has
been upgraded, and hence it takes some twenty-two years. Thereafter, in
the ranks where he has a chance to influence policy, or help to make
policy such as Brigadiers and Major Generals, he spends some eight
years. In each rank he has to do both a staff posting and a command
posting for t\µ'ther career advancrment. Subsequently, he can stay in
each posting only for a short period, less than two years. This is not long
enough to do innovative thinking or make a contribution to any change
in policy or procedures. He can only hold the posts, and discharge his
responsibilities in those posts, and move on.
This was, perhaps, all right for a status quo-oriented army, as ·the
British Indian Army was. Today, the Indian Anny is changing its equip-
ment once every fifteen years. The induction of new equipment and new
technologies also calls for new tactical and strategic doctrines to be
evolved. The jobs in command, staff and instructional establishments
are far more demanding than they used to be in the leisurely days of the
1930s or even '50s. The sharp distinction between war and peace that
used to exist ·in the pre-1945 era has disappeared. Sri Lanka, the Maldives,
the Sino-Indian border skirmish in 1986-87, Siachen, and the confronta-
tion with Pakistan in the winter of 1986-87 are all exercises in coercive
diplomacy. The actual use of force, the threat to use force, the demonstra-
tion of power to signal such an intent, confidence-building measures,
Original from
cordial relations and active military cooperation through ar1ns transfers

to friendly nations, futm a continuous spectrum in international relations.
Today, senior armed forces officers should know as much about inter-
national relations and foreign policy as senior Foreign Service officials
should about how to exploit the country's military capability. This is a
neglected dimension in IIaining of both our senior Service officers as
•
well as senior Foreign Service officers.
In the nature of their duties and their structure, the armed forces are
different from the civil services. Their service structure has to be
pyramidal, unlike the civil service and even the police service. Hence,
their de1nands could not be met in the same way as those of the police
and civil service. To keep the army young, it is logical the officers have
to move up at various stages,.
or retire -and move laterally to a civil job.
The present career profile of an army officer taking some twenty-odd
years to become Colonel, and thereafter flashing through ranks of
Brigadier, Major General and Lieutenant General in the next 12-13 years
does not make sense. They need to be enabled to move rapidly through
lower ranks, dwell longer in the middle ranks, and spend adequate time
in the senior ranks to be able to influence policy-making. The Battalion
Commander is the linchpin of the army, and has to be young to lead his
men into battle. In the civil services or even the police, youth is not an
essential requirement. The armed forces must have their jawans young,
as also the Battalion Commanders, Wing Commanders and Commanders
of the Navy.
The problern is how to ensure that a percentage of meritorious service
officers will be made Lieutenant Colonels in their early thirties, Major
Generals in their forties, and Lieutenant Generals in their early fifties, so
that the brighter senior Service officers will have spent at least twenty-
five years of their career at the level of Lieutenant Colonel and above.
Only then will they be able to serve long enough tenures as Brigadiers
and Major Generals, where they should spend the longest span of their
service. Since the armed forces have to be necessarily pyramidally struc-
tured, and not everyone who is commissioned can go beyond Lieutenant
Colonel, there has to be a scheme to ensure that at an early stage in their
career, in their thirties, those who are not likely to advance further in
their career are given an option to bansfer laterally to civil employment
on the basis of a competitive examination.
Secondly, a sufficiently large percentage of officers' posts say a
third of the sbength-should be for promotion from enlisted ranks. Those
who enlist as soldiers and are commissioned after a few years of service
Original from
will be satisfied if they reach the rank of Major or Lieutenant Colonel.

This will be analogous to promotion from the ranks to grade II and then
grade I in the civilian sector. Such avenues for promotion to officer
ranks will also atbact better men to enlist as soldiers. Lastly, those who
have to retire in their late forties or early fifties should be paid a pension
on full pay till the age of 58, and thereafter the no11nal pension. Within
this broad framework, a scheme could be worked out to remove some of
the extreme distortions created by the cadre reviews.
Today, Chiefs of Staff, Vice and Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Army, Air
Force and Navy Commanders-in-Chief and the Principal Staff Officers
are too preoccupied with their chores to devote adequate attention to
long-teirn planning. For instance, the Defence Planning Staff had three
chiefs in as many years during 1986-89. There was also a rapid turnover
of the other personnel in the DPS, defeating the very purpose of creating
the organization.
Yet another negative consequence of slow career movement up to
Lieutenant Colonel and very fast transit through the ranks thereafter is
the lack of opportunities for senior officers to equip themselves for higher
posts, which involve long-range, future-oriented planning. The defect
applies to the civil services as well, perhaps to a greater degree. Today,
in the US armed forces large numbers of officers are allowed to enrol in
the best universities. They earn their degrees in university campuses, not
staff colleges or second-grade military. studies departments, as is the
case in India. Many officers in the US on retirement are able to occupy
professorial chairs in prestigious universities. In India, Defence Service
-
officers do not attend any other course to update their knowledge·after
attending the Staff College and the National Defence College courses. A
few civil service officers and fewer defence service officers get an oppor-
tunity to attend courses abroad, but they are all at a fairly middle level.
•••
•
When India became a republic and the President of India was proclaimed
the Supreme Commander of the armed forces consequential changes
became necessary in the Army, Navy and Air Force Acts and designations
of the Service Chiefs. At that stage we haq an Indian as Army Chief (the
third incumbent in that post), an Indian had just· become the Air Force
Chief and a British man was still the Naval Chief. According to General
J.N. Chaudhuri, who was then the Chief of General Staff, he prepared
the paper for the Chiefs of Staff Committee, to be bansmitted to the
Original from
Structure and Personnel Policy of the Armed Forces 6S
gover 11ment, in which the Service Chiefs proposed that they should have
the powers and the role of the Commander-in-Chief of India during the
British Raj subject to. the modification that they would function under
the authority of the civilian Defence Minister responsible to Parliament
in democratic India. Obviously, they overlooked that the Commander-
in-Chief of India in the British Raj, in spite of his membership of the
Viceroy's Executive Council and his protocol status, was only a theatre
commander in the British imperial defence system. He did not make the
national security policy of India as there was no India-centric national
security policy independent of the broader British interests. When India
became independent, the Indian officer corps had a history of twenty-
seven years only. Only·three had commanded a brigade in World War II.
Jawabarlal Nehru, p~1•1 1ably in his ignoran~ of such matters relating
to national security planning, accepted the recommendations of the Chiefs
of Staff. The civilians in the Ministry of Defence were not better info,med
either. Consequently, the Chiefs of Staff under the new legislation became
independent juridical personalities outside the gover 11ment. While they
were subordinate to the Defence Minister, they were not part of the
Ministry of Defence. The Defence Minister created for himself an
independent secretariat and that expanded over the years. Because of
this development the Chiefs of Staff lost their proximity to the Defence
Minister and their duly entitled roles as the primary professional advisers
on national security matters. Further, they combined in themselves two
roles. First and forernost they were the chiefs of their respective forces
responsible for their operational functions. Secondly, they were Chiefs
of Staff who have to plan for future security contingencies.
Understandably, they gave higher priority to their frrst role. Conse-
quently, they had less time for the vital second function of preparing the
country for its security future. Further, as a theatre command, the culture
of the India General Headquarters in the British Raj was command culture.
What India badly needed in national security planning was a collegiate
decision-making culture. In Britain there were Anny, Navy and Air Force
councils. Nehru promised in Parliament that similar councils would be
constituted in India. That promise was never fulfilled since the Indian
Service Chiefs did not relish sitting along with their Principal Staff
Officers under the chait·rnanship of a Minister of State and having
decisions taken in the light of the views expressed by all of them.
The result was a culture of ad-hocist decision-making in the Service
headquarters with the Chief of Staff being the sole deciding authority.
The Defence Minister not being well versed in operational or

technological military matters dealt with the chiefs in all areas through
the officials of bis ministry. They were all generalists from the ICS and
then IAS because no other persons were available. For that matter, the
armed forces were also generalists except in their familiarity with the
equipment and military ope1ations perhaps up to Brigade level at that time.
Toe Services and the politicians were not comfortable with each other.
Toe ICS men had a condescending attitude towards the Service officers.
Intelligence bad a very suspicious attitude towards the Services, especially
after Ayub Khan's military talceover. Toe much-needed synergy for
effective natiooal security management through the interaction of these
different components of security establishment was totally absent Toe
Prime Minister and the Defence Minister had the primary responsibility
to create it and they failed. Toe result was that there was continuous
tension among the Defence Services, the civil services and intelligence.
In other countries there is considerable socializing among the politicians
and high-level officials, military, civil and intelligence. That culture is
absent in India. Even the club culture of the British Raj, which promoted
social interaction among the Service officials, civil servants and intelli-
gence services at senior levels, has faded away.
Toe way to rectify this anomaly is to adopt the recommendation of
the A.run Singh Committee, absorb the Chiefs ofStaff into the government,
relieve them of their operational command responsibilities and devolve
those powers on the theatre commanders and make them function as full.
time effective Chiefs of Staff to the Defence Minister, planning for
national security with a long-tenn perspective and future orientation.
Toe Chiefs will not be able to apply their minds adequately to long-tenn
force, equipment and facilities planning so long as they are preoccupied
with day-to-day responsibilities of being the overall force commander.
Toe demands by various Service officers for creation of the post of
Chief of Defence Staff without making the basic changes in the respon-
sibilities of Chiefs of Staff are misconceived. Before that post, or better
still, a full-time Chairman of the Chiefs of StaffCommittee is constituted,
it is necessary to absorb the Chiefs of Staff into the government and
relieve them of the operational and administrative responsibilities as
overall force commanders and devolve those powers on theatre
commanders. In Brit.1in, under the reform carried out by Michael Heseltine
the Chiefs of Staff w ,. only housekeepers for the respective Services and
the entire policy-making responsibility vests in CDS, with Service Chiefs
having very little input in policy. This is not appropriate for the Indian
conditions. •

With the Service Chiefs m:naining heads of departments outside the

government, they can only submit their plans and proposals to the govern-·
ment in the Ministry of Defence and wait for them to be processed by the
civilian Defence Ministry. Secondly, ·most of the Service Chiefs' time is
taken by their day-to-day chores of administering the force, and these
chores pre-empt the time and effort that should be applied to future--
oriented planning and reforms. Thirdly, our Services headquarters still
function under the command culture appropriate for a theatre command
and not the managerial and planning culture which would befit a national
headquarters. Fowthly, there is no integration between the Services and
the civilian staff of the Ministry of Defence with clearly defined national
security aim and goals which would enable them to function in a frame.
work of management by defined objectives. The civilian component of
the Ministry of Defence functions as though they are meant to be checks
on the Services while their real purpose should be how to formulate and
implement a coherent national security plan most cost-effectively. Instead
of their roles being mutually supportive they often are adversarial. In the
circumstances, no Chief is ever able to achieve any plan or objective
which at the start of his tenure be tasks bi~lfto implement.
••••
Out of twenty-eight developing countries with population of more than
20 million, India is among the three which have not bad any military inter-
vention or dominance over the government. It is the only liberal demQcracy
among them. For various reasons of historical legacy, traditions, structures
and procedures developed in the initial years of the Indian republic, the
armed forces never bad any incentive to intervene in politics. Even today
this position bas not changed. As an institution, the armed forces continue
to remain apolitical, notwithstanding the understandable interest taken of .
late by retired armed forces officers in party politics.
One can rule out the contingency of a man on horseback forcibly
taking over the government in India. The reason is simple. India, to
quote Galbraith's apt description, is a functioning anarchy, and it is
becoming less and less functional. It is much too complex to be governed
purely administratively. That was the lesson taught to this country by
nineteen months of Indira Gandhi's Emergency.
Drawn from middle and lower middle classes and exposed to the
rough and tumble of democratic politics, the Indian Army officer class,
by and large, does not fancy itself in the role of governing the country. It

is the relatively small compact armies with officer corps drawn from a
teslri\.1ed area and stratum of society, with most officers entering the
army as cadets, which usually stage coups. The Indian armed forces are
not a very cohesive and compact force officered by cadres drawn from a
ItSlrictcd area, from a narrow stratum of class hierarchy and trained and
conditioned through a single stream of militaristic ethos. If seven Indian
Army generals are locked up in a room they will be unable to agree on
any non-military objective, much less fundamental than taking over the
State.
The problem is not of Army intervention in affairs of State, but that
the armed forces are being slowly and steadily sucked into law-and-
order duties, which ought to be effectively handled by police forces, and
low-intensity conflicts (LIC), which are best left to paramilitary forces.
The use of the Anny, which is essentially an instrument for W1differen-
tiated use of force, in law-and-order situations or LIC is bound to result
in more force being used than strictly necessary. The fault is not of the
Army but of those who lacked the necessary competence to use para-
military forces selectively and effectively. Being increasingly preoccupied
with internal law and order, the Anny may lose its effectiveness as an
instrument to deter external aggression. It may also result in its expan-
sion and higher defence outlay. In 1993, the Parliamentary Committee of
Home Affairs in its report to Parliament also made the point that frequent
deployment of the Army for maintaining law and order may lead to a
weak Anny at the time of external threats. The committee highlighted
that the BSF was being used for internal security duties and the ITBP
was deployed for bank security. The CISF is also deputed for internal
security. This kind of redeployment can hardly ensure that the forces are
proficient in carrying out their allocated duties. In the earlier conventional
law-and-order duties, the Anny's involvement used to be very short and
the local civilian magistracy was always available to answer the Press,
domestic and foreign. In the situations now handled by the Anny, the
operations continue for months. Inevitably, the human rights issues arising
out of the operations of the security forces attract worldwide attention.
The Anny is an instrument of force intended mainly to be used against
an organized enemy and to overwhelm it by superior force in the area of
operation. It is not meant to be used as a surgical instrument. It can no
doubt be adapted to be used that way, but at some cost of losing part of
its combat-worthiness for regular war operations. Secondly, the Anny
must have a nationalist image and, therefore, should not be frequently or
continuously used against the civil population.

Since retiring servicemen are all in middle age and life expectancy in
India is going up, their pension budget is an ever-growing burden on the
national exchequer. Some projections in the late 1980s showed the
pensions expenditure would exceed the pay and allowances of the Services
in another decade. It is possible not only to effect savings in this
expenditure but also use the services of the retiring personnel to accelerate
national development Straightaway some Rs 10,000 crorc for the next
five years can be saved if the ex-servicemen are not discharged with a
meagre pension to find their own career but are laterally transferred to
government employment and thereby pensions are saved. A government
attempting to make the right to work a fundamental right cannot justifiably
throw out the servicemen on die sheets aft.er their service with a meagre
pension. Do they not have the same right to a lifetime employment that
any other person entering public service bas? Is it not unfair to deny the
servicemen the employment tenure extended to sweq>e1s in government
schools (up to the age of 58)? Everyone entering civil employment bas a
right to service till the age of 58. It is unfair that servicemen do not get
this right, mostly because vested interests in civilian services block their
lateral entry into their ranks. Setting right this anomaly is not a question
of manpower management by the Ministry of Defence alone but the
government as a whole.
The basic assumption in recruiting in earlier years was that semiliterate
peasants of certain castes and classes made the best soldiers. After serving
in the forces, they returned to their villages and resumed their traditional
agricultural occupation. This practice worked for several generations,
with the practice being elevated to a doctrinal assertion about the superior
''martial" races.
A number of factors slowly modified this practice. First, the Army of
the independent Indian republic bas to be a national army in which people
from all religious, linguistic and ethnic groups are eligible to take part.
Such a broad representation contributes to stability as well as the apolitical
nature of the armed forces by ensuring that no group---n:gional, religious,
linguistic or ethnic- gets a disproportionately large representation.
Secondly, with industrializ.ation and moderni7.lltion of agriculture and
development of tertiary sector, it is becoming financially less attractive
to some of the so-called martial classes (mainly from Punjab) to join the
armed forces.
Thirdly, with the increasing mechanization and induction of

sophisticated weaponry and equipment in the forces, semiliterate people

from rural areas do not fill the bill. The soldier, sailor or airman has to
band.le very sophisticated equipment and has to be capable of following
instructions and literature regarding their use. Lastly, it is becoming
difficult for younger middle-aged servicemen released from services to
get reabsorbed in traditional occupations. In the absence of such opportun-
ities, many remain unemployed, thereby posing a potential law-and-order
problem. •
While the country faces large-scale urban unemployment, it also has
schools in rural areas without teachers, primary health centres without
adequate staffing, and vast areas under environmental stress (such as
denuded mountain slopes) where urban people do not want to go and
work. In these circumstances, it is worth examining whether Service
personnel, instead of being released and left to fend for themselves in the
open market, cannot be laterally moved and offered civil development
employment. This proposal would do justice to our servicemen, improve
the quality of men offering themselves to serve in the armed forces,
reduce defence-related pension expenditure, and enable us to finance
our modemiz.ation programme.
· Such employment of servicemen could preferentially be considered
for ecological development such as reforestation of denuded mountain
slopes, area development around border roads, rural primary education
and health care. C. Subramaniam, when he was Defence Minister, thought
of creating ecological battalions to reforest the Himalayas. When such a
policy leads to accelerated development and !ligber growth, it should in
turn generate employment at a faster rate. The amount of pension saved
can go into investment or towards reduction of the budgetary deficit.
One argument made against such a policy is that it will block younger
people getting employment. But this overlooks the unfilled jobs which
servicemen, conditioned to serve in rural areas and hardship conditions,
could be persuaded to take up.
General K. Sundarji as Army Chief bad worked out some tentative
ideas on this subject. Lt. Gen. M.L. Chibber, formerly bead of the Northern
Command, bas taken considerable interest in manpower questions and
bas written extensively about them. The problem needs to be examined
in detail by the Resettlement Directorate using some ex-Service officers.
The issue that needs to be considered is: how do the skills, training,
discipline and outlook of ex-servicemen compare with those of an average
person of equivalent education available in the job market? The
advantages of employing ex-servicemen need to be assessed, as also the

Structure and Personnel Policy of the Anned Forces 11
difficulties in fitting them into various government and public sector

employment slots at middle level. It is necessary in this context to find
out the extent of vacancies in development-oriented jobs in rural areas.
It is necessary to find out what is the actual availability of manpower
for forest conservation, reforestation, desilting of irrigation sources and
development around border roads. If ex-servicemen are to be used for
the purpose, can they be absorbed individually or should they be used in
paramilitary formations like the general reserve engineering force of the
Border Roads Organization? A small study group could be organiml to
examine these issues in detail and submit a report to the government.

7
Revamping Intelligence
In the wake of India's 1962 debacle, there was a nation-

wide outcry about lack of intelligence having led to the nation• s humilia-
tion. There was, however, no failure in the collection of intelligence. The
failure, an abysmal one, was in compiling and assessing it.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) reported to the Defence Minister in early
July 1962 that, according to its reliable source, the Chinese Consul General
in Calcutta had told some Indian communists that there would be Chinese
military action in autumn that year. Those who saw the note were: the
Defence Minister; Joint Secretary (General Staff) in the Ministry of
Defence, H.C. Sarin; the Chief of General Staff, General B.M. Kaul; and
the Chief of Anny Staff, General P.N. Thapar. The Director of Military
Intelligence did not get to see the m's note.
Piecemeal intelligence on Chinese deployment in Tibet was available.
Nehru was also well posted with the developments in the Sino-Soviet
dispute. But be persuaded himself that either the Chinese would restrict
themselves to patrol clashes; and if they invaded India massively, that
would lead to a wider war involving other nations. It did not occur to
him that by making a deep penetration and then withdrawing, the Chinese
could inflict a deep humiliation on India. Nehru blundered in 1962,
because he failed to ensure that a competent system of national security
decision-making was in place. Had the system been effective, there would
have been meaningful interaction between the political and military leader-
ships to assess China's list of options and possible Indian response. The
Indian military staff also could have organized war games to explore the
range of Chinese options.
It was India's misfortune that Nehru downwards, there was no one
who could pull his weight to adequately appreciate the role of intelligence,
•
especially strategic. The reporting agency was allowed to become an
assessment agency as well, overlooking the fundamental distinction
between compilation of intelligence and its assessment.
In 1962, Director m, B.N. Mullick, reported directly to Nehru, Krishna
Menon and the Anny Chief. His reports were accurate. He also gave bis

Revamping Intelligence 73
personal assessment on whether the Chinese would resort to use of force,

with appropriate caveats. But everyone in authority who heard him
remembered his assessment and forgot his cautionary notes. The political
leadership's interface with the military-then as now- was a very
structured one. 1be Defence Committee of the Cabinet never received a
formal intelligence briefing. It saw its role merely as considering and
approving proposals the Ministry of Defence put up to it, mostly procure-
ment proposals. The Prime Minister, and even the Defence Minister did
not ever interact with the military staff on operational issues. They merely
functioned within the defence decision-making framework handed down
by General Ismay, Secretary to the British War Cabinet during World
War II. But Britain was fortunate in having as prime minister Winston
Churchill, who was a lieutenant colonel in World War I, was unusually
well versed in military matters, was an innovative military thinker, and
was intensely involved in day-to-day war strategy. With all his intellectual
brilliance, Nehru lacked that background.
Hence, what happened was that Mullick advised India adopting a
containment policy, establishing posts in areas the Chinese had not till
then occupied. On the basis of available experience, Mullick's suggestion
was not an unreasonable one, and the Ministries of External Affairs and
Defence readily accepted it. But someone should have ~ked what would
happen if the Chinese were not to follow their past policy, and attempt to
use force. Had the political leaders, the military leadership, and the intelli-
gence community, professionally discussed things jointly, there might
have been a useful exchange of ideas on the full implications and the
associated risks of that stand.
With the kind of resources at its disposal then, Indian intelligence
could not have· known about all the Chinese decisions, especially those
of October 1962. They could have known, if at all-through their contacts
with US and British intelligence-about the US assurance to China in
late June 1962 that the US would not support a Guomindang attack on
China, and the subsequent transfer of Chinese troops to Tibet. But a
good assessment machinery would have put the jigsaw in place, and
indicated a steady build-up of Chinese forces in Tibet on those axes on
which they later launched their attacks.
From the outset, the intelligence setup was a victim of the policy of
making do. The 1B looked after external intelligence, with inadequate
resources. Even the role of collecting external intelligence was thrust on
an organintion that till India's independence mostly focused on domestic
intelligence.
The Defence Services had two sets of complaints about the intelligence

14 SMdding Shibboleths
scene then. First, that the IB, which was responsible for collecting external
intelligence as well (RAW was created only in the late 1960s), failed to
provide intelligence about the sbeogth of Chinese forces in Tibet, their
deployment, and their possible motivation. Second, that Mullick was
responsible not only for the collection of intelligence but also for its
assessment. He was exceedingly influential in the policy-making circles,
it was said, and he gave an impression that the Chinese would not resort
to force against India.
At the time, the Joint Intelligence Committee (IlC) was tasked with
providing assessed intelligence to the Army leadership and the Defence
Committee of the Cabinet. It got its inputs from the 1B and the Ministry
of External Affairs. Subsequent inquiries revealed, however, that the 1B
had been sending a stream of reports, but the IlC did not bother to
analyse them: had the 1B reports been properly assessed, a correct picture
of Chinese troop deployment and possible course of action would have
emerged. Mullick did not arrogate to himself the multiple roles he was
credited with playing. Rather, the civilian secretaries and the senior
military bureaucracy had abdicated their functions. Toe IlC met only
sporadically.
Toe government then decided to shift the nc out of the jurisdiction
of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and give it an independent status in the
Cabinet Secretariat. It was to have a full-time chairman of the rank of
Additional Secretary, and a full-time secretary of the rank of Brigadier
or his equivalent from the other two Services. It was specifically stipulated
that the chairman and the secretary should have an intelligence
background. But given the way things are handled in this country, the
first available ICS officer due for promotion as Additional Secretary was
made the IlC chairman. Thereafter, he was succeeded, till 1975, by other
generalist IAS officers. A saving grace was that the committee met
regularly and rendered its reports, but the Services were not satisfied
with the nc•s assessments. During the 1971 Bangladesh crisis, General
(now Field Marshal) Manekshaw created an ad hoc group under his
vice-chief to assess intelligence. Toe nc set-up was further upgraded in
1985; a full-time Secretary to the government became the chairman and
the secretariat was strengthened.
Of late, nc has been chaired by an officer of the intelligence services,
but often be starts with a handicap: the post, upgraded to Secretary level,
is a consolation prize for an officer either passed over or displaced for
political reasons. There is a steering committee of secretaries headed by
the Cabinet Secretary.

Revamping Intelligence 7S
Only when long-range intentions of an adversary are assessed is it

possible to have a policy to counter them, but none of the nc•s constituent
organi:ratiQDS is equipped to carry out long-range intelligence assessments.
Even when one is produced, as in 1978, busy secretaries have no time to
read documents running into several tens of pages. Both the Secretaries'
Committee and the Service Chiefs are generally interested in near-term
assessments. This, in tum, leads to the government and security agencies
engaging in fire-fighting all the time .
•••
•
The events of September 1965 once again proved that we bad not learnt
the importance of intelligence assessment Initially, after Pakistan's
aggression, there was an outcry that there bad been inadequate intelligence
about Pakistan's second armoured division and the viaducts constructed
under the irrigation canals Subsequently, it turned out that intelligence
on these bad already been there, but there were shortcomings in their
assessment and dissemination. We came through the aggression because
of the valiant and innovative tactics of officers and men in the field, but
we threw away a stunning victory, considering that Pakistan bad almost
exhausted its ammunition and we bad hardly used S-10 per cent of our
stockpiles: a few more days of war, and absolute victory would have
been ours.
When the Bangladesh crisis broke out in 1971, our forces were not
ready. It took another eight months preparation before they could go into
action, which resulted in avoidable casualties in Bangladesh and the
enormous refugee influx.
Next, about Sri Lanka, there was no detailed assessment of the compo-
sition of different Tamil resistance groups there. It was not asked why
there were many groups instead of a single united front, which the TIJLF
(famil United Liberation Front) was meant to be. It does not look as
though there was an in-depth assessment of the sociological composition
of different groups, their motivation and interrelationships, before our
armed forces were committed to peacekeeping operations. Operation
Bluestar, too, could have proved less costly in lives, had there been
adequate prior intelligence and assessment.
The Pakistani transborder terrorist offensive across Punjab, and later
Jammu and Kashmir, were also not anticipated and effectively countered.
Th!= Anny bad played a game 'akhri badla' (final revenge) as far back as
1986-87 and had hypothesized the likely course of action the Pakistani

leadership would adopt in Kashmir. Much of this hypothesis turned out

right; but nothing was done to counter the possible scenario.
•••• ''
If knowledge is power, monopoly of intelligence has even greater lure as I
power. Hogging intelligence, therefore, becomes a game played all over
the world. Bob Woodward's The Veil has something to say about it in
the US context. In India, we had the case of intelligence on the Pakistani
nuclear efforts in 1978-79 not being directly supplied to the nc. In
1987, there were differences between services intelligence and the external
intelligence agency on Pakistan's mobilization. Instead of the JIC
resolving the matter, stories came to be planted in our own press question-
ing the correctness of the information on Pakistani deployment. Since
director, RAW, and director, m, have direct access to the Prime Minister,
it is easy for them to curry favour with him/her, and influence policies on
a one-to-one basis, while the nc is left out in the cold, with its chairman
having to go through the Cabinet Secretary.
Complaints about vital information being withheld by the m and RAW
are heard from the defence services and even the Ministries of External
Affairs and Defence. The charges against the 1B do not make news,
since the main consumer ministry for it is the Home Ministry, but the
charges levelled against RAW are sometimes quite grave. In offering a
single-channel advice, there is also always a temptation for the intelligence
organization to report what the political boss would like to hear.
In the US, to ensure that intelligence agencies do not espouse their
parochial interests at the cost of national ones, outsiders are appointed as
heads of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, which corresponds to
our IB) and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, the RAW's counter-
part), thereby avoiding inbreeding in organizational leadership. In the
UK, on occasions a senior officer of one of the two intelligence services
is cross-posted as head of the other organiza.tion.
Direct access to and briefing the Prime Minister by directors RAW
and m are vital, but the Prime Minister needs to ensure that director
RAW reports to the Minister for External Affairs daily, and should ask
him whether he is making the information imparted to the PM directly
available to chairman, nc. The organizations concerned also should be
required to initiate action to ensure this. The intelligence collecting
agencies must be made aware that assess!}lents based on intelligence will
go before the Cabinet Committee, that it will not only discuss these but
also review past reporting and fix responsibility for lapses. Director, m, ,,
;
•

should keep informed the Home Minister and the chairman, nc. Every
fortnight the Cabinet Committee on National Security should have a
presentation on overall threat and intelligence assessment, by chairman,
nc. Such a presentation, and ensuing discussion, will reveal whether
there is any wilful withholding of intelligence.
All over the world, intelligence is done by the collecting agencies but
its assessment is done by a group of professionals. In India, the Cabinet
Secretary has neither the time nor the background to make the RAW
effectively accountable. The core group of secretaries are again overbur-
dened persons. Assessment requires debate among people more or less
equally knowledgeable. In the US, while the primary and overall
responsibility for intelligence collection and assessment is with the
Director, CIA, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the State Department
have their expert staff who can knowledgeably contest the CIA's views.
In India, the defence intelligence agencies and the Ministries of Defence
and External Affairs have little to contribute by way of expertise or
background information.
••••
In the US, there is clear understanding of the difference between current
intelligence and national intelligence estimate. Toe former comes from
different intelligence collection agencies; the latter is a product of the
National Intelligence Council, which coordinates views from the CIA,
the Defence Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Intelligence
and Research Bureau, and the intelligence units of the Departments of
Energy, Treasury and the FBI (the counter-intelligence agency). Toe
National Security Agency (NSA), which gathers electronic and communi-
cation intelligence (Elint and Comint) all over the world, reports to the
CIA. Toe heads of those organizations constitute the National Foreign
Intelligence Board, who approve of each national intelligence estimate
before it is sent to the President and other top officials. The President's
National Security Adviser brings the intelligence estimates to the attention
of the President, and they form the basis of US national security policy
formulated by the NSC.
Assessed intelligence is future oriented, and experienced assessors
have to look at not only extrapolations of the present events into the
future but also at far-out, low-probability eventualities, in which there
can be drastic discontinuity between the present and future. With this in
mind, as events unfold, policy-makers can evaluate in which direction
things are moving, and correct their assessments and policies readily.

This calls for continuous interaction between policy-makers, intelligence

assessors, and the intelligence community.
••••
Joseph S. Nye, when he heade.d the US National Intelligence Council,
wrote an article on intelligence assessment and its role in policy-making
in Foreign Affairs (June 1994). Nye talks of clandestine intelligence
providing only a fraction of the needed infonnation and the open sources
providing the context and the combination, providing a unique resource
that policy-makers could not obtain merely from reading journals, assum-
ing they had time to do so. He highlights the relevance of inputs from
outside analysts. Long before him, Allen Dulles, the former CIA director,
wrote in his The Craft of Intelligence, that 90 per cent of intelligence
needed is available in open sources. It is, therefore, important for intelli-
gence analysts to keep up with open literature and sources such as the
media. In intelligence estimates it helps to describe the range of academic
views so that policy-makers can calibrate where the intelligence commun-
ity stands. In some cases outside experts may even answer key estimate
questions and offer parallel estimates. In India, the whole process is
shrouded in mystery not because the people concerned are dealing with
highly classified material, but because they dare not expose their ignorance
to others. 1be organiutional vested interests c;if various agencies tend to
run down infonnation available in open literature, and place excessive
emphasis on what is claimed to be obtained through secret intelligence
sources.
••••
In the US, while the director of the CIA has overall responsibility for
intelligence collection, assessment and covert operations, the most
powerful
. and effective. intelligence gathering agency is the National
Security Agency (NSA). President Truman created it in 1952, but its
existence was a secret till two of its employees, Martin and Mitchell,
defected to the Soviet Union in July 1960 and gave details of its operations
at a press conference. NSA is many times larger than the CIA, and
spends many more billions of dollars. Its main job is Sigint and Elint.
James Bamford in his The Puzzle Palace says that the NSA's Sigint and
Elint gadlering makes the more familiar "espionage agent" look old-
fashioned.
In World Warn, the Allies' success in breaking up the German and

Revamping /ntelugence 79
Japanese top-secret military communication codes was a distinctive factor

contributing to their victory. Throughout the war, the US and Britain
knew of every planned move and daily dispositions o_f Gennan and
Japanese forces. The British knew, for example, that Luftwaffe was to
carry out a massive bombing mission over Coventry. Churchill decided
to allow the German bombing to go ahead rather than take steps that
would indicate to the Germans that their code had been broken. (How
the Germans and the Japanese managed to win and the British to lose so
many battles, when the latter had this singular advantage, is a matter of
wonder.) Pearl Harbor was not the kind of surprise the Americans
pretended it to be: President Roosevelt, Secretary Stimson and Army
Chief George Marshal did have warning of the attack. Emperor Hirohito
had insisted that the declaration of war should be handed over to the
Americans before the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. The Americans
knew that war was about to break out even before the Japanese ambas-
sador had his declaration of war typed out: the Japanese had taken longer
to decode the top-secret war declaration message than the Americans.
The bombs fell on .Pearl Harbor without a formal declaration of war,
contrary to Emperor Hirohito's specific direction.
Learning from experience the value of intelligence, the US and Britain
invested heavily in Sigint and Elint after the war. This was logical since
a great deal of military communications is conducted through radio
spectrum HF (high frequency), VHF (very high frequency), and UHF
(ultra high frequency) bands. Computers were built during World War II
specifically for breaking codes. The faster the computer and greater its
memory, the easier it is for it to break codes. (One of the conditions the
US imposed on the proposed supercomputer sale to India was that India
should not use it for cryptanalysis.) Most countries of the world buy
their cryptographic and cryptanalytical equipment from companies like
the IBM. The NSA had an understanding with IBM, and under this
arrangement, the NSA's supercomputers can decode messages of other
countries within half a day at most.
NSA attempts to collect communication intelligence on friends and
foes alike. It has a long-standing agreement with the corresponding British
agency, the general communication headquarters (GCHQ), with which it
shares intelligence, perhaps selectively. Both agencies have arrangements,
going back several decades, with their cable and telegraph networks, to
get copies of all telegrams handed over to them. They also engage in
extensive telephone tapping, which is different from the tapping done by
law-enforcing agencies after obtaining orders from the competent courts.

Till the computer age arrived it was difficult to analyse the mass of
information thus collected. Today, fast computers are able to classify,
collate, analyse, and extract the infonnation particularly required by the
department concerned.
Radio waves have some peculiarities. While the HF band waves travel
long distances and can be picked up easily, VHF band waves do not
travel long distances, which is why the military tend to use VHF band
extensively. But even VHF, and communication through higher frequency
bands, which cannot nonnally be beard beyond a particular distance, get
reflected by ionospheric layers in such a manner that signals can be
picked up long distances away at particular points. For instance, internal
communications in Russia, even through VHF band can be picked up at
Pine Gaps in Australia. The US NSA bas identified a number of locations
in the world which, because of peculiarities in reflectivity characteristics
of radio waves, allow communications in Russia, China and eastern
Emope to be picked up.
The communication intelligence station near Peshawar (Badber) also
had this advantage. After the loss of communication stations in Iran, the
US badly needed facilities in Pakistan. In 1979 the US persuaded China
to accept two monitoring stations in Xinjiang so that if could pick up
Soviet communications. This monitoring facility ofNSA is a trump card
in the bands of Pakistan; that would partly explain why General Ziaul
Haq was confident that the US could not afford to cut off aid to Pakistan
in spite of its nuclear weapon quest. The NSA facility in Pakistan was
closed down after the Bangladesh war, but was recommissioned as part
of the US aid package in 1981.
NSA also collects intelligence on radar frequencies of the defence
equipment of other countries. This intelligence can enable the US to jam
its adversaries' radars in case of war, and render ineffective many instru-
ments that use radar for tracking or final homing on to targets. The NSA
also uses satellites, high-flying surveillance aircraft and ships to collect
Elint. For instance, the Israelis bombed the American ship Liberty in the
1967 War because it was on a mission to listen in on Israeli communica-
tions as they were preparing their assault on Syria. Similarly, the American
ship Pueblo, which was captured by the North Koreans in 1968, was
snooping around for Eliot. Some knowledgeable people maintain that
the Korean Airlines flight 007-tbat was shot down in 1985-had strayed
into the Soviet territory to trigger off the Soviet defence radar systems,
which could then be monitored by the American Ferret satellite.
The CIA, a civilian agency, handles most of the human intelligence

and covert operations. But it is the NSA, an inter-services agency, which

generates 80 per cent of intelligence related to defence.
Even without capabilities for code breaking, the most rudimentary
Sigint pays high dividends. The Pakistani<1 could not cooceal their coocen-
tratioo of troops on our borden in January 1987; the high density of
radio signal traffic among their formations moving towards our border
was a giveaway. In Siachen too, the Pakistanis could not surprise us for
~imilar reasons. The Indian Anny could monitor the radio communication
among the LITE too. (The LITE, in their tum, monitored Indian Anny
communications.)
The American columnist, Jack AndeBoo, says that the NSA shares
with Pakistan much of the Sigint and Elint it has collected on India. The
threat this generates is far more dangerous than the US giving military
hardware to Pakistan, except of COW'SC the AWACS, which can be used
both for such intelligence gathering in peacetime and for battle manage-
ment in times of war. This is ooe of the factors why India insists that in
any treaty on peace and friencbhip between it and Pakistan there must be
a clause specifically prohibiting bases to superpowers in this region .
••••
The documents relating to CIA activities in Indonesia in the 1950s,
declassified in late 1994, reveal that during that period President Eisen-
hower himself authoriz.ed the CIA to proceed with its efforts to unse,at
Sukarno. The CIA consequently extended covert support to various
secessionist movements in Indonesia. Sukarno, nevertheless, was able to
counter and neutralize most of those secessionist moves and survive in
office. That was the time when the US feared the 'domino effect' in
South East Asia and suspected Sukarno of being anti-US. The irony was
that Sukarno himself faced communist insurgency in the early 1950s and
put it down with a great deal of violence.
New disclosures have also come out of President John Kennedy
authorizing the CIA to topple Cheddi Jagan of Guyana before Guyana
was to be granted independence. The CIA succeeded in that task and
Jagan's deputy Forbes Burnham split off from him, and subsequently
bei--ame the leader of independent Guyana. It took Jagan more than three
decades to stage a successful comeback and become the President of
Guyana. In the process, the Indian community in Guyana was deprived
of its due share of power. Before Kennedy authoriz.ed the CIA in this
task, Jagan met the US President to persuade him that he was not a

communist and to request his support for his country on the eve of its
independence. Kennedy did not take Jagan at his face value because the
latter's wife, Janet, was a communist.
The CIA bas declassified documents to reveal that it monetarily
supported the Christian Democrats in Italy during various elections to
keep the powerful Italian Communist Party out of office. The CIA also
clailDII to have contributed to the election chest of the Japanese Liberal
Democratic Party since the CIA did not like the Japanese Socialists who,
they felt, were soft towards communists and communist countries. 1be
CIA supported Ayub Khan's coup in 1958 and Z.A. Bhutto believed that
the US was behind his downfall in 1977. The close relationship between_
the CIA and General Ziaul Haq bas been well documented by various
American and Pakistani authors.
In their testimony before Congress, Henry Kissinger and the CIA
chief Richard Helms denied the CIA 's involvement in the overthrow of
President Allende's government in Chile; but subsequently, the CIA chief
was found guilty of misleading Congress, was convicted, and was given
a nominal sentence.
The CIA was created to fight communism worldwide. In practical
terms, the CIA and large sections of the US establishment felt that all
those who were not totally with them in their anti-communist crusade
must be against them. They did everything to ensure that those who were
like-minded with them came out ahead of those who did not share the
CIA's obsessive anti-communism.
It is no secret that there has been collaboration between Indian secret
services and the CIA from the 1950s. Following the 1962 debacle, India
was prepared to allow CIA's U-2 reconnaissance flights over Tibet. The
Nanda Devi expedition, which placed a plutonium reactor-power
monitoring device to keep tabs on the Chinese nuclear tests was one of
the instances of such collaboration. There is no doubt the CIA should
have financed different political parties in India. Senator Moynihan bas
claimed that the ruling party had received money from US sources. One
had even heard stories that even some of the virulently anti-US leftist
parties in India got part of their finances from US sources routed to them
through others.
In post-communist Russia allegations have been made that the KGB
was a supplier of funds to many political parties in India over and above
the leftist parties. The lndo--Russian trade became a convenient conduit.
Hence the general reluctance of most political parties in India to have
their books audited or to reveal the source of their funds. The increased

flow of funds into India through hawala transactions just before the various
elections was no secret.
India also indulges in similar operations in some countries, though
the Indian capacity is a very limited one.
Such worldwide opeiations of intelligence agencies and attempts at
influencing politics of other countries are inexorable facts of life. 1bere
was a disclosure in the House of Commons of the British Conservative
Party receiving a large donation from a Saudi Arabian source. Historically,
a major example of such transnational monetary transaction to influence
the politics of another government was the annual secret payment of £2
million King Charles II of UK received from the King of France.
••••
A chief minister ordered his senior colleague's phone to be tapped.
Perhaps not without reason, because not long after, the colleague walked
over to the opposition. He had tattooed on his arm the party symbol
indicating his eternal loyalty, but one expects he would go to a specialist
to remove the tattoo. Toe complaint about pbone tapping goes back to
the 1960s, when T.T. Krishnamachari accused them chiefB.N. Mullick
of it. Like many other things in this country, no such complaint is ever
pursued to the end, and they all trail off.
Figuring in the list of those whose telephones were tapped was consi-
dered a symbol of one's political importance during the Emergency period.
People got upset if they were told that telephone tapping at that time
being an expensive business, in all probability their telephones were not
tapped.
Since then, tapping technology has vastly improved, bringing down
the unit cost of tapping. Earlier, telephone tapping involved someone
having to listen to hours of conversation to get at one vital bit. With vast
advances in computer technology, it is perhaps now possible to get the
computer-to pick up relevant conversations with certain key words or
sounds. Toe targets of snooping can protect themselves by having their
telepbone lines checked periodically.
Presumably, more telephone tapping is done all over the world than is
publicly acknowledged. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, used to tap
the telephones of various politicians. Martin Luther King, the black civil
rights leader, was one of them. Women were King's weakn~. Hoover
bugged his hotel rooms and taped his phone talk. He supplied these
tapes to President Lyndon Johnson, who had a weaknP.SS for listening to
bedroom talk of other leading personalities.

84 Sliedding SllibboletJis
It is believed that Hoover's hold on successive US Presidents came

from the information be bad gathered on them by tapping their phone
lines 8e is reported to have tapped the phone of bis own boss, Attorney
General Robert Kennedy, and taped the calls put in by Marilyn Monroe,
with whom Kennedy was having an affair. Now there are stories that
various Mafia gangs got evidence of Hoover's homosexuality through
telephone taps, and blackmailed him to go easy on their pursuit.
In the US, all overseas calls have been monitored and recorded by the
NSA since the end of World War U. In Britain, the GCHQ bas been
doing the same. In Britain there were allegations, subsequently denied,
that the Ml-5 (counter-espionage agency) was responsible for tapping
the telephone talk between Prince Charles and bis lady friend. The issue
was whether the Ml-5 bad a right to do it under necessary authorization
if it was justified by considerations of national security.
In India there is a need to set up an integrated communication intelli-
gence agency independent of the three armed services, them and RAW.
The right to privacy, of course, is important and should be protected, but
where does the right to privacy end and the public interest to breach it
begin? Surely, it would not be argued that smugglers, arms and drug
traffickers, black marlceters and leaders of organized crime are entitled
to the right to privacy in their communications. The security agencies
must monitor their communications, and feed their fmdings to law-
enforcing authorities. Politicians are not lily-white anywhere, least of all
in India. The nexus between many politicians, black money, bribery and
corruption, organized crime, smugglers, arms and drug traffickers, is a
fact of life widely known. If the security agencies, while monitoring such
communications, find that they are in extensive touch with certain politi-
cians, it would be appropriate for them to bring the politicians concerned
into the monitoring net and record all their communications.
We have bad changes of government at the centre and more frequent
changes in the states. A sizeable number of politicians, therefore, know
all about telephone tapping. Yet there is no serious debate about it, let
alone meaningful action to develop certain norms on it. Increasingly, the
members of the security services of this country, both at the centre and in
the states, are getting politicized. It is easy for them to follow the role of
Edgar Hoover and keep tabs on their political bosses to serve their
personal advantage. Foreign intelligence agencies could also do the same.
A corrupt society is highly vulnerable to this game.
Our attitude to telephone tapping is like the Victorian attitude towards
sex. We know it is going on all the time, but it is not to be talked about in

polite society. When the British media tycoon Robert Maxwell died at
sea, be bad been transferring to bis personal accounts large sums of
money nmning into several hundred millions of pounds out of pensioo
fimds, which one of bis companies was holding. A retired civil servant of
the British cabinet secretariat, who was dealing with coordination of
intelligence data from different secret services, disclosed that for more
than two years, Maxwell bad beer) under surveillance of the British secret
services, and they were aware of bis financial shenanigans. They were
reported to the government and the intelligence was available with the
government The intelligence came from GCHQ.
•••
•
It is common knowledge that the Indian Army's contingency plans, war
game scenarios and computer exercise results found their way to Pakistan
piecemea1, and resulted in Pakistan's over-reaction to Operation Brass-
tacks exercise in January 1987. Among the factors responsible for laxity
in our security, four readily come to mind. (I) The absence of security
consciousness among most politicians and the bureaucracy. (2) Lack of
periodic positive vetting of all politicians, senior officials and scientists
deal.ing with sensitive projects and classified information. (3) Corrupt
politicians and bureaucrats becoming bad role models for the scientists
and armed forces personnel. (4) The political connections of the guilty,
which hampers the work of counter-intelligence agencies. The mystery
of a former head of a paramilitary force, who became a governor and
died in an air crash, allegedly leaving behind money and valuables worth
crores of rupees, is yet to be explained. Espionage is a form of corruption.
If ministers and officials get bribes and kickbacks by selling their decision-
making power for an appropriate price, those who have information of
value also try to sell it for a price.
If we do not plug these leaks, it is bound to affect defence and high-
technology cooperation with countries like the US, which are likely to
have a dim view of our ability to keep secrets. Our business firms will
also find themselves at a disadvantage in their negotiations with multi-
nationals, since the latter will be able to tap into their secrets and exploit
the advantage. All retiring officials from the police and secret services
can look forward to employment on the security side in firms, and there
may be significant lateral movement of such personnel as well.
With the end of the cold war, the world's major intelligence agencies
are underemployed. Legislatures being under pressure to cut down funds

86 S/tedding Shibboleths
for them. heads of intelligence agencies have to petS\iade the legislators

that there are still extremely valuable uses for the enormous intelligence
capabilities built up over the years. Some try to exaggerate the dangers
of nuclear proliferation, Islamic fimdamentalism and terrorism, and world-
wide turbulence resulting from the upsurge of ethno-nationalism. More
sophisticated intelligence chiefs dangle before their legislators the advant-
age of using their well-developed capabilities for commercial espionage
in the future world, where geo-economics is bowid to be the prime area
of competition and conflict among nations, especially the industriaJiu,d
nations. In this area, the US with its enormous assets in intercepting
electronic communications bas a distinctive edge. Human intelligence
operates among the vulnerable sections of the people of target countries.
Intelligence agencies tap the areas of information concentratio~y
politicians, civil servants, military officers, smugglers, narcotics and arms
traffickers, and organiu,d crime. They, plus sections of business establish-
ments, are also a fertile field for commercial intelligence.

II
Nuclear Matters
Original from
Digitized by Google UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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8
A Genie Let Loose
On 16 July 1945, the world entered the nuclear era with

the first atomic bomb test at Alamogordo in New Mexico. A few miles
from the test site, the scientists and the administrators were lying down,
looking away from the expected blinding flash. Major General Leslie
Groves, administrator of the Manhattan l'roject, was next to Robert
Oppenheimer, project director. When the bomb exploded with its ~tunning
effects, Groves heard Oppenheimer reciting a verse. He asked Oppen-
heimer what he was reciting. Oppenheimer translated what he was reciting
in Sanskrit:
If there is the effulgence of a thousand suns bursting forth all at ooce in the
heavens, even that would hardly approach the splendour of the mighty Lord ...
I am kaala (fimo-also Death) the destroyer of the worlds. I am out to
exterminate these people.
- Bbagavad Gita, Xl.12, XI.32
Like Oppenheimer, most of the men of science wbo toiled to bring about
the Trinity test were humane persons. Their single goal was to outrace
the German effort to make the bomb.
Toe Mahabharata narrates how Arjuna acquired the divya astras (the
super weapons) as part of his endeavour to win the war but did not use
them. In the US, a small group of scientists campaigned hard to prevent
the use of nuclear weapons. This committee, headed by James Frank and
including Leo Szilard, Eugene Rabinowitch and Glenn Seborg, submitted
a report on 11 June 1945, and prophetically warned against the conse-
quences of using the bomb:
If we consider international agreemart on total prevention of nuclear warfare as
the paramount objective aod believe that it cao be achieved, this kind of
introduction of nuclear weapon., to the world [by atomic bombing of Japan] may
easily destroy all our chaoces of success. Russia aod even allied countries ...
may be deeply shocked. It may be very difficult to persuade the world that a
nation which was capable of secretly preparing aod suddenly releasing of a
weapon as indiscriminate [as the German rocket-bomb) aod a million times

90 SJ,«Jdjng Sliibboletlis
more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire to have such weapons

abolished by international agrcc:meal
But their recommendation was rejected in favour of the suggestion
made l)y a panel of four physicists-Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest 0.
Lawrence, Arthur Compton and Enrico Fermi, that the bomb be used on
Japan. The panel argued that the use of the bomb was the best way of
dramatizing its deadly power and thereby pe1s11ading nations of the need
to avoid war after World War ll. Oppenheimer, however, seems to have
changed his view on being shown the film on the des1Juction of Hiroshima
and Nagauki He said to General Groves, "We have blood on our bands."
Later he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, faced an inquiry
about his loyalty, and his security clearance was revoked permanently.
On 6 August 1945, Hiroshima city was destroyed by a single uranium
fission bomb dropped by a US Air Force B-29 bomber. The pilot, Paul
Tibbets,1 had named the aircraft after his mother, Enola Gay. (This bomb,
made with enriched uranium core, was untested. The physicist Louis
Alvarez flew to Tinian Island in the Pacific and armed the bomb on the
night of 5 August 1945, just before it was loaded into the bomb bay of
Enola Gay. The pilot !'as told that it was a special weapon with large
explosive power, and he should get away as quickly as possible after
dropping it) It took hardly a second for thousands of people to turn into
vapour without any trace or into totally unrecognizable charred bodies.
Thousands of survivors suffered from effects of radiation and died
agonizing deaths over the ensuing decades and some continue to do so.
Children born with birth defects due to radiation are still living reminders
of that ~tunning horror in human history. Three days later, Nagasaki was
destroyed by the second atomic bomb. The city of Kokura was to have
been the target, but was saved that tragedy by cloud cover. Nagasaki's
misfortune was that as the bomber flew over that city, the clouds lifted
and it was possible to aim the bomb visually. The type of bomb used
there was the one tested at Alamogordo.
(Some Americans argue that the Japanese did not surrender imme-
diately after Hiroshima was devastated, but did so only after Nagasaki was
destroyed. The Japanese rejected the call of the Allied Powers in Potsdam
Declaration and the veiled warning therein and, hence, there was no
reason to assume that they would have surrendered to the Soviet Union
declaring war on Japan, they say. This argument displays insensitivity to
I. Brigadier Paul Tibbets served in Delhi in 1963-65 as Deputy Chief of US
Militaty Supplies Mission in India. AJ Deputy Secmary in charge of US supplies I
dealt with him during that period.

A Genie Let Loose 91
the kind of paralysis the Japanese would have suffered in the aftermath
of Hiroshima. The Japanese, surely, would have needed longer than just
two days to absorb the implications of this unprecedented phenomenon.
The scale of casualties and the damage were something they might have
been used to, but not the suddenness and instantaneity of the destruction.
The bomb was unique considering the extent of damage inflicted by a
single aircraft. The Japanese accept the vast fire raids on Tokyo and
Yokohama in April 1945, which caused more casualties and damage
than the N-bombs, as retribution for their attack on Pearl Harbor. But
even today they are unable to connect the developments leading to
outbreak of the war in the Pacific and its course with the dropping of the
atom bombs on them.)
It is not unusual for heads of government and state visiting an erstwhile
adversary country to lay a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
But even when Hiroshima Day was commemorated in sombre ceremonies
fifty years later, there were no diplomats from the US and its western
allies at the commemoration ceremony at Hiroshima. Even worse, the
US Postal Department proposed to issue a "tamp commemorating the
fifty-year-old event The stamp depicting the mushroom cloud was to
canythecaption, "Atomic bombs hasten war's end August 1945."Tbough
President Bill Clinton ordered its withdrawal in deference to Japanese
protests, obviously, most American officials seem to think of that horrific
event with pride. One could argue that fifty years ago, given the
circumstances of the war and the brutalization that war had brought
about, the decision to use the atomic weapons was taken under enormous
pressure and uncertainty. But Germany and Japan have apologized for
their conduct in war, but not America nor Britain. Instead, when the
Smithsonian Institute in Wasbington proposed to commemorate the event
in the Aerospace section, US ex-servicemen were reported to have felt
that the proposed exhibition would be pro-Japanese. The Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, a fonner Professor of History,
intervened and blocked the exhibition. In fact, he said that Hiroshima
would make Americans proud!
Most Americans, and even the rest of the world, still believe that the
use of the bomb brought Japan to its knees. Facts, however, state
otherwise. Declassified docwnents reveal that the US Chiefs of Staff
estimated that the invasion of Japan, scheduled for November 1945,
would have resulted in 150,000 casualties, with some 30,000 Americans
dead. These figures seem to have been extrapolated from Japanese
resistance in Iwojima and Okinawa. But in the closing months of World

92 Shedding SNbboleths
Wa:i II the picture would have been entirely different The entire might
of US and British air forces would have been deployed against Japan,
and the Russian Air Force too would have been available. Japanese
cities were already being systematically destroyed through fire-bombing
raids. Japan was also running short of food, raw materials, and energy.
There was evety possibility that Japan would either have been compelled
to surrender or invaded at an affordable cost in lives.
(According to the booklet ''The Outline of Atomic Bomb Damage in
Hiroshima", issued by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the
decision to use the bomb against the Japanese was taken by the US as
early as September 1944. Only one military man, General George Marshal,
had objected, but did not press the matter. The order to drop the bomb
was issued on 25 July 1945. The three Allied powers-US, UK and
· the unconditional Japanese surrender a day after this
decision was made, on 26 July 1945.)
At the Yalta conference in Februa:iy 1945, President Roosevelt, fearing
a prolonged and costly war in terms of US casualties, had urged Stalin to
enter the wa:i against Japan. Stalin agreed to do so exactly three months
after the end of the war in Europe. The war came to an end in Europe on
9 May 1945, and the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on
9 August 1945. Joseph Rotblat, a scientist who worked in the Manhattan
Project, who later on became President of the Pugwash Movement, has
disclosed how he raised the issue with General Groves early in 1945. He
wanted to know why the Manhattan Project was being pursued vigorously
when Germany's defeat was just a few months away. Groves told him
that the project was necessary because the Russians had to be countered.
Rotblat got himself released from the Manhal:tlUl Project because he felt
that it was no longer necessary.
Declassified World War II documents have suggested that the Japanese
Anny was willing to surrender in May 1945 itself. The Japanese were
seeking terms for surrender since the ea:ily months of 1945. Their sole
condition was that the Emperor should not be tried as a war criminal.
The Japanese attempted to communicate with the Americans through the
Soviet Union before the USSR entered the war. Later, the Emperor also
directed the Japanese government to surrender, and the Japanese dropped
all conditions, including the personal accountability of the Emperor.
(Ultimately, the Americans themselves did what the Japanese always
wanted-to preserve the imperial system.) The nuclea:i test was success-
fully conducted on 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo. Once the bomb was on
hand, the US decided to use it in a way as to deny the Soviet Union a

A Genie Let Loo# 93
major role in the defeat of Japan and also communicate to the USSR and
the world that the US was the sole atomic power.
(In an article in the Washington Post in July 1995, Senator Daniel
Moynihan disclosed that in 1945 the US intelligence service broke into a
message from the Soviet Embassy in Washington to Moscow. The
message contained a list of scientists worlcing on the Manhattan Project.
In other words, the Americans knew as early as 1945 that the Soviets
were trying to get bold of information about the American bomb but
decided not to reveal their knowledge of the Russians' intentions.
Moynihan argues that if the Americans had come out in the open at that
stage, the US government would not have been charged with going soft
on the Soviet Union. He may be right, but such disclosures might have
accelerated the arms race and heightened tensions between the two
countries. When it became known in the early 1950s during the trial of
the Rosenbergs that the Soviets bad acquired American defence secrets,
public opinion in the US led to the couple's execution. The Russians
have revealed that though they obtained information about the bomb
from the US, their first design was indigenous. However, they decided to
test a copy of the American bomb because it was a proven design.
Moynihan also argues that the US government could have told the
Americans that science was universal and what the Americans could do
the Soviets could also do, and vice versa. He quotes Hans Bethe, the
inventor of the fusion process, that it was this consideration that convinced
him and Oppenheimer ultimately that the US had to go for the hydrogen
bomb. Once the theoretical problem on its feasibility had been solved by
Stanislaw Ulam and Edward Teller, the Americans had to accept that
sooner or later the Russians too would solve the problem.)
Barton Bernstein, Professor of History at Stanford University, wrote
in Foreign Affairs (January/February 1995) on the redefinition of morality
that led to the dropping of the atomic bomb.
That redefinition of morality was a product of World War II which included
such barl>arities as Germany's systematic murder of six million Jews and Japan's
rape of Nanl<ing. While the worst alrocities were peipetrated by the Axis, all the
major nation-states sliced away at the moral codo-often to the applause of their
leaders and citizens alike. By 1945, there were few moral restraints left in what
had become virtually a total war. Even FDR's pre-war concern for sparing
enemy civilians had fallen by the wayside. In that new moral climate, any nation
that had the A-bomb would probably have used it against enemy people. British
leaders as well as Joseph Stalin endorsed the act Germany's and Japan's leaders
surely would have used it against cities. America was not morally unique--just
technologically exceptional. Only it had the bomb and so only it used it

9
Nuclear Realities
Like the gods denying fire to the mortals, the US has

sought to prevent the spread of technology; and like Prometheus, lesser
nations have managed to acquire it. When the US kept the bomb
technology away from the French, De Gaulle not only developed the
bomb and the Force de Frappe, but took France out of the NATO structure
to snub the Americans. The Gaullists argued that France would not be
great unless it was militarily great, equipped with a panoply of nuclear
weapons. They left the NATO military structure and based their own
security on the doctrine of independent "minimum nuclear deterrence",
which in reality meant that even in a nuclear war in Europe, France
could trade off its own nuclear deterrent to keep war out of its territory
and had the option not to join the alliances. For some time the French
. strategists toyed with the doctrine of "all azimuth deterrence", arguing
that the deterrence was not directed against any particular nation but was
meant to be _exercised against any threat Lastly, France developed its
own missiles and neutron bombs. France's attempt to use its nuclear
weapon capability was, partly, a reaction to the humiliation it suffered in
World War D when it was defeated by Germany and was occupied; and
partly because of an innate sense of rivalry with Britain, which became a
nuclear weapon power in 1952. The decision to go for nuclear weapon
was taken by Prime Minister Felix Gaillard; General De Gaulle, when he
returned to power, made the independent French deterrent meaningful.
Air Force General Pierre Gallois fonnulated the doctrine of minimum
deterrence to provide a rationale for the French nuclear arsenal. (The
minimum deterrenc;e thesis used to be ridiculed in those days.) De Gaulle
questioned the American doctrine of extended deterrence and asked
whether the US would risk its cities of New York and Washington to
deter the Soviet Union. The French developed their own strategic triad
of land-based and submarine-borne missiles and long-range aircraft. (The
French did not join the NPT till 199 I, and, presumably, did so to have
an effective say in its indefinite and unconditional extension.) France
Original from
Nucletu Realilia 95
argues that nuclear weapons are legitimate mean,; of defence and it is the
right of a sovereign country to choose its own means of defence.
The British started the project on the atomic bomb in 1940 and then
banded it over to the Americans. After the project was successfully
completed, the US passed the MacMaboo Act and denied the bomb
technology to its erstwhile collaborators, which angered the British. The
first nuclear proliferation took place when the British decided to make
the bomb to get even with the US. Clement Attlee's Labour government
developed nuclear weapons as a currency of power. At that stage there
was no explicit formulation of the doctrine of deterrence. It was the US
reaction to the shooting down of a Brit_isb aircraft by the Yugoslavs in
1946 and the shifting of US atom bombs to Europe that made ti\e British
decide that they too must have this powerful currency of power.
Subsequently, the 'acharya' of the left in the Labour party, Aneurin (Nye)
Bevan justified the bomb and opposed giving it up on the rationale that
Britain could not sit at the high table of international diplomacy naked
without the bomb. In the early 1960s, Frank Cousins, the trade union
leader, influenced by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND),
got a resolution through the Labour party conference (on the eve of the
1964 elections when Labour was not in office) that the party would
reconsider the bomb policy if voted to power. On coming to office Harold
Wilson used the same argument as Bevan to continue with nuclear
weaponry.
The entire NATO structure and doctrine were based on the pre1nise
that US forces and US tactical nuclear weapons would be used as a
deterrent to Soviet threat. At that time West Germany, which made the
largest contribution to NATO by way of conventional forces and was
likely to receive the impact of the first nuclear shots fired, had no nuclear
weapon of its own under the NATO doctrine. During the cold war era,
Britain in international power rating came after the US, the USSR, France,
China, Japan, and West Germany. In Europe, within the EU Britain's
weight is less than that of Germany and France, and without a nuclear
arsenal Britain's rating will sink even lower. Hence the bulk of the British
population did not support unilateral disarmament, bowever logical it
might be. (During the South Atlantic War, a British nuclear submarine
torpedoed the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano outside the so-<:alled
exclusion zone. The presence of British nuclear submarines bottled up
the entire Argentine Navy. Britain in using nuclear-propelled submarines,
some of which had nuclear-tipped weapons, may have violated the spirit
of the Tlatelelco Treaty to which it is a guaranteeing party.)

••••
The Chinese once proclaimed to the world that socialism would prevail
over capitalism, the counttyside would overwhelm the cities, the nuclear
weapons were paper tigers and Maoism was the guiding beacon for the
developing world. To their credit, they are not always taken in by their
own teachings. Even as China was loudly proclaiming to the world that
nuclear weapons were paper tigers, Mao held an enlarged meeting of the
Central Secretariat of the Communist Party in January 1955 to initiate
the bomb project. It was also decided to enlist Moscow's backing for a
crash programme. In other words, even while we in India were in euphoria
over having set up Apsara, a small experimental reactor, the Chinese had
already decided to go for the bomb. Between 1955 and 1958 the Soviet
Union and China signed six accords related to the development of Chinese
nuclear industry and weapon programme. They were, among others, for
survey of uranium resources, supply of a nuclear reactor, cyclotron, and
a prototype atomic bomb and missiles and development of related techno-
logies. The entire Chinese scientific community and all major research
institutions were mobilized for the programme. By this time China had
also assembled a group of talented scientists trained abroad; among them
six made key contributions. They were to be further strengthened with a
host of young scientists trained at Dubna in the Soviet Union. The entire
effort was handled by the innocuously named B_ureau of Architectural
Technology-as the US bomb was the result of a Tube Alloys project-
and started functioning from 1 July 1955. By mid-1957 sites had been
selected for various research and industrial activities. In November 1956
(just within four months of our commissioning Apsara), China constituted
the Third Ministry of Machine Building devoted entirely to nuclear
industry. The nuclear weapon programme was apportioned among fifteen
bureaux and institutions.
According to Marshal Nie Rongzhen who supervised the programme,
it was the trouble in Eastern Europe in the mid-1950s, and the Chinese
support to the Soviet position, that persuaded Moscow to extend technical
aid to the programme. But the Soviets had developed, by 1958, suspicions
about Mao, and deep differences on Maoist views about nuclear war.
Consequently, though Bulganin supported sending the promised prototype
bomb, Khrushchev and Mikoyan argued against it and stopped its
despatch. In other words, !}le Soviet Union had second thoughts about
the treaty within months ofsigning it. China's refusal to permit the instal-
lation of a very low frequency station of the Soviet Union to communicate

Nuclear Realities 97
with submarines, and Mao's idea on nuclear war also perhaps contnl>uted
to the break.
Before the break came, China had sent to the Soviet Union 5800
students for training in nuclear technology, 1200 of them undergraduates.
By December 1956, Chinese scientists and the advisers had completed
the plan for "peaceful utiliz.ation of atomic energy". Peaceful utilization
was a smokescreen: China does not have a peaceful reactor of its own
design even today.
Between 1958 and 1960, before the Soviet specialists withdrew, they
had set up plants to process uranium and upgrade it to uranium
tetrafluoride. The Soviets reneged on their promise to transfer to China
uranium hexafluoride technology, which is required to enrich uranium
235 (U-235). Strangely enough, the Soviets had supplied equipment for
the purpose to the gaseous diffusion plant and left it behind when they
withdrew. The Chinese managed to develop their own technology to_
convert uranium tetrafluoride to hexafluoride, and learnt to operate the
gaseous diffusion plant to enrich U-235 to weapon grade. In between, at
a conference of the Central Military Commission held in May-July 1958,
Mao laid down an eight-point guideline for development of nuclear
weapons. It stipulated that "any other projects for our country's recon-
struction will have to take second place". A separate security system was
to be set up to guarantee absolute secrecy.
In conformity with this decision, the scientific community undertook
simultaneously the w)cs of preparing U-235, the implosion mechanism,
the development of the initiator, and the overall design of the bomb.
1bey constructed I000 prototypes of their implosion device for testing,
somewhat on the lines of the Manhattan Project. The test site at Lop Nor
was selected in 1959.
The cost of the project was ei:timated at $4. l billion at 1957 prices,
spread over ten years. This expenditure was incurred when China was in
a severe economic crisis following the failure of the Great Leap Forward.
During a meeting of the central leadership during 1961, Marshal Chen
Yi made bis famous remark that the programme should go forward "even
if the Chinese had to pawn their trousers". He added, "as China's Minister
of Foreign Affairs I still do not have adequate back-up. If you do come
up with the atomic bomb and guided missiles I can straighten my back."
Chen Yi told a group of Japanese correspondents in 1963, a year before
the first atom bomb was exploded, that China would have to resolve the
issue of atomic bombs and missiles within the next few years, otherwise
it would degenerate into a second- or third-class nation.

98 Shedding Sliibboleths
In building the bomb, it bas been reported, enonnous radioactive

contamination occurred; in a serious accident in the 1960s there were
scores of casualties. As Mao Zedong explained to Jawaharlal Nehru
when he visited Beijing, their attitude was that even if some 300 million
Chinese perished in a nuclear war, the surviving 300 million would build
a glorious civiliz.ation. In both USA and USSR proposals to bomb out
the Chinese nuclear installations were seriously considered but not imple-
mented. On 16 October 1964, China conducted its first nuclear test and
became the fifth nuclear weapon power.
Simultaneously, the Chinese also undertook their missile development
programme. They had a genius in rocket propulsion, a founder of the US
missile programme who was thrown out of the US during the McCarthy
era-Dr Qian Xuesen. They also bad Russian help in the missile
programme in the initial years. As their missile fitted with the nuclear
~arhead took off in 1967, in China's fourth nuclear test (an extremely
dangerous experiment to conduct on one's own territory), Marshal Nie
Rongzhen, who supervised the programme, said: "I was proud of our
country, which had long been backward, but now had its sophisticated
weapons." In the 1950s, China used to be treated with contempt. Its air
space and territorial waters were violated with impunity. Its legitimate
seat in the Security Coupcil was denied. The Chinese had been subjected
to nuclear threats twice by the Us-during the Korea War in 1953 and
the Quemoy Matsu crisis in 1958. Two scholars from Stanford University
in California, John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, brought out (in 1989) a
comprehensive and authoritative account of how China built its atom
and hydrogen bombs. The first major point the authors make is that
China's nuclear efforts were a direct response to the US nuclear thteats
to China. This is documented on the basis of President Eisenhower's
writings and his White House assistant Shennan Adam's memoirs. India
was one of the channels through which the Americans. sought to convey
the threat in 1953. The American bullying and insulting changed once
China acquired nuclear weapons and missiles. In 1972 the US President
went on a journey of penitence to Beijing, the capital of a country the US
did not recognize. Thereafter, the US had to yield and compromise with
China on many issues. This was long before Deng Xiaoping made China
an attractive market. At that time China was not a great military power
either. The Chinese nuclear effort was achieved at enonnous cost to the
economy and human suffering. No other nation bas paid as high a price:
the Israeli, Indian, and Pakistani nuclear capabilities, coming much later,
were developed at a fraction of that cost and effort. It is not the CUiturai
'
UNIVERSITY
- OF MICHIGAN
.
:rr · •
Nuclem Ra/ities 99
Revolution, egalitarianism or foreign policy that makes the Chinese count

in the world. As Chen Yi explained, the nuclear weapons made the differ-
ence. This is one Maoist legacy the Chinese will not repudiate.
One of the ardent champions of the anti-nuclear crusade, the French
communist and Nobel laureate physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie, who as
chainnan of the French Atomic Energy Commission refused to build the
bomb for France, encouraged China to go after it. In 1951 be sent a
message to Chairman Mao through the Chinese radio chemist, Yang
Cbengzong, urging him to build the bomb. Earlier in 1949 Joliot-Curie
raised funds to help bis Chinese colleague Quan Sanqiang to buy nuclear
instruments. Irene Joliot-Curie, the Nobel laureate wife of Frederic and
daughter of celebrated Marie Curie, gave the Chinese some polonium
which is an initiator in an atomic bomb. Subsequently, Quan Sanqiang
became the director of the Institute of Atomic Energy, vice minister of
the second ministry and oversaw scientific research on the atomic bomb
project.
•••
♦
Seymour Hersh's book, The Samson Option. maintains that intelligence

was available to the successive American presidents oo Israeli nuclear
weapon programme, but they turned a blind eye to it, pe,mitting Israel to
become a major nuclear weapon power. President Kennedy insisted oo
bringing the Israeli reactors under inspection. After considerable bard
bargaining, the Israelis agreed to permit an American team (but not an
IAEA team) to inspect the reactor at Dimooa. The Israelis constructed a
dummy control room for the reactor and allowed them to inspect the
facility from there over the next six years, 1963--69. Toe US inspection
team gave a clean chit to the Israelis. Subsequently, on 22 September
1979 the Israelis and the South Africans together conducted a neutron
bomb test by firing a nuclear artillery shell high over the southern Indian
Ocean. The US Vela satellite monitored it. According to Hersh's Israeli
sources, the US had failed to detect two earlier tests. Toe US Adminis-
tration appointed a scientific panel who were furnished the technical
data but no intelligence data on the 1979 test. They concluded that it was
a zoo event, an unexplainable one. Toe US failed to monitor the flow of
equipment and materials from France to Israel from 1957 to 1967.
Similarly, the US also failed to detect the full scope and ramifications of
French-German-Israeli-SOuth African cooperation which led to the South
African nuclear weapons. Hersh credibly documents all this. His book
also brings out the fact that the US intelligence is not infallible and its

100 Slteddilig ShibboletJas
ability to monitor nuclear developments in other countries was very much

short of its public image.
••••
In a seminar in Delhi on 8 and 9 November 1993, Waldo Stumpf of the
Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa traced the development of
South Africa's nuclear weapon programme. Exploding the myth about
high cost of a nuclear deterrent, be said that South Africa incurred a total
expenditure of nearly $200 million to produce an arsenal ofseven uranium
bombs. This is about $20 million per year, less than the cost of a modem
fighter aircraft; the total deterrence effect was more than what ten aircraft
could have provided. Stumpf highlighted that a country's deterrent
requirement is situation-determined: not everyone needs to follow the
western models and build up their kind of sophisticated arsenals. South
Africa felt it could make do with seven uranium bombs. Stumpf also
argued that isolating a nation, and denying it technology, are often counter-
productive: it makes that nation more determined to achieve its purpose.
In bis view, the US pressure on South Africa and, particularly, the US
holding back the supply of contracted enriched uranium fuel resulted in
accelerating the South African programme.•
South Africa's deterrent strategy was unrelated to conventional wisdom
of the West The first phase was one ofstrategic uncertainty: the capability
would not be acknowledged or denied. In the second phase, if South
African territory were threatened, covert acknowledgement to certain
international powers such as the US would be considered. If this did not
bring round the western powers to support South Africa in facing the
threat (Cubans in Angola and the communist bloc's support to it as the
South Africans perceived it) then there would be a public demonstration
through an underground test. No offensive tactical application was
contemplated.
I . It was blithely assumed that uranium enrichment through gaseous difl\Jsion
would be beyond the capability of developing nations. India's nuclear test in 1974
prompted the London Supp lien• Club to prepare a trigger list as a way to strengthen
export control oo plutooium production technologies. Release to Pakistan of equipment
it needed for its uranium centrifuge enrichment project was authorized-by the author
of the trigger list himself, Claude Zangger because such equipment did not figme
in bis list. Similarly, no one thought subsequently that the Iraqis would go back to
the electromagnetic separation (Calutron) method and, hence, they were able to get
much of the equipment they wanted. The South Africaos bad their jet nozzle separation
(exported from Germany) and it is possible the Israelis have laser separation.

Nw:lear Realitw 101
While, perhaps, the West was generally aware of South Africa's nuclear
activities, Stumpfdoubted wbctber it had detailed knowledge about them.
When South Africa acceded to the NPT and invited the IAEA for detailed
inspection and offered to show them any place and any facility they
wanted to see, the latter gave their list and visited all the places. The list
did not contain the facilities of the Armscor establishment where the
weapons were actually assembled. They came to know about it only
after South African authorities voluntarily disclosed it (Many observers
believe that the white South Africans may have kept back some fissile
materials and the knowledge to assemble a few weapons at short notice.
They can use them if it becomes necessary for the whites to press for a
homeland and secede from Black South Africa.)
Sh1mpf conceded that South Africa obtained low-enriched uranium
from China but denied any nuclear connection with Israel. He said the
South African bombs were crude gun-bane! type and were not the highly
sophisticated neutron shell believed to have been fired on 22 September
1979, and detected by the US satellite. He said that South Africa had not
by then completed its first device and inserted the uranium core in it 2
His conclusion was that the South African nuclear weapon programme
was cost~ffective. The benefits included the development of the laser
isotope separation technology and a wide variety of other sophisticated
techhologies. The weapon project as a whole needed only 300 men at
any one time, and the actual weapon fabrication only 20-40 people. The
lessons are-nuclear weapons are not costly, nuclear deteuence can be
exercised at very minimum level and it need not result in a costly arms
race. Nuclear deterrence can be exercised in a variety of ways and, above
all, uncertainty plays a crucial role in projecting deterrence.
Defence and Foreign A.ffairs (February 1992) gave a detailed account of

Iranian moves to acquire nuclear weapons from the Central Asian
Republics (CARs). According to this account, Iran had entered into an
arrangement with a team <>f ex-Soviet officials in the CARs, who had
undertaken to deliver not a whole nuclear weapon but piece by piece
obtained from different republics and then assemble them in Iran. They
would also depute the necessary expert team to do this. This way, no
weapon would be missed in the former Soviet republics and their leaders
2. Most likely, Stumpf told the truth; but perhaps not the whole truth, particularly
about the Israeli connection.

I 02 She.dding Shibboleths
would be able to assure the world that all their weapons were intact.
(Toe novel The Fourth Protocol hinges around this stratagem.) It was
alleged that Iran bad already recruited fifty experts, and around two
hundred senior technicians mostly from the Semipalatinsk plant in
Kaukbstan. (Semipalatinsk was the underground testing site for Soviet
nuclear weapons.) It was further disclosed that some very senior nuclear
scientists from the celebrated Kw-chatov Institute of Moscow bad been
invited to train Iranians on princely salaries. Simultaneously, according
to this account, the Iranians bad recruited three thousand Chinese experts
to work on missiles. Toe author of the article, Yossef Bodansk.y-
Bodansk.y's anti-Iranian bias is public knowledge-concluded that by
spring 1992, Iran might have an arsenal of three weapons assembled
from parts transferred from the CARs.
••••
Toe Japanese have been proclaiming to the world their nuclear allergy
and non-nuclear principles-not to make, not to possess, and not to
introduce nuclear weapons on their soil. In mid-1994, Mainichi ShimbUII
disclosed about a 1969 study to ensure that Japan bad the financial and
technical potential to produce nuclear weapons, without actually making
them. Also, the Japanese Foreign Minister asserted in June 1994, in
reply to the reference from the World Court, that the use of nuclear
weapons was not always necessarily illegal. The Japanese stance was
that: ''The use of nuclear weapons does not necessarily constitute a
violation of international laws, but their use must never be allowed and
Japan will uphold its three non-nuclear principles and make efforts to
eradicate them." Toe ensuing uproar in the Press made the government
take note of the strong popular anti-nuclear feeling and delete the
offending phrase from the draft. Foreign Minister Kakizawa and his
officials maintained that Japan still believed that the use of such weapons
was legally justifiable.
Japan always had a dual-track policy, a public image of nuclear allergy
and a private drive towards non-weaponized nuclear deterrence. With
this policy, somewhat analogous to the Indian policy, the Japanese
succeeded in persuading the world about their alleged nuclear allergy.
(India could not) It suited the US and the western powers to project
Japan in a favourable light. Toe Japanese have a nuclear technological
capability to make weapons at will, and they have vast quantities of
fissile materials. They have very advanced missile technology. Behind
the convenient shield of nuclear allergy, Japan enjoys the protection of

Nuclear Realitin l 03
US nuclear weapoos. Japan's three oon-ouclear principles were interpreted

flexibly enough to enable it to look away even as US aircraft carriers and
other naval vessels docked in the Japanese ports with their panoply of
nuclear weapoos. When this news was leaked by the US Ambassador to
Japan, Edwin Reichauer, the Japanese government blandly asserted that
the agreement between the US and Japan required the fo,mer to seek
Japan's permission to bring in nuclear weapons. Since the Americans
bad not done so, it was presumed that no nuclear weapons came in. In
the early 1970s, Yasuhiro Nakasooe, at that time Director General of the
Self-Defence Agency, argued in a white paper in favour of tactical nuclear
weapons.
Japan bas followed an eminently pragmatic nuclear policy. In the
early 1990s, the Japanesce also hinted that they might not stay non-nuclear
if North Korea went nuclear. There bad been other hints that Japan
would not favour an uncooditiooal and indefinite extension of the NPT
when it came up for extension io 1995. Meanwhile, Japan is one of the
few countries increasingly relying on nuclear power and is a leading
world power going in for fast breeder reactors and fusion power. These
Japanese actions have created some unease among East Asian nations
and among some nuclear fundamentalists in the US, who point to the
large plutonium stockpile in Japan and its large uranium enrichment and
plutonium reprocessing capacities. There are some basic contradictions
oo the nuclear issue between Japan and the US. A time is bound to come
when the US deterrent shield may not be available and Japan will have
to be on its own.
••••
The Washington Post of25 November 1994 carried a front-page headline•
of the Swedish nuclear weapon research carried on till then, and of a
secret 65 MW research reactor buried underground. It was a detailed
report by Steve Coll, the Post's correspondent. Sweden did not disclose
the existence of this reactor to the IAEA, though it is required to do so
under the provisions of the NPT, of which Sweden is a signatory. 3 Sweden
3. Saddam llussein also pennitted the IAEA to inspect a number of declared

facilities and kept back certain other undisclosed facilities. The cooling tower of the
Swedish reactor was protruding from the top of a hillock in the subwbs of Stockholm.
But the US, which boasts of its monitoring cspabilities via its sophisticated satellites,
turned a blind eye to it. ,Sweden also conducted a laboratory test with weapon-grade
plutonium, though not involving a nuclear chain reaction, after it signed the NPT.

104 Sltedding Slubboletlts
disclosed it to the IAEA only in September 1994. The then Director

General of the IAEA, Hans Blix and bis predecessor Sigvard Eqlund
were Swedish. Did they not know about the secret reactor? In April
198S, Christel' Larssen. a Swedish conespondent, had disclosed in NY
Teknik that the research had been going on since the late 19S0s, and in
charge of the project was none other than Olof Palme himself, the great
crusader for nuclear disarmament 4 Ava Myrdal was a longtime Minister
for Disarmament in Sweden and she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for her crusade for nuclear disarmament. Did she know ab9ut this
clandestine programme?
Toe reactor at Agesta was on a care-and-maintenance basis to produce
plutoniwn, if necessary, in certain contingencies. Toe RAND Corporation
bas published a study by Paul M. Cole on Sweden without the Bomb.
The study was part of a larger project to understand the decision-making
of nations that choose not to acquire nuclear weapons. According to the
author, Sweden turned away from the nuclear weapon option after
financing twenty-five years of nuclear weapon research. Sweden had not
been involved in any war since 181S, and could stay neutral during the
two world wars, though during World War U it could do so only by
accommodating Hitler's Germany by supplying iron ore and ball bearings
for the German war industry and permitting transit rights to German
forces. Sweden at the end of World War II perceived a threat only from
the Soviet Union. In the early years after the end of World War U, the
Swedes faced considerable pressure from the US and the West to join
NATO while they insisted on continuing their policy of neutrality. It was
during this period the Swedes launched their own nuclear weapon research
programme. Lise Meitner, one of the original discoverers of nuclear
fission with Otto Hahn and a refugee in Sweden during the war, was
associated with it. Among the others helping the project along were five
Nobel laureates in Physics and Chemistry, such as the Danish scientist
Niels Bohr, the Swedes Theodore Svedberg, Manne Siegbahn, Hannes
Alfven, and the American of Swedish origin, Glenn Seborg.
In the l 9S0s, a majority of the Swedes favoured Swedish acquisition
of nuclear weapons because it was argued that the Swedish neutrality did
not guarantee that Sweden would be able to avoid a war, and no power
4. When I asked Palme in a seminar at the India Intematiooal Centre io January

1986 about this, be vehemently denied it. In January I 993, io another seminar io
Delhi, Jan Prawitz, one of the Swedish scientists involved io the programme, admiued
that Sweden did cany out a laboratory explosion using weapon-grade plUIOllium.

Nuclear Realities I05
should believe it would be possible to attack Sweden in a sideshow

action. They even thought of buying nuclear weapons from the US, since
economically that would be cheaper than a domestic programme, but
continued their research programme. Toe US subjected Sweden to a
wide range of restrictions against technology transfer up to 1953. There-
after, the US policy changed gradually, and the US National Security
Council decided to contribute to all areas of Swedish defence except
nuclear. In these circumstances, according to the RAND study, the
Swedish government shifted towards the argument that Sweden could
not afford to invest in a robust conventional defence, nuclear weapons,
and an extensive social welfare system simultaneously.
The Swedish defence doctrine came to reflect, first tacitly and then
increasingly explicitly, the assumption that the US nuclear umbrella
extended to NATO nations also covered Sweden. This is not, at least,
the popular perception in the US. But the Swedes appeared to assume
that Sweden was protected by nuclear guarantees extended to nations in
the Nordic region {Norway, Denmark and Iceland are part of NATO)
because the guarantor nation (the US) could not limit the geographic
extent of the guarantee. This assumption became, in time, the Swedish
policy. Toe intimate relationship on transfer of highly sophisticated
conventional defence technology from the US to Sweden would seem to
· have fostered this assumption. Toe study hypothesizes: the Swedish
officials concluded that a Soviet attack on Sweden could only occur in a
central war between two competing political-military blocs in Europe.
An attack on Sweden would either signal the beginning, or be an integrated
part of, a Soviet-bloc attack on NATO and the US. Toe US would then
have no choice but to use nuclear weapons in defence of NATO objectives
that would be parallel to, or at least support, Swedish national security
interests. But why were Swedish officials confident of such a high-risk
policy? Possibly, a series of secret US-Swedish defence arrangements
existed but have not been documented.
••••
Canada has borders only with the US, an open border. The Canadians
are under the extended nuclear deterrence of the US. The Canadians
permitted US nuclear-tipped Bomarc anti-aircraft missile on their soil.
Canadians are part of the NATO forces and were in possession of nuclear
weapons though the NPT, which they bad signed, disallowed it. Canadian
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said in his speech at the UN special
session on disarmament in 1978:

We have wi1bdrawn fiom 1111y nuclear role by Omada'~ armed forces in Europe
and are now in the process of replacing with conventiooal armed aircraft, lhe
ouclear-apable planes still assigned to our forces in North America. We were,
lh11S, not only the first COUDlly able lo produce nuclear weapous that chose DOI to
do so, we arc also the first nuclear-armed COUDlly lo have chosen to divest itself
of nuclear weapous.
Trudeau was thereby revealing that the Canadian aircraft of NORAD
command were flying with nuclear weapons until 1978, eight years after
the NPT came into force, in breach of the NPT .
•••
•
In I 995, Australia reacted vehemently to the French decision on resuming
nuclear testing in the South Pacific. It recalled its Ambassador to France,
cut off all defence ties, including some proposals to buy French defence
equipment, and was promoting a boycott of French products. The French
shrugged their shoulders and took the Australian protest in their stride.
Surprisingly, the Australians did nothing when Jacques Chirac earlier
announced that France would resume testing if he were elected. The
Australians permitted the first British test on their soil, and thereafter, a
number of follow-ups. They never objected to any American tests in the
Pacific. The French argued that their testing did not produce environmental
damage, just as US testing in Nevada was claimed not to have. The
French followed the US example, and were attempting to collect data
through the scheduled tests necessary for future computer simulation
techniques and hydro-nuclear testing. When the treaty on the South Pacific
nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ) was adopted, Australia, which is a
member, worked hard to exempt US naval vessels carrying nuclear
weapons operating in the South Pacific from its scope, and also exclude
the US islands adjacent to the South Pacific NWFZ ft-om its purview.
The US nuclear war command and control system had important nodal
centres on Australian territory (It is not clear whether they have ceased
to be operational after the end of the cold war). While New Zealand
declared that it would not receive any US naval vessel that did not declare
itself to be nuclear-free, Australia had no such inhibitions. When the US
excluded New Zealand from ANZUS because of its policy on US vessels,
Australia did not support its neighbour.
•••
•
Iraq, a developing country, has to depend upon the western industrialind
countries for all nuclear equipment. Therefore, every piece of equipment
- Dlgltlzeo by Google Original from

Nuclear Realities I07
in Iraq in this field has originated from the western countries. After the
Indian nuclear test of 1974 these countries had formed a London
Suppliers' Club to prevent developing countries acquiring equipment
needed for making a nuclear weapon. They drew up a "trigger list" of
items (the Zangger list) not to be exported to developing countries without
safeguards. The list dealt entirely with equipment related to production
of nuclear weapon via the plutonium route. Zangger, a Swiss national,
authorized export of equipment related to centrifuge technology for
uranium enrichment to Pakistan from Switzerland since he did not
visualiz.e that a developing country could master the centrifuge technology.
After Pakistan's centrifuge method of uranium enrichment became public
knowledge, equipment related to that technology was added to the list of
prohibited items. Iraq had been trying uranium enrichment using the
Calutron, which, once again, caught the Suppliers' Club napping. Calutron
requires very powerful electromagnets, and equipment to handle a gaseous
compound of uranium. Was this method set up and operated entirely by
Iraqi scientists, or did it involve western scientists? Also, where did the
powerful magnets originate and how was its export to Iraq accomplished
without attracting attention? Thirdly, how did the Iraqis acquire the equip-
ment to handle gaseous uranium compolJ!lds? According to the table
compiled by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee up to March
1993, the number of companies from the signatory countries to the NPT
which violated their treaty obligations and supplied nuclear-related
technologies to Iraq was as follows: Germany 57, Switzerland 22, United
Kingdom 10, France 9, United States 9, Italy 6, and Japan 5.
•••
♦
In late 1993, the US Energy Secretary, Hazel O'Leary, followed up her

earlier announcement of 250 undisclosed US nuclear tests with new
infonnation on radioactive medical experiments on 800 people, including
49 mentally challenged youngsters. They were exposed to high levels of
plutonium and fed radioactive iodine in their food. For the mentally
challenged, this was done without permission of their parents. (When the
information became public, there was mention of compensating the
families concerned.) These experiments were carried out by scientific
personnel associated with prestigious academic institutions, such as
Harvard University and MIT. Some scientific personnel were reported
to have had reservations about those experiments, and some even drew
comparisons with Nazi death camp experiments carried out on Jewish
prisoners. These experiments were carried out in a democracy which

108 Slieddbtg Slubbokllis
prided itself for saving the world from the Nazis and Iapan,:sc militarists,
and wu the leader of the democratic world against communism. The
Nazi death camp doctors were brought to trial for war crimes and
punished. Some of them were bUDted for years to be brought to book.
(The justification of the Nazis and the Japanese, who earned out biological
warfare experiments in Korea was also that they bad to do such experi-
ments in the interest of national security.)
HUDdreds of US ex-servicemen bad contested in the courts, unsuccess-
fully, about their exposure to radioactivity when they were, as part of
military exercise, exposed to high levels of radiation by being deployed
in areas where nuclear weapons bad been exploded. The authorities knew
about the impact of radioactivity on the human organism, as in the tests
in the Pacific various animals bad been exposed. They knew about what
happened to the Japanese population after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
to the Japanese fishermen of the fishing vessel Fukuyumaru after it was
exposed to the fallout of the first hydrogen bomb tesL
-
by Google
Original from
Dlgltlzeo UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
10
Nuclear Proliferation
•
A
nuclear device with a yield of 12-15 kilotons of
explosive power, and which can cause casualties up to 100,000 people
and immense property damage, when put together, weighs around a tonne
and can go into the boot of a car. The device could be unloaded on our
western coast from a dhow and set off with a timing device. In the early
1970s, a book titled The Curve ofBinding Energy, dealing with the work
of a US nuclear weapon designer, Theodore Taylor, warned bow a nuclear
explosive device could be put together in a garage, provided enough
fissile material was available. From then onwards literature on nuclear
terrorism and steps to be taken to guard against it bas grown. In one
novel, The Fourth Protocol, components of a nuclear weapon are brought
into Britain individually to be assembled to be exploded. Another novel,
The Gulf Scenario, envisages Pakistan attempting to obtain an Indian
nuclear device by stealth to be carried to a Gulf state to blackmail the
Gulf states into submission. Yet another novel on the subject, involving
Pakistan and the Gulf, is Pillars ofFire.
In the mid-1980s, the FBI penetrated a group ofKhalistani extremists
who were planning, among other things, to blow up one of the Indian
nuclear power stations. One story, perhaps apocryphal, about the Bombay
blasts of 1993 is that the Bbabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) was
among the targets but the terrorists found that security had been tightened
and, hence, chose inore vulnerable targets. In the US, there have been
threats of nuclear terrorist blackmail by people who claimed to have .
placed a device in some building in a city and demanded a ransom. In a
few cases, to add credibility to their threats, they enclosed a design
drawing of the device. Almost all threats are investigated in the US and,
fortunately, till now all threats have proved to be hoaxes. A special force
bas been formed to attend to these threats, called the Nuclear Emergency
Search Team (NEST). In the 1980s; an international task force was formed
in the US to study the issue of nuclear terrorism and its report and papers
were published in Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism by editors Paul

110 Shedding Shibbole1hs
Leventhal and Yonah Alexander in 1987. The task force dealt with the
following kinds of nuclear terrorist acts: seizure of a nuclear power plant
for blackmail, sabotaging a nuclear reactor, making or stealing a nµclear
device for blackmail or detonation, truck bombing a nuclear plant, stealing
weapon-grade wanium or plutonium or carrying out an ambush attack
on a shipment of nuclear materials.
Nuclear weapon-grade materials are traded in the black market, and
so also are nuclear waste materials which can be used as radiological
weapons. The source of most of these materials are reactors in the western
world which are supposed to be under Euratom safeguards under the
overall aegis of the IAEA. The New York water supply registered a
perceptible presence of Plutonium 239 (Pu-239) following a telephone
threat though it was not of a level to create a hazard. That Pu-239 most
probably emanated from a US military facility. Israel was able to divert
weapon-grade uranium from the NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania
in 1968 to enable it to fabricate its arsenal. A ship carrying uranium---
Scheerberg-A- was hijacked by Israelis to augment their uranium supply.
In 1994, for the fourth time in three months, weapon-grade fissile
material was seized in Germany, the first three in Bavaria and then at
Bremen. In Bavaria, it was reported that the offer was for 4 kg of weapon-
grade plutonium; 6 kg is required to make a Nagasaki-type of bomb. The
seizure was carried out at Munich airport from a Lufthansa flight origin-
ating in Moscow. Reports indicated the arrest of a German, a Pole and a
Pakistani in Berlin, attempting to send plutonium to Pakistan. (It is
surmised that those small seizures in Gennany were an attempt to divert
attention of the western agencies to Germany while large-scale diversion
may be taking place in other directions.) 1
I. (West) Germany bas a unique record in contributing to clandestine nuclear

proliferation. On 4 May 1987, there were press reports that a Cologne fum was
supplying equipment to Pakistan to set up a second centrifuge plant and the matter
was under investigation. The book Nuclear Axis, by Cervenka 8lld Rogers, speaks of
the collaboration between (West) Getman £inns and South Africa on the development
of what is known as the nozzle enrichment process for uranium 235, originally
invented by the German scientist Becker. (West) Germany bad also entered into an
agm:ment with Brazil to construct a number of enriched unmium light water reactors·
The contract was conditional on the transfer of technology for uranium enrichment.
Later, the President of Brazil announced that the Brazilian scientists bad, on their
own, developed the uranium enrichment technology. A number of German scientists
who emigrated to Argentina at the end of World War Il helped that country to develop
both plutonium separation and uranium enrichment technologies. Countries like
Norway have also not been meticulous in selling heavy water, which is said to have

Nuc/e;u ProliferaJwn 111
In late 1994, C:zech authorities seized 3 kg of weapon-grade enriched

uranium. They arrested a C:zech nuclear physicist and two nationals of
the former Soviet Union. This was the largest single seizure of weapon-
grade material. Applying the rule of thumb normally extended to smug-
gling operations, one seizure may be indicative that some eight or nine
others have gone undetected. Some eight or nine similar quantities of
enriched uranium, if they end up in one hand, will be more than enough
to make a Hiroshima-type bomb. That danger is now being increasingly
recognin"4 all over the world and the US action of setting up the FBI
office in Moscow with full concurrence of the Russian authorities is a
clear indicator of the concerns of the two governments over this issue.
A BBC-Television documentary on the leakage ofred mercury caused
considerable concern among the public in Europe. Many scientists called
it a hoax. However, a few believed it could help in improving the
perfonnance of conventional explosives in an atom bomb.
Reports on clandestine trafficking in nuclear materials from the former
Soviet republics were also on the rise towards the mid-1990s. While the
earlier reports were found to be mostly baseless, there appeared to be
adequate ground to believe that criminal organivitions were showing a
more than casual interest in such transactions. There were also fears that
such organiz.ations might not only deal in nuclear materials but also in
readily assembled weapons and subsystems of nuclear weapons.
In the early 1990s, the Russians confirmed reports of a theft of fuel
rods used for submarine propulsion. A highly placed Russian official
revealed that Russian authorities were worried about the possibility of
organized crime infiltrating military installations in the country, and there
were forty-seven such cases under investigation.
An article in the Atlantic Monthly (June 1994) referred to an alleged
seizure of 132 lb. of enriched uranium, and unconfirmed reports ofsmug-
gling of weapon-grade plutonium to North Korea In Germany, 545 anests
were made in 1993 in connection with suspicion of smuggling of nuclear
materials. In one case, 60 gm of99 per cent pure weapon-grade plutonium
was seized.
In late 1987, a television programme on Channel Four in the UK
revealed significant details about the supply side of trafficking in not just
found its way to Israel and India. (When the Norwegians complained that their heavy
WIiier bad shown up in India, the latter denied the charge and asked how Norway,
which is a party to the NPT, allowed the heavy water to leave the COWltry without
adequate safeguards.)

112 Slieddillg Sliibboletlrs
maraging steel and beryllium but in weapon-grade enriched uranium and

plutonium. The principal informant was called Eric in the programme.
He was an anns dealer and, according to the programme, was a reliable
soun:e of infonnation for the US Drug Enforccmcut Agency. He identified
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, l\S the main centre where transactions in
fissile materials bad been taking place over the years. He said that in the
last transaction involving enriched uranium of weapon grade, family
members of the Sudanese Prime Minister were involved and hence it
was hushed up. According to Eric, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran,
Argentina, South Afiica, and Egypt bad been attempting to operate on
the Khartoum marlcct and, marginally, India as well. Israel created the
market originally, and the fissile materials originated from Western
Europe. The civil nuclear plants there were specifically mentioned as the
source. He said that the flows of fissile materials into the marlcct bad
taken place at infrequent intervals, and that certain quantities of fissile
materials bad arrived over the past eight or nine years. He also mentioned
that a syndicate in Italy bad been handling these transacrions. To his
knowledge, the secret services of the US, UK, USSR, France and Israel
were all aware of these transactions. When a captain of the Sudanese
Secret Service, Captain Assem Kabashi, investigated into the matter and
started writing about it, be was arrested, but subsequently released because
of the public uproar. While Eric recounted consignments of plutonium
and enriched uranium passing through Khartoum in 1982, 1983 and 1986,
he bad no knowledge of the identity of the buyers. But in 1987, of two
consignments of enriched uranium of weapon grade, l kg went to Iran
and 2 kg went to Iraq.
According to Eric's estimate, in the past few years the Italian syndicate
would have supplied 6-10 kg of plutonium. lo his view, the lsrael.i
bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981 took place because Iraq bought
1 kg of weapon-grade plutonium. The Israeli intelligence kept the trans-
actions in Khartoum under close watch and itself tried to purchase the
fissile materials, if possible, to forestall its falling into the hands of Islamic
nations. It has been well known that Pakistan was buying nuclear material
through companies set up in the UAE and Turkey. Eric also said that
Argentina has two bombs, the first assembled in 1983 and the second in
1986. He further disclosed that a new move was afoot to supply rcadymade
kits for nuclear weapons without the fissile material core. Herc again be
pointed an accusing finger at some South European countries.
There have been forty-one instances of significant quantities of
materials unaccounted for in West European facilities. The losses in the

Nuclear Proliferatwn 113
US facilities have been of a much higher order than acknowledged. In

1987, when I mentioned trafficking in plutonium in discussions with
some US expeits, they expressed disbelief. They had heard of trafficking
in enriched uranium but not about plutonium, they said. I referred them
to a news item appearing in the Times ofIndia in the last week of August
1985, detailing how a.French journalist was able to conclude a deal for
plutooium.2
The plutonium-containing waste material originates either from 1cpro-
cessing for weapon purposes or from fuel for fast breeder reactors. In all
these processes a small percentage of material is always unaccounted for
since the efficiency of extraction is never cent per cent Clever brains
both on the supply and demand sides have found the transaction creative
and worth while. (The US Energy Department admitted in 1994 to large
discrepancies between the weapon-grade plutonium produced and what
can be accounted for in weapons and other stockpiles. In the 1970s,
Karen Silkwood, working in a plutonium separation plant, made charges
about sloppy handling and consequent leakage; she was killed in an
automobile accident as she was setting out to meet a newspaper corres-
pondent to tell him her story. A film has been made based on that story,
starring Merry) Sbeep as Karen Silkwood. Also in the 1970s, the US
General Accounting Office bad mentioned in its reports toones of enriched
uranium of varying grades being unaccounted for. Most of it was still in
the extensive piping and not lost, it was explained. Diversion of weapon-
grade enriched uranium from the Numec plant at Apollo, Pennsylvania
to Israel is no longer disputed.)
The CIA director, John Deutsch, testified before a Senate subcommittee
on 20 March 1996 on the threat of diversion of nuclear materials and
2. France, the UK, Germany and Japan all have a fast br-ier reactor programme,
which uses plutonium as fuel. So does the Indian fast br-ier reactor at 1'•1pekkam.
While Britain and France, as nuclear weapon countries, have the freedom to reproccs8
irradiated uranium rods and extract plutonium from them without submitting
themselves to international safeguards, Germany and Japan need to reprocess their
plutonium in the nuclear weapoo countries or in Belgium. Belgium has a plutonium
separation plant that is supposed to be self-monitoring since the multinational Euratom
nins il Japan and Gennany therefore send their irradiat'"1 uranium rods either to
Britain, France or Belgium, and get back plutonium for their breedes- reactors. In
early 1988, the US and Japan wen: holding discussions for the US to give Japan
blanket permission to reprocess its plutonium in Europe and lift it back by air transport
from France and Japan via Alaska. (fill then, this needed a case-by- approval,
and the transportation was by sea. The US Conives-at least some members was
opposed to blanket pennission as well as the air transportation arrangement.)

I I 4 SMdding Sllibbokuis
technologies which could be used as terrorist devices by co,,tarnmating

drinking water supplies, business centres, govenunent facilities, or trans-
portation networks. He cited the instance of Chechens placing a shielded
container with radioactive caesiwn in a Moscow park and directing a
news agency to it This was just to demoostrate what they could do: the
ope1ation could have been more destructive. The Japanese terrorist cult
Awn Shinrikyo used sarin nerve gas in its attack on Tokyo suburban
railway: they could have used radioactive materials. Deutsch also
discussed the possibility of Russian organiud crime getting involved in
the transport of nuclear weapons and materials out of the former Soviet
Union, and the inadequacies in the system of accotmting ofsuch materials
in Russia.
If the tactical nuclear weapons in the arsenal of the now defunct USSR
start seeping out, no nation can discount threats held out by terrorist
groups claiming possession of such weapons and threatening to trigger
off a nuclear explosion. The standard method for lending credibility to
such a threat is by sending a detailed drawing of the nuclear device.
With so many nuclear scientists out of job, both in the emwhile Soviet
Union and the US, providing such a design may not be very difficult
Another way of making the threat credible is by carrying out a
demonstration in the shape of a small nuclear explosion in an nninhahited
or sparsely populated area, using a smaller weapon like a nuclear artillery
shell or a nuclear landmine, and then threatening that future explosions
would be targeted at populated areas unless the demands of the terrorists
are met. MUF (material unacCOW1ted for) is a permanent feature of nuclear
fissile material management There have been suggestions that the margins
of inventory error could be significant for tactical weapons. Since the
Soviet tactical nuclear weapons run into thousands, even a one per cent
error would involve more than a hundred weapons. According to a Russian
scholar well acquainted with the strategic issues of the erstwhile Soviet
military establishment, the counter proposals of President Mikhail
Gorbachev following President Bush's unilateral elimmation of most of
the tactical nuclear weapons led to an announcement that it would involve
a cutback of 15,000 tactical weapons, plus or minus 5,000. In other
words, the Soviet military establishment's state of accounting of its tactical
nuclear weapons inventory allowed for a margin of around 30 per cent
error. In various arms control negotiations until then, the two sides had
only talked about the strategic arsenals and intermediate ones, which are
very bulky, easily locatable items. They never got down to discussions
of tactical arsenal because they could not have scrupulously accounted

Nuclear Proliferation 115
for all the weapons, at least not on the Soviet side. Even for non-nuclear
weapon states which reprocess the spent fuel rods or enrich uranium,
safeguards experts concede that it is technically acutely difficult to keep
track of what is going through a large reprocessing plant to any closer
than about one per cent margin. According to a former director of nuclear
materials safeguards for the US Atomic Energy Commission, "The
aggregate MUF from the three US diffusion plants alone is expressible
in tons. No one knows where it is. None of it may have been stolen. But
the balances don't close. You could divert from any plant in the world in
substantial amounts and never be detected."
In 1994, Russia claimed to be dismantling 2000-3000 wameads per
year. General Yevstafyev, a Russian expert on non-proliferation, warned,
according to a report in Moscow News (27 August 1993), about possi-
bilities of leakage of fissile materials from Russian facilities. A member
of the Russian ~cademy of Sciences (Siberian branch) was arrested for
an attempt to smuggle out 12 kg of enriched uranium, according to a
report of 11 August 1993. However, when the Germans, reportedly, put
forward a ten-point plan for international monitoring of loose fissile
materials, the US, UK and France were reported to be opposing it
•••
•
Happenings like a coup in a nation where nuclear weapons--either its
own or somebody else's-are deployed, cannot be viewed smugly as an
internal affair of that nation. In normal times, command and control over
the nuclear weapons will vest in the head of state or head of government.
In Pakistan, there are reasons to believe that the effective command on
nuclear weapons may vest in the Chief of Army Staff. Hence changes in
Chiefs of Army Staffin Pakistan are as important as changes in heads of
government; and a coup in Pakistan, not an unusual occurrence, cannot
be treated as its internal affair.
Strategic weapons have individual electronic locking arrangements.
Only when the coded message reaches the operating personnel more
than one in number, and they are able to match it with the preset code in
their possession, they will be able to initiate the firing sequence. This
applies to land-based strategic missiles and aircraft carrying strategic
weapons. In submarines at sea, three officers on board-the captain, the
first officer and the weapons officer-can, if they all agree, jointly initiate
the firing operation. This is because of the uncertainties involved in
reaching a command across to a submarine under the sea. (In early 1995,

reports from Washington spoke of steps being initiated to incorporate

new electronic locks on the nuclear missiles installed in missile
subinarines.)3 Tactical weapons are unlocked electronically and released
to the commander, under the express orders of the head of government
when a crisis reaches a level of intensity when hostilities are considered
inevitable. In that last stage, control over the weapons is that of local
commanders.
During the attempted coup in the Soviet Union, when be was detained,
Gorbachev IS President should have bad with him the codes for command
and control over the weapons. There is no mention whether they were
forcibly taken away from him. If they were, the risks of nnautboriz.ed
release or use of weapons would have increased. Pr~nmahly, the coup
leaders were not at that stage very much concerned about their own
cnmmand and control over nuclear weapons.
However, there were other problems. If the coup bad not failed, some
formation commanders of the armed forces and the KGB separately or
together, could have seized the weapons and used them IS bargaining
chips. The weapons could not have been fired immediately, but their
possession itself would have been a powerful leverage. If the weapons
fall into the bands of people with appropriate knowhow, their electronic
circuits can possibly be redesigned to eliminate the electronic locks. It is
not _known whether the locking system for weapons in China bas reached
the degree of sophistication IS in the western countries. In Pakistan, it is
quite likely its nuclear weapons at this stage of development are not
electronically locked..
3. Until then, at regular intervals a message was sent through the very low frequency
system that everything was all right The submarine used to put up its antennae
withln 100-200 metres depth to receive the message. There were also aiicraft pattolling
the trailing antennae dipping into the sea putting out similar reassuring messages.
Beyond this, communication between the beadquarten and the submarine was not
possible. There is the extremely low frequency station that can send out messages to
submarines at lower depths, but it was very slow. Though they did not admit it in the
open, this lack of control was of great concern to the nuclear weapon powers.
Consequently, the submarine crews were checked frequently for their mental and
emotional stability and health. The nuclear submariaes were not kept at sea for
longer than ninety days at a time. Even with all these precautions, there were ,eport:,
of fights among the crew in Soviet submarines. There bad also been clashes in US
aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons aboard. 1n spite of all these risks, the nuclear
submarines were considered to constitute stable second-strike deterrents. Some
strategists consider the nuclear missile submarines as the preferred deterrent.

11
Nuclear Miscellany
NUCLEAR f ALLACIES
Tbe very first resolution of the UN General Assembly
demanded the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction----biological,
chemical, radiological, and nuclear. The concept of general and complete
disarmament was also mentioned in the Zorin-McCloy Joint Declaration
of 1962. It finds a place in article VI of the NPT. Thereafter, the views
of the western, especially the American strategic community, that general
and complete disarmament was a utopian goal, gained ascendancy. It
was argued that nuclear weapons could not be disinvented. With both
sides having developed technical means of verification---satellites-it
would be more realistic to aim at verifiable anns control agreements, it
was asserted. According to the US strategic theoreticians strategic stability
based on mutual deterrence would be the key to peaceful coexistence.
The pragmatic objective, it was argued, would be to seek anns control
enabling the two adversaries to negotiate limitations in armament stock-
piles and to engage in dialogue to reduce risks of unintended conflicts or
wars by miscalculation. The various agiee1nents negotiated between the
US and the Soviet Union-SALT I, the ABM Treaty, SALT Il, START
and other ancillary treaties were within this framework. Even institutions
like the Pugwash Council subscribed to the doctrine of nuclear deterrence
in those years. Over a period of time, through the SALT negotiations,
the US strategic community succeeded in converting the Soviets to the
philosophy of arms control. This stand was fraught with a basic internal
contradiction. If deterrence and arms control were the only pragmatic
course for the major powers, by the same logic it applied to other coW1tries
as well. In that case the NPT was illogical, since it aimed at total denial
of nuclear weapons to many nations which felt threatened by major nuclear
weapon powers.
The US has a long history of paranoia; the US strategic establishment
revels in it (In 1992, the then Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, General

118 Sliedding Shibboleths
Colin Powell, bemoaned that the US was running short of enemies and
bad been reduced to treating Fidel Castro, Kim II Sung, Colonel Gaddafi
and the Iranian ayatollahs as its major adversaries.) ln the early 1950s
the US invented a bomber gap and proclaimed that the Soviet Union had
outstripped the US in production of bombers and, hence, the US had
become extremely vulnerable. Subsequently, it was revealed that there
was no bomber gap. Then came the missile gap, which John Kennedy
exploited during his election campaign of 1960. According to this thesis
the Soviet Union had started producing ICBMs in large nwnbers and
had outstripped the US in their production. This turned out to be a pure
invention: at the time of the Cuban missile crisis the Soviet Union had
only four missiles which could reach the US from the Soviet soil. In fact,
the Soviets put missiles in Cuba mostly because they had not produced
adequate nwnber of long-range missiles capable of reaching the US.
Then came the San Francisco speech of Defence Secretary McNamara
in October 1967, where he envisioned a threat to the US from the Chinese
ICBMs. McNamara built the largest nuclear arsenal of his time-the
strategic triad-and was the propounder of the doctrine of mutual assured
destruction. He persuaded Congress to build a I 000 silo-based and 656
submarine-based missile force. This was followed by US plans to set up
a ballistic missile defence system. The Chinese produced a missile capable
of reaching the US only in the early 1980s, and even today hardly have
even a score of missiles with such ranges. Then it was the tum of the
Reagan administration to come up with its thesi~ of window of vulnerabil-
ity which, it was argued, subjected the US to a Soviet threat of thousands
of multiple independent re-entry vehicles (MIRV) which would saturate
the US targets. To thwart this threat, a multi-billion dollar Star Wars prog-
ramme was started. After spending tens of billions of dollars, the prog-
ramme has been wound up. It is difficult to visualize a realistic scenario
of a rogue country challenging the US with WMD. Such challenges may
arise, if at all, from international terrorist organizations. According to a
Public Broadcasting Service Television programme (1994), such terrorist
organizations operate within the US itself; and an organization like Harnas
is able to raise funds and carry out training in the US.
Deterrence has an objective value. But in nuclear deterrence, irrespec-
tive of relative ~ • strengths, both sides are bound to suffer immeasur-
ably, disproportionate to any rational gain in view. The two sides of the
cold war practised deterrence based more on a belief system than on
rationality. Each side believed that the more nuclear weapons it had the
greater deterrence it exercised. Also, for impact, one had to flaunt one's
weapons.

Nuclear Miscellany 119
In the early 1970s, Henry Kissinger signalled that neither the US nor
the Soviet Union could hope to win a nuclear war. He asked rhetorically,
"What in heaven's name is strategic nuclear superiority?" The term
confidence building gained cwrency after the SALT I agreement of 1972,
the subsequent detente, and the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 on peace
and security in Europe. SALT I brought about an equation in the gigantic
nuclear arsenals of the two superpowers, and along with it recognition
that they could not fight and win a nuclear war. Reagan and Gorbachev
made the formal declaration to this effect only in 1985.
With an enormous number of tactical nuclear weapons on both sides
of the Central European dividing line, and the forces deployed in eyeball-
to-eyeball confrontation, it was clear that once a nuclear war broke out,
all those with such weapons in their inventory would be under compulsion
of either using them or losing them within the first few minutes. It was in
this context that the concept of confidence-building measures (CBMs)
was developed, discussed, and began to be implemented. The basic
premise was that there was effective mutual deterrence between the two
opposing sides, and that neither side had any hope of gaining an advantage
through the use of military muscle. Both sides were also afraid that an
accidental clash might rapidly escalate to nuclear war. Hence, they found
it to their mutual advantage to develop CBMs jointly.
In the late 1950s and early '60s, when there was high tension over
Berlin, a large flow of refugees from East Germany to West Germany,
and hence frequent confrontations and crises, American analysts played
a war game in 1960 to find a way to stabiliz.e the situation. The game
threw up a solution---the Berlin Wall. The American strategists rejected
the solution out of hand as preposterous. But the Berlin Wall came up a
year later, and helped to defuse the tension. After nearly twenty-eight
years of stability, the Berlin Wall was pulled down, following the collapse
of East Europe's doctrinaire regimes due to their internal contradictions.
But while it was there, the Wall prevented a recwrence of ~e Berljn
crisis. There is a sequential dynamics of deterrence, stability, arid CBMs
before barriers break down and lead to mutual COOJ>tcration.
A dispassionate and objective analysis would not inspire admiration
for the nuclear strategic theology. Relentless pursuit of that theology led
to the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the US losing out economically
to its rivals, Germany and Japan. The continued legitimization of nuclear
weapons is likely to lead to China emerging as the chief rival of the
United States and displacing the US pre-eminence in Asia with its own.
Some have asked, pertinently, whether a weapon can really serve as a
deterrent when it is not used for forty-three years and is not likely to be

120 Slledding Slubbouuhs
used perhaps for the next two or three decades. Will not such prolonged
non-use deprive it of its credll>ility as a deterrent? On the other band,
another school of thought advocates increasing the accuracy of long-
range standoff weapons and reducing the yield of nuclear warheads in
order to make them usable as fighting weapons of war. Possibly, even
then they would not be used in Europe wbere parallel developments in
standoff capability, accuracy, and lowering of yields may take place on
both sides. But such weapons may be used in interventionist wars in the
developing world, and once they are used in another part of the gtobe
(where tbere is no fear of retaliation), their deterrence value can be
restored even in the Ew-opean thealre without having to use them there.
In the 1960s, the non-proliferation literature projected that in the next
two decades some twenty countries would acquire nuclear weapons. This
scenario was based upon a number of untenable assumptions. At that
time the western strategists, with some exceptions, contributed to the
view that a nuclear war was fightable and winnable. As is usual with the
strategic community, instead of rationally assessing proliferation potential,
they concluded that any country which could make the weapon would do
it. The non-proliferation theology is a direct result of this alannist world
view. At that stage India, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan,
Japan, and South Africa featured in the list of potential acquirers of
weapons; Pakistan was not high on that list. Most of the nations originally
listed as potential proliferators did not have the motivation to do so. The
only countries which had demonstrated motivation earlier and have since
moved away from the course are Taiwan, Argentina, and Brazil. South
Korea with US nuclear weapons on its soil, did not, perhaps; consider it
necessary to pursue its ambition too far down the road.
NUCLEAR WEAPON FREE ZONES
India used to support strongly NWFZ proposals till 1978, when that policy
was changed by the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai. In his address to
the first UN special session on disarmament in June 1978 he said:
It is idle to talk of regional nuclear-free zones when there would still be :zones
which could continue to be endangered by nuclear weapons. 1booe who have
such weapons lose nothing if some distant area is declared non-nuclear. lbe
nations without nuclear capability who imagine that their inclusion in such zones
affords them security are suffering from a delusion. We are convinced that there
cannot be a limited approach to the question of freedom from nuclear threats
and dangers but the whole world should be declared as a nuclear free zone.

Until 1991, there were three NWFZs: Antarctica, Latin America, and
South Pacific. In Antarctica, all nuclear-weapon p'owers agreed in 1961
not to introduce nuclear weapons into the icy continent In 1967, the
Latin American nations signed the Treaty of Tlatelelco through which
the area ftom Mexico to Argentina and the adjacent seas were declared
nuclear-free. However, this treaty bas not been brought into force by
Brazil and Argentina, who have been asserting their right to conduct
peaceful nuclear explosions. Argentina and Brazil were also believed to
be entertaining ambitions to become nuclear weapon powers and they
formally gave up these ambitions under a treaty in 1990. Whether the
two countries will now bring into force the Tlatelelco treaty is to be
seen. Therefore, the Tlatelelco NWFZ, with nations representing half the
area encompassed by the treaty keeping out of it twenty-three years after
its promulgation, caUMt be considered a successful one. Further, there
are reports that the US keeps nuclear depth charges in the Roosevelt
Roads Station in Puerto Rico and there are also no verification anange-
ments to monitor that nuclear weapon submarines do not violate the zone
earmarked under the treaty. An arms control treaty without verification
is simply make-believe. The South Pacific NWFZ (the Rarotonga Treaty)
is something of a joke since, except for Australia and New Zealand,
none of the other islands makes even a bicycle. The zone does not prohibit
the US nuclear submarines travelling through the waters between the
islands, or Australia having on its soil the US C3 (command, control, and
communications) inftastructure to fight a nuclear war. Yet the US, the
UK, and France have refused to accept the South Pacific NWFZ.
The NWFZ concept predated NPT. The underlying idea was that not
only the countries concerned would not make nuclear weapons themselves
but they should not also permit other nuclear weapon powers to bring in
their nuclear weapons into the territories and territorial waters of the
nations concerned. This need for excluding nuclear weapons from the
territories and territorial waters of states who are signatories to the NPT
bas now been overtaken by developments in disarmament undertaken by
the US, Russia, and the UK. They have shed their tactical nuclear weapons
and therefore their armies, navies and air forces have all become nuclear
weapon free except for their respective strategic commands with long-
range intercontinental surface-to-surface missiles, submarine-launched
ballistic missiles and air-launched missiles. These weapon carriers are
stationed on home territories or on the. high seas. Only China and France
have weapon carriers with tactical nuclear weapons. Therefore, the need
for nations to have NWFZs when they are already members of the NPT

has lost all meaning unless it is directed against the French or Chinese
'
nuclear weapons.
NWFZs are established only when the need for them is absent in a
region: the nuclear weapon powers accept such :zones only when their
strategic interests do not suffer. The US and China are not willing to .
accept the South East Asian NWFZ in spite of the strong interest of the
nations concerned, who have signed a treaty to this effect. The South
Pacific NWFZ was accepted by the western powers eleven years after it
was promulgated and after the French had finished all their tests in the
South Pacific. A $imilar ritualistic exercise was the African NWFZ signed
in Cairo on 11 April 1996 by forty-nine African countries. (The absence
of Liberia, Seychelles, Madagascar, and Somalia did not signify their
protest against the treaty.) The US, China, Britain, and France have
pledged oot to test nuclear weapons on the African soil oor to use nuclear
weapons against African countries. As long as South Africa had nuclear
weapons, there could be oo NWFZ in Africa. Once the South African
bombs were dismantled and the NPT was extended unconditionally and
indefinitely-and Africa had oo real need for a NWFZ-a treaty on
African NWFZ came about
HISTORY OF NUCLEAR THREATS
General Colin Powell, in his autobiography My American Journey,

records how he, under the orders of the then Defence Secretary Richard
Cheney prepared a secret report oo using nuclear weapons during the
Gulf war, and then destroyed it, because the plan would have been a
disaster. Cheney asked him to explore hypothetical strike options against
Iraqi units. General Powell says his first response was: "We are not
going to let that genie loose", but prepared the_report The results unnerved
him. To do serious damage to just one armoured division dispersed in
the desert would have required a considerable number of small tactical
nuclear weapons. (Suppose, instead of a sober General Powell there had
been a Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff like General Curtis Le May, the
answer to Cheney's question might have been different. Further, it showed
that even when the adversary had no nuclear weapon the US decision-
makers were prepared to contemplate the use ofouclear weapons.)
General Powell is among those professional military men who believe
that nuclear weapons are not usable as a weapon of war. General Homer
of the US, who commanded the entire Allied air effort during the Gulf
War (1991), was the first general to have said publicly, while still in

Nuckar Miscellany 123
service, that nuclear weapons are not usable weapons of·war. If the
professional opinion of their top military commanders after fifty years of
experience with nuclear weapons concludes that such weapons are
1D1usable, should not the civilian leadership explain to their public why
they continue to maintain such large arsenals at high costs? Some time in
1995, I asked a visiting American academic why they do not hold swnmer
schools in their COIDltry to develop transparency about their own nuclear
policies instead of holding them in India He was not amused at my
suggestion.
Except for the Berlin crisis, the majority of explicit nuclear threats
conveyed have related to the developing world (China 1953, China 1958,
Cuba 1962) and there have been other implicit nuclear threats also in the
developing world. Barry Blechman, Stephen Kaplan, et al., in Force
WiJhout War: U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instnunent (Brookings
Institution, 1978) have listed nineteen incidents of threats of employment
of nuclear forces. The nuclear threats against a non-nuclear China in
1953 and 1958 have been detailed by President Eisenhower in bis
Mandate for Change.
The dispatch of Task Force 74 beaded by the nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay ofBengal in 1971 was on an intimida-
tion mission against non-nuclear India. So also was the use of British
nuclear submari.nes in the Falldands War of 1982. President Nixon in his
interview to Time magazine of29 July 1985 said about the 1971 crisis:
''lbe Chinese were climbing the walls. We were concerned that the
Chinese might intervene to stop India. We didn't learn till later that they
didn't have that kind of conventional capability. But if they did step in
and the Soviets reacted what would we do? There was no question what
we would have done." Nixon lists this as one of the three instances when
he considered using nuclear weapons.
THE LEGALITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
UN General Assembly resolution 1/1 categorized nuclear weapons along

with biological, chemical, and radiological weapons and urged that the
international community should move towards el.i.minating all of them.
Under article VI of the NPT, too, all state parties to the treaty undertook
to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early ~te,
nuclear disannament and on a treaty on general and complete disannament
under strict and effective international control.
In 1994, when the Indonesian resolution on seeking an "advisory

124 Sltedding Sltibboleths
opinion" of the Intcmational Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of use

and threat of use of nuclear weapons was passed in the General Assembly,
Sweden abstained. The Swedes bad been the moving force behind the
resolution of the World Health Organi2:ation in 1993 to make a reference
to the World Court on the legality of the use and threat of use of nuclear
weapons. Earlier, the DOD-aligned nations withdrew a resolution in the
General Assembly seeking the World Court's advisory opinion. 1 Behind
this move was an initiative called the "World Court Project", organiz.ed
by the International Peace Bureau, the International Association of
Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear Waz. On the basis of this reference, the ICJ sought the views of
vazious governments and set 10 June 1994 as the deadline for submission
of views. More than twenty governments made written submissions.2
The ICJ in its advisory opinion decided unanimou.,ly that the customary
or conventional international law did not provide specific authorization for
the threat or use of nuclear weapons. It also decided 11 :3 that customary
or conventional international law did not contain a universal prohibition
on the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The ICJ also was of the view
that a threat or use of force with nuclear weapons was contrary to azticle
2(4) of the UN Charter. Such an act, which failed to meet the requirements
of azticle 51 of the Charter, would be unlawful. The ICJ also concluded
that the threat or use of nuclear weapons should be compatible with
international law applicable to armed conflicts, including principles and
rules of international humanitarian law. The ICJ was unable to conclude
definitely whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful
or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the very
survival of a State was at stake. 3 The ICJ, however, affirmed unanim-
ously that there existed an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to
I. Through a resolution passed in May 1994, the World Health Assembly put the
question to 1he ICJ: In view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of
nuclear weapons by a state during war or other armed conflict be a breach of
obligations under international law, including the WHO coostitution? The Indian
delegation abttained from voting. The Health Ministry officials, who represented
India, did not lcnow India's stand on the issue nor did they exert themselves adequately
to find out.
2. The Swedish parliament, after a debate, adopted 111eport ptepared by i~ Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs. The committee asked the government to take the
stand that the use of nuclear weapons did not comply with international law.
3. This view, that possession of nuclear weapons by itself is not illegal, was also
supported by the deliberations oftbe.Catholic Bishops of the US in the 1980s.

a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects

under strict and effective international control.
Since the tum of the nineteenth centwy, under international law, belli-
gerents do not have an unrestricted right to choose the weapons or methods
of combat. The use of nuclear weapons would be restricted by the
principles of distinction and proportionality, under customary international
law. Under the principle of distinction, an attack on a civilian population
or property is prohibited Also, in an attack on a military target, dispropor-
tionatr. damage may not be inflicted on civilians or on civilian property.
Reprisals disproportionate to the provocation are prohibited. The Hague
conventions stipulate that the territories of neutral states are inviolable.
Radioactive fallout does not respect boundaries. The use of weapons
which cause unnecessary suffering must also be prohibited. Under the
Hague convention, the use of dumdum bullets was prohibited. Radio-
activity causes unnecessary suffering, including genetic damage. The
Declaration made hy the 1972 UN conference on human environment
impedes the use of weapons which cause extensive, long-term and serious
damage to the environment. For these reasons nuclear weapons must be
prohibited though the ICJ did not specifically come out with a
pronouncement.
When the endorsement of the ICJ opinion was considered in the form
of a resolution in the UN General Assembly session, Russia argued that the
ICJ had found no comprehensive and universal prohibition against the
threat or use of nuclear weapons. France and UK stressed that the ICJ
had not reached a definitive conclusion regarding the legality of such
threat or use in circumstances of self-defence (But under the NPT, these
countries would not extend that right to other nations). Besides the four
nuclear weapon countries (UK, France, Russia and US) sixteen European
countries voted against the resolution while twenty-four other members
of the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) abstained.
The ICJ declared unanimously that article VI of the NPT is a binding
commitment on nuclear weapon powers. But the US, the UK, France,
and Russia had already declared in their submissions before the ICJ that
they did not consider themselves bound by any of its judgements on this
issue. On the other hand, the US official documents and pronouncements
have asserted that the US would need nuclear weapons for the next fifty
years and beyond. Even those groups of former nuclear arsenal builders
and nuclear theologians who claim to have undergone a conversion to
the concept of a nuclear-weapon-free world qualify their vision of the
last stage of nuclear disarmament with a very meaningful clause "in so

126 SMdding SliibbcktJu
far u is feasible". In ocher words, there is no worthwhile group of

advocates of nuclear disannameot in the westean world. Even anti-nuclear
lobbies which waged serious campaigns when they felt there were serious
risks of nuclear war between nuclear weapon powers are today much
less active, since they are reassured that there is no risk of nuclear war
among the indlJStri•limt n,ations.
TEST BAN
When countries like Mexico tried bard to get the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty (CTBl) approved in the Committee on Disarmament in 1994
before the review and extension conference of the NPT, the US vehe-
mently opposed it, even though, a year earlier, the US and the western
nuclear powers bad suddenly become vociferous advocates of the
CTBT-a sudden change of mind from being its bitter opponents. Even
though this change of stance was suspect, India went along with the US
in sponsoring the UN General Assembly resolution demanding the early
conclusion of CTBT.
Complete test ban was advocated with two objectives in view. One, it
would ensure that a new generation of more sophisticated weapons was
not developed. (This became a non-issue with the US and Russia entering
into an agreement to cut back their arsenals to 3000-3500 by AD 2003.)
Two, complete test ban would prevent countries aspiring to become
nuclear weapon powers from testing and having confidence in their
weapons. (Israel and Pakistan proved that countries did not feel the need
for testing to have a stockpile of first-generation nuclear weapons.)
Testing, however, need not involve exploding a bomb. It can be done
through zero-yield testing under laboratory conditions. That was what
the Swedes were reported to have done even after they signed the NPT.
They used some grams of plutonium in an explosion test in a laboratory
and obtained very-low-yield explosion which could be measured and
studied. Such zero-yield testing is good enough for bomb designers to
check their designs. Many nuclear science establishments conduct
confined fusion explosions (CFE) by igniting a deuterium-tritium mixture
with lasers. Such experiments conducted in the Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre (BARC) led Americans to claim that India was interested in
thennonuclear weapon research.
In August 1963 the US, USSR and UK concluded the Partial Test
Ban Treaty (PTBT), which prohibited testing of nuclear weapons in

Nuclem' Miscellany 127
outer space, on land and under water, but did not ban testing undergroUDd.
It was only on this condition that the US Senate ratified the treaty. The
PTBT had its origin as an environmental protection and health measure.
The numerous over-ground tests conducted in the 1950s produced
enormous quantities of radioactive fallout, especially of Strontium 90
isotope, which came down along with rain, got into the soil and into
cows' milk and into baby food The Indian government under the direction
of Prime Minister Nehru produced a book on the effect of nuclear
explosions, which became a handbook for the tru1AA movement against
nuclear tests. Earlier in 1954, Nehru had proposed to the UN a complete
ban on nuclear tests.
In 1963, when the PTBT was concluded, its preamble proclaimed
that its ultimate goal was "discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear
weapons for all time" and the parties to the treaty would continue negotia-
tions to that end. As they have been doing in various other aspects of the
arms race, the major powers of the world committed themselves solemnly
to an obligation and then went on to flout it. The US and USSR intensified
their weapon testing programmes underground after they concluded the
PTBT. When India first proposed the CTBT in the wake of the hydrogen
bomb tests and, thereafter, repeatedly pressed for it in the UN and the
Committee on Disarmament, the underlying concept was to foreclose
development of increasingly sophisticated weapons of mass destruction,
slow down the arms race and then attempt to reverse it. Those attempts
by India and the non-aligned countries were scorned by the major weapon
powers and they continued to spend money on accumulating mouritains
of nuclear arms, which they were later compelled to dismantle by having
to spend more money.
In January 1991, the weapon powers thwarted the attempts of non-
aligned nations to invoke the provision in the PTBT to convert it into a
CfBT through the procedure for amendment provided in that treaty. The
amendment conference was convened 7-18 January 1991, in New York
but failed in its aim. The weapon powers and their faithfiil camp f<>llowers
highlighted the complexities of certain aspects of test ban, especially
verification. Strong weapon lobbies argued that continued testing was
necessary to ensure the reliability and safety of nuclear weapons and so
long as the nuclear weapon powers had the nuclear arsenals, testing
would be necessary. At the same time, the priorities of major nuclear
weapon powers changed. The US and Russia entered a phase of reducing
and stabilizing their nuclear arsenals at a level of thousands of wameads
instead of tens of thousands. The cold war was over and an overwhelming

portion of the professional military opinion recognized the non-usability

of nuclear weapons as weapons of war. 1be major weapon powers v ~
round to the view that comprehensive test ban would help to prevent
emergence of new nuclear weapon powers.
Even when the US was pushing hard for CTBT, it bad made clear that
the CTBT was not meant to be comprehensive, that it intended to conduct
a series of sub-critical underground tests. (These tests began on 2 July
1997.) The US nuclear stockpile stewardship programme, a research
facility called National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the agreement among
the US, France, and Britain to share information on new weapon research,
all indicated that the CTBT was not intended to stop further weapon
development of the nuclear weapon powers. The elaborate charade of
CTBT was designed more against China than India. The Chinese wanted
the right to conduct peaceful nuclear explosions even after CTBT. After
persisting in their objection for quite some time, they dropped it, but still
had other objections on scope, verification and the commencement of
the treaty. The Chinese apparently relied on India to fight the treaty, and,
therefore, insisted that India should be included in the list of countries,
whose ratification would be essential for the treaty to come into force.
Even though the entry-into-force clause was in violation of the Vienna
Convention of the Law of-Treaties, which stipulates that a nation not
being a party to a treaty cannot be subjected to its obligations, the UN
adopted the treaty with the offending clause. So India had to vote against
the. treaty in the UN General Assembly.
PS: The CTBT was killed by the US Senate in 1999 when it voted
against its ratification.
No-FIRST-USE
Forty years after the dawn of the nuclear era, the President of the United
States and the General Secretary of the Soviet Union recognized in 1985
that a nuclear war could not be won and, hence, should not be initiated.
Long ago, strategists like Bernard Brodie and policy-makers like Lord
Zuckerman had pointed this out In the early 1990s, Les Aspin, as
Chairman of the US Armed Services Committee, had come out in favour
of the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In 1961, the non-aligned nations carried through a resolution,
sponsored by Ethiopia in the UN General Assembly, that the use and
threat of use of nuclear weapons should be outlawed. The then nuclear

weapon powers (China was not one then) voted against it. When the
Chinese conducted their first nuclear test in October 1964, they came
out with their doctrine of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. They
proclaimed that under no circumstances China would use its nuclear
weapons first in any hostilities and its weapons were intended only for
retaliation, and consequently, for deterrence.
In 1978, following the first UN special session on disarmament, India
and other non-aligned countries moved a resolution in the UN General
Assembly that the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons should be
treated as a crime against humanity, and outlawed. The resolution was
pa.seed by a large majority, with the US and its NATO allies voting
against. The Soviet Union and its allies abstained. China voted for the
resolution. Subsequently, the Soviet Union also joined in voting in favour
of the resolution. (Japan and Sweden, who generally claim to champion
nuclear disarmament, chose to abstain.)
The NATO nations, led by the US, used to argue that since their
conventional forces were outnumbered by the Soviet forces in Europe
they could not accept the no-first-use doctrine. They bad to deter the
larger Soviet conventional forces with the threat of use of nuclear
weapons. It also used to be pointed out that no-first-use commitment was
non-verifiable.
With the end of the cold war and the Conventional Forces in Europe
agreement (CFE), the NATO argument that nuclear weapons were needed
to deter a larger conventional threat lost its justification. The Russians,
now faced with a range of threats to the various nations of the Common-
wealth of Independent States (CIS), with their diminishing military
capabilities, reversed their stand on no-first-use of nuclear weapons and
opted for the NATO doctrine that the nuclear weapons were needed for
them to deter conventional threats. During the review and extension
conference of the NPT in 199S, China argued with logic that the negative
security assurances to the non-nuclear weapon ·states would gain in
credibility if they were accompanied by a no-first-use agreement among
the five nuclear weapon powers; the other four rejected this proposal.
The US declaration on the use of nuclear weapons vis-a-vis non-
nuclear weapon states reads:
Not to use nuclear weapons against any nonnuclear weapon state party to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty or any comparable internationally binding commitment
not to acquire nuclear explosive devices except in the case of an attack on the
United States, its territories or armed forces or its allies by such a state allied to a
nuclear weapon state or associated with a nuclear weapon state in carrying out
or sustaining ~ attack.

130 Slteddutg Sldbboletlu
It leaves it ambiguous whether a counter-attack by a noo-nuclear weapon

state igainst an attacking US armed force would be considered as justi-
fying the use of nuclear weapons. The phrase "associated with a nuclear
weapon state" is vague enough to permit the use of nuclear weapons
against non-nuclear weapon states purely on the basis of subjective
determination.
One convert to the no-first-use doctrine is former Under Secretary of"
Defence for Policy in the Reagan Administration, Fred Dde. In an article
in Foreign Affairs (January-February 1996), he speaks in favour ofno
first use of nuclear weapons. Dde emphasizes that it was more due to
good fortune than wisdom of the leaderships concerned that the world
survived all potential nuclear infernos. He is not certain that the tradition
of non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945 can be successfully maintained
without new effort at nuclear strategic thinking. He, therefore, advocates
establishment of sufficient control over weapons of JD8AA destruction so
that open societies could continue to flourish. He argues forcefully:
Democracy cannot survive in a highly uncertain world in which a smuggled
nuclear bomb might be detonaied in Paris or Manhattan and in which such
calamities might recur. A scheme to preserve the tradition of non-use is not a
small matter. A place to start, indeed a necessary beginning would be a consemus
among the five major nuclear weapon powers against first use, except in response
to an attack involving other weapons of mass destruction. The principal nuclear
powers must also prepare a coordinated response to penalize first use and prevent
repetition by destroying the nuclear capabilities of violators.
A nuclear blast would show the vaunted deterrent to be incapable ofpreventing
massive destruction at home; it could undennine democratic governments and
demoralize military services. As divided and unprepared democratic forces
fumbled for a plan of action, demagogues might rush forward convincingly
promising protection. If the era of non-use should end violently many countries
might freely choose dictatorship to preserve order and survive. Conversely, the
principal powers might adopt an ill-conceived scheme for world government
that would either degenerate into global tyranny or- far more likely-prove
totally ineffective.
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
The only viable security doctrine in nuclear technology must be to

eliminate the contagious menace of nuclear weapons globally, just as the
world through concerted effort eliminated the smallpox contagion and is
now attempting to counter AIDS. Smallpox could not have been
eliminated on the so-called non-proliferation principle petmitting a few ·

nations to proliferate. It could be dealt with only oo the basis of total

elimination. So also will be the case of AIDS. Those who argue that
nuclear weapons caunot be disinvented are like our grandmothers, who
believed that smallpox was created by God along with humanity and,
hence, could not be eliminated. The logic for a world free of nuclear
weapons is as compelling as the logic for a smallpox-free world or an
~S-free world.
The argument that the elimination of nuclear weapons will return the
world to the pre-1945 situation, and that conventional wars will then
become more probable in the industriali7.ed world, is one of the historically
oft-,epeated instances where the political-strategic thinlcing of politicians,
military men and strategists lags behind current objective realities. This
happened at the time of World War I, when the power of the machine
gun, artillery and barbed wire was underestimated, and again during
World War II when the innovations introduced by aircraft and tanks
were· not appreciated. The USA, France and the Soviet Union did not
comprehend the power of nationalism when they intervened in Vietnam,
Algeria, and Afghanistan. Similarly, most nuclear strategic doctrines were
formulated when there was inadequate understanding of the electro-
magnetic pulse effect on command and control problems, and of the
nuclear winter effect; and when the world was largely bipolar, with one
side having escalation dominance. Nor was there appreciation of the
non-feasibility of a conventioilal war in the industriali7.ed world without
its resulting in Chernobyls and Bhopals. All these factors are new: yet
most nuclear weapon cultists have yet to grasp the significance of these
changes. Hence they continue to repeat the cliche that eliminating nuclear
weapons will revert the world to the World War II type of situation.
In 1965, eight non-aligned countries (Brazil, Burma, Ethiopia, India,
Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, and Egypt) proposed a resolution calling for a
treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. This resolution
2028(xx), adopted by an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly,
advanced three main principles: (a) the treaty should be void of any
loopholes which might permit nuclear or non-nuclear powers to
proliferate, directly or indirectly, nuclear weapons in any form; (b) it
should embody an acceptable balance of mutual responsibilities and
obligations of the nuclear and non-nuclear powers; (c) it should be a step
towards achieving general and complete disarmament, and more particu-
larly, nuclear disarmament. The eight countries submitted a memorandum
on non-proliferation in August 1966, in which they proposed five steps:
(a) a comprehensive ban on nuclear weapon testing; (b) a complete cessa-

tion of production of fissile materials for weapon purposes; ( c) a fleeu

and gradual reduction of the stocks of nuclear weapons and means nf
their delivery; (d) banning the use of nuclear weapons; (e) assuraoce of
security of non-nuclear weapon states. 4
The 1965 resolution is now out of date. At that stage, the concept
required the weapon-producing nations to stop weapon production and
other non-weapon nations not to start on that road. The concept !-'llS
sensible in a world where there was a clear-cut demarcation between a
weapon state and a non-weapon state and there was no category of
undeclved nuclear weapon-capable nations. In the changed times, in its
quest for promoting disarmament, the logical step for India is to promote
a second non-proliferation treaty, broadly on the following lines:
• All nuclear weapon tests will be banned. This is already acceptable
to all nuclear weapon powers except China.
• All production of further nuclear weapons and fissile materials is to
be prohibited under a non-discriminatory universal verification
regime. The five nuclear weapon powers do not need to produce
any more weapons or fissile materials. The provision will cap the
capabilities of undeclared nuclear weapon and nuclear weapon-
capable powers. There can be no complaint about discrimination.
• Nuclear weapon and fissile material stockpiles will be declared to
the verification agency (suitably augmented and adequately
empowered IAEA). Countries should submit plans for reduction
and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. The period for total
elimination may be much longer than ten years provided for in the
draft chemical weapons treaty. If countries do not want to eliminate
their nuclear weapons totally but want to keep a minimwn deterrent
arsenal let them do so pending further negotiated reductions and
decay in the concept of deterrence.
• All nuclear weapon research will be prohibited and there will be
non-discriminatory verification of all laboratories engaged in dual-
purpose research.
• First use of nuclear weapons will be prohibited. While the Geneva
4. The NPT, as it took shape, ignored these principles and proposals. It pve
unlimited licence to proliferate to five nuclear weapon powers. Of the original eight
members, India alone stood out and has to this day refused to accede to the NPT. The
NPT, negotiated between 1965 and 1968, was a cold war product Its original purpose
was to prevent most of the ind11$trialized nations, particularly (West) Germany and
Jape,,,. ~ acquiring nuclear weapons.

Nw:kar Miscellany 133
Protocol of 1925 prohibiting the first use of chemical weapons was

not a cent per cent success it laid the foundation for total ban and
eliminatinq of chemical weapons.
• The treaty will declare the 11ltirnate objective is to eliminate nuclear
weapons from the eanh. Possession of nuclear weapons is petmittcd
in the interim only to allow time for their total elimination and will
not confer any privilege on the nations possessing them. The verifica-
tion agency should be manned predominantly by nations which
have renounced weapons.

12
India's Nuclear Quest
.
Even before the Trinity test at Alamogordo on 16 July
1945, Homi Bhabha in 1944 wrote to the Tata Trust urging it to establish
a training and research institution for fundamental research in nuclear
physics. The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TlFR) was the
result. An Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established in the
194-0s through a government resolution, with Bhabha as the chairman;
the Prime Minister always held the portfolio. Subsequently, the commis-
sion was made statutory through an enactment.
India became the first Asian country, ahead of China and Japan, to
have an experimental reactor, Apsara, in 1956, with British collaboration.
Bhabha believed in harnessing atomic power as an energy source. Fusion
power was to be the next step. He used to say, "No power is costlier than
no power"-that even energy produced somewhat expensively is better
than having no energy at all. Bhabha was elected to preside over the first
international conference on Atoms for Peace in 1956. He predicted that
fusion energy was only twenty-five years away (The prediction is far
from being realized), and once energy at very cheap cost was available,
countries like India should be able to advance rapidly. Bhabha opposed
the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it is
currently constituted.
Bhabha formulated a three-phase fifty-year programme for self-reliant
development of nuclear power in India. In phase I, India would construct
natural-uraniwn-heavy-water reactor using indigenous uraniwn and heavy
water. Those reactors would produce plutoniwn. The plutoniwn would
be separated and used as fuel for the fast breeder reactor (FBR) in the
second phase. FBRs produce more fissile materials than they consume.
By using India's abundant thorium in the fast-breeders as blankets the
thoriwn would be converted into uranium 233, which is a fissile material.
(India has only limited quantities of uranium.) In tum, that would be
used to fuel the enriched-uraniwn-light-water reactor in the third phase.
Bhabha contracted to set up the Canada- India experimental reactor at

India 's Nuclear Quest 135
Trombay, a natural-uranium-heavy-water reactor. He also took steps to

develop indigenously the technology to separate plutonium from the irradi-
ated uranium rods of the Canada-lndia reactor. No nation was prepared
to transfer this technology and India developed this mostly on its own.
Keen to demonstrate the economy of nuclear power under Indian
conditions, India cootracted for two American enricbed-uranium-light-
water reactors at Tarapur. They came with American obligation to supply
enriched uranium for the life of the reactor and Indian obligation to
accept inspection by the lAEA as an agent of USA. Though the US has
reneged on its obligation to continue to supply enriched uranium fuel for
Tarapur and the agreement has expired India continues to abide by its
obligations to have the reactors under safeguards.
Initially, Bbabba was opposed to India exercising the nuclear option.
According to S. Gopal, Bhabha even suggested to Nehru that India should
unilaterally give up the nuclear option. Nehru told him that India should
keep its nuclear capability as a bargaining chip. Following the Chinese
nuclear test on 16 October 1964, Bbabha became a fervent advocate of
India exercising its nuclear option. A strong lobby in the Congress party,
then headed by the young member of Parliament K.C. Pant, also brought
pressure on the party leadership at the Durgapur Congress in early I 96S
that India should change its nuclear policy and exercise its nuclear option.
Earlier, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri approached Britain for a
nuclear umbrella, which it declined. Bhabha petsuaded the Prime Minister
to sanction the subterranean nuclear explosive project {SNEP). To India's
misfottune, work on the project was not vigorously pursued after Bhabba
was killed in the Mont Blanc air crash on 24 January 1966 {the very day
Indira Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister).
Bbabba's successor, Vilaam Sarabbai, did not at that stage subscribe
to the idea of India going nuclear. This resulted in a deep division between
him and bis senior colleagues in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).
Sarabbai, along with L.K. Jba, then Secretary to the Prime Minister,
Wldertook a tour of Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington to seek
nuclear security guarantees for India. They returned empty-handed. {This
was done without adequate consultation with the Ministries of External
Affairs and Defence.) Sarabbai still argued that even if India carried out
a single nuclear explosion, that would not make India a nuclear-weapon
power since enough plutonium was not available to follow up.
At that stage the two superpowers came out with their draft Non-
Proliferation Treaty {NPT), and brought enormous pressure on India to
accede to it. India was then dependent on food imports from the US. The

Soviet lobby was in favour of India acceding to a treaty sponsored by the

Soviet Union. Many of our economic pundits were worried that if India
did not accede to the treaty the aid from the US might be affected.
But having burnt her fingers on devaluation two years earlier on the
advice of the West-oriented sections of her cabinet, Indira Gandhi this
time made up her mind. Even Morarji Desai, then Deputy Prime Minister,
was against India signing a discriminatory treaty though he was against
India acquiring nuclear weapons. The Foreign Office was split. Rajwade,
one of the Secretaries, and Jagat Mehta, head of the Policy Planning
Division, favoured signing the treaty. Many others sat on the fence. G.
Parthasarathi, then our permanent representative at the UN, and V.C.
Trivedi, who had put up a valiant fight against its inequitable character
when the treaty was being drafted at Geneva, opposed our signing it.
Meanwhile, the DAE made steady progress in setting up Zerlina and
Purnima experimental reactors, commissioning the Plutoniwn Separation
Plant, setting up with US collaboration the Tarapur Atomic Power Plant
and the first of the two reactors of natural-uranium-heavy-water type
envisaged in Bhabha's first phase at Kota with Canadian assistance.
After the US sent Task Force 74 into the Bay of Bengal headed by
nuclear-propelled and nuclear-armed aircraft carrier Enterprise in
December 1971 in a menacing gesture, in October 1972 Mrs Gandhi gave
the green signal to the Chairman of the AEC and Director of the Bhabha
Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to go ahead with their project for
peaceful nuclear test. This decision was perhaps known to fewer than
twenty persons. Mrs Gandhi does not appear to have left any papers to
explain her decision. In 1973 it was announced in Parliament that India
would carry out a peaceful underground nuclear test when it was ready.
The Indian nuclear test on 18 May 1974 produced expected protests
from expected quarters, a muted protest from the Soviet Union, congratu-
lations from the French AEC and cut-off of technical assistance from
Canada. Western strategists like Hedley Bull were of the view that if the
pace of Indian testing was not too rapid (say one or two a year) India
might get accepted into the nuclear club. The international reaction was
predictable, but Mrs Gandhi and her advisers panicked. The increasing
domestic turbulence in India fuelled her anxiety that her pursuit of nuclear
capability for the country might lead to a coalition between those who
wanted to destabilize her domestically and those who might have enter-
tained similar intentions abroad. Economically, those were bad years for
India, and the economic pundits, as usual, counselled that if she persisted
in her nuclear policy the World Bank consortium and the IMF would

India 's Nuclear Quest 137 .
come down oo India. Mrs Gandhi succumbed to the pressure and would
not authoriz.e a second test. At the same time serious differences between
chairman AEC and director BARC sapped the morale of the scientists.
Morarji Desai, Prime Minister from 1977 to 1979, bad no intetest in
the development of nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. He disliked
Ramanna as the architect of the Polchran explosion and readily agreed to
his request to be moved out of the DAE since be was finding it increasingly
difficult to function as director BARC under a hostile chairman of AEC.
Desai announced in the UN General Assembly speech in June 1978
that India was prepared to give up further nuclear tes1s. President Sanjiva
Reddy allegedly tried unsuccessfully to stop him. Desai read out this
portion of his speech in a cabinet meeting the day before his departure to
the UN; but perhaps none of his cabinet colleagues paid attention. The
matter was not on the agenda of the cabinet. (This information was given
to me by those present.) But to his credit, after some initial vacillation
Desai stood firm on the issue of full scope safeguards, against President
Carter's pressure. Again to his credit, he formulated for the first time the
rationale behind India's policy of opposing nuclear weapon free zones.
During the Janata period, the squabbling government paid little atten-
tion to Pakistan's nuclear quest. Atal Debari Vajpayee, an advocate of
Indian nuclear option before be joined the government and after he ceased
to be in government, was then the Minister of External Affairs, yet be
went along with Desai in voting against the majority in the Cabinet
Committee on Political Affairs initiating action to revive the Indian
weapons programme.
After Mrs Gandhi returned to power, she transferred Ramanna back
as director BARC, with the status of Secretary with direct access to her.
Things started looking up in the AEC. Heavy water production, which
bad been a major bugbear, started improving slowly. The second and
larger plutonium separation plant went into operation. The first of the
two Madras reactors was commissioned. The fast breeder reactor made
progress. There were reports of Indira Gandhi directing the DAE to make
preparations for further tests and the Americans, on the basis of their
satellite photographs, coming up with their protests. The way Ramanna' s
distinguished career ended-though after two years of extension-and
the succession wrangle in the DAE had sent a clear message all over the
world that India was shy of exercising the nuclear option.
At this stage, the US reneged on its commitment to supply enriched
uranium fuel for the Tarapur reactor. The Indian scientists had hoped
that the uranium-plutonium carbide fuel, which could have served in

138 Slteddi,ig Sliibboldlu
place of cmlcbed unmium for Tanpur, would libcrale India, 6om dq,em-
encc: oa external fuel supply. Uofor1UD11ely, Mn C-aodbi was persuaded
to accept the Frmcb fuel imtc:ad, an a.:aoguc"MI brought about by the
Americans.
The Indian AEC commissioned a I00 MW Dhruva oawral-uranium-
beavy-watcr reactor free 6om safeguards. The sc:cood Madras cactor
free from safeguards also came into opeiarioa. While the first Kota reactor
put up by tbc C.anadiaos got into serious trouble (because ofpoor welding
by foreign companies) the second lodian--coostructed reactor fared better.
India was able to initiate tbc opeiarioo of the fast brccdcr reactor without
any external fuel (though originally it was to be provided by the French).
India ~ 9Cl up the first experimental uraoiwn 233 reactor. The Indian
atomic cocrgy bad come of age.
••••
Pakistan's decision to go nuclear was taken on 24 January 1972 by
President Zultiqar Ali Bhutto in a coofcrcoce of scientists in Multan.
This was some nine months before Indira Gandhi authoriud the Indian
tcientists to go ahead with the Pokhran-1 test. In the Multan conference
Bhutto asked for a fission weapon in three years. Even as Morarji Desai
publicly renounced all ambition for India to acquire nuclear weapons in
his UN address in June 1978-"not to manufacture or acquire nuclear
weapons even if the rest of the world did so" and abjuring "nuclear
explosions even for peaceful pucposes"- Pakistao had concluded a secret
agreement with China for collaboration in nuclear weapon technology in
June 1976 and independently had launched on its uranium enrichment
programme using the centrifuge cascades based on technology clandes-
tinely derived from Holland. Pakistan was able to procure in West
European countries all equipment ancf,.materials needed for centrifuge
operation, and for making uranium hexafluoride gas.
General Aslam Beg in an article in The News (12 March 1996) noted
that in 1987, Richard Barlow, the CIA operative in Islamabad, made an
intelligence repon apprising the US government that Pakistan had
succeeded in acquiring nuclear capability. He added: "Far from giving
him due credit for canying on his duty, be was made the scapegoat and
an inquiry was initiated against him. By doing so, it was made easier for .
the US President to cenify during 1987 to 1989 that Pakistan bad not
acquired nuclear technology." Seymour Hersh's anicle earlier, "On the
Nuclear Edge" in the New Yorker (April 1993), had made the same
point. The official US version, as given out by Robert Oakley, former

India 's Nuclear Quest 139
US Ambassador to Pakistan, however, is that there was a secret agreement

between Pakistan and the US to cap Pakistan's W'811ium enrichment; this
agreement was breached in 1990; that led to the invocation of the Pressler
Amendment. Pakistani diplomacy on the nuclear issue has been remark-
ably skilful, though not consistent or meaningful. They set out four object-
ives and succeeded significantly in them, thanks largely to US connivance.
First, they tried to cloak their cooperation in the nuclear weapon field
with China and portray the nuclear issue as an India-Pakistan bilateral
issue. Secondly, they linked up the nuclear and KB..~bmir issues and
succeeded in creating an impression that unless the Kashmir issue was
solved to their satisfaction, there were risks of war in the subcontinent
which might escalate to nuclear exchange. Thirdly, they peisuadcd many
countries that they bad been making proposals to get rid of nuclear
weapons on a bilateral basis and India bad been intransigent. Fourthly,
they peasuaded their domestic audience th1lt Pakistan bad nuclear weapons
and bad achieved nuclear parity with India, while the world was told that
Pakistan bad no weapons but only a capability to assemble them.
Pakistan conveyed the message that it bad nuclear weapons in 1987
through A.Q. Khan, the man in charge of the nuclear weapon programme,
to Kuldip Nayar, a senior Indian journalist. This was done in the presence
of Mushabid Hussein, editor of The Muslim, which had been in favour of
Pakistan exercising the nuclear option. Toe carefully stage-managed inter-
view was later denied as a chance encounter with an unknown Indian
journalist who accompanied a friend inviting A.Q. Khan for his marriage,
and much indignation was expressed at the abuse of hospitality. Subse-
quently, Hussein told the world that Khan's interview was indeed a
message to India and the world. Thereafter be resigned to protect the
interests of bis paper, thereby lending further credibility to the interview
and its contents. In bis interview, Khan discussed the possibility of an
Indian attack on Kabuta and said: "In any case, the plant is well protected
and we have not put our eggs in one basket".
Benazir Bhutto on assuming the office of Prime Minister said that she
would have nothing to do with any kind of nuclear weapon programme.
She was thereby trying to reassure the Americans, who played a significant
role in persuading Ghulam lsbaq Khan and the generals to swear her in
as the Prime Minister, so that the US Administration could claim credit
before Congress for ushering in democracy in Pakistan, continue its anns
supplies to Afghan tribal insurgents, keep Pakistan on its side for any
future Gulf contingencies and also sweep the nuclear issue under the
carpet to ward off the criticism of some sections of Congressmen.

140 Sliedding Sllibbolelhs
On assuming office Ms Bhutto would have found out that Pakistan

already bad the bomb, the generals would not give it up, the generals
were also quite confident that ·the US Administration's pressure would
not proceed beyond certain verbal limits and the US Administration
needed them more than they needed the former. lo the light of this and
the popularity of nuclear weapon capability among the people of Pakistan
and the justifiable pride of the Pakistani nuclear establishment in its
achievement, she decided very justifiably to attribute the credit for
Pakistani nuclear capability to its real founder, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Though the country was not told by the government, the Indian Prime
Minister was fully aware of the China-Pakistan nuclear weapon techno-
logy relationship and the tacit US coooivancc in Pakistan's nuclear weapon
programme. lo 1980, the Pakimiois made clear to the American South
Asia specialist, Stephen Cohen, that the objective of their relentless pursuit
of nuclear weapons was to neutralize both India's conventional superiority
and nuclear capability, to reopen the Kashmir issue and to liberate Kashmir
in a bold and brash move when the Indian government was weak.
While the Indian prime ministers did not share even with their cabinet
colleagues the intelligence infonnation on Pakistan's nuclear programme,
they initiated and pursued a nuclear weapon and missile programme to
safeguard the country's security. The nuclear weapon programme was
initiated by Mrs Gandhi, continued by Rajiv Gandhi and fully brought
into operation by P.V. Narasiroha Rao. The Janata Dal prime roi11istcrs,
V.P. Singh and Chandrashekhar and the United Front Prime Ministers
Dcve Gowda and I.K. Gujral lent their full support to the programme.
However, India's nuclear security policy bad always been shrouded
in mystery and been conducted in a compartmentalized manner. lo 1966-
67 the visit of the Prime Minister's Secretary and Chairman, AEC, to
Moscow, Paris, London and Washington to seek a guarantee on the
nuclear issue drew a blank. The Foreign Office, not informed of their
activities, was much embarrassed when later in diplomatic exchanges
other Foreign Offices referred to this visit. The Pokhran nuclear test was
undertaken with utmost secrecy, no doubt with justification, but no
preliminary exercise was conducted by the Foreign Office what would
be the impact of such a test on the attitude of other countries and India's
manoeuvrability. When the adverse external reaction came, the leadership
buckled. India got very little direct benefit out of the test but only negative
international reaction and embargoes on nuclear technology transfer.
lo India, nuclear security policy is not within the jurisdiction of any
ministry, department or agency in the government. The DAE primarily

btdia'1Nllcwar(lw8t 141
deals with development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. (Even in the

US the Depanment of Energy, Wider whom the US Atomic Energy
Commission ftmc1ions, bas nothing to do with nuclear security policy.
They only provide fissil.. IDBtetials to thole facilities which IDBDufacture
nuclear weapons.) The Ministry of External Affairs can appropriately
deal with global diS81Dl8DJ'"'lt but not with nuclear strategy and nuclear
security doctrine, etc. The Ministry of Defence wu the more appropriate
ministiy to haodle such issues, but the Ministry and the Defence Services
were not equipped to deal with these issues. The nuclear security i,sue
involves inputs from a nlDDber of ministries and departments-External
Affairs, Defence, Armed Forces, Atomic Energy and Science and
Technology-thus calling for a multi-disciplinary secretariat. The US
National Security Council was a product of the nuclear age. Most of the
thinking on nuclear strategy and arms control was developed by civilian
professionals and not by the armed forces. This was the compelling logic
underlying the proposals to set up a National Security Council staff.
....•
Given that India was producing weapon-grade plutonium 239 in its Dhruva
reactor, western calculations in the early 1990s put its cumulative produc-
tion as being adequate for several dozen bombs. India was reprocessing
that plutonium and apparently storing it in readily usable form. There
were some differences among western experts whether India had made
the "pits" (machined cores ready for insertion into the bomb). India had
demonstrated its ability to master the implosion technology in the Pokhran
test. Therefore, there was a logical assessment by western intelligence
establishments (and voiced by two successive directors of the CIA, Gates
and Woolsey) that India had some dozens of ready-to-assemble weapons.
The problem facing India was not to persuade the world that it had a
minimum deterrent capability but for its own leaders to give up their
purposeless insistence that India had no intention to assemble nuclear
weapons. An Indian announcement on the lines of Benazir Bhutto's in
December 1992, Nawaz Sharif"s in August 1994 and General Aslam
Beg's in December 1993 that India had a viable nuclear deterrent would
not have brought the skies down. The appropriate way of handling it
would have been to present a white paper on Indian nuclear policy to
Parliament intimating the existence of ll minimum deterrent capability.
Instead, India talked of keeping the nuclear option open ever since Prime
Minister Sbastti announced that as the new policy n, Jenu•ry 1965 at the

142 Slcarfdfflg SltJbbokdu
Durgapur Congress. When Sha-wi talked of keeping the option open it

was a seost"ble and pragmati" policy and was announcing a change of
policy fiom the resolve not to go nuclear. It ceased to be pn1gmatic after
the Pokhran explosion. After 1974 the issue was when India would acquire
a nuclear arsenal, of what kind and what size. If we had kept quiet or just
said that our nuclear policy was designed to safeguard this country from
nuclear bt.ckmail, others would have understood it.
Within the country, there was for a long time overall consensus that
India should keep its nuclear option open. Opinion was gaining ground
that India's nuclear option had to be exercised, and the country should
cooduct a few more tests. This school emphasized that India could not
baae its deterrent ·posture on an explosion conducted more than two
decades earlier, that our armed forces, civil, military and scientific bureau-
cracy and political leadership should have adequate confidence in our
ddt:lrent capability. Some others argued that India could·project deter-
mice without conducting any more tests: India had proved its capability
to assemble a nuclear explosive, and that was good enough. They pointed
out that we had conducted a test, and all fission weapons had successfully
exploded in the first test. India, therefore, did not need to go for thermo-
nuclear devices, and our minimum deterrence, based on a no-first-use
doctrine, could be based on pure fission weapons of20 KT yield. Priority
needed to be given to development of mobile delivery vehicles, which
should be survivable. Some 80-100 fission warheads on Pritbvis and
A,gnis would serve. our deterrence purpose. Some of those who urged
testing did not mind India signing the CTBT after testing. Those not in
favour of testing, but in favour of keeping the nuclear deterrent alive,
opposed accession to the CTBT. Some economists were afraid that a
nuclear test by India would impact catastrophically OD our economic
liberalization and flow of foreign investments. The perception was mostly
based on what they heard from their American counterparts, and not on
comprehensive analysis of US behaviour pattern when· their interests
clashed with their declaratory political policies.
••••
In spite of India's commitment to nuclear disarmament throughout, consi-
dering that tho world bas legitimi:zed the existence of nuclear weapons,
India had three options: (1) To fight for disannament all alone. That
noble and unrealistic stance would not advance disarmament but would
make India look silly. (2) To join the nations that sanctified unequal

India's Nuclear Quest 143
tteaties like the NPT and CTBT and give up the fight for disarmament.
(3) To safeguard its own interests and security in a world which is going
to have nuclear weapons for the next several decades, and continue the
campaign for disarmament as an active global player instead of being a
lonely plaintive petitioner for disarmament Focusing on nuclear weapons
and arguing for their renunciation in a world which mindlessly legitimiuid
the weapon are not mutually exclusive propositions.
••••
The Indian nuclear and missile policy approaches have two strands. The
first is that India will not be discriminated against and treated as a nation
with lesser privileges than some others. The second is that while India
favours total elimination of nuclear weapons and missiles, its security
warrants developing technological capabilities and keeping options open.
Capabilities matter more than intentions. The voluntary and unilateral
restraint India has chosen to adopt is not to deploy the weapons in ready-
to-launch mode as the western powers. In our agreements with China,
the key principle has to be "mutual and equal security".
The Indian nuclear doctrine should rest on four pillars-( I) no first
use; (2) credible minimum deterrent; (3) civilian control of the weapons;
and (4) commitment to nuclear disarmament.
1. No first use makes a commitment never to initiate the use of nuclear

weapons. At the same time, it warns an aggressive potential adversary
that his use of nuclear weapons will lead to his suffering unacceptable
retaliatory damage. Some in India have criticized no-first-use on the
ground that it means that this country would accept the first hit and that
declaration would encourage a potential aggressor to resort to adventurism.
Some say that no-first-use is unverifiable and is liable to be altered without
any prior notice. The answer to this criticism is that there is no way in
which a first strike by an adversary can be averted or lorcstalled with the
present state of technology. An aggressor who wants to strike first will
always be able to get some of his weapons through even if the victim
adopts policies of pre-emption or launch on warning or launch under
attack. Such postures will involve much higher costs in terms of safety of
weapons, and command and control. It would also mean a higher level
of tension. For Pakistan, the deterrence is not in terms of the fear of
India hitting a target or two in the first strike to face a retaliation of an
equivalent number of strikes or more, but the certainty that if they ever

144 Slwdi,,g Slubboldlu
mike a single laagct m India, mo« of 1heir cities and high dams -
within the range of looiao missiles. The policy of first use has meaning
only when a country thinks of fighting a SUSlained nuclear war or using
nuclear Weap<Jll!I against a ooo-ouclear COWJtry.
In 1961 , the US bad 5100 nuclear warheads and the Soviet Union
only 300. The US made plans for a total disarming strike on the Soviet
Union. But the plans were abandoned wbeo the US Chiefs of Staffcould
not ~ that no Soviet weapons would get through. Deterreoce is in
teams .,fwhat damage a country is prepared to accept to achieve its aim.
2. Credible minimum deten-em. During the cold war era the US and
USSR treated ouclear weapons as though they were cooventiooal
weapons: the larger the stockpile the more assured would be victory. It
took some forty years for the western strategic establishment to reali:u
that a nuclear war could not be won and, bcocc, should not be initiated
1here is a vital difference between coovcotional war and nuclear war. lo
the former, the side with superior capability defeats the side with inferior
capability, and then tries to inflict damage uoaccep(able to it by occupying
its territory and subjecting its people to hardship of different kinds. In
World War II, Germany and Japan were initially victorious and inflicted
unacceptable costs on the adversaries whose territories were overrun.
Subsequently, the tide turned and the Allies developed adequate capabil-
ities to defeat the two countries militarily and occupy their territories. In
a nuclear war, it is not necessary for a country to be militarily defeated to
suffer unacceptable damage. Because of the reach of the missiles, the
speed with which the damage can be inflicted and the eoonnity of the
damage that will be caused, both sides will suffer unacceptable damage.
The fact that ooe side may suffer more damage is oo consolation to the
other. This was the consideration that made the leaders of the US and
USSR realize that a nuclear war cannot be won.
1here are also ~icotific hypotheses about nuclear winter and ecological
damage that would follow a nuclear exchange of hundreds of weapons.
A former US National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy, declared in
1968 that one H-bomb on one city was unacceptable damage. Unlike in
the cold war era, today no strategic establishment in the world envisages
nuclear exchanges involving even scores of weapons let alone hundreds
and thousands, as they used to do.
In India's case, the debate is about whether the deterrent force should
be a low three figure or a medium three figure, somewhat on the levels
the UK and France have. The size of the arsenal would be determined by

JNlilJ '11 Nw:kar Qi,at 145
its survivability against a potential adversary's first strike and will be ID

inverse function of the survivability factor: the greater the survivability
the lesser will be the number needed. All the major nuclear powers have
distnl>uted their anenals over a strategic triad-ucraft, land-based mobile
mi~iles and submarine-based systems--ro maximize their survivability.
The credibility of deterralt is not based on mere numbers but, essen-
tially, on its survivability. Survivability ensures that no nuclear aggressor,
however powerful, can be certain that his fust strike would eliminate all
the weapons of the opponent, and that the opponent's nuclear weapons
will not get through and cause unacceptable damage to the aggressor. It
has bea1 argued, therefore, in the West by strategists like Kenneth Waltz
and in India by General Sundarji, that because such uncertainty is at the
heart of deterrence, it is enough to have a minimum force to generate
and sustain the uncertainty to project deterrence, and there is no need to
waste money OD a larger arsenal.
3. Civilian control. Nuclear weapons are not weapons of war. This was
recogniud even in the early years of the nuclear era, when Bernard
Brodie said that with the emergence of the absolute weapon the role of
the anned forces was oo longer to fight and win wars, but to prevent
wars from breaking out. Therefore, these weapons should not be in the
standard stockpile of the armed forces deployed in forward areas. Given
their destructive power, the decision to use them should be taken at the
highest possible level. If a country does not envisage the use of such
weapons for warfighting but only for retaliation, it is all the more logical
that the weapon be used under the strict orders of the highest political
executivl>-the Prime Minister in India.
In the US, while in the immediate wake of the development of the
nuclear weapons the US President had the weapons under his control, in
the 1950s, in the light of strategic doctrines developed about fighting
wars with tactical nuclear weapons, powers were delegated to the
commaoders to use the weapons oo their own in certain circumstances.
Since in those days neither side adopted a no-first-use policy, the weapons
were kept oo hair-trigger alert. When people fear accidental and
unauthoriud use, they have in mind those situations. The Cuban missile
crisis was a dangerous crisis because the commanders on both sides had
such delegated powers.
Theo came in the 1960s the technology of locking the weapons through
electronic pennissive action links These operated only up to the point
before immediate hostilities were anticipated. At that stage the weapons

146 Sltedding Sltibbolel/is
were unlocked and issued to the 1auncbing formations. Then again the
commanders were on their own for their use. When the power to use the
weapon is not delegated, there are no plans for nuclear warfightiog, and
the country adopts a no-first-use policy, this danger is absent The armed
forces, however, have to be trained to implement the retaliatory strikes.
They have to be involved in surveillance, protection of the weapons,
target selection and advice to the Prime Minister on appropriate response
aD(I damage assessment They will be an integral part of the command
and control system.
4. Commitment to disarmament. The world has outlawed biological and

chemical weapons and there is no reason why nuclear weapons should
not also be outlawed. Now that the cold war is over and democracy and
market system have been accepted all over the world there is no reason
to fear the kind of global war which initially justified the nuclear weapons.
••••
A nation faced with a nuclear threat bas to start with a carefulassessment
of the ways in which the adversary can project bis nuclear capability,
first to threaten and then, possibly, actually use bis weapon. Once an
adversary bas nuclear capability the anned forces will have to take it into
account in deploying their own forces for conventional war. For instance,
the air force bas to try to minimize the damage if an airfield-a legitimate
military target-is attacked with a nuclear weapon. The process of
weaponization involves adequate command and control systems on the
political and military side, the safe storage of weapons away from military
targets, and arrangements for their transportation to those who are to
deliver them to their targets. The army bas to tailor its deployment tactics
so as not to concentrate its forces and present a legitimate military target
for the adversary's nuclear weapon. Some thought will have to be given
to succession in political and military commands lest the top leadership
gets eliminated in a decapitation strike on the capital. (1bis is easy to
handle in a country used to frequent imposition of martial law and where
command over the weapon vests in military bands. But for a democracy,
this issue needs to be settled in advance with the approval of Parliament.)
There are also a whole lot of technical problems of redundancy arrange-
ments for communications.

III
An Epochal Decade
Original from
'
j
Original from
13
The 1990s:
A Momentous Decade
Tbe twentieth century was a period ofaccelerating change

all over the world The West saw the New Deal, extension of universal
suffrage, civil·rights and women's rights movements. But the years 1989-
91 were far more revolutionary than the years of the French, the Bolshevik
and Chinese revolutions. Events moved so rapidly that most of the foreign
and strategic policy establishments in the world were left somewhat
disoriented The world bad not witnessed before, except in the cases of
the decolonization process and then in the dismantling of apartheid,
revolutionary non-violent changes, as those underlying the end of the
cold war, the 1mification of Germany, the significant arms reductions
envisaged in the Paris declarations and the political, economic, and social
changes of the type sweeping over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
and their impact P.lsewhere in the world
The world was transformed in these three years beyond the wildest
hypotheses of the most innovative analyst. Never before in history, thirty-
five nations belonging to two hostile blocs armed to their teeth, with
capabilities to destroy the civiliz.ed society many times over, sat around
a table and agreed to cut their armaments by half. The two major nuclear-
weapon powers decided to do away with most of their tactical nuclear
arsenals. The signing of the INF Treaty in 1987 was the beginning of the
reversal of the arms race between the two global military powers. The
unification of Germany, the Paris ~ummit declaration ending the cold
war, the treaty on the reduction of conventional forces in Europe (CFE),
the evolving transformation ofthe Conference ofSecurity and Cooperation
in Europe (CSCE) from a confidence building to common security ftame-
wott and the ending ofSino-Soviet military confrontation, were all unpre-
cedented steps in the history of humanity. Then came the START, with
its first reduction of strategic nuclear arsenals. Simultaneously, the Gulf
War marked a new milestone in the technology of conventional war.

150 Slidding SlubboletJu
Even the nlQSl virulent anti-Soviet critic did OOl •11i.:ipr#c: the rapidity
of collapse of the Soviet sySlem. Steps w disowotle apar1heid in Soulh
Africa by the white minority regi111e came about earlier than predicted.
Nelsoo Mandela was fieed, and lhe ptosptXIS for a dialogue between the
African National Congress and lhe regi111e in Pretoria brightened. The
long bitter hostilities in Angola, Ethiopia, and Cambodia came to an end.
The Arabs and Israelis were pe151,,aded to lake part in the peace process.
A number of regional conflicts, which were linked with the central
11ra1egic confrontation, were resolved. Namibia was decolonized.
Nicaragua held free electioos and was expected to have a ehange of
government In Central America, a UN observer force was monitoring
tramborder movei•ielil'i- 1be Vidnaniesc forces wi1hdrew from Cambodia
The long and murderous lraq-lrao war ended in an uneasy ceasefire.
The Soviet troops left Afghanistan, though peace was yet to return to
that unhappy country.
The era of ideological struggle that commenced with the Bolshevik
revolution of 1917 came virtually to an end, notwithstanding China and
a few other cowitries' continued profession of allegiance to Leninisrn-
Stalinism-Maoism.
The pace and extent of change in the international system was greater
than seen in any revolution. But it did not result in discontinuity. Revolu-
tions give birth to a new value system. In the present transformation no
new system came into being. Among the two existing systems, one yielded
ground and the other expanded.
It was also not a cowiter-revolution. The market economy in a demo-
cratic syslem today is not the capitalist system of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Many of the ideas of what was once considered
radical socialism have been absorbed into the modem democratic marlcet
syslem. That was why the working classes of the Soviet Union and East
Europe did not enetgetically resist the change from the command economy
to the market-oriented one.

14
The End of an Empire
On 31 December 1991, the Soviet Union, that came into

being as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution of7 November 1917, came
to an end after seventy-four years of advocating international socialism,
five-year plans, Stalinist oppression resulting in the death of millions, the
glorious triumph in World War ll, its role as a supetp0wer rival of the
US, its achievements in space and its seven-ocean blue-water navy. Like
its predecessor empires, the British, the French, the Belgian, the Dutch,
and the Portuguese, it collapsed due to its own internal contradictions.
Seventy years of indoctrination was wiped out by chauvinism. Let
alone the proletariat of the world, not even the citizens of the Soviet
Union with their experience of seventy years of shared joys and sorrows
were prepared to stay united even as a loose confederation, not to speak
of a federation. Gorbachev, the architect of perestroika and the nemesis
of Soviet communism, did try heroically to salvage a loose confederation
out of the wreckage of the edifice that be brought down. His grand vision
first of a federation and secondly of a confederation could not overcome
the surging passion of chauvinist leaders wielding for the first time the
power of popular democracy. The dominance of the Russian nationality
over the last century, combined with absence of democracy and power
sharing, bad led various nationalities, particularly the Baltic States and
Ukraine, to yearn for independence. Bringing down communist authori-
tarianism did not, however, need an all-Soviet Union mass struggle but
an elite-led movement mostly confined to Russia.
Some years earlier, discussing what might happen if the Soviet Union
broke up, an American Sovietologist said he would not worry about it
but for the fact that the Soviet Union bad an awesome nuclear arsenal. A
massive nuclear arsenal in an unstable State could, indeed, give rise to
spine-chilling scenarios. But when the Soviet Union was in fact breaking ·
up, that factor did not seem to bother world leaders: the last six years of
Gorbachev seemed to have lulled the scaremongers.
The Soviet Union appeared to be a case of a brave attempt at

152 Sltedding Shibboleths
introducing marlcetiz.ation. pluralism, and democracy in an orderly fashion

in a society not used to these values historically, getting out of control.
Absent a democratic tradition, all kinds of adverse factors-the workers'
cconomism, demagogic politicians' populism, ethnocentric frenzy, and
natiooal chauvinism-were unleashed. The only party that ruled the Soviet
state was discredited and was anathema to a majority of people. In compar-
ison, Poland bad the benefit of Solidarity emerging over the years to
offer an alternative to the discredited Communist party.
Apart from the Herculean task at home of carrying through a
democratic evolutionary change, the reformist Soviet leadership had also
to contend with a generally unsympathetic international envirooment (with
exceptions like West Germany's Kohl and Genscher). It was unprece-
dented that an exceedingly oppressive dictatorship was being transformed
in an evolutionary manner into a functioning democratic state; but the
entire western community of political pundits seemed to have missed its
significance. In many quarters, there was grim satisfaction over prognosis
of the terminal illness of the Soviet state. The visceral anti-Sovietism of
most of the westei:n media, academia, and political establishments blinded
them to the fact that the failure of Soviet reforms would mean years, if
not decades of setback for reforms in China, Vietnam, Cuba, and
elsewhere.
The US, in a reversal of its earlier policy, recommended in early 1992
that the republics of the erstwhile Soviet Union be accepted as full
members of the World Bank and the IMF, to enable them to avail of
credit from these institutions. Simultaneously, the EEC extended a morato-
riwn on debt repayments to these republics. When President Gorbachev
had earlier made the same suggestions, they were turned down on the
ground that economic reforms were essential prerequisites for admission
to the international financial institutions. Gorbachev argued, unsuccess-
fully, that economic reforms had to be preceded by a union treaty. The
western strategy contributed significantly to both Gorbachev's exit and
his failure to persuade the republics to form a loose federation, such as
had been voted for by the majority of the people in eight of them.
•••
•
How will history judge Mikhail Gorbachev?
The positive assessment is one of a peacemalcer who ended the cold
war, unleashed forces of democracy and marketization in the USSR,
I.J1>erated the people of the Soviet Union and East Europe from communist
- D1g1t1zeo by Google Orlgmal frcm

The End ofan Empire 153
tyranny, and contributed most as an individual to reducing the oppressive

fear of nuclear annihilation.
On the contrary, the Chinese, especially, accuse him of being the
greatest traitor to the cause of socialism, a bungler who plunged Eastern
Europe and the erstwhile Soviet Union into chaos, who facilitated the
victory of the US and the West and who, by removing the countervailing
power of the Soviet Union, betrayed the interests of the developing world.
He also unleashed forces of ethnic chauvinism, which not only fragmented
the Soviet Union but also touched off similar trends all over the world,
especially in developing countries.
Gorbachev was no starry eyed revolutionary when he started his party
career. He rose through the party ranks as an adherent to the system: had
he exhibited dissent at an early stage, be would have been sidelined long
ago. By the time be came to Moscow, he was identified with the then
KGB chief, Yuri Andropov, who subsequently became General Secretary
of the CPSU. The CIA bad begun studying the decline of the Soviet
system in the early 1980s itself. The KGB, and those associated with
Andropov, including Gorbachev, knew about the fatal decline of the
Soviet system.
Gorbachev's early speeches and writings reveal him as an earnest
man in search of solutions to stem the rot and restructure the Soviet
system. At the same time, be appears to have been committed to glasnost
(openness) and to reducing and eliminatiug the tyrannical features oftbe
totalitarian state. He could not just then afford to project the image of a
man bent upon dismantling the system. Indeed, be was nominated by
that veteran conservativ~ Andrei Gromyko, who vouched for him as a
man with a "pleac:ant smile but iron teeth".
Once glasnost was introduced, be found that large sections of the
Soviet society were totally alienated from the system. Millions of families
had memories of victims of Stalinist purges. Even Raisa Gorbachev
reminisced about her grandfather who disappeared during the purges.
Glasnost also revealed to the people what till then was perhaps known
only to the top party officials, the professionals and the KGB--that the
system was crumbling. In the early days of communism there used to be
prophecies of imperialism arming itself to its own destruction. Now that
fate was overtaking Soviet communism.
In this atmosphere, Gorbachev found be could purge the Communist
party of its diehard elements through the system of rejection vote. It was
not possible for the Soviet system to copy the Chinese model of creeping
capitalism while keeping the authoritarian state and party structures intact.

IS4 Slteddiltg SlubboletJu
In China, by the time 0mg Xiaoping carried out bis economic refonm
in 1979, ~ were still substantial numbers of peasants who bad
memo.ies of private fanning. 1be wteuegnwn of Maoist excesses was
between 1964 and 1978 only. Still there was continuity of interaction
between the vigorous market-oriented overseas Chinese community and
the Chinese mainland, a feature toeally absent in the Soviet system. 0mg
Xiaoping was a man at odds with Mao oo the issue of ecooomic system
and who was restored to power only after Mao's death. The CCP, put
into dismay by Mao during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
did not have the same pervasive grip, and bold on the minds, of the
Chinese people a., the CPSU bad The Cbine.,e roodel was, therefore, not
available to Gorbachev.
There could be no ecooomic restructuring without a political one
preceding it Gorbacbev planned such a transformation using the one
instrument available to him, the CPSU. He was also hampeied by the
Stalini~t myth that the USSR was a voluntary union of republics having
the right to secession. 1be discrepancy between the myth and the reality
of over-centralization exploded with glasnost and introduction of
genuinely fair, contested elections. The people's resentment of decades
of tyranny and authoritarianism from Moscow, and tbeir alienatioo from
the communist system, resulted in old-time communist leaders being
replaced by men who played on the ethnic chauvinism.
The new-found democratic freedom unleashed ethnic divisiveness.
The Marxists, who subordinate every aspect to class coosiderations,
always tended to ignore sociological factors. The intemity of ethnic rivaby
and antagonism, therefore, caught the Moscow leadership by surprise.
Boris Yeltsin made full use of the Russian nationalist factor in rising to
power on a wave of demagoguery.
Gorbacbev's strategy at that stage had two prongs. The first was to
get a union treaty, and secondly, use a transformed CPSU as the instrument
to hold the republics united His referendum for undivided union obtained
massive endorsement, except in Georgia, Moldavia (now Moldova) and
Annenia. He hoped to persuade these to join later. He also presented a
blueprint for transforming the CPSU into a social democratic party.
His opponents struck from two sides. The hardline communists staged
the 19 August coup, which failed. The national chauvinists, particularly
Yeltsin, deprived him of the all-Union instrument, the CPSU, by banning
it in the wake of the coup. The independence of the Balkan states, favoured
by Yeltsin and other chauvinist leaders, sealed the fate of the Gorba-
cbevian vision of transforming the Soviet Union. Even when the break-

11re End of an Empire I SS
up became inevitable, be persevered in his attempts for some kind of

Union-a very loose confederation or even a community of republics on
the model of the EEC, with a central authority in charge of the nuclear
arsenal and the armed forces. But Yeltsin and Kravahuk wanted
Gorbachev out; they, therefore, came up with the idea of a commonwealth.
Gorbachev no doubt made mistakes, quite a few of them. But under-
lying all those mistakes was his basic predicament. If the progress of
democracy and openness in government had to be continued, he had to
carry his colleagues with him and could not act as his predecessors did.
That, inevitably, involved compromises, which meant leaning to the left
sometimes, and at other times to the right.
History may judge that in tactics and timing, Gorbachev committed
mistakes. But could he have controlled the upsurge of ethnic chauvinism
in various republics, or carried out successful economic reform in any
other way? Yeltsin, who used the lack of progress in economic reform as
a stick to beat Gorbachev, failed to demonstrate that he could succeed
where Gorbachev failed.
Because the changes which Gorbachev aimed to bring about were
total discontinuities from the past, they constituted revolutionary changes.
Revolution is never peaceful. But Gorbachev wanted a revolution within
the system without a shot fired, and quicldy. He put through a political
and economic revolution in three years: the first democratic elections in
USSR took place in March 1989.
Gorbachev's failure was inevitable, but it was a magnificent and heroic
failure.
In Germany, within five months of Helmut Kohr winning the first all-
German elections to Bundestag after the two Germanys were united, he
was greeted with shouts "Aus/ Aus!" (Out, Out) when he visited what
was East Germany in early 1991. Kohl had assured Germans, both West
and East, that integration could be paid for without additional taxation;
be could not keep that promise. In East Germany, unemployment crossed
40 per cent. The earlier expectation was that when West Germany
absorbed East Germany, the most efficient and prosperous among the
Soviet-bloc countries, West German firms would help to improve the
East German firms' productivity and efficiency, with consequent improve-
ment in standard of living all round But the West German finns decided,
in the long-term interests of efficiency, to scrap the East German plants
and erect in their place modern German ones. West Germans were,
however, not happy about the terms on which East German currency was
converted at the time of unification. Kohl was generous, against his

156 Sltedding SllibboktlLf
benki::rs• advice. Such gmerous settlement seemed to have unleashed

inflationary pressures, forcing austerity on Germany as a whole. If the
rich, efficient, and disciplined Germans had so much difficulty in
absoroing the shock of integration of some 17 million East German
population in a well-ordered, powerful, $1.5 trillion economy of 62
millioo; it should not be difficult to understand the problem of marketiz-
ation of the entire Soviet Union with 290 million population switching
over from the commaod regulated economy, with its history going back
some sixty-five years. Added to that was the nationality problem, which
Germany did not face. It should be easy to understand the Soviet citiuns'
disenchantment with Gorbachev, who had undertaken a far D10[C difficult
task and delivered far less than the German leadership.
••••
The defence ministers of Warsaw Treaty Organization countries met in
Budapest in the last week of February 1991 to take the final steps to
dissolve the organintion. With the unification of Germany and fonnal
end of the cold war at the November 1990 Paris summit, the organiuiion
had outlived its utility. It was set up in 1955 after NATO was fonned in
1949 and the division of Germany became final at that stage. John Foster
Dulles had advocated the massive retaliation doctrine and western strat-
egists were talking of rolling back communism. Therefore, there was
acute insec•uity among the leaderships of the USSR and East European
communist countries.
Prior to the formation of the Warsaw Pact the USSR offered to join
NATO itself in a collective security arrangement., but the West only
snickered at the offer. After 1956, with the launch of Sputnik and conse-
quently the US mainland becoming vulnerable to Soviet ICBM attacks,
deterrence started to get stabilized, though till about the middle I 960s
there were fears of surprise attacks. With the development of second-
strike capability by both sides, they realized that there was no alternative
to peaceful coexistence and detente.
That, in turn, brought about SALT and the series of anns limitation
treaties- SALT I, ABM Treaty, SALT II and confidence-building
measures. Along with them came the Helsinki Accord in 1975 and the
increased trade and interaction between West Europe and the communist
countries. This interaction triggered off the birth of organizations like
Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia.
The interaction also highlighted to the people of the USSR and Eastern

The End ofan Empire 151
Europe how Stalinism had led to their falling behind Western Europe in
productivity, industrial innovation and consequently in their overall
standard of living. Out of this perception came the urge for perestroika
and glasnost and upsurge towards pluralism and democratiz.ation. With
this development and. detente the Warsaw Treaty became superfluous.
The Soviet Union and its allies had even earlier offered to dissolve the
organization along with NATO; but the western nations were not
agreeable.
Looking back over the thirty-six years of its existence, did WTO at
all serve a progressive purpose? Its detractors will point out to the Soviet
suppression of Hungarian uprising and Czechoslovak spring. It also
spawned the Brezhnev doctrine. But what would the world have been
like without the Warsaw Treaty? Today, after the rise of Germany and
Japan, the assertions of an independent Europe, the decolonization
completed and a number of developing countries having made great
strides, there is fear of a unipolar world dominated by USA. In the
absence of a countervailing factor in international strategic milieu in the
1950s, with all factors stacked up in favour of the US, the world would
have found the dominance of one superpower far more oppressive. Would
the emergence of China as a nuclear power and independent and unified
Vietnam and completion of decolonization have been possible but for
the countervailing role of the Warsaw Treaty?

15
Saddam'sFolly, 1991
In his confrontation with the US in 1991, Saddam Hussein

was being portrayed as an Islamic and Arab hero who wanted to reform
the feudal order in the Arab kingdoms and sheikhdoms, intent on distri-
buting the oil income equitably among the Arabs, one who resisted the
US attempt to exploit oil at cheap prices. Let us check on his record.
The Shah or' Iran, after appropriately arming himself with US
weaponry, twisted Saddam's arm and extracted from him the Algiers
Treaty of 1975, which demarcated the boundary between Iraq and Iran
in Shatt al-Arab. The Shah rectified a long perpetrated imperialist injustice
that drew the boundary between Iraq and Iran on the Iranian bank of
Shatt al-Arab instead of basing it on the Tbalweg principle, which is the
normal international practice. At the time the boundary was drawn, Iraq
was a British protectorate and the British wanted the entire water spread
of Shatt al-Arab for their use. In 1980, Saddam attacked Iran, a fellow
Islamic country, on the ostensible excuse of restoring the (imperialist)
boundary. His real aim was, of course, to topple the Khomeini regime.
Khorramshahr was totally destroyed in the first few days. Eight years of
war followed. More than 200,000 people died on both sides.
Iraq borrowed $20 billion from Kuwait and $60 billion from Saudi
Arabia to prosecute the war. Since the Soviet Union, long-tenn supplier
of arms to Iraq, dissociated itself from this misadvenrure, Saddam used
the borrowed oil money to purchase armaments from many West
European countries, South Ko~ North Korea, Brazil, and Egypt. At
that stage he had the full support of the US in his attack on Iran. Subse-
quently, when the Iranians counterattacked and drove the Iraqis back to
Basra, Saddam used mustard and phosgene gases against the Iranians.
Though the UN produced a number of reports proving the Iraqi use of
chemical weapons, the UN was hijacked, and the Security Council turned
a blind eye to it because in the US view, Saddam Hussein was doing
their work vis-a-vis Khomeini's Iran. Even when an Iraqi fighter-bomber
struck the US warship Stark with an Exocet missile and killed a number
of Americans, the US found enough excuses to shield Sllddam

Smida•·, Folly, 1991 159
He continued as the blue-eyed boy of the US till the middle of 1990,

when the US Ambassador to Iraq informed him that the US would not
intervene in any intra-Arab dispute. Perhaps, the US intention was to
indicate that it would not object if Iraq forced Kuwait to surrender the
Rumeilab oil field and the two islands which Iraq wanted. The Iraqi
leader, presumably, interpreted the US assurance to mean that he could
swallow up Kuwait In the circumstances, it is difficult to see Saddam as
a great anti-imperialist champion of the South standing up to the mighty
United States. On the other hand, he was an American tool till a few
months before the Gulf War. Perhaps, he felt that he could outrnanl)CUvre
the Americans. The US has a record of selecting wrong people as instru-
ments of its policy in the developing world; President Saddam Hussein
was one of them.
A few months before the Kuwait aggression, Egypt's relations with
Iraq deteriorated sharply because some hundreds of bodies of Egyptian
workers in coffins were shipped to Cairo without explanation how they
died. Egyptian labour who went to Iraq for work returned with bitter
memories about the ill treatment they received at the hands of their Iraqi
Arab brothers. Though Iraq and Syria have the Baath party in power
(with a common origin), their mutual animosity was so intense that Syria
sided with Iran during Iraq's aggression on that country. In the
circumstaoces, the basis of Saddam's elevation to the rank ofa pan-Arab
leader like Gamal Abdel Nasser strains credulity.
President Saddam !liluandered $80 billion of Arab oil money on buying
weapons and enriching the armament merchants all over the world for a
war from which he could not get one square inch of soil or water spread.
He wanted to push up oil prices-an objective shared by the American
oil lobby and banking interests-not to redistribute the oil wealth to all
Arabs but to buy more weapons for his aggression. Saddam Hussein had
never proposed at any time since 1973, when the oil prices shot up, the
distribution of surplus petrodollars to poorer Arab countries (Syria,
Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, etc.).
In spite of their closeness to the US, the regimes in Saudi Arabia and
the Emirates were pursuing a policy of keeping the US forces beyond the
horiz.on. Saddam, through his aggression on Kuwait, brought the US
directly on to the soil of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. To interpret his
aggression of Kuwait as a step towards pan-Arab unification is to recall
the claims of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler that their aim was to unify
Europe. The Japanese militarists wanted to create an East Asian co-
prosperity sphere.

•••
•
The Gulf War came about because Iraq attempted to enhance its power
through seizure of nearby oil-rich territories with a view to dominate
first, the Gulfregioo, and subsequently, the Arab, and thereafter, perhaps
the Islamic world. First, it attempted to seiz.e the oil-rich Khuzestan
province of Iran; in this it had the tacit backing of the US. Having failed
io that after an eight-year-long ruinous war, it turned its attention to
Kuwait Iraq's Arab neighbours-Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar,
~ Syria, and even Egypt-were so alarmed by this Iraqi expansionism
that they allied themselves with the US and the West European countries
to curb Iraq's ambitions.
No doubt oil was the issue-Iraq's aim was to use Kuwait's oil riches
to build up its military machine for further conquests. The US and the
other Arab countries preferred the present oil regime. It was also a power
struggle, Iraq attempting to emerge as the domioaot power in the Gulf
area, that being resisted by other Gulf states and the US and its allies.
Iran. the first enemy, remained neutral this time and watched its adversary
being stemJy disciplined. It was an inter-Arab and Islamic war, and not a
war between Arab-Islamic Iraq and the West. Syria has a more consistent
record of opposing the US and Israel than Iraq. The other Gulf states and
Iran were more Islamic fundamentalist than the Baathist Saddam Hussein.
It was not a war for more liberal and secular government. Saddam Hussein
is as much a dictator as the kings and sheikhs of the area. Egypt and
Syria have pennitted as much inroads of western lifestyles as Iraq has.
All these facts do oot in any way controvert that the US was out to
clip Saddam Hussein's wings, sustain the status quo in the Gulf, enhance
Israel's security, test its new weapon technologies, and impose its own
world order oo West Asia. Did Saddam Hussein's aggression hinder the
US from executing its plans or facilitated them? If the iatter, does Saddam
Hussein deserve the admiration or approval of all those who claim to be
pro-Arab, pro-Palestine, secular, and anti-hegemonic?
The support and admiration for him was not based oo cold logic but
confused sentimentality- like religious belief. Most people derive their
religious faith from the accident of their birth and upbriogiog. Similarly,
in this case most pro-Saddam ~timent was based oo our anti-colonial
pro-developing-world sympathies, our desire for solidarity with our
Islamic brethren in preference to distant white Christians. It hardly
occurred to people that this conduct is against the spirit of non-alignment,
which envisages exercise of independent judgement oo the merits of the

Saddam's Folly, 1991 161
case. In this case Saddam Hussein was totally wrong in his action. The
US wa.q making full use of his guilty conduct to achieve its interests. The
US was strong, and in the eyes of most people, a bully. Was it not our
duty to have impressed upon Saddam Hussein that his action was going
to provide the US with the opportunity it was looking for? Were not all
those who cheered Saddam Hussein in his criminal misadventure facilitat-
ing unwittingly the advancement of western, and particularly US interests?
Did they not keep silent when his aggression on Iran resulted in a greater
number of casualties on both sides than in the Gulf War of 1991? Why
were there no demonstrations and newspaper advertisements when
Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Iranians?
This kind of confusion in the political field was further confounded
by the lack of understanding of current realities in the military arena. As
far back as November-I 985, the DROO (Defence Research and Develop-
ment Organiz.ation) held a seminar at Pune on "Reconnaissance, Surveil-
lance and Target Acquisition". In that seminar, Air Commodore Jasjit
Singh and I presented our views on the air-land battle concept and its
impact on future wars. Our views were received with scepticism. Subse-
quently, in May 1986, another seminar was held at Pune with the partici-
pation of then Minister of State for Defence Aron Singh, the three Chiefs
of Staff-Admiral Tahiliani, Air Chief Marshal La Fontaine, General
Sundarji- and V.S. Arunachalam, the Scientific Adviser to the Ministry
of Defence. Once again, the impact of new technologies on future wars
was emphasiz.ed by Aron Singh, Arunachalam, General Sundarji, Air
Commodore Jasjit Singh and me.
My military assessments during this war were based on my under-
standing of the application of modern technology and doctrines to war
by the US armed forces, and the performance of Iraqi troops during the
Iraq-Iran war. But I was in a minuscule minority.
The Korean and Vietnamese wars did not alter the course of history
as mu~h as the Gulf War. It will take a long time for those who predicted
that large-scale US casualties would affect its will to pursue the war, to
take note of the new developments in technology and, consequently, in
doctrines. The conventional military wisdom anticipated a higher propor-
tion of damage to the attacking air power, higher casualties in the land
offensive, and consequently a stalemate which in reality would mean
great prestige for Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader's bluff about missile
and chemical-weapon capabilities was readily accepted. Consequently,
most of the Indian military commentaries were biased in his favour.
Not only in monetary terms, but also in casualties, this was one of the

162 Shedding Sllibboleths
.
cheapest wars for the US. While in military and technological tenns, the
US and western countries were winners, the losers included not only
Iraq, but also Kuwait, which was ecologically devastated, and the oil-
rich Arab cowtries which paid the costs of this victory. Some tried to
make out this war as one between North and South, which it was not. The
large-scale use of air power and its effectiveness disoriented many military
minds. After the shock wore off, the implications of air-land battle
doctrines were expected to make headway and influence not only strategy,
tactics and procurement decisions, but also raise fundamental questions
about war as an instrument of politics even in the developing world.
SW"Cly, the cheering for Saddam 1-1.ussein would have been tempered
if people had known that he was in for a "Mother of all Defeats". If
comet military assessments had been available to the various non-aligned
governments they would perhaps have worked harder to restrain him.
Even some Soviet generals at the beginning of the war predicted that the
US could not win. The underlying issue is not whether one is pro- or
anti-America but whether one is able to keep abreast of military technolo-
gies and doctrinal evolution in the world and arrive at a balanced judge-
ment. There has been much wailing about the US having become the
sole hegemonic power. It will take some more years for people to conclude
that it is not wholly true.
For the Iraqis the war cost hundreds of'thousands of casualties, desttuc-
tion of assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars, a setback to their
development, and a significant fall in their standard of living. For the
coalition forces it cost 300-400 casualties, including non-combat ones,
and 50-60 billion dollars. For many other countries there were economic
costs in terms of return of labour, loss in remittances, fall in trade, and
drop in tourist traffic. For the US and its allies there were some intangible
political and long-term economic gains. There was a warning that the big
bully would not permit any local bully to alter the status quo.
Once again, after the war, new myths were manufactured. The Iraqi
leadership claimed great victory after suffering this disaster. One can
draw a parallel with Pakistani claims of great victory in 1965 after they
were frustrated in their attempt to seize Kashmir. In 1973, though the
Egyptians surprised the world by their feat in crossing the Suez Canal,
finally in that war the Israelis crossed the canal and surrounded the
Egyptian Third Army. While the first deserved to be acclaimed, the
second disastrous defeat was sought to be glossed over. There is some
cultural commonality in these three refusals to accept defeat and face
facts. A nation that cannot do that can never learn from its mistakes.

Saddam's Fol/y, 1991 163
The Chinese and the Nonh Koreans fought the Americans to a stale-
TDate in Korea. That made General MacArthur warn his countrymen not
to get entangled in Asia. Vietnam defeated the US, thereby creating the
Vietnam syndrome. These developments bad an inhibiting effect on US
intervention proclivity. Saddam Hussein's air force did oot take to the
skies and his army disintegrated in just one hundred hours. People must
pause to reflect what this means for US interventionism in future. President
Bush was able to exorcise his country of the VifflWD $)'Ddrome, thanks
to Saddam Hussein's incompeteoce aod empty boast.
••••
India often bungled in dealing with the Gulf situation.
First, listeners to the BBC in late July and early August 1990 knew of
the concentration of Iraqi troops oo Kuwait border. President Saddam
Hussein's dire economic straits-from bis ruinous war with 1ran-aod
bis pressure on other Arab oil-producing countries to give him $30 billion
were also known. He bad threatened Kuwait and the UAE that be would
take "other" steps if be did oot get the money; this was oot public
knowledge, but our diplnmats in Baghdad, Kuwait and other Gulf capitals
would have known of it. Was any assessment attempted in the Foreign
Office or the Joint Intelligence Committee (nC), and did our Foreign
Service officers and RAW (Research aod Analysis Wing) persoooel sound
an alert about this developing crisis? The Americans knew about the
brewing crisis but discounted the prospect of an armed action by Iraq.
After the invasion took place, were our policy initiatives and percep-
tions based oo a comprehensive assessment or only relied on individual
and ad hoc assessments? Our ambassador to the US, Abid Hussein, in
his interview to the Sunday Observer, was extremely critical of our failure
to take a firm stand vis-a-vis the Iraqi leader, who was considered our
friend and who should have been amenable to our advice.
Our focus oo the evacuation of Indian labour from Kuwait was correct,
and implemented with commendable efficiency. But was the accom-
panying diplomacy, including our External Affairs Minister's costly
embrace of President Saddam Hussein the best under the circwostaoces?
In early September 1990, the Belgrade meeting of Yugoslavia, Algeria
and India could oot agree on a statement oo the situation in the Gulf.
Egypt and Syria, our longtime friends in the Non-Aligned Movement,
bad lined up with the US. The smaller countries of the Gulf were signalling
to India about their insecurity vis-a-vis Iraq. lrao, too, bad taken a firm

164 SJioidi,rg ~
,tand in ,pile of Iraqis mr,oo-,ing all then _.. piu, We do DOI su 111
IO have read those signal$
In October 1990. the bxtian \liuislcr of Exraual AILi,s ..S the US
Sec.may of Scare met in Sew Yort. in :m ;anatni} I/fr/ aJldial mwi-.g
Larer that mouth India -,,pe.ucd to have ag.ecd lu pennit US Air F01ce
overfligbu. and perhaps rrluelli:ng IOO. but Ilk p1oa:d11tt adnpfcd 5tJi • MIS
to have bypassed all esaabli$bcd decisioo-makmg SbUdUrtS and por:ascs,
and tbe-c was roofusioo in b-.iug the origin of the decision.
Mta111,tbile, the L-S Security Couocil bad paucd a series of n: sol,cinn.c
With unprecedeutcd ,manimity 3iDOllg its five j»IIIIICUI members. Even
if we feh that the t:SSR and China were just looking after their oatimml
inleresU, it should ba\·e btal clear dw their scmd was going to affect
the situati011 materially. Did we assess at that saage, what would be in our
national interest in the light of lhost ckvelopments?
Then came UN resolution 678 011 30 No\·ember and the six-week
deadline. It should have btal known dw the US would use Ibis interval
to rt1arget its cruise missiles, earlier targeted 011 the Soviet Union, on to
the Iraqi instaJlatiom. Was there a military assessment on our part on the
course and probable result of the war? Ptobably oone. If indcwl there
was, it would have btal way off the mark, going by the coi111oentu:ies
broadcast by All India Radio and Doordarshan.
In other COlD!tries, such a military situation would have been carefully
asSCllsed by qualified professionals. To reduce the margin of enor,
politico-strategic and war games would have been played and assessments
made by more than one team. In India, most likely, policy was based on
the amateurish judgements on the prowess of the Iraqi Republican Guanb;
Saddam Hll$stin's missile and chemical war capabilities; the probability
of the coalition forces incurring large-scale casualties; the coalition break-
ing up; and of Israel being dragged into the war. No doubt, even some
Soviet generals and American strategists assessed matters wrongly. But
the Soviet stand was clearly based upon the inevitability of Iraqi military
defeat; it never wavered in its support to the US and the all-military
action. India, unfortunately, did not have an effective Minister of External
Affairs for some time, and then no Minister at all. ·
Iraq was one of the few Islamic countries that did not support Pakistan
on Kashmir. We used to maintain an air force training mission in Iraq
and had a number of contracts there, though some of them ran into
problems about timely payments at the end of the Iraq-Iran war. We
were begiMing to expand our business connections with that countiy
thereafter. We were getting our oil from them and they were also involved

Saddam's Folly, 1991 165
in three-way oil swap anangement involving the Soviet supplies to this

country.
The situation radically changed just before the Gulf War. Those who
watched the "Amman Album" TV programme would remember the Iraqis'
cruelty to Indians coming out of Kuwait Their cars were taken away and
children, women and men were forced to walk through the desert from
the Kuwait border to the refugee camps in Jordan. Secondly, there was a
subtle change in the Pakistan-Iraq relationship though the former sent
some 5,000 troops to Saudi Arabia-to deploy not on the Iraqi border
but on the Yemeni border. On 2 December 1990, General Aslam Beg
said in a seminar at Wah that the Gulf situation presented a new example
of"strategic•defiance" by the people oflraq against the "strategic military
intimidation" by the powers that be. As he saw it, what challenged this
might was the spirit of defiance of the people of Iraq. Such defiance was
likely to be more meaningful if other nations also joined in, he said.
In the Gulf crisis, condoning Saddam Hussein's annexation of an
independent member country of the UN, unprecedented in UN history,
was neither in our natiooal interest nor that of the international community,
especially the small states. Among the forty-two Islamic countries, only
Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen, and Jordan were prepared to take a less
strict view of his aggression while all of Iraq's Islamic neighbours were
ranged against it. There was no need for us to be more Islamic than
Islamic countries; neither would it have been in our national interest.
Saddam Hussein also broke the taboo of more than half a century and
used chemical weapons against a neighbour developing country, Iran. It
was not in our interest if the first use of weapons of mass destruction got
legitimiz.ed. That could happen to India itself in future, since there were
admirers of Saddam Hussein's strategic defiance in our neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, the US through a series of actions was attempting to
signal a change of its policy in South Asia. Its support to the Simla Pact,
abandonment of its earlier stand on plebiscite in Kashmir, tough stand
on Pakistani proliferation, reduction of supplies to Afghan mujahideeo,
stand on Pakistani narco-terrorism, support for the Indian request for an
IMF loan and its willingness to stop pursuing Super 301 , were all
indications of this change.
••••
When the uprising of Shias in the south and Kurds in the north against
Saddam Hussein was gathering momentum, on 26 March 1991

166 Slleddillg SllibboletJis
Washington announced that it would not prevent Iraq from using its
helicopters. Using napalm and phosphorus bombs from the helicopters.
the Iraqi ruler crushed the uprising. Why did the US permit this? Laurie
Mylroie, writing in the Asian Wall Street Journal ( 11 April 1991 ),
attributes the change in US policy to pressure from the Saudi rulers, who
were more terrified about the emergence of either Sbia influence backed
by Iran or democracy in Iraq. She refers to a Sandi attempt to stage a
military coup in Iraq using ooe Salah Omar Ali al-Tahiti, bailing from
Saddam Hussein's native town; be failed. (It appears that the Saudis'
intelligence was so abysmal that they suggested names of generals who
were dead ten years earlier to replace Saddam') Presumably, the Saudis
and the US intelligence community failed to assess correctly Saddam
Hussein's bold on the military apparatus. Toe US administration decided
to tag along with the Saudi leadership and even succeeded in watering
down the UN resolution from "condemnation" of Saddam Hussein to
ooe of "deploring" bis action. Iraq bas 18 per cent Sunni Arabs, 18 per
cent Kurds (also Sunni), 59.S per cent Sbia Arabs, and 3.5 per cent
Christians. Saudi interest is in perpetuating Sunni Arab rule over the
Kurds and Sbias.
In early 1992, ooe year after the rout of bis army, Saddam J.lussein
had not succumbed to the pressures of the UN trade embargo, had not
agreed to sell Iraqi oil under conditions imposed by the UN, and was
still running rings around UN teams attempting to disarm Iraq of its
arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The Kuwaitis were still to get
all their prisoners of war released. and more than 2000 Kuwaiti men.
women and children were in Iraqi prisons. There was hardly a parallel in
history, of a man who brought such catastrophic suffering on bis people,
and who had become such an outcast of the international community,
continuing to survive as a ruler. The famous victory achieved in the
great war, in which the thirty-one nation coalition waged a high-technology
war, seemed to be a Pyrrhic victory. The UN was holding the entire
population of Iraq hostage for the misbehaviour of one man whom it was
powerless to punish.
The western allies stopped their ground operations after one hundred
hours. Having liberated Kuwait at a low cost in human lives on their own
side, there would have been little justification to drive on to Baghdad,
incurring more casualties. The Arab allies would not have accepted that.
Also, the coalition did not have any alternative plan to replace Saddam
Hussein by a leadership which would hold Iraq together. Three mutually
countervailing factors enabled Saddam Hussein to survive: the Turks do
-"
SaddaM 's Folly, 1991 161
not want a Kurdistan, the Arabs do not want Iranian domination over
eastern Iraq, and the Americans want to remain influential in this area,
with the oil producers beholden to them for their security. For the US, its
Gulf presence and influence over the oil producers constitute a powerful
leverage in its dealings with its newly emergent economic and techno-
logical rivals-Japan and Western Ewope.
Mohammed Heikal's book on the Gulf War is titled Illusions of
Triumph. (Heikal is a former editor-in-chief of A.I A.hram.) The shinning
victory of the US and its allies still leaves them with the task of having to
deal with a defiant Saddam Hussein. The triumph, thus, was illusory.
Not without reason, the US counted on Saddam Hussein being toppled
by his own army when he was defeated decisively and his country's
infrastructure was laid waste. The Saudi leadership made an attempt but
failed. Saddam Hussein and his colleagues continued in power; the victor
George Bush and his government went out of office. The sanctions
. imposed on Iraq by the US and its western allies did not work in spite of
the enormous suffering they inflicted on the Iraqi people.
••••
In mid-January 1998, Iraq was subjected to air raids on southern Iraq air
exclusion zone and the northern air exclusion zone and a cruise missile
attack on a cluster of industrial facilities in a Baghdad suburb. The explan-
ation for the missile attack, with forty-five cruise missiles, was that these
industrial facilities had computer-controlled machine tools; these could
make high-precision components that could have been useful for a nuclear
weapon programme. If all fissile material production capabilities in Iraq
had been destroyed, was there justification for this attack? Either the US
attack was a wanton one, or the IAEA's inspection procedures are ofno
value at all. Similarly, the justification for the attack on the Iraqi anti-
aircraft installations in the northern air exclusion zone was that the Iraqi
radars locked on US aircraft and started to track them. Does it mean that
the Allies had undertaken to ensure that no aircraft other than theirs
would be permitted to fly over the zone? Suppose it had been an Iranian
aircraft? Were the Iraqis to allow such aircraft to overfly without tracking?
The US government appeared to be making rules unilaterally and expected
the Iraqis to follow them even when they were not told what the rules
were.

16
The Lessons of Vietnam
When the history of the twentieth century comes to be

written in a detached perspective decades from now, the events that will
stand out will be World Warn, decolonization, the end of apartheid, the
Vietnam War and the Gulf War. In the 1980s, the revolutions in Russia
and China would have found a place in that list, but in the light of the
internal collapse of the Soviet Union, and China giving up Marxism,
they could no longer be regarded as major turning points in history.
They will merely be among the major events in the rise and fall of
nations and decline of empires during the twentieth century.
The victory of Vietnam ended the era of Karl von Clausewitz, in
which war was considered a viable instrument of politics. According to
the Clausewitzian thesis, a nation applied force on another to break its
will to resist and escalate the punishment to such a level that the other
sought tenns to terminate the war. In pursuance of this approach, the
Americans dropped on Vietnam and the other two Indochinese countries
more explosives than in all earlier wars combined. Half a million American
troops and a larger number of South Vietnamese equipped with the most
up-to-date conventional equipment tried to overwhelm the Vietnamese
will to resist. Everything short of nuclear weapons was used by the
Americans. The American bombing was more intense than during World
War II. Defoliant chemicals and non-lethal gases were extensively used.
The Americans used to make much of the fact that they did not invade
North Vietnam. Could the Americans have afforded the casualties that
would have followed? Finally, it was the American will to prosecute the
war that gave in, and North Vietnam was able to liberate South Vietnam.
It spoke much for Vietnam's magnanimity of spirit that when it celebrated
the twentieth anniversary of its victory with dignity and sobriety in mid-
1995, it remembered the American dead and the suffering of the American
servicemen even while recalling the appalling sacrifices its own people
made. In that war, 58,000 American servicemen were killed and some
150,000 were wounded. Vietnam lost three million casualties.
No other country bas the distinction of having inflicted military reverses

The Lessons of Vie111am 169
on three permanent members of the Security Council-the French (Dien

Bien Phu, 1954), the Americans (1975), and the Chinese (1979). It paid
a high price for decolonization, to establish the limits of US power and
then to stem the Chinese pressure on South East Asia. The cost of the
Vietnam War and defeat at its end speeded up the diffusion of power to
other major industrialized nations and prevented the world from becoming
totally unipolar at the end of the cold war. The world owes a debt of
gratitude to Vietnam and its leaders, especially Ho Chi Minh and General
Nguyen Giap.
Robert McNamara, the US Defence Secretary when Vietnam was
being bombarded, accepted in his book. In Retrospect: The tragedy and
lessons of Vietnam ( 1995) his share of the blame for the flawed US
policy towards Vietnam. He says that it was a terrible misjudgement to
have fought that war. He admits that the gravest mistake was not to
recogniu that Vietnamese nationalism was the primary motivating factor
behind their urge to fight, and not communism. The Americans thought
they bad to fight Vietnam to prevent the Chinese proxies from overrunning
South East Asia, without realizing that, historically, the Vietnamese had
always opposed Chinese expansion and had resisted the Chinese pressure
over two millennia. The Vietminh, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh,
had collaborated with the US as a resistance movement against the
Japanese occupation during World War Il. The Organiz:ation for Strategic
Services (OSS), the CIA's predecessor, had trained them during the war,
in China. But after the end of World War II, the US supported people
like Marshal Phibul Songgram of Thailand-who had collaborated with
the J~while opposing genuine nationalists like Ho Chi Minh.
During the Geneva conference, after the defeat of the French at Dien
Bien Phu, it was the Chinese who suggested the division of Vietnam into
North and South, to the annoyance of Vietnamese leaders. The division .
was to be temporary. The Americans, who supported the South Viet-
namese, tried to make the partition permanent, as in Korea and Germany.
The US also attempted to subvert North Vietnam, and Colonel Lansdale
of the CIA rose to prominence in that connection.
US hostility to North Vietnam and its attempt at unifying with the
South, was based mostly on its conviction that the communist North
Vietnamese were pawns of the communist Chinese. Even the Sino-Soviet
conflict did not make the American administration reflect whether
nationalism did not override ideological solidarity. Most of the weapons
for North Vietnam came from the Soviet Union; that itself should have
been an indication that North Vietnam was not on the Chinese side.

Then came the open war between the Vietcong and the Americans
and American-supported South Vietnamese. This was at the height of
the Sino-Soviet dispute. Though practitioners of realpolitik like Kissinger
were to make up with China in order to intensify the confrontation with
the Soviet Union, realpolitik failed to persuade them that China's neigh-
bour to the south, and the beneficiary of the Soviet arms supplies, should
be a balancer agaimt China and a dyke against the spread of Chinese
influence into South East Asia. Even when Sino-Indian relations dipped
to a new low in the 1960s, the Americans should have noticed that India
did not treat Vietnam as a pro-Chinese nation but assiduously cultivated it.
The war ended with the American withdrawal from Vietnam. The
world came to know about the genocide of the Maoist leader of Kampu-
chea, Pol Pot. Any nation which drove Pol Pot out deserved a Nobel
Peace Prize. But the US administration supported a coalition under
Norodom Sihanouk, of which Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge was the most
active component. That prolonged the agony of the Cambodian people
for an additional twelve years. The American attempt to isolate Vietnam
and subject it to economic pressures resulted in tens of thousands of boat
people seeking refuge in various South East Asian countries. According
to McNamara, the US government was ignorant of Vietnamese history
and culture and failed to consider the political, military, financial, and
bwnan costs of its deepening involvement. There were a number of
occasions when the war could have been ended. and the US could have
withdrawn without permanent damage to US or western security. It did
not, since the US establishment felt it would be interpreted as weakness.
McNamara says that the McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s purged
most of the State Department's top East Asia and China experts, leaving
later policy-makers without the nuances and sophisticated insights that
could have helped them avoid major mistakes. The errors, be says,
included a misreading of China's "bellicose rhetoric" as a threat to take
over South East Asia, and viewing North Vietnam's President Ho Chi
Minh first as a communist and only second as a Vietnamese nationalist.
Among the basic questions the US officials failed to consider were whether
the fall of South Vietnam would cause others to collapse and whether
that posed a genuine risk to western security.
Coinciding with Vietnam's celebration of victory in 1995, the US
announced its decision to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Vietnam was economically and strategically too important to be left
without American diplomatic recognition, but it took a long time for the
Americans to stomach their first ever defeat in history. (There was also
11111111111,
.r. . ..

The Lessons of Vietnam 171
the deman~er made in any previous war anywhere e1se----tbat the

Vietnamese should account for all American servicemen missing in action
during the war.) When the US made the move to establish diplomatic
relations with Vietnam, that cowitry continued to have the same leadership
which the Americans bad fought. The leader$hips in other countries bad
changed, including the US and China.
This history of the US-Vietnamese relationship, and the tragic errors
committed, with such high costs to the US, bas relevance for today's US
policy towards the Islamic world and individual Islamic countries.
Bhishma on his deathbed advised the Pandavas in statecraft: "'There are
no friends and no enemi.es for a king. Circumstances create friends and
enemies." Just as there was no monolithic communism there is no mono-
lithic Islamic fundamentalist or extremist threat There are Islamic funda-
mentalists and extremists, just as there were Maoists, Pol Pot clique,
Ceausescu and Enver Xodja. Nor should the US allow itself to be
exploited in the name of Islamic cooperation, as it was exploited by a
succession of worthless South Vietnamese generals. A predictable policy
of obsession to achieve certain well-advertised goals deprives a cowitry
of flexibility and tactical advantages of surprise and initiative. Perhaps
in a bipolar world, locked in an ideological struggle, such policy could
have been rationalized: in a polycentric world it is counterproductive.
The US failure in Vietnam should be viewed against the broad
background of US policy failures in China (backing Chiang Kaishek and
antagonizing the Chinese communists), the wasteful and futile war in
Korea, the backing of Pakistan during the Bangladesh war, the overthrow
of the Shah of Iran and antagonizing his successor regime, backing of
Saddam Hussein, which encouraged him to invade Kuwait, and backing
Siad Barre of Somalia. The arms the US gave to support Chiang Kaishek
ended in the hands of the communists and they subsequently bad to face
that Chinese communist army in Korea. The latest equipment supplied to
South Vietnam passed into the hands of North Vietnam as South
Vietnamese forces could not hold back the Vietcong and the North
Vietnamese. In Somalia, insurgents attacked US forces with the very
arms they equipped President Siad Barre with. Arms supplied to Emperor
Haile Selassie of Ethiopia were taken over by Colonel Mengistu, the
Marxist dictator. Above all, the Shah of Iran, flush with petrodollars,
could have anything short of nuclear weapons. He got F-14 aircraft even
before the US Navy could deploy them. All that arsenal ended up with
the Iranian ayatollahs. The Americans poured portable arms worth billions
of dollars into Pakistan with the result that the cowitry acquired the

172 Slidding Slubboletlu
heroin-Kalashnikov culture. The arms are being used in the civil wars
being fought in the; sbects in Pakistani cities and in terrorist activities in
the Kashmir Valley.
1bc debacle in Vit1narn did not make the US cstablisbmrt1t any wiser
in dealing with Iran. In January 1978, just a year before the fall of the
Sbab the American President was bailing bim as a pillar of stability in
the region, wbco in India we were inclined to give bim tbrcc years at the
most. 1bc Americans could not understand that the Soviet Union could
not subdue the Afghan tribes and the hostilities in Afghanistan were not
a national liberation war but a whole series of tribal insmgencies. 1bcrc
were intelligence reports in the US that the Soviet Union was crwnbling
from within and would not be able to sustain its war in Afghanistan.
They were ignored since they did not suit the administration, which
wanted to paint the Soviet Union in demoniac colours as "the evil empire".
....•
All nations generate their particular myths as part of a national immuniz-
ation process. We have our myths about our Gandhian legacy, our
secularism and socialism and the I962 debacle. So have the Americans
about their Vietnam syndrome, their isolationism, and their commitment
to democracy and human rights. Nations nurture their myths in the interest
of domestic compulsions and external image; but their ready acceplaDCC
by the rest of the world can produce surprises to the external actors. In
the Gulf War (1991), the myth of Vietnam syndrome played a significant
role, affecting the calculations of Iraq, various nations outside, many US
analysts and most of the US and world media. The Vietnam syndrome
was a description of the US citizens' alleged reluctance to bear high
casualties in a war. This myth was successfully sold to the American
people and the world at large, with the result that even senior ex-
servicemen of US armed forces and former decision-makers testifying
before Congress were reluctant to recommend the use of force in Iraq.
The US media constructed a number of scenarios founded on this
reluctance to accept high casualties. The expectation oflraq either forcing
a stalemate or winning the war was based on the number of body-bags
arriving home, and that turning the US public opinion against the
Administration pursuing the war.
What was the truth? After the Vietnam War the US was engaged in
wars in Lebanon, Grenada and Panama, none of which was of vital
interest to the US or threatened US security. In Lebanon they lost 245
'
The Lessoris of Vietnam 173
Marines to no purpose when the Marines' barracks were blown up by a

suicide truck driver crashing in with explosives. Walter Mondale, a former
Vice President, bitterly remarked that the Americans voted out President
Carter because of US hostages in Iran, though every one of them came
out alive, but re-elected Reagan in spite of bis losing 245 Marines for no
purpose. That is the triumph of public relations and media manipulation.
Toe main problem with the Vietnam War was that the Americans
could not win iL It was also the longest war the US was called upon to
fight. This non-winnable war came about in the wake of the Korea War,
following which General MacArthur bad warned the Americans not to
get involved in another war in the Asian mainland. Toe US Administration
bad been indulging in lies, which outraged even bureaucrats who were
behind the Pent.agon decision-making process. With the Sino-Soviet
conflict coming into the open, the Soviet Union getting into the first
arms control agreements with the US and relations with China improving,
the talk of rolling back communism in the paddy fields of Indochina
peninsula did not make sense.
Above all, the genocidal bombing (five million tons as against eighty-
odd thousand tons over Iraq and Kuwait) alienated even the earlier
advocates of bombing. Not being able to see and engage a visible enemy
and kept idle most of the time, the morale of the US forces shattered,
with the men getting increasingly into drugs and officer-men relationship
souring. Toe draft in the US was not administered with the degree of
fairness expected.
In the final analysis, however, the US experience in Vietnam should
be viewed in perspective and the Vietnam syndrome should not be
extended to every future conflict the US may be involved in.
o,g,ti~"' by Google Orlgmal frcm

17
The Taliban Enigma
(In the early and mid-1990s, when I wrote some of the

following commentaries, the kind of havoc the Taliban were to cause in
this part of the world would hardly have been foreseen. The excerpts are
presented here for the kind of deja vu feeling they would have generated
after the events of late 200 I.)
[16 Feb 1995) All of a sudden, a new military factor has emerged in
Afghanistan besides the three militia forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
(Hizb-i-lslami), Burhanuddin Rabbani (Jamaat-i-lslami) and General
Dostum (the Uzbeks). The Taliban, who have occupied seven provinces
in southern Afghanistan, including Lowgar province, are now close to
Kabul. They have evicted Hekrnatyar from his headquarters, Charasiab,
close to Kabul, and he has shifted towards the east to a town called
Sarowby. It is reported that Hekmatyar's forces did not put up a fight
and fled, leaving behind a large amount of heavy military equipment and
stores. The UN mediator, Mahmood Mestiri, has convened a meeting of
different militia leaderships on 18 February to work out arrangements
for an interim government at Kabul to whom Rabbani will hand over
power. It is not clear at this stage whether the Taliban will participate in
the forthcoming UN meeting, and in the new situation whether the UN
mediation will lead to a government in Kabul based on consensus among
various warring factions.
The Taliban are a group of students of Afghanistan, who went to
madrasas in Baluchistan during the war to study religion. It is claimed
that some 2000 of them got together in November 1994 and moved into
Afghanistan from Pakistan, vowing to throw out the leaderships of all
warring rebel factions, clean the place of narcotics and establish a Sharia-
based Islamic government in Afghanistan. It is said this started when a
Pakistani convoy bound for Central Asia was looted by one of the militias
when it was being escorted by the Taliban students. The Taliban claim
they have no political ambitions for themselves and their aim is to bring
·-
The Taliban Enigma 175
peace and form an Islamic government. Their leadership bas not been
identified.
They have bad phenomenal success, as province after province,
including Kandahar, the second-largest Afghan city, fell to them without
much resistance. Some media reports ascribe this success to the total
alienation of the Afghan people from the mujabideeo warlords. So far,
the Taliban's success bas only been in the areas controlled by Hekmatyar.
The Taliban, now at the gates of Kabul, have to confront the forces of
commander Ahmed Shah Masoud and President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
At the outset, some Pakistani reports indicated that the Taliban might
have the tacit support of Pakistan and some western agencies, and were
being used to fight the narcotics menace in Afghanistan. Pakistanis
disclaim any responsibility for the Taliban. The fact remains, however,
that a force of 2000 religious students in Pakistani madrasas within three
and a half months have swelled to a sbength of 25,000 and have been .
able to take control of seven provinces and reach the outskirts of Kabul.
The Taliban are now reported to have 200 tanks and a do7.ell MiG-21
aircraft. One Mohammad Umar of Kandahar is reported to bead a Shoora
which is said to direct them.
The mystery of the rise of the Taliban' and their phenomenal success
needs to be assessed carefully. Observers will notice a strong resemblance
between the Taliban's operations with what Pakistan attempted to do in
Kashmir in 1947, with partial success, and in 1965 and 1989 onwards
without much success. Toe ISi not only operated non-uniformed forces
in Afghanistan but, according to recent disclosures, extended those
o~tions to some of the Central Asian Republics during the Afghan
war. ~me reports from Islamabad speak of Pakistan interio, minister
Maj. Gen. (retd.) Nasrullah Bahar having bad a hand in raising and
training the force. Without Pakistani involvement it is difficult to explain
the Taliban's success. Hekmatyar was an Islamic fundamentalist who
was a favourite of Geo. Ziaul Haq and the ISi chiefs, who were Zia
loyalist Islamic visionaries. That factor itself should make him a persona
non grata to Benazir Bhutto. He is also unpopular with the Americans.
Consequently, the Pakistanis may be aiming to please the Americans
by getting rid of Hekmatyar just as they have handed over the World
Trade Center bombers, Siddiqi and Ramzi Yousef, to prepare the ground
for Benazir's visit to Washington next month. It is also not impossible
that most of Helanatyar's forces might have been Pakistanis not in
uniform-who have now been taken away-and the Taliban reinforced
to bring about Hekmatyar's early downfall.

176 Sliedding Slubboletlis
[26 Feb 1995] The Taliban force bas grabbed world headlines and bas
caused the Kabul govcmmcnt and the UN to rccoosider the composition
of the interim council and postpone the transfer of power from President
Burhanuddin Rabbani to the proposed council. It is arrogantly demanding
that Kabul city be banded over to a neutral force, namely itself, and no
mujabideen leader involved in internecine fighting in the last three years
be included in the interim council. The UN envoy, Mahmood Mestiri,
talks of the Taliban's positive attitude. President Rabbani, too, empbasiz.es
its role. The governments of Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tajikistan,
who have been deeply involved in the Afghan civil war, are not very
forthcoming on the issue of the Taliban. Correspondents of the western
media, who usually have very good sources in the intelligence agencies,
have also chosen to be muted in their dispatches on the Taliban. We are,
therefore, compelled to fall back upon the very meagre sources of
information available in the Pakistani media.
The emerging picture is confusing. On the one side, we have claims
that the Taliban are soldiers of God fighting for a cause (The Nanon, 15
Feb 1995). The Pakistan paper Jang (16 Feb 1995) asserts that the Taliban
were organiw by the western powers (the UK and the US) in three
phases. Ahmed Rashid writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review (29
Dec 1994 9 Jan 1995) says that Islamabad-based diplomats are convinced
that Pakistan's ISi is backing the Taliban, possibly with the CIA's
endorsement According to a Washington Post report, Pakistan is funding
the force. According to the Sunday Telegraph, several thousand young
Pakistanis have joined the Afghans in the Taliban. Gen. Hamid Gui, the
former chief of the ISi and strong supporter of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
said in an interview to the BBC that Hekmatyar withdrew from bis base
to bring about a direct confrontation between the Taliban and the Afghan
government forces.
A detailed analysis in the Jang alleges that the Taliban are a product
of a US conspiracy to debar Afghanistan from having a purely Islamic
government and cleanse it of extremist fundamentalists. In support, it
quotes the statement of Charles Santos, political advisor to the UN
mediator, Mahmood Mestiri, after the fall of Cbarasiab, Hekmatyar's
headquarters: "Hekmatyar's defeat is the most important development in
the process of peace and the Taliban will be associated in the process of
restoring peace." Accordidg to Jang, the effort to develop the Taliban
force bad been going on for two years. In the second phase, trained and
experienced ex-soldiers were recruited from among those who bad fought
during the eleven-year-old Afghan war. Former soldiers were offered

11,e Taliban Enigma 111
-. salaries of $500-1000 a month. It is alleged that a man named Bahlol,

who bad been the chairman of the cooperative department in the secretariat
. - ofthe People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, organi7.ed this operation.
It is furthet .Ueged that a religious party of Pakistan, which had differences
with Tarnaat-i-Islami of Pakistan and the Afghan Tehrik lslami and Hizb-
i-Islami, was supplied abundant resources, to enable it to mobilize students
.- for the Taliban. The Jang repeats Gui's assertion that by providing the
Taliban a passage to Kabul through withdrawal from Charasiab,
-- Hekmatyar ha." made things more difficult for President Rabbani as well
r as the Taliban.
It is also not clear where the Taliban got their 200 tanks and dozen
MiG aircraft. While ex-servicemen could be recruited as mercenaries or
voluntarily joined the winning side, the presence of such equipment with
the Taliban needs more credible exrlanati<>n. Sections of the international
media, which would normally be asking such questions, appear to display
an uncharacteristic lack of curiosity.
[21 May 1995] The Taliban are drawn mostly from the Durrani tribes
while Hekmatyar led the Ohilzai tribes. The Taliban were funded and
encouraged by the Afghan transporters who wanted to open the roads for
transit trade between Pakistan and the Central Asian· Republics. They
along with narcotics ttaffickers and the Pakistani bureaucracy were the
principal backers of the Taboan.
The Taliban were conditioned by the most negative and reactioruuy
aspects of the village madrasa style education that prevails in Baluchistan,
NWFP and Afghan border region. Bigotry, narrow-mindedness, an inabil-
ity to compromise, political inexperience and a total lack of knowledge
of the outside word characteriz.e them. They have no concept of borders
and believe in an Islamic revolution spreading through the regional
urnrnah. Their social agenda makes the Jamaat-i-Islami look like liberal
democrats. No music, no TV, no education for women and no medical
attention for women by male staff.
The Taliban also have deep differences with the Pakistan government
on account of the latter's 'restrictions on transit trade and their fighting
with Ghilzai Pathans headed by Hekmatyar. A result of these splits was
two successive defeats inflicted on the Taliban by the Afghan forces.
They were pushed back 100 km and lost more than one thousand soldiers.
Divided along tribal lines between Hekmatyar and the Taliban, the Pa.thans
are in no position to challenge the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani
in Kabul dominated by the Tajiks.

18
China under Deng Xiaoping
That the Chinese Anny finally used tanks, armoured cars

and machine guns to clear Tiananmen Square and to enforce martial law
in June 1989 was no surprise. But why it took so long for the Anny to
enforce the order of Prime Minister Li Peng and Chairnian of the Military
Commission, Deng Xiaoping, has been a puzzle.
Some respected retired senior military men had earlier issued a
statement that the PLA would not act against the unarmed students. There
were also reports of fraternization between PLA units and the students
and workers demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen Square. Finally,
the 27th Division moved in to mow down the students. This unit was
reported to be personally loyal to Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shangkun,
the military man who was then President of China
Most of the media and China watchers had concluded that there was a
power struggle in the Chinese Politburo, and the Anny did not act till it
became clear who would win. The struggle must have finally swung in
favour of the hardliners Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng and others, and the
Anny then swung into action. One BBC correspondent was of the view,
however, that the power struggle had not reached finality and that an
impatient Anny leadership finally decided to act on its own, to stage a
kind of coup d'etat.
Perhaps, the Anny was not waiting for the outcome of the power
struggle but was taking part in it, and acted only when it got its terms.
The Chinese Anny founded the Chinese State. It is not an apolitical
instrument of the State, not even as apolitical as the Soviet Red Anny
was. The Chinese State did not come into being as a result of a revolu-
tionary uprising organized by the party, but due to the PLA's victory in
the civil war. The top party leaders were also top co~ders of the
field armies or their top political commissars. John Gunther in the late
1930s called Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai Red Napoleons in blue (the
colour of their uniform). Sinified Communism was the barrack-room
discipline of the mass peasant army.
Unlike the Red Anny, the Chinese Anny from the outset played a role

China under Deng X,aoping 179
in affairs of state. Episodes which exemplified this were: the Kao Kang
affair in the early 1950s; Peng De Huai's dismissal of 1959; Marshal Lin
Biao's rise; Mao Zedong's reassertion of authority; formation of Revolu-
tionary Committees based on army cadres to smash the CPC during the
Cultural Revolution; Lin Biao's anointment as the close comrade in arms;
the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four (the Party's leading lights at
the time); and restoration of Deng Xiaoping to power. How far the
decisions on war with India in 1962, the Ussuri clash in the late 1960s,
and the Vietnam war in 1979 involved the army as an active decision-
maker is, however, still not clear.
Since Deng Xiaopjng was the last of the links between the Party and
the Anny, the question bas risen of Anny- Party relationship in the post-
Deng era. The issue, in fact, seems to have arisen in Deng's lifetime
itself, even as be continued as cbainnan of the Military Commission.
It is no secret that the army cadres, party cadres and civil servants--
the cutting edge of any refonn programme-all with fixed emoluments,
were sore at Deng's economic refonns, which had increased the earnings
of peasants and industrial workers while high inflation was eating away
the fixed wage earners' living standards. During the Tiananmen crisis
the army would have exacted its price in emoluments and privileges.
By acting only two weeks after Prime Minister Li Peng proclaimed
martial law, the Anny showed the Party who would really be calling the
shots when the chips are down. This should have been expected in a
state whose founder proclaimed to the world that power grows out of the
barrel of the gun. For students and common people, who used to assert
that power comes from the people's democratic acquiescence to
governance, the use of the gun by the rulers would have stripped them of
legitimacy. Even in a state under the thumb of single-party rule, profes-
sionalism demands that the military functions are decisively segregated
from functions of the political party. Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, Zhao
Ziyang and Li Peng could not command the respect of the armed forces
when they could not successfully carry out such separation.
In the Soviet Union this had been recognized. Quietly and
unobtrusively, Gorbachev retired all the marshals. Realizing that a one-
party state could not provide adequate legitimacy to a modern government
which wanted to carry out perestroika., he had to introduce pluralism
gradually. The Hungarians and Poles too learnt this lesson.
In China, those who gave precedence to economic reforms over
political ones committed three grave mistakes. First, when they sent out
thousands of young students to the West to expedite the process of

180 Slwddutg Sllibboletlu
modemiutioo, they ~ courting trouble. The returning students were

bound to bring back with them ideas of bourgeois liberalism. This was
true also of the large-scale contacts with foreign tourists. Second, as
pointed out earlier, the ccooomic reforms generated seething discontent
among the army cadres, party cadres, and civil servants. A discontented
middle class always leads to revolutionary upsurge. Third, Mao's valid
view that politics bas to be in co11)11)8J)d was overlooked. Relegating
politics to the third place and focusing on cconomism and modernization
of production processes alone produced a massive distortion in polity,
leading to the events highlighted in the Tiaoanmen Square demonstrations
and the ensuing massacre.
••••
In an interview to the Shanghai journal World Economic Herald in mid-
1988, a former Chinese vice-minister of culture in the 1950s, 88-year-
old Xia Yan, praised Gorbachev's reforms. He also wondered whether
the CPC would have the courage of the CPSU and denounce Mao l.edong
for his misdeeds, as the CPSU bad done of Stalin.
Stalin's colleagues lost no time in anesting and executing his execu-
tioner Beria. Mao's colleagues acted even more swiftly to arrest fiang
Qing, Mao's widow, and the other members of the Gang of Four and
bring them to trial. Khrushchev denounced Stalin and expelled the
majority of the politburo members associated with him; Deng Xiaoping
also eliminated rabid Maoist elements from the party.
Gorbachev bad some advantages in bringing about reforms in the
CPSU, which Deng and his colleagues lacked in China. Lenin was the
founder of the Soviet state and father of the Bolshevik revolution. Denun-
ciation of Stalin and thorough exposure of his tyranny, therefore, did not
in any way affect the legitimacy of the Bolshevik revolution or the
authority of the CPSU. (Stalin was not even one of Lenin's intellectual
associates.) Gorbachev bad nothing to do with Stalin personally, and
only a little to do even with Brezhnev. It was easier for him to unmask
Stalin and Brezhnev and make a new beginning.
The Chinese are less fortunate. Mao was the founder of the Chinese
communist state and inspirer of Chinese communism. Deng Xiaoping
was the CPC secretary general when Mao was its chairman. While he
bad the guts to oppose Mao on economic issues, he went along with him
on foreign policy and his anti-Soviet ideological stand. He was among
the top decision-makers when the Chinese launched their attack on India

China wrder Deng Xiaoping 181
in 1962. Did Deng wholeheartedly support Mao in bis policies vis-a-vis

the Soviet Union and India? Or did be, having differed with Mao oo
important domestic economic issues, go along with Mao on foreign policy
issues in an attcu•pt at compromise? The latter, probably, was the case.
Xia Yan in bis interview contrasted the status of intellectuals in China
with those in the Soviet Union. He pointed out that not only did the
Chinese not criticize Mao, they did not even criticiz.e Stalin after he had
bec:n thoroughly exposed. Apart from the toll in lives the Cultural Revolu-
tion took (Deng told Oriana Fallaci in an interview that the figure was
between 20 million and 30 million), Xia revealed that 250 million people
were illiterate or semiliterate in China because of Maoist policies.
Mao Iambi China in an unmitjgated dmster, with thirty million deaths
due to starvation, through bis crazy Great Leap Forward. The rapid
recovery from that disaster, organiU'A.i by Liu Sbaoqi and Deng, with
Mao sidelined in the years 1960-62, presumably made him see threats in
these Capitalist Roaders and their reformist ccooomic programme. Mao
then launched bis Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution on 16 May 1966,
to purify the CPC of old comrades whose revolutionary zeal had cooled,
and to destroy the reputation of the Capitalist Roaders. He succeeded for
a while, not only in China but also in the rest of the world, when callow
youth in various countries waved the Little Red Book and hailed him as
their Chairman. In the final analysis, Mao failed to halt China' s progresa
after he devastated it for a full decade, from May 1966 to October 1976.
The CPC itself later declared that the Cultural Revolution "was respoosible
for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the party,
the state and the people since the founding of the People's Republic".
As an ideologue, Mao would go down in history as an utter failure.
He had little understanding of the international situation. He was sure
that the East wind would prevail over the West wind In the 1940s, he
said that the principal contradiction in the international system was
between capitalism and socialism. He predicted that the contradiction
would be resolved in favour of socialism---f!ot democratic socialism, but
the Stalinist variety. When in the late 1950s Khrushchev attempted to
purge some elements ofStalinism from Soviet communism, Mao launched
an ideological campaign against Khrushchevian revisionism. That led to
a serious Sino-Soviet rift.
His reputation as a military thinker was also highly overrated. He did
not implement the Peopl(\'s War concept successfully: that credit would
go to the Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap. Mao's ideas about nuclear
weapons and nuclear war bordered on the lunatic. Neither was he the

I82 Shedding Shibboleths
originator of mass mobilization and mass action as a strategy: Gandhi

did that much earlier. Also, bis concept of the countryside overwhelming
the cities bas been shown up to be totally untenable. Today, the Chinese
are taught to look upon him 70 per cent as a great man and 30 per cent as
someone who committed grave mistakes.
Mao, through the excessive violence be used, was perhaps responsible
for the Chinese discarding the Communist ideology even more tborougbly
than the people in Russia and Eastern Europe. When free elections were
held in Russia and Eastern Europe, the reformed communist parties were
returned to power in some states; in some others, they made a very good
showing. It was evidence that the Soviet comm,mism did have an appeal
among very large sections of the people. But the only feature of
communism that lingers in China is the authoritarian state and one-party
dictatorial rule. The most appealing feature of communism, namely the
values of an egalitarian society, bas vanished. The Chinese under Mao
used to accuse the Soviet Union of revisionism. Now the same revisionist
societies appear to have cherished the egalitarian ideology at popular
level more than Mao's revolutionary Chinese society.
In China, years after Mao's death, bis photographs and busts used to
be sold to people who believed they would bring them god luck and
ward off evil. That is an ironic fate for a leader who preached that
religion is an opiate of the people.
Even so, China repudiated the extremism of Mao Zedong Thought
and Deng Xiaoping became the chiefsource of its inspiration. He replaced
the Maoist dictum that being red was more important than being expert,
by his pragmatism that the colour of the cat did not matter so long as it
caught mice. When Mao died, in the immediate aftermath no one thought
of Deng even as bis successor, leave alone the victor in the protracted
struggle the two bad been waging since the early 1950s.
•••
• •
Sergo Mikoyan, son of the former Soviet President Anastas Mikoyan,

wrote about the agonies his father went through when he was Stalin's
silent collaborator in the politburo: had be not been, the entire family
would have been liquidated. Khrushchev, too, admitted that during Stalin's
lifetime he danced Gopak (a Russian dance) on orders. Deng opposed
Mao in the late 1950s, was branded a Capitalist Roader and was banished
to Wlll,h dishes in the rnid- l 960s. His son became a paraplegic after the
Red Guards threw him down from a high floor window. Zhou Enlai, on
-
China under Deng X,aoping 183
the other hand, chose to collaborate with Mao wholeheartedly. Deng was
a participant in the Maoist mass violence of the 1950s, and its victim in
the '60s. He was punished for a second time after Zhou Enlai's death
when the Gang of Four was in ascendancy. He survived all that and
staged a comeback because of the loyalty of his old comrades in the
PLA, with which he bad long association as a political commissar
Deng was a veteran of the Long March and one of the father figures
of the PLA, the CPC and the People's Republic itself. In 1963, he led
the Chinese delegation to Moscow to conduct an ideological debate with
the CPSU led by the redoubtable ideologue Suslov. Deng's stand was that
the Soviets were turning revisionist, thereby damaging the international
communist movement But this did not prevent subsequent accusatioos
hurled at him-perhaps correctly-by Mao and his Cultural Revolution-
aries that he was China's Khrushchev Number Two and Capitalist Roader
Number Two-Number One being Liu Shaoqi. Later, Deng himself
t,c,q""' the chief architect of turning the Maoist Communist Party upside
down. There is no parallel elsewhere of someone who was among the
founders of a communist state who became instrumental in purging it of
its communist character.
It is notable that Deng's economic reforms almost followed the
Nebruvian model of the 1950s of mixed economy and integration with
the international system. Mao attacked Nehru in his articles "On the
philosophy of Nehru and the Tibetan question" and "More on the philo-
sophy of Nehru and the Tibetan question". He denounced Nehru for his
alleged anti-China and reactionary stand. Nehru was under the influence
of the western aid givers, he said. Possibly, in attacking Nehru, Mao
aimed his barbs at Deng, Liu and others who were opposed to his
disastrous economic policies. The power struggle was already on in China
then. Perhaps Deng went along with Mao and his then ally, Marshal Lin
Biao, in the attack on India, since any other stand would have enabled
Mao and Lin to crucify him as being not only Khrusbchevian but also
Nehruvian. The Chinese take the line that while Mao's domestic policies
were tragic errors, his foreign policy was right
India tried to befriend China in the 1950s, and incurred the annoyance
of the West for some years. India accepted Chinese sovereignty over
Tibet. Nehru, too, thought that friendship between India, China and Russia
would be a major countervailing factor vis-a-vis the western dominance.
But Mao's megalomania led him into a Sino-Soviet split and attack on
India. Chinese hostility to both India and the Soviet Union led to a
powerful bond between the latter two.

184 Sliedding Sltibboletlu
•••
•
With the Soviet republics becoming sovereign and seeking western help
and advice on a massive scale, China is fast losing its preferred status in
the scheme of western powers, especially the US. With the emergence of
Islamic republics in Central Asia, and Mongolia adopting democracy
and pluralism, the winds of change are rattling the windows and doors of
China. In 1997, six million cultural polluters from Hong Kong became
part of China. Taiwan bas bad an independent existence longer than the
Baltic states. There are pleas within Taiwan for giving up the one-China
thesis and becoming a separate sovereign state with its own identity. In
China itself there is increasing alienation against the one-party system.
There is reasonable probability that China's adjustment to democracy
and pluralism may not be as non-violent as was the case in the Soviet
Union. When the chips are down, the PLA is likely to intervene to defend
orthodox authoritarianism against the inroads of democracy and pluralism.
While going ahead with rapid economic liberalization and defence
modernization, China continues with its authoritarian political system.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West sees China as the last of
its "adversaries". The Chinese response bas been to improve relations
with Vietnam and South Korea, respond to Indian overtures and normalize
relations with Russia. But given the experience of China•s policy zigzags
in the last five decades, suspicions remain. It may be recalled that there
was even a phase when China made common cause with the Americans
and the West in the late ·1970s and prided itself as the Eastern NATO.
The short phase in the late 1970s and early ·'80s, when China attempted
to be part of the four-power (US, Japan, China and Europe) anti-Soviet
alliance, when it encouraged Japan to increase its defence expenditure,
bas now given way to serious worries about growing Japanese defence
expenditure. Dealing with China, therefore, warrants ample caution.
Most of the irrationality in China's policies was perhaps on account
of Mao's megalomania; the Chinese may have now recovered from it.
Deng Xiaoping, notwithstanding his ideological debate with Suslov, was
remarkably pragmatic. In future, China is likely to follow the Dengist
philosophy, in which case the Chinese philosophy and foreign policy are
likely to be more predictable and less adventurous. On this assumption it
should be possible to deal with China and promote a stable and peaceful
Asian region. Prudence would require, however, bearing in mind alter-
native scenarios. Will China harmonize its economic liberaliz.ation with
the authoritarian political structure? If it does, and pluralism is absent
-.
China Ullder Deng Xlaoputg 185
while the army plays an influential role in politics, will it not bring about
a fascist state? If it fails to harmoniz.e, the result could be a political
explosioo in China that will seismically impact all neighbours. For reuoos
not quite clear, China presses on with its military modemmtion, keeps -
on with tactical nuclear weapons when others have given them up,
conducts a megaton nuclear test when the standard nuclear weapons arc
of 125-150 KT yield, transfers nuclear weapon technology to Pakistan,
expands its navy, and steps up its defence expenditure. Surely, China's
neighbours, even as they try to befriend China, would want to keep a
wary eye 011 its political evolution and policies.
In spite of the unifying aspects of Han culture and civilizational tradi-
tion there arc enormous diversities within Han China. A major portion of
China's landmass is inhabited by non-Han minority populations. The
economic boom bas brought about rapid prosperity to coastal areas while
the interior regions have been lagging behind. Can this China stay together
as an authoritarian one-party state? It is possible that as economic prosper-
ity grows, and China gets increasingly market-oriented and globally
integrated ecooomically, there will be pressures for democratization, as
has happened in Taiwan and South Korea a denouement the rest of the
world would devoutly hope for.
If China continues as a one-party state, the r.tumc,,,s of the PLA exerting
influence on China's politics and policies arc higher, and in that sense, in
perpetuating the one-party state. A state under the influence of the military-
industrial complex, even a democratic state, is bound to opt for a domi-
neering foreign policy. China's military modernization in conventional
arms, its acquisition of a nucleBr missile deterrent capability vis-a-vis the
US, its naval expansion, and its claims in the South China Sea have to be
seen against this background.
Maoist China posed ideological threats to its neighbours with its
dubious formulations like socialism overwhelming capitalism, people's
war, the countryside taking over cities, and the like. Post-Deng China
may not pose ideological threats; but Chinese domineering role is a
possibility. There is also the fear that the mismatch between its economic
pluralism and political authoritarianism may result in a breakdown of the
country. Any tensions and rivalry between China and the US could also
impact <m China's domestic political evolution, which may not necessarily
contribute to stability within China and its periphery. Mao and Deng
shared a common perception that power grows out of the barrel of the
gun. That perception is likely to continue among the emerging Chinese
leadership in international relations.

186 Sliedding Sltibboletlu
The situation enveloping China presents India both an opportunity

and a challenge. In view of China's likely increasing political isolation,
'
it may be more reasonable in its dealings with India. One can see signifi-
cant shifts in the Chinese policies towards Vietnam and the Cambodian
issue. At the same time, any democratic upheaval in China, especially in
Tibet, may lead to refugee exodus and strains between the two countries.
The Chinese may also consider the Indian democracy and pluralism as
challenges, and go back to the Maoist policy of trying to destabilize
India. It is a low probability, but needs watching. China's relations with
the Islamic world may also change in the light of likely developments in
Xinjiang and the relationship with the Islamic republics of Central Asia.
••••
There were reports of an attempted uprising in Xinjiang (China) on 6
and 7 April 1990 by Islamic fundamentalists and that was put down and
followed by some severe n:stri..1ions on their activities. The arms for the
fundamentalists came from the Afghan mujahideen, preswnably via the
Karakoram highway. Consequently, the Chinese did not open lhe Kunjerab
Pass on the Karakoram highway for tourist traffic in the summer of
1990. The Xinjiang People's Congress also tightened up its laws on
religious activity. According to the new law, no new mosques were to be
built and no foreigner was to be allowed to preach. The Chinese authorities
charged Muslim splittists with attempting to preach independence fiom
China and jihad for the purpose. They attributed some of these activities
to foreign Islamic links. It is reported that Muslim fundamentalists had
established a large number of illegal schools down to the village level
where religious and ethnic hatred was being preached to the children.
Simon Long, the BBC correspondent in Beijing who reported all this
in the "24 Hours Programme" on 24 May 1990, had earlier reported
about the uprising in the town of Baren in the Akto county near Kashgar
in his article in The Guardian. Apparently, the uprising had been planned
for 13 April in six places in Xinjiang. It was to be led by one Abut
Kasim. But fighting broke out on 5-6 April as the plot leaked out Xinjiang
television showed two weeks later pictures of the savage battle and the
casualties. The background of the developments in Xinjiang would explain
China's lack of enthusiasm to support Pakistan's case for Kashmir seces-
sionism. Xinjiang is surrounded by the Central Asian Islamic republics,
which are restive, Afghanistan, Pakistan awash with weapons, drugs and
Islamic fervour, and the Indian Kashmir. Sixty per cent of the Uighur

China under Deng Xiaoping 187
population of Xinjiang are Muslim. Simon Long, in his article, noted

that the official Chinese reporting on the Xiojiang unrest was more alarmist
than that of pro-independence protests in Tibet. India has clearly indicated
that it does not favour secessionist tendencies either in Tibet or Xiojiaog,
though it supports greater autonomy for Tibet.
In these circumstances, among the countries surrounding Xinjiaog
province is Pakistan, where various Islamic groups are attempting to
promote fundamentalism within Pakistan and abroad. Pakistani leaders
admit that they have no control over the anos and drugs bazaar in Pakistan.
Nor do they seem to have control over the militias in that country. It
would, hence, be natural for the Chinese to worry about the infection of
Islamic fundamentalism in Xinjiang and also the inflow of anos and
mujahideen into that area via the Karakoram highway and other mountain
trails. Nor would the Chinese like to extend support to any Islamic
secessionism in the areas around, including Kashmir.
Unlike Kashmir, which has not been sovereign over many centuries,
Xiojiang came under warlords independent of China in 1912. For some
time, it was called East Turkmenistan Republic, and Stalin extended his
support to the local warlord. After the victory of the Chinese communist
revolution the Chinese PLA occupied Xiojiang in 1950, and one part of
the PLA came into Tibet from Xiojiaog. There is very close relationship
between the Uighur people in Turkmenistan and Xiojiang. In 1962 there
was a major unrest among the Uighurs, and some 50,000 people went
over to the Soviet Union. This was one among many major disputes
between China and the Soviet Union in the 1960s.
For China, Xiojiang is both economically and strategically important.
It occupies a large proportion of the Chinese landmass. China's nuclear
test site is in Lop Nor in that province. There is considerable mineral
wealth in Xinjiang, including uranium. During the 1950 Sino-Soviet
Treaty Stalin extracted from Mao the right to exploit those uranium
niioes, a right Khrushchev subsequently relinquished. China's control
over Xiojiang was partly a function of its control over Tibet, since
whenever the latter control weakened, the former also did.
During the Cultural Revolution, Xiojiang, like other minority provinces
of China, came under the oppression of Red Guards. In recent years there
has been some relaxation, but the revival of Islamic separatism may lead
to further tightening of control over the province. Unlike in the 1960s and
'70s, when at the height of the Sino-Soviet dispute border trade came to
a standstill, with the improvement in Sino-Soviet relations border trade
was revived in the early 1990s. The suspended work on the rail link

188 Slwdding Slubboletlu
between Unimchi, capital ofXinjiang, and Alma Ata (now Almaty) in the
Trans-Siberian Railway has also been completed. The Karakoram highway
in Pakistan was undertaken when Sino-Soviet relations were tense and
China felt the need to a seaport outlet for Xinjiang. Now the position is
getting reversed. With the improvement of Sino-Russian relations, and
the rail link between the two countries becoming operational, the Chinese
will have to think about the value of the Karakoram highway and its
potential to infiltrate mujabideen, arms, and drugs into Xinjiang.
Whatever may have been the opportunist policies they pursued vis-a-
vis the Kashmir issue during the Maoist era, the Chinese now realize that
sub-nationalist secessionism based on religion is a common threat to
composite states like China and India. There was a time when the Soviets
and the Chinese, supremely confident of the assumed binding force of
Marxism-Leninism, tended to play down the role of religion-based
subnationalism. Events in the Soviet Islamic republics in early 1990
shook that smugness.
China's reservations on Pakistani policies first became explicit with
the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from A fgbanistan and Pakistani
persistence in supporting the fundamentalist groups in that country. While
China was interested in getting the Soviets out of Afghanistan, it was not
enthusiastic about a fundamentalist-dominated Afghanistan in close
proximity of Xinjiang. After the incidents in Tiananmen Square and the
seismic wave of reform in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and closer
to home, Mongolia, the Chinese were in no position to push aside the
implications of the dangerous thesis that religion determined nationality.
China cannot-and docs not-subscribe to the view that parts of a
nation have the right of self-determination. This stand is vital to them in
regard to their claims to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Consequently, they
cannot support the aspirations of secessionists for an independent
Ka.~hmir, or the Pakistani thesis that they are only supporting the struggle
of Kashmiris for self-determination. In other words, given their minority
problems, the Chinese can neither logically support the Pakistani claim to
Ka.~hmir based on religion-based national identity nor self-determination
ofK.ashmiris against the basic and well-recognized international principle
that parts of a nation cannot claim that right
On 25 May 1990 China issued an official statement on the forthcoming
Bush-Gorbachev swnmit in which it criticized the US intervention in
Soviet internal affairs through their support to the independence of the
Baltic States. This was a clear indication of the Chinese anxiety about
secessionism in various parts of the world.

China under Deng XUl,()ping 189
•••
•
The BBC, on 14 December 1994, in its news from South Asia, reported
about the Dalai Lama protesting against a recent directive of the Chinese
government in Tibet asking government officials to withdraw their
children being educated in the Tibetan school, in Dbaramshala, under
the aegis of the Dalai Lama. According to the report, the Tibetans were
regularly sending their children across the Indo-Tibetan border to receive
a Tibetan education, comprising Tibetan language and culture. In Tibet,
the Tibetan language and culrure are not taught in schools run by the
Chinese. In the next three or four decades, the Tibetans are in danger of
losing their language and culrure. Therefore, many Tibetan parents felt
that their children should receive appropriate education in Tibetan
language and culture that was available in Dharamshala under the
supervision of the Dalai Lama. Without this effort, the Dalai uma and
the Tibetans felt that when Tibet gets increased autonomy it will not be
able to sustain its culrure. Children of age seven and eight were sent
across at great emotional stress for both the parents and children. In the
view of the Tibetans, it was a sacrifice worth incurring. With the new
directive, the Tibetan government officials faced a stark choice either
to sacrifice their living or withdraw their children from Dbaramshala, to
be educated in the Chinese schools, and get them forcibly enveloped in
the Chinese culrure. It was reported that 2000 children of the government
servants were to go back immediately; the rest might follow.
It is possible that China has been influenced by the rise of etbno-
nationalism and demands for sec~ionism in various parts of the world
Given the fragmentation that has taken place in Central Asia, the Chinese
may be worried about their own ethnic minorities. If that were so, this
attempt at cultural genocide is a wrong way of dealing with the issue.
Giving the Tibetans full cultural, social, and political autonomy will be a
better strategy to persuade Tibet to be part of China than attempting to
obliterate their identity. Even if the Government of India does not feel
that it is in a position to take up this issue quietly and in a friendly
manner with the Beijing government, there are other things that it can
do. The Tibetan language and Tibetan culrure are closely allied to Indian
languages and culture. Consequently, the Indian government should take
special steps to nurrure the Tibetan language and culrure. In India, we
have bad a long tradition of nurturing Sanskrit, which is not spoken by
significant number of people.

•••
•
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Chinese were a worried nation. The
improv.mient of their relations with the US and Japan had not resulted in
the expected levels of foreign investments. Their domestic savings rate
in 1988 was ooly 14 percent and was falling because ofbigh degree of
inflation and conswnerism. Their bureaucracy, both civil and military,
were poorly paid compared to the earnings of peasants and moonlighting
iDdustria1 workers, so much so that the China Daily in an article in late
1988 raised the question: bow can the Chinese leadership expect to put
through reforms if the intellectuals, the cadres and the bureaucracy-the
instruments to cany out the reform--<:onstituting 15 per cent of the paid
personnel are seething with discontent?
While China bas a far more egalitarian income distribution system
than India, the encouragement to earn as much as one can, the export
enclaves, and tourism, are creating wide income disparities, and that in a
society which bas been conditioned for more than three decades to an
egalitarian order. Poland is an example of the kind of destabilization
China may face. While in India a pluralistic democratic system with
mixed economy has got relatively stabiliz.ed, with faster development
and growing inequality China is in a state of transition. The Chinese
themselves are unsure about their future. Their relative fiieodliness to
East European countries is partly a result of it.
The American strategists• report on "Discriminate Detertence" takes
note of uncertainties in China's future. The Chinese are disappointed
with American and Japanese tardiness on transfer of technology. They
are also worried about growing Japanese military expenditure. Japan bas
powerful rockets, plutonium ready at hand and is a leader in electronics
and guidance technologies and, consequently, can easily and quickly
transform itself into a full-fledged nuclear weapon power with a very
sophisticated arsenal. The Chinese are viewed with suspicion in South
East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam) and their policy of
supporting Pol Pot-Khieu Sampan clique alienated many nations.
••••
The Chinese have perhaps slowed down their military spending, though
their published figures (as accepted even in the West) lack total credibility.
China cannot maintain an anned force two and a halftimes India's, have
a significant nuclear arsenal, modernize its forces----all at a cost less than

China under Deng Xiaoping 191
India's defence budget. Like· many other statistics of China, its defence
budget figures have to be taken with a trowelful of salt.
The Chinese claim that they are maintaining an armed force of 3
million, and modernizing their armaments, at a cost of around $5--6
billion a year. Any countzy which achieves such an economic miracle in
defence expenditure needs to become a university for all defence ministries
and senior military personnel around the world They also claim to have
sent away a million men out of the four million in the armed forces.
Most of the so-called reductions are administrative and accounting
tnmsfera-w the extent the Chinese have a system of accounting. For
instance, during a conference in Beijing in 1988 they explained how
they were transferring industrial activity from the military to the civil
sector: the railways are now run entirely by the civil sector, and not by
the PLA, they said.
While China's economic and military power are growing, its problems
are not dwindling. There is even doubt whether the Hong Kong merger
will be benign or cancerous for the Chinese system. What impact will it
have on non-Han minorities such as Tibetans, Uighws, Mongols, etc.? If
there can be one nation and two systems among the Hans themselves ,
(Hong Kong is mostly Han Chinese), there can be demands why there
should not be different systems (more autonomy) for the non-Han people.
Toe Taiwan issue is slowly drifting toward the two-China solution, with
potential for violent differences between China on the one hand, and
Japan and the US on the other. If there are ethnic explosions in South
East Asia, China would be perceived as a llllllignant factor. Toe future
Army-Party relationship, with Deng no longer on the scene, is a question
mark. New generations of leaders are to take over command of the Anny
and the Party. Unlike earlier, these leaders will be drawn from two separate
professional streams. Would technocrats like Jiang Zemin and Li Peng
be able to exercise the degree of control over the PLA, which the last
surviving commissar of the Revolutionary Chinese Army, Deng Xiaoping,
was able to do?
Doctrinally, China is turning towards increasing orthodoxy. China
seems to dread the "cultural pollution" in its contacts with the liberal
democracies. Toe wave of reform blowing over Eastern Europe is bound
to have its impact on China. Toe more the Chinese leadership resists it,
the more violent will be the resultant upheaval. The rise in the Japanese
power, the growth in the stature of Korea, and the liberalization in
Taiwan-are all factors which will influence the evolution of Chinese
polity. Toe US may likely continue to court China, not as an anti-Soviet

192 Slleddbrg Slubboletlu
factor as it bad been doing till the demise of the Soviet entity, but as a
countervailing factor vis-l-vis Japan
From the point of view of Inctiao security, the tmbuleoce in~ minority
buffer zones between Han areas and India needs to be watched, as that
might spill over. Secoodly, the Army-Party relatiomhip and the internal
power struggle in China are factors which can trigger off certain limited
aggressive adventurism. Given its load of troubles, one does not exp«,-t
China intervening in South Asian affairs. It is bound to fflllize, if it has
not done so already, that India is far more stable and cohesive than China.
The choice before China is greater pluralisro and liberalization or retreat
into a militarized and less developed status, in social and political tenm.
-
19
The Non-crisis of 1990
In the early 1990s frequent references used to be made

to how close India and Pakistan came to a war in the summer of 1990,
how Pakistan had then assembled nuclear weapons and conveyed threats
about their possible use, and how Robert Gates, the US Deputy National
Security Adviser, through his mission to Islamabad and Delhi averted
the war. If this were true, Gates should certainly have been nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Seymour Hersh, in his article in the New Yorker of 29 March 1993
"On the Nuclear Edge", says: "Eventually the intelligence community
picked up a frightening sight. The analysts recalled they had F-16s
prepositioned and armed for delivery-on full alert, with pilots in the
aircraft. I believe they were ready to launch on comman<t and that message
had been clearly conveyed to the Indians."1 According to Hersh's account,
the Pakistani President and the generals were preparing to launch a nuclear
attack on India in May 1990. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was not in
the dccisioD-making loop.2
Apparently, Gates was dispatched to Islamabad, met President Ghulam
Ishaq Khan and General Beg, and delivered a tough message to them
that Pakistan could not win a war against India. The US military had
war-gamed every conceivable scenario, and had arrived at that conclusion.
Gates and Robert Oakley, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, wamed
Pakistani leaders not to expect help from the US in the event of war.
I . Hersh won his laurels on his disclosures on My Lai massacre in Vit.tnam 'No
ooe in this countty has bought his story of Morarji Desai having functioned as a CIA
iufOODel' and betrayed this countty's sec1e1S i.a 1971. (Desai was not then in the
Cabinet: be bad been out of the cabinet for two years and was in opposition, having
fallen out with Indira Gandhi.) While his book Samson Option bas been widely
acclaimed, the Israelis question his credibility since be bad mentioned that the Israeli
Atomic Energy Commission Chief-irtill aliv~ been killed in an airport ma.wen:.
2. Bhutto in her TV interview on NBC on I December 1992 confirmed the fact of
her being ignored in the decision. Muly knowledgeable Pakistanis also confirm the
fact. This is also implied in tlw- ldrnissiQQ of Foreign Sea-etuy Sbabryar Khan in his
interview to the W4!1lrington Post on 6 February I992.

194 SlseJding Sliibboleths
George Perkovich broadly, but not entirely, accepts Seymour Hersh• s

version of the story. Some Pakistanis who attended the Time Magazine
Seminar in Delhi in January 1992, also maintained that it was the nuclear
threat from Palcistan conveyed to India through Gates in May 1990 that
deterred India from launching a war. Without visiting lndia' and talking
to contemporary Indian decision-makers, Hersh makes a bland statement:
"There was little doubt that India, with its far more extensive nuclear
arsenal stood ready to retaliate in kind." He goes even better by saying
that General Sundarji decided to integrate India's special weapons,
including tactical nuclear bombs, in bis exercise Operation Brasstacks.
Hersh says that American analysts concluded that lndia bad gone
nuclear in the mid- l 970s, when its officer corps suddenly stopped
publishing articles and essays on what bad been a longstanding and
occasionally vituperative argument about the strategic and tactical
implications ofsuch a move. The plain fact, however, was that the Indian
officer corps had done very little writing on this subject, the only
exceptions being Major General Palit and two retired officers in the
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. (Hersh, it may also be noted,
mentions Kashmir as Jawaharlal Nehru's birthplace instead ofAllahabad)
On 17 May 1990, in a brief debate on defence in the Lok Sabha,
Prime Minister V.P. Singh rebutted criticism about India's acting as a
bully and said that "a thousand year war is not our dialogue". Raja
Ramanna, the Minister of State for Defence, referred to the nuclear threat
posed by Pakistan and told the House that the use of nuclear weapons
was no joke: they posed the highest risk and also created environmental
pollution of the worst kind. For India to initiate a nuclear attack in the
subcontinent would be a betrayal of the human i.piriL This was before
Gates arrived in Delhi. According to the Americans, the Pakistanis bad
at the time their F-16s loaded with nuclear weapons to strike Delhi.
It is common ground that there was a build-up of forces on both sides
of the border starting from December 1989. India carried out significant
additional reinforcement of forces in Kashmir and Punjab to step up its
counter-terrorist operations, mostly infantry. This was in the light of the
1965 experience when, failing in its infiltration operation-Operation
Gibraltar-Pakistan launched an attack in the Akhnur sector. The assess-
ment was that Pakistan might follow up its support to terrorists in Kashmir
and Punjab by increased military pressure on India. It is possible that the
Pakistanis got their nuclear weapons ready to deal with an anticipated
Indian strike.
General V.N. Shanna, former Chief of Army Staff, in an interview,

The Non-crisis of 1990 l9S
highlighted the crucial role played by the then US Ambassador to India,

William Clark, giving him full credit for the role the Americans played
in resolving the confrontation. The Ambassador was kept informed of
the moves of the Army units. Since Pakistani armour had not gone back
to their peace stations following the Zarb-e-Momin exercise, the Indian
deployment took place, but Indian armour and heavy equipment did not
move to battle stations, a fact that the US would have been able to
confirm from satellite pictures.
The January 1987 confrontation had also started with Pakistan
behaving in an analogous manner. In January 1987, even as the Indian
Army was conducting its corps-level exercise Operation Brasstacks,
Pakistan deployed its army in the forward position, including the armour,
and that evoked an Indian Army response and consequent tension. At
that stage Pakistan decided to wiveil its nuclear weapon, contriving an
interview for Kuldip Nayar with A.Q. Khan. For journalistic reasons, the
story did not break out for over five weeks, and Khan's disclosure did
not create much stir in India.
The Pakistani forward deployment in 1990 was accompanied by the
Pakistani Foreign Minister, Yalcub Khan's belligerent posture on Kashmir
during his visit to Delhi, and Benazir Bhutto's frenzied speeches about
'azadi' for Kashmir in POK. In the spring of 1990, Yalcub Khan, who
was inflicted on Ms Bhutto by the Army as her Foreign Minister, came
to India and indulged in tough talking on the Kashmir issue with India's
Minister of External Affairs, Inder Kumar Gujral. The Kashmir situation
was considered so bad that many in India and Pakistan believed that this
cowitry had lost the valley. Under those circumstances, the Indian Army
inducted three additional divisions into Kashmir and one extra division
into Pwijab. Presumably, the Indian Army HQ intimated the Pakistan
Army HQ about these movements and also assured them that India was
not planning any move against Pakistan itself. The Indian armoured
divisions were not deployed forward. One armoured division was ordered
to exercise·in the Mahajan ranges in R.ajasthan. It would appear that the
US Ambassador and Defence Attache were permitted to visit the border
areas to see matters for themselves.
Pakistanis again attempted to use the confrontation of 1990 to intimate
to the world that they had assembled the bombs. Unlike in 1987, when
the Americans still needed Pakistan for their Afghanistan operations and
hence looked away even as A.Q. Khan brandished the weapon, in the
spring of 1990 after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US did
not need Pakistan and, hence, was not prepared to be as permissive as in

1987. Secondly, Bcnazir Bhutto bad told the US Congiess in July 1989
that she had suspended the weapon-related programme. Even as the
Americans decided to take note of Pakistani nuclear prog,arnme, they
preswnably wanted to use the occasion to impose restraints on India,
too. Therefore, they conve1 ted the one-sided happenings in Pakistan into
a two-sided nuclear confi ontation: hence the Gates mission. Whatever
Gates may have discussed with the Pakistanis, no policy-maker in India
recalls his raising the issue of nuclear confiontation. If India at that stage
had nuclear weapons, it would have been odd for Admiral Nadkami to
plead for India exercising its nuclear option in the United Services
Institution seminar in March 1990, and for General Sba1,1aa to make a
similar plea in his last press interview before his retirement in the middle
of 1990.
In discussions, some US scholars later mentioned that the Gates mission
of 1990 was related to the US perception on Pakistan's acquisition of
nuclear weapons. Robert Oakley, too, speaking at the Press Institute of
Pakistan on l O August 1991, refe11ed to Pakistan exercising the nuclear
option in 1990 in the following words:
One can say perhaps that in the beginning there was a gieen light and that
caused no problem. Then there was yellow light and Pakistan was able to pursue
its programme as it wished. It went through the yellow light and did not suffer
any consequences and got accustomed to driving along this road and to not
paying any attention to the light. And, somehow, when the USA carne to Pakistan
and said 'Hey, this is where the light turns red', the conditioning of the past
seemed to be more important or other events, including, of course, the Pakistani
perception of its problems with India-to which Mr Nizami [Editor of Nation,
who was presiding over the function] refe11ed~which is very important. and so,
for your reasons, you decided 'We are going to do this'.
It is not clear whether Ramanna' s pronouncement in Parliament had a
certain deterrent content related to the Pakistani nuclear posture. It may
be noted, however, that Rajiv Gandhi, who tried his best to avoid a
decision clearing the way for India to go nuclear when he was Prime
Minister, finally came round to the view that India might have to go
further along the road to nuclear weapon acquisition. He tried to attribute
this change of heart to the nuclear threats made by the Allied side to Iraq
during the qulf War: obviously, he had something more on his mind
From 1990 the Americans changed their stand vis-a-vis India. They
no longer demanded that India sign the NPT. At the National Security
Council level, the US decision-makers openly admitted that the situation
in the subcontinent had moved into the post-proliferation phase and,

The Non-crisis of 1990 197
. .
:, - therefore, a nuclear-weapon-free zone was not feasible. The only realistic
Je approach was an ai111s control approach or an attempt to limit the arsenals
at the present levels. Leonard Spector, the well-known expert on nuclear
a. issues at the Carnegie Endowment, who had close connections with the
.,..
1. US officialdom, reiterated this approach in the World Net programme
on 28 January 1992. He rejected the contention of General K.M. Arif,
the former Pakistan Vice-Chief of Army Staff and a leading member in
the Steering Committee on Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme, that
Pakistan had not made nuclear weapons.
The Henry Stimson Center, Washington, convened a meeting in
February 1994 to discuss the ''crisis of 1990''. William Clark and Robert
Oakley and a number of members of the staff in the US embassies in
Delhi and Islamabad at that time took an active part in it, along with
General Sundarji and Abdul Sattar, who happened to be in the US at the
time. (For reasons inexplicable, Hersh and Gates were not invited.) The
seminar findings were:
• The threat of nuclear confrontation was not great, nor were India
and Pakistan eager to have another conventional war. Nevertheless,
there were very worrisome possibilities of a ratcheting up of tensions
in the absence of a US initiative.
• By all accounts, the Gates mission helped stabilize the situation in
the subcontinent over a period of time.
• The participants had no evidence of Pakistan deploying nuclear
weapons, evacuating the Kahuta complex, moving stored nuclear
weapons from Baluchistan or keeping F-16 aircraft loaded with
nuclear weapons ready on alert.
• The Indian military leadership deliberately refrained from moving
armour associated with its strike forces out of their peacetime canton-
ments and welcomed US defence attaches to confi1 tn this.
• During the crisis, the Pakistani leadership deliberately refrained
from moving its two strike coips to the front and refrained from
using forward operating bases for its Air Force.
• The sense of alarm over the crisis was far greater in Washington
than in Islamabad; it was greater in Islamabad than in Delhi.
All seminar participants agreed with General Shanna's version that
the misunderstanding created by some troop deployment was sorted out
by February-March 1990 and no one in his senses would start a war on
the Indo-Pakistan border in the scorching heat of May. Hence, there was
no crisis for Gates to defuse. The seminar participants could not explain

198 Sltetldiltg Sllibbolew
why Gates was pulled out fiom Moscow, where be was engaged in some
important negotiations, and sent on this mission two months after the
crisis was defused. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was out of the country
at the time (indicating she had no sense of crisis) and the visiting crisis
defuser could not wait to meet her. It was, in other words, a kind of
Tonkin Bay incident. 3
3. The US swtcd the bombing offensive on Viettwn on the ground that two
Viettwnese motor boats fired on US destroyers in Tonkin Bay. Persuaded by the
government version, Congress passed the resolution in favour of bombing.
Subeequently, the world came to know the Tonkin Bay incident wu manufactured.

• •
ang1ng _anons

20
The Prospect for
India-Pakistan CBMs
American academics, trying to convert Indians and

Pakistanis on the virtues of confidence-building measures, find it easy to
sell the concept to academics, media persons and defence analysts of the
subcontinent. They offer for adoption, with due modifications, models
ofUS--SOvict confidence building and the Middle East peace process. In
the East- West confrontation, confidence-building became feasible only
after the communists gave up declaring that Marxism was the wave of
the future, and the westerners gave up advocating roll-back of communism.
This happened after Khrushchev proclaimed that nuclear weapons did
not distinguish between capitalists and the proletariat-and, hence, a
nuclear war would not promote socialism; and the West realized that
communism could not be rolled back through a war. In the Middle East,
the Arabs have realized that they cannot push Israel into the sea; and the
Israelis have recogniu.d that a number of stunning military victories
would not negate the fact that the Arabs arc Israel's numerically superior
neighbours. In the subcontinent, Pakistan appears to have found that
while a conventional high-intensity war is not feasible, low-intensity
conflict (LIC) still is. It costs very little to Pakistan, and is relatively
costly to India, with India acquiring a bad name in the international
forums on charges of human rights violations in pursuing counter-
insurgency operations. In the East- West confrontation in Europe, neither
side resorted to LIC after the first few years of the cold war. Because the
East was more vulnerable than the West to LIC, the East made the borders
impervious and had the Berlin Wall built. In the Middle East, when
attempts arc made to introduce men and material into Israel, the Israeli
countermeasures arc extrcrnely harsh. Both in the East-West confrontation
and the Middle East, confidence building was discussed between two
adversaries. No third party is involved as an additional adversary. In
Indo-Pakistan confidence building, China being the main provider of
military cquipmcot to Pakistan is a factor.

202 SlteddingSlubboldlu
The issues that divide, India and PakiDD •re Kashmir, state-sponsored
terrorism and the nuclear ~ None of them is capable of early
10lution through bilateral discussions bcalusc these are merely symptoms
of more fundamental problems, over which the two nations have very
little control. Besides, both heads of govcmmcnt have to look all the
time over their shouldcni about public opinion at home. In neither country
foreign policy issues are handled on the basis of bipartisan cooscnsus,
though there is an overall national coosensus on what are perceived to be
vital national and security interests. Subscribing to common perceptions
of interest and security goals, the ruling parties and opposition accuse
each other all the time of not defending them adequately, and bctlaying
the country's intctests and security. Pakistan is awash with drugs and
small-arms thanks to the US policies pursued during the war in
Afghanistan. The government has little control over transbordcr terrorism.
The ISi made its own contribution to it, but the ISi is a state within the
state. Kashmir is a symptom of the more fundamental problem of the
two-nation theory, not a problem of self-determination. If it were, Pakistan
should have conducted a plebiscite in the areas of Jammu and Kashmir
state under its occupation. Pakistan is more interested in sustaining the
Kashmir problem and pursuing an anti-India posture in order to define
its own national identity than to solve the problem. It cannot afford to
give Kashmir Valley independence, as demanded by JKLF, without
unravelling the areas of the Jammu and Kashmir state under its occupation.
Conducive to CBMs are deterrence, and mutual determination to avoid
even the smallest incident which may escalate. In the India-Pakistan
context, these are absent CBMs are possible only when both sides have
a similar perception of the stakes and risks involved. Perhaps the Pakistani
generals do not want an all-out conventional war with India, and do not
appear to fear that a sustained low-level conflict they fuel in Jammu and
Kashmir and Punjab by sending in narcotics, arms and terrorists across a
porous Indian border may escalate into war. Even if it does, they appear
to be confident that they can achieve an outcome on terms favourable to
them by unveiling their nuclear capability. So long as Pakistanis see
unilateral advantages in pushing in narcotics, arms, and terrorists, and
see no risk in carrying out such operations, they are not likely to agree to
CBMs, which call for accepting an equal obligation by both sides to stop
such activities. Even the most liberal-minded Pakistanis take refuge behind
the argument that they cannot accept such responsibilities when they are
unable to stop the flow of narcotics and arms from one part of Palcistan
to another.

The Prospect Jo,- India-Pakistan CBMs 203
Most of the CBMs proposed and discussed deal with the reduction in
defence budget, greater transparency, mutual inspections, open skies,
reduction in forces, forces deployment patterns, nuclear-weapon-free rone
and safe zone, signing of the NPT or a regional treaty forswearing nuclear
weapons, and such other measures which have become parts of standard
packages for CBMs. Mutual defence ·expenditure cuts and consequent
mutual force reductions are implementable proposals, since awareness
of the nuclear capability of each other would normally rule out a
conventional war of high intensity between the two countries. Mutual
agreement on budgetary reductions is somewhat more difficult to verify
than mutually agreed cuts in forces. Defence budgets can be tailored.
Pakistan has not been publishing detailed budget estimates on defence
since 1966--67. There are reasons to believe that various receipts of aid
are not reflected in the defence budget. Items of expenditure on airfields,
ports, etc. are petbaps clubbed with expenditure on civil beads since
these services function under the Defence Ministry. The defence estimates
do not have a separate capital head as published. Unlike the Pakistani
defence budget, the Indian budget gives details of expenditure. There
are critics in India who complain that the total value of Soviet imports
was not shown in the Indian defence expenditure but only the annual
iomalment repayments due each year. Others would like to include the
expenditure on border roads and paramilitary forces in it Some foreigners
would add even space and atomic energy expenditure in it. AJ'Jy polemics
. on this count could be circumvented by adhering to conventions fostered
by the UN defining what constitutes defence expenditure.
If the Indian government intends to pursue this proposal of pressing
Pakistan for mutual expenditure reduction, and consequent mutual force
reduction, much homework has to be done. It needs elaborate integrated
exercises among the service intelligence, ministries of defence, foreign
affairs and finance and RAW. The mutual reduction talks between NATO
and the Warsaw Pact went on for well over a decade. While the forces
involved in India and Pakistan are far less the resources for verification
are also of much lower order. A beginning could be made to check the
figures of defence expenditure arrived at by the World Bank and the
IMF on the basis of their study of the national accounts of India and
Pakistan.1
I . As it is, its defence burden hurts Pakistan relatively more than it does India.
The food availability io tmns of calorific intake is liigber io Pakistan lhlD io IDdia,

204 Slidding Slubboletlu
•••
•
In early 1987, after five days of talks at Secretaries• level, India and
Pakistan agreed to ~ l a t e the six-week-long military coofrootatioo
along the Punjab border. The two forces were mobili:nd to face each
other though neither side had any intention to go to war. It was a senseless,
avoidable development A crisis of this type-the armed forces of the
two countries facing each other without going to war, unlike what
happened io 1965 and 197I-was new in the history of the subcontinent
Going by Pakistan's own .:,laim, it was worried about the Indian trimnial
military exercise Operation Brasstacks in Rajasthao. (There were critics
of the operation, who felt that it wore out the equipment and they needed
time and expense to be brought back to top operational status. Perhaps
such critics should ponder why, if exercises only result in wear and tear
of equipment, are Pakistanis following the Indian e:xample and why do
NATO, the Warsaw Pact and China cany out large-scale exercises at
much more frequent intervals than India does.)2 The more logical
but life cxpectaDcy in both countries is the same. The literacy rate in India is higher
than Pakistan. So me hospital beds per lbowJand population. Heald! aod cducatioo
expenditure in India is higher than oo defcocc, unlike in Pakistan. For India, the
military expenditure as percentage of central govcrnmcot expenditure was 15.4 per
cent in 1988 while for Pakistan it was 27.1. For India the percentage bas fallen
further. In the ranking as military spenders in tenns of defence burden to GNP oo an
average in the 1980s, Pakistan was the 20th country in the world and India WU 63rd,
while China was 10th, according to SIPRl data.
2. Every year NATO and Wan.aw Pact forces used to conduct regular exercises
in West Germany and East Germany and Poland -respectively. The US used to fly its
airborne forces from long distance for exercises in Egypt. Pakistan used to conduct
naval and air exercises with US forces within the central command framework.
Large-scale naval exercises involving bundn:ds of ships arc regular annual features
in the Mediterranean, Northern Atlantic and Northern Pacific. A few years ago the
Chinese conducted large-scale anny exercises involving simulated use of tactical
nuclear weapons. Even in India there was a combined air exercise in 1964 involving
the air forces of the US and the Commonwealth. Nooe of these exercises caused any
alanuns and excwsioos of the kind associated with "Brasstacks" in Rajastbao.
Exercises arc at lhc heart of professionalism of an armed force. The German
Army acquired its high professional competence because it used to exercise annually.
During his days the Kaiser himself used to attend the exercises. Bctwcco the two
world wars the Gcrrnao officer corps and the non-commissioned officers converted
the anny into a defence university and carried out exercises. Out of them came the
doctrines of 'blitzkrieg•, the mobile tank warfare and pincer movement. NATO boasted
its superior training and better organizational and logistical skills evolved out of the
annual 'Reforgcr' exercises. The Soviet forces, too, used to carry out gigantic aooua1
'
The Prospect for India-Pakistan CBMs 205
exercises not only in Central Ewope but also in the European RUSlian plains under
the immediate supervision of their defence minister When Marshal Ustinov visited
Delhi be screened during the official reception films of the exercises he had cooducted.
lo 1947 when India became free we had ooly brigadier-level Indian officers in the
Army. While the jawans and the junior commissioned officers bad a fighting tradition
going back to the early days of the East India Company, at the level of officers.the
Indian >.nny was a very young one in 1947, as hardly 28 years had passed since the
commissioning of the first Indian officer. The Indian Army expanded modestly in the
1950s, when officers were promoted somewhat more rapidly than they have been
since. The Indian Anny inherited the traditions and doctrines of the British Army,
which UDlike the continental armies, especially the German and the RUSliao, was not
known for its skills and doclrines in wars of manoeuvre.
lo 1947-48 the Indian Army could tackle the Pakismo .\noy effectively in Jammu
and K•sbmir. lo the Hyderabad and Goa operatioos, it did not filce any sigoificaot
oppositioo. Being psycbologically unprepared to fight a war in mountainous tmain
with a large force, a whole division just dissolved in Kameng in I962. lo I 96S again
faced with Pakistan, the Indian Army stood up to superior American equipment io
the opponent's bands and fiustrated the Palristaoi offenaivc. lo 1971, while the lodiao
Army displayed a bigh degree of professionalism io the east, on the western front it
was mostly a slogging match with very marginal shifts in the frontlioe except in the
Sind area.
Since I 971 the Indian Anny bas been undergoing radical traosfonnation with
continuous absorption of new equipment The present officer corps spends more
time io the junior and middle levels compared to its predecesson in the 1950,, gets
more intensively trained in staff and command postings, bandies far more sophisticated
equipment and is used to modem C 3l infrastructure. All the modem combat and
combat support equipment oow being inducted into the Anny have to be integrated
with tactical and doctrinal concepts to be evolved within our own armed force.
While selected Army officers are sent to training institutions abroad to familiarize
them with their doctrines, ultimately the combat doctrines have to be indigenously
evolved mking i.nto account the terrain, r.limatc, logistics, the nature of the adversary,
bis equipment and bis combat doctrines.
Just as on the R&D side the COUDlfY is getting into a smge whco equipment will
be indigeoously designed, our forces have moved to a level of professionalism wbco
they can evolve their own combat doctrines and organimtions. 1bis is the ccotral
purpose ofmilitary exercises. They are costly, but essential if the coormous expendihR
iocuned oo the equipment and manpower is to be made cost-effective.
With the incTeasing lethality of the equipment, their augmented maooeuvrebility,
growth in the rate of firepower and superimposition of electronic, counter-electronic
and sophisticated surveillance capabilities, the handling of a division or corps today
is a very diffen:nt and bigbly more complicated task than it was even a decade ago.
India obtains its equipment from diffen:nt sources and also produces a considerable
proportion oo its own. These have to be integrated into efficient combat units at
various formatioo levels. The Army Aviatioo Corps is a recent introduction. The
infantry combat vehicle, too, is a relatively new concept for most of the forces io the
world. locreasiogly, there is need for effective tactical coordination of the Army and
Air Force to fight ao integrated battle. All this kind of equipment bas to fimctioo

206 Slredding Shibboleths
explanation would be that the Pakistanis attempted through these

manoeuvres to compel India to scale down and modify the size and
scope of its military exercise. Did the Pakistanis have an assurance from
the Indian Prime Minister during the Bangalore session of SAARC in
1986 that the exercises would be scaled down, as they claim, or think
that they had such an assurance? There was a similar misunderstanding
about the technical discussions on mutual inspection of nuclear facilities
as a result of a conversation between the Indian Prime Minister and
General Ziaul Haq in 1985.
If the Pakistanis seriously believed that they bad such an assurance
from Rajiv Gandhi, they should have taken up the issue diplomatically in
late December or early January as the Indian troops were being assembled
for the exercise in Rajastban. They did not. Additionally, they prevaricated
about their own troop movements. According to 17re Dawn (20 January
1987), the chief Armed Forces spokesman, Orig. Siddiq Salik, said that
Indian reports of Pakistani troop concentrations were all false. Two days
later, their Foreign Office spokesman said that Pakistani forces were
conducting routine winter exercises in the usual exercise areas, and India
bad no ground for concern. A week. later, the Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs, 7-ain Noorani, referred to the understanding supposedly given
by the Indian Prime Minister and its non-implementation. In his speech
within a framework of electromagnetic compatibility wilhout jamming ,:ach ocber.

Exercises not only help our forces to sort out various problems, provide our fighting
forces effective operational doctrines and give them increased self-confidence, but
they also send out messages to the rest of the world regarding the level of the
competence of our forces-a major factor in dissuasioo of potential adversaries.
While annual exercises are conducted at lowe,- levels of formations, corps level
exercises being costly are conducted triennially. To be realistic, exercises ue to be
conducted in the type of terrain where potential hostilities are lilcely, and requin:
space where large forces can manoeuvre. Since such large-scale exercises disturb the
normal life of the area, it is necessary to conduct them in less densely populated
ueas. All these considerations dictate that the exercise be conducted in Rajasthan.
A realistic corps-level exercise with two sides operating against each othtt RqUires
not less than six divisions. The exaggerated vet"Sions put out that India deployed 20
divisions or even 11 divisions in the Brasstaclcs exercise stand self-exposed since
India cannot concentrate such a large force in Rajasthan without taking the risk. of
thinning out dangerously its defences elsewhere. It is not difficult to distinguish
between the exercise as a feint for proposed attack and one restricted to a localized
area, with hundreds of miles of the rest of the border not being put on raised alert.
The rnucb-tallced-about Egyptian feint against Israel in October 1973 was launched
against a front less than 80 miles wide and against a country with which Egypt was
in an active state of hostilities.
......
to the Pakistan Muslim League worlcers in Karachi on 29 January, Prime

Minister Junejo referred to his talks with the Indian Prime Minister in
Bangalore and said that both cowitries had expressed their view on the
need to maintain peaceful relations. Even according to this report, Junejo
did not claim that he bad an assurance from Rajiv Gandhi on scaling
down of the Indian exercise. Thus, Pakistan did not raise these issues in
public or through diplomatic channels before moving its armoured
divisions, and instead of expressing its concern, resorted to bland denials
about its movements.
To differentiate between a normal exercise in Rajasthan and the
possibility of its being a feint for an attack, Pakistan had only to take
note of the deployment pattern and state of alert of our troops elsewhere
on our border. When India felt concerned over Pakistan's troop
deployment, our armed forces went public and ordered mobilization.
Till then Pakistan kept quiet Islamabad, which claims that its troop
movements were the minimum precaution it had to take, shifted its
armoured division from the area opposite to the one in which the military
exercise was to be held, to the Punjab border. Surely, it did not mean to
facilitate India's thrust into Sind Secondly, the increase in the Indian
forces in Rajasthan for the exercise was achieved by some depletions
elsewhere. Otherwise, India would not have to rush troops into Punjab in
the last week of January. No Indian can possibly think of increasing the
vulnerability of cities in Punjab and the line of communication-to Jammu
and Kashmir in order to augment the force of the thrust into the desert
areas of Sind Thirdly, Pakistani armour crossing the Sutlej would not
make sense as a defensive precaution; it could only be read either as a
prelude to an attack or a signal. In sum, Pakistan's military moves were
intended to compel India to reduce or alter the size and scope of Operation
Brasstacks. The Indian military response, its swiftness, and smoothness
made it clear to Pakistan that it bad to negotiate a mutual de-escalation
in Punjab. During the negotiations, the Pakistani authorities-who on 20
and 22 January had blandly denied troop concentratio~d not dispute
the Indian account of their troop dispositions.
Some of the lessons from this experience were:
• The need for re-evaluation of the cost and benefit of the practice of
heads of state and government carrying on private conversations
without aides. (Even where this is done as a rare exception, there
must be a record of discussions. The more adroit and less scrupulous
party would otherwise be tempted to abuse the occasion.)

208 Slll!dding SlubboletJi.s
• The need for the full-time attention of a senior cabinet minister

exclusively to defence.
• The need to review the asymmetry between Pakistan and India in
tenns of mobiliDtion time. (Indian mobiliDtion between 20 and
30 January was no doubt commendable, but we cannot forget that
Pakistan was able to surprise India by pushing two armoured
divisions right up to the border.)
• While, after India got alerted, the military escalation control perhaps
rested with the Indian forces, Pakistan retained the diplomatic
initiative throughout Having triggered the Indian military response
by moving its armour, Pakistan offered to initiate negotiations. It
linked up its armour deployment with the Indian exercise, and
thereby tried to subject it to discussion. This was a braz.en attempt
to tell India what the scope and siu of the exercise should be.
When it failed, it would agree only to a sectoral de-escalation,
thereby still justifying its armour deployment in tenns of the Indian
exercise. In other words, Pakistan used the military deployment to
make a political point to project itself as a beleaguered nation.
India could have considered the costs and benefits of not agreeing
to a partial de-escalation and raising the cost to Pakistan by continued
border deployment.
• It was the sense of having been abandoned in the 1965 War that
intensified the alienation in East Bengal. In the latest <;risis, by
overplaying the vulnerability ofSiod vis-a-vis Operation Brasstacks,
Islamabad may have contributed to a similar alienation in that
.
proVIOce.
• Many western journalists stationed in Delhi hold that India had a
window of opportunity to attack the Pakistani nuclear installations
but did not make use of it, as a western country would nonnally
have done. In that sense, India signalled to Pakistan that it need
have no such fears.
• This crisis highlighted the need to develop CBMs suited to the
subcontinental context, including more intensive and extensive
communications between the two countries at both political and
military levels.
• The occasion also provided an opportunity to arrive at some
guidelines on confidence-building when holding large-scale
exercises. As in Europe in corps-level exercises, there could be an
understanding that observers would be invited from the other
countries and the exercises would not be held within a certain
distance from the border. Details might be worked out between

The Prospect for lndia-l'akistan CBMs 209
teams of military experts from the two cowitries about observation

flights before the exercise to verify actual deployment patterns of
forces. If the US and USSR, NATO and WTO could exchange
observers during exercises, why not India and Pakistan?
••••
Arms control talks can be held between two nations that are so powerful
as to ignore all other adversaries, regarding anns and forces which are
strictly relevant to their confrontation. The US and the USSR built up 95
per cent of the world's nuclear arsenals and, hence, they could hold anns
control talks ignoring the other five per cent held by others. That was
also why the Chinese, the British, and French were not willing to join
arms control negotiations during the INF talks or even the START stage:
How do India and Pakistan enter into anns control talks on their respective
nuclear capabilities ignoring the Chinese and the American nuclear
arsenals surrounding the subcontinent?
Arms control talks have so far been found feasible between two
antagonistic powers or groups of nations as a two-person game. Till now
the world has no experience of arms control in a multiple-person game
after the naval talks of 1921 among Britain, US and Japan. The agreement
failed as it was circumvented. It was related to easily countable naval
vessels and not to land forces facing across frontiers. India faces Pakistan
and China in Kashmir and it has, therefore, to be a three-person arms
control talks.
The two superpowers also had national technical means of verification·
(satellites) which photographed every inch of each other's territory. They
had thus full data about each other's capabilities. "Trust but verify" was
the principle on which they conducted their arms control talks. Confidence
building is largely based on transparency, especially when countries like
India do not have satellite monitoring facilities or large intelligence
establishments. Among the four participant nations (the US, Pakistan,
China, and India) the transparency standards are unevenly matched.
Hence, steps to develop a level playing field in transparency need to he
discussed. This discussion would cover 'the vast disparities in public
documentation such as budgets, government reports to legislature, etc.
The basic approach to transparency itself needs to be defined. 3
3. Confidence building also needs mutual Ulldentanding of the doctrinal positioos

of each side by the other. For instance, China was the first country to proclaim a no-
first-use doctrine. The tactical nuclear weapons are, by and large, though not perhaps
exclusively, first-use weapons. The four other nuclear weapon powers have retired

210 Slt«lding SldbboktM
While it is possible to discuss confideocc-building in conventional

armaments, sector-wise, it cannnt be done for nuclear weapons. For India,
the nuclear issue is not an Indi.,.Pakistao issue. It bas wider dimensions,
including China. India cannot forswear the ouclear option except under a
global non-discriminatory dispensation, and Pakistan will not forswear
its option unilaterally. The ouclear factor, contrary to US opinion, bas
preserved peace between the two oatioos io spite of the extreme
provocation of Pakistani transborder tmorism. 4
The first step in confidence-building io the nuclear area between India

and Pakistan got off to a hesitant start io early 1991, with the exchange
of instruments of ratification of the treaty oot to attack each other's
nuclear facilities. No two ouclear-capable nations have concluded such
an ~ t . The Soviet Uoioo and China had oo-first-use declarations,
but they relate to the use of ouclear weapons, and not about sparing
nuclear facilities from attacks. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi proposed
the treaty during General Ziaul Haq's visit to Delhi oo 17 December
1985. The Pakistani bureaucracy was strongly opposed to it, but General
Zia was reported to have overruled them. The treaty was signed io
December 1988, when the Indian Prime Minister visited Pakistan, when
most of their tactical nuclear weapons. There is no information that China bas done
so.
4. The biggest contribution the US can make to reduction of tension in the
subcontinent is not to initiate a new anus race, and not to stoke up each other's
suspicions by planting stories of Pakistan planning nuclear first strike against India.
Such persistent US accounts about India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation ill serve any
avowed US goodwill for lndia-Pakistan CBMs. Stories of Pakistani 'lircBft having
been readied to lauDcb a deliberate first strike with nuclear weapons oo India, nr
Indian aircraft having been readied to attack the K.ahuta establishment in Pakistan do
not help in nuclear confidence. The US Administration has not contributed to n:ducing
the mistrust even while trying to play an intervening role.
Then again. one should expect fire where there is smoke. An example is the Air
Attache in PakiSllro's Embassy in Washington, Air Commodore Shahid Javed, telling
NBC Television in early September 1994 that in 1984 Pakistan had come "within
houn of sending F-16 on a mission" to drop conventiooal bombs oo Indian nuclear
reactors near Bombay. Air attaches do not make such statements without clearance
from headqtiarters. The air commodore would have been a squadron leader at the
time. He would not have known about such sensitive missions unless he was • pilot
on the mission or a staff officer to a senior official planning it; presumably, the
former.

Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister. I had proposed this idea which
many at the time considered utopian-in the Tunes of India on 30 July
1985. The proposal contained three steps: (1) agree not to attack each
other's nuclear facilities; (2) agree not to use nuclear capabilities against
each other: and (3) initiate an agreement, first between India and Pakistan,
then in South Asia, thereafter Asia, and finally at the global level, to ban
the use and threat of use of nuclear capabilities pending nuclear
disarmament.
The focus on not attacking each other's nuclear capabilities is related
to the enonnous propaganda in the western and Pakistani media in the
early 1980s that India was planning to attack and destroy Pakistani nuclear
installations in Kahuta and elsewhere. In 1947-48, Bertrand Russell had
advocated bombing of Soviet nuclear facilities before they could make
the bomb. In the 1960s, initially the US and subsequently the Soviet
Union gave thought to destroying Chinese nuclear facilities at the initial
phase of bomb production. Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuclear installations
in 1981 though Iraq was many years away from bomb making. In these
cases, the threats, plans and actual destruction of nuclear capabilities
were considered when the relative capability of the victim was
asymmetrical to the one considering this option. Toe victim was either
unable to retaliate effectively, or was stupid enough to offer a pwvocation
and justification for attack by breaching the standard norms. Between
India and Pakistan there was no great asymmetry. In 1982, 1984 and
even in 1987 January, the world media and Pakistani media concocted
stories of Indira Gandhi, and subsequently Rajiv Gandhi, wanting to
provoke a war to provide justification for bombing raids on Pakistani
nuclear installations. India, however, has more nuclear installations than
Pakistan, and offers more hostages to threat of attack, with the consequent
fallout of plutonium, which is available in quantities in the Indian reactors.
Further, ifKahuta is attacked, the enriched uranium in store there would
scatter, without too much damage to the environment. 5
•••
•
.
S. The joint declaration issued in August 1992 at the level ofFon:ign Secretaries,
renouncing possession, manufacture and use of chemical weapons is not an aims
C011trol treaty, since there is no provision for murua.1 verification. The agreement
came in the context of the international opinion on possession, use and threat of use
of chemical weapons, and the need for an agreement to have a total IIOIHliscrimina
regime and to eliminate the weapons globally in a time-bound programme.

212 Slw.dding SlubboletJu
The arms cootrol process between the two major powers started with the
Ostpolitik of Chancellor Brandt of West Germany, which increased the
trade and people-to-people contact between East and West. That was
followed by the Helsinki Accord, which laid down that no border in
Europe would be changed by force, and acceptance of humanitarian
rights by the communist countries. Gorbachev's glasnost, which brought
about the INF agreement and the START and conventional arms reduction
talks, was preceded by a series of agreements on CBMs between East
and West. The opening of Eastern Europe to West Ewupean tourism led
to East Europeans developing human rights movemeuts like Cbartel" 77
in Cucboslovakia and Solidarity in Poland. In Southern Asia, the focus
tends to be on cosmetic military measures than on stepping up trade or
people-to-people contacts. In the subcontinent, the Pakistani military is
an independent factor.6 Pakistan will not subscribe to a declaration on
DOD-violation of LoC in Jammu and Kashmir for Pakistanis, confidenoe
building should start with India agreeing to a high-level dialogue with
Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. For India, the first step in confidence
building is de-escalation of Pakistan-supported terrorist violence in
Kashmir Valley. Domestic politics in both countries fetter any show of
flexibility on these stances.
There is also the factor of ignorance even among those who should
know better. In an international seminar in mid-1994 I learnt that India
was developing a so-called Surya missile-an ICBM at that- in
succession to Agni. I also learnt that contrary to what our Parliament is
told in published accounts, the Indian defence expenditure bad grown
steadily by 17 per cent on an average over the past five years; since as
much as Rs 3,000 crore of defence expenditure was coocealed under
other beads. Frequently, Pakistanis speak about India deploying 600,000-
strong army in Kashmir Valley. (In that event, the rest of Indian borders
should indeed be very vulnerable to attack.) Yet another senior Palcistani
personality maintained that the southern provinces in India are fien:ely
resentful of the domination of the North and sentiments of separatism
are growing there. Evidently, that a man from Andhra was then Prime
Minister of India did not impress him. He also pointed out that the upper
castes of India rose in violent protest when V.P. Singh tried to do justice
to backward classes and overthrew him. He did not pay any attention to
6. In West Asia, the core of the problem is about a homeland for the Palestinians,
and the border between Israel and Palestine, which involves the question of Jerusalem,
on which IJrael remains inflex.iblc. ·

The Prospect/or lttdia-Pakutan CBM1 213
the implementation of the Mandal commission report He also believed

that the upper-caste Hindu of the Hindi helt bas an image of himself as
"Prussian", a far cry from the days when Pakistanis openly avowed that
one Pakistani was equal to some ten HiNfns, or when Z.A. Bhutto referred
to General Ayub Khan's boast of Pakistan being like Prussia.
They used to assert that a large number of Russian scientists are
womng in the Indian nuclear and space establisbmeots. At the same
time, quite a few among them appear to bav., persuaded themselves that
India is beaded for the same fate as the Soviet Union. They believe that
the Indian military ovCJspeoding is driving India to its ultimate ruin not
too far in the future. They refuse to note that the Indian population
growth rate is only 1.9 per cent, while theirs is 2.9. They appear to
believe that if they can only contain this country till it is overtaken by its
inevitable doom of break-up, the dream of Pakistan becoming the most
powerful state of the subcoutincot-tbc dream of Chaudhuri Rahmat Ali
who coined the tenn Pakistan-will be fulfilled. Influential sections of
Pakistani elite look at both India and the US as their adversaries. They
voice their apprehcosioos that because India constitutes a bigger m.mkct,
of late the US bas started to tilt towards India. They forget that the
Pressler amendn!Cnt was a favour to allow them to go up to a limit in the
uuclear weapon programme while availing themselves of billions of
dollars of military aid, but they consider it as grave injustice.
••••
It is cxtrcmcly doubtful whctb.cr on issues like Siacben, the nuclear weapon
development in Pakistan, ,\fgban policy, the narcotics menace and support
to transborder terrorism-which are the issues on which a dialogue is
needed with Pakistan-any political leader in Pakistan bas either the full
information or power to negotiate. The then Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto admitted as much in the BBC phone-in programme of 5 March
1989. She ruled out proposals like joint defence between India and
Pakistan, acknowledged Kashmir as a difficult problem, rccogniv-.d the
mutual suspicion between the two countries, reaffirmed the efficacy of
the 1972 Simla Agreement for resolving outstanding issues, pleaded for
confidence building on the model of the Stockholm Accord, and, above
all, stressed that if the people of the two nations were allowed to get to
know each other, quite a lot would be achieved in establishing good
relations between the two countries. These replies had come a long way

214 Shedding ShibboletJ&s
since General Ayub Khan's fake joint defence proposal to Nehru in

1958 or the duplicitous no-war pact offer of General Ziaul Haq in 1981.7
In the final analysis, one needs to accept the fact, unpleasant as it is,
that Pakistan bas a s1roog ingrained interest in keeping its relations with
India under controlled tension and defining its national identity in terms
of its animosity towards India. The cold war animosity held the Soviet
Empire together and kept the problems of Eastern Europe under the lid
Once that was over, various ethnic poops and nationalities were at each
other's throats. Similarly, but for the binding animosity towards India,
Pakistan will fly apart. Our Pakistani friends are likely to repeat the
same assessment about India. In that cue, why do we not accept that the
Indi1r-Pakistan mutual animosity is not a wholly negative phenomenon,
and instead of unrealistically expecting to find a solution overnight, India
and Pakistan should learn to live with these problems and manage them?
In the circumstances, India can take a unilateral initiative, going by
the axiom that good fences make good neighbours. In Punjab, fencing
and more effective steps to make the border impervious led to significant
reduction in terrorist violence and enabled holding of elections. In Jammu
and Kashmir also, effective sealing of the border through various
measures, including mining, will stop infiltration and disabuse Pakistan
of its hope of winning a low-intensity conflict (We should explain that
such mining is a clear indication that India is not planning an offensive
operation.) Since joint patrolling proposals have not taken off, the best
alternative is for both sides to mine their own side of the border. This
suggestion was moote<i as far back as 1986. The proposal was not only
for fencing but also for mining and creating a vegetation-free half
kilometre border security zone, where the security forces would fire on
any moving creature. Many derided this proposal as being too expensive
and impractical. Others denounced it as erecting a new Berlin Wall when
the existing one was being brought down. Some well-intentioned people
pointed out that mining would result in casualties among human beings
and cattle, and half a kilometre vegetation-free belt would mean loss of
cultivable land. Perhaps, all these objections have some merit. But if
7. Nehru's question, joint defence against whom and against what threat, pricked
Ayub Khan's bubble. General Zia was offering a no-war pact to India to secure his
eastern front even as be was drearnina to establish in Afghanistan a very frieodly
regime, which would be a real Islamic state; put of pan-Islamic revival that would
one day win over the Muslims in the Soviet Union. Both Ayub Khan's and Zia's
proposals were anti-Soviet, and were intended to create a division between India and
the Soviet Union. ·

there bad been a regular war with P ~ there would bardly have
been any objection to mining the border and creating a vegetation-free
belt by paying compensation to the farmers. India is fighting a prolonged
proxy war, in which the casualties incurred already are more than those
suffered in all wars with Pakistan. Therefore, such objections will have
to be viewed in the appropriate petspectiv~. Our R&D bas developed
various devices, which increase the efficiency of border patrolling and
the detection of border violati~. Unf<>rtnnately, various security agencies
prefer expansion of manpower-both costly and susceptible to
subversion-to the use of sophisticated equipment Pakistani leaders talk
of RAW agents operating in Sind. Let them mind their side to allay their
fears, as we should do on ours. That would not stand in the way of
people-to-people interaction through road, railway, air and sea travel.
Once this is done, Indian CBMs are more likely to succeed. Once the
border is made non-porous and stabilized, forces on both sides can
withdraw equal distances from the border, a mutual or separate aerial
surveillance corridor can be established, exercises can be mutually
notified, even observers invited, and finally negotiated force reductions
can be attempted.

21
Counteivailing China
In 1987, the India-China border once again came to be

activated for the first time after 1967, when the last major clash took
place in Sikkim. In early 1987, there were reports of China reinforcing
its forces in Tibet-reinforcing of a kind and force level that had not
been seen since 1962. The Chinese were also believed to have conveyed
their annoyance with India through a number of channels, particularly
American.
There was a remarlcable similarity in the pattern of events of 1987
and of the months preceding the fateful autumn of 1962. The Chinese
steadily reinforced their forces in Tibet from May to September in 1962.
The Chinese divisions in Tibet did not materialize after Jawaharlal Nehru
talked of throwing them out on 12 October 1962; they were already in
their concentration areas weeks before.
In the early months of 1962 the Chinese had one of their intensive
propaganda campaigns about learning from a young soldier who was
killed in an accident, Li Feng. They were reported to have restarted the
campaign about learning from Li Feng's life once again in Tibet in 1987.
In June 1962, according to the then director of m, B.N. Mullick, the
Chinese consul-general in Calcutta was reported to have told some of his
Indian acquaintances that the Chinese were losing patience and would be
compelled to use force in the coming months. Though there are various
versions about what happened between Krishna Menon and Marshal
Chen Yi in Geneva in 1962, one version was that Marshal Chen Yi
warned Menon sternly. There were reports in 1987 of the Chinese warning
India and Deng Xiaoping talking of teaching India a lesson once again.
There were also some remarkable similarities in the political situation
between 1962 and 1987. 1962 saw the beginning of a power struggle in
China with the army, under the leadership of Lin Biao, making a bid for
increased influence in the affairs of state. In 1987, too, there were glimmer-
ings ofa leadership tussle. In India, 1962 saw a breakdown in Nehru's
health, and the air was thick with speculation on who and what after

Cowttervailing Cltina 217
Nehru. There was talk of India entering a dangerous decade. India was
then preoccupied with US arms supplies to Pakistan which were
continuing on their inexorable course even when Pmiident Kennedy was
deemed as the warmest supporter of India' s democratic cause, and an
admirer of Nehru.
The Chinese attack in 1962 was intended to disrupt a growing intimate
relationship between India and the Soviet Union and to expose India's
wlnerability. In 1987, following Gori>achev's visit to New Delhi, there
was a new dimension to Indo-Soviet relationship marked by the Soviet
offer of collaboration on a significant scale in high-technology area.
The differences in the situation in 1987 and 1962 may also be noted:
I. In 1987, the Indian anny was on the border. Though India tended
to ignore the need to ensure preparedness vis-a-vis the Chinese forces in
Tibet in the past two decades, there had been an increased awareness of
infrastructural shortcomings in 1986, which were being rectified. It was
this action which the Chinese and some Indians described as being
provocative.
2. The Chinese wl"Allrn~ were exposed in their war with Vietnam
in 1979. The Indian Anny's conventional war equipment is not less
advanced than that of the Chinese, as it was in 1962, which factor bad an
eoonnous psycbological impact, both on our forces and the political
leadership.
3. The crisis vis-a-vis Pakistan in 1986 proved that there is now a far
better understanding of coercive diplomacy among our armed forces'
leadership, and at least some sections of our political leadership. The
country has been ill served by the armchair punditry of our glossy
magazines with access to various foreign embassies and some of our
retired servicemen, who have not kept touch with developments in the
armed forces.
4 . General Thimayya bad persuaded himself that China bad the backing
of the Soviet Union. We were easily dissuaded from considering the use
of the air force though all the advantages were on our side, since the
Chinese air force was not functional at all in 1962. Even in 1987, in the
use of air power in the Himalayan crest and a belt of territory on both
sides, the IAF bad an edge over any adversary.
5. In 1987 there was the Indo-Soviet treaty which proved its
effectiveness in 1971. Though the Soviet Union was at the time attempting
to improve its relations with China, Moscow could not allow Beijing to
apply military pressure on India and yet stay neutral as some people in
this country envisaged. While, appropriately, Gorbachev and other Soviet

officials refused to commit themselves in public in answer to the simplistic

demand of our pressmen to clarify their stand about India's possible
security problems with China and Pakistan, in private they were prepared
to acknowledge that their relationship with India was one of their highest
priorities.
6. The China-Pakistan relationship was in 1987 a highly visible one,
compared to 1962. It was not unlikely that the US might choose to
acquiesce in the situation to compel the Indian leadership to accept the
role envisaged for it in the US scheme of things in South Asia. .
7. India's domestic political situation in 1987 was creating for it
enormous vulnerability. By throwing themselves open to drug trafficking,
large-scale smuggling, large-scale intervention of transnationals,
irregularities in arms deals and illegal financial linkages, various
developing countries had become subject to external pressures. This
happened to Chiang Kaishek;s China, Diem's Vietnam, the Shah's Iran,
the Pakistan of General Ayub Khan and Bhutto, and the Bangladesh of
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Comments on the disposition of forces by China and India on the
border in 1987 mostly spoke of a possible conflict if India did not
withdraw its forces from some forward positions; they did not explain
why India had moved its forces to the border. Some commentators
appeared to imply that the Indian military deployment was unnecessarily
provocative. Operation Brasstacks took place some 150-200 km inside
the Indian border, and its size was marginally larger than Operation
Digvijay held three years earlier; even so it was considered by some of
our critics as having been unnecessarily provocative to Pakistan. It was
even explicitly argued that since India could manage without its troops
being deployed well forward on the border with China in the last 25
years, it should continue with that policy now. The Chinese would call it
capitulationism.
These comi:nents overlooked the fact that the Cbinesf' made a major
shift in their stand in late 1985. They, and their apologists, used to talk
of the strategic importance to them of the Aksai Chin roads, and the folly
of India's forward policy in the western sector in the early 1960s. The
Chinese then appeared reconciled to Arunachal Pradesh being part of
India Zhou Enlai accepted the McMahon Line boundary with Burma
and was prepared to accept it with India. But he made it part of a package
proposal which would leave in China's possession the territory they
claimed under the 1959 claim line (more than what they claimed under
the 1956 claim line and much less than what they occupied in the 1962
--
COWllervailing China 2 I9
War). Though the Chinese forces came down the Kameng division in
1962, by vacating the entire atta, the Chinese validated and legitimized
India's possession of Arunacbal Pradesh.
Suddenly, in 1985, the Chinese declared that the main dispute oo the
border was in the eastern sector (in Anmacbal Pradesh). If India wanted
to have changes in the aligomcot of the LAC in the western sector, they
would expect compensatory concessions in the castcm sector. They hinted
that Tawaog was the adjustment they bad in mind.
In its dispute with the Soviet Union on the Ussuri and Amur river
border delineation, China pressed the basic principle that border demarca-
tion in ,miobabited areas should be based on natural geographical features.
With Burma (Myanmar), too, China accepted the natural geographical
features concept (the McMahon Linc). But in all their official discussions
with Indian officials, the Chinese have refused to accept this basic
principle.
It was in this context that the Chinese moved into Sumduroog Chu.
The Chinese pointed out that Sumdurong Chu lies in an area which is
disputed in terms of interpreting the McMahon Linc. During the seventh
round of negotiations the Indian side tried to obtain from the Chinese
their view of the LAC in the eastern sector. If unintended intrusions
across the border arc to be avoided, or even if disengagement by 20 Ian
on both sides is to be implemented, it is obvious that there must be a
mutual understanding of the actual LAC; but the Chinese evaded
furnishing their definition of the LAC.
The Chinese strategy on the border would seem to have the following
aspects. Having secured all the territory in the west, they presumably
have decided to concentrate on the eastern border. lo the past they
continued to move forward on the wcstcm border while putting forward
different claim lines and calling for preservation of the status quo. lo
1986 they started to make claims on the eastern border (Tawaog, for
·instance). lo the 1950s they tarnished as forward policy India's feeble
attempt to hold a line of checkposts to stop further Chinese advance, and
many Indians fell into that trap. lo 1987 they charged India of provocation
just because the Indian forces took precautionary measures lest they try
out in Aruoachal Pradesh the tactics they successfully implemented in
the western sector in 1960-62.
In the Aksai Chin area the Chinese fully exploited the terrain and the
logistical advantages; in 1987 they were attempting it in Aruoachal
Pradesh. The Chinese suggestion that both sides should disengage from
the border up to a certain 11i5tance would appear reasonable to laymen.

220 Sltedding Sllibboleths
But the fact was that they were on a flat plateau terrain with a good
network of roads leading right up to India's border on a number of
points. On our side, our lotus-eating attitude resulted in our roads stopping
short of our border by tens of miles, though a quarter of a century bad
elapsed since the 1962 war. If both sides were to disengage, the Chinese
could quickly get back to the border any time they wanted; it would not
have been that easy for us. An equitable solution was not just disengage-
ment of forces, but an agreement that either side would have to deploy
troops and logistic capability for equal distances on its side of the bottler.
Further, the Chinese should intimate to India their concept of the LAC.
The 1962 War showed that once the forward ridges are ovem.m.
Tawang is virtually defenceless. The next feasible line of defence is at
Sela. Therefore, when the Chinese asked that the Indian forces pull back,
they were asking India to leave Tawang unprotected. Considering that
the Chinese had laid a claim to Tawang and had raised their force level
in Tibet, it would have been irresponsible for the Indian leadership to
leave Tawang unprotected.
India has laid no claim to territories north of the McMahon Line, while
China has done so for Anmachal Pradesh. Besides, China invaded the
territory below the McMahon Line in 1962. The Chinese forces are
deployed on a plateau in Tibet with an extensive network of roads leading
to various ingress points in India; the Indian forces are deployed on
slopes without similar logistic advantages. De-escalation, therefore, would
involve China defining its concept of LAC, an assurance by it that during
border negotiations it will not pose a threat to Tawang, and that pending
finalization of the border settlement it will not take unilateral action to
cross the LAC as it defines it. India should offer reciprocal assurances to
China.
In I 987, certain interested quarters tended to give the impression that
the Anny had taken precautionary steps on its own initiative. In peacetime,
India's Chief of the Anny Staffcannot move troops without the permission
of the political authority. •
IfCBMs had been in force between India and China, Sumdurong Chu
and the confrontation of 1987 would not have happened. The post in
Sumdurong Chu was considered necessary because the Chinese altered
their pattern of patrolling, which caused concern in India. The confronta-
tion of 1987 came about as a result of reports of concentration of addi-
tional forces in Tibet. These reports, which at that stage were supported
by US agencies, subsequently turned out to be somewhat exaggerated.
Similarly, our Operation Chequerboard is ljupposed to have disturbed

CotUIJerVailing China 221
the Chinese. This kind of incidents could be avoided if there· had been
direct communications between the two sides, and systematic information
exchange had been institutiooaliud.
Facilitating verification are adequate national technical means on both
sides: the Chinese bad their observation satellites, and India its MiG-25
high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. In due course India too has to
develop its satellite reconnaissance capability, which is the best means
of keeping the cis- and trans-Himalayan areas under continuous
observation. Other non-intrusive national technical means of verification
would include Eliot and Sigint gathering.
Even while discussing CBMs with China, it has to be made clear that
there will be further forward road communications development oo the
Indian side to match up with the Chinese road communication network
on the Tibetan side. Border roads development has been neglected in
Siaog and Subansiri divisions, and considerable work has to be earned
out both up the hills and laterally all along the slopes to ensure that ~ur
forces can be deployed in Anmachal Pradesh with the same degree of
felicity that the Chinese can oo their side of the border. This lapse on our
side rules out at this stage any discussion oo rational deployment pattern
of troops vis-a-vis the Chinese. Discussion ofstahili:rnd force deployment
may not be possible at this stage; but it is possible to initiate discussions
on CBMs of the type referred to earlier.
India initiating CBM proposals has many advantages. If we make a
beginning, that gives us leverage to begin a similar process with Pakistan
as well. Offer of initiating CBMs will be a projection of our confidence
and sense of equality in dealing with China. In a sense, our ability to face
China along the border in 1987 and then defuse the crisis, our sustained
~apability to maintain ourselves in Siachen, our Agni test, all taken
together place India in a position to deal with China without the complexes
that bad been plaguing this country since November 1962. Chinese
military writings indicate that they hold the professionalism of the Indian
armed forces in high respect The Americans told the visiting Chinese
leader Marshal Yang Shangkuo that China should be restrained and not
provoke India on the Anmachal border because any military escalation
would not only be oot a repeat of 1962 but most probably a reverse of
that scenario. This time, they pointed out to the Chinese, unlike in 1962
when India failed to take advantage of its air superiority, things should
be different China also understands that Indian operations in Siachen at
heights above 7000 metres have proved that the Indian forces can sustain
themselves on a continued basis at such heights. Initiation of such

222 Sheddi11g Shibboleths
confidence-building proposals with China, and then with Pakistan, will

have an overall stabilizing effect in the subcontinent. It will also help us
to soothe the concerns of some of our neighbours who borrow their
threat perception from the sensationalist accounts of Time magazine and
US journals, which for their own parochial reasons have started to project
the Indian power on the world consciousness. (They played the China
card in the 1950s and '60s vis-a-vis South and South East Asia, and then
in the '70s and early '80s the Soviet card.) Our initiating COM discussions
with China and Pakistan would serve to forestall attempts at playing the
India card. COM talks on the Indo-Tibetan border should be followed
up with COMs on nuclear capabilities as well. The Chinese have been
reluctant, but Agni and its successor tests may help change their mind
What if China were to reject our approach? We lose nothing. The
propaganda advantage will be ours not only regarding China, but Pakistan
as well. China's rejection of our initiative will give us a good case to
argue why the nuclear issue is not a limited bilateral issue between India
and Pakistan, and why the Indian defence efforts have to be looked at
from a pan-Asian context.
In dealing with China, we should be aware of our own sbengths and
China's weaknesses. India was not a nuclear weapon power until 1998
only because our leadership had not exercised the option to test. After
our missile Agni was tested, it would have been difficult to persuade the
world that it was meant to carry only conventional warheads. Even before
Pokhran-0, in the Chinese literature India was counted as a nuclear
weapon power.
Given China's li.kefy domestic preoccupations in the coming years,
one does not expect any wunanageable pressures from China on the
Indian border. On the other hand, given its fear of cultural pollution in
their dealings with the West, China is likely to be more relaxed in its
dealings with India, from which quarter it does not entertain such fears .
•••
♦
There is, however, a tendency among Indian politicians and bureaucracy

to play down the Chinese nuclear threat in pursuing a one-dimensional
approach of attempting to improve relations with China. Very often it
tends to be forgotten that it was the sense of the Chinese nuclear threat
that made Homi Bhabha advocate India going nuclear, Lal Oahadur Shastri
to seek nuclear umbrella from the UK (which was turned down), Shastri
to change the Nehruvian policy of never to make nuclear weapons to

Cowuervailing China 223
keeping the option open, Shastri to sanction the subterranean nuclear

explosion project (SNEP, the predecessor of Pokhran), dispatch of L.K.
Jha-Sarabhai mission for security guarantees (which failed miserably),
India's refusal to sign the NPT, conclusion of the Indo-Soviet treaty
when faced with Pakistan-China-US line-up, and then, the Pokhran test
in 1974. The Chinese threat bas continued with transfer of weapon-
related technology to Pakistan, deployment of missiles in Tibet and
continued possession of tactical nuclear weapons. While there can be no
two opinions about improving relations with China it cannot be overlooked
that while Chinese intentions can change the Chinese nuclear capability
will endure.
As if to drive home this point, the Chinese conducted a megaton
underground nuclear test on 21 May 1992 when President Venkataranian
was still on their soil. 21 May was also the first death anniversary of
Rajiv Gandhi. The test was meant to convey a political message to the
entire world, and India in particular. Perhaps, it was also meant to convey
what they thought of the Rajiv Gandhi plan. Since then the Chinese,
according to one American source, were also reported to have conducted
one more small-yield nuclear test in a horiz.ootal shaft on 25 September
1992. Though the Chinese talked all the time of their no-first-use pledge
they have not explained why such a country needs tactical nuclear weapons
after its principal adversaries have eliminated them.
In mid-1993, a Washington-based orga.nization, International
Campaign for Tibet, came out with a report which called for making
Tibet a nuclear-free zone. It recognized that "the nuclear rivalry between
India and Pakistan is perpetuated by China's nuclear threat to India and
its forward positioning of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons on the Tibetan
plateau has put many of India•s major industrial and military facilities
within striking distance of short range missiles." The Dalai Lama also
espoused the proposal.
The Chinese deployment of nuclear weapons in Tibet has been a
subject of controversy since the early 1970s. Very often the Tibetans
have tried to include outer Tibet in its definition. The Tibetan plateau
has less cover to hide from satellite photography and also needs an
elaborate infrastructure to deploy nuclear weapons. Hence, while it is
reasonable to assess that nuclear missiles may be deployed in outer Tibet,
it is less certain that they are on the Tibetan plateau itself. At the same
time, use of tactical nuclear weapons in sparsely populated high-altitude
areas is a concept favoured by US strategists for Indian defence against
the Chinese threat as far back as the I 960s. The idea may have its Chinese

224 Sltedding Shibboleths
adherents. Indian strategists have disfavoured use of such weapon in the

Himalayan terrain for ecological reasoos.
Even the Chinese missiles in outer Tibet can reach India and pose a
threat to Indian cities. The Chinese nuclear arsenal ofhundreds of nuclear
weapons bas no deterrent role vis-a-vis the US except for eight ICBMs.
Now the Russians have eliminated their tactical nuclear weapons and all
their missiles below the ICBM and SLBM levels.
Therefore, the justification for China keeping tactical nuclear weapons
and short-, medium- and intennediate-range missile weapons is not clear,
especially when its relations with Russia have improved to an extent the
Russians are prepared to sell them the most sophisticated conventional
weaponry.
When the INF discussions were under way between the US and the
Soviet Union, at an earlier stage the Russians agreed to eliminate all
their SS-20s in European Russia. They pointed out that SS-20s in the
Asian region were no threat to NATO. The US insisted that the Soviet
Union should eliminate all their SS-20s since the Asian-based ones posed
a threat to Japan and China. After some negotiations, the Soviets agreed,
and the INF Treaty was concluded.
On the same analogy, the Chinese short-, medium- and intermediate-
range missiles do not pose threats to the US or Russia, but they do to
India. Since Japan is under the protection of US extended deterrence, the
Chinese nuclear weapons pose threats only to South and South East Asia.
China bas been projecting an image that its international nuclear policy
was based on principles; that it did not object to India's nuclear
programme as perceived necessary for India's security interesl That was
India's stand on China's nuclear weapon development as well. India had
not criticized Chinese nuclear tests except its 45th nuclear test, when
India expressed its dismay at countries conducting tests even as they
were negotiating for a comprehensive test ban treaty.
The creT debate in Geneva revealed China's true attitude towards
· India. Through its insistence on article 14 of the creT entry into force
clause-China was targeting India. Obviously, China's insistence on this
clause, which would compel India to sign and ratify the treaty to bring it
into force, was intended to close India's nuclear option.
•••
♦
After Nehru visited China in 1954, he complained that during his visit he
was ushered in to meet Mao Zedong as if to a presence. In May 1992,

Cowilervailing China 225
during his visit to China, President R. Venkataraman did not get to see
Deng Xiaoping, for the ostensible reason that Deng had not seen foreign
visitors for the past two years. During the Indian President's visit, the
Chinese also made a noisy-and inconsiderate--political statement by
carrying out a megaton underground nuclear test. In the days following,
on Rajiv Gandhi's first death anniversary, the Indian President talked in
Shanghai of Rajiv Gandhi's vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world; it
was left to observers to wonder whether to take it as a rebuke to China
for its lack of tact The Chinese may have known about the scheduled
Agni test, and may have intended to communicate that while India might
be testing a relatively sophisticated intermediate-range missile, which
might cover quite a significant area of China, India did not have the
capability to match that megaton bang.
For those people who have memories of the 19S0s, this appeared to
be a replay of the event of 1954. The Indian side at that time swept under
the carpet all inconvenient issues, hoping that time would solve those
problems. The Chinese raised those issues when they thought the time
was ripe. Against this background, it was not surprising that the Chinese
gave a higher priority to economic issues.
On opening to China there can be no two opinions. But to carry on
that interaction, we need a coherent China policy. This would begin with
a dispassionate assessment of the Chinese goals and aims, their intentions
vis-a-vis this country and its neighbours, the likely developments in China
and its relations with other major powers of the world, the role of nuclear
and missile capabilities in China's foreign policy, and their world view,
etc. The basic prerequisite for confidence building is clarity in one's
aims and their effective commUilication, as also a clear understanding of
the policy of the other side. While the Chinese policy towards the world
has undergone many zigzag turns, there are two consistent features about
it. It is based on the relentless pursuit of adequate military power, and
projection of that power as a currency in international relations. They
also project their policy of the moment very articulately, however
inconsistent it might be with their policies of the past.
••••
The Chinese attack on India in 1962 was not because of a territorial
dispute; territory was not the Chinese objective. China withdrew to the
north of the McMahon Line on the entire eastern border. Their territorial
acquisition in the western sector was very much smaller. It was not even

226 Slledding SliibboktJis
esKDrial to provide additional security to their roads traversing Abri

Chin. The aim was to humiliate India .md C'$labtish China as the dominant
power in Asia next to the Soviet Union, and they succeeded.. It was also
to demonstrate that China could exercise an asymmetric political and
military power over the entire South Asia, particularly on mdia's
neighbours. In this, too, they have succeeded..
Repairing India•s relations with China is an emineridy sensible policy.
There is a general assessment that China is not likely to embark upon
any military adventure vis-a-vis India and the Indian military preparedness
can counter such adventurism. Improvement of India's relations with
China also creates uncertainty to those of India's neighbours who have
been playing the China card against India
The philosophy of non-alignment would lead to our cultivating better
relations both with the US and China, at present two major countervailers
in the international system on political and strategic aspects. ()_n a llimilar
logic, India has to cultivate better economic relations with all three
coumervailers-the US, western Ew-ope and Japan.
Though China is not a military threat, it continues to be a major
challenge to India and the world. So are the US and, perhaps, Japan and
western Europe. But China being our neighbour with whom we share the
longest border, ours being the world's largest populations and our being
two largest developing economies, the Chinese challenge is of immediate
and largest significance for Indian policy-makers. Pursuing a policy of
friendliness and cooperation on international political and strategic issues,
even while managing the Chinese challenge, calls for a degree of political
sophistication and international understanding this country has so far
failed to exhibit.
China may progress towards political pluralism compelled by economic
pluralism, as is happening in South Korea and Taiwan. In that case China
will be the world's largest democracy combining nipidly growiilg economy
and a powerful military machine. Though a democratic China will cause
lesser turbulence to its environment than a non-democratic one, it would
be a powerful rival to Russia, Japan, and India, and its weight in
international affairs will be felt all over the world. The process of
democratization may be a unique Chinese path, and not necessarily a
cloning of western models.
If that does not happen, China may still manage to combine its authori-
tarian political structure with rapid economic growth and military modern-
ization, in which case it would emerge as the most powerful authoritarian
state the world has seen. Will such an authoritarian state be able to live

U)IUllen!Qi/ing Cltina 221
in peaceful coexistence with its neighbours? Since it ji; 1mlikely that such
authoritarianism can be sustained in this information age, it would be an
unstable one over a period of time.
A third scenario is that the mismatch between the Chinese political
authoritarianism and Chinese economic pluralism may lead to a break-
down of the Chinese state, as happened to the Soviet Union. There bas
been a report of some younger Chinese intellectuals recommending
increasing federalism to fOtCStall this. lfthe centralimt command structure
in China is to loosen, it is bound to have its impact on minority areas
such as Tibet, Xinjiang, outer Mongolia, etc. Events in China are bound
to seismically impact Asia and the world
Since China is no longer an ideological power it does not evoke all-
round opposition from all industriali7.ed nations, unlike agaimt the Soviet
Union. Hence, there is no policy of containment operating against China.
All this would mean that whatever changes come about in China, it
would not· be on the Soviet model but would be more gradual and
evolutionary, even if there is to be a breakdown in central authority.
Hence, the Chinese challenge will be prolonged, and not short-term.
Asia bas five of the first ten most populous states of the world--
China, India, Russia, Japan, and Indonesia. China is at the centre of
them. China, which bas understood the game of power, is likely to attempt
to establish its pre-eminence in a number of ways-military moderniza-
tion, becoming Asia's largest economy, and developing high technology,
on the assumption that there would be continuity and stability in China.
In terms of purchase parity calculations, China is already a leading
economy of the world. It bas gone through basic industrialization and
will aim to build its modern economy on this vast base. Globalization of
the market can only help China towards rapid economic growth. China
bas already demonstrated its will to reach certain preferred standards of
excellence, 1mlike India. It bas a sizeable reservoir of high-technology
skills. China's challenge will, therefore, be in economy and technology,
which will have to be countervailed through competition in the age of
geo-econonucs.
.
••••
In spite of all the setbacks and tunnoi~ China bas been able to do better
than India Some have attributed the rapid growth of East Asian economies
to Asian values, by which they mean Confucian values. On the other
band, it is possible to suggest that a country's performance will depend

228 SJt«ldjng Sllibboletlts
upon the leadership• s attitude to power, their ability to do things. In

India power is not looked upon positively as ability to increase production,
services, or the capacity of the State to withstand external intimidation.
China never lost its sovereignty totally, u India did The Chinese had
continuity in their pe1spe..1ive about their role as a major power in the
world While Nehru talked of India's ttyst with destiny, the Chinese
leaden declared that China had stood up and it would not be insulted. In
order to catch up with the rest of the world, Mao was prepared to sacrifice
thirty million lives in the Great Leap Forward. Deng achieved the same
aim without paying such a high price.
A massive effort is needed to monitor developments in China and
implement a China policy on all aspectB--political. military, ecooomic,
technological, and cultural. The China desk has been headed in the
Ministry of External Affairs by China specialists, IDllike the other desks.
That alone is not adequate. It has to be n:inforced by China watching,
China assessment, and China policy planning. It may be noted that the
Chinese have several institutions to study South Asia.

22
Rethinking India-US Relations
On 20 July 1971, William llundy, formerly US Assistant

Secretary of State, said before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee:
What happens to these basic elements in ooe area is bound to affect their interplay
in lbe olber- I think happened in 1962~3 when the Chinese liwnilimioo of
India added greatly to Chinese prestige and the felt sense of threat in South East
Asia. I do not put this the other way around as Mr Bowles himself does, that
India may soon have a major role in East Asia or help to counterbalance China
there; I wish I saw that possibility, but it wm• to me that India, apart from a
lack of interest to the east among most of its leaden will have its band, full for
years to come and be too weak to amount to much in East Asian power tenns.
Hardly five months after he made this somewhat unflattering comment
about India, the Pakistan Anny had to surrender at Dacca. In 1974 India
conducted the Pokhran test and, in 1980, the Rohini satellite vehicle test
Still the US view of India, compared to Pakistan, was unfavourable in
power terms. US policy-makers presumably contrasted Pakistan's
purposeful pursuit of nuclear weapon capability to India buckling under
external pressw-e, and not following up the Pokhran test with a second or
third one. Though they were aware of Indian military potential in terms
of equipment and numbers, they were still unsure about the will of the
Indian political leadership to exercise power.
As late as in June 1987, the National Defense University conducted a
war game on the Sri Lanka situation and sent its conclusions to the
Pentagon. The conclusion was that India would not intervene in SJi uoka
and would be passive. Within days thereafter, the IAF dropped rice bags
over Jaffna, and within two months the IPKF was in Sri Laol<a.
••••
In 1991-92, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was engaged
in an 18-month study on India-US relations in the post--<:old war period.
Its 53-page report was co-authored by Selig Harrison and Geoffrey Kemp.

Participating in the study wm: a group of ani:nent US citiuns; some

eminent Indians wm: also invited for coosul1atioos.
The report recorded that there bad been remmbble changes in the
perceptions of the US establishment about India and its role in the inter-
national system. It recommended that India should not be pressured to
sign the NPT but should be persuaded to malce a formal unilateral pledge
to abide by NPT provisions banning the export of nuclear weapons or
military-related nuclear technology. This was already India's policy. The
report also urged Washington to join the CTBT, a multilaleral fieez.c on
production of fissionable materials and an agreement on no first use,
echoing three long-standing Indian demands on the US. It urged India to
join the five-power regional nuclear dialogue on the basis of equality of
participation and an agenda in which reciprocal obligations of all
participants could be discussed.
The report declared that India was one of the world's major battle-
grounds in the struggle between secularism and extremist forms of
religious fundamentalism. It recognized that the growth of Islamic funda-
mentalism in areas adjacent to India, especially South West Asia and
Central Asia, could pose common security concerns for New Delhi and
Washington. Given the uncertainties sunoundiog Chinese and Japanese
regional goals and tensions in American relations with Beijing and Tokyo,
stronger US ties with India would broaden American options and further
the American goal of a stable regional power balance, it said
The report noted that "given the growing convergence of Indian and
American geopolitical interest, the growth of Indian military power could
well prove advantageous to US interest in the context of an overall
improvement in lndo-American relations". It also noted that many in the
US had in mind some conflicts of interest and uncertainties about China,
Japan and the Islamic world, and did not tbinlc in tenns of a unipolar world
When Britain was the sole superpower, it reduced its defence burden
and enhanced its commercial advantage by promoting a balance of power
in Europe among Russia, Germany, France, and the Hapsburg empire.
As an island Britain stayed out but manipulated the continental balance
of power to its advantage and spread its colonial power outside Europe.
The new US strategy as the sole superpower is to create a Eurasian
balance of power consisting of the EU, Russia, China, Japan, and India
and manipulate it from outside. The existence of nuclear weapons rules
out balance-of-power wars of the type waged in nineteenth-century
Europe. In a sense, it will be a balance of influence where there is both
cooperation and competition among the other five. If only the other five

Rethinking India-US Re/anons 231
can get together and harmonize their policies, they will be able to
countervail the US. But that does not seem likely, because the US is
likely to have closer relationship with each of the five than they are
likely to have with each other.
Among the five, four-EU, Russia, Japan and India-share values of
market economy and democracy with the US. China does not share demo-
cratic values, and its transition to democracy-which is inevitable in this
age of knowledge, information technology, communications and transport-
ation revolution---probably accompanied by violence, is likely to be one
of the most important international security issues in the next two to
three decades. Since India is China's neighbour, any turbulence in China
is likely to have coosiderable impact on this countty. When China becomes
democratic, union with Taiwan will not present a problem; pending that,
China is not likely to risk a conflict with the US.
As the world's policeman, the US bas a vested interest in ensuring the
territorial status quo of various countries. As a multicultural society, it
cannrn afford to support mono-cultural states or clash of civilizations
thesis, including Pakistan's two-nation theory. Nor can the US afford to
petmit the use and threat of use of weapons of mass destruction, inr.luding
nuclear weapons. Though it does not acknowledge it, the US knows it is
paying a heavy price for nurturing religious extremism and terrorism as
instrumentalities to prosecute the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s.
ln these circumstances, the only possible challenge to US dominance
in the next five decades is the EU, and much less likely, China, in
economic terms. But the US will still retain its military and technological
edge, sucking the best talent available in the world, including from China
and India. There will be disagieements and competition among the six
major powers, not armed conflict. There will also be considerable
mutuality of strategic interests in fighting common threats like inter-
national terrorism, religious extremism, organized crime and international
pandemics like AIDS. Other areas of mutual interest would be: ensuring
unintenupted flow of oil from the Gulf area, containing the accumulation
of conventional anns and weapons of mass destruction in the area, and
fighting the drug menace centred in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border
and the associated . narco-terrorism.
It will not be an equitable world. There will be wide disparities, unfair
exploitation of the weak by the strong and dominance of certain major
cultures. There will be increasing intermingling of the world's peoples.
With a relatively higher proportion of the population of the industrial
world advancing in age, there will be migration of people from the

232 Sltedding SJubbokths
developing to the developed world, leading to multi-aihuralism of a

higher intensity in the industrial world.
In this world, India's national security problems will be different from
1hoae of the past decades. India never bad any direct cont1ict <;f interests
with the US; it was the secood-order impact of the cold war rivalry that
affected India's security and interests. Among these were the American
stand on the Kashmir issue, the American obsessioo with nuclear and
missile proliferation, and restri1..1ioos oo technology transfers. It is very
difficult for a co1mtry, whether the US or India, to promptly jettison the
mind-set and conditioning of decades. But there are indications that they
are reviewing some of their policies, such as insistence on plebiscite in
Kashmir We also bad our differences regarding this region, such as the
Israeli occupation of Palestine and US pllrtiality to kings and sheikhs.
The US military relationship with India is now qualitatively better than
that with Pakistan. Today Pakistan and China feature more in the adverse
security calculations of the US than India does. Tbe US is likely to
station its forces in this region and exert pressure on Pakistan tt> reform
itself into a moderate Islamic state.
Pakistani nuclear and missile capabilities are now of major concern to
the US. Since pennitting any country to use or threaten to use its nuclear
capability, and benefiting out of it, is not in US interest, the US is bound
to keep the Pakistani nuclear arsenal under close watch. Tbe Indian uuclear
programme with its no-first-use policy does noi pose a problem for the
US. The international community led by the US is slowly veering round
to the view that India, along with other great powers-the EU, Russia and
Japan---<:ao be part of an international security framework. Some time ago,
we bad both US and Russian defence teams at the same time in India
discussing defence cooperation, a far cry from the days oftbe cold war.
•••
•
US literature on India often refers to the Indian ambition to play a global
role and Indian self-perception of being a great nation. (In 1992, a US
Department of Defence (DoD) draft leaked to the New York Tunes of 8
March talked of the need for the US to prevent any other power emerging
as a .rival and mentioned about the Indian hegemonic ambitions which
might need to be curbed. When the Indians expressed unhappiness, the
US authorities said that they were only drafts and bad not been approved
at higher levels.) The Americans tend to bully at bureaucratic level.
Indians in their encounters with the Americans at academic, political.
• .. D1g1t1zeo by Google Orlgmal frcm

Rethinking India-US ReUllion., 233
and diplomatic levels tend to irritate them and often challenge the
Americans' basic world view.
Americans preacli all the time to the rest of the world virtues they do
not always practise, but they do not like being preached to, which they
think, rightly or \\TODg)y, Indians tend to do.
Paki.,tanis are not so impertinent They may produce nuclear weapons
after holding out assurances to the US they would not; they may train
and harbour terrorists and export terrorism. But they do not usually
disagree with US global policies and challenge the US. When General
Aslam Beg dared to do that by talking of strategic defiance in sympathy
with Saddam Hussein, the US discovered three years belatedly that
Pakistan was in possession of the bomb and invoked the Pressler amend-
ment, which punished the Pakistani military severely.
Pakistan makes a deliberate attempt to enable its officers to cultivate
the US military establishment at various levels and encourage them to
continue to maintain friendly peBOD8l relations with them OD a ooe-to-
one basis during the rest of their Clll'eerS. Benazir Bhutto engaged the
former lobbyist of Israel, Mm Siegal, as her lobbyist in Washington in
spite of all Pakistani anti-Israeli rhetoric. Pakistan spends many times
more on lobbying in the US than India and is believed to be making
campaign contributions to many US Congressmen through various front
organizations in the US.
Pakistan ,:ncourages contacts between US and Pakistani academics on
a wide scale. American academics find it easier to visit Pakistan than India,
and the Pakistani leaders are said to be more hospitable and accessible
to the US scholars than their Indian counterparts. Pakistani politicians and
Foreign Office officials make frequent visits to the US and cultivate the
various US officials and thinlc-tanks India's self-image would not peunit
this, but India could do a lot better in improving relations with the US.
The US bas developed institutional mechanisms and processes to brief
all its officials, academics, politicians, and even businessmen on US
policies so that when they visit India they all talk more or less the same
language. Consequently, one finds a visiting eminent American anthro-
pologist, breakfast cereals manufacturer or leather products purchaser
advising the Indians to go along with the US policies on nuclear and
missile issues and settle the Kashmir problem, or else there will be
economic costs and penalties. The Indian bureaucracy and politicians
are not structured and equii'l)ed to deal with this onslaught. The preaching
Americans need to be told that if they do not accommodate India OD
nuclear, missile and Kashmir issues in which they do not have vital

mlae1'.\. they •1i: be iuw~ OOl the lndJ·p maUII and ex Ha.ts IO lbe
wropeasr. and 1lC Japat11CttC. The Cbmac b:n-e ~-ai lh:Js gw,r oacady.
hwhao f,..mgn Ser,.,a negia:u Track U di;,iolmc)". In dx L.S. lbe policy
i\ made not <J11r,
, tr,
, the adrmmsu-aion. ~ S. owws ..t Coog;r::w,. .
have very c.lr...e hrh •1th dnn.,-«ank, omd bonuw ~ily fiom lbti.
ideat. The mc:ma, •iuch abo ~ - a 51gn1fianr ro.c. an: influmad by
,uch thmk-tanb. It li difficult to get dx Indian point ofv-;e,., publi,hol
in an Amcricao papa ~ be bas bem idr,,ufcd a hkb-mindcd.
•••
•
The v.11r,cntir,naJ ,,.-i.soom in India is that the Democrats are more liberal
than the Republicans. Roosevelt and Kennedy are ,eturmbaed in Jnctia
with warmth; Richard Sixon is, perhaps, the most dctesled CS Ptesideuf.
But there have been Democratic presidents not \'et}' s,0.,..11~ to Jnctia
()ilce Jimmy Carter} and Republican ones ,1,bo displayed good ,;i,ill (like
f:..1M:nhowerJ. The Truman Administration acted against lrvtian intcleSb
c,n Ka'>hmir. The Kennedy government ~-em to IOWD oo the Goa issue. It
loudly pr,,claimed the dispatch of~massive~ military assistance to India,
bu• left the Indian defence effort in the lurch. India was, therefore, forced
11, tum 11, the Soviet Union. President Johnson compelled India to live
from ship-to-mouth when India bad to rely oo PL-480 imports during the
Bihar drought. Carter's arm-twisting on the nuclear issue is well reioe-n-
bered Then there was a Republican President like Reagan, who responded
11, the Indian overtures to build cordial relations, and at the same time
looked away as his CIA chief helped Palcistao to launch its drug trade in
a major way, and Pakistan built its bomb and became a major player in
international terrorism. President Bush (Sr.) inherited the Rr.agao legacy
hut !<till wa.~ helpful in maintaining cordial relations. Many of the problems
c,n Super 301, technology transfer, human rights, MTCR. etc., between
the two nati<ms are attributable to pressures from Co~ and inadequate
attcnti<m paid to it by India. The Republican party bas the image of
being more busine,s-friendly than the Democratic party. There is also a
general belief that the Democrats are more fundamentalist and doctrinaire
on the nuclear proliferation issue. 1bis belief originates from the stand
lakcn by President Jimmy Carter and the leading crusaders oo the ooo-
prolif1.-r.ition issue in the Senate being Democrats like John Glenn-who
drafted the US Nuclear Nonproliferation Act- and Alan Cranston. It
was not always so. According to Seymour Hersh in his book Samson
Option, in the I960s the Democratic Administration was of the view that
there was no hann in India going nuclear.

Rethinking India-US Relations 235
In the final analysis, it is easier to do business with US hardliners,

who are pragmatists and know their mind and what they want, than with
wishy-washy liberals. The US hardliners are more predictable since they
respect power and adjust themselves to it, unlike the US liberals who
morafu:e, are preachy and indecisive. Kissinger, in spite of all the mischief
be perpetrated in 1971 vis--a-vis India, rec.ognim:I India's role in 1974,
and even today bas a more realistic and positive assessment of India's
independent stance in international affairs than many others.
The US hardliners, as was evident even in the annual report to Congress
of the Defence Secretary in 1990, were reconciled to India becoming a
missile power in the 1990s. They also desired to build up Pakistan's
regional deterrent capability. The hardliners of the right in the US, the
Heritage Foundation, argued in favour of a state of stabiliz.ed deterrence
between India and Pakistan based on ambiguous deterrence.
The appropriate strategy to deal with any US Administration is not to
indulge in bluff, not to whine about further flow of equipment to Pakistan,
not to allow an image of insecurity, and not to exhibit our nervousness
about our expectations on continuing economic aid, but to project an
image of confidence, to continue with our high-technology application
to defence, and to initiate confidence-building measures with our neigh-
bours, Pakistan and China. Our intense diplomacy on the latter front
should be used as a countervailing point to stress that we are aiming at
ensuring our security in future at lesser level of forces, and in order to do
that we have to go in for a higher level of technology in defence. An
American or German will be able to appreciate that stand and will recog-
nize that it is a reasonable and honest one. While everyone is aware of
our high-technology programmes and respects us for it, just postponing
some tests in order to get over some aid consortium meeting or other will
only tell the world that we can be pushed around. Today, India bas a
reputation for pragmatic and reasonably efficient 1118Dagement of economy
and as an emerging self-reliant power and a responsible actor in inter-
national politics.
The US needed Pakistan in the cold war for the U-2 base in Peshawar,
the electronic listening post at Badber, and then as an arms conduit to
the Afghan mujahideen. But now that the cold war is over, the US and
the western democracies have no use for dictatorships and militarist
regimes. The world is moving towards democracy, pluralism and market-
friendly economic system. Since military capability is likely to decline in
utility as currency of power, the world bas become polycentric. In such
an international order, the search has switched from containment to

236 SlteJdiltg Sltibboleths
cooperatioo to promotioo of stability. The US military finds it desirable

to cooperate with the Indian military establishment not against any
perceived military threat but to consolidate democracy and stability in
Asia. The arenas for the struggle for democracy and hutND iights are
DOW shifting to China, South East Asia, West Asia, and Africa. In 1991,
when the Soviet Union was disintegrating, the Pakistanis gloated at the
way India's friend was ending up. They would have expected that the
US would fully exploit its advantage in Afghanistan by supporting the
installation of a fundamentalist regime in Kabul, and that in the post-
Gulf War security arrangement for the Gulf area, the US would depend
upon Pakistan as a local junior partner.
But soon the time came, when not a day passed without the Pakistani
Press discussing what came to be perceived as an emerging lndi&-US
axis. Many commentators in Pakistan started urging a China--Pakistan-
Iran-Turkey axis to countervail it In one intctview, Agba Sbahi, a former
Foreign Minister of Pakistan, talked about Pakistan finding new friends
ready to stand by it in dealing with India if the US "continued to find
going along with India more convenient". In another intctview, he said
that the US did not need any friends in this region since its main opponent,
the USSR, had collapsed. Referring to the recent trips made by top US
military officials to India, he asked against what threat was this incipient
US-India alignment directed.
••••
In the history of multifaceted IndilHJS relations, the defence component
has been one of the thorniest. In the 1940s the US turned down the
Indian request for armaments when Lt. Col. (subsequently Lt. Gen.) 8 .M.
Kaul led· a mission hoping to cash in on the goodwill of the then US
Defence official Colonel Johnson, who was his personal friend. In 1950
there was a limited purchase of Shennan tanks which were becoming
obsolete in the US. In the late 1950s there was a licence to manufacture
106 mm recoilless rifles and purchase of Fairchild Packet supply-dropping
aircraft. The US government, however, vetoed the proposal of Lockheed
to license-manufacture of F-104 Starfightcr aircraft in India. After the
Chinese attack of 1962 the US sent in, over three years, some $80 million
worth of supplies, mostly non-lethal, including six obsolescent surveillanc,,
radars, 24 Fairchild Packet aircraft, one reconditioned small-annq ammu-
nition factory, and some obsolescent signal, snow-clearing and factory
equipment. The combat equipment which India received included 81
mm mortars, .30 Browning machine guns and 57 mm recoilless guns. In

Rethinking India-US Relations 237
spite of promising a $500 million aid programme (half credit and half
grant) it was made clear that the US would not supply any combat equip-
ment On 6 June 1964 Defence Minister Y.B. Cbavan and US Defence
Secretary Robert S. McNamara signed a five-year defence cooperation
programme between India and the US; in September 1965, the US
terminated it following the Pakistani aggression on India. During the
Carter period the US administration vetoed a Swedish offer to sell their
fighter aircraft to India since it had an American engine.
After the Reagan administration took office, there was a reappraisal
in the US of the international strategic environment and India's role in it
Even the hardliners. in the admioistratioo took note of the following
points. India was choosing its equipment on merit and was not buying
only from the Soviet Uoioo. The Jaguars, the HDW submarine deal, the ·
Mirage 2000, and the negotiations for Bofors amply proved this .. Second,
India had its own Afghanistan policy and did not agree wholeheartedly
with the Soviet Uruoo. Third, the Indian defence R.&D was making steady
strides towards developing and manufacturing indigenous designs of
equipment. Fourth, the US bad to take note of the Sino-Soviet rapproche-
ment making headway, Japan becoming increasingly a competitor and
the fundamentalist Islamic countries turning anti-West. Fifth, India was
increasingly following a liberal economic policy, developing a capital
market and its growth rate was steadily going up. The Americans also
saw India handle the traumatic events of 1984 with sobriety and balance.
All these factors led to the Reagan .Administration changing its ~
tioo of India and adopting a policy that departed from the traditionalist
one. The Americans also realiz.ed that they could oot compete with the
Soviet Union in tcnns of hardware supply to India in view of the Soviet
equipment not being costed on market principles and the credit repayments
being fitted into the rupee payment system. It is the hardliners more than
the liberals in the US who concluded that the supply of limited amount
of technology to India would help in making India increasingly inde-
pendent of the Soviet Union, and could grve the US influence in Asia at
a time wbco uncertainties were developing in its relationship with China,
Japan, and the Islamic world Out of these considerations came the MoU
of 1984 on cooperation in science and technology, which included
defence. It may be noted that Casper Weinberger was the first defence
secretary in office to visit India in 1986, thirty-rune years after Indian
independence. Two years later, Frank Carlucci followed in his steps.
India, in view of its experience, was not looking forward to acquiring
military hardware from the US but wanted high technology, subsystems,

components, etc. which could accelerate Indian R&D. India was able to
convince the US that there would be DO leakage of US technology to
other co1U1tries through India, and a framework of adequate safeguards
was developed to the satisfaction of the US authorities. The latter were
impressed with the progJCSS of Indian defence R&D and felt that India
would anyway push ahead with its objectives.
The US military establishment also came to develop a bcaltby respect
for the professionalism of the Indian military establi.shment and its
apolitical nature. Contrary to the popular impression, for US defence
professionals, Operation Brasstacks, the Indian Army taking up its
positions rapidly on the Sino-Indian border in 1986, the logistics
perfonnance in Sri umlca and the Maldives, the Siacben high-altitude
operations, the training programme of the Indian forces and the civil--
military relations-all bad a positive impact.
Unlike Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Italy, US arms supplies
have strings attached to them by CongJCSS. Importing arms from a country
that reserves the right to supply spares and ammunition on the basis of
its judgement and not that of the recipient needs caution. Hence, on the
present procedure only a defence technology transfer relationship relating
to subsystems and component technologies can be achieved between the
two countries and not an arms transfer relationship.
On this basis, since 1986 the US bas bec-r> making available component
sub-technologies for the Indian LCA programme, and some insttumenta-
tion testing and calibration technologies.
Largely, Indian reservations on military cooperation with the US are
influenced by the memories of the I 960s. Indians assume, not unjusti-
fiably, that the Americans tend to allow their military cooperation with
India to be made hostage to their relations with Pakistan. Since the
Pentagon-Pakistan army and the CIA-ISi relations are strong, and India
bas DO analogous links with the US, Pakistan is able to wield undue
influence on lndo-US military relations. This is also evident from the
way middle-level US officials bring Pakistan and its sensitivities into
discussions limited to Indo-US relations.
For India, the first option is to continue the policy of legitimate military
relations with the US. 1 A better alternative is to make an effort to cultivate
I. Defence cooperation does not necessarily imply a similar strategic alignment

The US bad extaisive military interaction with the Soviet Union for a numb« of years,
and also with China. US Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger in the Reagan Adminis-
tration attcndc:d Chinese military exercises. Hlllldreds of Soviet and C'.binese officials
usocialcd with defence establishments attended counes and aeminars in the US.

R.elhinbng India-US Relations 239
the US military and the CIA and win them over to the view that they
have more mutuality of strategic interests with India than with Pakistan
and cooperative military relations with India will pay them higher
dividends in their own national security and interests.
•••
•
Even as India signed a defence assistance agreement with the US in June
1964, there was not much of strategic dialogue with the US. There was a
lot of argument about the preamble. The US wanted to include the wording
"Chinese Communist aggression", and finally settled for the Indian
wording "aggression directed by Peking". Because of our non-alignment
it was understandable that we shied away from all strategic dialogues,
but now there are mutual concems between India and the US about new
threats to international security. Consequently, both sides have agreed
that military-to-military ties should be supplemented by periodic
consultations between senior civilian officials of the Indian Ministry of
Defence (MoD) and their counterparts in the US DoD.
Toe Americans are very systematic and articulate in their policy-
making. Every year they produce a host of documents outlining in detail
the US perceptions and policies on every area and issue. Hence, there is
a continuity and coherence in their perceptions and policies; and where
they make changes-end they do with every change of administration--
there are clear explanations for them. Behind all this transparency they
are able to preserve their core agenda secret mainly because of the extent
of transpattpcy and the ability to keep their politico-strategic establish-
ment in line with their stated goals and objectives.
India has no strategic tradition and no procedures and mechanism for
strategic thinking, Our security concerns did not extend very far from
our borders and we were not compelled to develop a global strategic
perspective. We just muddled through without incurring too high a cost
in national security or interests. That style of foreign and security policy-
making will need to change if India is to be an independent global actor,
a permanent member of the Security Council, assume responsibility for
international peacekeeping and peace making, and become a strategic
dialogue partner with the US and, in due course, with other major powers
as well.
If India is serious about its strategic dialogue with the US, a number
of steps have to be taken. First, there must be two Additional Secretary-
level officers in the MoD and Ministry of External Affairs, and a

240 Shedding SJril>boletlu
Licmc:nant Genctal in the Army beadquarten, exclusively devoting them-

selves to international security affairs. They should be active members
of the nc. 111,•hich needs to be invigorated and Cuetgi,ed. These officials
should be able to monitor the intemariooal security developments in the
areas of mutual concern between the US and India. For disc115.$iOOS with
the US delegation this team should be fielded. and not just one senior
officer from the MoD. An effort should b,- made b) spell out the Indian
world view on global security issues and that should be II COwp1ehensive
document presented to Pailiameut amrually .
•••
•
Mid-1991, when the mdiao gt,v1=1101-::111 initialed its ccooomic reforms
programme, was a major point of change in the Indian world-view. While
the Indian government played an active role in dismantling the regulatory
structures, the US government's role was more of a promoter. While
American investment decisions are taken autooomousfy by US corpora-
tions, US government goodwill does play a significant role in influeocing
their investment decisions. If American firms 8alWlC a vested interest in
commercial relations with a particular country, they in tum start
influencing US state policy towards that country. Once the Indian market
is open for investments and those are made attractive enough for foreign
investors, India has a tremendous bmgaiJling leverage with the western
COlllltries. If the US is reluctant to invest, others will. The technological
restrictions that the US believes in imposing fiom time to time whenever
India does not do US bidding, canmt be long lasting; soooer or later,
economic considerations will lead to pragmatism. India's. enonnous
bargaining advantage in its large market is not being converted into
effective use on political issues, mostly because the Indian political and
bureaucratic establishments lack a coherent operational strategy.
There is no unipolar world, and exaggerating US power is counter-
productive. Toe US will need India in the future global management of a
polycentric world with a large unstable developing area, as much as
India will need the US. The industriali:red world is going to be fiercely
competitive among the trading blocs, and that will give India significant
manoeuvrability. Toe Indian community in the US will gain further in
influence and will play an increasingly effective role in American affairs.

Mercurial China-US Relations
With its announcement of missile tests close to Taiwan

in March 1996, China sought to impose a virtual blockade on Taiwan's
two major ports, Keelong and Kaohsiung. The missiles were expected to
traverse Taipei. The Chinese aim appeared to be to intimidate the
Taiwanese voters, who were going to the polls on 23 March, to elect for
the first time a president in direct elections. The leading candidate Lee
Teng Hui, then president, had been attempting to promote Taiwan's
independent identity. Earlier, the US sent its aircraft carrier USS Nimitz
through the Taiwan Sbaits to demonstrate its tacit commitment to Taiwan.
The Chinese have been patient and have worked out a three-stage
plan for unification of all China. The Hong Kong merger is the fust step,
to be followed by the merger of Macao, and then Taiwan. China has
offered to Taiwan the two-system-one-nation fo11nala, being imposed on
Hong Kong. The Taiwanese leadership, while subscribing to one-China
theory says it would consider unification only when China becomes
democratic. Taiwan is one of China's major investors. It has been steadily
relocating its labour-intensive industries into China, even as it mode111izes
to higher value-added production. When
.
the US President was considering
non-renewal of most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment for China, the
Chinese warned that it would significantly affect the Taiwanese invest-
ments. The lack of diplomatic relations and the official state of civil war
have not hampered the mutually beneficial trade and industrial relations
between Chma and Taiwan. However, there have been other problems.
More than a score of Taiwanese tourists were murdered while in China.
This evoked considerable criticism in Taiwan. There have also been
incidents of a number of Chinese domestic flights being hijacked to
Taiwan and the hijackers -not being handed back to China. When the
Chinese compelled the US to drop its 20-year support to the Taiwanese
regime as representing all of China, and made it accept the Beijing govern-
ment as the government of all China, which included Taiwan, US policy-
makers felt that while they would nominally accept one China, they would

242 SM4durg SJc,J,bolnJu
be able to have ~ -o Chinas (mainland China and Taiwan) in reality and

fic:ae mat sttuarioo pcrperually.
Except for the Guomindang cadres and the Nationalist army which
,eUutcd into Taiw.m in 1949. mosl of the native Taiwaocsc have bad
li:ldc to do with China for well over a bur.cbed years, ever sinN: they
<aioe ,mdcr the Japarnc occupabOII in the late ni:netccntb century.
Tbe oil lanes from the Middle East to Japan pass through Taiwan
Sttaits, and China' s virtual blockading of two major Taiwanese poits
would send llltl'aoingful signals t.o Japan China's ability to fire missiles
close to two of Taiwan's main poits and airspace and disrupt shipping
and flights. and the US inability to deter mat action, bad also bad a
definite IJlCSY8C to the counaies of South East Asia.
In early 1996, the US President lifted the sanctions 011 sale of telecom-
munication satellites, imposed against China in 1989 in the wake of the
Tiaoanmcn Square incident It was argued mat the four satellites would
in no way cootnl>ute to China's military capacity. (When it came to the
sale of Rus.sian cryogenic rocket engines to India, the US was not
pe, suaded that cryogenic engines would never be used for military
purposes.) If they wanted to cootinuc to block the sale of satellites to
China they could easily have argued mat imploved satellite communica-
tion would reinforce commllDication infra.sttucturc for the defence forces.
This was a case of"Tell me who the person is, then I'll tell you what rule
should apply".
On the "sacred" issue of non-proliferation, the US conceded in 1996
mat whatever violations the Chinese might be responsible for, the US
would swallow them. China also indicated mat its copyright violations
would be more than compensated by liberal promises about the future
(which might not necessarily be fulfilled). An agieem.:nt on the matter
bad been reached in 1995 with the US, but US business complained that
its losses due to China's noo-observance of the intellectual property rights
(IPR) bad only increased after the agieemenl China warned mat any
American punitive action would hurt mat coUDtry more than China. China
made a song and dance about its admi!t~ion to the World Trade Organiz-
ation (WTO), while reaping full benefits of not being boUDd by WTO
regulations and unconditional MFN status from the US. The US had to
offer to China the inducements of presidential summits immediately after
the elections.
After having yielded to the Chinese on all issues, the US launched a
massive public relations exercise, with the cooperation of large sections
of the mass media, how it had won a great victory in its strategy of

Mercurial China-US Re/alions 243
engagement with China. So long as China got all it wanted, it did not
mind US decision-makers and the · media deluding themselves about
winning great victories in engag,:ment with China.
The Chinese defence minister expressed satisfaction over the strategy
of P.ngagement. It is possible the National Security Adviser improved on
the offer made hy US Defence Secretary William Perry during his visit
earlier in October 1994 to transfer to China computer simulation
technology. The US-Japan defence agreement and theatre ballistic missile
development should also have come up for discussion.
While officials of other countries rush to Washington when there are
differences with the US, the Chinese expect the Americans to come to
Beijing to discuss US-Chinese differences. This bas been so since
Kissinger made hls secret visit to China in July 1971.
The US respects military power first and foremost, and then economic
power. The US bullied China throughout the 1950s, transgressing its
territorial waters and airspace flagrantly. The US and its docile camp-
followers also denied China its legitimate seat in the Security Council.
Even after the Sino-Soviet dispute came into the open there was no
immediate change in US policy. To justify the United States' aggressive
war against Vietnam, the then Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, spoke of a
billion Chinese armed with nuclear weapons swarming over South East
Asia. The Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, proposed a missile
defence for the US because of China's nuclear missile capability.
The bullying tactics began to change as China acquired increasing
nuclear and missile capabilities. Then President Richard Nixon went on
a journey of penitence to Beijing. That was followed by the Carter
Administration establishing a strategic understanding with China. The
US started transferring military technology to China in the 1980s, and
kept quiet as China transferred nuclear technology to Pakistan in spite of
all the loud rhetoric about the United States' concern about non-
proliferation.
In the early 1980s, China opened up its rnarlcets. But the Chinese did
not buy a lot of consumer products from the US. Very cleverly the
Chinese booked a large number of US importers on cheap conswner
goods from China. They also inveigled a number of major US finns
dealing with high technology to sell their products to them.
In 1996, China bad a favourable trade balance with the US, exceeding
$3 billion and an overall two-way trade exceeding $70 billion. There are
complaints in sections of the western media that very sophisticated dual-
use technologies are being transferred to China circumventing US export

regulatiom. The Chinese have also retained many influential former US

officials, with wide-ranging contacts with the US adrnini~trations, as
consultants on very remunerative tmns. And very powerful lobby interests
have been built in the US to support Sino-US trade. Having carefully
prepared the ground, China is able to deal with the US in a tough manner
on a range of issues.
The Us-china interaction is very different from the cold war between
the US and USSR There is now clear understanding that a nuclear war
can not be won and must not be fought. The US also realizes that China
cannot be contained as the Soviet Union was. The rise of China's
economic power is considered inevitable along with its military modern-
ization. China understands the limitations of the US and is striving to
erode steadily on the credibility of US power in the Asian context. China's
transfer of ring magnP.ts to Pakistan and the implied threat of assistance
to Iran in the nuclear field appear to be carefully calibrated steps to
expose the weakness of the international nuclear regime, sponsored by
the US. As the weakness of the regime gets exposed, the US is likely to
lose credibility in the nations of Asia.
-
24
The Japan-US Tango
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyaz.awa of Japan, while answer-

ing a question in the Diet in early 1992, attributed the American economy's
poor performance to the American work ethic. Toe American worker
spends his Fridays thin.Icing about the weekend, he said, and his Mondays
recovering from the weekend; consequently, he works effectively only
for three days in the week. He said that the Americans had lost the ethic
of earning their wealth through the sweat of their brow, and were
attempting to do it through the easy route of financial jugglery such as
junk bond deals. (A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman hastily clarified
that the statement did not amount to disparagement of the American
worker.) Another Japanese leader a few weeks earlier had made a similar
statement on the decline of the American automobile industry. .
In spite of all its declaratory efforts, Japan's trade surplus with other
industrial nations, particularly the US, shows no sign of decline. Toe US
threat to act against Japan under super 301 article of its Trade Act was the
opening shot in a potential commercial conflict between the two trading
technological powers. Toe Americans also complain that Japan does not
transfer sophisticated technology to the US to the fullest extent, which is
usually the complaint other nations level against the US. Toe Japanese
wantonly gloated that while the US forces might have won the Gulf War,
the computer chips that enabled the victory mostly came from Japan.
Japan is also translating its economic clout into political influence,
again a factor for conflict with the US, which sees itself as having unique
global obligations and responsibilities. In this rapidly changing scenario,
Japan's alignments may not prove to be a simple extrapolation of its first
four decades after World Warn. In the last days of the cold war, the US
Commission on Long-term Integrated Strategy noted:
In the decades ahead, a key question affecting the strategic balance will be
whether Japan exercises its option to become a major military power. Even if it
does not, it may be influencing the strategic environment simply by its investment
decisions. A Japanese decision to help in the development of Soviet technology,

for example, could help to iDcrcase the Soviet miliwy potential. On the other
band, additional Japanese ocooomic ass;"3Dce to US allies 811d friends would
benefit our security.
The US, on the other hand, has been living beyond its means. Its
economy has all the shortcomings of various developing countries of the
world to which the World Bank and the IMF generously dole out advice.
The US spends excessively on defence, has a very low saving rate, has
very high foreign and internal debts, and IUDS a huge trade deficit. Its
savings and loans hanking sector was badly mismanaged and had to be
rescued by the legislature at the cost of the taxpayer's money. Some of
America's largest corporations have become bankrupt. The US govern-
ment subsidiz.es its inefficient agriculture sector. The US continues in its
inefficient and wasteful ways because the US dollar is the reserve cwreocy
of the world. The US is able to pay off its debts by printing more dollars,
in the process generating worldwide inflation.
Japan has achieved all the goals for which it embarked upon its
imperialist expansion. It has become the second richest country in the
world, and an economic superpower. In technology and trade, it poses a
formidable challenge to the US. What it could not achieve through military
power in eighty years of imperialist expansion, it achieved in fifty years
of peace, low defence expenditure, and a constitution which forbade it to
engage in a war outside its own territory. Logically, there is little reason
for Japan to deviate from its present policy and embark upon militaristic
adventure abroad.
Even as the Japanese have pursued a very successful and highly
innovative economic and technological strategy on military issues, they
have tended to follow the American conventional wisdom in their
proclaimed public policy. The Japanese could have their private percep-
tions on security issues, which they do not publicize lest it should annoy
the Americans. Irrespective of its declared policy, however, Japan conti-
nues to have a vigorous debate on the advisability of joining the US in
spending large sums of money on defence.
Japan at present has no threat from anybody and, therefore, does not
need either the US nuclear deterrence or the US forces. For the Japanese,
acceptance of US extended deterrence and payment of costs of stationing
the US forces are a small price to pay to satisfy the Americans and
maintain amicable relations with them even as the US-Japan rivalry
intensifies in trade and technology. The Japanese military capability is
being increased slowly and steadily, and today it is the third largest
military spender.
-
The Japan-US Tango 247
The US needs Japan for security more than the other way round. 1be
US cannot keep its defence forces in South Korea without Japanese
help. After the US was compelled to vacate the Subic Bay naval base
and the Clark Air Force facilities in the Philippines, only its presence in
Japan and South Korea gives the US the image of a Pacific power with
clout in East Asia. No nation in the Pacific area constitutes a higher
stake for US strategic calculations than Japan. Even if the Japanese did
not pay a cent for the cost of defence, if the US wants to be recogni:red
as the global security manager and supervisor, it could not afford to
allow Japan's security to be compromised. Japan's prosperity, technology
and riches make it the most :valuable stake in international security
calculations. Any loss of credibility in US security commitment to Japan
will make US security commitments to other nations in the Pacific look
very uncertain. In February 1995, the then US Assistant Secretary of
State Joseph Nye argued in a report that Japan-US security alliance was
the linchpin of US security policy in Asia.
At the same time, there is considerable unease among Japanese
authorities about the future of their security relations with the US. It is
unrealistic to expect that the Us-the foremost military power of the
world-will continue to provide extended deterrent protection to Japan.
its arch rival in technological and commercial matters. There is no
precedent for this. Imperial regimes do not permit the protected to compete
with the protector. The American complaints about free ride for Japan
on security-though Japan has been meeting a portion of the expenditure
on US forces deployed in Japan-will increase in volume and shrillness. 1
There is bound to be growing weariness of the US taxpayer, who would
resent the US providing the security under which Japan competes with
the US. Either the US will ask Japan to repay its security debts by yielding
to the US on economic competition or Japan will have to increase its
security autonomy if it is to be a direct competitor of the US. But for
some time to come, there is the Japanese calculation-why join issue
with the US on the security issue while their real battle is on trade and
technology? While MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry)
I. Japan meets 70 per cent of the cost of US forces stationed in Japan, arowid
44,000. The largest contingent is 21,000 US Marines. The US Air Force has 102
combat aircraft in Japan and 15,200 personnel. Okinawa bas the largest US air base
outside continental US. Yokosuka is the headquarters of the US Seventh Fleet and
Sasebo is the homeport for three US submarines and three amplubious ships. In
Okinawa, where half of the US forces are quartered, 20 per cent of the land has been
occupied by US forces, which the Okinawans greatly resent

pursues an independent policy and intcme rivalry with the US, the Foreign
Office and the Ministry of Defence tend to follow the US lead on all
international issues.
The US also has an interest in exaggerating Japan's future capabilities
in nuclear missile and conventional military field, to exacerbate the
security concerns of East Asian and South East Asian nations, which
have tasted the bitter experience of Japanese occupation during that
country's imperialist era. Japan is attempting to live down its past through
the apology resolution, through increased credits and investments in East
and South East Asia, including China, and by stepping up its official
development assistance (ODA). While the Japanese have had a measure
of success in this effort, the East and South East Asian nations still harp
on the Japanese atrocities and colonialism to extract additional benefits
from Japan.
As the US-Japan trade competition intensifies, there is likely to be
polarization among the nations of the Pacific rim. In such a scenario,
Japan cannot continue playing second fiddle to the US in political and
security matters. Japan's demand for a permanent seat in the UN Security
Council is indicative of its future intention. In the Security Council Japan
is not likely to follow the British example of toeing the US line. France
is relatively more independent. Russia and China assert their own views,
though of late, economic compulsions have made China more accom-
modative towards the US. But that is only a passing phase. If Japan
continues to grow as an economic power, it cannot escape playing the
role of a major strategic power as well. There cannot be a gross mismatch
between security hierarchy and economic hierarchy. The Japanese are
aware of it and so are the Americans. Both seem to have decided to buy
time by indulging. in friendly rhetoric -on security and pushing the
economic issues to the back burner.
Talk of stability and security in Asia-Pacific is a code word for the
fear of China. Neither the US nor Japan wants to name China as an
adversarial factor at present. Japan wants to buy time to develop its own
deterrent capability and wants to do it with an image of a reluctant power
being pushed into it. The US, knowing full well its major challenges
come from its industrialized allies in the economic sphere, does not want
to leave the China market to them by antagonizing China. The US appears
to be trying to balance the Japanese economic power with the Chinese
political power, in the process hoping to be called upon to be present in
the Asia-Pacific region as the ultimate balancer. The Japanese would
have taken note of the US carriers keeping out of the Taiwan Straits

The Japan-US Tango 249
during the height of the Taiwan crisis in early 1996, the impunity with
which China could blockade Taiwan, and the US inability and
unwillingness to take action against China on its breach of the NPT. The
Chinese Foreign Minister during his visit to Japan made it a point to
stress that Japan and the US should not gang up against China.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a debate is on about the nature of US-Japan
security alliance, especially in the light of agitation in Okinawa against
the continued presence of US service personnel in large numbers. 2 There
is growing sentiment in Japan in favour of that country 'playing an
increasing internationalist role. That in tum must lead to Japan reducing
its dependency on the US. Japan, however, is not likely to resort to
conspicuous militarization since it understands the decreasing utility of
military power in the developing international situation.
A · hint of Japan militarizing would send alarm signals all over the
region. This was evident in the needless international furore about Japan's
sending in four minesweepers and two support ships to the Gulf to help
in clearing Qlines in early 1991. The Chinese protested strongly, and the
Koreans followed suit. Prime Minister Kaifu even considered it advisable
to make a tour of five South East Asian nations to reassure them about
Japan's non-aggressive intentions. The Chinese, the Koreans, and South
East Asians pointed out that the Japanese military expenditure was the
third largest in the world, the Japanese Navy had one of the largest
surface combat potential, the Japanese bad a history of miljtarism, and
chauvinism was re-emerging at the fringes.
But sending minesweepers to the Gulf meant hardly anything. Japan
has no capability to project power across long distances, especially across
the· sea. Its army in 1991 was only around 160,000. While it has an
impressive navy, that force lacks two essential components needed for
2. In November 1995 US Defence Secretary William Perry visited Japan to prepan:

the growxl for the forthcoming visit of President Clinton to that country. Perry bad
suggested relocating part of the US forces from Okinawa to other parts ·or Japan, but
people do not want the US forces in their areas. There have been recurrent cases of
US Marines raping Japanese women in Okinawa. Before Perry's visit, the governor
of Okinawa, after five hours of discussions with the Prime Minister, refused to ask
the Okinawans to renew the leases of their lands to the US defence forces to enable
their continued deployment in the island. He preferred to be overruled by the Tokyo
government than ask his people to lease out their land. That would make the US
forces a kind of occupation force which stays oo Okinawa against the will of the
local people. Like the Soviet forces in various parts of Eastern EW'Ope earlier, the
local people do not want them, but the governments arc prepared to tolerate them on
larger political compulsions.

250 Shedding SliibboletJu
power projection: it bas no carrier-based air power and its amphibious

capability is limited to six troops-and-tank landing craft with a total
single-lift capacity for 4S tanks and 990 troops. Japan cannot start an
aggressive war with these capabilities. If Japan scans .building aircraft
carriers, major assauh ships, large troops carriers and support vessels,
that would be a signal of Japan's aggressive intentions.
Historically, Japanese military capability was buih over many decades
before it could be used effectively in South East Asia. The Japaqcsc had
to occupy Korea, Taiwan. coastal China, then force the French to give
them bases in Indochina before they could launch their assauh oo the
Philippines and Malaya. Japan's imperial expansioo had the initial British
support. By 1921 the Japanese Navy could sit as an equal with the US
and the British Navies to conclude the London i,gxeemeot defining the
ratios of the three fleets.
In the present context, before Japan ~ threaten the South East Asian
countries, it would need bases close by. Will it get them in China, Taiwan
or the Philippines? Would not the world be up in arms long before any
such thing happens? In this age, wben the continued occupation of a
country is costlier than invading it, fears of Japan repeating its militarist
adventure are unreal. Why would the Japanese want to do it in the first
place? Japan can try to dominate the world technologically and economic-
ally, but not at all militarily.
In January 1992 President Bush had to undertake his visit to Japan
not as the leader of the sole superpower directing the lesser nations about
their role in the new international order devised in Washington, but as a
salesman of US goods and agricultural products. American unemployment
rate and interest cuts had reached record levels at the time. The Japanese
leadership did not give Bush any comfort beyond talking of compassi-On
to be shown to the US and the Japanese interest in sustaining US
leadership in international relations. They did not speak of US leadership
in the world market. There was a hint in this that the land of the rising
yen might not indefinitely underwrite the Americans' profligacy and
inefficiency. During Bush's stay in Tokyo, the Japanese released the
trade figures for the past year, revealing that their ~ surplus bad
grown in 1991. During Prime Minister Hosokawa's visit to Washington
in early 1994, too, trade negotiations between President Clinton and the
Japanese Prime Minister ~roke down. The US, even while preaching the
virtues of free trade, was demanding that their bilateral trade should be
managed and Japan should accept numerical targets in terms of imports
of automobiles, auto parts, insurance and telecommunications, and medical
........
Tlie Japan-US Tango 251
equipment Hosokawa pointed out that it was a matter of principle for

Japan not to accept the US imposition of managed trade. He talked of
Japan's new "adulthood", implying that till now the Japanese relations
with the US were those of dcpcndcncy. Japan-bashing is widely prevalent
in the United States, while the resentment against the US in Japan is
muted. The US govcmrncnt has been warned against precipitate action
against Japan by a number of think-tanks IUld observers. (It is a historical
footnote that the US-Japan war of 1941 had its roots in US sanctions
against Japan on oil and scrap iron.) The problem between the US and
Japan over the enormous trade surplus in the latter's favour (it was around
$60 billion in 1994) is rooted in the excessive US consumerism and the
US gcncrally living beyond its means.
In mid-1995, long before the US gave its ultimatum to Japan of
imposing l 00 per cent import tariff on Japanese luxury cars, the Japanese
bad finalil"-d a face-saving device for the US, which they presented to
the US President. The Japanese bad developed their "global vision"
largely from their compulsions of a rising yen and the consequently high
labour cost in Japan. This enabled President Clinton to declare a victory
in bis negotiations with Japan to prise open the Japanese rnarlcct for US
automobiles and spares. He declared that the agreement would create
thousands of jobs for American workers and provide auto parts at lower
prices to the Japanese customers. It was also projected as the beginning
of rnalcing the Japanese markets more accessible to the US. The US
could not, however, compel the Japanese to accept numerical quotas for
import of cars and car parts.
The Japanese bad decided to rely more on imported ~mponcnts
and subsystems, produced cheaply in other countries, and then assemble
the cars either in Japan QI' Japanese plants elsewhere in the world In fact,
the Japanese media discussed that this might lead to immediate export of
Japanese capital equipment abroad for such manufacture in lower-wage
co1D1tries, and consequently the Japanese trade surplus might further rise
in spite of the high value of the yen. While the Japanese promised to
raise car production in their US plants, they were also planning to increase
production in their European and Asian plants .
••••
Some American observers, including Henry Kissinger, expect that some
time in future Japan may exercise its nuclear option since the country
bas both fissile materials for nuclear weapons and long-range missile
D1g1tizeo by Google Origlr.al from

2S2 Shedding Shibboleths
capability. Japan bas a very advanced nuclear programme and bandies

more plutonium than any other nation. Japan's rocket technology puts it.
within the first five nations of the worid. If it cbooses-an oolikely event-
Japan can easily transfonn itself into a nuclear and missile weapon power.
Japan's major interest is in nuclear energy. Japan bas made a.major
effort to reduce its dependence on coal and oil by investing heavily in
nuclear power plants. Japan bas forty-five nuclear power plants operating
or under construction and fifteen planned for. It bas a fast breeder reactor
functioning at Monju. It also reprocesses plutonium in its plants at Tokai
Mura and Rokkasho Mura. The Japanese require their spent fuel to be
reprocessed in France and the resulting plutonium to be transported to
Japan. There have been negotiations between Japan and USA, Japan and
France and these countries and IAEA on reprocessing and safe transporta-
tion of plutonium. The proposals for transportation by air have been
opposed by countries and states which will be flown over by the carrier
aircraft because of the possible risk of accidents. In other words, Japan
needs the goodwill of the US and France for some more years for susten-
ance of its enonnous nuclear power production. Being extremely sensitive
to its own energy security interests, Japan is not likely to adopt a stand
on nuclear issues likely to create tension with the US.
It is difficult, however, to believe the Japanese claim that they do not
barl>our any anti-American sentiments for the use of nuclear weapons
against them, and they only have developed a nuclear allergy. It would
appear that the use of the bomb, the military defeat, and the US occupation
have had a very deep psychological impact on Japan, and their present
apologetic attitude towards American nuclear weapons is only clever
tactic to enable Japan to move ahead in the world If the US-Japan trade
and economic relations worsen, it will not be surprising if Japan comes
out with its public resentment of the use of nuclear weapoil" against its
cities.

V
Alarm Signals
Original from
25
Intimations of the Future
Coinciding with the ninetieth anniversary of the award

of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee organimt a
three-day symposium on the subject "Beyond the Cold War: Future
Dimensions in International Relations" on 5--8 December 1991. Participat-
ing were a number of Nobel Peace Prize winners or their representatives
(for organu.ations}--the Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wisel,
President Oscar Arias, Mairead Maguire of Ireland, Bernard Lown (for
the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War), the UN,
International Committee of the Red Cross, UNICEF, UNHCR, Amnesty
International, Institute of International Law, International Peace Bw-eau,
and the League of the Red Cross and Red Crescent- and scholars from
various countries. The pervasive mood was one of search for under-
standing the. present human predicament and possible solutions to it,
rather than assertion of theoretical certitudes.
Even though it had been anticipated that such a diverse group of
crusaders, activists and analysts might not be able to arrive at a consensus,
the unexpected happened. The symposium agreed that with the end of
the cold war there had been a shift in the international paradigm. The
change was brought about not by the cold war strategy of the West, but
by the upsurge among the peoples of the communist bloc in Europe. The
collapse of the communist system was built into its wrongly conceived
social evolution theories.
Some tended to assert that th~ East- West confrontation tended to be
changed into a North-South one. A subtler segment ·o r this school of
thought argued that the North and South should not be interpreted in
strictly geographic terms: there is growing unity and cohesion among the
world's elite, which attempts to exclude 75 per cent of humanity, whether
in the North or the South, from the benefits of development The new
instrumentalities of this confrontation are the World Bank, the IMF and
the transnationals. This exploitation boomerangs on the developed world
through ecological destruction, demographic pressure, narcotics, and

terrorism. Another school, while agreeing with this picture, mused whether
the approach of the North was not based on misconceived social and
eronomic theories: the seeds of its destruction might be in the enormous
non-military threats to humanity. The Norwegian Prime. Minister, Harless
Brundtland, herself focused on these issues in her concluding address.
She emphasized the industrialized countries' special responsibility for
reducing carbon dioxide, ozone depletion and improving the environment
in terms of promoting Sl'Stainahle development by transfer ofenviromneot-
friendly technologies to developing countries. Sbe decried the inequity
of the debt burden and called for equitable burden sharing. One participant
characterized the present situation as an unprecedented window of
opportunity, but a fragile one.
••••
The core international issues for the future, now that the world has
survived the threat of nuclear holocaust, are going to be, saving the
planet from the adverse impact of climatic change, ecological issues
(such as desertification, destruction of rain forest, toxic wastes, pollution
of water and air, etc.), population explosion with the attendant conse-
quence ofpopulation movement creating tensions, tuibulence and violence
in the developing world, expanding democracy and human rights to ·
increasing number of people on the globe, and managing the transition
to democracy with minimum violence arising out of threats of sub-
nationalism, religious fundamentalism, authoritarianism, underdevelop-
ment, and poverty resulting from gross maldistribution of wealth. While
humanitarian values are gaining ground as an international norm, more
than fifty developing nations of the world are either military-ruled or
military-dominated. Other forms of authoritarianism prevail in many other
developing nations. Religious fundamentalism has become a major
destabilizing and counter-humanitarian factor. Democratization and
secularization of these societies are necessary preconditions of their
development. Religious fundamentalism, lack of representational govern-
ment, oppression of minorities, and unequal development within nations
are likely to keep the developing world turbulent and violent for some
more decades to come.
In assessing the global, regional and national situations and fo11J1ulating
optimal policy options, it is necessary to avoid two extremes. Measures
to stabilize democracy, evolve human rights, alleviate poverty and repair
environmental damage caused by the drive towards affluent society take

Intimations of the Future 257
time. It is unrealistic to expect very rapid transfonnation at the same

time, though steady tangible progress has to be maintained in attaining
these objectives. The second pitfall is ignoring any or all of these issues
for parochial gains, and making disproportionate demands on those who
have lagged behind for no fault of their own. While sections of intellectuals
in the West need to go easy on their certitudes, many scholars from the
developing world need to tone down their bitterness and pessimism.
CLIMATIC CHANGE
On 27-30 June 1988, an international conference was held in Toronto

on "Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security". More than
three hundred scientists and policy-makers from forty-eight countries
participated. The chilling message of the conference statement was that
the ultimate consequences of climatic change could be second only to a
global nuclear war. The continuing alteration of the global atmosphere
threatened global security, the world economy and the natural environ-
ment, it said. This happened from three factors: (a) climate warming,
rising sea level and altered precipitation patterns induced by the 'heat
trap' effects of greenhouse gases; (b) depletion of the ozone layer, and
(c) increased regional and urban air pollution. These changes, the
conference statement said, will: (a) imperil human health and welfare;
(b) diminish global food security through greater shifts and uncertainties
in agricultural production, particularly for many wlnerable regions;
(c) increase political instability and the potential for international conflict;
(d)jeopardii.e prospects for sustainable economic development and the
· reduction of poverty; and (e) threaten the extinction of animal and plant
species upon which human survival depends.
If remedial action was not taken soon by nations of the world, these
problems would become progressively more serious, difficult to reverse,
and costly to address. There was no doubt among the participants in the
conference on the nature and direction of climatic change, though they
might differ in terms of quantitative estimates. Some of the concrete
conclusions of the conference may be noted:
• If the accelerating increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere continues, it will result in a probable rise in the
earth's mean surface temperature from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius
before the year 2050; many scientists believe that warming due to
greenhouse gases has begun.

2S8 Sliedding Shibboleths
• There will be marked regional variations in the amount of warming.

At high latitudes. the warming may be twice the global average.
(Certain. areas nearer _the equator and up to 30° north and south
latitudes can become drier and arid, and the northern latitudes can
become wanner and have longer agricultural seasons.)
• There will be changes in the amount and distribution of rainfall.
• There will be changes in atmospheric and ON'AID circulation patterns.
• The rate and magnitude of climate change will exceed by far those
experienced by this world since civiliurion began.
• The changes will be disruptive enough to affect every country
adversely.
• The climate change will continue so long as the greenhouse gases
accumulate in the atmosphere.
• There can be a time-lag of decades between the emission· of gases
into the atmosphere and their full manifestation in atmospheric and
biological consequences. Past emissions have already committed
planet earth to a significant warming.
• Global wanning will accelerate the present sea level rise, to between
· 30 cm and 1.5 m by the year 2050. 1
• The sea level rise could flood low-lying coastal lands and islands,
and reduce coastal water supplies by increased salt water intrusion.
It will also threaten many densely populated deltas and adjacent
agricultural lands.
• The sea level rise will change the bydrologic cycle. This will
probably increase the frequency and the devastating impact of
tropical cyclones.
• A net fifteen-year decline ofup to 3 per cent in the ozone layer bas
now been measured over much of the northern hemisphere. As the
stratospheric ozone shield thins further, damaging ultraviolet
radiation will increase. This will bann many biological species and
increase significantly the occurrence ofskin cancer and eye damage.
Every one per cent decline in ozone; is expected to cause 4 to 6 per
cent increase in certain kinds of skin cancer.
• The productive capacity of lakes and soils is declining because of
acidification.
• Deforestation and agriculture are contributing to desertification. This
1. Research carried out in the UK suggests that in 'greenhouse effect' models, the
relative ability of plankton in the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide has not been
adequately taken into account If this is done, the probability of temperature rise 811d
consequent sea rise may happen sooner than forecast.

lnlimatwns of the Future 259 .
is reducing the biological uptake of carbon dioxide, thereby affecting

the composition of the atmosphere.
• The polluting effects of many substances are closely interrelated,
both chemically and in tenm of potential control strategies.
To decelerate the wanning of the atmosphere, the conference made
several recommendations, such as:
• Establishment of a world atmosphere fund financed by a tax on
fossil fuel consumption in .the industrialimt countries. 2
• This fund should help developing countries to desist fiom cutting
down forests and to intensify research on non-pollutant forms of
energy.
• There should be a 20 per cent reduction in fossil fuel use by year
2005. Half of this should come from more efficient use of energy in
the indus1rial world; the other half from switching to fuels that emit
less carbon dioxide. Nuclear energy should be reviewed as an option
but only after factors such as safety, waste disposal, proliferation
and environmental damage are given due consideration. (On this
there was major division of opinion.)3
• Since the industrialiuxl countries are chiefly responsible for the
present situation, they should assist developing countries in energy
generation, especially by transfer of technology that would minimize
carbon dioxide ernissioo.
••••
If, as some scientists predict, in the decades ahead the US midwest
becomes arid and Siberia becomes more viable and agriculturally more
productive, it would adversely impact US security. Strategists argue that
the predictions of climatic models and the macr<H:ffects of climatir. change
are clouded with too many uncertainties for politicians and strategists to
act on them. The bases on which entire strategic doctrines have been built
2. In 1989, the US contributed 23.7 per cmt to the worldwide emimoo of cmbou
dioxide. While the worldwide growth rate of ~ x i d e emission was 3.6 per
cent, the US rate was 4.1 per cent.
3. The Energy Wodang Group of the confercoce ,epo,ted: "The rising concems
over the comcqueoces of CO2 and other paeous emissinm point out the need to
revisit the nuclear power option which lost some credibility due to problems related
to nuclear safdy, llldioactive wastes and nuclear weapons proliferation. If these
problems can be solved, tbroup improved engineerina designs and in&titusional
amngements, nuclear power could have a role to play in lowering CO2 emissions."

are far more tenuous and less scientific than the predictions of macro-
aspects of climatic changes; but they act on worst-case scenario analyses.
Environmental threats to buman security cannot be tackled wholly by
a national approach. Spillage of chemicals from the Sandoz plant in
Basie, Switzerland, killed aquatic life in· the Rhine flowing through West
Germany and the Netherlands. The Chernobyl disaster contaminatoo lamb
as far off as in Wales. The acid rain generated by US power stations is
destroying forests in Canada and marine life in Canadian lakes. The
sulphur dioxide fumes from British power stations are adversely affecting
forests and aquatic life in Scandinavia and Central Europe. Individual
countries cannot tackle pollution in the Baltic, the North Sea and other
seas.
Some in the developing world argue that the industrialized world is
using ecological considerations such as greenhouse effect and ozone
depletion as leverages to slow down the development process of the
developing world4 If the North is keen on saving the planet's environment
in its own interest, it has to negotiate with reason on restructuring the
global economic order to accelerate the development of the South. The
poorer nations of the world, whose problems are greatly aggravated by
population growth, need to be assisted-and not inhibi~ improving
their economies. This will necessitate significant additional energy use
in those countries and compensating reductions in industriali~ countries.
The transition to a different energy future will require investments in
energy efficiency and non-polluting energy sources. In order to ensure
that these do take place, the global community must establish mechanisms
for smoother, more rapid transfer of resources and relevant technologies,
taking account of the implications of such changes on industry. The
ghetto has to be cleaned and developed, and can be ignored only at peril
to the affluent North. Collective bargaining by trade unions and their
securing living wages led to the prosperity •of the capitalist society. A
better deal for the southern nations is, similarly, a prerequisite to
safeguarding the ecological health of this planet.
•••
•
4. Sections of the US AdminiS1ration used to argue in the late I980s that the US
should retain its leverage to extract controls from developing countries that have the
greatest potential for growth in carbon-dioxide generation as they industrialize.
Environmental Protection Agency Assistant AdminiS1Tator Terry Davies cited China,
India and Brazil as the three developing countries which would have to be dealt with
in future in tackling this problem.

lntimalions of the Funue 261
Very often, those who advocate ideal solutions to eoviromnental problems

and argue in favour of changes in lifestyles miss the need for a balanced
view. They do not specify, for example, what those changes should be and
how they are to be brought about in the industtial world, which is respons-
ible for 80 per cent of the problem, within the next thirty to fifty years.
The risks involved in burning fossil fuel need to be balanced against
those associated with nuclear energy production and inundation by large
dams. Vast inveslments will also have to be made on research and
development (R&D) for non-pollutant energy without reducing the
expenditure on high-technology R&D. Those who denounce nuclear
power generation (they make pertinent points on safety and waste disposal)
have to weigh those risks against those associated with fossil fuel burning.
Social forestry and biomass do not provide fuels free of carbon dioxide.
Hydel power, solar energy, geothennal energy, tidal energy, ON:8Di"
power, fusion power and nuclear power do not produce carbon dioxide
and other "greenhouse" gases. But hydel power often results in reducing
forest areas and takes away land. All other forms of energy, except nuclear
energy, are iitill at R&D stage and are unlikely to be available commer-
cially in the next four or five decades.
1bere is considerable resistance to new nuclear power stations in the
US, Sweden, Austria and West Germany. In the UK, France, Japan and
Russia, on the other hand, there is significant support for reliance on
nuclear power. In the late 1980s, the eminent Soviet scientist Andrei
Sakharov came out with the suggestion that all future nuclear power
plants should be built deep underground to avoid accidents and fallout. s
Humanity' s quest for energy is a Faustian bargain. There is no energy
that can be acquired without having to pay some environmental costs. It
is also not possible to keep five billion people (the number is growing)
alive, fed, clothed and provided with minimum needs without enormous
energy. We can only explore the best possible mix least damaging to
environment6
S. Coal also has a radioactive content A British Television prog,arnme showed,
in 1988, the link between coal-burning power statiom and increased radioactivity in
the surrounding area over the years, causing a related increase in cancer deaths there.
6. There is an optimistic expectation in nuclear fusion energy. In late 1991,
scientists at the Joint Ewopean Tor:us (1ET) project in Britain announced that they
were able to achieve nuclear fusion for sufficiently long time to open up possibilities
of tapping fusion energy. This was achieved by fusing atoms of two hydrogen
isotopes-the heavy hydrogen deuterium and the heavier tritium, at very high
tempera1UreS in a plasma <'.onfined by high-strength magnetic field. The resulting
temperatures were 30 mill.ion degrees, twenty times that of the SWL This was the first

••••
Even before the Gulf War of 1991, the Iraqis had held out the threat of
intentional environmental pollution as a deterrent. During the war,
discharge of oil into the northern Gulf area and the formation of a large
oil slick added a new dimension to the war. An additional incentive for
the Iraqis was that the oil slick might affect the supply of desaliMted
water to Saudi Arabia. Setting fire to oil wells in Kuwait was another
major polluting factor.
In World War II, the Russians resorted to scorched earth policy of
destroying their assets and crops in the field before retreating from an
area. That policy did not result in long-term environmental damage to
land and water resow-ces overrun by the enemy.
Vietnam was the fust war in which large-scale environmental damage
occurred. Defoliant chemicals, the most potent of which was Agent Orange
sprayed from the air, were extensively used to reduce the opacity of
jungles and vegetation cover in the swamps. It left a lasting impact on
the area. The American servicemen who handled the chemical subse-
quently fathered defective children and won a case for damages in the
US courts. There has been no relief for the hundreds of thousands of
Vietnamese exposed to the chemical. The second enviromnental damage
was done by the mass bombing-five million tons of bombs rained over
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They turned large areas of landscape into
something resembling the lunar surface. The explosives used on such a
large scale polluted the soil; it takes years and perhaps decades for the
soil to recover.
Following the Vietnam War, the UN concluded a convention on the
prohibition of military or any other hostile use of environmental modifi-
cation techniques in 1977, with the US and the UK among the 11ignatories.
According to this convention, no nation should carry out any action,
military or otherwise, which would have hostile impact on environment,
including climate. But the convention is not deemed to prohibit the use
of nuclear weapons!
brealcthrough; commercial exploitation was expected to be some five decades away.

Fusion energy will be unlimited because the heavier isotopes of hydrogen ue in
unlimited supply in water. Just as fission energy involves taming an atom bomb,
fusion energy involves taming the hydrogen bomb. Fusion energy will not only be
cheaper than other fonns, it will not lead to the same degree of radioactive
contamination as fission energy. The tritium isotope of hydrogen is itself radioactive
but has only a very short half-life.

Intimations of the Fulure 263
POPULATION MOVEMENTS
Popular perception is that Protestant Northern Europe practises birth

control and bas a low fertility rate, that in the Catholic Southern Europe
the situation is opposite. A World Health Organiz.atioo (WHO) report in
1993 revealed. however, that Italy's fertility rate (number of children per
woman of childbearing age), at 1.3, was the lowest in Europe over the five--
year period. Spain, another Catholic country, came next in the order of
low fertility rate at 1.4 (It was 1.2 in 1992, a kind of record for Europe).
The data for other countries were: Germany 1.5; Greece 1.5; Portugal 1.5;
Netherlands l.7; France I. 8; Britain I.9; Ireland 2.1 ; and Sweden 2.1.
A country needs a fertility rate of 2.1 to maintain a stable population
at the present expectation of longevity and infant mortality rate. These
European fertility rates would indicate a future fall in population in the
European countries. Changes in women's lifestyle in Catholic countries
have affected fertility rates: women in Italy and the Iberian peninsula are
joining the labour force, marry much later than they used to, and try to
limit their families to one or two children. It would appear that in the
Catholic countries single--parent families are not as socially acceptable
as in the US or Britain. In the US, by the end of the twentieth century a
third of the children were expected to be born in single--parent families.
The increased emphasis in the West on individual's rights per se, as
against individual's rights within the constraints of family and community,
are also bound to result in lowering women's fertility rate.
Nine out often babies born today in the world are non-white. The fall
in the fertility rate of the white population, its age distribution, and the
likely fall in that population in the industrialized world, have long-term
implications. People live longer, and in future the proportion of aged
people in society who have to be supported by the active population is
bound to increase. The politics of nations are likely to be influenced by
the increasing proportion of those voters who would no longer be part of
the active labour force.
Already, the white industrialized countries are under pressure of
immigrants from developing countries. Among some sections of the
population in some of these countries, there is acute hostility towards
immigrants. These were the same countries which,· when they had to
carry out rapid reconstruction after World War D and had severe labour
shortage invited immigrant labour. The demand for certain categories of
labour will continue in the future as well, which the immigrant labour
does not mind doing. Both because of the whites' declining birth rate

2.64 S1wddvtf Slabbol,nJn
and the~ of io ■uig,w p:.\!-.l~ non,.wbile P+9dci.cm in the
developed counain • ill gro•· more rapidly than die -~cam
pnp,J.,..
Anochtt .atpo:t of popdarion IIXftdlN IMS ➔ the rdugic,e i,-oblcm. In
the early 1990s, the wor1d bad mcwe Ihm 18 million ,efugucs, respo1115-
ibility of the CS High C.-,■oissiooer for Rdag,-:s (l;~liCR). (Tbcre
were 90IDe 2~25 million iDOR people •ilo were m,pr.cd pasow
dx>K who left lbcu- bunaa. but DO( tbc1r O')ilj■.. ies.. bcrw« c,f civil was
and !OCictaJ violence.) The major ,ou;ces of mug,e,cs wac Afghani-aw
(6 million), Palestine (2.4 million), Mozambique ( 1.4 million), Emlnpia
(1.07 million), Liberia (0. 7 millioo). Iraq (0.5 million), 'iodm (0.5
million), Somalia (0.45 million), Angola (0.44 million). Kuwait (0.39
million), and Sri laoka (0.23 million). 11leR were also refilpes firm
Iran, Rwarda, Burundi, WCSfffll Saban., V~1@11, Tibef. Bangladesh,
Laos, Mauritania, Gttaremala, 8unna, Zaire, Niangua. Soudi Afiica. Fl
Salvador and Chad. Yugoslavia bad, probably, 1DOR than Z millm
refugees and displaced pmoos.
As these refugees pour into developed coumrics, they also tmd to
cany their dissidence, conflicts and rivalries into the countties of tbc1r
asylum. The Arabs, the Sikh extremists, the LTIE and Islamic
fundan1C11talim have introduced a new elooear of security prubk:m in
the westem IOcietia.
INTERNATIONAL INSTABILITY
Two contrary trends are operating in the intemationa1 syslem of today.

One is a progressive trend towards greater integration among peoples
and nations, a growing appreciation of humanitvian values, greater
concern about environmental risks, more pluralism and democratiz.ation.
The opposing trend is in terms of growing religious fundamentalism;
increasing assertion of linguistic and ethnic parochialism; international
terrorism; growing international network of narcotics traffic; associated
criminalization of politics; fiagmeotatioo of communities and nations;
and total disregard for the environment, whether in the name of
industrialization or poverty alleviation and exploding population. Some
of the positive trends themselves may produce negative consequences.
Concern about environmental risks may, for example, be taken too far to
block development needed for providing minimum needs to the poorer
sections. Greater democratization may lead to assertion of various types
of parochialism and disintegration of nation-states established artificially

lnlimation.s of1M FUlure 26S
as a result of the two world wars, earlier imperial legacies or through

colonial dispensation. 7
The decolonization process bas led to the creation of do:zens of SJNII,
mini- and micro-states. Small populatioos of a few hundreds of thousands
or millions have been constituted as sovereign entities with seats in the
UN General Assembly. This bas led to ethnic groups with similar
numerical sucngths, concentrated in certain areas, aspiring for sovereign
status. Tourism and extremely liberal company and hanking laws, which
will make them convenient havens for money laundering, make such
SJNll ethnic groups often develop a vested interest in the status of mini-
and micro-states. While economically, industrially, socially and polilical.ly
more advanced an/i mature nations and population groups tend to favour
the integration 1rend, the underdeveloped segments of population are
keen on their autonomy and separate sovereignty. Instability is the natural
condition of developing nations still evolving and consolidating their
national identities.
Integration of states is feasible only when states have gone through a
period of democratic functioning and minorities have shed their fear of
dc,mU13D('A' by majorities. Then they see advantage in voluntary association
for optimizing their economic advantages. A transitional period of
assertion of ethnic identities, democratization and integration with the
international m.arket is inevitable before stability and political integration
set in. During this period cxbeme chauvinism and consequent animosities
resulting in explosive situations, indeed violence, are possible.
This period of.instability is likely to result in a number of international
security problems, mass migration·and refugees, violence in various areas
resulting in high casualties, starvation deaths due to civil strife in which
supplies are cut off, international terrorism (not excluding threat of use
and use of nuclear weapons if they fall into wrong hands), increasing
narcotic trade· to finance secessionist struggles, religious wars, and
sectarian killings. Greater integration due to a revolution in the means of
transportation and communication may also result in elite groups in the
developing world aspiring to have standards of living of the developed
world, at the cost of overall development
7. During the cold war, the two hegemonic powers kept down forces of democracy
and edlnic identity all over the world. The USSR did it in the name of supporting a
progressive ideology and friends of that ideology in the developing world. The US
did exactly the same in the name of cor,taioiog co1111mmism and by supponing the
dictatorial rulers in the developing world wbo claimed to be anti-rommllllist With
the cod of the cold war, the US lost that justification.

Thia phase of instability and turbulence, unleashed by the end of the

cold war, may malce some wish for a return of the period of bipolar
confrontation, when there was relative stability and predictability. (The
imperialists, too, argued that colooialism brought peace and stability in
the non-white world.)
The quest for autonomy is not, however, peculiar to the developing
world alone. In the UK. there is the problem of Northern ~land, the
Scottish quest for greater autonomy from Westminster, the Plaid Cymru's
urge for autonomy for Wales from London, in Corsica and Brittany in
France, Basque countty in Spain, and Transylvania in Romania Come-
quent on popular pressure Belgium carried out political reforms, which
loosened the central control over the two linguistic groups that malce up
the nation. In early 1992, British Prime Minister John Major found it
necessary to devote an entire speech to denounce Scottish separatists.
(Polls revealed that more than 50 per cent of the Scots favoured seceding
from Britain and becoming a sovereign state.)8 Even in the US, the large-
scale inflow of Hispanic population which does not take to English
language and tends to remain separate, has started causing worry, and
has led to the realiz.ation that the USA is only a salad-bowl civiliz.ation,
and not a melting pot. The break-up of the Soviet Union is only an
intermediate stage: the very large minorities that the break-up has left in
the new republics arc likely to seek self-determination sooner or later.
The entire international political paradigm, based on the existing
nation-state system and concept of national sovereignty, cannot cope with
the new non-military challenges. A nation-state is based on the loyalty to
that concept superseding all other subsidiary ones such as religion, sect,
language, and ethnicity. A nation consists of people who feel to be one
because of their shared sense of history and common aspirations for the
future. So long as communism provided, justifiably or not, a common
8. Major argued that a united nation of four constituent units-England, Scotland,

Wales and Northern Ireland-would be far more powerful and effective than four of
them acting as separate sovereign states. In his view, as separate nations they would
lessen themselves individually and collectively. Major was perhaps too young in
1947 to recall that the British did not thinlc very highly of similar argwnents then
advanced by Indian nationalists. Nor was-the British attitude very different in dealing
with the constitutional dispensations of Palestine and Cyprus. The chickens seem to
have come home to roost: in the early 1990s, Siddiqui of Bradford was contributing
to British politics the spirit of Palcistanism, with the organization of a separate Islamic
Parliament- a concept originated by the British in India in the form of separate
electorate; Siddiqui asserted that Muslims should not obey any laws enacted by the
House of Commons if, in their view, they were against Muslim interests.

Intimations of the Futwe 267
overarching binding vision of the future, diverse populations could still

feel they belonged to a nation within die communist system but in super-
session of all subsidiary identities and loyalties. Once that concept was
shattered through monolithic communism being rep!~ by pluralism,
the various other factors mentioned above were bound to come to the
surface. The concept of Muslim Ummah does not provide a shared sense
of history any more than that of Christianity. When there is excessive focus
on religion, the sectarian divisions in them (Catholic and Protestant, the
Shia, Sunni, Fatimid and Wahabi, caste groupings in Hindu and Sri Ulllkan
Buddhist populations) get accentuated, and once again there is tension
between loyalty to nation and sect Similar considerations apply to tribal
populations as well irrcspcctive of religion (the Kurds, Baluchis and
Pashtun tribes in Islam, the Christian tribes in India, Burma, or Africa).
Language, too, is a powerful factor both as a consolidator and inhibitor
of nation-state building. Different linguistic groups do not easily cohere
into a nation nonnally, though there are exceptions, like India. The
separatism of the Quebecois, Moldavians,9 Sindhis, Baluchis, Pashtuns,
Croatians and Eelam Tamils has strong underlying linguistic patriotism/
chauvinism trying to challenge the loyalty to the composite nation-state.
In a democratic nation-state meicbanisms are available to reconcile
the aspirations for autonomy and identity within a federal set-up. C'.anada
is an example of this effort. Secular nations find it easier to accommodate
the identities of religious minorities than those with established dominant
religions. A nation with multilingual policy (such as Switzerland, (',inada,
Belgium, and India) bas no difficulty in satisfying the minorities' linguistic
identities. In other words, democracy, secularism, linguistic autonomy
and federalism, and above all, a shared sense of history and common
future aspirations are keys to successfully reconciling subnationalist
aspirations within an overall federal political framework.
India, in the wake of independence, was able to postpone non-military
threats to its security, thanks to its long freedom struggle when its people
were able to sink their ethnic and other differences under the leadership
of not only Gandhi but his lieutenants, and thanks to enlightened policies
embodying the concepts of democracy, secularism, linguistic autonomy,
and planned development. India was also able to ensure its security from
military threats reasonably well (except for the local command failure in
Kameng in 1962). India's economic development, though not spectacular,
moved steadily forward. Thereafter, the postponed problems caught up.
9. Moldova is now an independent republic.

The decoloniz.atioo process produced one hundred new nations, an over-

whehning majority of them mini- and micro-states. This triggered ambi-
tions among some of India's small ethnic groups for sovereignty. With
economic development, jet travel and audio and video cassettes, the desire
for shortcuts to western way of life soared among Indian youth, especially
among the semi-educated, multiplied by the proliferating substandard
educational system. After the states' reorganiution, India is less vulner-
able than most others to the secessionist quest To reduce our vulnerability
further, we need to cany through further the states reorgani:r.ation (Bodo-
land, Jbarkband, 10 VidaJbba, etc. need to be settled), devolve more powers
to the states, and increase autonomy in governance at various levels.
Up to I 991, the tacit rules of the international game discouraged
breakdown of composite nation-states. The western powers prevented
the Soviet Union from creating and su.daining a breakaway republic of
Azerbaijan in Iran in 1946. The Katangan secession from Congo (Zaire)
was put down by the Indian Army under the UN flag. Biafra did not get
international recognition, and Nigeria brought its secession to an end
with support from the Commonwealth and the Soviet Union. Tbe Turkish
Cypriots' declaration of independence did not receive recognition even
from Muslim states (apart from Turkey). The cases of Singapore and
Bangladesh were in a class by themselves. Singapore was expelled from
Malaysia to ensure Malay numerical dominance in that country. In Bangla-
desh the oppressed majority seceded from the domineering minority.
The recognil"'-d rule was that self-determination did not apply to parts of
a nation-state but only to populations under colonial rule. At the same
time, in spite of the international taboo on supporting secessionism, the
big powers and not-so-big powers were suspected of having aided and
abetted many secessionist movements-Indonesian secessionism, the
Dhofair insurgency in Oman, the Naga and Miro insurgencies in India,
the Islamic secessionism in the Philippines, the Eritrean National
Liberation movement, insurgencies in Rwanda and Burundi, the LTrE
in Sri Lanka, the Kbalistani and Kasbmiri secessionists.
Whether as part of a deliberately thought-out plan or it being a case
of acting first and thinking about it later, the western powers opened the
Pandora's box of ethno-nationalism by supporting the Baltic secessions
and applying pressure on the Soviet Union. Similarly, the Yugoslav
breakdown was exacerbated by hasty recognition of Slovenia, Croatia
and Bosnia without adequate consultation with the parties concerned.
I 0. Jbarlchand attained the identity of a state of the Indian Union in late 2000.

Intimations of the Funue 269
After that there was no stopping of further disintegration in the Balkans

In Africa, the Ethiopian government conceded the Erit:rean demand to
secede after a referendum. That made a dent in the OAU Charter, which
upheld the sanctity of all boundaries inherited from the erstwhile colonial
regimes. In Somalia, the south is attempting to secede from the north. In
Sudan the Christian Negroid south has been waging a civil war with the
Islamic Arab north. The divide between the Islamic Arab populations
and Christian blacks runs through many countries from the Indian Ocean
to the Atlantic. The secessionist trend even prompted the UN Secretary
General Boutros Boutros.Ghali to speak, in his document "Agenda for
Peace", of a minorities charter which would safeguard the minorities'
rights and thereby attenuate the pressures for minority secessionism.
Now that the cold war has ended this issue needs to be examined at
the global level. Is unbridled self-determination the answer? If it is initiated
where will it stop? Or should the world declare a moratorium on the
alteration of boundaries to provide for a cooling-off period? How are
these internal wars to be contained and how to promote settlements? Toe
UN would have been the best forum to arrive at a solution, but its present
structure robs it of both legitimacy as a world body, and efficacy.
'DISCRIMINATE DETERRENCE'
Early in 1988, a panel of thirteen eminent US strategists came out with a

report called "Discriminate Deterrence". Toe report stressed that in the
developing world, no less than in developed countries, US strategy should
seek to maximire its technological advantages. Among them it included
accurate standoff weapons-in other words, missiles. It also pointed out
that a number of less developed countries India, Brazil, South and North
Korea and Egypt- were building anns industries capable of producing
advanced weapon systems.
Highlighting the importance of extended-range, accurate smart conven-
tional weapons, the report noted:
By the standards of a decade ago, the accuracies arc extraordinary. Current
technology makes it possible to attack fixed targets at any range with accuracies
within one to three meters. These accuracies and modem munitions give us a
high probability of destroying a wide variety of point and area targelS with one
or a few shots without using nuclear warheads. They make practical attacks on
heavily defended military targets deep in enemy territory. Airfields well inside
the Soviet Union could be put out of commission with warheads designed to
attack infrastructure (fuel and maintenance facilities, say) and command and

270 Shedding SlubboletJu
control facilities, rail line.1, electric generating plants, jldloleum refineries all
are suddenly much more "111Der.tble in the emerging age of smart IDllllitioo.s.
Loog range is likely to be increasingly oecessuy for our weapons particularly in
the Asian and Pacific theatre.
Fred Ode, then US Under-Secretary ofDefc:nce, and Albert Wnblstetter
beaded the panel. Others in the panel were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, and William Clark-all former national security advisers;
former chiefs of staff and military commaoders, General Goodpaster,
General Vessey and Admiral Holloway; and eminent defence intellectuals
like Samuel Huntington and four others. The commission was to report
oo an integrated long-term strategy for the US as the cold war was winding
down.
The commission highlighted that all the wars the US fought in the
previous four ~ were in the developing world In the coming
decades, the US would need to be-better prepared to deal with conflicts
in the developing world Hence, the US bad to work with its allies in the
developing countries at developing "cooperative forces". (This was imple-
mented during the Gulf War 1991, when the US led the 32-nation
coalition.)
Certain technologies could be especially helpful in bolstering tactical
intelligence, which was crucial in conflicts in the developing world These
included:
• advanced information process systems enabling the Americans to
store, sort, retrieve and collate enormous amounts of data about the
insurgent or terrorist organizations and individual saboteurs and
terrorists; .
• low-cost space systems, long-endurance aircraft and robotic recon-
naissance vehicles that made it possible to monitor large areas, day
and night regardless of weathc!r or terrain;
• networks of sensors and other microelectronics equipment that would
help in monitoring the movements of enemy forces;
• bio and micro-mechanical sensors with vastly expanded capabilities
for detection of explosives (and also narcotics); and
• vivid digital graphics of dangerous areas (or areas denied to US
advisers) to permit reconnaissance, rehearsal of plans and training
for specific operations.
Alternatives had to be developed for overseas bases. Low-cost satellites
in space could, in some measure, replace the communication and
intelligence-gathering functions of overseas bases. Very-long-endurance

Intimations of the Future 271
aircraft for surveill~ce, manned or unmanned, could supplement

satellites. Naval options, located in intcmatiooal waters but still out of
view, would make the American operations far morc secure than those
on land bases. The main worry of the panel was about Japan and China.
It recognized that a world with three or four major global powers would
confront the US with greater uncertainties and pose a far more difficult
strategic environment
Of similar view is a special supplement of the London Economist
weekly published towards the cod of August 1992 on "Defence in 21st
Ceotwy''. It cllwified future wars in the world--maioly in the developing
world, but also in less developed portions of Europe, the Balkaos and
the erstwhile Soviet Uoioo-into two categories: wars of interest and
wars of COD$Cicoce. Wars of interest were those where resources rcqwrcd
for the western nations and their lines of communication were threatened
by actions of developing nations, the Gulf War being the foremost
example. Wars of conscience were those where the atrocities committed
and sufferings inflicted on the local populations in the conflicts in the
developing world stirred the conscience of the western nations strongly
enough to compel them to intervene to restore peace, stability, and humane
values. But the people in the affluent western nations might not want to
risk the lives of their sons and daughters in such wars. The western
democratic nations needed to develop necessary political will for it
Following in the footsteps of the "Discriminate Deterrence" document
was the Pentagon's docwnent oo its science and technology strategy for
R&D investigation over the next decade, released in 1992. The seven
thrust areas in R&D were: global surveillance and communications; 11
precision strike;12 air superiority and defence; sea control and undersea
superiority; advanced land combat; synthetic environment; and technology
for affordability. "Synthetic environment'' involves putting together
several super realistic simulators to produce environments fundamentally
different from the ttaditiooal simulations and models known today.
"Technology for affordability" would develop design tools for transiting
flawlessly from prototypes to production. It would help to evolve a flexible
manufacturing process that would allow quick switch of production lines
from ooe item to another.
11. Satellite monitoring of low-intensity conflicts can yield very limited results to
monitor the use of infantty weapons.
12. High-precision missiles cannot be used cost-effectively on low-value targets,
but they can be used to threaten developing nations to execute punishing attacks
against their high-value targets.

26
Terrorism
In carrying out terrorist acts, the perpetrators usually have

an audience in mind and attempt to give publicity to their actions to
influence popular attitude in certain directions. When organi~ groups
like the IRA, Hamas, the PLO before it gave up violence, various Khali-
stani or Kasbmiri terrorist groups committed an act of violence, it was
usually meant to make a political point, to disrupt orderly civil business,
to indu~e terror in a locality, to take revenge, to hit a target or to eliminate
a personality or to expose the vulnerability of the government or the
security forces. In these cases, terrorism is incidental to a violent political
conflict between two parties, the state on one side and its adversary
group on the other. Toe exceptions, where no party claimed responsibility,
were all large-scale acts of violence in which hundreds of people died.
These outrages stunned a whole nation and that was the underlying
purpose. These acts were not meant as individual signals to the other
side or for specific impact on an audience. They were meant to create
terror or a climate of fear in a nation or society by people who have
developed a pathological hatred for that nation or society. 1 They wanted
I. The Tokyo events in 1995 appear to have been attempts to scare the Japanese
population and diSl"llpt the orderly functioning of the Japanese society. In the Tokyo
incident, the terrorists simultaneously released the deadly sarin nerve gas, in highly
diluted fonn, in sixteen different places in the Tokyo subway system. It was designed
to generate a message to the entire world, particularly to the industrialized nations
which have densely populated cities with extremely vulnerable and fragile infni-
structurc systems. The papellawrs could have inflicted hundreds of thousands of
casualties if the sarin was undiluted. Their aim was not to cause such bigb c.asualtics
but to demonslratc their capability. At the heart of terrorism is the ability of the
perpetrator to persuade the victim as well as the audience to believe that be has both
the capability and the will to cany through bis act of violence. There have been a
number of attempts in the US by small groups to convey nuclear terrorist threats. The
nearest to a credible threat was when a terrorist group sent a drawing of the design of
a nuclear expl0$ive device which appeared credible. (Today even that will not prove
credible since enough information on the subject is available in public.)

Terrorism 273
to terrorize the whole nation, and it did not matter who got killed-even
women and infants. The terrorists escalate their terror by moving from
one set of fragile targets to more fragile ones with larger number of
potential victims. Multi-storeyed buildings with central air-conditioning,
railways, buses, departmental stores, crowded streets, airports and airliners
all provide ideal targets for those who want to perpetrate outrages
involving high casualties to project maximum effect on the people. The
inevitable visual media publicity gives them additional advantage.
Airliners were preferred fragile targets that could be destroyed by a
kilogram of explosives concealed in the luggage compartment with a
timer device. At considerable cost and inconvenience to passengers
because of time involved in security checks, society has tried to counter
this threat. Now the targeting is shifting to subways and high-rise buildings
which are extremely vulnerable, as the Tokyo, New York, Bombay and
Oklahoma episodes in the 1990s illustrate. Sophisticated explosives have
been developed, safe to handle and extremely effective. Skills to assemble
them are also spreading. It is also possible to make crude but deadly
explosives using fertilizers and fuel oil (diesel). Remote triggering and
timing devices can be easily procured. Car bombs have become common-
place terrorist instruments. City traffic has become so dense it is difficult
for security devices to keep track of all vehicles. Similarly, chemical
weapons are available for deadly use in confined spaces.
Terrorist acts like the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the
Bombay blasts, and the Tokyo gas attack cannQt be done by a couple of
people acting on their own. Though the explosive device may have been
crude or the gas used was highly diluted it required specialiud knowledge
and training. A couple of people may have placed the device and triggered
it at each site. But there had to be a back-up in assembling the device
with skills not available to the common person. Terrorism does not always
need support or even silent acquiescence of a State. Money can be raised
by narcotics trade or through organized crime. People with necessary
skills can be hired. Ex-servicemen and people who have been given
specialiw training by intelligence agencies are also available either on
payment or on the basis of ideological affinity.
HostagP.-taking is a terrorist act that commits an act of violence on an
innocent victim or victims in order to compel the adversary paJfy to
comply with terrorists' demands or to impress a target audience apart
from the adversary. Hostage-taking has been known throughout history.
King Richard, the lion-heart of England, was held to ransom for many
years in the thirteenth century. Kings who lost wars used to leave their
•

,om as bmaagcs till Ibey •ere abk IO re«- iii dw-w by p•ymg tbc: bibme
levied However. t.t9 ge :akmg has bcu ''* mi•itt c;.-:,; Kl iaJ bijacl ing
started in tbc: cart-:· 19705.. The ..-,ngz:1. of a bijarlNI airliou bccaoae
bmaagcs md wa-e often D:-tcd off agaiffll 1ft det1-w«ls oftbc: bija,:let,
for fuel supply. ramom.. md pmc,na rrkasc.
Then <ane lhl' bomgr taking of tbc: l!S fonscy Slaff in Tduan (S2
in number) by tbc: Iranians 11k our.4c in tbc: inlil:maliomJ Ltli1u11wily
against tbis abocity ....-as DOt !ntll' mnugb while in tbc: US it led to
Prcsidm Carter lo5ing bis 5eCODd term in office. m«rc an: allegatiom
in tbc: L'S that tbc: rekzc of bomges - delayed al tbc: instigari<wl of
some Americans tbeimeh·es •-ho •·ere iDraesled in ensuring tbc: victory
of Reapn and dcfear of Carter in tbc: p-esida•ial elections.) There bsve
abo been instances of criminals raking bosrages for exba..tiug 1amom.
The inslaoces of the: scion of tbc: Getty family. Mrs Cn1i1;;ws,; in Dublin,
and a host of such occurrences in Karachi come tn mind l3ut a majority
of bostage-•aking are today pan of low-iatensity cooflicb eilher within a
oalion between the Staie and an extremist organinrioo or such o,ganiz-
•
ation~ opc1ating across boundaries. Israel takes hostages using its
commandos across boroels. Sheikh Obaid, the: Sbia clergyman of the:
Hizbullah organization was seized in Lebanon.
Hostagl"-taking, prolonged negotiations on an exchang.- deal, and final
release require some precooditioos. Usually this happens where the
hostage-takers can keep their victims in a haven. Where havens are
unavailable and the security forces have mawve combing opt.iatiOIIS,
the probability of negotiated exchange is low and the victim is likely to
be doomed. This ~ often in criminal hostage taking. In aircraft
hijacking a basic instruction to both aircraft crew and the negotiators is
that the hijackers should not be provoked or panicked but kept, as far as
possible, calm. The bostage is generally a pawn in the game but not
always. Iftbe hostage is deemed a member of the eslablishment, be runs
a greater risk of being eliminatc'Af if the hostage-takers' demands are not
met early. Examples are Italian ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro and CIA
station chief in Beirut, Buckley, both killed in captivity. In most aerial
hijacking cases the hostages are traded, but the trade-off in other cases
may not always be reported as such. Often one bostage-taking is followed
by a cowiter hostage taking to effect a mutual exchange. The Soviets and
Israelis used to carry out successfully such operations in Lebanon.
If a government formulates a comprehensive policy on hostages, it
would be a wtique case: one sbould not be surprised if variow. tenodst
groups put that policy to a severe test and attempt to strip the govei:nment

of its credibility. The usual argument-and a comet on«)-for a tough
no-negotiation policy is that exchange of captured terrorists for hostages
will lead to more hostages being taken for such exchange. But if the
government were to adopt a policy of no-negotiations to get a hostage
released, a very popular and high-value person could be taken hostage,
leading to irresistible popular pressure on the government to negotiate.
A published policy on hostages will also demoralize the hostages and
their families as soon as the hostage is taken. It would also increase the
cost to the State as there will be greater pressure to have security
arrangements for increasing number of VIPs in society.
All countries have negotiated at some point or other to get their
hostages released. Though the US government bas adopted a tough
declaratory policy of no-negotiations, President Reagan-circumventing
Congress--agreed to sell arms to Iran to get its good offices for the
release of hostages held by terrorist groups under its influence. Various
western governments too have been engaged in secret negotiations to get
their hostages released. In the early 1990s, Israel was pressured to release
its Shia prisoners in order to obtain the release of the TWA airlines
passengers in Beirut. The French havf' made no secret of their willingness
to negotiate. The best-known case where a goveunnent refused to nego-
tiate the release of a high-placed hostage leading to his killing is that of
Aldo Moro. His killing so outraged the Italian public opinion that the
Italian carabinieri could thereafter take very tough measures and effec-
tively neutralize the terrorist organization concerned, the Red Brigade.
In Punjab, whenever hostages were taken-fortunately, there were
not many-their release was obtained within a few days without much
fuss. The local police and the terrorists were in a mutual hostage relation-
ship. When the terrorists took hostages the local police were able to
threaten counter hostage-taking. In Jammu and Kashmir and Assam,
hostagf'-taking bas become a major strand of terrorist strategy. In these
places, it would appear that the state authorities are still to develop enough
intimate knowledge of the terrorists and their family background
Hostage-release negotiations often need intermediaries. Their function-
ing is very much conditioned by the overall security climate. They should
command the confidence of both sides. Hostage-taking and hostage-
exchange negotiations constitute a highly sophisticated game in game
theory. Such negotiations, as in the case of aircraft hijacking, require
psychological inputs, profiles of the hostage-takers and their aims, etc.
The most important investment the State should make is in intelligence.
What is needed is an anti--teirorist expert group which would constantly

mon1tf,r_ """'b
direct and act..1:!C the !(hCildlCIII 00 all ✓- 7 . . . . .
opcrat,un. Lea-.. 1ng it to a comm.mce of cr,·--cn;ed i,ecn:taics ;s o.-G* >-
product1 ~ e. An expert .wgani721inn <rooaug itldf IO tbe 7aSk ?Wmty-
four houn a day ~ needed. It could be a specialisa ,.p,iz;Mioo wi?hio
the lnteli1gence Bureau I IB). md bas 70 fllnctioo -Mlb moch g.eatcr
anonymity than the 1B itself. ~nile its chief DJ1Y D0111i1■Dy be pixed
unda the director IB. be DlU5I bavc din,ct access 70 all cabiott 01ioistea,s
and ,caeuries and Sen-ices and securit) Ol'poizMi-Jm Tbt <Wg■1iza,ioa
mUSI have appropria1e COIDIJl.:O<li9 vf scicmific penoand. sociologists
and psychologists. This would be tbe brain of <Xi4Pll«-t.morist a.puiz-
ational effort jg India h onnt not. however, be co1h•et1cd ioao a field
organization but must use tbe available field agaJCics.
In o7her countries, when a 7cmJris7 eveor takes place sarior go-.v,110•
fimctionaries rush 70 the victum • families 70 give tbem cooafurt md keep
up their morale. lo this coootty. having been used to tbe daily doses of
ICTTorist violence. we have become desemltilOl 11< anguish and mc:n?al
torttae of the near and dear drowned jg agonizing uocmaioty is wonc
than the suffering of the hostage himself. Some yrm ago jg India proce-
dures were worked out for anti-hijacking measures and instillrtiooatiz:cd,
dealing with the problem of how to oegotia9e with tbe hijackas but not
about dealing with the trauma of victims and their families.
In 1993, there was an initial uproar in Bri?ain when it becai1< pUblic
knowledge that the British government bad been in contact with the IRA
in spite of its public stand that i; would not negotiate or talk to the IRA
till ii gave up violence for good. (Toe public did have reason for outrage,
because Prime Minister John Major bad declared in Parliament a few
weeks earlier that his stomach turned at the thought of negotiating with
the IRA before it gave up violence altogether.) Toe govemment approach,
though unstated, was that keeping the commuoication channels open with
the terrorist organizations made negotiation possible: there was, however,
a distinction between being in touch with them through a chain of inter-
mediaries and government officials talking with them sitting across the
table.
Because the communication channels were open, before most of the
bomb explosions, the IRA used to commuoicate a message through
telephone that the explosion had been scheduled, and people from the
particular area should be evacuated. To rule out hoax calls, the caller
u11ed a code word with the message. The same procedure was adopted after
n terrorist event when the organization claimed responsibility. The code
word was changed at frequent intervals so that it would not be

- 1
Terrorism 2 77
compromised. Since it was in government interest to maintain the contact,

it did not pursue investigation of the communication chain more than the
first few links to satisfy itself that those were genuine and well-intentioned
persons.
Jn dealing with terrorists, the State needs to take a two-track approach.
One is the police approach, where the terrorists are looked upon as
criminals violating the law of the land and committing heinous crimes.
The State, according to this school of thought, should hunt out those
rcspomible for the crimes and punish them according to law after giving
them a fair trial. Toe second approach is the political one where the
terrorists are recognized as political dissidents who have chosen to resort
to violence to advertise their cause to the world, to mobilize the sympathy
and active support of sections o( people who are inclined to their side,
and intimidate and tire out the State and sections of people opposed to
their cause. For them, terrorism is an armed political struggle. They
claim that terrorists captured by the State should be treated as prisoners
of war and not as criminals.
In the literature on the subject, a distinction is made between the
terrorist and an insurgent militant, depending upon the targeting. In an
armed struggle against the State, one's own or another, so long as the
targets are military ones, or those belonging to the State security services,
including police personnel or infrastructural institutions, it would be
insurgency/militancy. But where innocent people are deliberately targeted
(crowded rail and bus stations, buses, airliners, shopping complexes,
women, children and innocent civilians having nothing to do with the
State) in order to have an intimidatory impact on a target audience-the
general public-it is unalloyed terrorism. This distinction was established
by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa Many
senior ANC (African National Congress) leaders had to seek amnesty
for acts which fell within the definition of terrorism.
Political movements resort to violence when they feel they cannot
achieve their goals through parliamentary methods. This may be for two
reasons. First, though they may have legitimate grievances, they are a
widely distributed minority and hence "'lonot get their point of view
accepted by the majority. This was the case with the IRA. Second, the
group is too small a minority and feels violence is the only way to inti-
midate the much larger majority. This was the case with the ' Khalistanis'
and the various insurgent groups in Jammu and Kashmir.
No doubt, the State offering to negotiate is partial victory for an
insurgent terrorist group, since it gives them recognition and legitimacy.

278 SJwddi,rg SlubboletJu
Sara allo try to rlliae the COit of COlllinuing the imm:gmcy so that they
do not have to negotiate- undel' duress. If the terrorist ~ups have
imdequare popular political support, the State tries bard to bunt out and
elriDate lbrm, as bappeoed mPunjab. Where there is an adequate popular
bue for the terrorists the Stare bas to employ a tw~ged strategy-
raise the cost to the terrorists, and at the same time, negotiate a political
llddemeot. This would necessitate k.eq,iDg CODlac1s with them even as
operation, against them are puoued.
Te11ocism can be ideological or criminal. The former may be political
or religious. Often the two motivations also intermingle as jn the case of
Pakistani or Sbia terrorism. Criminal terrorism encompasses oarco-
te11o.ism (for sustaining the narcotics traffic), commercial terrorism
(tampering with a competitor's product, the examples bejng injecting
tylenol capsules with a highly poisonous substance as happened in the
US, or tampering with the soft drink LIIC07.8de in the UK), and sheer
criminal terrorism (the terrorism resorted to by the mafia and similar
gangs to support their protection and extomoa rackets). Criminal teuorists
may find it more respectable to pose as ide()logical terrorists. In the late
1980s ' Khalistani' rebels became the mules in the cross-border heroin
trade carrying heroin into India in return for money and weapons from
the ISi, which m turn opaakd with support from Pakistan's narcotics
smugglers. .
In earlier times, the Nma could execute scores of people in occupied
areas as reprisal against iDdividual acts of sabotage, but in today's inter-
nationalized society of nations with heightened sensitivity about human
rights, such mass counter-terror is no longer easy to adopt Counter
political terrorism now is 80 per cent psychological war and 20 per cent
use of force. Scientific techniques can be gainfully employed in dealing
with political terrorism. Both criminal and political terrorist groups work
under great pressure and tension. Small tenorist groups cannot with-
stand the pressures of organizational dynamics required to wage war
against the State or to sustain large-scale organized criminal activity: the
result often is their splintering and mutual annihilation. Effective counter-
terrorism necessarily involves triggering off and hastening this process.
Naxalite groups splintered thus; inter-gang shootouts among the various
'Khalistani' extremist organintioos also were in evidence. Criminal gang.,,
too, invariably splinter. To bring this about needs an integrated counter-
terrorist strategy and psychological warfare techniques. Profiles of
different groups will have to be compiled and appropriate strategy devised
to hasten the process. Similarly, psychological warfare has to be waged

Terrorism 279
to win over the hearts and minds of the people of the area where the
terrorists operate. In this, a sophisticated mix of psychological projections
about the terrorists' war against the State and their anti-social criminal
activities have to be carried out. Above all, the people must have greater
confidence in the State's ability to give them protection as against the fear
induced by the terrorists. This involves establishment of a comprehensive
intelligence network using both technological and human intelligence
and concerted efforts to penetrate into the organintion. Above all, good
governance.
..
..•
In the anti-terrorism summit held in Paris on 30 July l 996, a 25-point
agenda was adopted with fanfare. The agenda inclvded setting up an
international database on terrorism, sharing of mielligence, tightening up
laws on extradition and asylum, more stringent and standardiz.ed security
measures at the airports, increased surveillance of transfer of funds, and
•
incorporating signature materials in explosives manufactured. The most
difficult step among these is sharing of intelligence. Everl within a country
different agencies guard their intelligence jealousl)'.. The CIA spies on
France, the British on Russia, and so on. Any intelligence they derive
from such operations is unlikely to be shared. Many inte1l~ence bodies
work closely with organized crime networks and run sting operations.
(Recall Lockerbie, recounted below. Recall also how the French·agents
planted a bomb in the Greenpeace ship in New Zealand.) The US does
not consult the European nations while pursuing its policies in the Middle
East. So the latter are hesitant to get entangled in the Islamic-American
tensions. Nor do the Europeans and Japanese subscribe to the US casting
itself in the role of sole global policeman, prosecutor and judge of states
allegedly supporting terrorism.
When Air India's Kanishka was sent down the Atlantic the industrial-
ized world was not sensitive enough to the implications of international
terrorism. But when a PanAm or TWA airliner is exploded they realize
it is international terrorism and demand mobilintion of global effort. A
bomb explosion in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar market gets a minute fraction of
the attention of Atlanta pipe bombing. Terrorism in India is being handled
with far greater restraint and quiet heroism on the part of the people than
analogous acts in the western world. That is how it should be.2
2. Five instances are given here to demonstrate bow effectively cliffemit countries
handle tenorist incidents.

In 1993, the 32-day siege of Hazratbal ended peacefully, and brought to a close
...ea atioo of the shrine without firing a shot. The Indian autboriti,,. bandied an
the..,d<..,~
e.dremely delicate situation with aplomb.
In Saudi Arabia, some 200-300 armed pmoos took cootrol of all major points of
the Grand Mosque of Mecca during dawn prayers on 20 November 1979. The mosque
(AI-Abram), which encloses the shrine of the sacred black stone (Kaaba), is the
centre of the Muslim world, and the most impor1ant centre of pilgrimage for Muslims.
On 2S November 1979, the Saudi television network broadcast a ruling of the ulema
lifting the ban on use of weapons in the mosque. Shortly after, some 2200 troops
ent=d the building in armoured personnel carriers, and using howitzers and light
artillery, rapidly gained control of most of the building. Fighting then continued in
the 270 vaults and chambers beneath the mosque, with resistance ceasing on 3
December, following the troops' use of tear gas, water and smoke to clear the tunnels.
Unconfirmed reports subsequently stated that the final assault OD the mosque was
directed by five officers of a French anti-tenorist uoit, and weapoos used in the
u111dt had been flown in an official French aircraft. Prince Nayef said in a television
interview OD 4 December that 7S of the insurgents had been killed in the fighting,
and added OD 9 Januazy 1980, that 27 of the I 70 persons arrested during the storming
died of injuries. Among the troops assaulting the mosque 120 were killed and 4S1
injured. There were also 26 dead among civilians and I 09 injured. The alleged prophet
al-Qatani died in the fighting, and Jeheiman ibn Seif al-Otaiba, the tactician of the
group, was among the 63 people executed on 9 Januazy 1980.
On 19 April I 993, 170 agents of the FBI stormed the Ranch Apocalypse in
Waro, Texas, in which the followers of the cult leader David Koresh had galhered.
The assault, at the end ofa SI-day siege, was led by tanks and tear gas and CS gas (a
ooo-lethal riot control agent) were extensively used. The storming had been cleared
by the US Attorney General Janet Reno, and had the approval of President Bill
Clinton. During the assault, a fire broke out oo the ranch and destroyed many structures.
It is not clear whether the fire was started by assaulting tanks upturning lamps, or
deliberately by the cult members. At the end of the assault, 86 Davidians were dead,
including I9 children and 37 women, as well as leader Koresh. Branch Davidian cult
members deified Koresh as God's prophet. Unlike in Hazratbal, Branch Davidians
lived off the army rations they had stored during the siege. FBI agents and the
Branch Davidians were in negotiating contact. The FBI continually made appeals to
send out the women and children, which the Branch Davidians turned down.
Subsequently, there was an uproar in the US that excessive force was used. After an
inquiry, the director of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) Branch of the FBI, Stephen
Riggins, retired from service.
Earlier in 1988, in Operation Black Thunder, the militants holed up in the Golden
Temple were forced to surrender without too many casualties. The reason why an
assault had to be mounted by the army in Operation Blucstar was that, rightly or
wrongly, the political leadership believed that a Dharma Yuddha was being lauDcbed,
which would digger off a number of uprisings, and bad international cross-border
ramifications. Hence, the entire state was put under curfew, which, in turn, compelled
an early resolution to the crisis, by use of force, if necessary. Hence, Bluestar is not
comparable to the other instances where a single shrine or gathering in a ranch -
involved.
~
.
It must be recogni:red that terrorists will take advantage of the inconsist-
encies and opportunism in the policies of nations. Hamas was nurtured
initially by the Israelis as a CO\llltervailing factor to the secular PLO, and
resources for Harnas came from Sudan and Saudi Arabia, client states of
the US, and from the expatriates in the US.
According to Time magazine, one former official of the US Defence
Intelligence Agency, Lex Coleman, asserted in a book, The Trail of the
Octopus, that the explosion of PanArn flight 103 over the Scottish town
of Lockerbie in 1988, killing all passengers and crew, was brought about
by the machinations of US intelligence agencies. The US had been
carrying out a sting operation, he said, in which some quantities of drugs
from the Bekaa valley were being dispatched to the US to enable the US
Drug Enforcement Agency to keep track on drug traffickers. The Iranians
wanted to avenge themselves for the shooting down of the Iranian Airbus
by the US warship Vincennes in rnid-1988. The Iranians, with the Syrians'
On 31 July 1987, during Haj pilgrimage as Iranian pilgrims marched up Holy

Mosque slree1 towards the Grand Mosque chanting slogans against Israel, Iraq, the
USA and the Soviet Union, and accordiog to some reports against Saudi Arabia and
King Fahd himself, violence broke out, resulting in Saudi security forces opening
fire. According to the Saudis, there were 402 killed (275 Iranians, 42 olber pilgrims
and 85 Saudi security persoonel) and 649 injured. On the other band, tbe Iranians
claimed that 322 Iranians were killed and a fuJtber 142 were missing. Following
these incidents the Saudis appointed Gen. Ulrich W egeoer, who bad retired as bead
of the GSG-9 counter terrorist force, as ·bead of a Saudi task force to oversee
arrangements in Mecca.
lo Nagalaod and Mizoram the experience of the Indian armed forces was unique.
They succeeded over a prolonged period in containing the violence of the iosw-gents
to enable the political solutions to be worked out and to win over the insurgent to
accept the Indian constitution and to have a place of honour in it. lo Punjab, while a
section of the insurgent leadership bad to be eliminated throllgb physical violence the
main task in Operation Woodrose was to contain the insurgent violence once again
to enable the political process to be worted out. Ao interim solution was found in the
1985 elections though it did not last long.
lo Sri Lanka the objectives were threefold. First, to ensure that Jayewardeoe's
democratic government was not overthrown. Second, the Tamil autonomy demand
was conceded. Third, the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka was preserved. While the
second objective was not totally achieved, the first and third were. Nor the subsidiary
objective of disarming the insurgents could be achieved. lo Nagaland and Mizoram
arms were voluntarily swmidered at the end of political settlement. lo the absence of
such settlement the arms surrender could not be achieved in Sri I ,anka Nor could it
be in Punjab since the political settlement did not endure.
In Mizoram and Nagaland the advantage was that there was an identifiable leader-
ship with which the government of India could negotiate.

assistance, replaced the drugs consignment with a suitcase carrying

explosives. According to this version, Iran and Syria were being shielded
for political reasons by US authorities. (Coleman sought political asylum
in Sweden.) In April 1986, the US carried out raids on Tripoli, to punish
Libya for its alleged complicity in the bombing of a Berlin disco in
which a US serviceman was killed. It was hinted that the US had evidence
based on communication intercepts, which proved Libya's complicity.
Years later, the woman who actually planted the bomb was arrested; it
turned out that the operation was Syrian motivated and directed .
General Yaariv, fo,mer adviser on counter terrorism to the Israeli
government, revealed in a 1V interview (recorded in 1992 but released
Ollly on 22 November 1993) that MOSS8'1, the Israeli secret service, carried
out assassinations of ten to fifteen leading PLO leaders in the 1970s as a
counter to PLO terrorist ldllinp of Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics.
He claimed that every one of the targets was cleared by Prime Minister
Golda Meir. In his view the assassination campaign produced effective
results. It is generally believed that Count Bernadotte, the Swedish UN
peace mediator himself, was a victim of Israeli assassination in 1948.
The then director of the CIA William Colby disclosed to the Frank
Ctnuch Committee in the wake of the Watergate scandal that while the
CIA had not carried out any killings on the soil of USA, that could not
be said about operations outside the US territory. It is widely believed
that its _targets included Patrice Lumwnba of Zaire and Fidel Castro. CIA
involvement in the Chilean military coup has been established and the
former director of CIA, Richard Helms, was convicted of perjury for
having denied the CIA's involvement. There are also indigenous political
assassinations about which a foreign nation may have had prior knowledge
or to.which it may have provided some assistance. The Vietnamese coup
of 1963 in which the leader Ngo Dinh Diem was killed would fall into
this category.
In early 1992, the Lebanese HizbuJlah leader Musavi while travelling
along with his wife and young son was deliberately targeted by an Israeli
helicopter gunship and the car was hit with a rocket, killing everyone in
the vehicle. The Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens in his television
interview did not hide the fact that Musavi was specifically targeted to
be killed. His justification was that the HizbuJlah leader was responsible
for many Israeli deaths and his hands were stained in blood according to
Israel's point of view. The use of force in combat is permissible so long
as it is not aimed at eliminating a particular individual with malicious
intent. But such targeted killing has happened throughout history. Queen

Terrorism 283
Elizabeth I of England was targeted for assassination by the rulers of

France and Spain and she got her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots executed
for that conspiracy. The British conspired to kill Napoleon while he was
Emperor and final.ly he was slowly poisonld when be was a prisoner on
St Helena.
Hitler was targeted for assassination; the attempt failed. The most
notorious case was that of the Japanese "dmiral Yamamatn. The US
forces, having broken the Japanese codes, came •o know about his inten-
tion to inspect the·Japanese forces fighting in New Guinea. The informa-
tion was put up to Secretary of War Henry Stimson, an exr#ldingly
moral man, who as Secretary of War in the early 1930s wound up military
censorship with the comment, "Gentlemen do not read other people's
mail". Stimson had to decide whether Admiral Yamamato's plane was to
be intercepted and shot down. Now at the height of World War D be did
not have his eaclier qualms. He asked who would succeed Yamamato
and whether he would be better or worse. The answer was that Japan did
not have ~yoqe ofYamamatn's calibre. The moral Stimson ordered the
interception and shooting down of Admiral Yamamato.
Arguments advanced by some human rights groups claiming the status
of combatants· for terrorists may justify assassination attempts of this
type. If terrorists are combatants engaged in war against the State, then a
nation like Israel could argue that elimination of command and _control
of the terrorist side is a legitimate act of war and the killing of his wife
and children constitutes inescapable collateral damage. Argwnents
equating a State and the terrorist side do not always end up in meting out
equal justice to both sides but can result in spiralling reciprocal violence.
Those who treat terrorism as a part of combat overlook this.

27
The Jihad Phenomenon
Justice Munir and Justice Kayani, enquiring into the

Lahore anti-Ahmediya riots of 1953, described the Muslim predicament
as follows:
The phantom of an Islamic State bas haunted the Mnssalman throughout the
ages and is a result of the memory of the glorious past when Islam. rising like a
storm from the least expected part of the world, the wilds of Arabia, instantly
enveloped the world, pulling down from their high pedestal gods who had ruled
over man since the creation, uprooting centuries-old institutions and supentitions
and supplanting all civilizations that had been built on an enslaved hwnanity.
What is 125 years in human history, nay in the history of a people, and yet
during this brief period Islam spread from the Indus to the Atlantic and Spain
and from the borders of China to Egypt and the SODS of the desert installed
themselves in all old centres of civilization in Ctesipbon, Damascus, Alexandria,
India and all places associated with the names of the Sumerian and the Assyrian
civilization. Historians have often posed the question: What would have been
the state of the world today ifMuwaiya's siege of Constantinople had succeeded
or if the proverbial Arab instinct for plunder had not suddenly seized the
Mujahideen of Abdur Rahman in their fight against Charles Martel on the plains
of Tours in Southern France. May be Muslims would have discovered America
long before Columbus did and the entire world would have been M1Ldimivid.
May be Islam itself would have been Europeanized. It is the achievements of the
Arabian nomads, the like of which the world had never seen befpre, that make
the Mussalman of today live in the past and yearn for the return of the glory that
was Islam. He finds himself standing in the crossroads wrapped in the mantle of
the past and with the dead weight of the centuries on his back. The freshness and
the simplicity of the faith which gave determination to his mind and the spring
to his muscle is now denied to him. He bas neither the means nor the ability to
conquer and there are no countries to conquer.
Little does he understand that the forces which are pined against him are
entirely different from those against which early Islam had to fight and that on
the clues given by his own ancestors human mind has achieved results which be
cannot understand. He, therefore, finds himself in a state of belplessness waiting
for someone to come and help him out of his morass of uncertainty and confusion.
In a special section on Islam and the West, The Economist (6-12
August 1994) noted:

The Jihad Phenomenon 285
One of the COIDlllOlleSt prophecies of the mid- l 990s is that the Muslim world is
beading for a fight with ocher parts of the world that do not share its religio-
political opinions; above all wony nervous Europeans, a fight with Europe. On
current evidence this is by no means impossible.... Such experiences [Nagorno
Karabagh, Bosnia, Palestine, Kashmir and Ayodhya mosque] made Muslims
think the world is against them. If it is, then they are 11gairu:t the world. Hence
the xenophobia that gets foreigners murdered by Koran quoting terrorists in
Algeria and Egypt Islam as Samuel Huntington, a professor at Harvard University
has put it, has bloody borders.
There is much anger and frustration in the Islamic world, and helpless-
ness though there are more than fifty Muslim nations out of 180 nations
in the international community, about one-sixth of the global population,
and controlling nominally the territory which contains more than 40 per
cent of the world's oil reserves. Not Jong ago, the Islamic cowitries felt
they were on top of the world. They accumulated wtdreamt wealth and
they could buy any kind of sophisticated weapons short of nuclear
weapons. Arabic was made a UN language.
In many Islamic communities, there is a perception that with the
collapse of communism and the western economic crisis, the western
way of life is failing and Islam provides the only alternative answer. The
assertion that there is a perfect and total solution laid down centuries ago,
is likely to contribute more to division and conflict than wiity and peace.
Objectively, the Islamic societies are also in flux. As seen in Pakistan,
Islamiz.ation of the state has created serious problems in adjusting it to
the imperatives of the modern world in political, economic and social
terms.
Whenever religion claims to embrace all aspects of life and the
organi~ clergy reserves the right to determine the relationship among
human beings and does not leave it to be settled by representational
institutions there is an inherent tension between the concepts of
democracy, pluralism and individual freedom and religious orthodoxy.
In India we see it in Kashmir and Punjab where the orthodox organized
clergy is attempting to preserve its hold on society against the winds of
democracy and secularism.
Cowitries like Saudi Arabia attempted to use Islam as a foreign policy
tool. When they had enonnous oil surplus money, they used to aid and
support orthodox Islamic organizations in cowitries where Muslims were
in a minority. Now there is a backlash on the Islamic cowitries themselves,
of three kinds. Orthodox Islamic clergy, who were nurtured and supported
with oil money, now find that the Islamic rulers are not adequately
orthodox and are not true to Islamic faith. The Wahabi preacher Otaiba
rlenounced the Saudi royal family from the Kaaba mosque itself in 1979;

he and bis followers bad to be put down with the help of French
paratroopers. Most of the Islamic rulers are under attack on the ground
that they are living a luxurious life. The second backlash is on the ground
that the governments of Islamic countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and
others) are not true to the Islamic spirit: they should return to the true
spirit of Islam. A subsidiary aspect of this effect is Islamic radicalism.
This is put forward by young radicals who want to promote an egalitarian
society. As believing Muslims they could not subscribe to the Marxist
values. They derive their inspiration from early Islam before the rulers
adopted the style of the Arabian Nights. There bas been a long tradition
of Muslim brotherhood (Dchwan-i-Musulmeen) who have been fighting
against the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
The third backlash is the sectarian one, which derived considerable
strength from Iranian Shia leadership. While the Shia groups have been
basically anti-western, they have also been fighting sectarian wars against
Sunni Muslims. All the three streams have resorted to terrorism, both in
Islamic and non-Muslim countries. The sectarian and tribal divisions
have led to violent civil wars in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
elsewhere. A genuine secular liberation movement like the PLO finds
Harnu, a terrorist Islamic organi:zation, a major impediment in prosecuting
its campaign for an independent Palestinian state since the terrorism of
Hamas legitimizes Israel's harsh countermeasures in the eyes of the world.
The Islamic states are divided into those who go along with the West
(most of them), and those who oppose it (Iraq, Iran, Libya and Sudan),
all of which are threatened to be declared terrorist states. Islamic funda-
mentalism is not only denounced in the Christian West but IC'Ading Islamic
countries themselves, such as Egypt and Turkey, are fighting against it.
In spite of all talk of Muslims constituting the ummah (community of
believers) and the Arabs constituting a nation, most of their insecurity
arises out of intra-Muslim and intra-Arab animosities. The longest war
in the post- World War II period was fought between two Islamic
neighbours (Iran and Iraq). In 1986, the Palestinians in Burj al-Barajneh,
Sabra, Chatila and other refugee camps, all good Muslims, were besieged
by the Amal militia consisting of Shia Muslims and were starved nearly
to death. Such was their desperation, the refugees even sought permission
for a fatwa which would allow them to eat the flesh of dead bodies. The
millat had DO sympathy for them. In the days of black September in
1970, Palestinian refugees in Jordan were massacred by forces under the
command of Brigadier (as he then was) Ziaul Haq, who was then oD the
staff of King Hussein. In 1985, when there was sectarian violence in
Syria, artillery was used to suppress the dissidents in the city of Homs;

The JiJtad Phenoment>n 281
the casualties were in thousands. The community of Believers chose not

to take any note of it, nor of what was going on in Beirut when rival
militias, all Muslims, were indulging in wanton killing. The Kurds are in
a state of insurgency in TW'key, Iraq and Iran. Thousands of them have
been killed by government forces. In the insurgency in Afghanistan, where
the casualties were in hundreds of thousands, all professed the same
faith. In Pakistan, there have been riots between Shias and S1D1Dis, between
Muhajirs and Pathans, between Ahmediyas and others, Sindhis and noo-
Sindhis-all Muslims. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)
serves as a convenient fal;ade, which enables them to pass resolutions on
peripheral issues against non-Islamic countries.
The idea of pan-Islam is nearly a century old and has been stagnant
After the first three centuries, Islamic nations have never been united.
For centuries, the Islamic states were not unified under the caliphate
even when it existed. A devout Muslim emperor like Aurangzeb would
not accept fatwas from outside. Ecumenism needs a certain secularist
approach, and a measure of tolerance. The more strident, fundamentalist,
self-righteous, and intolerant the various groups and sects are, the more
difficult it is for them to unite. Political unity has to be based on a
common future vision, and not on harking back to a bygone past. There
are no signs that in the present day Islam can overcome national, ethnic,
and sectarian divides.
Part of the problem of divisiveness in Islam is that the oil-rich Islamic
countries are poorly populated, while most of the densely populated
Islamic countries do not have the advantage of oil in their territory (except
Iran and Iraq). These two, which combine significant populations and oil
riches, have tended to be militarily (Iraq) or ideologically (Iran) expan-
sionist. In tum, this has driven the rich but sparsely populated Islamic
countries to look to the powerful West, especially the US, for their
security. Islamic fundamentalism is a basic offshoot of this contradiction.
The accumulation of riches, the rich-poor divide even while preaching
that all Muslims constitute the ummah, all Arabs constitute a nation, and
Islam is not merely a religion but a way of life, have generated both
Islamic fundamentalism (a return to puritanical Islam) and Islamic
radicalism (a more egalitarian order based on Islamic values).
Sparsely populated Islamic countries can suppress such fundamentalism
and radicalism and mollify their people by distributing social benefits. It
is the relatively densely populated and poorer Islamic countries which
face the impact '>f fundamentalism and radicalism. The rich and populated
Islamic countries (Iraq and Iran) have generated national chauvinism
and have for the moment circumvented the problem.

288 Sliedding Sliibboledis
Some talk of the centuries-old animosities between Hindus and

Muslims. Bhutto spoke of a thousand-year war between them. By that
logic, one could talk of a 1200-year-old war between Shias and Smmis,
since the martyrdom of Hassan and Hussein, and centuries of war between
Christians and Muslims. One could describe the relations between Protest-
ants and Catholics as a war of centuries since the Reformation. But this
is nonsense. In the past, as people moved from ooe place to another in
search of food, resources and better places to settle down, there were
inevitable contlicts. Similarly, as sects arose in different religions, these
produced tensions and conflicts. Those who· had to be mobiliuid to kill
and risk being killed had to be conditioned to believe that they were
fighting a holy war to defend God-given truths and agaimt God's enemies.
Even Hitler persuaded the Germans to believe they were fighting to
build a superior civilization. In the developing world, a new justification
has been discovered for increasing social tensions--the need to preserve
the identity of a community or a group.
A community, as constituent of a larger entity like a nation, can sustain
its identity in two ways: either make its own unique contribution to the
culture of the larger entity, or isolate itself. The former integrates, the
latter divides. Preference for separateness comes from a community's
diffidence about its ability to survive in competition with others' ideas.
One reflection of such diffidence is the fifty-nation OIC. There is no
organiution of Christian states or Buddhist states, let alone Hindu states
(whose members will be restricted to just two).1 The organintiou is
counterproductive. It cloaks the deep disunity among the Islamic states
by projecting an image of Islamic Millat in unified thought and action.
Without being really effective, the collective assembling of the Islamic
states gives a handle to sections of western analysts and media to focus
on Islam as a threat to western values and civilization.
Cynical use of religion as a front is a well-established practice in
history. Jinnah, by no means a devout Muslim, used Islam to gain political
power. Z.A. Bhutto, who was food of his whiskey, imposed prohibition
on the Pakistani people expecting that it would help him achieve his
political goals. The Pakistani generals used Ni2:aro-i-Mustapha as a peg
to hang their ambitions on. The rnahants of the Sikh gurdwaras, in their
days, defended their conduct in the name of religious orthodoxy.
I. Even states with majority Muslim population, which profess to t,,, ..,,..,t..,,
consider it advantageous to be a member of the OIC. India was foolish enough to
attempt to become one, but the parochialism of the Islamic states confined this COIDltry
to the D811'DW and straight palh of secularism.

28
ConuprionWorldwide
In quick succession, the world saw the BCCI closure, the

failure of the savings and loan institutions in the US, Ivan Boeslcy's and
Millik.en 's insider trading, Robert Maxwell swallowing up pension funds,
the Japanese Recruits Scandal, illegal reimbursement of stock exchange
losses to powerful clients with linkages with organiud crime in Japan,
Pakistan's Cooperative Bank's shenanigans and the CPSU salting away
billions of dollars. In Japan two prime ministers bad to resign and Keating,
Boeslcy, Milliken and a couple ofBCCI officials got jail sentences.
Scams have close links with political culture. Five distinguished US
senators supported Keating of the Savings and Loans scam notoriety.
The BCCI ran its clandestine operations in the US enlisting highly influ-
ential pillars of the Democratic party establishment. The nexus between
politics, organized crime and financial ~m" i.n Japan bas been extensively
reported. The involvement of Nawaz Sbarifs family and his associates
in the affairs of the Pakistan Cooperative Bank scandal is well known.
Some, like Hasan Abedi of BCCI and Maxwell, cultivated a public
image of being very sensitive and caring persons even as they pursued
sinister plots of robbing countless fellow beings. Maxwell flaunted his
socialist credentials. The CPSU was pledged to protect society from the
depredations of capitalist venality.
The developing world is full of leaders who have enriched themselves
at the expense of their countrymen. Mobutu of Zaire, Suharto of Indonesia,
Marcos of the Philippines, Noriega of Panama, Ziaul Haq of Pakistan and
Ersbad of Bangladesh are an illustrative list. In Brazil, Fernando Collor
de Mello got elected as President in 1989 on a platform that he would
clean up comrption and reform the economy. Three years later, he faced
a motion of impeachment in the Brazilian Congress. He was the first
civilian president of his country to be directly elected after thirty years.
The impeachment was on the ground that he bad been a partner of Paulo
Cesar Farios, a rich businessman, in his illegal accumulation of wealth.
The impeached president said in a television broadcast that the

290 Sltedding Slubboletlu
impeachment move was an attempt to sabotage his reform programme,

but admitted to some lapses.
In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berluscooi. the media bill.iooaire who
emerged as the leader of the largest party in the elcctioos earlier that year,
was subjected to several hoin of questioning by the Italian magistrates
at the end of 1994 on bis past dealings with the Italian bureaucracy. The
issue was wbetber he resorted to systematic bribing of the tax people. He
claimed he was a victim of extortion. His brother Paolo was arrested on
the charge and released on bail. Berlusconi won his victory on the promise
of providing clean and honest government in the wake of the revelations
of large-scale corruption and underhand dealings of the politicians of
established political parties (the Christian Democrats and the Socialists)
and their connections with organized crime. Berfusconi owned three TV
networks and the world-renowned soccer team, the AC Milan. Though
completely new to politics, he was able to project himself as the great
reformer the country sorely needed to cleanse its conupt politics of the
past four decades. His TV networks and his monetary resow-ces helped
to persuade large sections of Italians that be was the man of the hour. In
corruption-ridden Italy Berlusconi could not have built his fabulous
fortune without lubricating the decisioo-making and law enforcement
machinery with bribes. On coming into the office of prime minister,
Berlusconi tried to curb the powers of the Italian magistracy, but the
move backfired, and the legislature restored their powers.
The question of conflict between Berlusconi's role as the prime
minister and his enormous business interest dogged him ever since be
assumed office. He offered to put his business interests in a blind trust
which would be administered by trustees approved by the president of
the republic. That was not accepted on the ground that there would still
be a conflict of interests, since in legislating laws he would know what
was good for his business.
In early 1993, the Italian Socialist leader Bettino Craxi resigned, faced
with fifteen counts of corruption charges. Craxi dominated the country's
politics for more than fifteen years, and was once considered as one of
its most effective prime ministers. A day earlier, Justice Minister Claudio
Martelli, regarded as number two leader in the Italian Socialist Party,
also resigned on similar charges. They were believed to have been
connected with what came to be known as the Milan scandal. In this
story of political sleaze, a slush fund had been created in a Swiss bank
with bribes from various contractors. A leading contractor, and Craxi's
close friend, Silvano Lareni, agreed to tum in state evidence. In an

Corruption Worldwide 291
emotional resignation speech, Craxi denied any wrongdoing. He claimed

that such fund collection for party purposes was widely practised and
did not constitute corruption. Craxi was later convicted of conuption
and had to serve sentence even while awaiting further charges. Seven
times prime minister Julio Andreotti also had to face trial in Palermo,
Sicily, on charges that be was in league with the Mafia, had met their
leaders, and helped them to avoid trial and conviction in return for
monetary considerations and electoral support. Italy had a number of
scandals in the preceding years-the failure of Banco Ambrosiano, the
Freemason Lodges and their connections with the law enforcement
machinery, and the Mafia-politicians nexus.
In early 199S, the Japanese suprenie court confirmed the conviction
of premier Kalruei Tanaka for receipt of kickbacks from Lockheed aircraft
company of the US: he escaped serving the prison sentence by dying in
time. In France, the Socialist Emmannelle was brought to trial for receiv-
ing money for party coffers. Three ministers of the government ofBalladur
had to resign on corruption scandal. Balladur himself was involved in a
scandal of telephone tapping, which concerned a judge investigating
receipt of funds for his party. The NATO secretary-general Willy Claes,
a former Belgian defence minister, was accused of being an accessary to
the information that the Italian helicopter company Aguste was offering
kickbacks to his party in a defence deal. In Britain there were allegations
of large-scale contribution by Saudi Arabia to Conservative party funds
and fat commissions on large arms deals to the son of former prime
minister Margaret Thatcher. In the US, there was the mystery of the
Whitewater.; case. One secretary to government had to leave for irregular-
ities and there were allegations against another. In China, political corrup-
tion has reached astronomical proportions. There is a whole category of
people called "the princelings", the younger generation connected with
leading political and military leaders. In Indonesia and Pakistan, people
very close to leaders are known as "Mr/Ms ten per cent", the commission
they charge on major deals involving the government.
The ltalian<:abinet in early 1993 attempted to issue a decree providing
a reprieve for the politicians by way of suspended sentences if they
would plead guilty, return the bn"bes they took, and retire from politics.
The cabinet finalized the decree, but President Oscar Scalfaro refused to
sign it. One minister resigned on the issue and there was widespread
public outrage on permitting the conupt politicians to go scot-free. The
(talian judiciary and magistracy won worldwide acclaim for the way
they fought the terrorism of the Red Brigade and systematically closed

292 SJ,e,dding Shibboleth.,
in on the Mafia. Two of the leading investigative magistrates were

assassinated by the Mafia. Financial executives of Fiat and the head of
the state-owned giant Ente Nazionale ldrocarburi (ENI) were arrested
aloog with the president of ooe of its leading subsidiaries.
In Japan. the Liberal Democratic Party was known to be corrupt, and
the public cynically accepted this. Tbe LOP is a loose coalition of various
interest groups headed by leaders who play musical chairs for various
portfolios as the prime ministers change, oo the basis of horse trading
among the groups. In Japan ooe person can be prime minister only for
six years at a time. In deciding oo the choice of the new prime minister,
support of various interest groups and factions used to be purchased with
large sums of money. The man who played the role of kingmakP.r, being
in charge of money collection and its distnbution, was Shin Kanemaru.
In early 1993, Kanemaru was charged with receiving bribes, was let off
with a small fine, and was later arrested and held in prison oo a charge of
evading income tax.
In Colombia, President Ernesto Samper proposed, in early 1996, a
referendum on whether he should stay in office and if so, how long. He
rejected calls for his resignation on the basis of disclosures by his
campaigP manager and former defence minister that he received campaign
funds for his election from the Cali drug cartel. He had campaigned on
the platform that he would eliminate drug cartels. He denied any
knowledge of contributions from drug cartels and asserted that if there
were any, they were without his knowledge. His campaign manager,
Fernando Botero, already amsted, asserted that not only Samper knew
about the contributions, ,imning into several million dollars, but he actually
ordered and collected them. In the course of the raids on the drug cartel,
many documents were seiz.ed, which revealed systematic payments to
politicians, judges, and police officials.
Alan Garcia of Peru, who was elected on a reform platform, lived in
exile for fear of prosecution for corruption ifhe returned home.
Organized crime plays an influential role in the US and explairui why
the US remains the largest drug consumer in the world• The Russian
mafia runs a parallel state. The drug cartels in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia
have close links with local politicians and operate worldwide in collusion
with intelligence agencies and politicians of major countries.
The politician-corruption-<>rganized crime nexus seems to be a global
phenomenon. Today's mass politics based on pluralistic system involves
the political parties being run as large corporate enterprises. Since politics
is not a productive enterprise, large funds are required to maintain political

Corruption Worldwide 293
parties and fight elections. This can be done in two ways. Use of enormous
state patronage and fund raising from various economic enterprises,
including organized lobbies, may µnance the political parties. Wielding
ofstate patronage at different tiers of political power contributes to active
politics at different levels. The alternative is to obtain large sums of
money from organized industry and crime under the table. Since it is not
openly accounted to the tax authorities, individual politicians can
personally enrich themselves. In most democratic countries the latter
option has been exercised. .
Political corruption may be for personal accumulation of wealth for
self, family members and cronies, and for acquisition of resources for
the party to maint>iin it in power. While organized industry pays black
money bribes to get favours, to lubricate the governmental machinery
and cross bureaucratic hurdles, organiud crime pays to get the protection
of the politicians, to keep off law enforcement agencies from interfering
in their operations, and to convert their black money into white.
Most advanced democracies have passed through varying stages of
comiption. The capitalist system in the initial stages is built on exploitation
and comiption is a form of exploitation. In a developing country that is a
democracy and has adopted all model labour laws, comiption appears to
be a more acceptable-much gentler-form of exploitation than the sweat
labour and starvation wages denounced by the Marxists.
Corruption diverts money away from development and benefits away
from the target audience in poverty alleviation programmes. Like diabetes,
a degenerative disease that affects all vital organs of the body, corruption
affects all aspects of national activity. Corruption by its nature has a
tendency to spread. Since comipt transactions have to be opaque, govern-
ance at all levels becomes more and more opaque. Secondly, public
accountability becomes a major casualty.
Corruption is a natural offshoot of an economy of shortages. When
there is a shortage of government housing, those in charge of allotment
can command a pugree. Sanction of telephones, electricity and water
connections, allotment of self-financed flats, you name it, command a
black ptemilllII. In some parts of the country even postal articles purchased
in post offices used to have a margin charged on them. The rapidly
expanding middle class wants goods and services badly and is prepared
to pay extra to get them. The bureaucracy, coming from the same middle
class, does not hesitate to make a quick buck.
In India, the last time a very senior official had to undergo imprison-
ment for comiption was in the early 1950s, when S.A. Venkataraman, an

294 Slrdding Shibboleths
ex-Commerce Secretary, was sent to jail for misdcwk that would be

hardly taken note of in these days of permissiveness. No politician in this
countty has ever been convicted for corruption. Politically, Pratap Singh
Kairon had to step down from office, and in the case of a few others
corruption was one of the major considerations for their being cased out,
though it was never spch out that way. The days in which cabinet minister<I
like T.T. Krishnamachari had to resign for some alleged transaction
involving some tens of Jakbs of rupees which no one claimed benefited
him personally, look very unreal today.
A press report at the end of 1995, based on informatioo made itvailable
by the CBI, revealed that an IAS officer of the rank of joint secretary
was being investigated for possessing assets worth Rs 5 crorc. A hurund
cases against the all-India services officers (IAS and IPS) were understood
to be under reference to the CBI. The list of people being invcsl:igated
included a chief secretary, two directors of police, a special inspector
general. a regional commissioner of a central mini!ltry, and officers of
the rank ofjoint secretary. Only 10-15 out of the 100 cases were said to
be under active investigation, implying that what was revealed was only
the tip of the iceberg. Services such as income tax and customs arc the
highest preferences of new entrants tQ the civil services, even ahead of
the Foreign Service, once much sought after, because they offer a good
scope for corruption. Even the cases under investigation may not neces-
sarily be pursued vigorously. The investigation process itself is cumber-
some, and the procedure thereafter even more cumbersome. At the end
of it all, there is no certainty of a judicial conviction.
Once, while dealing with the case of a superintendent of police whose
assets far exceeded his known sources of income, I came across a higb-
JeveJ judicial verdict acquitting him that a 50 per cent saving of a person's
salary was not an unreasonable assumption. The total earnings of a civil
servant at the salary levels of the early l 990s in his career would not
exceed Rs 30 Jakh. The officer concerned had a car, sent his children to
expensive private schools, and maintained a fairly high standard of Jiving.
Harshad Mebta's preposterous claim that he delivered suitcases full
of money to the prime minister, though it was proved false, was initially
widely believed. The Nagarwala case, the case of a cheque being given
to the sister of the Shah of Iran, the HDW submarine deal, the Kuo oil
deal and the Bofors case arc only illustrative of cases involving prime
ministers. A former chief minister, who was being prosecuted for corrup-
tion, died even as he succeeded in prolonging his trial endlessly: the
nation honoured his memory with the issue of a commemorative 1<tamp
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Google Original from
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29
TheI~byrinthofDrugs
Colonel Oliver North of the Iran-Contra affair notoriety,

while deposing before the US Congressional Committee in 1988, chuckled
over how he and his bosses were amused at the thought of making the
ayatollahs of Iran pay through the nose for arms sold clandestinely to
Iran. North and his bosses used that money to finance the buying of arms
for the Contras (the Nicaraguan insurgents supported by the Reagan
Administration), in their fight against the Marxist Sandinista government
Congress had imposed a ban on any US agency assisting the Contras.
The Iranian ayatollahs were enabling the US Administration to circumvent
the ban. TI;ie intermediaries, who were SPe.aking arms into the states
adjacent to Nicaragua where the Contras were sheltered, were bringing
back. in the cargo holds of the aircraft, massive quantities of cocaine
into the US. It being a covert operation, conducted UDder NSC (National
Security Council) auspices, the drugs entered the US borders unchecked
by the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
The ayatollahs, certainly, would have <;buckled over their own smart-
ness. They knew they were paying exorbitantly for the US arms: but the
-
dollars and hard western currencies for the payment were earned by
permitting drugs from Iran and Afghani..ran to flow into the US and
western Europe! lntimately, the gainers were arms merchants and the
intermediaries; and the losers were the western youth. And a President,
who thought that the solution to the drug problem was to ask the youth to
say No to drugs, while his own NSC staff were engaged in large-scale
drug pushing, bailed as heroes the persons responsible for the large drug-
running operation.
Some years later, a US court indicted General Manuel Antonio
Noriega, the Panamanian Chief of Anny Staff, for permitting his country
to be used as a conduit for drug n1nning into the US and for laundering
the money thus earned. Noriega was earlier director of military intelligence
in Panama, whom the CIA built up to become the kingroaker there.
Though the US stopped paying the Panama Canal dues and all payments
by US companies (the dollar is the currency in Panama), it could not

296 Sltedding Sliibboleths
bring him down. The administration was forced to pcnnit the pa;ments
for "practical reasons" after Noriega cut off the supply of power and
water to US nationals in that country. After the much-publicized Panama
invasion to curb drug traffic, Noriega was captured and put on trial in
the US; be was not allowed to disclose in bis defence bis dealings with
the CIA.
Similar charges of being collaborators in covert US ope,ations involv-
ing drug-running were levelled against the prime minister of the Bahamas,
the ruling military strongmen in Haiti, and the rulers in Colombia, Bolivia
and Ecuador. The Medellin cartel (named after 11 family which beads it)
could bribe judges to get convicted drug pushers released, ISSIIS§inate a
justice minister who attempted to initiate action against it, and even
coerce one government to come out in favour of legalizing drug trade.
The CIA's drug connection goes a long time back in bisto.y. In the
early 1950s, as the communists swept to power in China, a section of the
Guomindang forces retreated into the Golden Triangle on the Bunna-
Cbina-Laos border. While the CIA was dropping arms to them, the
Guomindang men were maintaining themselves by growing opium and
pushing it into the world market Now the legacy of drug protluction and
export from the ·Golden Triangle bas been inherited by the Burmese
Communist, Shan, Kacbin, Karen, and other insurgent groups. The
Burmese military junta is known to be indulging in indiscriminate tree
felling and narcotics trade for their private gain. During the Vietnam
War, the CIA supported the Hmangis (a tribe which resisted the Vietcong
and sided with the US) in the production and transport of drug., to western
countries, which were the areas of principal demand. When the war
ended, the tribe's chieftains were given asylum in the US.
In 1995, a case was filed by the passengers and crew of an airliner
against a US agency carrying out a sting operation. The agents bad loaded
the aircraft with drugs and it was held up in Honduras by the customs
authorities. The passengers and crew were arrested and some of them
were subjected to third degree. There are also allegations that the blowing
up of the PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland was the result of
a sting operation by US agencies, which went fatally wrong when Iranian
agents substituted a bomb for a drug consignment The Pakistanis accuse
the CIA of having initiated the cultivation and manufacture of drugs on
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to finance Afghan ruujabideen.
The first drug barons of the world were the East India Company and
the British government, who seized Hong Kong as the result of a war to
impose opium on the Chinese population. British industrialization was
partly financed by the drug money. The Chinese have released a film on

- --- -----<#
The Labyrinth of Drug$ 297
the opium war to educate the people of Hong Kong ~ut the insincerity
behind the present-day preaching of blllJllll) rights and democracy by
those who promoted drug trade through wars.
The US report on international drug traffic, which is an annual feature
along with similar other exhortative documents, blames everybody else
for what is basically a major and continuing US failure-not being able
to fight the drug menace in its streets. This failure is mostly attributable
to the breakdown in family values, poverty amidst plenty, the general
atmosphere of corruption at lower levels of administration, and organized
crime and its nexus with politicians.
Often, there is close connection between insurgency (Leftist oi:
Rightist), low-intensity conflict, and drug production. This is the case in
the Andean countries of South America. The M-19 and Shining Path
movements extend protection to narcotics traffic and draw sustenance
from it. The Golden Triangle also has many ongoing insurgencies.
Likewise, the Golden Crescent area, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,
nurtures the mujahideen activities; from there the low-intensity conflict
spills over, especially into Sind and Punjab and then into the Jam.mu and
Kashmir state of India. For some years, the state of Punjab in India also
was gravely affected by the drugs virus from across the border.
Insurgents usually justify drug production and trafficking as a means
of generating resources to buy arms to fight for their "just" cause. The
American youth did not shed blood in Afghanistan, unlike in Vietnam;
but the insurgents whom the CIA supported, and to whose drug trafficking
it turned a blind eye, exacted a heavy price from youth-Americans,
West Europeans, Pakistanis, and to some extent Indian-in terms of the
drugs they pushed. The sharing of needles in drug consumption also
helped the spread of AIDS.
Drugs, military establishments not accountable to democratic adminis-
trations, the CIA 's covert operations, and the financial underworld which
helps in laundering money, form a powerful combine. Tax havens in the
western world facilitate the operations. Among these are the numbered
Swiss accounts, no-questions-asked banking in Liechtenstein, Panama,
Bahamas, other Caribbean islands and Isle of Man and Channel Islands
in the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's United Kingdom Government. Half
the problem in fighting the menace is how to prevent laundering of the
drug-generated black money. The Mafia chieftains tried to use pizza
parlours in the US as convenient laundering facility. As most of the
Mafia leaders have been rounded up through collaboration between the
Italian and US law enforcement authorities, South American and Asian
(Chinese origin) bosses are trying to move into that turf. So long as the

298 Sliedding Sliibhokth.s
western world leaves these loopholes for money laundering-which they

do to facilitate covert operations, political black money operations and
so on-their protestations about fighting drugs cannot be taken seriously.
Drugs are invariably accompanied by terrorist violence, not always
political terrorism but often involving it. This is inevitable. Consignment,
distribution and collection of drugs and the remittance of money cannot
be handled through normal channels. Consequently, the tramactions are
largely oral and they have to be enforced. Hence private gangs of armed
men, ready to kill for mooey, are organiz,ed. Large sums of money and
the leaders of the trade and their investments have to be protected, law
enforcement officials have to be intimidated and, if necessary, eliminated
as a warning to others. Anyone leaking information has to be punished.
Once such armed gangs come into being they also become convenient
instruments for agencies such as the CIA for their covert operations.
During the Kennedy years, as revealed during the Frank Church
Committee bearings, an attempt was made to assassinate Fidel Castro
through underworld gangs.
Second-band and unofficial arms trade too has close links with the
drug trade, partly because the drug gangsters and the COlTUpt politicians
and generals in mini- and micro-states need their business. The insurgent
leaders who generate drugs and convert them into cash need arms to
continue their fight against the various regimes and to pay their followm.
The second-hand arms dealm and agents also fonn convenient conduits
for major armament firms to circumvent the legislation of their own
governments. For instance, when North was sending arms clandestinely
to Iran, be obtained end-use certificates from General Fabian Ver, Chief
of Army Staff of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. The
Swedish firm Bofors bad a standing arrangement with the British (with
official blessings on both sides), to get end-use certificates from Britain
to circumvent Swedish legislation banning arms sale to countries likely
to be involved in wars in the near future. Since such transactions are
furtive and not on the books open to inland revenue authorities, they
handle their black money through tax-free havens, and the two systems
tend to merge.
Large sums of such bot black money are part of international monetary
systems today and move swiftly across continents. They play a major
role in corporate takeovm and have an impact on international exchange
rates, They are used to buy politicians and trade unions, to finan""
elections and topple governments and to bring about cabinet changes.
This is an area of international relations not covered in textbooks and
not taught in universities.
- Digitized by Google Original from

The Labyrinth of Drugs 299
•••
•
Toe Pakistani magazine Newsline in its December 1989 issue suggested
that the narcotics barons, the new billionaires, form a brotherhood, each
ran his own empire, its network reaching to almost every institution of
the state. They financed political piµties and a change of face at the top
did not affect their position. They ran a parallel economy and were capable
of destabilizing a government if their business was threatened. One
estimate put narcotics flow through Pakistan at 30 per cent of world
total, the street value of which was estimated at $300 billion (This figure
appears exaggerated). Others maintained that it was not more than SS-
10 billion, about 20-25 per cent of Pakistan's GDP. (What gives Pakistan
SS-10 billion may sell in the streets of the US and Western Europe at
$90 billion.) According to official statistics, the number of heroin addicts
in Pakistan had risen from 5000 in 1980 to over 1.9 million by 1988 and
3.1 million in 1993. Toe "Friday Review" section of the Pakistani paper
Nation, dated 19 July 1996, reported that the number of drug addicts in
Pakistan had reached four million. Toe number of heroin addicts alone
rose from 1.71 million in 1993 to three million in 1996. By 2000, the
number of heroin addicts was estimated to reach 4.8 million, with an
analogous increase in addicts of other drugs. While 52 per cent of drug
addiction was in urban areas, 48 per cent was in rural areas. Pakistan bad
become a net importer of drugs and needed 80-100 tonnes of heroin to
meet the demands of its addicts. With berter enforcement of anti-drug
operations in Pakistan, it was claimed that drugs from Afghanistan were
being routed north-westward through the Central Asian Republics to
Europe. It was estimated that drug-related assets frozen so far amounted
to Rs 3.7 billion; hence, it was argued, Pakistan was not a major bene-
ficiary of the drug trade. It was reported that in the first five months of
1996, Pakistani agencies seized 2.77 tonnes of heroin, 126 tonnes of
hashish and 3.5 tonnes of opium.
A convicted Norwegian drug trafficker, George Trober, and a Japanese
drug scout, Hisayoshi Maruyama, linked their connections to the former
governor of the NWFP, Fazle Haq, and members of General Ziaul Haq's
family. Sixteen army officers were arrested in 1986 alone for involvement
in the drug trade. Major Zahooruddin Afridi and FIL LL Khairur Rehman,
caught with hundreds of kilograms of heroin worth millions of dollars,
escaped from military detention. Major Farouk Hamid, General Zia's
personal pilot, was found involved in a heroin smuggling case but bad
not been tried. _General Zia's personal banker, Hamid Hasnain, was
arrested in Norway for drug smuggling and was serving a fourteen-year

300 Slteddiltg Sl,ibbolelli,
~ - Haji Iqbal Baig, a,Called on a dmge of drug tndlicking i,,i

Pakistan, claimed that be bad finana,d the electioos of senior members
of both ruling and opposition parties. His list ioclucitd Interior Minisrer
Aijaz Ahsan; other PPP (Pakistan .-eople's Party) members J.-hangir
Bed.-, Fauel Saleh Hayar. Mcnj Khalid (the Spc-aka). and Saloll!II Taseer.
He also claimed to have fiNooed Nawa:z Sbarifs election in 1985 (as
Punjab Chief Minisfl:r).
The New,/ine feature of Decauber 1989 din,cdy linktAI Pakistan's
drug problem to the Afghan War. llec~ came in aloog with the Afghan
refugees. According to ooe estimate Afghanistan then produced 1500 to
2000 metric tons of poppy eve.y year in mujahideen-amtrolled areas
and most of it fOWld its way into Pakistan to be refined into heroin.
Interior Minister Aijaz Ahsan claimed to have.. dt:suoyed ten out oftweoty-
four known laboratories in Pakistan in 1988. Reports suggested a number
of mobile laboratories in mujahideen-amtrolled territories and the un-
administered tribal belt. Many mujahidcen commanders bad direct inte.est
in drug traffic. Younis Khalis, group commander active in Nangarhar
province, Hekmatyar and Herakat groups were reported to have processing
laboratories at Ribat al-Ali and Genii Jangcl.
Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister of Pakistan, alleged in an
interview to the Washington Post (12 September 1994) that during his
pmniership in 1991, General Aslam Beg, then Chief of Army Staff, and
General Asad Durrani, then Chief of ISi, sought his approval for a detailed
'blueprint' to sell heroin to pay for the country's covert military operations.
Sharif says he was shocked by the proposal and he ordered that such
drug trafficking should not be launched; he also admitted that he had no
IIOW'Ces to verify that the ISi obeyed his order. The newspaper also cited
a 11C&thing report two years earlier by a consultancy finn hired by the CIA,
which warned that "drug corruption had pe1111catcd virtually all segments
of Pakistani society and that drug kingpins were closely connected to the
country's key institutions of power, including the President and the
military intelligence agencies". The report, titled Heroin in PaJcistan:
Sowing the Wind, was leaked to the press. The report alleged that one of
the leading drug barons was Sohail Butt, married to a cousin of Sharif.
Veteran Pakistani journalist Altaf Gaubar confinned Nawaz Sharifs
statement that the Pakistan Army and the ISi chiefs approached him for
approval to use drug money for covert ISi operations. Altaf Gaubar
clarifies that Generals Beg and Durrani were not see.king approval for a
new scheme but were apprising the prime minister of an established
practice. Altaf Gauhar's disclosures imply that President Ishaq Khan and
, - ""
Ms Bhutto were kept infonned of continuing drug operations by Pakistan's

anny chief. The prime minister's husband, Asif Zardari, was closely
involved with Yunus Habib, a leading drug money launderer. General
Durrani was a staunch supporter of Ms Bhutto, and was rewarded with
ambassadorship in Germany after be was retired by the Anny. ·
The Pakistani weekly Pulse of 28 May-3 June 1993, published what
it claimed as two lists of narcotics smugglers, prepared by the ISi on 16
January and 24 January 1993. The first list bad 106 names, and the
second, 17. In the first list, 42 names were from Mohmand, 31 from
Dana Adam .Khel, 18 from Khyber and 15 from Hazara. It looked as
though the ISi prepared the lists to deal with the Saudi Arabian complaints
about Pakistani drug smuggling into that country. Delegations from Saudi
Arabia and Gulf countries visited Pakistan in February (1993) to protest
against the drug running by Pakistanis. Twenty-two persons were
specifically cited as smugglers of heroin into Saudi Arabia. Four names
we~ specifically mentioned in connection with drug trafficking to the·
US, UK, and western Europe. Strangely enough, there was no mention
of Pakistan's two neighbours, Iran and India. The Iranian Narcotics
Agency bad complained that in the twelve months ending March 1993,
Iranian authorities intercepted 65 tonnes of drugs from Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Twelve names in the list prepared by the ISi were cited as
having political connections. A surprising inclusion was Rabmat Shah,
chief editor of the Frontier Post, known for its liberal views and its
outspokenness against the drug barons. Since it is difficult to believe that
there are no major operators in drug traffic in cities like Karachi and
Labore, and that these suppliers from the tribal areas are able to handle
the entire international trade in heroin originating from Pakistan, the lists
appeared incomplete. Possibly, the ISi lists included only those who
operated outside their jurisdiction.
In early 1993, sixty-five Pakistani nationals were awaiting execution
in Saudi Arabia for carrying drugs into that country. A high-level Saudi
delegation visited Islamabad to warn Pakistan about its increasing drug
trade and that if it did not stop the smuggling of narcotics Saudi Arabia
would discontinue Pakistani manpower import. In the past six months
alone, according to The Dawn (5 February 1993), 250 Pakistanis were
arrested at various entry points in Saudi Arabia on charges of drug
trafficking. The Turkish Anny bad captured a ship loaded with illicit
Pakistani drugs. According to The Dawn of 10 February 1993 the Iranian
Ambassador Javed Mansouri complained in a news conference about
Pakistan's failure to check drug smugglers operating in areas bordering

302 Shedding Shibbolelhs
bis country, and said that a sizeable nmnber of lraniaa security guards
bad been killed by these smugglers.
The Frontier Post of 4 February 1993 reported that foreign embassies
were increasingly apprehensive of granting visas to Pakistani citizens
and those holding Pakistani passports were viewed with suspicion and
contempt at international airports. It would appear the N01Wegian govern-
ment bad instructed its Embassy in l~lamabad to stop granting visas after
several Pakistanis were arrested for drug trafficking in N01Way. An
employee of Pakistan International Airlines was caught smuggling drugs
into the USA. Senior members of Pakistani embassies bad been found
guilty in the past.
lmran Akbar, in bis article in the Frontier Post of 7 August 1991, spoke
of a drug trail originating from •Azad' Kashmir, which was discovered
with the arrest of a drug courier from Pakistan at Oslo international
airport in 1988. In December 1983, Pakistani drug CQUrier Raza Queresbi,
when arrested at the airport, revealed details of heroin traffic leading up
to General Zia's circle. By the middle of 1990 twelve heroin laboratories
were reported to be operating in 'Azad' Kashmir. At least three of them
were said to be near Muz.affarabad, the seat of the Pak-occupied Kashmir
government. The finished product was willingly received in Jammu and
Kashmir state of India. The heroin travelled in mule loads under heavy
armed escort and entered upper Kashmir across Sonamarg. Refined heroin,
said to be many times more profitable than cocaine from Latin America,
was said to be stored in dumps in Kashmir. It crossed Wular lake and
reached Ladakh and Nepal. From Nepal it filtered into India. Ships plying
along the Malcran coast also trafficked in heroin and three such ships,
MV Ka/ash, Duke of Canada and Red Star flying Pakistani, Canadian
and South Korean flags respectively, had mysteriously disappeared on
the Baluchistan coast, lmran Akbar said.
•••
•
The CIA report in mid-1993, Heroin in Pakistan: Sowing the Wind,
revealing details of the Pakistani drug trade, raises important issues for
India. The report confirms that part of the Pakistani drug trade was
routed to the USA and western Europe via India. Our borders, in spite of
fencing, continue to be porous because the patrolling forces on both
sides can be bribed. For a long time, the proposal to erect fencing on the
border was resisted on various grounds by vested interests. It was argued
that it would be ineffective. The real reason was that there was money to
be made in keeping the border porous.

J
The Labyrinth of Drv8$ 303
According to the CIA report, some Sikh extremists were caniers of

heroin for the drug barons, and in return got money and weapons. The
extremists should have delivered their cargo to Indian drug barons for
onward transmission; but we have not beard much about Indian drug
barons.
Surely, the CIA should have collected information on the drug barons
on the Indian side as well. It is known that there are agents of the Drug
Enforcement Agency at the American mission in Delhi. One would expect
this information to have been shared with the Government of India Such
Indian drug barons, who have connections with extremists bringing in
drugs from Pakistan's Haji Iqbal Beg or Shaukat Ali Bhatti, would not
have escaped notice of our security services. It is a reasonable presumption
that they would have attracted publicity but for their high-level political
connections in India, and their use of drug-generated money to obtain
protection.
All those on the Indian side of the border who have been dealing in
the drug trade can be counted as agents of two foreign bands. First, they
are collaborating with Pakistani drug barons who have been assisting the
Pakistani ISi in its insurgency operations against India. Second, the CIA
should have collected data on Pakistani drug barons as well as their
Indian counterparts. Consequently, the Indian drug barons are vulnerable
to exposure by the CIA and hence to its pressures. If some of the drug
barons are politicians, as they are in Pakistan, their influence would sully
our politjcs as well.
The Bombay blasts of March 1993 revealed the nexus between poli-
ticians, bureaucracy, and the criminal 110derworld. The focus was mostly
on smugglers operat4ig on our coasts. The size of the Pakistani drug
trade and the use of India as a transit route would tend to indicate that
there must be another large area of politics, bureaucracy, and criminal
underworld (drug trade) nexus all along our border states-Punjab,
Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra While there are reports
from time to time about seizure of quantities of drugs, we do not bear of
arrest and trial of our drug barons. Their anonymity should make us
ponder bow much our politics and law enforcement have been penetrated.
Neglect of this important linkage also leads to romantic proposals,
such as an open border between Indian Kashmir and POK or a Trieste
type of solution for Kashmir. Nothing would delight the Pakistani military
and the drug barons more than these solutions.
••••

Pakistan's worldwide drug money opetations were handled by the Bank

of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). There is a fascinating book
on the subject, The Outlaw Bank, by Jonathan Beatty and S.C. Gwynne.
The New York Times of 27 August 1992 reported that according to an
American congressional report, various US agencies had received reports
for more than ten years that the BCCI, the defunct bank of Agha Ha«ao
Abedi, financed a whole range of illegal international activities, ranging
from fomenting unrest in Pakistan to smuggling arms to Syria, Iran, and
Libya. The tips on these activities went to the FBI, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Customs Service, the Internal Revenue Service, and
the Department of Justice. Information was available to the various US
agencies that DCCI moved money to West Asian terrorist organii.ations,
and served as a valuable tool for organized crime in the US and Italy.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's bank nationalii.atioil affected Abedi in 1972; it
is not clear what his attitude towards Bhutto was in the last days of his
premiership. Bhutto in his book, IfI Am Assassinated, has alleged about
the large inflow of money from the Gulf countries into Pakistan to finance
the massive agitation launched by the opposition against him. The rise of
BCCI and its operations coincided with the rise of General Ziaul Haq in
Pakistan. The ruler of Abu Dhabi was the largest shareholder of the bank.
Earlier in March 1991, the Wall Street Journal carried a detailed
account of how BCCI misled Clarie Clifford, a well-known member of
the US Democratic party establishment and adviser to successive
American Presidents, about its secret ownership of an American bank,
and was persuaded to become chairman and a respectable front for the
First American Bank Shares Inc. The New Yorlc hanking authorities
rejected an effort involving the BCCI to acquire the Bank of Chelsea,
but BCCI circumvented the US regulatory authorities with the help of
Clifford's standing, apparently without his knowledge. It bought up the
American bank secretly, presumably with drug-laundered money.
The bank operated .a l 500-strong network out of Karachi using
sophisticated equipment and technology indulging in bribery, extortion,
kidnapping, and even murder. Yet many in the UK, Pakistan and the
Gulf felt that the white countries were victimizing the bank, jealous of its
rapid success. Khalid Hassan, former press secretary of Z.A. Bhutto and
at the time a top official of the bank, appeared in the Panorama programme
of the BBC and admitted to its dealings with the Arab terrorist Abu
Nida! and its collaboration with the British MIS. The CIA used the bank
in its dealings with the Afghan inujahideen, General Noriega and the
~ontra arms deal. (The next day, on the Pakistan government's

urging, his services were dispensed with.) The then Pakistani Finance
Minister Sartaj Aziz may also have helped to launder drug money in
Pakistan. He dismissed as "fabrication" reports of Pakistani government
connections with the BCCI. (General Ziaul Haq's son Ejazul Haq, later a
mini!lter in the Pakistan government, was employed by the BCCI.) Sartaj
Aziz also said that the BCCI was only one of the many ~ handling
drug money laundering and was responsible for I~ than one per cent of
the drug money, implying that the Pakistan government had information
on various banks involved in drug money laundering.
Abedi, the bank's founder, claimed that his objective was to operate
an international bank of the developing world which could compete with
other international banks. The bank had branches and subsidiaries in
seventy countries. But it had only one branch in Tokyo, and was not very
visible in the West. Its large-scale operations were among the Asian
community in Britain. The bank did not have significant dealings with
the larger European, North American, and Japanese trade and industrial
establishments. It appears that this bank was not competing with the
western and Japanese international banks, but was dealing with depositors
small and big in the developing world and the Asian community in Britain.
Posing as a champion of the South, the bank had its headquarters in
Cayman Islands. It had a concentration of Pakistanis and a few crony
Arabs to codlrol and operate it, all of which indicates that from the
beginning it was conceived as a network for clandestine activities and to
promote the interests of rich Pakistanis, Arab rulers, and dictators in the
developing world. There was evidence of the bank's involvement in
drug money laundering. illegal arms deals, terrorist links, financing nuclear
weapon programme, collaboration with the CIA, and collusion with
authoritarian leaders in the developing world to loot their treasuries and
bide their gains abroad. The bank obliged the CIA and the US National
Security Council for the fran:-Contra anns deal, China through its sale of
CSS-2 missiles, handed over intelligence to MIS, dealt with Israelis, and
stashed away fortunes for Noriega, Marcos, and other dictators. While
the South magazine run by the bank's South Foundation thundered about
the spread of nuclear weapons, the bank arranged for the defence of all
those Pakistanis caught in various countries attempting to export nuclear
weapon-related equipment
In 1989, Tariq Ali, in a Bandung File television programme, focused
on some of the charges against the BCCI. In July 1991 he disclosed that
be declined a £2 million offer not to exhibit his programme.

30
.
Maritime Perspective
The Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and the Centre

for Naval Analysis, Washington, DC, held an international conference
on 12- 13 December 1991 on multinational naval cooperation. Its main
purpose was to assess the role of navies in the post--i.:Old war international
system. Apparently, admirals around the world are womed about cutbacks
in naval expenditure after the end of the cold war. They need to make
out a plausible case to their legislatures about continuing adequate funding.
There is general acceptance that the kind of naval confrontation the
cold war witnessed is unlikely to be repeated. But many participants in
the conference saw as necessary intervention wars of the type launched
on Iraq, and adversarial posture vis-a-vis the remaining communist
nations, mostly in the Pacific theatre. NATO procedures fot coordination
and cooperation in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean were the models
on which further multinational cooperation was extrapolated in future
scenarios. Such integrated cooperation is absent among navies of industrial
democracies in the Pacific. Likely Japanese naval expansion was raised
in the discussion, and seen as immediately likely. China and North Korea
were mentioned only in passing. .
Surprisingly, there was no effort to assess bow, having ruled out
confrontation among the industrial powers, there could be interventionist
confrontation with developing nations unless the industrialized nations
supply them sophisticated arms. Even when this author raised this
question, it went without an answer.
There was a clear division of opinion among the professional partici-
pants. On the premise that the traditional naval tasks are not likely to arise
in future, one school emphasized the role of the navy in non-traditional
tasks. These would include controlling illegal immigration; stopping drug
traffic; pollution control; seabed resources' exploitation; marine resource
conservation, especially of living resources; and new issues arising out
of the industrialized nations accepting the Law of the Sea. The other
school argued that these are not a navy's priDlaJY tasks; overemphasis on

Maritime Perspective 307
them will divert navies away from their main role, which is preparation
for naval warfare. The coast guard was the right setup to handle these
tasks; and navies could attend to them as an added responsibility during
peacetime.
European participants in the conference tended to highlight the pressure
of population from the southern Mediterranean on the Northern Shore
countries. Portraying this as a threat, they said it needed to be countered
in two ways: by the na~ capabilities ofthe European nations, and through
economic and naval aid to the African nations to help them stem the
flow of illegal emigrants. Drugs, Islamic fundamentalism and nuclear
proliferation were mentioned as international threats, but without focus
on these issues. Had these issues been focused upon, the Indian Ocean
area would have emerged as the one where all-these threats are alive.
The western diplomats' view that energy sources in the area did not face
any serious threat in the foreseeable future went unchallenged.
Three years earlier, on 28-30 March 1988, the Centre for Indian
Ocean Regional Studies, University of Technology, Perth, held a seminar
on the "strategic dimensions of Australia's increasing naval involvement
in the Indian Ocean". In his keynote address at the seminar, Australian
Defence Minister Kim Beazley said:
The Indian posture is nevertheless intriguing . . . India's overall strategic context
justifies a substantial navy. India bas an extensive coastline. It bas strategic
concerns well out into northwest Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Given
India's fierce attitude to its independence of action in world affairs, it would
wish to be invulnerable to superpower pressure. Superpower operations in India's
direct area of interest have been extensive. Having said all that and again
reiterating our confidence in good relations with India, t\Oting too the fact India
is 5,500 km from Australia, any development of a force projection capability in
our general region must interest us .. . In India's case the possession of a
substantial (sic!) number of carriers, the possibility of balanced carrier battle
groups and submarines, poses possibilities for extensively increased Indian
influence at the major eastern Indian Ocean choke points. We are active in
defence undertakings in this area and will watch diplomatic developments
carefully.
I joined issue with him on his reference to the Indian posture being
"intriguing". Apart from the justification for a strong Indian Navy he had
himself provided, I suggested that he should take note of the entry of the
Chinese Navy into the Indian Ocean early in 1987, the possibility of
future Chinese nuclear submarine deployment in the Indian Ocean, the
distribution of Harpoon, Silkworm, Exocet and other missiles among our
neighbours which could pose a threat to our shore installations like atomic
·original from
308 SJiedding ShibboktJis
power plants and pdlochi,•iical <'.IOlllpleus, and lastly our neighbours

(Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia) incrcuing their subwmine fJeeu.. I poinled
out that our carriers were anti-submarine caiyiefs and we did not possess
facilities to support a significant expeditionary force across the sea
Beazley conceded that it was a ratiooal explanation of the Indian poslW'e
but said it would have been better if the cxplanatioo bad come from the
lnctian govcmmeo, instead <Jf an acadc:rnic. 1
In my presentation on ..strategic developmems in the Indian Ocean
I . Wbeo Henry KiMing,er tewrifwl before""' Smale "amp Rdaliom Comwi111ee

on 13 July 1995, be is rq,ortcd ID have said that as lndiA eme.ged ink> g r a i ~
™• it could be expected ID return ID the policies of the British Raj. He added tbal
the policies of the Raj were conceived by the Indian Civil Service, uodc:r the Vicc:roys
located first in Calcutta and later in New Delhi. He said that India would seek an
influential, if 11()( dominant role in the arch extending from Aden ID Singapore. He
predicted that this would produce clashing percepcions with China in Tibet and
Myanmar and with 1.ndonesia. Vietnam and China ID a lesser exteot on South East
Asia. The Kissingerian view may gladden the hearts of many Indian~ who dream of
India as a great power on the model of the empires of the nineteenth century and the
gma• powers of the first half of the twentieth century. Some years ago, there were
monographs and articles in some magazines with worldwide circulation oo India as
an emerging superpower. Sometimes a question marlc was put in and sometimes not.
Not far back in history, when the Indian forces were fighting to end the Katangan
secessionism and to preserve the unity and integrity of Zaire an eminent British
weekly came out with the headline "Indian Canberras over Salisbury?" Salisbury is
now Harare. The reference was to the possibility of India directly involving itself in
the liberation struggles of Black Africa. Following Bangladesh liberating itself with
our support, cover stories were written about the "Empress of India". This is said of
a country which, even for recovery of territories of the state of Jammu and Kashmir
under Pakistani occupation-if at au it is to be achieved-bas commiaed itself through
the Simla Pact not to use force to recover them. No one in the country seriously urges
use of force ID recover the 'W"tory in Alcsai Chin. Lingdz.i Zang plains or traus-
Karalcoram areas under Chinese occupation. India did not react violently when Indian
p,Oj)Cl1y was expropriated in Burma and Indians were ejected from Burma. Sri Lanka
or East African countries. Those still with a pre-colonial mindset would consider
integration of Kashmir, Goa, and Sikkim as expansionist, but they constitute only ao
extremist fringe.
The fear about possible aggressive policy by India arises out of extrapolation of
the behaviour pattern of European, Chinese, Japanese and lslami(: countries in the
last two ID three centuries and in the first half of this century to India of the future.
All such countries, as they acquired power and capability, became aggressive and
expansionist. All traditions are culture and situation detennioed. While people from
cold climate and desert regions tended ID spread out and thereby developed ao
expansionist tradition, India received and absoroed people from outside and this, in
turn, generated a non-expansionist orientation. Very rarely, Indian empires and
kingdoms have extended beyond the subcontinent.
D1g1tizeo by Google ·origlr.al from

Marili/M Penpective 309
and South Pacific regioos", I highlighted the following aspects: (a) the
revolutionary change brought about by the long-range surface skimming
missiles fired by submarines to the technology of naval warfare; (b) the
possibility of nuclear submarine proliferation following the lessons of
the South Atlantic War of 1982, when the British Navy blocked the entire
Argentine Navy in the ports; (c) the increasing Chinese naval activity,
including their build-up of missile launching and nuclear-propelled
submarines, with fewer wameads in each spreading out into the southern
oceans; (d) the growing importance of southern ocans in relation to
anti-satellite operations, and its relationship to ' star wars'; (e) the growing
turbulence in the South Pacific; (t) the recent naval clash near Sprady
islands involving the Chinese Navy, Chinese transfer of naval vessels to
the countries in our neighbourhood, and Chinese entry into the Indian
Ocean, including possible home-porting of their nuclear submarines in
Pakistan; (g) the Chinese transfer of IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic
missiles) to Saudi Arabia and its implications and the likelihood of Chinese
transfer of missiles to their closest ally, Pakistan; and (h) the ethnic
explosive potential in some of the South East Asian countries and its
implications for countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia.
••••
In a study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, titled
''Towards a New Power Base in Asia" (written in 1995), noted Australian
strategist Paul Dibb of Australian National University said that the
prospects of a Chinese aircraft carrier would prompt India into producing
aircraft carriers of its own along with a more capable submarine force.
The study is reported to have added, "if China became more powerful,
India becomes a more important factor in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf
would continue to be strategically unstable". The study added that by the
year 2010, China would have a more capable strategic nuclear force with
between 50 and 70 multiple-warheaded solid-fuel ICBMs (intercontinental
ballistic missiles) compared with 10-14 now with ranges of 8,000 to
12,000 km. The author assessed, ''There is little sign that international
pressure will induce Beijing to curb the programme." There was further
forecast that the Chinese would have a large number of surface missiles
with ranges up to 900 km equipped with nuclear and chemical warheads.
Not many years ago Paul Dibb wrote a threat assessment for Australia in
which be referred to the expansion of the Indian Navy causing disquiet
to the nations of the Indian Ocean littoral.

310 SJ,rdJuig Sltibboletlis
Till the cold war ended and for some three to four years thereafter,
there appeared to be a coordinated campaign by many western strategic
establishments to play down the Chinese defence effort and the long-
term impact of growing Chinese military power on South East Asia.
Many strategic analysts of the nations of East and South East Asia and
Aus1ralia used to tailor their assessments to the cues from Washington.
When China was an adversary of the US in the 1950s and '60s, most of
the analysts in this pan of the world talked of China as a threat to the
whole area and about the domino theory. Once Kissinger flew to Beijing
and made up with China, most of them changed their tune and S1luted
singing a chorus, that China had no expansionist ambitions.
The present spate of assessments of long-term Chinese threat is
indicative of a new US strategy. Partly, this is intended to stress to the
Japanese and East and South East Asians that they will continue to need
US strategic deterrent protection, and this factor must be taken into
account in their trade, technology, and financial relations with the US.
Japan, the US and South East Asia will have to countervail China's
power much earlier than India is called upon to do so.
In mid-1992, China gave an oil-prospecting lease to an American
company in waters around some of the Spratly Islands in South China
Sea. Vietnam protested against the move. China, Taiwan, the Philippines,
Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei have made claims on these
islands. The Vietnamese earlier had claims on them, but in the early
1970s, even while the Vietnam War was on, the Chinese occupied them.
It is believed that around these islands there are considerable offshore
oil resources. Chinese possession of the Spratlys will make China a South
East Asian country, project Chinese power directly on the ASEAN nations,
and dominate the oil sea route to Japan. In the early 1990s, China
formulated its maritime doctrine laying claims over these islands. China
bas a similar territorial claim on Senkaku islands to the southwest of
Okinawa, to which Japan and Taiwan are rival claimants.
In the early 1990s, China bad the most powerful navy in the region
with 87 diesel submarines, 19 destroyers, 37 frigates and hundreds of
missile craft. It also had one nuclear missile submarine and four nuclear-
propelled submarines. There were reports that China was interested in
acquiring helicopter carriers and aircraft carriers and was negotiating
with Russia for purchase of one or more of its carriers. The Japanese
Navy, with 17 submarines, 6 destroyers and 60 frigates, and the US
Pacific fleet, with 33 nuclear submarines, 5 aircraft carriers, 23 cruisers,
21 destroyers, 40 frigates, and an impressive amphibious force of 31

Maritime Penpecrive 311
vessels, divided between the US third and seventh fleets, constituted

countervailing forces in the Pacific. The Russian Navy in the Pacific was
an awesome force before the Soviet Union broke up; now its combat
effectiveness has deteriorated significantly: the Soviet base at Camranh
Bay in Vietnam has been wound up and naval patrols in the South China
Sea discontinued. The US base in Subic Bay in the Philippines has been
wound up and Sin8!1J>Ore has offered logistic facilities to the US Navy.
Till India and the US started discussing improvement of service
relations in the early 1990s, the South East Asian strategic community
used to talk about the Indian naval expansion and underplay the Chinese
developments. Following the improvement in India-US relations, that
bas ceased. There were some UDCOnfinned reports that the Chinese might
be negotiating some facilities in the Bunnese islands in the Bay of Bengal
as a part of quid pro quo for very large-scale arms transfers to the Burmese
military junta. India cannot be disinterested in the developments in the
South China Sea since it adjoins the Bay of Bengal. This factor would
also influence Indian interest in holding joint naval exercises with the
Australian and US navies. There is, perhaps, a good case for India to
hold similar exercises with Indonesia and other ASEAN countries.
••••
The Indian Naval Chief, on the occasion of Navy Day in 1994, resorted
to the unusual but very welcome step of taking the nation into confidence
about the decline in force level faced by the Navy in the coming years,
since it had not been able to place orders for any new ships owing to the
prevailing resource crunch. He highlighted that the two aged aircraft
carriers were due to be phased out, and though plans for indigenous
construction of replacement air defence ship were ready, they still awaited
allocation of funds. He declined to rule out the purchase of a Russian-
built aircraft carrier. The lack of orders for new ships and submarines was
likely to affect the shipyards, and the expertise built up over the years for
such sophisticated technologies was likely to be frittered away. He made
out a strong and balanced case for the government and parliament to pay
attention to the current and future status of the Indian Navy.
Ironically, the Navy Chiefs presentation about the Indian Navy's
unsatisfactory state came a few days after Australia had publicized its
latest defence policy statement The Australians rightly characterized
China as the dominating influence on the security of the Asian region
and argued that the rapid Chinese defence modernization could pose

312 Slteddu,gSlubboJelJu
long-tam security problam for the region. Australia bas, conscquently,

IDQOl-1 a significant weapon acquisition programme.
An American analyst said in a seminar (in 1994) that in his interactions
with the Chinese. the latter had DO( concealed that China had plans to
deploy its navy in the Indian Ocau in the early years of the twenty-first
century. While most countries wen: reducing their defcncc expenditure--
India was also doing it in real terms-in East Asia, West Asia, and in
China, defcocc cxpcodjturc is rising rapidly. Dcfcncc outlay in the East
Asian countries had risen from 20 per cent of NATO expenditure a few
years earlier to SO per cent level in 1994. lndoocsia had acquired from
Germany the entire East German Navy of Soviet origin.
While the expansion of the Indian Navy was being talktd ,wout, with
India having a long coast line of 7000 km and a vast exclusive ccooomic
7.0IIC of2.S million sq. Ian, there was banily any mention of the fact that
Paki,;tan Navy had doubled its toooage in the three years. As against 17
Indian submarines in three seas and OCHOS, Pakistan had 6 submarines.
India'~ 16 desuoycrs and frigates wcr,, matched by 18 Pakisw,i destroyers
and frigates with only one port and a short coastline. The Chinese, Soviet,
US, Saudi, and Israeli missiles were accepted by the western defence
analysts without any CODCCl'II while there was much talk of Indian Agni.
Singapore felt that the situation in the seas around South East Asia was
turbulent enough to justify its offering the US Navy facilities in Singapore,
but did not seem to feel that the same turbulcncc in the South East Asian
waters was also a matter of CODCCl'II for India justifying some modest
stl eogthcning of its naval capabilities.
Though the first Indian submarine arm expansion took place mainly
due to the perceived Indonesian threat under Sukarno, who laid claims t.o
the Nicobar islands, renamed the Indian Ocean as. Indonesian Ocean,
and offered to link up with PakiSWI and China in 1965, at present there
are no grounds to worry about the Indonesian naval expansion. India and
Indonesia have demarcated the maritime boundaries, and their relations
are quite cordial. The news about the Indonesian deal to acquire a bulk
of the former East German Navy from the Federal Republic of Germany,
and the Malaysian intention to acquire Soviet MiG-29 aircraft in the
early 1990s, therefore, did not worry India unduly. Indonesia also ordered
three modern Gcnnan submarines of the type India has. With these acqui-
sitions, it was expected that the Indonesian Navy's frigate strength might
exceed India's numerically. In these circumstances, it would have made
eminent sense for the Indian Navy to step up collaboration with the
Indonesian and Australian navies. Such collaboration, with a modest US

presence in Singapore and the Indian Ocean, would go a long way to

contribute to peace and stability in South East Asia, especially after the
US shut down its Subic Bay base in the Philippines. It was reported that
during the Indian Defence Minister's visit to Malaysia in 1993, extension
of Indian help to provide logistic and maintenance support to the MiG-29s
to be acquin:d by Malaysia was discussed.
••••
Navies of the world have drawn appropriate conclusions from the South
Atlantic War, when the British Navy was able to bottle up the entire
Argentine Navy to its ports after one of the British nuclear-propelled
hunter-killer submarines torpedoed General Belgrano, the Argentine
cruiser. The Canadians outlined plans in the late 1980s to acquire a
number of nuclear-propelled submarines, not to keep the Soviets out of
their waters, but to keep the Americans out of Canada's Arctic waters.
Brazil and Argentina announced plans to build nuclear-propelled
submarines. Also, the Soviet Union ttansfencd to India a Victor-class
nuclear-propelled submarine. (The NPT does not cover transfer ofreactors
for non-peaceful purposes, and so nuclear submarines can sail through
the NPT.)
Till the late 1980s a submarine was a threat only to naval targets, but
no longer so. Submarines can today fire missiles from several hundreds
of miles away from the coast to destroy military and valuable industrial
targets such as nuclear power stations and petrochemical complexes.
Consequently, anti-submarine warfare has acquin:d new diµiensions. It
is not enough to convoy one's merchant fleet and keep vigilant anti•
submarine watch over one's own fleet. It is necessary to ensure that a
nation•s coastal targets are not threatened by a submarine-fired missile.
In tum, this requires anti-submarine operations in air (with maritime
reconnaissance and strike aircraft), on sea surface with destroyers and
air-capable ships (small aircraft carriers carrying anti-submarine patrol
helicopters and Harrier aircraft), quiet hunter-killer submarines·and, most
effective of all, the deep-water-operating, fast-running nuclear-propelled
submarine. This is the strategic planning perspective which has led to
the Indian Navy acquiring Tu 142 M maritime reconnaissance and strike
aircraft, aircraft carrier with Harriers and Seakings, the German Type
1500-HDW submarine and the Victor-class nuclear-propelled submarine.
These are primarily intended to bottle up the Pakistan Navy equipped
with Agosta and Daphne submarines, and six US Gearing-class destroyers

equipped with Harpooo missiles. (They bad OD order 2 British type 23

and 2 Dutch M-cws frigates.)
Given the operation of nuclear bunter-killer submarines of nuclear
weapon powers in the Indian Ocean, it is also essential to keep watch
over their activities around India's coastal waters lndia's neighbours
bad, in all, 17 submarines in the late 1980s (Pakictan 2 Agostas, 4 Daphnes
and 2 S x 404 midget submarines; Indonesia 2 type 1300 cws submarines
and one more was on order; and Iran had on order 6 type 1200
submarines).
The deep-diving mini-submarines constitute a new dimension in naval
thn:at. They can be used ti> damage offshore oil installations, to listen to
submarine cable traffic, etc. According to a report in 17re Indepen,<knt
(London) dated 26 January 1988, Pakistan and Libya have acquired such
submarines. India has offshore oil installations in Bombay High basin
and is developing new sources further north closer to Palcistan. India is
also developing offshore oil wells off Cauvery, Godavari, and Krishna
basins and around the Andamans.
It used to be argued that one reason for the presence of foreign navies
in the Indian Ocean was protection of oil lanes and by implication the
Soviet Union used to be considered as the primary thn:at. But a time
came when the Soviet Union was leasing its tankers to Kuwait to take oil
out of the Gulf to the western industrialiud nations, and Soviet warships
were escorting other oil-carrying vessels. On the other band, maximum
damage to oil tankers was caused by the Exocet missiles made in France
and launched by Mirages and Etendard aircraft suppl.ied by France to
Iraqis. The Iranians were posing a threat, too, with Silkworm missiles
manufactured in China. It is now clear that the presence of external navies
in the Indian Ocean is not primarily intended to safeguard international
oil supplies but to intervene selectively on behalf of favoured clients. It
has been alleged that during the Iraq-Iran War the US supplied intelli-
gence selectively- -and appropriately doctored-to both sides. This kind
of intelligence sharing by major external powers with favoured client
states making use of their naval presence in the Indian Ocean is on~ of
the Indian Navy's concerns.
India was subjected to an exercise of force without war in 1971, when
Task Force 74 headed by the nuclear-powered carrier USS Enterprise
tried to intervene-rather belatedly-in the last stages of the war in
Bangladesh. Nuclear-propelled submarines with ability to lie in wait
quietly for long periods of time provide some minimal deterrence against
such interventionism.
~ Digitized by Google Original from

India also has some obligations towards the island nations of the
Indian Ocean, which look to India for security. In 1971, the gove111ment
of Sri Lanka headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, faced with an insurgency
by NP (Janata Vimukti Peramuna) asked for Indian help, and India sent
5000 troops and the Indian Navy sealed off Sri Lanka to prevent any
exter11al help reaching the insurgents.
India has also island possessions to defend. The Andaman and
Nicobars archipelago is separated from India by 700 miles but is closer
to other nations. The Indian Navy is structured to carry out the defence
of these islands, among other tasks.
There have been coup attempts in the island nations of the Indian
Ocean. In Seychelles, in the early 1980s, a band of mercenaries led by
Colonel Mike Hoare attempted a coup, and when it was foiled by detection
in time, they hijacked an Air India j11mbo jet. In 1986, during the non-
aligned summit at Harare, the Seychelles President Albert Rene had to
rush back to his country because of intelligence that his defence minister
was plotting a coup. The Indian Prime Minister lent his aircraft to enable
him to fly back to forestall the coup. Mauritius is increasingly reliant on
India for its security needs.
One of the motivations for the coup in Fiji in 1987 was a revolt by the
''sons of the soil'' against the immigrants, who have built up Fiji with
their sweat and toil. The French pointed out that in New Caledonia the
Kanak population, though outn11mbered, claims that power should be
transferred to them as the ''native sons of the soil'' and not on the basis of
a one-man-one-vote constitution.
The South Pacific, like the southetn Indian Ocean and southein Atlantic
Ocean has tended to acquire a new strategic significance in the new era
of anti-satellite warfare. This is because Russian satellites deployed in
elliptical polar orbits for reconnaissance command and control come
low over the souther11 oceans and fly high over the northern he111isphere
to have longer dwell-time in the north to keep the te11 itories of the US
and China and the northern oceans under observation. It was anticipated
that if anti-submarine warfare techniques improved, the missile-carrying
submarines would have to disperse in order to tax the submarine detection
efforts of the adversary.
These strategic considerations, combined with the vulnerability of the
large number of non-viable micro-states in the South Pacific, lead to fears
of competitive interventionism by major powers and oil-rich nations like
Libya, and of the leaderships of these micro-states attempting to indulge
in risky gamesmanship. So long as these islands were colonial possessions

and Ausbalia and New haland functioned as loyal j11nior partners in the
westean alliance, there was no problem. Now that these islands have
become independent and have shown an inclination to play the game of
nations in pursuit of their respective interests and New Zealand is
developing a world-view based on a Wellington-cenbcd perspective,
security assessments of the US and New Zealand on various developments
involving these micro-nations may not necessarily coincide. The New
haland frigate Wellington and the Australian frigates Sidney and Adelaide
were in Suva immediately after the coup and were in a position to
intervene. The Fijian Prime Minister Bavadra also appealed to the prime
ministers of Ausbalia and New Zealand for help and support but in vain.
In three of the four quad• aots of the Indian Ocean there are considerable
naval activities northwest, northeast and southwest. The relatively
quiescent quadran~ is the southeast, abutting Ausbalia The Australian
perspective used to be directed more towards South East and East Asia
when Japan and then China were considered potential adversaries. But
since the mid-l 980s, it has tended to turn more towards the South Pacific.
This is only logical since fourteen new nations have emerged out of the
decolonization process. As long as these islands were under British and
Australian protection, they posed neither military nor political problems.
Australia can no longer take for granted that its own assessment of
situations in these island nations will completely go along with those of
the US. France has some island possessions in the South Indian Ocean
too. While, petl•aps, no nationalist upsurge is expected in Mayotte, New
Amsterdam, Kergulen Crozet islands, La Re1mion may be a different
kettle of fish. Australian concerns may, therefore, be more focused on
the South Pacific, the French possessions in the Indian Ocean, and to the
neighbours in the immediate north, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
With the signing of START, the US had to reduce its submarine-
borne missiles drastically, and also reduce its missile-carrying submarines.
There was also to be a ceiling on nuclear-warhead-carrying cruise missiles.
To compensate for this change, strategists of one school argued in favour
of replacing multiple-warhead missiles with single-warhead missiles.
There was also a proposal to have more submarines with fewer
warheads in other words, a submarine proliferation.

Reflections
•

The Ghosts of 1962
. On 20 October 1962, the Chinese armed forces started

military operations against India in Ladakh and Anmachal Pradesh. Deng
Xiaoping, who was then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist
Party, said it was meant to ~'teach India a lesson''. The operation caught
the entire country unprepared. From this tra11matic defeat, the Indian
Anny is yet to recover fully.
In Ladakh, the scattered and ~mall Indian Anny posts fought to the last
man and to their last round of ammunition before they were wiped out.
7 Brigade at Thagla, inadequately equipped, was overrun on the first day
of operations; its defeat was inevitable, though the brigade could have
done better. At Walong, in eastern Arunachal Pradesh, 11 Brigade,
outnumbered, retre lte<1. On 17 November 1962, 4 Division, superior in
num~ and equipment to the Chinese force, sullied its legendary reputa-
tion for valour, earned against Field Marshal Rommel's Afrika Corps
during World War II: it dissolved without a fight at Sela. The Chinese
advanced ri~t down to the foothills, and then declared cease-fire: winter
was app~hing, and they did not want their forces to be snowbound.
/
After the cease-fire, the Chinese returned Stuart tanks and 25-pounder
artillery of the Indian Anny, which kind of equipment they did not have.
Most Indians thought that India was unequally matched against the
Chinese military might. John Gunther in Inside Asia, written in the late
1930s, had described Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai as red Napoleons in
blue. The Chinese ~ha]s were veterans who had commanded large field
annies; some of them had fought the US Anny in Korea and held it to a
stalernate. From 1950, they focused on acquiring current military equip-
ment from the Soviet Union. Large numbers of them had been trained in
Soviet military academies. The PLA founded the Chinese communist
state, and the Chinese leadership was totally focused on national security.
·The leaders were mostly fotmer and current commanders of field annies,
or political commissars of field ai 111ies with thorough knowledge of
military operations. The Chinese attack was an innovation, being a quick

thrust, a military humiliation to the advetsary followed by rapid disengage-

ment, with escalation control in their hands throughout.
India faced this country with inadequate expa ience in all areas of
national security management-military planning, intelligence and
logistics, with no attempt at coordiMtion and b&1 monization of all these
components. Its political and military leadership could only think of
fighting either patrol clashes or full-scale war.
Nehru was a poor judge of men. It resulted in the country having a
Chief of Anny Staff who could not pull his weight, an ineffective Army
commander, a flamboyant but inexpetienced corps commander and, above
all, a highly decorated but burnt-out divisional commander. Krishna
Menon, whatever his other merits, was ill-suited to handle the armed
forces. Till he was appointed Defence Minister in 1957, the Ministry of
Defence (MoD) lacked an effective minister. Menon was a novice in
national security management, a poor judge of men, and abrasive. He
created cliques in the armed forces, and advanced his favourites like
General Kaul as Chief of General Staff. His 'forward policy' was
provocative. He lost an opportunity of settling the issue when Zhou Enlai
visited India in April 1960. He also failed to have meaningful discussions
with military leaders.
The Foreign Office, under Nehru's control, had mostly officers with
less than fifteen years experience in foreign affairs, barring a few officers
inherited from the political service background. The Prime Minister
wholly dominated the thought process there. The generalist civil servants
from the ICS staffing the MoD had little knowledge about intei 11ational
relations and international and national security issues.
Things might have been different if the Prime Minister, the Defence
Committee of the Cabinet and the Army even had learnt to read the
Chinese signals better. On 30 April 1962, in a note Beijing had issued a
threat. After listing fifteen alleged new intrusions made by Indian troops
between 15 and 27 April, the Chinese note stated that the PLA would
resume patrolling in the disputed area, from Karakoram pass to Konga
pass, suspended since the hostilities of 1959. The note said in addition
that if the Indian forward movement continued, PLA patrols would take
place all along the frontier. In any other country such a note would have
led to the intelligence assessment machinery burning midnight oil; but
not in India. The nc (Joint Intelligence Committee), then a subcom-
mittee of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, did not bother to meet, as it had
not done for months earlier. (The inadequacies of the intelligence structure
and its functioning have been discussed in an earlier chapter.)

The Ghosts of 1962 321
The debacle of 1962 did not occur for want of men ~d equipment
Nehru pointed out in his speech in the Rajya Sabha on 3 September
1963:
There was enough equipment, but the equipment was rather spread out all over
India. It may not have been available at a particular place, because we bad to
face the situation rather suddenly and we did not have time.... There bad been a
slant in our minds that China would not attack us. It is perfectly true. There bad
been a slant in our minds in the past, not completely but partly.
It was the same Nehru who had been speaking about a possible war
with China from the autumn of 1959 to the autumn of 1962. The slant
that he mentioned was of two kinds. The m had given its assessment,
based on experience, that the Chinese had not used force against a line
of Indian posts set up to prevent their further encroachment. No one
asked what if a discontinuity occurred in the Chinese pattern of behaviour.
The second slant originated in the minds of senior military men and
probably influenced Nehru's thinking. The following was General
Thimayya's assessment, given in an article in the July 1962 issue of
Seminar:
Whereas in the case of Pakistan I have considered the possibility of a total war, I
am afnud I cannot do so in regard to China. I cannot even as a soldier envisage
India taking on China in an open conflict on its own. China's present sbength in
manpower, equipment and aircraft exceeds om resources a hundredfold with the
full support of the USSR, and we could never hope to mate" China in the
foreseeable future. It must be left to the politicians and diplomats to ensure our
security....
The country is a mass of mountains right up to the highest ridges of the
Himalayas. The passes are practically impossible of crossing for over six months
of the year except for men and animals, and that too with difficulty. China is,
therefore, deprived of the use of its overwhelming superiority in heavy equipment
of every kind, i.e. tanks, heavy-calibre artillery, etc. This is where we should
make full use of our manpower and light equipment which indeed we are doing....
· If the Chinese do attack us with the intention of recovering territory which
they believe to be theirs, we must meet them in those regions with commandos
and highly equipped and fast moving infantry. If ·the Chinese penetrate the
Himalayas and are able to reach the plains and foothills, we must be in a position
to take advantage of our superior fire power and manoeuvrability to defeat them
and at the same time continue to harass their lines of comm11nications and
guerillas. To S11mmariz.e our requirements for the defence of the India-China
border, they are as follows:
(i) Large numbers of lightly equipped infantry, with the following role:
(a) to give early warning and to defend approaches into our tetritory; and
(b) sufficient reserves which should be mobile to move across the country if
necessary.

322 SJt«Jdiltg Sllibboletl,s
(ii) A strong. o,pnin,d force with heavy fighting eqt,ipll1C1lt including tanks,
armoured cars, artillery, etc., to defeat the eom,y der he bas pcnetr&ted the
Himalayan main range.
General Thimayya was the Chief of Army Staff till early 1961 and
was known to be a n:: t military leAldcr. Obviously, he was only
thinking of fighting the Chinese in the mountains with 0011111,andos and
highly equipped and fast moving infantry. His plan was to defeat the
enemy after he penetrated the Himalayan main range. Ne~ too, talked
in tenns of alternative possibility of either patrol clashes with the Chinese
on the high altitudes or a full-scale invasion of the Indian plains. Around
this time, K.M. Panikkar, too, expressed serious doubts on the Chinese
penetrating the Himalayas and coming down to the plains_
In all these arguments, the prospect of the Chinese lm1ncbing very
carefully controlled limited operations, with very limited political objec-
tives, appears to have been overlooked altogether both in the Services
and political circles. Hence, the problem of fighting at high altitudes was
not given adequate thought, a lapse that resulted in attempts at rushing
the troops from the plains to Kameng division at the eleventh hour. As
Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh later pointed out, there was also insufficient
appreciation of the problem of operating aircraft from high-altitude
airfields, which ·1ed to the reluctance to use Indian air power; nor of the
significance of the Sin~viet rift, the withdrawal of Soviet technicians
from China and the very difficult position in which the Chinese air force
found itself. For lack of supplies of spares from the Soviet Union, most
of the Chinese air force had been grounded, and the Chinese were poorly
equipped to operate aircraft from Tibet.
Clearly, Nehru lost his nerve. Not having bothered to acquaint himself
with intelligence, be allowed himself to be misguided by advisers,
including the American Ambassador that he should not use the IAF. He
implored President Kennedy to send in the US Air Force to defend India
without even consulting the Chief of the IAF. Had he ordered the IAF
into battle, it could have swept the skies over Anmacbal Ptadesh and
Tibet without significant resistance by the Chinese. The Chiefs of Staff,
and especially the Anny Chief, too, thought of a war against China as
strictly land war wholly within the Anny's responsibility and the Air
Force had nothing to do with it except to drop supplies to forward troops.
In December 1961, the Goa operations had revealed that the Indian
Army's logistics were below par. Our soldiers were poorly equipped,
both in terms of clothing and materiel, when they marched into Goa.
Their movement to the zone of battle sent the railway schedules in the

- -
western and mid-western part of India haywire. Better military minds

would have reckoned that if an operation that involved just one division,
and in the plains, meant so much disruption and chaos, they better perk
up.
The Indian Anny in 1962 was 550,000 strong. The country also had
the competence to make most of the required equipment But the anned
forces were not provided adequate budgetary allocation to build up their
stockpiles. Equipment maintenance and the quality of training also
suffered. The men and materiel were not at the right place at the right
time. The troops were not acclimatiz:ed for high-altitude warfare. Senior ·
Army officers had not thought through the details of a war in the high
Himalayas.
Explaining the lapse, Nehru in the Rajya Sabha debate of 3 September
1963 accepted that the Anny's den1ands for ftmds were not agreed to,
allowing a meagre budgetary allocation of around 2 per cent of GNP or
less in the l 950s. He said:
It was a peacetime atmosphere when we bad to consider these things_and this
danger had not yet come, although we were apprehensive of what the Chinese
might do in the future. It was, however, not an immediate trouble and we thought
that the more we built up the industrial background of our countly the better it
would be.
At the political level, it was assumed that without any directions or
broad indications from them the armed forces would keep themselves
ready to deal with any threat, anywhere, on our borders. The armed
forces leadership felt that they would get very specific indications from
the political leadership about the precise nature of the threat. There was
inadequate interaction between the two.
The political leadership also .vaguely assumed that if the Chinese
attacked on a large scale across the Himalayas, the rest of the world would
react sbongly against China, and India would not be alone. The scenario
of a short, limited war in which the Chinese would h1imiliate India and
withdraw did not occur to non-military minds like that of Nehru.
Maj. Gen. D.K. Palit, in his book War in the High Himalaya, notes:
The main responsibility for the disaster of 1962 lies squarely on the shoulders of
the high command and their staffs for their ,1nawareness or disregard of opera-
tional and logistical consb:ajnts on the Himalayan front, for their failure to i ~
on the politician.~, the impossibility of the operational tasks demanded of them,
and above all, for their insensitivity to the plight of the officers and men in the
battalions, witlessly pushed up into the high mountains insufficiently armed,
clothed and provisioned-at the mercy of an enemy well prepared for war.

324 Shedding Slubboletlu
1962 was not a taiitoti•I aggrc:11ioo; nor a tri111ple borda dispute. Mao
si11iply atta;.pted to humiliate India, which he considcrcd a challenge, a
collaborator of the Soviet Union. Mao also saw this nation as flabby,
without the will to power, whae he c.xpectcd "the spring th•mda" to
break out, ruptwing its 1mity. After suffctit1g an eclipse following the
collapse of the Great I ,cap F o ~ Mao bad just retiilD~ to a position
of power in Septe1nber 1962. Then began the power sbuggle, with Mao
and Lin Biao pitted against Liu Sbaoqi (whom Mao called Capitalist
Roadcr N,1n1ber One) and Deng Xiaoping (Capitalist Roeder Nt1111bcr
Two). Deng was then advocating a mixed ecooomy on the Nehruvian
model. We do not yet know whether the Mao-Lin Biao line vis-a-vis
India, and their antagonism to the mixed economy model were related,
and humiliating India was in pursuit of the power sbuggle in China.
Admirers of Mao, such as Neville Maxwell, have made it appear that
the 1962 operation was beca11se of Indian provocatioo. Nikita Khrushchev
recalls in Khrushchev Remembers:
I believe it was Mao himself who stirred up the trouble with India. I think he did
so because of some sick fantasy. He had s1a■ kd the war with Jodia and now he
wanted to drag the Soviet Union into the conflict Here was Mao trying to
dictate policy to other socialist countries just as Stalin had done before him.
Here once aga~ was the dictatorship of one individual masqueiading as the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Corroborating this view is the view of Zhu Zhongli, wife of Wang
Jiaxing, in her book Dawn and Dusk. (Wang Jiaxing was head of the
inte111ational liaison department and became a victim of Mao's Culb•• al
Revolution.) Zhu Zhongli discloses that her husband had prepared a
document in Febr,1ary 1962 advocating a policy of three ~'moderations",
and submitted it to Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yi. He proposed
that
China and India must be friends, there is no objective basis for a conflict between
China and India and the Sino-Indian boundary dispute is a headache left to both
of us from the past by imperialism when it controlled China and controlled
India. The boundary dispute must be settled through peaceful negotiations on
the basis of mutual understanding and it certainly can be settled ... However, one
cannot completely ignore the potential of subjective attitudes, for to do otherwise
would not be advantageous to us.
None of the leaders to whom Wang Jiaxing submitted the doctiment
disagreed at that stage. Wang's deputy, Kang Sheng, who was to become

one of the leading eu1n,ra1 Revolutionaries, however, plotted against

him and denounced the document as counter-revolutionary. (Khrushchev
in his memoirs desctibes Kang Sheng as Mao's hatchet man.) At the
tenth plen11m of the eighth Party Congiess in the autt1mn of 1962, Mao
moved from the sidelines to wume full power. Deng Xiaoping advised
Wang Jiaxing to plead ill health and enter hospital. Mao's ret1;1n sjgnalled
the policy of conf.ontation with India and military action. It would appr.ar
that Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yi had
compromised with Mao to give him and Lin Biao a free hand on defence
and foreign policies so that they would have fieedom to run China's
domestic and economic policies. Mao then turned on his colleagues and
destroyed the Chinese Comm11nist Party.
•••
•
The noted Harvard Sinologist, Roderick Macfarq11bar, in his book The
Origins of Cultural Revolution bas atte11:q,ted to analyse the interconnec-
tion between the Chinese attack on India in October 1962 and the Cuban
missile crisis. According to him, Khrushchev came up with the idea of
emplacing Soviet missiles in Cuba in April-May 1962 with a view to
11nveil their presence in Cuba in November, after the US congressional
elections, and negotiating with the US to get its missiles removed from
Turkey. The Chinese presi1rnably knew about the impending US-Soviet
confiontation. Macfarqiahar argues that while the Soviet vacillations in
support _o f India in mid- and late 1962 were perhaps linked to their need
for Chinese support during the forthcoming crisis, it was unlikely the
Chinese were influenced by similar considerations when they decided to
attack India. But if China had decided to inflict a crushing defeat on
India and then withdraw, as they did, the appropriate time to unleash a
confrontation and escalate it was October-November. That would enable
China to withdraw, without India being able to pursue the Chinese in any
counter-attack.
During the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviets diverted a significant
portion of their ships for transporting missiles and ancillary equipment
to Cuba and the entire shipping world was aware of it. 27 October
1962 was the peak of the Cuban missile crisis; that was the day Pravda
wrote its editorial exhorting their Chinese ''brothers'' and the Indian
''friends'~·to settle the border dispute amicably. At that stage, involved in
a life-and-death nuclear confrontation, the Soviet leadership was hardly
in a position to spare much attention to a war on the Sino-Indian border.

Macfarq11bar doct1ments the decision-making in China on 6 October

1962, when there were discussions among Mao, Zhou Enlai, Liu Sbaoqi,
Deng Xiaoping, Marshals He Long, Liu Bocheng, Xu Xiangqian and
General Luo-Ruiqing, Chief General Staff of the PLA. It w~ Marshal
Liu Bocheng who advocated taking on India's best troops and swiftly
beating them. Contrast these intense deliberations of the Chinese, with
the military veterans and political leaders familiar with military operations
participating, with the casualness on the Indian side on how to deal with
China.
••••
It would be a fascinating exercise to have a conference of Indian, Chinese,
American and Russian participants to recount the events of October 1962
on the Himalayan border. No Indian can ever suggest such a conference
since Indians have no access to doc11mentation of the period.
By agreeing to keep the Henderson Brooks enquiry report highly
classified, Nehru contributed to the perpetuation of the shortcomings in
higher defence command and management after his death. Maj. Gen.
D.K. Palit, the Director of Military Operations (OMO) during 1961-63,
has clarified the very restrictive nature of the Henderson Brooks report
itself, since he as the OMO refused the committee access to top secret
documents. Henderson Brooks' report was mean~ to deal strictly with the
debacle of 4 Division; it was not an inquiry into Govet 11ment of India's
border defence policy.
•
.•...
-
The state of India-China relations coincided with the state of Soviet-
Chinese relations: either both were good or both soured. Geostrategic
compulsions dictate these relationships. If, as many weather experts
anticipate, Siberia is to wann up, become more habitable and agl"iculo•rally
more productive, and the Chinese population growth exceeds their
currently p.la,med figures as their demographers predict-i·t is necessary
for the successor state of the USSR, Russia, to take into account the
likely demographic pressures from China on sparsely populated Siberia.
Now that 1962 is a hoary memory and there are moves towards
no1n1alization of relations, India can press the Chinese on three points
relating to the border issue. The Soviet-Chinese border dispute in the
north was settled on the basis of thalweg mid-channel of the Ussuri, that
is, the natural geographic feature principle. The Chinese did this with
..

Burma as well. Hence, the Chinese have to explain why they are shy of
accepting the same kind of natural geographic feature principle for the
Sino-Indian border. · '
The Chinese are also reported to have agreed to an understanding on
the border with the erstwhile Soviet Union in the eastern and northe1n
sectors, even while the border in the western sector, especially the Pamir
region, is yet to be settled. Why should the Chinese not be consistent and
agree to an understanding with us on the eastetn border pending an
overall settlement, including the west, at a later date? That will help
promote confidence between the two sides in the eastern sector and
reduce the risks of a military confrontation.
Thirdly, Beijing's refusal to give its version of LAC has been a sticking
point. This is the main underlying reason for India having to take more
than adequate military precautions.
Once the Himalayan crest, watersheds and thalweg and other natural
features are accepted as the deterrninants for border delimitation, and the
eastern sector is settled on the same principles on which the Siner-Burmese
border has been, there should be no objection to mutual accommodation.
If, on the basis of these principles, some areas fall north of these features,
India should have no hesitation to accommodate China. It will have to be
made clear to China that the LAC of 21 November 1962 will never be
acceptable to the people of India, as it exceeded China's own claims of
1-956 and 1959, and was imposed as a result of a military aggression.

•
TheTnith t1971
Anatoty Dobrynin, a fotmer Soviet diplomat, states in

his memoirs that in 1971 the Soviet Union diplomatically intervened and
obtained assurances from India that it would not carry out a major attack
on West Pakistan, and comm11nicated this to the United States. There
have been other writings to similar effect. The truth, therefore, needs to
be placed on record.
Y.B. Chavan, when he was the Defence Minister, founded the Institute
for Defence Studies and Analyses in 1965. In 1971, I was director of
IDSA. Chavan was the Finance Minister, and also President ofIDSA.
On 7 December 1971, Chavan wanted to see me: he wanted to do
something worthwhile for the armed forces to boost their morale, and
asked for my suggestions. I told him that both in 1962 and in 1965 I had
attempted to do two things while I was in the Defence Ministry, and
failed because of opposition from Finance. Now that he was the Finance
Minister he could clear those proposals. The proposals were that every
disabled serviceman would be provided lifetime employment and that
the children of servicemen killed in action would be supported for their
education not merely up to the school level but to the highest professional
1miversity level their talents justified. Chavan got the proposals approved
the same day by the Prime Minister and thanked me for the suggestions.
During the meeting, he also asked for my assessment of the military
situation. I said there was little doubt we would liberate Bangladesh, but
that was not enough. The Pakistanis would generate myths about their
having been outnumbered and out-weaponed in the East. We should
therefore inflict a decisive defeat on them in the West, and Sind was
their soft underbelly. If the Indian Anny could move up to the Indus ·
River in Sind, it would give us a tremendous bargaining leverage in
shaping things in Pakistan after the war. Fighting in Punjab would simply
be a slogging match. I had expressed similar views in an interview to the
Hindustan (Hindi edition) of 8 or 9 December 1971. After hearing me
out, Chavan asked me to meet him again the following week.

---
The Truth about 1971 329
When we met again on 14 December, the Enterprise was on its way

into the Bay of Ben~ and Delhi was ab,,zz with n11nours of imminent
cease-fire. I asked Chavan about the possibility of a ceue-fire. He said
that once the war in Bangladesh ended there would be a cease-fire, and
he did not expect the war to go on for more than the next few days. I
asked about my earlier suggestion about the thrust into Sind. He replied
that it was not possible because General Bewoor, the ilfftl Anny
Commander, did not have adequate resources at his disposal. I asked

whether some - m~ could not be shifted from the east, and from
within the wcstetn front He answered that time was short for such a
move. He had raised the issue in the Cabinet Committee on Political
Affairs (CCPA) and had obtained a proper military appreciation.
I confessed to my disappointment that our achievements on the western
fiont would not be impressive enough to convince the Pakistanis that
they should never again go to war with India He said that our victory in
the east was significant enough, and he hoped that that would be lesson
enough for the Pakistanis. Obviously, no decisions were taken to alter
the initial directive.
The Chiefs of Staff were directed only to liberate as much of
Bangladesh's territory as possible, and on the western front to fight a
defensive war, to hold off Pakistan forces, mostly in Pakistani tet1itory.
Even the capture of Dacca (now Dhaka) in the east was a result of the
initiative and innovative tactics oftbe Indian Anny's local commanders.
The battles in Punjab were mostly slogging matches. In Sind, a modest -
Indian force just moved into the tettitory not effectively defended. The
Indian Anny not being deployed for major offensive action, an oppor twmity
to move up to the Indus River was missed In Jammu and K&41hmir, some
more te11itory could have been recovered. But it would have been at
considerable cost, given especially the winter conditions. The aim there
was to capture adequate teititory to compel a redrawing of the UN cease-
fire line, and to have a new line of control. The Soviet leaders, too, were
reluctant to support India's war effort, initially. Once the war broke out,
they wanted India to conclude it as early as possible.
After the war, the then Defence Secretary K.B. Lall asked me to help
him draft the Annual Report of the Defence Ministry for 1971-72,
covering the war. I was briefed for the purpose by the then Director of
Military Operations Maj. Gen. I.S. Gill. When I asked General Gill what
the directives to the Chiefs of Staff were, he repeated what Chavan had
told me earlier-to liberate as much of Bangladesh territory as possible
and to contain Pakistan and damage its war machine as much as possible

330 Slteddillg
in the west. Air Chief M••shal P.C. Lal, the only Chief of Staff of that
1i11,c: who bas written about the war in his posthumously published book
My Years with the /AF, bu also confirmed this.
The Pakistanis atte111pted offensive probes on 3, 4, S Dece11Jber at
Poonch, Chbamb, Ferozepur, Longewala and Amritsar They all failed.
The Indian forces had just moved into Sind along Gadra Road axis and
la,mcbed the offensive at S -· ~ sector in Punjab on the night of 5/6
December. Some local advances were made in Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir, but none of these operatiom could have generated any signal
to military professionals that India was about to strike a crippling blow
on West Pakistan and destroy its armed force. Kissinger did ask
Ambassador Jha for that India would not atten1pt to recover
Pak-occupied Kashmir, an assur~ Jha righdy refused to give. While
General Wesh110TC1and wu of the view that the Indian Army's Smd
operation wu only a diversionary move, then US Ambamdor to the
UN, George Bush, did make persistent queries of Swarm Singh, who
was then attending the UN, about our intentions in Sind sector. All these
did not add up to any indications of Indian plans for a major thrust into
West Pakistan.
The canard about India having plans to attack West Pakistan had its
origin in the Enterprise mission. The mission was not sent after the issue
was deliberated upon by the US Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Elmo Z1101walt,
who was then the US Chief of Naval Operations, told an Indian audience
years later in a serninar in New Delhi that he bad no idea about the
mission and he was not in the picb1re. Those responsible for sending the
Enterprise mission had to justify their action and they invented the story
of the Indian plan to lat1nc:h an offensive in West Pakistan. This kind of
disinfor1nation is standard practice in intelligence operations. During
World War I, the British planted the 'Zimrnei11,ann telegram' to deceive
the Americans to believe that Getrnany was conspiring with Mexico to
act against the US interests--one reason for the US to enter the war
against Ger 11,any.

•
The Haeillorr lil
India's mm"'1 forces have been involved in protracted

low-intensity conflicts (LICs) since the mid-1950s, starting with the
outbreak of insurgency in Nagaland. There was subsequently a similar
insurgency in Mizoram, followed by Operation Bluestar in Punjab and
the peacekeeping operation in Sri J.anka* The teim low-intensity conflict
is generally 11sed in American sbategic literature to describe insurgencies
in the developing world. US strategists study such contingencies from
the point of view of the country's foreign and security policy interests
viewed in a global context. For us in India, the challenge of LIC in
Kashmir is both immediate and dire, affecting our national integrity and
security.
The Kashmir insurgency, backed and supported by Pakistan, is
somewhat analogous to the large-scale operation tmdertaken by Islamabad
vis-a-vis the Afghan gover1unent in the 1980s, with the difference that it
does not have US support for this adventure. The situation is aggravated
by an explosive mix of religious fundamffltalism, narco-te11orism and
large-scale infiltration carried out over a period of time. The turbulence
in neighbouring Punjab became a further complicating factor.
Given the extent of infiltration in Kashmir, it would appear that a
counter-escalation strategy may not be as fruitful as it was in 1947-48
and in 1965. The stakes involved on the Pakistani side are much higher
because of the mix of narcotics and terrorism. The interface of the
insurgents on the Pakistani side, including the army, the political parties,
drug barons, etc., is more extensive and intensive than on the previous
two occasions. The Indian strategy has to start, therefore, with isolating
and containing the insurgents in Kashmir and cutting their links with
Pakistan. In Nagaland and Mizoram too, tough steps had to be taken to
relocate the population with a similar end in view.
Some in our country are easily taken in by the Pakistani propaganda
that while the Berlin Wall has come down, India is attempting to erect
another. The US maintains an electrified fence on its Mexican border to

prevent large-scale illegal immigration of Hispanics, and trafficking in

drugs. Mining of the border bas advantages over barbed-wire fencing-
even if electrified-and border patrolling. There have been complaints
of security forces on the border being suborned by enormous narcotic
funds. Once the Army carries out mining, trespass will be ha7.al'dous.
Mining and building defences on the border, etc., are no doubt warlike
acts, but the fact is that we are faced with an extraordinary situation.
Once border crossing is severely curbed, it should be possible to intensify
combing operations within the country to flush out the terrorist elements.
•••
•
Pakistanis have successfully been propagating a myth that India had
failed to fulfil the UN resolution on Kashmir. What was the exact
obligation Indian undertook in 1948?
The first and the only UN resolution India accepted is the one adopted
by the UNCIP at its 40th meeting on 13 August 1948. 1 Part II A of the
resolution reads:
1. As the presence of troops of Pakistan in the tet1itory of the State of .Tammu
and Kashmir constitutes & material change in the situation since it was represented
by the Gove111ment of Pakistan before the Security Council, the Government of
Pakistan agrees to withdraw its troops from that State.
The Government of Pakistan will use its best endeavour to secure the
withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani
nationals not no1mally resident therein who have entered the State for the purpose
of fighting.
Pending a final solution, the ter1itory evacuated by the Pakistani troops will
be administered by the local authorities under the surveillance of the Commission.
Part II B.l of the resolution laid down in the following tet111s the total
withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the State of Jammu and Kashmir
and thereafter withdrawal of the bulk but not all Indian forces from
Jammu and Kashmir.
1. When the Commission shall have notified the Gover1unent of India that the
tribesmen and Pakistani nationals refetied to in Part II A.2 hereof have withdrawn,
thereby te1111inating the situation which was represented by the Govet 11ment of
India to the Security Council as having occasioned the presence of Indian forces
1. In 1947, when India took the question of Pakistani aggression in Jammu and
Kashmir, the clever Pakistani delegate, Chauduri Zafarallah Khan (no longer consi-
dered a Muslim in Pakistan as he was Ahmediya), converted the debate into one on
lndo-Pakistan relations in general, with the result that the UN commission appointed
was teimed the UN Commission for India and Pakistan (not for Jammu and Kashmir).
-....
,....

The Haemon-liage in Kashmir 333
in the State of Jam.mu and Kashmir, and further that the Pakistani forces are
being withdrawn from the State of Jaromu and K.a.~hmir, the GoveialIDent of
India agrees to begin to withdraw the bulk of its forces from that state in stages
to be agreed upon with the Commission.
2. Pending the acceptance of the conditions for a final settlement of the
situation in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian gover a1IJ1ent will maintain
within the lines existing at the moment
.
of the cease-fire the minimum sbength of
its forces which in agieement with the Commission are considered necessary to
assist local authorities in the observance of law and order. The Commission will
have observers stationed where it deen1s necessary.
The UNCIP resolution of 5 January 1949 stated that a plebiscite would
be held in Kashmir when it should be found by the commission that
the cease-fire and truce artangements as set forth in parts I and II of the
commission's resolution of 13 August 1948 had been carried out. The
question of holding plebiscite in Kashmir did not arise because Pakistan
has not carried out its obligation under Parts II A and B of the UN
resolution of 13 August 1948.
The Chai• man of the UNCIP in his letter dated 25 August 1948 to the
Prime Minister of India clarified that evacuated territory in part II A-3 of
the resolution refe11ed to those tetritories in the state of Jammu and
Kashmir which were then under the effective control of the Pakistan
High Command. The UNCIP did not treat India and Pakistan at par in
terms of troop withdrawals, and administrative jurisdiction. Pakistan was
asked to vacate first, and completely. India was then asked to reduce its
forces and hold a plebiscite. This recognition of India's superior status
in Kashmir is traceable to the instrument of accession. 2
2. In the ag,cement between military representatives of India and Pakistan regarding

the establishment of cease-fire line (CFL) in the state of Jamm,1 and Kashmir signed
at Karachi on 27 July 1949, article II B2(d) laid down the CFL as follows: Chorbat
La (point 15700), Chal11nka (on the Shyok River), Khor, thence north to the glaciers.
On 11 December 1972, Lt. General P.S. Bhagat of the Indian army and Lt. General
Abdul Hamid Kban of the Pakistan Anny met at Suchetgarh and signed and exchanged
maps delineating the LOC from the Cbhamb sector to the Partapur sector. Foreign
minister Swaran Singh made a statement in the Lok Sabha on 12 Decernber 1972 and
tabled a docwnent describing the LOC. The no mm: portion of the CFL was to
go along Neril (inclusive to India), Breilman (inclusive to Pakistan) and north of
Chet in the Kargil sector up to Chorbatla in Turtok sector. From·there the LOC nins
north-eastwards to Thang (inclusive to India), thence eastwar~ joining the glaciers.
Both the demarcations of 1949 and 1972 are quite clear that the CFL and the LOC
either terrniaated with the glaciers or was aligned along with the glaciers. There is
only 9ne group of glaciers around Siachen in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. As far
back as 1948, Josef Korbel, the cbai, man of the UN Commission on India and
Pakistan oontirmed in a letter to Prime Minister Nehru that the te,,itory evacuated by

Subsequently, the western powers, influenced by the cold war

considerations decided to lean towards Pakistan and attempted to water
down this resolution; India stood its ground. Krishna Menon in his speee,h
in the UN Security Council on 23 and 24 January 1957 also highlighted
that the UN mediator Justice Sir Owen Dixon (of Ausbalia) stated in
September 1950 that when Pakistan crossed the boundary into Jarnmu
•
and Kashmir, it violated intet,,ational law, in other words, committed
•
aggression. The judge also came to the conclusion that a wholesale

plebiscite was neither desirable nor possible. He recommended a compart-
mental plebiscite. While India was prepared to examine the ftft"
Pakistan rejected it ·
· The Swedish UN mediator in 1957, Gunnar Jarring, stated in his
report:
In dealing with the problem under discussion as extensively as I.have during the
period just ended, I could not fail to take note of the concern expressed in
connection with the changing political, economic and strategic facts · g
the whole of Kashmir question, together with the changing pattCin of power
relations in West and South Asia
The Council will, furthermore, be aware of the fact that implementation of
international agreements of an ad hoc character, which has not been achieved
fairly speedily, may become progr~ively more difficult because the situation
with which they were to cope has tended to change.
the Pakistani forces and the tribals under their control would revert to the jurisdiction
of the State administration. In other words, pending the settlement of the dispute on
Kashmir the unpopulated and llllOCcupied tetritory continued to be under the control
of J&K government.
In any case, the wording of the two agreernents of 27 July 1949 and 11 December
1972 did not permit any interpretation of Pakistan being entitled to any ter1 itory east
of the glaciers. In the pe1iod after 1972 India did not take steps to keep this area
under continuous surveillance, presumably on the ground that it was a snowy
uninhabited wasteland. Pakistan licensed a few foreign mountaineering expeditions
in the area and started showing in its maps the LOC from point NJ 9842, the last map
reference according to the 1972 Suchetgarh agaee111ent, in a straight Jin~ drawn north-
east up to K.arakoram pass. It was this cartographic aggression followed by the
Pakistani military activity in the area, which led to the Indian military action in 1984
pushing the Pakistanis out of the Siachen glacier. In 1989 an agreement in principle
was reached between the two sides to demilitarize the area and for the forces to fall
back to their earlier positions. If there is to be confidence between the two parties
that neither side will take advantage of the demilitarization by subsequently moving
forward, there must be an understanding on the approximate extrapolation of the
LOC in this area. In the Indian view, the references to the glaciets in both ag1eements
made it clear that the LOC has to be aligned broadly along the glaciers.

The Haemo"hage in Kashmir 335
li1 other words, Jarring was saying that one cannot hold India to the
plebiscite promise after such a long delay caused mostly by Pakistan's
unwillingness to implement parts A and B of the UN resolution of August
1948.
The last time Kashmir, by itself as an issue was discussed in the
Security Council was in 1964 following the disturbances in Kashmir in
the wake of the temporary removal of the Holy Prophet's relic from the
Hazratbal shrine. The Council did not pass any resolution and the matter
was talked out. The last resolution of the Security Council focusing on
Kashmir issue was as far back as 2 December 1957, when it received
Jarring, s report.
Toe Simla Agreement stated with reference to Jammu and Ka.~hmir:
In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the cease-fire of
December 17, 1971 shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the
recogniz,ed position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it 11nilaterally
itiespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further
undertake to refiajn from the threat or the use of force in violation of this line.
Both Gove,,1ments agree that their respective heads will meet again at mubwly
convenient time in the future and that, iil the meanwhile, the representatives of
the two sides will meet to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for
the establishment of durable peace and norrnalintion of relations, including the
question ofrepatriation ofprisoners of war aad civilian internees, a final settlement
of Jammu and Kashmir and the resumption of diplomatic relations.
....•
According to a report appearing in the Frontier Post of Pakistan in early
1993, a four-day conference was organized on the Kashmir issue by the
US Institute of Peace, an American think-tank funded by the US Congress.
Attending were journalists, former goveJaiment officials, retired military
officers, professors, attorneys and South Asia expe1 ts from the US, India,
Pakistan and from both sides of the LoC in the former princely state of
Jan,mu and Ka~hmir. According to the report, a majority of the delegates
to the conference agreed that the best solution to the Kashmir conflict is
to establish an independent Kashmiri state consisting of Indian Kashmir
and 'Az.ad' Kashmir. (The word 'Az.ad Kashmir' is used in Pakistan only
for the area between Jammu and Kashmir valley and Pakistani Punjab
and it does not include Gilgit, Baltis~ and other areas which were part
of the fo1mer state of Jammu and Kashmir.) Toe report mentioned that
the conference agreed that, besides India and Pakistan, Indian Kashmir
and 'Azad' Kashmir together is the third party to the Kashmir dispute.

Hence. it was t'C10lved a cankia;.:e of aD die 11eajor and
-
rq,reunaarivcs of Kadu11ir be held soon in a aw;.,,,v wssidr Sot_4I, Asia,
and dr.tr human rights ~iolalioos COiiMJJilkd by all ~ bloodshed,
vi<,la1ee and state tea101isln bta stopped in Indian Kadm,ir f«the sake of
humanity and ~ of the conflict.
The fut 11a p1 incely state of J and Kmf,,.... of IIIIIIY
areas which have very distinct idcnaiti.l;s, and it is toeaDy •••islrt· g to
talk of all dl05e different dim.: aras an a $ingle taiito1i1tl adity and
edmic identity. When the 1•~iator Sir Owen Dixon proposal pa1•ia!
pldriscite, he had acknowledged this mility. Kadn111ir refas to the valley
of Kasht11ir, and almost entire Kadn11ir is in India There is no ~Azad'
Kashmir in Pakistan. That area is not KadJ11ai,i any more dwo Paki••:aoi
Punjab. The people in M11zaff~tabad, DolFte~ Poooch, RajaJvi areas, in
BaJtistan and Gilgit are no more . . than I adakbis and J : 111 1111
...
people are. Their language, culh1re, and e•laoicity are all different. H .. , _
if one were to talk of pax ties other than India and Pakistan to the dispute
arising out of the f011oer princely state of J u and Kasbn1ir, it is not
just three parties, making the entire former state of J u and Ka.~h,11«
into a single third party. Ethnically, the Kashmiris cannot represent the
Jammu Dogras or the I adakhis, the Baltistanis, the Gilgit people, the
•
Poonchis and others. Thus, the 01111,ber of paaties will not be three but
nine or ten.
In India there have always been questions why the Indian Anny as it
was pushing out the Pakistanis stopped at the present LoC and did not
liberate the whole of the fu1111er princely state of J u and Kashmir.
There is a rationale behind this. While Kashoiir valley, I adakb and J :1 11111
remained on the Indian side, the other areas, ethnically different, were
left in Pakistan's possession. Sheikh Alxh1IJab 's hold was only in the
valley and not in Poonch, Raja1vi, Mmaffarabad, Baltistan and Gilgit
The do111inance of Kashmiris of the valley is not xes: le to the other
ethnic groups. It is doubtful whether Kashmiris will fmm the majmity in
the entire for,ner princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, the
talk of Kashmiris on the two sides of the LoC uniting does not make
sense. At the time of transfer of power to India no popt.1Jation of a princely
state was allowed the right of self-dete1111ination. There is no question of
a simple third party to the dispute. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir
was an artificial creation, and the principles that were applied to Punjab
and Bengal at the time of partition would more appropriately apply here .
•••
•

The Haemorrhage in Kashmir 337
As a practical way out of the Kashmir imbroglio and to bring peace

between India and Pakistan, con~et ting the LoC in Kashmir into an
intet,,ational border is often suggested. This idea was · as far
back as 1962 when there was combined pressure from the US and the
UK as India sought western military help following the Chinese attack.
The Averell Harriman-Duncan Sandys mission was in Delhi in November
1962. Duncan Sandys' hectoring tactics have been described by John
Kenneth Galbraith in his Ambassador's Journal.. The Government of
India ag~ to disa1ss with Pakistan the issue of Kashmir, including some
tet1itorial adjustments. A series of discussions were held between Swaran
Singh and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. A detailed account of the discussions
may be seen in Major General Palit's book War in the High Himalaya.
As General Palit describes it, Bhutto's exorbitant de111ands for most of
the state of Jamm11 and Kashmir led to the negotiations breaking down.
Bhutto was prepared to leave to India only a s1J1all area around Kathua.
The justification he gave for his de111ands was that India was a defeated
country, a reference to the 1962 debacle in Sela
During the diSC\1ssions leading to the Si1nla Pact the issue of convertit1g
the LoC into an inte1,,ational boundary was raised. From all verbal
accounts one has heard from those present in Simla during the conference,
and were privy to the last-minute conversations between Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi and Plesident Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it would appear the
latter agreed that the best solution was to convert the LoC into an
international border, but pleaded for time to prepare the people of
Pakistan. He was reported to have suggested that Pakistan would absorb
the territories of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir under its
occupation into the state of Pakistan, thereby legitimizing the earlier
accession of Kashmir to India in the -eyCsP)of Pakistanis. That would
have, in due course, converted the LoC into an inter11ational border. It is
believed that this conversation had been taped and the Indian government
has the tape, though such a tape cannot be considered as conclusive
proof of such a conversation in the present days of audio technology.
Both Bhutto and Mrs Gandhi got into political trouble in 1975. In
1977, Bhutto was overthrown. Mrs Gandhi had also been voted out and
the Janata gover11ment was in office. Because of Mrs Gandhi's excessive
secrecy and the attitude adopted by the Janata government towards
members of the bureaucracy who were allegedly loyal to her, there was
discontinuity in the perceptions and pursuit of India's foreign policy
interests. General Ziaul Haq was then in a weak position, and he used to
court Prime Minister Morarji Desai with long weekly telephone calls.

Pakistan's relations with the US were at a low ebb, and it was ostracized
by many Islamic and other countries. That was the ideal opportunity for
India to have pressed Pakistan to move further ahead on the l(a..qhmir
settlement on the basis of the understanding reached at Simla. That
opporbinity was lost forever.
In December 1979 with the Soviet move into Afghanistan, ove1night
Pakistan becarn~ a frontline state and a close ally of the US and secured
the support of all Islamic countries. The UN statement by the Indian
delegates, authoriud by Mrs Gandhi, who was still to take office, created
understandable tensions between the US and India. General Ziaul Haq
exploited his advantage to the hilt: In 1981--82 he came out with his
proposal of a no-war pact While the professional doves in India welcomed
it and urged India to accept it, Mrs Gandhi knew that General Zia was
atten1pting to destroy the basis of the Simla Pact. She countered his
move with her offer for a treaty of peace and cooperation, which was an
extension of the concept of the ftarnP.work for peace propounded at Simla.
Meanwhile, by 1983, General Zia's preparations for covert operations
against India, first in Punjab and subsequently in Kashmir, were ready.
Mrs Gandhi's politics in Punjab and her initial nurturing of Jamail
Singh Bhindranwale gave General Zia the opportunity he needed to set
Punjab ablaze. The dismissal of Farooq Abdullah, forcing of a coalition
of the Congre~ and the National Conference and the rigging in 1987
elections set the stage for the ISi to begin its operations in Kashmir- The
fact that the Jarnaat-e-Islami was taking control over the primary and
secondary education in Kashmir and Islarnizing the valley's population
was deliberately overlooked by those in power.
The l(a.qhmir problem was at 1east anticipated by the Indian Army as
far back as 1986. They played a war game called ''Aakhri Badia'' (the
final revenge), in which they were able to visualize fairly accurately
what Pakistan would attempt. This was published subsequently in the
Indian Defence Review as ''Operation Topaq''. Some of the papers about
the game, which was set in 1990-91, were obtained by the Pakistani
intelligence in 1986 itself, and they confused the Operation Brasstacks
exercise with the counter action by India envisaged in 1990-91. Hence
their exaggerated fears about Brasstacks. (Such fears did not speak highly
of Pakistani intelligence assessment process, since the orders of battle
for both sides mentioned in the Indian Anny exercise were five years
into the future and were much bigger than what was on the ground in
198fr.87.) Pakistan used its intelligence on the ''Aakhri Badia'' exercise
to communicate at the highest level to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi an

The Haemo"hage in Kashmir 339
inaccurate "Vetsion of the Indian Army carrying out studies on limited

imposition of emergency in parts of the country, sowing seeds of discord
between the Pl ime Minister and the Army leadership.
Pakistan had divided the tet1itories of the former Jammu and Kashmir
state it ovet1an, into two: 28,000 sq. miles of Gilgit, Baltistao, Wali,
Swat and Hunza areas had been annexed as northetn territory, leaving
4500 sq. miles between Punjab of Palcistan and Jammu and Kashmir in
India as 'A:zad Ka.~hmir'. In 1974 Bhutto gave this 'Azad Ka.~hmir' a
new constitution with an Assembly. He attempted to convert the Northetn
Areas into a regular province of Pakistan but failed, for purely domestic
reasons.
The LoC also has a basic rationality. As stated earlier, the state of
Jammu and Kashmir had a n11mber of ethnic components-Jammu,
T,adakh, the Ka.~hmir Valley, the Mirpur-Poonch areas, Gilgit, Baltistan,
Wali, Swat, and H11nza. Gilgit, Baltistan, Wali, Swat and H11nza are
Muslim and tribal principalities distinguished from Ka~bmir Valley. The ·
Mirpur-Poonch areas are closer to Pakistani Punjab. Ladakh is Buddhist
and Jammu is Hindu. When the 1949 cease-fue line was established it
left the Hindu Jammu, Buddhist Ladakh and almost the entire Kashmir
Valley with India while the other totally Muslim areas went under
Pakistan. Some pockets like Poonch town, which were not ethnically
Kashmiri but predominantly Muslim, also were under Indian control.
Therefore the old CFL and the present LoC divide the former state of
Jarnmu and Kashmir broadly on ethnic lines except for pockets like
Poonch. India's 1962-63 proposal aimed at, among other things,
rationalizing some of these anomalies. A lot of confusion has been created
by treating the state of Jammu and Kashmir as a homogeneous ethnic
entity. It is not widely known that Amanullah Khan, the leader of the so-
called JKLF is not a K.ashmiri but comes from the Northern Areas
absorbed into Palcistan. Hence the Palcistani concern about this third
option, which would mean that an area absorbed into Palcistan would
become independent. ·
•
It has also been generally overlooked that any dialogue on Jammu
and
•
Ka..~hmir at this stage cannot be within the fram~work of discussions
on that subject in the period from the 1940s to the '60s. Palcistan in those
days had pretensions to be the homeland of all Muslims of the
subcontinent After 1971 the Muslims of the subcontinent are divided
into three in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The largest segment is not
in Pakistan.
The diplomatic advantages of offering a proposal to convert the LoC

340 Shedding Sh;bbo/eths
into an international border at this stage need to be carefully weighed

Having lived with the division of the former state of Jarnmu and Ka.~hmir
for more than five decades, there is no ratson why it should not be
formalized. Bengal, Punjab and Assam were partitioned at the tjme of
Indian independence and the integrity of the former poly t'tbnic state of
Jammu and Kashmir ~.annot be any more sacrosanct than that of Bengal
and Punjab.
If India makes an offer to this effect, it would project to the world that
this country is interested in a pragmatic solution. If Pakistan turns it ·
down, the burden of arguing against the division of the fc,1mer state of
Jammu and Kashmir will shift to Pakistan. Today, with the distribution
of Muslim population in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, it will be even
more difficult for Pakistan to go back to the two-nation theory. It will be
even more difficult for Pakistan to fall back upon the Transfer of Power
Act and the provisions therein about the princely states.
India's approach to the Ka.~hmir issue ·has been excessively legalistic
and not realistically political. Consequently India, after having made its
legal case under the provisions of the Transfer of Power Act, has displayed
little diplomatic initiative on the Kashmir issue. While for India sec11laris111
is an· important value, for the international comm\1nity it is not as
important.
-.

Coups in Pakistan
The three-judge commission of inquiry set up to probe

into the crash of General Zia's C-130 aircraft on 17 August 1988
submitted its 63-page report to the Interior Minister of Pakistan in early
1993. Toe commission comprised Justice Shafiur Rahman of the Supreme
Court, Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmad of the Lahore J:ligh Court and Justice
Imam Ali G. Kazi of the Sind High Court. This commission was set up
on 10 August 1992-:almost a year after General Aslam Beg's retirement
as the Army Chief.___,after an inquiry committee headed by the Interior
Minister Shujaat Hussein, in its report admitted that none of the
investigation agencies was able to unravel the mystery of the crash at
Bahawalpur.
The commission examined 80 witnesses, including General Aslam
Beg, the retired Anny Chief and the Labour Minister ljazulul Haq, the
son of General Zia. Toe latter alleged 'cover up' efforts to screen the
perpetrators. He also asked why General Aslam Beg,- who succeeded
General Zia as the Chief of Army Staff, had been indifferent towards a
probe during his three-year tenure. General Beg accompanied General
Zia in the same ill-fated C-130 aircraft to Babawalpur but took a different
aircraft to go to Karachi even as General Zia was returning to Islamabad.
He was infc,1111ed about the crash even as he was in the air and returned
to Islamabad to supervise the succession to the Presidency.
An earlier witness, Group Captain Zabeer Hasan Zaidi, deposed that
General Zia's aircraft was hit by two missiles and two bombs. All these
explosions, according to ~ were triggered off by remote control from
a flying plane. Zaidi also conti11ned the findings of the chief editor of
weekly Talcbeer, M. Salabuddin, who in his evidence deposed that just
before General Zia's plane took off, an advance plane flew to check that
there was nothing unusual on the ground or the air. This plane was_
piloted by Captain Aslam of Army Aviation Corps, and had as passenger
Major Afsal Mahmud of Anny Intelligence Battalion 3223 of Multan.
According to Salabuddin, the major pressed the button of his remote

control device to cause the explosions in General Zia's plane. He said

that the major earlier loaded some mango crates, said to be a gift firm
Major General Durrani, GOC Armoured Division, Multan, and Co.mer
military secretary to General Zia Another Army Captain Amir put into
the cockpit of the C-130 before it took off, a showcase with models of
planes in it. Salabuddin deposed that the showcase bad gas bombs hidden
in them and they were exploded by the remote control operated by Major
Afsal Mahmud. The gas released in the cockpit rendered the crew
senseless. There were also allegations that Pinstec analysis showed
deposits of chlorine, potassi11m chlorate and white phosphorus along
with mango peels and J..e1n~ls which could point to the presence of a
low-intensity bomb in the mango crate. He further alleged that no
statements were obtained from Major AfsaJ Mahmud.
. In November 1995 the Pakistani Army officers aitested two months
earlier on the charge of plotting a coup were cleared of tieason, but
retired compulsorily on grounds of indiscipline. This decision was
reported to have been taken after an in-house inquiry by the Army,
conducted by the ISi wing. The officers were caught while trying to
smuggle ai 111s and amm11nition bought privately at the second-hand w 111s
bazaar~ Darra Adam Khel, for supply to Kashmiri militants. Most of
these officers belonged to the Muslim visionary school of people like
General Hamid Gui and General Javed Nasir, both fotmer chiefs ~f the
ISi. The gove111ment and Army did not dare to proceed against these
officers, avowedly Islamic ~xbe111ists, lest it create a backlash in the
Anny and the country as a whole. Immediately after the arrests, the~
asked whether devout Muslim officers did not have a place in the Pakistan
Army. The officers involved included a major gen~ two brigadiers
and some colonels. Surely, these Anny officers, buying loads of a,111s
and amm11nition, needed large swns of money. Where did it come from?
From drug trade, govet 11ment sources, or private donations?
The Rawalpindi conspiracy of 1951-to overthrow the Liaquat Ali
government-was attempted within four years of Pakistan being born,
underlining the fact that from the outset Pakistani politic;ians did not
command the Anny's respect. Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah's lieutenant,
was the Prime Minister. The conspiracy sowed the seeds of military rule
in Pakistan.
The central figure of the conspiracy was Major General Akbar Khan,
the Chief of General Staff. He had been selected to lead the Pakistani
raiders into Kashmir in 1947 11nder the pseudonym of General Tariq. He
was unhappy with the government's halfhearted policy on Kashmir and

Coups in Pakistan 343
acceptance of Kashmir cease-fire. Akbar Khan came from a political

family and was the son-in-law of Begum Shah Nawaz, a prominent left-
wing legislator of the pre-independence days. His political role, political
connections, and the Pakistani contempt for the Muhajir (both Liaquat
Ali Khan and Jinnah), persuaded Akbar Khan that he could pull off the
coup. His fellow conspirators were Air Commodore Janjua, Major General
Nazir Ahmad, Brigadier Latif, one naval captain and five other milit.ary
officers. The others involved were Akbar Khan's wife Naseem, the
celebrated Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and the secret.ary-general of the
Pakistan Comm11nist Party Saijad Zaheer (brother of Ali Zaheer, who
was a Congress minister in UP). It was a bi:,,arre. mix of allegiance to
two-nation theory and left ideology.
Akbar Khan was said to have been in touch with a number of political
parties. The plan was to capture Gove111or General Nazimuddin and the
Prime Minister, the British Commander-in-Chief General Gracey, and
governors and chief ministers of provinces. The Governor General was
to be compelled to dismiss the go-ver1ament and install a milit.ary council
to rule.
One of the police CID inspectors, who had worked with Akbar Khan
in Kashmir and whom he took into confidence, spilled the beans because
he developed misgivings. The conspirators were arrested and tried by a
special civil trib11nal since there were civilians involved. The trib11nal
consisted of a federal court judge, Abdur Rahman, and one judge each
from Punjab and Dacca high courts. The prosecution was headed by
A.K. Brohi, who subsequently became Law Minister; and the defence by
H.S. Suhrawardy, who subsequently became the founder of the Awami
League of East Bengal and Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1956-57.
Akbar Khan was sentenced to jail for twelve years. Others except _
Akbar Khan's wife, who was acquitted-were sentenced to seven years
and less, but all were released after three years. Akbar Khan later joined
Bhutto's PPP, stood for and lost the elections in 1970, and became
Bhutto's adviser for national security. He was later Pakistan ambassador
to Czechoslovakia and Bhutto's adviser for manpower affairs.
In December 1970, following the Pakistani elections-the first free
and fair polls held in that country-and the cle.ar majority obtained by
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, many in India and Pakistan felt that at last an
era of democracy had dawned in Pakistan. I was one of the few who
disagreed and argued that the Anny would not hand over power. Earlier
in 1969, General Yahya Khan and his colleagues conspired successfully
against their commander, Field Marshal Ayub Khan. President Bhutto

suspected General Gui Hassan and Air Marshal Rahim, who helped to
install him in power in December 1971, of · tendencies, got
rid of them by wigning them to diplo11Jatir. posts and installed the faithful
Tikka Khan as the Chief of the Army Staff. During 1972-7S there were
three militmy conspiracies in Pakistan and consequent courts-martial.
GePCral Zia presided over one of these courts-martial. When General
Zia took over power the general impression was that a cabal of six
· generals was acting in concert and that Zia was only the tiont mao The
real brain behind the coup was said to be General Chishti. Zia
out11,aooeuvrcd and got rid of all of them. There was one factor of
continuity bet\\een the developments of the 1977 coup and the transition
in 1988 Ghularn lshaq Khan who was again reported to be a humble
man with no political ambitions. A noteworthy factor is that while all
other senior civil servants around Bhutto were eliminated, Ghularn Isbaq
Khan rose to become the President.
Bhutto as Foreign Minister, Ptesident and Plime Minister made it a
point to cultivate the younger and middle-level officers. He used to visit
their messes. He was quite popular among the younger officers: he had
opposed the Tashkent agreement, built up the morale of the armed forces
tiom 1972 to 1977, expanded the armed forces by 70 per cent, equipped
them with $2 billion worth of equipment from China purchased with
Arab money and, lastly, projected himself as the father of the Pakistani
bomb. At the time of Zia's death those young officers were brigadiers
and major generals. That the Bhutto constituency in the Army may have
had a hand in eliminating Zia cannot be ruled out There is a popular
belief in Pakistan that Shia officers from the Northetn Area were behind
the Zia assassination as a revenge for the Shia massacre in Gilgit. Bhutto
himself pointed out in 1978 in his death-cell testimony that Pakistan had
two attempted military coups d'etat, two quasi-military coups d'etat and
three full-fledged military coups d'etat After 1978 there bad been atte11ips
at overthrowing the military regime by military and ex-military officers.
Bhutto refers to a particular attempted coup about which the then Army
Chief, General Tikka Khan, showed him a chart of the relationships of
the participants of the coup. According to ~ it was a ''family corps'' of
some senior officers and a number of junior officers all related to each
other and friendly to a politician.

Ways of the Bureaucracy
In late 1993~ I visited the Lal Bahadur Shastri National

Academy of Administration and addressed the probationers during their
foundation course. The subject of my talk ranged over security threats
and interests as well as those relBting to Indian economic and technological
advancement. At the end of the talk the first question raised by a proba-
tioner was on political corruption as an inte1nal security ·threat and a
major impediment to India's progress.
Forty-two years earlier, we probationers brimmed with zest and pride
as being members of the premier service {IAS) which was to help build
newly independent India. The first five-year plan had just been launched
and the first general elections were to be held the following year. We
held the country's political leadership in the highest esteem. When we
were told that our motto was ''Ka1menyeva Adhikaraste Maa Paleshu
Kadachana'' (''Your obligation is to your duty and not to its fruits'') from
the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, we believed in it. It took most
of us at least two to three decades, depending on our respective careers,
to be thoroughly disillusioned. 1
Perl,aps, those joining the Foreign Service are relatively better shielded
from the rough and tumble of the country's ground realities than those
joining the administrative or police service. Today's IAS entrants cannot
be told they are the cream of the cream and future policy-makers of the
new India, as we were persuaded to believe. Today, more remunerative
opportunities are available in commercial, technological and other fields
and they attract a lot of talent. A significant portion of talent emigrates to
1. They say that those below 30 who are not socialist do not have a heart; and
those who are socialist above 30 do not have a head. I was an ardent believer in
socialism till Indira Gandhi and her coterie exploited that slogan for their personal
benefit and introduced cynically the constitutional amendment to declare India a
Socialist State. With equal cynicism they called India a secular state, too, while
hobnobbing publicly with godmen, many of whom in turn became power brokers
and also started syste111atic exploitation of the comm11nal vote banks.

346 Slredding Smbboleths
the US and tries to obtain the Green Card there. Industrial management
in India and the services sector absorb quite a lot of top talent of the
country. In future, it is doubtful whether the IAS men can aspire to get
into the public sector undet takings and climb to the top.
The Indian b■■9'1111 carries on the generalist tradition of the ICS.
l9'0.F
The ICS was not nmning a modem industrializing state aspiring to have
advanced social services, high technology and an inteiraational role. Hence,
it did not need people with a high degree of specialization. Even so, in
the early 1930s they created a Fioance-Commerce pool to ensure that
officers with requisite expertise would be available to man the posts in
finance and commerce ministries. This concept of civil servants having
expe1tise in particular fields was anathe1na to politicians from the late
1960s. The expert civil servant was not as amenable to ad hoc decision-
making as generalist ones. The expert civil servant tended to take a stand
on issues in which ministers were inclined to take their decisions on
''superior non-technical considerations'', as one ad hoc decision was
explained to the Public Accounts Committee in the early 1980s. The •
ex.pet t civil servant had a market outside the go\'et a,ment. Therefore, the
politicians had no interest in per111itting civil servants to acquire expertise
in particular subjects or areas. The senior civil servants of the 1970s also
prefetied the generalist system. In that system most of the civil servants
•
got their tum to become secretaries to government. In an expertise-based

-
system there would have been questions whether a particular person bad
the background to occupy a particular post. Then it could become difficult
to make an Additional Secretary (Social Welfare) into Defence Secretary
ove1night. There was, therefore, a mutuality of interest between the
politicians and senior civil servants to perpetuate the generalist orientation
in civil service. In such a system of generalist civil servants, senior
bureaucrats have no use for outside expertise and feel threatened by it.
The seniors tend to mould their successors in their own image, and thus
the system discourages aspiring young and medium-level officers from
acquiring expertise. There is no area or subject specialization in the IFS,
\Jnlike in the diplomatic services of advanced countries.
A democracy cannot expect its civil servants to be agents of change.
That would be a confession of the failure of democratic institutions and
processes. In mature democracies, the civil servants do not have exagger-
ated notions of their role in government. But they have very clear ideas
about their relationship with the political executive at different levels; they
also have a sense of professionalism and pride. The question is whether
our civil services are imbued with such professionalism. While, perhaps,

Ways of the Bureaucracy 341
the civil servants allotted to speciali71'd services such as revenue, customs,

police and audit, may develop such prof~ionalisn1 based on 1mcmtal
specialization, whether the generalist IAS can acquire such prof~ional
skills ren1ains an open question.
Perl1aps, the system has firmly convinced itself of the moral of the
story of Vik ..amaditya, where a shepherd boy spoke with great wisdom
when he sat on a mound (When King Bhoja heard about it, he had the
mound dug up only to come across Vikrarnaditya' s throne. As he tried to
ascend it, the figurine on the step asked him whether he was wise enough
to sit on Vikramaditya's throne and the figurine on each of the thirty-two
steps told a story about the wisdom of King Vikramaditya Thereby
came the compilation of the ''Tales of Vik• amaditya''.) Gove111ments in
India operate on the.principle of Vikrarnaditya's throne. As soon as a
person sits on the particular chair he immediately acquires all the knowl-
edge needed to man the post: they do not need any expertise or advice
from anybody else. So· we have ministers expounding the policies of
their ministries and departmC?tts immediately after being sworn in at
Rashtrapati Bhavan. (Many of their subsequent speeches are written by
medi11m-level officials. But most of our ministers, conditioned by the
sycophancy surrounding them, soon persuade themselves about their own
brilliance and competence.) . ·
In an age where knowledge, info1,11ation and data and specialized
skills to handle them are required for policy-making in the increasillgly
complex world, how effective can be the role of generalist civil servant?
The senior generalist officials are treated more as staff officers than as
policy advisers.
In the 1950s, the two books on the ICS, The Founders and Guardiails
were compulsory reading for all IAS probationers. They set out the ethos
and purpose of the ICS. They constituted the steel flame of the Indian
administration and ensured law and order and sustained the British Raj
•
in India. In the 1950s and '60s, the emphasis for the IAS men was on
development, building the new industrializing India; an India symbolized
by Prime Minister Nehru and the five-year plans- With economic refo1111s,
the present-day probationers are not going to play a role in the
development of future India, which we were persuaded in the 1950s was
our duty. in maintaining law and order, they are unable to exercise in
most cases the functions devolved on them by law, let alone act as
guardians in the system.
Few of the present-day enbants have illusions about the service. Their
average ase is higher than those who entered the service in the 1950s
.·

I
,'
348 Slwddillg r
l
and '60a. Many of •tu,, are firm the engincaZng and ,skdical cli:xiplinrs,
IOPICAl■ing al1110S1 nnheanl of in those days. It looks as 11-mgt, of '
IJU!• lmnw what they want out of the service.
The JCS bad a cca•ain cohesion about it• a service and a of f
. . There is fiequent ~otion of IAS lobbies and Clk-ir atM-.pg to '
•
,
COIIK;I" phJ111 posts. That is in a bade 1mionist spirit and not as esprit de
j
corps. The IAS never bad esprit de corps. Coov:quc••tly, the relationship
bet\\cen the seniors and jlmiors in the IAS w one of indifference by
the f011ner and a cynical lack of approbation towards them by the latter. 'I
Few senior IAS men have con,manded enough influence in govC11■01CDt ,
'
and respect of politicians to have initiated a con1p:ehensive review of .•

•
I
the futi1re role of the IAS and the process of introducing much-needed
refor1m. In earlier years, every yolDlg IAS officer looked up to the Chief •
\
Secretary in the state to stand by him and protect him from the local flak. .
Chief Secretaries could play that role and had the req,1isite slat11re for it
So did the Cabinet Secretaries at the Centre. Now the juniots are more
inclined to go to politician~ to seek redras for their · than look
up to their seniors to protect their interests.
When a distinguished retired member of the IAS c 17.eCl the
IAS as polished call girls, he provoked resent,.aeot among the hers
of the service and debate in the Press. I was a member of the service till
1987. I spent fifteen years at the senioimost level of the career in an
academic post, though contin11ing as member of the service. I also had
the unique good fm t,me of serving under politicians like Kamaraj, Y.B.
Chavao, Morarji Desai, C. Subramaniam and P.V. Narasimha Rao, and
senior civil servants such as R.A. Gopalaswami, P.V.R. Rao, H.C. Sarin,
P.K. Dave and N.K. Mukherji. Except for two briefpetiods in the Depart-
ment of Defence Productio~ I was not called upon to deal with big
contracts and transactions. Thanks to my political and . civil service bosses I, .
I never had to choose between conscience and career. I was the chai1111au 11.
of the committee which was _to select the · e for the Indian Navy
in 1980, but I was 11nscathed by the controversy surrounding the induction t, •
of HOW submarine, being the first Union ~ i ~ to be sacked by

(
Indira Gandhi on her return to power in 1980. I have always been grateful •
i.
to Mrs Gandhi for sparing me the ordeal. I
•.
.
I have been involved in political controversies. My views on India's
nuclear option and on the inevitability of war from the beginning of the r'\ ·
Bangladesh crisis were anathema to the government. My actions as Home \.
Secretary in Tamil Nadu (March 1976-July 1977) during the Emergency ..•
(on my visit to Madras Central Jail and meeting the detenus)• evoked a
•

Ways ofJhe Bureaucracy 349
stinging attack on me in the Lok Sabha in 1976 by O.V. A)agesan, a

former Congress Minister and MP from Tamil Nadu. A fo1mer Congress
Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Bbalctavatsalam) wrote to Mrs Gandhi
as)cing that I be replaced. The m had a file on me becai1se of my friendship
with Krishan Kant since 1968.2
2. P.K.. Dave, the advisor, _shifted ine from my post as fourth niember of the
Board of Revenue to the post of Home Secretary when the ~c,,mbent had a cerebral
stroke. Dave knew ofmy strong anti-Emergency views and _my friendship with Krishan
Kant, who (along with Chandrasekhar, Mohan Dharia and Ram Ohan) was among
the Congiessmen opposed to the Emergency and was expelled from ·the party. Dave
empowered me to deal with law and order, which was always the charge of the Chief
Secretary, and made me lnfor1nation Secrc1Bry in addition. We never discussed why
he did it I pre~iroed his aim was that the .Emergency should be handled by someone
who was not an enthusiastic supporter of it.
The impact of the Emergency on Tamil Nadu was so minimal that in the 1977
elections, while Mrs Gandhi lost all the northern states, she won hands down in
Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kamataka and Kerala. Tamil Nadu was under
President's rule while the other three states bad Cong1-ess ministries. In Tamil Nadu,
the DMK. daily Murasoli continued to be published. An order by the Information and
Broadcasting Ministry to seize the press and close it down was returned by the state
government as counterproductive. When I visited Delhi and returned the order to the
chief censor, Harry D'Penba, he said, ''What sad days are these. You and I were in
the profession to info1m and educate the people. Now we are asked to do this. I have
to commend Madras government for its bold stand.'' (This was, of course, his private
view.) ·
When I took over, there were 11,000 detainees in the jails in the state. I set myself
a quota of releasing 1000 detainees per month. There was a committee, over which I
presided, with the Deputy Director of m and Deputy IGP Intelligence. M.K. NarayaMn
held the foamer post; he subsequently became director of IB. Mohan Das was the
Deputy IGP Intelligence; he came into the limelight under the M.G. Ramachandran
regime. There were no disagieements among the committee me111bers, and by the end
of 1976 the number of detainees came down significantly. Though the 1B was fully
aware of the way the Emergency was handled in Tamil Nadu, there was no problen1.
T.V. Rajeswar was in charge of the southetn states at that stage; he was later maligned
unjustly as a pro-Emergency man.
Within a week of taking over, I visited the central jail in Madras and met the
detainees, who included the DMK MP Murasoli Maran. After listening to them I
submitted a report to Dave, and recommended that as political detainees they should
get all facilities they would normally have in their daily life, including their normal
food. Dave sanctioned the recommendations. I had also proposed allowing thern
access to radio sets; Dave asked me to clear it with the Home Ministry in Delhi.
When I visited Delhi, I had no difficulty in clearing it with the then Joint Secretary
Political, C.V. Nara.~iroban. (Later, he was removed from his post of director CBI.)
Political meetings were not prohibited during the Emergency if they were held in
kalyana mandapams (marriage halls): it was interpreted that they were private
gatherings, and did not come under orders prohibiting public meetings, so long as

I came out sbongly OD file against the setting up of the lndo-US

expert group to study fullscope s a f ~ OD our nuclear installations in
1978 and with a nc Report on Pakistan's efforts to go nuclear in 1979.
Both views were exbemely unpop11Jar with the then Pt ime Minister. My
seniors in civil service like H.C. Sarin, K..B. I ,all, P.K.. Dave and N.K.
Mukherji and politicians like Y.B. Chavan defended me and my actions.
I was found inconvenient as Director, IDSA (Institute for Defence Studies
and Analyses), in 1975, and therefore Mrs Gandhi reverted me to my
cadre in Tamil Nadu. She wrote to Chavan that I had done exceedingly
well as director, but my talents should be available in future to state and
central governments in various other capacities. This was in reply to the
recommendations of Chavan and the Executive Council of IDSA that I
be pe1111itted to continue as director.
In 1980, the same Prime Minister found that I was academically
inclined, and that I should be removed from my post as :cretarv (Defence
Production) and sent as Director of the Indian Institute of Public
Administration or IDSA. I was exceedingly fort11oate in being sidelined
they were not publicin,d_ Marriage balls can accommodate more than a thousand
people.
They were sombre times, but did have their light moments. Srilatha Swarninathan,
daughter of Govinda Swaminatban, fc,1mer advocate general of Madras and a niece
of Colonel Lakshmi Sahgal of Jhansi Rani Regiment of INA, was first detained in
Delhi as a leftist who organized the agricultural labour. She was then sent to Mad•u,
with orders to report to the police regularly, not to move out of the city or engage in
political activity. The IGP Madras, E.L. Stracey, an upright and 1'nman~ officer, bad
known her since her childhood. At one time she came to us and said that she wanted
to go to Kerala to visit her grandmother, Ammu Swaminathan. the v ~ fieooom
fighter. She needed two sureties and she got them the IGP and the Home Secretary.
We were asked to celebrate the Republic Day parade of 1977 with tableaux on
the 20-point programme. I got permission to select ideas from Subramania Bbarati's
poems and had the tableaux made on them. Those themes were presented as the
''Vision of Bharati''.
Within the civil service in Madras there were arguments about the Emergency. A
few of us, including the Finance Secretary S. Guhan, were of the view that it was a
clear violation of the Constitution. But a majority of our colleagues, who agreed that
the Emergency was.unjustified, argued that once the Supreme Court had upheld the
validity of the Emergency the civil servants had no choice. While they would take no
initiative to further the purposes of the Emergency, they bad to implement the orders
given to them by lawful authority.
The attacks on me by Alagesan and Bhak:tavatsalam were refetred to the Madras
government. Though Dave never mentioned it to me, he wrote a strong defence of my
performance; bis successor subsequently showed me the file.
Dave did not become Cabinet Secretary, which he should have, in 001••111 course.
'\

Ways of the Bureaucracy 3S 1
and per111itted to pursue what I myself prefe11ed to do. Others were less
fortunate. People like Appu, Godbole, Srinivasa Varadan and B.S. Das
(an IPS officer who was Cbai11nan of Air India) took pre1113h1re retirement
This happened in spite of Srinivasa Varadan as Home Secretary doing
his best to save Mrs Gandhi, then out of power, from being harassed
unduly~ earning the wrath of the editor of a national daily, which launched
a personal attack on him. Mrs Gandhi was not in need of civil servants
like Varadan. She preferied the call-girl type.
Every political system gets the civil service it deserves and req11ires.
The British Raj in India was a law-and-order government, and it oriented
the ICS and IP to fulfilling those objectives. The Nehruvian goveirunent
was development oriented, and its civil service adjusted itself to that
goal. Subsequent gove1i1ments were licence-quota-permit raj govei11ments.
The civil service has adjusted itself to that raj. A cynical colleague of my
days would have said that the dharn,a of a civil servant who joins the
prostituted political system is to be an efficient call girl, giving full
satisfaction to the masters of the moment.
The civil services of today have my sympathy because they are
functioning in an environment much harsher than the one my batch mates
and I served. As in all organizations, there are among them 15 per cent
who are of sterling quality; 15 per cent willing to join the corrupt politi-
cjans in looting; and the rest 70 per cent partly moulded by the system.
From 1980 started the era when Cabinet Secretaries and Secretaries were
chosen on ·the basis of their acceptability. Their tenures are today very
short, emphasizing the call-girl culture. Still the system occasionally
produces people like Thomas Becket, who bad been the drinking and
wenching companion of the King, but stood up to him to uphold the
authority and dignity of the Church when he became the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
In vast areas relating to development work, the civil servant has to
use his judgement and discretion. In such areas, if he gets directions
from the political executive, he is bound to abide by them. For instance,
on the alignment of a road, digging of new wells, and distribution of
State patronage for development, if the ministers and legislators try to
make political gain, a civil servant need not make an issue of it. Wherever
such extension of political patronage violates norms of equity, he can
record his views, give his advice to the politicians, and leave it at that.
This arrangement can work smoothly provided the politicians accept
responsibility for their decisions.
As the ministers want to exercise patronage on sanctions of telephone
Original from
connections, LPG cylinders, residential allotments and bain and airline

reservations and other bigger decisions involving political mileage
(whether for the party or the individual), there has been growing central-
ization of decisions. Where decisions are taken on considetations other
than merit, objective analytical inputs for decision-making go out of the
window; anticipatory compliance of the politicians' wishes and rational-
ization of those decisions become the vogue. .
The US gove111ment n1ns on that basis: decisions are often taken there
to give political benefits for the party in power and lobbyists can i.nfluence
the administration and lawmakers. The rules of the game are well
unde1stood. Personal corruption is not pe11nitted for high office holders,
though political action committees can finance their elections. Top posts,
three levels below that of the cabinet officers, are mostly manned by
political appointees and there is no pretence of their being apolitical and
neutral. The problem in India is that it professes to have a British model
administrative system and is run on the American model.
Changes of Chief Minister in the states are almost invariably accom-
panied by replacement of senio1most officials: the Chief Secretary, the
Home Secretary, and the Director General of Police. The reorganiz.ation
in most cases, reaches down to District Magistrates, Superintendent of
Police and most of the Secretaries and departme11tal heads. It is like a
new US Preside11t initiating his administration, with sweeping replace-
ments at the top. Since the Chief Ministers must make their choices
within the civil services and the police service and cannot bring in people
from outside, the result is the politiciz.ation of the IAS, the state, civil,
and police services. Neither does the system have the advantage of hiring
and firing and the possibility of including talent from outside, as in the
US; nor is an apolitical stable bureaucracy, as in the UK, able to offer
independe11t unbiased advice to the political executive.
The perfonnance reporting system on the officials has been reduced
to a farce. The instructions in force say that any adverse remark on an
officer's perfo11nance or behaviour in his (or her) annual confide11tial
report must be communicated to him (her). He (she) can appeal against
the remark. These appeals invariably become counter-charges against
the reporting officer, such as prejudice due to caste, comm,1nal, ethnic
and other similar considerations. A pragmatic superior would, naturally,
like to avoid this annoyance. Hence, these days only in rare cases adverse
reports are recorded. Current practice is to damn with faint praise:
''satisfactory'' means not satisfactory; ''good'' indicates not good; ''very
good'' means good; and ''outstanding'' is very good. This leaves no

description for truly outstanding officers. This also results in a much

larger n1Jrober of officers in ou~aoding category and a t dilution
of merit at various levels. As less meritorious officers move upward,
their own assessment standards become diluted. Officers who tend to be
independent and not amenable to political pressures are labelled difficult,
rigid and inflexible, and sidelined to innocuous posts. If such posts are
not readily available some posts are upgiaded to park such people. In the
process one sees half-a-do7.ell posts of the rank of Chief Secretary and
another half-a-do7.en posts equivalent of Director General of Police, and
the j11niormost officers occupying the actual posts concerned.
Sardar Patel modelled the IAS and the IPS on the ICS and the IP
(Indian Police) of the British Raj. In the difficult days of the partition
and its ....., ,.... both the latter services performed a crucial role in
holding the fledgling Indian dominion together, handled the enormous
problem of refugee influx and states reorganization and, above all, proved
loyal apolitical servants of the State. They won Nehru's grudging respect,
and the warm support of Patel and Rajaji. Members of the services could
then afford to educate their children in · schools and in universities
abroad. Their pensions and savings were adequate to enable them to
maintain a decent standard of living after retirement. There was not
much difference in the emoluments of officers whether in the field or at
headquarters.
The first-generation politicians, who still retained some norms of
behaviour and decency of outlook, were able to get the best out of them
in the 1940s and '50s. In the '60s, the pace of development in the country
provided scope for the second-generation politicians to benefit out of
cormption. The expansion in the n1Jmbers in the·civil services and police
services also significantly stripped the mystique surrounding them.
Inflation took its toll. Also, a large n1J1nber of new posts were created
which, by their very nature, gave higher perks and better emol1Jments
than run-of-the-mill posts, and civil servants competed with each other
to secure those posts. Transfers became a whip to keep in leash
independent-minded civil servants and police officers, since transfers to
rural areas meant disruption in the children's education. By the end of
the l 960s, Indira Gandhi destroyed the concept of an independent and
apolitical civil service. Senior civil servants, who had acquired ex_pertise
in particular fields, were baosferred out, to highlight that the gover11ment
could · with independent expert advice.
Till the mid-l 9SOs, the intalce of officers in the IAS was below 50 and
never exceeded six for the Foreign Service. Then, after some statistical
Original from
analysis of the results of the UPSC (Union Public Services Commission)

examinations, it was concluded that except for the top 10 or 15, the
quality of the civil service recruit did not vary significantly whether his
rank in the examination was 20 or 80 or 100. Hence, it was argued that
there was no harm in increasing recruitment to the IAS to 70 or 80 since
the development process, which the country was embarking on, required
a larger number of high-calibre civil servants. Cynics said senior officials
of the day were thus paving the way for their progeny to get into the
services more easily. (In the recruitment of the 1960s and '70s, many
entrants were children of the serving IAS officers, but after the '70s the
IAS lost its glamour.)
In the ICS, there was a finance-commerce pool to which officers were
selected on the basis of their perforrnance in the first six to eight years of
service. They were kept per 1na11ently at the Centre, while other officers
were rotated between the Centre and the states. (In those days perl1aps
more so now-in tenns of creature comforts a posting in the state head-
quarters was better than the anonymity of Delhi.) Every officer could not
expect to become a Secretary to the Union gover,,ment. Promotion
committees decided the merit, and by and large, there was no political
interference. An officer who was not promoted reverted to the state cadre.
There are in all, at both the Centre and the states, around 100 posts
equivalent to the rank of Secretary to the Union Go\'er,1ment and Chief
Secretary in a state; around 300 posts equivalent to Additional Secretary.
Very rarely is an IAS officer stopped from being promoted to the level
of Joint Secretary. Filtering starts only thereafter, but even this filtering
does not result in stopping even one in every three or four. Therefore,
the top 400 officers would come from within the 550 officers at present
• •
ID Set'vtce.
That takes us down to the middle of 1960 recruitment. In other words,
an IAS officer can spend only about six years in the ranks of Secretary
and Additional Secretary. If we assume that ultimately only one in two
officers available at appropriate seniority will become Secretary, then an
officer down to the 1963 batch will have three years as Secretary. There-
after, because of even larger recruitment (102 in 1964, 119 in 1965 and
126 in 1966) they will have to be content with a two-year tenure as
Secretary. Among them, one becomes the Cabinet Secretary for a year or
less. In 1993, a new Director of RAW (Research and Analysis Wing)
was appointed and he was expected to hold office for a few months. We
had a Chief Justice of India for two weeks! The gove111ment seems to fill
up various top posts not in the expectation that the incumbent should
7
..
make any constructive contribution to his post but should function as a

bus driver, with his responsibilities commencing when he occupies his
seat and ending when he leaves it-he is not expected to leave any
imprints of the occupancy.
How effective will these civil servants be as advisers to the government,
when they are bound to be ruminating about their post-retirement life
and the inadequate pensions? If they intend to take up employment after
retirement, with their generalist training, most of them can only look
forward to working as general factotums to commercial houses. The
exception would be where the retiring civil servant can expect to be
rewarded for good turns done to major establishments during his service.
Only those in ministries dealing with economic matters, industry and
trade would have opportunity for this. The general impression is that
civil servants with opportunities would have already started cultivating
commercial and industrial establishments in the last few years of their
career. In this situation, how can one expect an independent, apolitical,
and efficient civil service?

•
Media Management
Neville Maxwell's book India's China War, published

at a time when the West was about to change its policy of antagonism
towards China, gave people around the world a very distorted perception
The Gover11ment of India did nothing to counter this impre~ion. In the
early 1990s, even as Pakistan was intensifying its campaign against this
country on the Ka.~hmir issue, a British. autbot, Alastair Lamb came up
with his book Kashmir, The Disputed Legacy, which tried to make-out
that the Gover11ment of India conspired to obtain the accession of Kashmir
to India fraudulently. Once again, South Block did not~~
Information in public domain is a powerful tool in diplomacy,
administration, and economics. The gove111roents of the US and UK
release their archival materials on the basis of a twenty-five or thirty-
year rule. More and more of our historians will be left with no option but
to rely on the versions of events relating to India as revealed in the
documents released by them. The result will be that while not only our
history of the past was mostly compiled by the British, the history of
post-independence India will also be written on the basis of materials in
the American and British doctiroents. There is an element of colonial
attitude in this policy-this time not of the colonial masters but the
colonial subjects. For instance, an Americ.an scholar was allowed acces.,
to Nehru's papers in the Nehru Memorial Muset1m and Library though
they are not available to Indian scholars.
Our politicians are enthusiastic to give interviews to any passing white
journalist. Even Nehru was guilty of such inferiority complex towards
the white skin. They hardly realize the contempt they generate in the
estimation of the foreign journalists they so eagerly meet. Those
impressions are duly conveyed to the foreign leaders who visit this
country. Consequently, the visiting foreign leaders have a true measure
of the personalities of our leaders and their lack of info1r11ation about the
global realities even before they arrive here. One can understand the
ignorance, complacency, and exaggerated self-image of our politicians_

Media Management 357
Like burqa-clad women who cannot easily compare their looks and
personalities with others, they harbour a false idea about themselves. For
the bureaucracy, the more ignorant their political masters are, the -better
for them, especially considering that they themselves are being
increasingly treated as daily-wage labour.
An instance of the kowtowing to the western media was in early July
1995, when CNN devoted 15 minutes at noon to project an American
view on the Kashmir issue by Professor Tom Thornton of Johns Hopkins
University through Doordarshan. Very rarely so much time is devoted
on Indian TV to project an Indian non-governmental viewpoint on
Kashmir. CNN was already available to viewers in India via cable
television. Through this arrangement the govetr,ment-owned mediwn was
projecting world news from an American viewpoint. With BBC and
CNN already having significant impact on the perceptions of the Indian
public, this projection was tailored to aggravate the problem. Over the
years, the US public view on foreign policy has acquired a significant
degree of like-mindedness mainly due to television over-exposure. It is
unfortunate if the Indian view of the extetnal world is moulded on similar
lines. 1. In the print media, many papers do not spare sufficient space for
foreign news, and others extensively .reprint items from foreign papers,
as if the coverage of CNN and BBC in India were not enough.
The Americans, the Russians, and the Cubans have held conferences,
exchanged docwnents and re111iniscences of the Cuban crisis to record
what happened and derive lessons. Let alone holding conferences with
our former adversaries in the 1962 debacle, which will serve as a
confidence building measure in this country, even the doc1Jroents of the
period are not released to the scholars for research. Not because the
appropriate authority in the gove11,ment after applying its mind had
decided that release of such documents would hurt the national security
I. The kind of coverage India gets was amply demonstrated during Prime Minister
P.V. Nara.4;imba Rao's visit to the US in May 1994. His address to Congress was
mentioned briefly only on two TV channels (CNN and McNeil Lehrer Newshour)
and in one newspaper col11mn in the Washington Post by Mary McGrory. His meeting
with President Clinton was mentioned briefly in a 11umber of TV channels, but not in
the newspapers. In the TV projection of the joint news conference, only President
Clinton was shown and his answers to questions were broadcast The US media
persons usually deal with all visiting dignitaries in the same fashion and address
questions to their President purely on issues of domestic concern. The exceptions are
Israel and Japan. (That the chamber of the US House of Representatives, where Rao
addressed the joint session, was only sparsely filled was prominently mentioned in
the few reports that appeared in the US media.)

351$ SneddiJtg
or intat:11,_ bul sia,4)11 because the Indian has.,

to do 11,11 The ea1y way our is Mt to release any don••I04s • all. While
~m .. bad a sense of histbiy ~ be did not i■ cMl-ie bis aA::ag..JCS,
bureaucracy, and r1aca•lbu1 of his fian1ily with a si■•Pilar ofbistJAy.
He faikd to institutionalize effective oot••••••mir:a•ioo • an Ci>'Sl>t!i,1
in1bw1-aitality of govct•tauce. He did not do a■1ytl1ing 1D ~ OI'
01aprovise the Official Seems Act of the 81 itisb Raj.
The nxxlia only repott the infot•Fatioo they ae able to a,llcd or- e!te!
is made available to 1lg.1_ There arc evmts outside the lw.nwledgr. and
rmtrol of the gmeaiu•iCfl1 and there an: olbas on which the gova,•••n•
ii the JHMttly ger-.erator of inforw,,ation. Even fOI' the fust category of
events, many develop,•'Cllts on which infut••••ioo is 11ru11h iq>Ol'ling
should be of interest to a paiticuJar govera•11,mt agency. A third category
of news relates to political, social, economic, and technological
happenings which do not dirccdy concern the State machinery. In lloe
cues, exaggeration or distcn ti\)11 by the media is gn,crally not of •••uch
public consequence. The problern arises only in the fust two ~ -
Since, in spite of corruption, inefficiency, and secretiveness of
government operations, the country is still a , the Fourth Estate
ernerges as a greater critic of the gover 11ment than the second and third
estates. Consequently, there is a widening crooibility gap bd\\een the
government and the media. The public bu come to look up to the media
to expose the inefficiency, corruption and rank failures in go"et••DlCDt.
In turn, this encourages sections of the media to indulge in exaggeration
and 8C1118tionalism. The media are also 11sed by politician.4, and goverau1ient
officials to plant stories. Often frusllated but honest officials also find
the media to be the only way of exposing a conupt act and improper
behaviour of the powerful. (Parliamentary procedure is one way of
ensuring transparency, but over the years answering parliamentary
questions itself has been made into an art form. The answers, though
technically accurate, more often than not convey very little useful
infonnation. A trick often resorted to is to convert a starred question into
an unstarred one with the connivance of desk offices of the presiding
officers of the legislatures and thereby foreclose supplrmentary questions.)
In India we learn about the developments in the area of diSaJ 111ament
and India's role in thern only from the dispatches from New York. The
Ministry of External Affairs does not appear to feel it is worthwhile to
keep our media, academia and our public info1med of such developments,
thus giving enor ,nous propaganda advantage to the West and others.
Because of this lethargy, the Pakistani Foreign Minister could talk of
Original from
Media Management 359
India being a nuclear delinquent and even some Jndjans believed that we
were isolated on the nuclear issue at a time when the western nations
were coming round to accept the Indian stand
The problem is not confined to govet ,,mental role in decision-making
but extends to gove1 ,,mental perceptions, which influence the media. In
August 1991, in the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, the erstwhile adver-
. saries of the Soviet Union came out strongly in his support. This led to
expectation of a distinct warm-up in the relationship between the Soviet
Union and western democracies. India had awarded the Indira Gandhi
Pri7.e to Gorbachev, but chose to beat the events in Moscow as a domestic
affair of the Soviet Union. India made a major error of judgement
regarding Saddam Hussein as well: he was considered as a leader standing
up for the cause of the developing world against the bullying tactics of
the US; an Arab nationalist; an Islamic hero; and a leader of an anny
which was going to send so many body bags home that the US would
have no stomach to continue a war with him. He turned out to be nothing
of the kind: his prowess was only in killing
.
11na1med citizens of his own
country. No one thought: what if Gorbachev were to return, and should
not the government hedge its bet; is it possible that Saddam Hussein has
no chance of getting away with it; could the L'I*I'E possibly be a fascist
organization?
When our government made its mistake in its policy on developments
in the Gulf, how much of it was questioned in our media, Parliament and
academia? There were very few alternative assessments on Saddam
Hussein and the likely developments in the Gulf. Similarly, as soon as
the Moscow coup took place, barring an exception or two, there was a
chorus of dirges for Gorbachev and write-ups on the inevitability of
what happened to him. There are also no attempts to review our mistakes
and learn from them. The general attitude is, ''Let us not rake up the past
and apportion blame''. As a result, the same set of people repeat their
mistakes arising out of their style of decision-making. How many of our
columnists, editors and other opinion-makers get assessed from time to
time on the validity or otherwise of their arguments, data, prescriptions,
and perceptions? There has been no examination why so many of our
analyses on the Gulf went wrong, why there were so many preliminary
political obituaries for Gorbachev. Analysing what went right and what
went wrong constitutes a continuous learning process. That is the secret
of good and efficient decision-making and vibrant democracy. Modetr,jz.
ation does not mean only inst.ailing computers, more advanced comm11ni-
cation systems, and hiring management school alumni. It calls for
..
Original from
3<,0 · Slteddillg Sllibboletlu
continuous adjustrnent of political and social strucnin,s, processes, and

attitudes to every r.banging environr11"8l
During the Tashkent (1966) and Simla (1972) 511mmits, govertiment
controlled inforn1ation: for the newspapers it was the only source of
infuJ ,,1ation; the radio, in any case, was government monopoly. Today, a
TV channel c.an tap sources without worrying about national borders. If
the government fails to provide the information, it will be the loser, not
the TV channels. TV is by its very oatiire superficial in coverage, with a
very limited attention span but TV as a medi11m cannot be wished away:
it bu become a major battleground in info111uu:ion warfare. In a modem
, gove111ment performance needs to be packaged and mmketed,
especially considering 1hat the media see themselves as playing an
adversarial role to the gov er 1,ment. If politicians and civil servants
disdainfully say that they believe in Satyameva Jayate (Truth will prevail),
the veteran media person George Verghese bu a piece of advice for
them: at least assist truth to prevail.
•••
•
In the bureaucracy, the IAS men start dealing with the press from the
very beginning of their careers. So do the officers of the IFS. The officers
of the armed forces do not and are not 111ally not called upon to do so.
But once they reach the level when they have to come into contact with
the public and the Press, there are two ways of handling the problem.
The tiaditional way is to tell them not to have any contacts with the
Press. But the more democratic one, which would add to the credibility
of the government and doctrine of good gove1nance, is to tiain them to
deal with the Press and the public. The result of the tiaditionalist policy
bas so far been to cocoon our armed forces officers till they reach the
top-the office of the Chief of Staff.~and then require them to face the
Press without being equipped or trained for it. The result will be that
every question on incidents in Kashmir and Punjab will have to be
answered only at the top while the foreign and our own sensationalist
Press bas a field day putting out their tendentious accounts without being
cotltiadicted immediately by those in the know and have the authority to
speak up. Our philosophy of over-centra1i7.ation acquires new dimensions.
The gap between the anned forces and the rest of the society widens, not
a healthy de:velopment for a democracy. 2
2. This was written in the early 1990s. Since then there has been eno1mous
improvement, thanks mainly to the TV coverage.
Original from
37
The Indian Dream
The British used to tell Indians that India did not become
a nation till the British crown put together the different linguistic and
ethnic communities and welded them into India. Many Indians accepted
the British thesis. Even today, the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis would
like to assert its validity. Toe Indian nationalists swung to the other
extreme, and used to argue that India was a nation from the times of
Asoka or even the Mahabharata. Nationalism as a concept developed in
Britain and northwestern Europe only in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries. Toe US was not a nation till the very end of the
eighteenth century nor Germany nor Italy till the latter half of the
nineteenth century. India could not have had a sense of nationhood before
the eighteenth century. Toe development of nationalism in India and the
arrival of the British coincided.
Toe concept of India as a civilization entity differentiated from the
surrounding Sinic, Persian and South East Asian civilizations is, however,
several millennia old. While ancient civilizations-such as Egypt, Persia,
Han China, Korea, and Japan-can claim similar hoary civilizational
traditions, India is the only instance where multilingual, multi-ethnic and
multi-religious populations share such a long continuity of common
identity. This composite nation-state, developed during the British Raj
and the freedom struggle, has chosen to be a pluralistic, democratic,
federal system with a mixed economy. Here, the native Indic civilization
interacts with the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic civilizational traditions on a
scale not known elsewhere in the_world The other two major composite
states, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, have broken down. China has
chosen the path of forcible Hanification, with results yet to be seen.
In terms of integration of peoples, India is much in advance of the
European Union and even the wildest dreams of the "European unifiers".
For thousands of years there was a concept of an entity-Aasethu-
biroachalem from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Rajasthan to Assam, all
Hindus started their religious ceremonies with reference of Bharata

362 Sliedding Sllibboletlis
Khande, Bbarata Varsbe, Merobo Dakshine Parsve. When Queen

Elizabeth I gave a charter to a trading company it was registered as the
East India C.ompany in 1600. The Mugbals referred to this entire area as
Hindustan, so did Arabs and Persians.
One hundred years of freedom struggle, the shared memories of
J""'Uding empires whether ruled by Hindus or Muslims, and the evolution
of a composite culture in Hindustani music, dance, literature, etc., the
commoo expectations in regard to Indian development, the common law,
the commoo market, secularism, democracy, and linguistic autonomy,
all together have welded India into a relatively stable federal polity.
Barring Tamil, all other languages have a common origin, Sanskrit. There
is oo dominant linguistic grouping. Hindi, though spoken by the largest
number, is not the language of the majority, which factor underlies the
stability of the Union and accommodation of linguistic autonomy. Even
problems like those in Jammu and Kashmir are likely to be solved within
the Indian constitutional framework, as happened in the case of DMK.
(Dravida Muonetra K..al.bagam) in Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Mizoram.
Gorkhaland, and Jammu and Kashmir earlier. While there is scope to
improve the content of autonomy, identity, and democratic fum:tioning
of the constituent units within the Union to the benefit of both the Union
and the different cultures, on the issue of integration and autonomy of
various subnationalist units India can take pride in being ahead of most
other composite nations of the world.
••••
Till the concept of nation-state originated in North West Europe between
the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, those who undertook to fight did
so bound by an oath sworn to a king or duke and not to a nation-state.
Loyalty was to a ruler, and not to a nation or the people collectively.
Over the centuries, through a series of wars, between Britain and France,
Britain and Spain, Holland and Spain, the people in these countries
developed a spirit of nationalism which set them apart from their neigh-
bours who were most often their enemies. The engine of nationalism was
mostly wars, which then resulted in a history shared and cherished among
the people concerned. Nations defined themselves with reference to their
adversaries. Nationalism sprouted in Europe because more intense wars
were more frequently fought there in those three centuries. Then came
the idea of levy en rnasse, the conscription with the French Revolution, ·
and with the Industrial Age there was popular participation in war effort.
Digitized by Google Ongmal from

The Indian Dream 363
Victory or defeat in war united the people in joy or sorrow. When the
Indian nationalism emerged it also defined itself against an enemy, the
British. After independence Indian nationalism has been nurtured by the
adversarial attitude towards the erstwhile colonial powers, the US, which
inherited their mantle, C:hina, and Pakistan.
Our freedom came along with partition; we had to fight four wars; our
non-alignment faced hostility; and our industrial development did not
receive much support from the West All these facts nurtured the spirit
of nationalism in India in a world perceived to be hostile. All over the
world, in the earliest era, this had been the normal process of fostering
nationalism. That world is now undergoing a revolutionary change. The
threat of one country invading and occupying another country except in
cases of small nations, is declining. The earlier type of colonial exploit-
ation, too, is a thing of the past, though the economic relations between
the developed and developing nations are highly inequitable. Enterprising
Indians are able to emigrate and settle down in the US and Canada iu
lucrative professions, and that abates hostility. While Pakistan still features
as an adversary in the Indian mind, there is today general confidence in
our ability to deal with it.
Rapid economic growth, integration of markets, and labour mobility
tend to unite. So do decentralization and increased autonomy in political
activity. Giant states in the Union lead to inward-looking politics and
parochialism. Those who oppose break-up of our mega-states are, in fact,
subiiminally preferring the unity of the State to the unity of the Nation.
Today our nationalism cannot be sustained by invoicing credible
external threats to our sovereignty and territorial integrity. With satellite
television, our culture and civilizational values arc likely to be cballenged.
The resurgent Indian nationalism has to be based on the Indian culture
and civilization, its unifying effect on the Indian polity, and its potential
contribution to further integration of humanity.
Composite nations can preserve their composite identity and sense of
nationalism only if the unity of the constituent units results in a synergistic
effect in terms of achievement orientation. The break-up of the Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia illustrates that without achievements to boast of
and with all innovations and creativity smothered by mediocrity in the
name of dishonest egalitarianism (the communist leaders- lived like
princes) the constituent units neither had pride in belonging to the Union
nor tangible benefits.
A western scholar (James Manor of Sussex University) said in a
seminar that if only Africa bad a States Reorganization Commission and

provision analogous to President's rule as in India, that continent would
have been spaml a lot of violence and instability. Anodier scholar, Johann
Galtung, described the multilingual autonomy of India as model for a
united Europe for the future. But for the fonnation of linguistic states,
India would be facing acute problem of suppressed identities as Sri laoka,
Pakistan, the Soviet Uoioo and Yugoslavia faced. A supplementary step
in the right diRctioo was the creation of seven sisters in the o o ~ in
the 1970s. Many of our problems today are because the state reorganiz-
ation was not taken to its logical conclusion but baited halfway, oot
recognizing the aspirations of all linguistic and ethnic minorities. The
unwieldy and ungovernable states, especially the Hindi speaking ones,
have also been a drag oo India's progress.
While the rationale uoderlying states reorganization was that people
of a state should be able to conduct their state administration in their
own language, it did oot logically follow that all people speaking a
language should be in one state. There was no logic in creating a mammoth
Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra. The former could easily have been
three states-the Sarkars, Telengaoa, and Rayalaseema---aod the latter,
Maharashtra, Marathwada, and Vidarl,ha; and so with some other states.
There is oo reason why India should not be a union of some 60-80
states. Some eighty nations of the international community have less
than IO million population.
Demand for oew states often raises the bogey that it would endanger
the oatioo's unity. India's unity has nothing to do with boundaries of
states. Our states are the creation of the Union, they are not like the
states of the United States, which existed even before the Unioo came
into existence. The Constituent Assembly of India was elected oo an all-
India basis and the map of India was radically redrawn by the States
Reorganiution Act, making it clear that India is an integral entity capable
of reorganization of the constituent states. It also became necessary to
wipe out totally the identity of old princely states.
Unilingual states are a logical corollary of democracy based oo adult
franchise, and inherent in the principle that the people's representatives
and the ruled should be able to communicate easily. Most of our languages,
which give a people their identity, are well developed. They are recogoi7.Cd
as national languages. It was hoped that their use as languages of state
administration would also help in the eradication of illiteracy and in the
spread of primary education, again an essential step in human resource
development and alleviation of poverty.
Smaller states tend to be governed more effectively. No government

in Lucknow, Patna, or Bhopal can implement effectively programmes

such as agriculture, literacy, population control, health, etc., which need
focused grassroots attention, from the state headquarters. Even if the
size of the districts is reduced, the area of the states is too vast for the
effective attention span of a minister, secretary or head of department.
Development funds in a large state also tend to.gravitate towards areas
from where the ministers come, at the cost of other areas. In a large state
people have to travel longer distances to state headquarters to voice their
complaints and make their representation. Toe constituencies of members
of legislative assemblies are too large, with several lakhs of voters. Toe
essence of democracy is in the elected representative knowing the
constituents, and vice versa.
A number of states speaking one language (Hindi, Telugu, Marathi,
and Gujarati) also attenuates the corrosive sons-of-the-soil thesis. If a
number of states share a language, one member of a group of states
sharing a language cannnt discriminate against that particular linguistic
group from other states.
We now have states with more than a hundred million population at
one end, and less than half a million at the other. Breaking up larger
states will help to reduce these enormous disparities in political weight.
With political parties also having to function on state basis, the regional
parties will not be one-state parties but really regional ones. It may result
in each state developing its own leadership with consequent checks and
balances within the composite leadership of such regional parties. This
would contribute to India's increased cohesion as a whole.
Smaller states can accommodate the aspirations ofGorlc~and, Bodo-
land, Jbarkband, Ladakbis, Vidarbha, Telengana, Dogra, and the tribal
people in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. They could ensure that eastern
UP and northern Bihar do not continue to be neglected.
•••
•
At the fiftieth celebration of India's Independence Day, hoisting the
tricolour at the Red Fort was Prime Minister Deve Gowda, who hailed
from Kamataka He came from a peasant family and belonged to a back-
ward class. Many chief ministers share a similar background. Both in
parliament and in the state assemblies, most of the members are from
classes other than what used to be called the traditional ruling elite of
India- Brabmin, Khatri, Kayasth or their equivalents.
This upward mobility and empowerment of people long denied their

~ S/teddiJtg Sltibboktlu
due sbse in political. ecocn■li-:. INld 91>Cill decision-making bas come

about in India wilbin fifty years of indq,c:ndence. Tbc:re have been, INld
continue to be, legjtioLlte complaints about the oppression of caste
biaa■ cby INld the do■ ninan<:e of the influclllia1 cutes in governance. But
Ibis is changing npidly, as demumuak:d by the rise ofbactward classes
and Da1its in tbr India■, polity.
Lc1 us C(Wt11-ie the developN,c•s in India will> tboae in our neighbour-
ing stares mPakiS!an, Ille Oxford- l!ld Harva■d-educata 8eoazir Bhutto,
belonging to one of the richest 1aodowning families of Pakistan, was
Prime Miniver in the ~ 1990s. In Bangladesh, it was Sheikh Hasina
Wajcd, the prefix Sheikh to her name revc:aling her hierarchical Slatus in
Bangladec~ society. In Sri 1.anka, l:bandrika K,a,wat,mga is the da•,gbter
of two prime mjnistcn, and on her mother's side comes from dD INlk;Slry
which included the Kandyan royal family. Pakissan and Bangladesh are
Islamic societies, and Sri I anka Buddhist. 11 is a common belief that
these societies have DO( been weighed down by the iniquities of the caste
system and its stratification effects. But in these societies the empower-
ment does DO( compare with what bas been achieved in India In the US,
the traditionally disadvantaged are yet to gaill optimwn degree of upward
mobility and empoweuoeot after two bUDdred years of independence.'
The caste system in India was no doubt responsible for extreme
I . A book on the bcstaeUer list al the time, W1,y Americans Hate Politics. coocluded
dial the majority of the Americans - aliemted from politics beca111e tbe ~
politicians have let the people down. Some one million Americans wen: in prison in
this open society, coovicted Wlder due process of law. Some hundreds of tbousaads
were Wldergoing trial. More ihan 220 million weapons were out among tbe population,
including in the hands of children aged 6-1 I going IO primary school. The eduaitiooal
standards have declined ovtt ibe years, and the number of illiterates is increasing. A
significant proportion of the people cannot avail bcaltb care bc<:au~ of the high
COits. Since the bulk of people do not take part in the elections, it is, by and large,
reduced co an interaction among the nrgaoiw intcRst groups. 11x. process bas rQCbed
111 extent when nrganiU'ld lesbians 111d gay rights activists have become influeotial
voce banks.
Murder rates in Washington and New York exceed those of terrorist killings in
some other countries. Millioos of people in tbe US are illcga.l immigrants. The exislencc
of III illegal immigrant itself is a violation of basic human rights since be docs not
have the rights of a normal citizen. It is known tbat·lakbs of such illcga.l immigrants
are subject to slave-like conditions. Then there is the drug problem and associated
violence and terrorism. At the strcct level these activities cannot be carried on exc:q,t
through an imposition of terror, which must necessitate deprivation of human rights
of a large nwnbet" of people. The denial of aboroon facilities and consequent birth of
unwanted children or death of mocbcrs in back-alley abortion., is yet anocbcr gross

17te Indian Dream 367
inequalities and the stagnant hierarchical stratification. But the issue here
is why upward mobility of the historically disadvantaged has been
reasonably forward moving in India (though not fast enough). One
plausible explanation is that this has been an effect of democratic elections
based on adult franchise. Once such elections arc held reasonably honestly,
they generate the dynamics of inevitable empowennent and upward
mobility for numerically large and traditionally disadvantaged sections.
Toe absence of democracy for long periods of time has inhibited the
upward mobility and empowerment of the disadvantaged in Pakistan lUld
Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka the traditional upper castes outnumber the
lower castes. Yet they have a complex of a threatened minority.
•••
•
In per capita income, India is one of the poorest nations. Yet it is among
the first dozen industrial producers of the world. In the I 960s it was
written off as a triage case. Today it is agriculturally near self-sufficient,
having pushed through a green revolution. Though the number of people
below the poverty line is in staggering hundreds of millions, it has been
able to reduce poverty significantly in the last four decades. It has also
violation of human rights. In the IJlO$t affluent country of the world, which spends
over S2SO billion oo defence when there is no adversary threatening it, the population
below the poverty line rose from 12.8 per cent in 1989 to 13.S per cent in 1990,
mostly amoog the blacks and Nispenics. lt is estimated that up to 3 rnillioo Americans
are homeless and living on tbc sta;et,,.
Americans, by and large, arc not interested in dcrnocracy as such in countries
other than their own. Even in the US, till the end of the I 960s, the democratic
process would oot have met the staodards of the lodiao Election Commission. Martin
Luther King bad to lead civil rights man:bcs to get the voting right for the blacks.
Even now in congrcssiooal elections, the percentage of voccs polled is around 35,
except during the Presidential elcctioos, when it is above SO. The Arncricaos do Dot
gel the day off on election day. It is a working day-die first Tuesday of November.
In India, the poorer sections vote in sigoificaot streogtb. In the US, they do not.
While lodiao politicians caonot afford to take a public stand about cutting down oo
beocfits to the poor, in the US they can do so. Empowering the disadvantaged is not
ooe of the driving motivations behind the US election process. While the US elections
arc free, they are not fair to all scctiolls of the people. Maoy issues highlighted in the
Indian elections would disturb the US cstahlisbrnent. Our reservation policy, which
the Americans call affirmative action (aod which some of their Congressmen want to
repeal), our emphasis on mobilizing the votes of relatively poorer sections and
successive empowenoout of traditionally disadvantaged arc likely to geneaatc ccboes
arnoog aectiom of American people.

368 SMddutg Slubbolew
expanded its oil and coal production and decreased its proportion of
energy dependence 011 external sources. So far it has managed its economy
without getting into a debt trap. Its economic growth rate has moved up
&om an average of 3.5 per cent over three decades to 5 per cent in the
1990s, and was expected to be pushed to 6 per cent in the following
decade.
India is one of the few decoloni:mt <leveloping countries where demo-
cracy has stabiliz.ed and got internalized, though Indians themselves would
admit to shortcomings in its functioning. The states of the Union have
linguistic autonomy, and many tribal minorities have states of their own.
India is also a secular state. Since Indians constitute one-sixth of the global
population, whether India continues as a secular state and democracy or
not would influence the degree of seculari7Jltion and democratiz.atioo of
the world community as a whole.
India was the first nation where the communists learnt to function in a
pluralistic and liberal democratic framework. Indian armed forces, though
they constitute one of the largest in the world, have remained strictly
apolitical in a world where every second developing nation has either a
military dictatorship or military-dominated government
India has an advanced nuclear and space programme. India is now
constructing its own series of natural-uranium-heavy-water reactor, has
developed an experimental fast breeder reactor (FBR), and is to set up
an experimental U-233 reactor, the first in the world. India has under
design an FBR and a light water reactor (LWR), using mixed oxide fuel
(MOX). In civil application of nuclear power India is ahead of China.
India is constructing a major particle accelerator and has set up an
experimental Tokamak 1'118Chine.
India has launched its satellites using its own indigenously developed
launchers and put a satellite in synchronous orbit. India has also under
development a series of intermediate-range, short-range, tactical surface-
to-surface missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and air-to-air missiles. A fire-
and-forget anti-tank missile, a main battle tank and a light combat aircraft
are also under development. •
Products of the Indian education system have contributed significantly
to advancing American science. Today in the US there are half a million
people of Indian origin who form a strong bond between the two countries
on a people-to-people basis. While India has benefited from the US food
aid and PL-480 in the 1950s and '60s, and from aid through multilateral
agencies since the '70s, India has also repaid the aid by donating part of
its highly skilled manpower for advancement of the US. Indian scientists

are engaged in some of the basic fields of research. India is among the
first eight countries of the world in scientific research. The Indian economy
is a free economy, in which the private sector and private capital marlcet
play vigorous roles. There are no doubt complaints of bureaucratic delays,
but neither in terms of system nor philosophy India needs any basic
change to hannonize with the international marlcet system.
From its independence, India has tried to practise a foreign policy
without ideological hang-ups. India has its own world-view and view of
the world. We maintained in the 1950s that China was not a stooge of the
Soviet Union, and later, that Vietnam was not a stooge of China. As far
back as 1958 Jawaharlal Nehru offered a critique of communism and
predicted the inevitable logic of its change in his article "Our Basic
Approach".
••••
Most Indians do not give serious thought to the future potential of this
country. Ignoring our real potential may lead to our losing significant
bargaining advantages and the country's elite suffering from a needless
inferiority complex.
Some of India's neighbours complain about India's hegemonic behav-
iour. India has staked its claim for a permanent seat in the UN Security
Council. Others see India developing nuclear weapon and missile capabil-
ities. Some of our Admirals dream of India having a large blue-water
navy. Most of these are extrapolations of the images of power prevalent
in the half century of the cold war.
This power is important, but more important is India being a major
economic power, sixth largest marlcet in the world, moving up further,
the second largest polity (according to some perhaps the first, even larger
than China). India will have significant research and development potential
based on the large reservoir of highly skilled people, and one of the few
models of a large composite nation-state, multi-religious, multi-lingual,
multi-ethnic democracy with somewhat better and effective governance
than there is today. It would have reduced absolute poverty further, though
reducing social and economic inequalities would take much longer. It
will not be a just social order but a less violent, relatively more orderly
one than we have today, though perhaps most of our present-day
shortcomings will continue to persisl
Stability, maintenance of law and order, a speedy and impartial system
ofjustice dispensation, cutting of red tape and expeditious decentralized

370 Sltdding Sliibboleths
decision-making are essential prerequisites for economic growth. 1bese

minimum conditions can still coexist with political corruption and
patronage up to a point. While organiud crime-politician nexus exists in
a number of industrialized countries (Japan and Italy being prime
e11amples), for India at this stage of its economic development it will be
a major adverse factor inhibiting economic growth.
Of crucial impot'tjlnN, is holding free and fair elections in which some
significant advances have been made in recent years, though in that area
too, radical reformist thinking is absent.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the US was a very violent
country oppressing the Blacks, with political corruption prevalent at all
levels. Perhaps, even today, it is a violent society with people living in
fear of violence in the streets. Nor can it be claimed it is free of political
corruption and organized crime. Yet vast advances have been made in
various directions and an appropriate political and economic climate has
been created for sustained economic growth and reasonably orderly
government. In similar manner, building on the aspirations of the people,
India is bound to show visible all-round achievements in the years to
come--not in terms of attaining heaven on earth but in improving its
score in different aspects of human development indices.

38
Obsolescence of
the Non-Aligned Movement
Followers ofmost refonners and innovative thinkers often

attempt to make them into prophets, establish churches in their names,
and fonn a clergy. They thus rob the original thought and formulations
of resilience and flexibility and convert them into dogmas. Nehru's non-
alignment is an example of this.
For Jawaharlal Nehru, non-alignment was not an internationalist
ideology but a strategy for the fledgling independent India to follow. On
7 September 1946 he declared, "We propose, as far as possible, to keep
away from the power politics of groups, aligned against one another
which have led in the past to world wars and which may again lead to
disasters on an even vaster scale." On 4 December 1947 he said in
Parliament, "We are not going to join a war if we can help it and we are
going to join the side which is to our interest when the time comes to
make the choice." On 8 March 1948 he said, "It may be that we have to
choose what might be a lesser evil in certain circumstances. We must
always choose the lesser evil ... It may be that sometimes we are forced
to side with this power or that power. I can quite conceive of our siding
even with an imperialist power. I do not mind saying that, in a certain set
of circumstances that may be the lesser of the two evils." He also noted,
"We have talked so much about British imperialism that we cannot get
rid of that habit." He was clear that "Whatever policy you may lay down,
the art of conducting the foreign affairs of a country lies in finding out
what is most advantageous to the country." Nehru's flexible approach
enabled this country to get economic aid from the West and anns from
the Soviet Union. He took a firm stand against emotional rhetoric on
oeo-colooialism indulged in by Sukarno, Nkrumah and others.
Nehru did anticipate the loosening of the bipolar world. That was
why he opposed setting up a non-aligned secretariat or calling it a third
force. FID1her, in his speech of September 1946 he said, "The world, in

spite of its rivalries and hatreds and conflicts, moves inevitably towank
closer cooperative building up of a world COIJllllOllWcaltb. It is fOI' this
one ...-orld that free India will work, a world in which there is the free
cooperation of free people, and no class OI' group exploilS aoocbcr."
Non-alignment was coosidered the ,;Oltect policy fOI' the f1cdg)ing
United States of the eighteenth century. In bis farewell address, President
George Washington exhof1ed his COIDltry not to get involved in entangling
alliances with the European poweis, the two rival superpowers of the
day being Britain and France. Noo-aligmncnt was also a sensible policy
for the developing nations in the bipolar world. The concept implied
self-reliance, autonomy in decisioo-roaking in international relations and
focus on development These objectives arc also inhen,trt in the concept
of sovereignty.
Policies are merely tools to achieve one's goals, not an end in them-
selves. They are not holy, and can certainly be di.scarded if a nation's
interest requires it.
The non-aligned nations used to pride themselves oo three issues
they were not involved in the cold war and bipolarity, they were anti-
imperialist and anti-racist, and were against the arms race, particularly
against nuclear weapons. These three stands made them autonomous in
foreign policy. But now, there are DO more colonies to be decolonized. The
bastion of apartheid bas fallen. The primary agenda, not to be involved
in power blocs, ceased with the declaration oftbc end of the cold war. If
they now call themselves non-aligned, against whom, against what cause
and against what structure are they non-aligned? In yesteryears, the Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM) did fulfil a purpose. It setVed effectively to
contain the military pacts: after the movement got under way, no
developing country joined a military pact. It was also an effective lobby
for dccolonintion. It democrati7.ed the UN General Assembly. It was a
powerful voice against apartheid It generated and advanced the idea of
global common and focused on issues which have DOW been accepted as
global concerns. A reassessment is, however, DOW due. Let us therefore
appraise the performance of the movement
There is, first, the quality of its leadership. The first generation of
NAM's leaders had a personal standing of having been freedom fighters.
They had charisma, international stature, and independence of view on
world events. But with more and more small,· mini- and micro-states
joining the movement, NAM lost its character, and began reflecting its
nature as a collective ofsmall nations, reflecting their collective insecurity.
Only three chairmen of the movement were democratically elected. Tito,

Obsolescence of the Non-Aligned Movemenl 313
Boumedienne, Kenneth Kaunda, Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and

Suharto were all leaders of one-party states. In early 1996, when President
Ernesto Samper of Colombia fell into disgrace after disclosures that be
received campaign funds for his election from the Cali drug cartel, be
was the NAM chairman: just a couple of days after be assumed the post,
President Clinton announced a whole series of measures against the drug
cartel. Nelson Mandela, a towering personality in the international arena
and another chairman of the movement, exposed his naivete when be
pleaded in the Commonwealth summit on the first day for quiet diplomacy
with the Nigerian generals: the latter banged Ken Sarowiwa and eight
others that evening. Mandela bad expected that his stature and prestige
would have an impact on the Nigerian generals, and came out with his
standing bruised.
Indira Gandhi described it as the biggest peace movement Was it,
indeed? During its somewhat uneventful existence, NAM did not bring a
single war to an end or bring about a cease-fire: not the Sino-Indian war
( I 962), Pakistan-India wars ( 1965 and 1971), Arab-Israel wars (1967
and 1973), the Vietnam War, the Indonesian confrontation with Malaysia,
the Soviet meddling in Afghanistan, the South Atlantic War (1982), the
Sino-Vietnamese War (1979) and the Iraq-Iran War (1980-87). When
they bad to pass judgement on the rights and wrongs of wars between
nations, they consistently shied away. The intervention of western powers
did far more to end conflicts in the non-aligned world than any intervention
by NAM itself. The movement also failed to condemn the genocide in
Ban~b and Cambodia. The majority of its members sided with the
murderous Pol Pot clique, and voted with General Yabya Khan's
Pakistan-which committed genocide in Bangladesh-against India
during the 1971 war. The Angolan civil war was brought to an end with
an agreement being signed under the patronage of the US, USSR, and
Portugal. The Mozambican civil war was also settled under the good
offices of western nations. The referendum in Westem Sahara was to be
under UN auspices with hardly a role for the NAM. The Cambodian
issue made progress under the framework formulated by the five perma-
nent members of the Security Council. International efforts were being
made to solve the Cyprus problem but NAM bad nothing to do with it
The League of Nations lost its credibility when it failed to condemn
the Japanese aggression against China. All the brave nations which
condemned the USSR on Afgbaniman and the US on Grenada and Panama
became tongue-tied when it came to the Iraq-Iran conflict, which lasted
eight years, and even when Iraq used chemical weapons. Some of its

374 Slwddutg SlubboletJ,s
members also actively fuelled the war by supporting the aggn:ssor wi1b
money and war material. In the initial and later SlageS of the war, when
the situation was in its favour, Iraq refused to respond to the pleas of the
DOD-aligned. In the interim Iran was equally adamant Finally, the UN
had better luck in bringing that war to an cod.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was an aggression by one non-
aligned COlllltry against another. Tbcrc were deep divisions in the Islamic;
world and the Arab League betwcco those who wanted to do nothing and
those who wanted to invoke the assistance of an exba-rcgional power.
The Iraq-Kuwait conflict was resolved through a war, with the non-
aligned Arabs accepting the military leadership of the US. The non-
aligned in these cases cited chose to be neutral rather than DOD-aligned.
A country which wants to be neutral does not express a view on the
rights and wrongs of the conduct of-either belligerent to a conflict. But a
COlllltry which professes to be -.aligned is cxpcctcd to take a stand oo
the rights and wrongs of a conflict bctwcco two non-aligned natioos and
speak out.
India behaved differently in the 1960s when lndooesia resorted to
'Confrontasi' against Malaysia and Sukarno thwdcted about "mashing
Malaysia". India was not neubal. It made its position clear that it stood
by Malaysia. That country too reciprocated by supporting India against
the Pakistani aggression in 1965. These are exceptions. The -.aligned,
rightfully, earned the pejorative label given by the western media---tbe
neutralists. But before we start moralizing we should remind ourselves
that on 7 December 1971, when 104 nations of the UN-mcluding our
friends Yugoslavia, Egypt, Algeria, Sri Lanka and Nepal-asked India
to cease fire in the Bangladesh War, we refused and continued the war to
successful conclusion some nine days later. (That memory should make
us pause and reflect when we demand a cease-fire for others.)
As Yugoslavia was splintering, Belgrade was holding the chainnanship
ofthe·movement. Also, the Yugoslavs bad consistently been advocating
setting up a conflict resolution machinery within the NAM. (They also
used to be in favour of institutionalizing the movement by setting up a
secretariat.) But when Yugoslavia was falling apart, it did not invoke the
good offices of the NAM. Nor did the leading members ofNAM rush to
Yugoslavia's aid. In recent years, the Palestinian issue has come to the
top of the international agenda, but under the leadership of the US. Even
some Anb states are less enthusiastic in their support to Yasser Arafat
and the PLO because of his support to President Saddaro Hussein during
the Gulf crisis of 1991 .

Obsolescence of the Non-Aligned Movement 375
What about NAM's perfonnance in "baiting and reversing the anns

race", with priority to nuclear disarmament, which used to be the first
item on its agenda? On 11 May 1995, 178 nations of the international
commwrity, a majority of whom were non-aligned, allowed a declaration
of consensus to be adopted by the extension conference of the NPT
legitimizing in perpetuity the nuclear weapon. Indonesia and Egypt, which
had put up a fight, succumbed at the last count. India, too, was remiss in
not raising its voice against the extension of NPT and the consequent
legitimization of nuclear weapons. When Nehru protested against nuclear
tests in 1954, his was a lone voice. The resumption of nuclear tests in
1961 propelled him to the Belgrade swnmit, where he made nuclear
disarmament the core issue. Even in 1982, at the second UN special
session on disarmament, India was one of the four countries to vote
against the attempt to dilute the final document adopted at the first special
session. When the UN considered the resolution on a reference to the
legality of the use and threat ofuse of nuclear weapons to the advisory
opinion of the ICJ, which was moved by Indonesia on behalf of the non-
aligned, many non-aligned countries either abstained or voted against
such a reference. Similarly, the annual resolution in the UN General
Assembly on outlawing the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons has
been getting diminishing support in the UN from the non-aligned. In late
1995, South Aftica played a leading role in blocking a non-aligned resolu-
tion to be moved in the UN General Assembly, demanding meaningful
steps to create a negotiating machinery to lead the world towards complete
elimination of nuclear weapons. The South Afticans moved a killer
amendment demanding that the NPT should be wriversal. South Africa
played a similar role of being a facilitator of western nuclear powers'
goals and aims during the review and extension conference of the NPT.
Today, NAM is a bunch of higgledy-piggledy states put together. It
houses special-interest lobbies, such as oil-exporting countries, Islamic
countries, Arab states, etc., who bring their parochial interests to bear upon
its deliberations. Since the movement operates on the rule of consensus,
some of this parochialism is reflected in the Non-Aligned declarations.
As long as the world was bipolar, many of its member nations reflected
the views and interests of the two dominant powers, cancelling each
other out. With the disappearance of one superpower, there is a risk _o f
the movement being dominated by a superpower from outside. A signifi-
cant number of NAM members, being totally dependent on US or French
aid, are fair game to pressures from these countries, and cannot take an
independent and truly non-aligned stand (When the Comoros Islands

faco1 >1 secunt)· ttuear in 1995. 1h11 mriim ronld ~ only on the
•'eSlffll ooumries for ns security.I The maj,w PJ""aS alk,a· die - -
ahgncd moous 10 subscribe to the JYK•11ial •'nalistic de- !■◄ions widi
tbetr rbelonc thal does DOI imp,ess ~'OIIC in die Son-Atignot S,1111.it,
liO long as~ ~-c 1be111-:l1.·cs wr1ecd~ •ilm it Uliil"'!S IO ~iog on
specific issues in die L~. The L'S Ad•oi«isuMinn kcrps CXJIU of bow
oarioos \ ·ate in die L~. and die ~acing m::ord is given full cnasirlt.111il-,
while deciding aid 10 Jmticubr CXJ11111i.cs.. NAM declaralioos are u~ tc:d
oo par v.i th docummts- iwJCd by die Ull•■•Ll•eallh, OIC and OAU.
Because tbev declantions c.ombllR die gn ICSI conw,.. mea!Rff of
.gic.. u;ent mJOD8 such di\·crse groups of mrioos, they become huge
bnldalls 10 include a v.nole nnigc of fomw11arioos, CXJ11Cbcd in die blandc sa
language. Most of die we,1~ an-; inrerc:slcd in a few specific poiim
wbicb med their parocbial nariooal UllCfeSIS, only a few being intcn:sted
in •aking a global view of major intemational issiJCS With their pcUy
jealousies. many noo-aligncd COUlllries would not also be able to ape
oo seeing some large and significaDt devdopiog 00011Uics likt- India,
lndooesia or Brazil being made pe,;;►,o,il mru":.as of the Security
C-ouncil
At one time, ~ was much talk of economic solidarity among
developing nations. The Group of 77, and !ate,-G-15, wac ,.:suits of this
approach. From the 1974 Algiers conference, a new international
ccooomic order (NIEO) healDP the NAM 's tbcmc song. But while NIEO
sought to obcain a more equitable economic deal for developing nations,
die oil-exporters among the ranks of die ooo-aligocd tbcmselv~ biktd
their oil prices, splurging their dollar surpluses oo weapons fiom die
West, thus aggravating the insecurity in the developing world. Part of
their swplus they invested in propcrtiea in the western countries and
deposited the rest of their earnings in western banks The wcsterro hanks
disbursed those deposits to developing counlries, cn:ariog tl,e debt trap.
The ooo-aligocd denounced the debt trap 1>111 maintaiotd a stoic silence
OD the attitude of the oil-exporting nations. The high oil price also Cll8blcd
Iraq and Iran to fight an eight-year-long murderous war. Some of the oil-
exporting countries used their oil surpluses to promote religious funda-
mentalism and insurgencies in the developing world. The OIC-whicb
as a concept itself is a negation of the spirit of non-alignment and divides
developing nations into two blocs of believers and ooo-believcrs-playcd
a divisive and negative role in international affairs, looking at all global
i111Ue11 through its myopic prism.
There used to be much talk about South-South cooperation, but in
' UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Obsolescence of die Non-Aligned M - 1 377
practice when technology was available in a developing country,

technology from the developed world was still preferred. In SAARC
(South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), Pakistan is not
willing to develop trade relations within the region. The treatment of
migrant labour in the oil-rich countries -violated human rights, and these
were all members of the NAM. The Islamic countries are swayed by the
oil-rich. Toe major Latin American countries were sucked into the debt
trap. ASEAN looked after itself. Toe Lome Convention countries of
Africa came under the influence of West Europe. Toe net result was that
in the Uruguay Round, India hardly had any allies on crucial issues that
affected the interests of developing nations as a whole.
For some time, NAM maintained its relevance not because of the
military power of its members nor their economic power (though the oil-
rich are members) but because of the power of the ideas it put forward,
which were ahead of the thinking of militariz.ed industrial nations. Toe
history of the movement itself is positive proof that right ideas win over
power. Disarmament, decolonintion, anti-apartheid stand and North-
South dialogue were all formulated at the right time. But as years passed,
the NAM declarations stood out for the poverty of new ideas. There is
nothing in them about common threats like etbno-nationalism and environ-
mental degradation. The non-aligned do not even seem to be able to
make up their minds whether the world is becoming unipolar or Euro-
centric. (Surely it cannot be both.) Their recommendations for improving
the UN are pitiable.
References 1111" made to the dominance of a few countries in the inter-
national system. Surely, forming coalitions of interests with as many
developed countries as possible would be the best way of dealing with
the problem: to seek to perpetuate and rigidify the divisions between
developed and developing countries is self-defeating. If major economic
and industrial cooperation could take place across the ideological divide
between the West and the communist bloc, similar cooperation can take
place across the NortlrSouth divide, especially if there is to be increased
competition among the industrialized giants. To sustain the rise in
technological and economic capabilities of some of the developing
nations, increasing South-South cooperation is a logical imperative.
Toe conflict and contradictions among the major power centres of the
world in future are not going to be military, but essentially economic and
technological. To secure maximum manoeuvrability for th~elves,
developing nations will have to arrive at a correct assessment of the
nature of the future conflict system and devise an appropriate strategy.

• -:..e -:C•~•·,;•r4 w-.,·.a ::.: ::: 11.e ·_ ~ ;._~ 1K ••¥• i l,e
... !',.,:' .. ~ -:-..e ~... ~ ~ --- :.a::.i. :.J.l""'"-t;'C f.xo --◄:· .aai ◄ ~ Mill)
.-.rcr~ ::. ~:,c--;.,;:-..r.l:ll - .. ~-;1. to: ::ia ~ -.-.:.:. ~ . , . _ . , RAlt@
,,.,,e ::. r~l'Jlt.:,·Aa. oet..."!~:"C.-JTAK:c,g (,:_ 3le c:r,:t, w w,cei lf1PICS IOO..
ire~ are r:z,11 v...r.:: :.;;"..t ::: -;-,c :e:r:•·•::c - ~P" !:Ja:aua die t:S and
~-. ';11.CtJ) f,.,.z,.tpe. I j~ il..J/,1 de .i:IIH a ·,1,. r : ~ v r d ftdMMIS jt.-i-cd
~..-.en -.. ;,;:, -:t,c Df)f)-c. •~ :xac•·m 1t:: 2K...- :he l"S .:m the ~.asiry
tw..ie., J ~ vx,:.i.:.~, are DOI :..i.ui-_. 10 ,ao-r zr -.i:::i the IOio-ci;no of
f-..-11,,pc:an free Trade Zooe ana from :he-~ 10 the ~ledieoaw•
,t
arlll 11/tef!Tiltlill", the EC and com1::,g II:!,() ioroe oi !be Vau nidll T~.
"Jhe SAM vJUT~ wJWd II'). 10 ~u\-ae ~ -es1 .Ea:¥-• .. ---.i.::s.md
Japan in thc11 fncrilh on \ 'an<JU:S is.sues md gn·e up lhc:il' mc:sor1c abom
~,,ro, ~Nth u.onfr,,nt.aUl)n. Tbc c:arlJcr rbc:lofic abom such 000£t1-11a1iod
h.n finr,Jy • ~ iuelf on the minds of some of om dccisioo-maka'S
A'>l·. AS •~ kc:c:ner on APEC (Asia-Pacific Ecoooouc. Coop.;aali.Jo) 11ml
"" 1..011perau,,n with ocher developing coumric:s. Tbc Sonh African
1,;1,umr~ value: ck,ser linkagcs wi1h the Eu. Tor I arin Amelicao oo-wm.cs
io1n1ng the: ,-;AfT A is another example of the J'li~Soudi divide
hrealung down. Many dc:vei,oping countries an:: !lying to gel inro n:giooal
trading bloc- ak,ng with industrializ.ed nations, and these n:giooal ammgc-
mc:ni. appear to make faster progress than interactions n:suicted IO noo-
alijUIC(I nati,m~ or South-South cooperation. E.cooomic and geognuphical
l111<ic ha,i greater appeal to practical people than political rhetoric.
'Inc North South dialogue used to be based strictly on ecooomic
i-~uc#, which the North ignored. But the North caooot now ignore the
e1.:olo11k al factor. The North-South dialogue, based on the supposed
commodity clout of the South, did not work. If it is IO be based on the
conunon ecological threat to the planet which, in the words of the then
Norwcl(ian !'rime Minister Gro Bnmdtlaud, is next ooly to that of global
nuclcur Wllr, there has to be a constructive dialogue involving both
developed and developing nations. Laying down regimes to discipline
the developing world without positively contributing to poverty alleviation
i~ not 11oinl( to work to reduce either carbon dioxide or CFC (chloro
f1u11r11 curbon) emissions. If the crushing debt burden and the population
cxpl11Ni11n co1npcl 1he developing countries to cut down rain forests, the
lldvcrNc climatic cllcct on the globe will adversely affect the developed
world IIN well. The issue of global pollution cannot be compartmentalized.
The developing countries demand compensation if they are to reduce
their pnxiuction of CFCs and also transfer of technology for substitute

Obsolescence of the Non-Aligned M0"'1fflelll 379
products. If the South does not have adequate and sustainable devel01>-
ment, the resulting population explosion will lead to population pressures
on the developed world, too. While birth ritte continues to decline among
the whites and the population in the older age brackets grows among
them, the demand for services in the developed world, as also emigration
from the developing world, is bound to impact on the population
composition of the developed world. Meanwhile, the poverty of the
developing world compels peasants to grow poppy in preference to other
commercial crops, which is then pushed into the markets of the developed
world. Concerns such as poverty alleviation, population control, fight
against diseases like AIDS, climate wanning, global pollution, narcotics,
international terrorism and narco-terrorism, religious fundamentalism,
etc. arc threats confronting every nation, however wealthy and powerful.
It is a polycentric world, with the US, the EU, Japan, Russia, China,
and India being the leading factors. In this integrated global system, not
one of them (not even the US) can act with total autonomy. Other nations
too can exercise ~imilar autonomics, depending upon their economic and
military capabilities, their geographic location and the stake they con.'ltitute
in the international system. China, India, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan,
Indonesia, etc., have faster rates of growth than many industrialiud
countries, and in the coming decades their economic weight will steadily
grow. Unlike the transient phenomenon of petrodollar surplus it will be
an enduring one, based on the achievements in agriculture, industries,
and services. NAM will gain in sbcngth and influence if it can win over
countries that arc like-minded on economic and ecological issues, even
those which arc members of military alliances which in any case arc
losing their significance. Canada, Gcnnany, the Nordic and the Low
countries arc far more sensitive to the issue of non-military threats to
global security than the US, Britain and France.
The basic strategy of non-alignment in a bipolar world, where the
major antagonism was military, was to derive maximum manoeuvrability
in the space between the two contending power blocs. Even when the
international system was a simple bipolar one, the non-aligned bad enough
difficulties in arriving at minimalist agreed positions on issues. In a
polycentric world this is going to be even more difficult. Also, in a
bipolar world the antagonism of the two superpowers was predictable
but a polycentric world is going to be very much more unpredictable, as
no major nation desiring to pursue an autonomous foreign policy in a
world of six power centres can pursue a zero.sum game. Every crucial

380 Sltedding SliibboletJis
intematiooal decision becomes a six-per11011 dOll-7.fflHUID game. Such

decisions are eiuw,ctingly complex, and will have to be taken oo the
merits of each case on perceptions of national intacst and the n:sult of
the interacting influences of the multiple power centres.
When an organization outlives its usefulness and bas decayed, its so-
called leaders will continue to fight tn maintain their meaoingle:.,s roles.
Advocates of continuing validity of DOD-alignment derive some consola-
tion from some developed cowrtries sending in their observers to attend
NAM swnmits. It is argued that the opportunity for the heads of state of
developing nations getting together in itself makes non-alignment worth-
while, as it does with Commonwealth linkage or that of the OAU and
· OIC, as a kind of club, and it does no harm to have such conclaves.
Periodic meetings of developing nations at the level of head of state or
government and foreign ministers are no doubt useful exercises in
themselves. The leading iDdustrial powers have their G-7 and the West
European powers their EU meetings. Therefore, the NAM too may
continue to have its utility as a forum for developing nations. If such a
realistic view is adopted, then there will be no expectation from the
NAM, and in time, it will atrophy for want of a role of any significance.
This is inevitable.
In mid-1991, Argentina indicated its intention to quit the NAM if it
did not adapt itself to the new world situation. President Carlos Menem.'s
advocacy was that NAM should unequivocally support the new inter-
national order promulgated by President George Bush (senior). (It is
another matter that hardly anyone could say precisely what this new
world order meant) Earlier in 1979, Burma bad left the movement at the
Havana NAM swnmit. Egypt saw its national interest in signing the
Camp David treaty with Israel, which benefited it in terms of becoming
the second largest recipient of US aid, for which it came close to expulsion
from NAM.
At the present stage of evolution of the international system, does
India belong to the NAM as it is constituted? It is emerging into the
industrialized world. India is a democracy and a secular country. So Jong
as the cold war constituted a threat to our security and interest because
of the western powers backing all kinds of dictatorships and supplying
arms to them, it was necessary for India to go along with the developing
nations, of which many are not secular and, barring a handful, the rest
are authoritarian regimes. The international strategic environment bas
changed radically with the end of the cold war. The principal contradiction
today is between democracies and those who are moving rapidly towards

Obsolescence of the Non-Aligned Movement 381
democratization on the one hand, and the authoritarian, religious

fundamentalist, and militarist states on the other. Surely, India's place is
not with the latter. India is currently in the process of getting integrated
with the international market system. This policy has to go hand in hand
with our foreign policy. As India's economy grows and India acquires
greater weight in international relations, it will find it increasingly difficult
to fit in its own pursuit of enlightened and legitimate national interests
within the confines of non-aligned platitudinous declarations. As it is,
India has given more to NAM than it has received from it While most
other developing nations may find it comfortable to be part of a larger
group of.nations, India, which aspires to become a permanent member of
the Security Council, should seriously consider its position. There is no
need for India to walk out of the movement or denounce it But it should
slowly and steadily reduce the consideration it gives to NAM.

39
Renewing the UN
The UN was established mainly to prevent the outbreak

of yet another world war. The inputs to its Charter were given by the
three victors of World War ~ US, the Soviet Union and Britain-
in descending order of importance. The veto was instituted to ensure that
one of the major powers capable of initiating a world war would not be
pushed into a comer by a majority decision among the five major powers,
which alone at that time were deemed capable of initiating a world war.
In fact, only the US and USSR had that capacity. Britain was still consi-
dered a world power at that time. At US insistence, China was included
as an ally who had suffered immensely in the war against Japan. France
was included in the light of its traditional role in Europe, and then holding
the second largest empire. The principle of permanent membership and
veto was based oo the realiz.atioo that these five major nations of the
world, in view of their military power, should not fight a war among
themselves. There was also the underlying assumption that if a war among
the Big Five was averted, they would maintain peace in their respective
empires, and in regions where they were the dominant powers. Gennaoy
and Japan having been occupied and disarmed, the world's major arms
producers and suppliers were expected to be limited to the US, the Soviet
Union, Britain, and France. Almost the whole developing world was
then under colonial rule.
During the era of the cold war bipolar rivalry, the two major protagon-
ists looked at the world as a zero-sum game. Each tried to exercise
control over its sphere of influence and took care not to directly conftont
the other. The cold war did not escalate into hot war because of the rules
of the game incorporated in the UN Charter. Many developments, such
as nuclear deterrence, decolonization, change in the nature of war, etc.,
also contributed to this denouement, but the UN's role was central. There
were bloody anti-colonial wars in Indonesia, Vietnam, Algeria, Cyprus,
Aden, Angola, Mozambique, etc., and some proxy wars in Korea,
Afghanilltao, Iraq-Iran, Somalia-Ethiopia, and a few localized regional

Renewing the UN 383
conflicts such as the Israel-Arab and Pakistan-India wars. In the anti-

colonial wars the colonial powers were forced to withdraw. Toe regional
conflicts were short. Toe proxy wars exacted a heavy toll in lives, yet
fitted into the pattern of the bipolar zero-sum game.
Toe veto did ensure that the Soviet Union was not openly hounded.
Toe Korea War and the Aralrlsrael issues were handled by the General
Assembly because the Security Council could not function on account of
the veto. In June 1950, the Soviet Union had been boycotting the Security
Council because the seat for China was being occupied by the represent-
ative of the Guomindang regime in Taiwan and not by one nominated by
the Government of People's Republic of China (PRC). Had the Soviet
Union been present during the Security Council debate, the resolution
authorizing the use of force against North Korean forces would have
been vetoed. So would it have been if the representative of PRC had
taken his seat in the council. (Subsequently, when the US and its allies
wanted to authorize action against the PRC for its intervention in the
Korea War, the USSR vetoed the move.) For sui:taining intervention in
the Korea War, the US manoeuvred the "uniting for peace" resolution in
the General Assembly, where it then commanded a majority. (This was
against the spirit of the Charter, which vested exclusive responsibility
for international security in the Security Council.) Toe complaint since
the end of the cold war, that the Security Council has been hijacked by
the US and that the UN is not functioning in accordance with the spirit of
the Charter, is misplaced. Toe UN is functioning as intended by the
framers of and in accordance with the UN Charter, though the Charter
itself represents mainly the wishes of the victors of World War Il.
At the same time, of all organs of the UN, the Security Council has
the most dismal performance record. In the cold war years, the UN
developed a culture of passivity and became an endless talking shop,
exclusively debate-oriented. After the cold war ended, the Security
Council was used as a rubber stamp to legitimize an intervention by
NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995. Earlier, in 1991, the Security
Council justifiably endorsed the decision of the US-led coalition to II'berate
Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. In Somalia, the US intervened under cover
of the UN, and subsequently pulled out when it could not accept the
casualties. (There is a good case for the General Assembly to commission
a review of the functioning of the Security Council and its role in peace-
keeping since the end of the cold war.)
In the current set-up of the Security Council, its decision-making
responsibility has been taken out of the UN. Toe decision to enforce

384 SMddbtg Slubbokdu
pace and the stepe necessll)' ue decided by the US and its NATO allies
OUlside the UN framework and without any inpuls from Russia and China
and those DOD-permanent members who ue not members of NATO. It is
open to these members to abstain from voting on any resolution and
tbeaeby ensure its kill, since a Security Council resolution needs a nine--
vote endorsement That does not happen because the odler noo-pennanent
members arc reluctant to incur the wrath of the US, UK and France.
They willingly trade their vote for some tangible quid pro quo.
The permanent members of the Security Council also tended to display
indifference to genocide except when it happened in their baclcyard. The
killings in Indonesia in 1966, evi•nated at 800,000, in Bangladesh in
1971, in Cambodia in 197~77 and in Angola and Monmbique in the
1970s and '80s did not elicit meaningful action from the Security Council.
An earlier bout of genocidal killing in Rwanda and Burundi in the late
19605-arly '70s and recently in the '90s also weot unnoticed. The killings
of the communists in Indonesia and Marxist-aligned people in Angola
and Mozambique were ignored on ideological groUDds. The genocide in
Bangladesh and Cambodia was ignored for political expediency. Pakistan
was a friend of the US and Pol Pot that of China and was opposed to
Vietnam The killings in Rwanda and Burundi were ignored presnmahly
on racial grounds.
••••
Peacekeeping bas been a major function of the UN, but its performance
in this area bas taken a lot of sheen out of the organimon's image. India
bad first-band experience of getting a raw dl;al from the UN. In August
1965, the UN observer group under General Nimmo reported that
Pakistanis had violated the cease-fire line with massive infiltration of
raiders. This report was suppressed till the situation escalated into full-
scale war. This was the primary reason why, after the Simla Agreement
and reconfiguring the CFL (cease-fire line) into LoC (line of control),
India declined any role for the UN observation group in lammtJ and
Kashmir.
UN peacekeeping had the same problem of credibility in Somalia too,
in 1993. General Farah Me>'bammed Aideed was targeted as enemy number
one and hunted after. The result was the ignominious withdrawal of the
UN; and peace returned to Somalia, which it could not have under UN
peacekeeping. The peacekeeping operation was first conducted by
American troops, who initially established peace and distributed food to

Renewing the UN 385
the starving millions, and then withdrew at the end of April 1993. During
this period, the warlords of Somalia just hid bulk of their arms and
surrendered nominal amOW1ts, biding their time. Unlike the US armed
forces, which went in with their heavy firepower, the replacing UN forces
were to be armed lightly, for peacekeeping purposes only. An understand-
ing had been reached in Addis Ababa _earlier among the various Somalian
factions about transition to an election. Under that provision the radio
station in Mogadishu was to be handed over to the UN. While attempting
to take control of the radio station the UN forces came under attack, and
26 Pakistani and American troops were killed; the survivors had to be
rescued by an Italian contingent While the US had sent in 38,000 troops,
the UN set a lower target of 30,000, but sent only 18,000, with the
disastrous results recorded.
Even more disastrous was the UN intervention in Bosnia. The Security
Council endorsed the EU's plan for peace in Bosnia within 24 hours
after it was drawn up. Toe plan called for the heavy weapons of the three
combatant parties-Serbs, Croats, and the Bosnians-to be placed under
UN supervision. UN representatives were not consulted in arriving at the
plan nor any technical advice was sought from the UN. Presumably,
before endorsing the EU plan, the Security Council did not seek the
Secretary General's advice but decided to direct him to come up with his
proposals to implement the plan, at which the latter remonstrated. This
was another instance of the western members of the Security Council
taking the Council and the UN system for granted, and assuming that the
decisions they reached among themselves would automatically be
implemented by the Council.
In the Bosnia operation, the UN also displayed a deep-rooted anti-
Serb bias inherited from the western powers. It failed to take action
when the Croats breached the cease-fire in mid-1995. Toe UN did nothing
whenever the Muslim Bosnians breached the cease-fire and launched
local offensives at various points. In both cases heavy equipment was
used. For the same kind of transgressions the Bosnian Serbs were struck
with NATO air power, while the Croats and Bosnian Muslims got away
scot-free. Not only General Satish Nambiar of India but also General Sir
Michael Rose of Britain was accused of pnrSerb bias by sections of the
western media
In Bosnia, the peacekeeping forces were drawn from. the European
countries, and the peacemaking process was not entirely left to the UN
but was run in parallel by the five-nation contact group, of UK, France,
Germany, the US and Russia. Toe major powers, UK and France, also

386 Sliedding :ihibboletJis
contributed a significant proportion of peacekeeping forces. NATO got

directly involved in the peacekeeping operation and the French and the
British commanders preferred to deal with the NATO chain of command
without having to go through the UN represented by Y asushi Akashi. 1
Once the peacekeepers used sophisticated aircraft to bomb targets in
close proximity of the headquarters of the Bosnian Sed,s, thus resorting
to use of force, they ceased to be peacekeepers, and became combatant,,
subject to laws of war. The Secretary General submitted to the pressure
from NATO, and UN authorities authorized bombing Bosnian Serb
territory. When F-16 aircraft patrolling over the Bosnian territory bombed
a Bosnian Serb target, Bosnian Serbs took unarmed peacekecpe1s into
custody and chained them to potential targets for bombing. It was incred-
ible thoughtlessness on the part of the UN authorities to authori7.e bombing
in the area while small groups of unarmed UN peacekeepers were distri-
buted all over the territory. Meanwhile, the Secretary General's report
on the future of UN peacekeeping, titled "Agenda for Peace'', which he
had prepared after the Security Council !IWDmit of January 1992 asked
him to do so, was gathering dust in the Secretariat of the Security Council.
In a conflict, if the parties involved are its member states, the UN can
compel them to cease fire and then introduce a peacekeeping force. But
where one or both of them are not a state party but a militia, as happened
in Bosnia and Somalia, the UN lacks leverage. It can only use force to
separate the warring parties, which would mean the peace-enforcing UN
force itself will have to suffer casualties. The only occasion when the
UN carried out such an operation was in the Congo (Zaire) in 1961-62,
when it had forces of the Indian army at its disposal. The industriali7.ed
countries lack that will. Except in the Congo in 1961-62, the presumption
in the UN was that a UN soldier wearing a blue helmet bact immllllity
from attacks. But the events in Bosnia, Cambodia and Mogadishu
reinforced the view that men in blue helmets may have to take defCD/live
action and may have to shed their own and their opponents• blood. Peace
enforcement operations involve a large number of infantrymen having to
engage forces opposing UN resolutions on the ground. To avoid high
collateral damage to civilians, they have to fight with light infantry
1. Akasbi was very successful as UN peacekceper in Cambodia. There be bad to

deal with the tough Khme.- Rouge, but the UN peacekeeping force was commanded
by an Australian general and, but for a small contribution by France, the peacekeeping
troops came from countries other than the great powers. Ak•sbi had no diffiauty in
handling that force without much tension.

Renewing tlie UN 387
weapons. This, in tum, would result in certain number of UN casualties.

The forces opposing UN intervention may use school buildings, churches,
hospitals, and homes of civilians u shelter to open fire on UN forces
and to draw the fire of the UN force on such civilian installations. lrTegu1ar
warfare is a cruel phenomenon not easily subjected to civiliz.ed codes of
conduct, and may even draw the reproach of Amnesty International and
Ruman Rights Watch on the UN forces for excessive and avoidable use
of force.
In early 1995, the Secretary General, Boutros Boutro&-Ghali, called
for the constitution of a rapid deployment force to deal with situations
such as in Rwanda He said that the UN could undertake peace enforce-
ment operations manageable by a force of 4000-5000 men. But larger
operations would be a different matter, especially if they called for air
support, as in Bosnia. A unified command and control was a must, he
said, and deplored the present practice of each unit trying to obtain
orders from its own government He also wanted the Security Council to
spell out more clearly the objectives and scope of each peacekeeping
and peace-enforcement operation. The problem is that the US insists on
being in command in any peacekeeping or peace-enforcement operation
it participates in, with an American commander taking orders directly
from the US President. That is, if at all the US decides that its national
interests are involved in being part of the operation. Neither will the
American legislators approve peacekeeping in distant places where
American lives may need to be sacrificed where American interests are
not involved nor will they foot the bill even where the forces of other
nations will carry out the operation.
In July 1995, President Clinton spoke of the UN undertaking peace-
keeping operations selectively in those situations where the parties to the
conflict had concluded that there was nothing to gain by continuing the
hostilities: in other words, the UN should send its peacekeepers where
peace had already been agreed upon!
Though there were nearly a million casualties in Rwanda, more than
in Bosnia, the UN did not initiate any large-scale international peace-
keeping there. Nor was there any talk of peacekeeping in Afghanistan,
where a highly unstable situation existed. Bosnia got extra attention for
peacekeeping because it was in Europe, and secondly, the US and West
European nations wanted to placate the Muslim opinion. In future it is
unlikely that peacekeeping operations in areas of vital interest to the US
and western powers will be undertaken as UN operations, but will be
handled as NATO operations.

388 Shedding Sllibbolnlu
••••
The UN bas of late been resorting to imposing economic sanctions oo
intransigent regimes to force them to fall in line. Sanctioos were imposed
on the regimes in Iraq (1990), Serbia and Montenegro (for Serbia's
involvement in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina), and Haiti (1993).
In no case did they work u intended. In the early 1980s, Iran was able to
withstand the pressure of western sanctions. The apartheid regime in
South Africa and the white minority regime of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe,
were also able to defy the sanctions for a number of years, though in
these cases, not all nations observed the sanctions to the letter.
Sanctions, of course, did have an impact in Iraq. That country had a
standard of health care comparable to Western Europe, and under sanc-
tions children died in thousands because of malnutrition and inadequate
supply of medicines. The Baghdad sewerage system remained wrecked.
Saddam Hussein did not even accept initially the UN offer to sell $1.6
billion worth of oil to purchase food and medicine for the Iraqi people.
While there were man)' ,eports of the suffering of the people oflraq, the
Iraqi government gave priority to the reconstruction prugi anm.., and repair
of buildings, utilities and infrastructural facilities damaged in the war. In
socialist Yugoslavia, which had not experienced hunger since World
War D, people were forced to rummage in garbage dumps to get something
to eat. H.aiti was already a poor country and here again, the people who
were most vulnerable to economic sanctions were the most deprived.
The people in Iraq were not responsible for the policies of their ruler,
not even in the sense in which people in a democracy could be held
accountable. In Serbia, however, they had a choice during the presidential
elections between Milosevic and Panic. A just war is defined as one in
which force used is proportionate to the gravity of aggression and the
type of weaponry used by the adversary. Economic sanctions are a kind
of war. Their impact, therefore, should be proportionate to the act of
aggression. Today, economic sanctions act like the genocidal bombing
of the Luftwaffe and the Anglo-American air forces during the wars.
They hit the civilians indiscriminately and inflict more suffering on
innocents than on the combatants.
Dictatorial regimes can withstand the hardships caused by economic
sanctions; their people generally accept the suffering without much protest
People in Burma and Cuba suffer hardships because of their countries'
isolation, but the regimes survive. Economic sanctions, therefore, consti-
tute often the worst violation of human rights. By being party to such

Renewing tlte UN 389
acts the UN sullies its own reputation and loses credibility. It is all the
more appalling when those who adopt a high moral tone in imposing
sanctions and causing suffering do not have clean bands. Saddam J.{ussein
was encoW'llged by the support be received from the West dming the
aggression against Iran and their permissiveness when be used chemical
weapons against them. Haiti's dictatorship was tolerated for long. The
etbno-oatiooalist conflicts in Yugoslavia were avoidable, especially the
civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but for the short-sighted policies of
some major Ew-opean powers. Also, the international community does
not adopt a uniform standard. On some occasions, it is argued that it is
better to maintain economic relations with a country and increase inter-
action to bring about internal changes; on others, the pressure to impose
puoisbmeot gains greater support. Such discriminate punishment tends
to unite people behind the regime, however reprehensible it may be.2
•••
♦
The present Security Council is heavily weighted in favour of industrial-

ized nations and the victors of World War II. At Yalta, more than half of
humanity that was under colonial bondage was totally ignored. Now that
the cold war is over the Security Council need not be deadlocked, as was
demonstrated in the Gulf War. However, in future if the decisions of the
Security Council are to be seen to have the legitimacy of the support of
the majority of humanity, it may have to be expanded both in its permanent
membership as well as overall membership, providing a more balanced
representation to various regions of the world. If Germany and Japan are
to be expected to make greater contribution to the UN financially and
otherwise, and, therefore, to be accommodated in the permanent member-
ship, ways and means of balancing the resulting lopsided weigbtage to
the industrialized world and Europe in the Security Council have to be
devised.
A logical way of addressing the issue may be as follows. The world's
eight largest populated countries and the EU could be made nine
permanent members of an expanded Security Council. Then they would
comprise China, India, USA, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Nigeria
and the EU. This would lead to representation of the Islamic world,
Latin America, and Black Africa in the permanent membership. They
2. In 1994 the American Council of Competitiveness also highlighted in its study

Economic Sectirily: Dollars and sense of US foreign policy, that the US threat of
sanctions bad been counterproductive for US interests.

390 SMddutg SltibboletJis
would together constitute nearly 60 per cent of humanity. That would

mean, instead of Britain and France having two seats in the Security
C-Ouncil, the EU may be given a pcnnancnt seat. The remaining 16 seats
could be distributed among other nations taking into account regional
representation and the interests of smaller nations. A tentative distribution
could be: Ewope 2, Arab nations 2, Black Africa 3, Asia 3, urin America
3, South Pacific I, Caribbean I, and other island nations I. This would
cosure that the security interests of smaller nations are adequately taken
care of. No resolution should be considered passed unless it gets 18
votes out of 25. Instead of a single-nation veto, it could be converted
into a veto by three permanent members. The ultimate aim would be to
do away with veto but in an interim stage when the veto is retained it
may be made more broad based. The original Security Council of 11
was in the UN of less than sixty members. Now the membership is 160,
and a Security Council of 25 is not unreasonable.
When the UN Secretary General elicited the views of various countries
on reorganizing the UN in the post--<:0ld war period, the replies were on
predictable lines. The developing nations, by and large, were in favour
of expansion of the Security Council and for more permanent seats to
developing nations. 3 Russia and China were in favour of expansion of
the Security Council but did not press their views strongly enough. The
US was in favour of making Germany and Japan pennanent members of
the Security Council.4 The former UN Secretary General Javier Perez de
3. Then: was, however, a minority with n:servations arising out of their parochial
COIICffllS. Pu:iS'Jlll.is will prefer domination by other powers but will object to India
having a permanent seat in the Security Council. Then: are similar problems in Sooth
Eut Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
4. The US plea for the inclusion of Germany and Japan has three Wlderlying
motives. Today, Japan and Germany are the second and third most powerful economies
of the world. At a time when the UN is expanding its role, it needs more money.
Including Germany and Japan would bring in more funds for the UN. Second, then:
is a correlation between the permanent membership of the UN and nuclear weapon
status. The US and many others are worried that if this correlation is not broken
Japan and Gennany would be tempted to acquire these symbols of power. Thirdly,
the US is also sensitive to the problems Japan and Germany can create if their
ambitions are not satisfied. Germany with its high interest rates is already destabilizing
the currencies of the other West European countries. Japan's large trade surpluses
also create economic problems for other G-7 countries. At the same time, the US will
find Japan and Germany as permanent members in the Security Council tougher to
handle than they are today. While the US supports Germany and Japan, it may rely
on Britain and France and the developing world to veto their elevation to permanent
membership.

Renewing the UN 391
Cuellar opposed the expansion of pennanent membership----the increase

in veto-wielding members was likely to hamper the business in the
Council, he pointed out.
In the imD)f'J{!iate future, it is unlikely that the UN Charter can be
revised to make it truly democratic, for two reasons. First, the five
pennanent members hold a veto on such revisions, and will not pennit a
dilution of their privilege. Secondly, a majority of the members, mostly
from the developing world, are not democratic themselves, and it is
infeasible to think: of coostructing a democratic UN when the majority of
its members do not themselves subscribe to democratic values at home.
Consensus among nations of different regions on who should be the
pennancnt member from the region is also unlikely. Expanding the non-
permanent membership of the Security Council may only result in
lengthening the deliberations in the Council without improving the quality
of the decision. A compromise solution might be that instead of having
additional pennanent members on the lines of the present five, new veto-
wielding members from the developing world for periods of five to seven
years could be considered, to balance the pennanent membership of the
industriali:Md world. This might be more acceptable to the developing
world and is likely to result in their agreeing on representative candidates
from different regions of the world
••••
India bas a long history of being involved in UN peacekeeping, going
back to the Korea War, and is perhaps the developing country with the
longest record in this area. India carried out the UN peace-enforcing
operation under the UN flag to put an end to the Katangan secessionist
insurgency and preserved the unity of the ·c ongo (now Zaire). When an
Indian peacekeeping force is flown out on a UN peacekeeping mission,
some in India tend to question the move. Their objection is threefold:
(a) Why should we expose our army, which is a volunteer army, to risks
outside? After all, they say, the men in uniform, when they joined the
army, only undertook to defend our frontiers and our territorial integrity
and sovereignty and did not volunteer to be exposed to tasks to maintain
peace in some distant foreign country. (b) Sending the men in uniform
out on $150 a day amounts to hiring them out as mercenaries. (c) The
move also highlights that we value the lives of our men cheaper than
those of the westerners. This criticism needs to be answered.
India is one of the few developing countries with
,
a highly disciplined

392 Sll«Jdb,g SlrJbboletJ,s
wl profeuional umed force capable of pcaceteeping rniuN)l]S. In

Somalia our forces, in spite of the cuualties incmred, disringuisbcd
themselves not only in peacekeeping but in humanitarian service. Increas-
ingly, peacekeepinis ope,ations arc going to be the first priority of tbe
UN and there arc likely to be increasing number of breakdowns in civil
governance in many developing countries of Africa and Asia. Tbcae are
like outbreaks of epidemics in a town and if not attended to promptly are
likely to spread. Instead of asking the white nations to come and ca.,)"
out peacekeeping and pc1pctnating the concept of white man's burden
that it is the duty of the white man to keep peace among unruly black wl
brown people-it is better fiom the internationalist point of view that
black and brown nations accept this responsibility and keep out as far as
possible the industrializ.ed nations. If that is done consistently over a
period of time, qucstioos arc bound to be asked why white nations would
have the majority of the pc,11...oeot membership in the Security Council.
In the first fifty years of its existence the main task of the Security
Council was to prevent war among industrialized nations. In future it is
going to be to keep peace in the developing world. It is, therefore, in our
interest that this task is handled by the developing nations and is not
banded over to the European or North American ones. A COUDlly's place
and role in the UN will largely depend upon its power and its ability to
advance the UN's objectives. When Japan and Germany come out into
the open with their aspirations for permanent membership in the Security
Council, they highlight their higher share of payments towards UN expen-
diture and lifting constitutional impediments to the participation of their
forces in UN peacekeeping operations. India cannot match their level of
financial contributions, but it can more than match them in its contribution
to peacekeeping forces. When India's prestige in the UN was higher in
the 1950s and '60s than it is today, it was looked up to in order to
provide pcacekeepe,s and it did in Korea, Gaza and in the Congo.5
5. A suggestion, that India should be given a permanent seat in the Security

Council if it gave up its nuclear ambition and signed the NPT was put forwmd some
time in I 992 in a conference at Ditcbley in the UK. by an American. The rati«-le
was that Germany and Japan were seeking permanent seats in the Security Council
as non-nuclear weapon states and so India could be accommodated as one, to satisfy
ita aspiration for great-power status. The implied assumption was that some grau
powers, the US in particular, can distribute permanent seats in the Security Council.
The proposal was symptomatic of US confidence in maoipderin& Ille UN in the
wake of the Gulf War victory.

Renewing the UN 393
••••
With increasing cooperation among the veto-wielding permanent members
and the greater influence of western powers, the Security Council is
likely to play an increasingly interventionist role in the conflicts in the
developing world. The logic of the present structure of the Security
Council, disunity among the developing nations, and the undemocratic
character of a majority of their governments, are likely to translate into
increasing UN-authoriud intervention by the western powers. This cannot
be set right just by expanding the non-permanent membership of the
Security Council. The alternative is to make the permanent members of
the Security Council answerable for their actions in a particular region to
the COUDtries of the region outside the scope of the veto. There are now
regional economic commissions within the UN framework and, ~imilarly,
there can be security and cooperation commis.~ions in each region on the
model of the OSCE, with the inclusion of all five permanent members of
the Security Council in all regional commiAAions. All security ~
pertaining to a regi01r-low-intensity conflicts, intra-state conflicts, seces-
sionism, deployment of forces by extra-regional powers, narcotic traffic
and population displacement-can be discussed in such fora. Since the
five permanent members of the Security Council are the largest arms
exporters and usually undertake extra-regional force deployment, they
should be answerable to the nations of the region in this commission.
Any dispute or tension in the region should first be dealt with in this
forum before it comes up in the UN Security Council. Fonnation ofsuch
regional security commiAAions would also ensure that any arms build-up
or simmering conflict would be noted long before it becomes serious
enough to come up before the Security Council. It would be a kind of
neighbow'hood watch scbeme. One can have such regional commissions
for East Asia, South East Asia, Oceania, West Asia, Arab Africa, Sub-
Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Europe already has its OSCE. Such
UN-sponsored regional commi!l..~ions may engender regional cooperation
among the nations and lead to mutual CBMs and verified arms reductions,
too.
Another practical democratization measure is to develop a broad~
of middle-tier powers in the UN, cutting across the North-South divide.
The East- West divide no longer exists. Such a caucus can start focusing
attention on international security issues, especially those relating to non-
military threats to security, including terrorism, narcotics, and global
development. Developed nations sympathetic to G-77 and guests of the

394 Slteddillg SllibboletJu
Non-Alig,wl ~O>'e.nedt maid get tuge1bca- with the la.gee developing

nations to form this informal caucus. The Non-Aligned Movement, as
well as the General Assembly, is afflicted with the insecurity syndrome
of anall nations. They cannot without the help of middle-level industrial
nations display the strength required to democratize the UN, which
requires standing up to the pressures of the veto-wielding oabOIIS.
Apart from the Security Council, the UN could also think of estab-
lishing a standing council for disaster relief, including fiunine, drought,
earthquake, cyclone and flood relief, refugees and large-scale epidemics.
There has been some criticism of the UN for the delay in organizing
relief for the Kurdish refugees. There have also been complaints about
lack of sensitivity to large-scale famines facing millions in Africa. The
Vietnamese boat people problem was dealt with in periodic conferences
but could pemaps have been more effectively dealt with under the overall
UN aegis, with a standing UN body designated for the purpose.
A separate security council to deal with non-military threats to security
of nations could be thought of. Such threats are: subnatiooalist, sectarian,
religious fundamentalist threats involving violence, often with transborder
implications, international· terrorism, narcotics and narco-terrorism and
associated money laundering, international organized crime, illicit arms
traffic, etc. This security council can function without a veto. Other non-
military threats-the climate wanning, global pollution, owne depletion,
and transborder ecological impact, toxic wastes dumping. preservation
of rain forests, and endangered species-are within the jurisdiction of
the UN Environmental Protection Agency. Given the heightened sensi-
tivity to these issues, consideration will have to be given to raising the
status of the Agency as well as procedural and organizational innovations
which would keep these issues under the continuous review of a compact
council of the UN with adequate budgetary provision. The environmental
and climatic concerns can no longer be managed by periodic international
conferences.
••••
In early 1996, some members owed the UN $1.6 billion. Additional dues
for peacekeeping operations were $700 million. The US alone owed
$2.1 billion. The US, contributing 25 per cent of the UN budget, can
bold the UN to ransom by withholding its dues. There have been proposals
that the US contribution should be brought down to 10-15 per cent; this
fall could be offset by contributions from affluent Asian economies. It

Renewing the UN 395
has been argued that this could be done if the siz.e of the Asian economies
is recalculated on the basis of up-to-<late data and they pay the same
percentage of their GNP as before. The suggestion would mean shifting
only some $250 million contributions from the US and distributing that
share among a number of C-OW1tries which have become affluent and are
in a position to pay.
The UN chief has also talked of a nominal levy on an international
transaction to finance UN expenditure. When the UN was established,
the concept of common heritage of humanity had not developed. That
came about only in the 1960s. The idea of deriving revenue from the
common heritage of humanity-the high seu-is incorporated in the
Law of the Sea. Therefore, if a nominal levy is imposed on intercontinental
air travel and shipping across high seas, the entire sum required for
running the UN can easily be raised. Any such amendment will i:ieed to
have the concurrence of all five permanent members.
••••
With all the shortcomings of the UN, the world is a better place because
the organization has been part of the world scene for five decades and
more. Unlike the League of Nations, the UN, particularly the Security
Council, provided a forum of continuous contact among the great powers.
The League of Nations, being restricted in its membership, did not
command legitimacy in international public opinion. Gennany and Japan
could withdraw from it with impunity. Only Sukarno of Indonesia
threatened to withdraw from the UN, but had second thoughts about it
The decolonization process, which the UN promoted, in some cases
after bloody anti-colonial wars, put an end to wars of territorial seizure
in general. (West Bank and Kuwait were exceptions.) Decolonization
led to greater legitimacy of the UN, added to its membership and
delegitimized war for imperial possessions. The UN in which more than
two-thirds of the membership is drawn from ex-colonial territories is not
the body its creators had in mind, but the present system of universal
representation of the globe has tended to contain to a considerable extent
inter- and intra-state wars and violence and even localized regional
conflicts. The UN did play an active role in the struggle against apartheid,
though the long struggle did not reflect much credit on those nations
which today preach loudly on human rights. The UN's achievements are
particularly notable in areas which are not spectacular, but all the same
remarkable. The Law of the Sea established the concept of the common

396 Slteddhtg Sllibboletlu
heritage of humanity. The declaration of human righ1ll proclaimed the

equality of all h\1Dl8D beings in principle irrespective of religion, colom
and ethnicity. The consciousness of human rights has 11ignificantly
advanced gender equality. The functional agencies of the UN, such as
FAO, WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, ICAO, and IMO, have done exemplary
work without much fanfare. UNCTAD and UNDP have cootnbutcd signi-
ficantly to development programmes and indirectly to poverty alleviation.
In other words, wherever the UN is not dominated by the former or
present imperialist powers, it has done fairly well.
In an incmisingly interdependent and multipolar world, the need to
strengthen the UN mechanism becomes even greater now than in the
past, as also the need for multilateral and bilateral political alliances as
against military-dominated alliances. The UN Charter has an even greater
relevance in the changing landsc"(IC, though it needs radical updating.

40
A Polyrentric World
On 31 July 1993, BBC-Asia broadcast a futuristic scenario for the year

2013, worked out by a think-tank. In the feature, by AD 2013, the Euro
Federation (led by Gennany) very nearly comes into armed conflict with
the North American bloc led by the US over Arctic oil resources. Japan
rearms to become a third superpower and a rival to the other two.
Earlier in May, the US Ambassador to the European Community,
James Dobbins, in an address to the Centre for European Policy Studies
in Brussels, said that ''Toe American people, in my judgement, are unlikely
to support long-term US troop commitments to Europe if they see its
pwpose as protecting rich prosperous Europeans against two bit outlaws
like Serbs." He emphasized that for a European defence force to become
a reality, it was necessary that all the major European countries should
be prepared to send their young men abroad to fight and to die if necessary
for a European cause, under a European flag and within a European
command On 25 May 1993, the international media carried the statement
of an unnamed senior official of the US State Department that from then
on the US would not seek to exercise leadership on every issue arising in
the international system and would prefer to be selec.tive and leave the
initiative in some of them to other actors-words to that effect. (The
statement was probably made by an Under Secretary of State or the
Deputy Secretary of State.) The next day, the Secretary of State, Warren
Christopher, himself is reported to have telephoned correspondents of
leading US newspapers to set right the impression created by this
statement. .
In the late 1980s, the RAND Corporation came out with a report on
the relative decline of the western economic and military power over the
next two decades. It said, ''Non-European economic powers display
economic growth and prominence relative to those of Western Europe."
It forecast that India, Brazil and Egypt would gain in relative power and
influence, besides Japan and China. The report pointed out that fifteen

398 Sltaldutg SltibbokrJu
coomrics tog,edia-USA. USSR. J..,-i, Oina, Wesa Ge.army, UK,

France, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt, Btazil, Arga4ioa
and Mcxie<>--<:Urm1tly producm two-diinls of !he global product. In the
1980s, !he national products of India, Korea, Taiwan. Turkey, Brazil
and Argentina combined c:omtilnled 70 per cent of!hal of West Guii4Hij,
France and UK combincd; ·by 2010, !he figurc w estioillkJ to bcoicne
118 per cent. According to World Bmk ptojcdiom, hy AD 2020, the
seven largest ccoocmics of !he world will ·be die US, {],ina, Japan,
India, C,ermany, Indonesia and .l(<JrQ. In ocher words, me out of d!ffle
G-7 will be in Asia. In total ccooomic weight they are likely lo far
outweigh the US in !he inlemationa1 community.
As the Asian ecooomics grow, they are likely to avat !heir respcx,tivc
national interests. These interests will be relaled iDcrcasingly lo ccooomic
rather than the military realm. The sense of lhreal arising out of militaJy
interaction is likely to diminish, and the lhreals will be seen more in !he
technological sphere. The US has disputes with more major powers OD
economic and technological issues than any other COUDlly.
The US strategic framework does DOI lake into account Russia and
India as Asian powers with significant influence OD future Asiaft balance
of power. Nor does ii look al the Central Asian and Gulf issues as part of
an integral Asian balan«: of power game but as isolaled issues to be
tackled by the US. If these factors are brought into coosideration, the
major interaction of the first half of the twenty-first century will not be
on the Pacific rim but on the mainland of Asia There will be ec;ooomic,
technological and strategic interactions among these major Asian powers,
independent of the US.
In an Adelphi Paper (published by the USS, London) "A US strategy
for the Asia-Pacific", Douglas Stuart and William Tow argued th.at Asia
was becoming loo powerful to be controlled by the US and the US
military pre-eminence in the region would decline over the next decade.
They urged that the US should use its residual influence in Asia over the
next ten years to help sponsor region-wise institutions to resolve potential
military conflicts and promote economic and political cooperation. They
accepted that the region bad already become the new centre of gravity in
the world economy, and Asian states were increasingly asserting their
interests and were more willing to challenge US policies that affect the
Asia-Pacific. They warned that Washington would have difficulty
advancing its interests if it clung to the system of military alliances in the
Asia-Pacific, initialed in 1951 to send a deterrent message.

A Polycentric World 399
It is generally recogniud that the hegemonic power of the US, which

in 1945 emerged as the world's foremost military, technological, financial
and agricultural power, has diffused. The increasing erosion of the utility
of military power and war as an instrument of policy places higher
premium on political and economic power as instruments of policy.
Technologically, the main rivals of the US are Japan and West Germany.
Financially, the US has turned from the largest creditor country to the
largest debtor in the world. Agriculturally, a number of countries are
able to produce surpluses to compete with the US. Politically, the UN
General Assembly is influenced by the large number of decoloniud
developing nations. The EU as a body will pose a major challenge to the
US. Though Japan, Western Europe and the US are military allies, there
are likely to be increasing conflicts of interest in technological and
commercial terms. A world where the US and Canada are a trading
community, the EU unifying further, and Japan in competition with them
looking for new markets, will afford lemling developing countries a vastly
greater flextl>ility and freedom to manoeuvre. With the multiplicity of
power centres, there will be a trend for each centre to form clusters of
nations around itself in the name of regional cooperation. The US will
gather the western hemisphere natiom; the EU, Eastern Europe and Africa;
and Japan, South East Asia, with consequent parochialisms.
At the end of World War II, the US emerged as the richest and.most
powerful nation of the world, and the only nation with nuclear weapons.
The Gulf War in 1991 showed how much the power configuration had
changed·over the intervening five decades. To fight this war against a
medium-size developing nation-with no tradition of military profession-
alism and which had to import most of its weapons and ammunition-
the US had to be financed by contributions from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Germany and Japan. The Gl,ilf crisis highlighted the limitations of the
US as a military power. This time the US did not act on its own as it did
in Korea in 1950, in Vietnam in the 1960s and in other cases of inter-
vention in the developing world. By invoking the Security Council to act
against Iraq, the US placed itself pro forma under the discipline of the
UN procedures. This welcome .change was not so much a change of
heart and acceptance of international norms of behaviour by the US, but
a realization of the limits of its own military power.
The US military establishment had been preparing for an operation in
West Asia since 1979, when the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) was
fonned. It was planned that by fiscal 1989, the RDF would consist of

400 Slteddi11g Sllibbokdu
three aircraft carrier battle groups, one amplnllious lady group, ten
tactical fighter wings, two marine amplnbious forces groups and five
combat divisions, and in all 440,000 persoonel. The pace, however, was
slower than was planned. Though the probability of the US raoiting to
the military option was steadily increasing everyday, a certain reh"111!«'
of the US leadership was easily discernible.
The British, French and other empires were Yeotiated systems in the
nineteenth and part of the twentieth century. Stalin and Mao .2edong
tried to promote their brand of imperial systems, and that, too, evoked an
appeal ;,i many parts of the world outside their countries. The US success-
fully led the West European COlllltries and a large number of developing
countries over the last half century and, tbctefore, it is but natural, with
the collapse of the rival pole in the hitherto bipolar system, that they
attempt to promote a unipolar world
Attempting to bring as many principalities or nations as possible under
one umbrella and keep peace among them has been II dacam of various
etnperors in histoay. Toe British called it "the white man's burden" and a
Mcivilizing mission". Citiz.ens of the metropolises of these empi:tes, particu-
larly the British and the French then becoming increasingly democratiz.ed,
were persuaded to believe that they were doing a good tum to those in
the colonies at some cost to themselves. They felt gratified that they
were discharging an internationalist and humanitarian obligation. They
also had their admirers. Goethe and Beethoven for quite some time were
admirers of Napoleon; Hitler, too, had many supporters in Europe. Stalin
and Mao pretended they were heading an irreversible international
ideology and many, all over the world, believed them and some even
sacrificed their lives for the Great Cause. In India, we have the concept
ofSarva Bhouma and the Chinese their Son of Heaven ruling over Middle
Kingdom with tributary relationships with other nations. Those were the
days before the transportation and communication revolutions. Today,
in the age of instant commllllication, the concept has logically moved
towards llllipolar world. Toe metropolitan state of the Middle Kingdom
is replaced by the "indispensable nation" which distinguishes itself from
the rest of the world of dispensable nations.
Toe American unipolar regime pennits a large measure of autonomy
to other nations, subject to safeguarding the higher standard of living for-
the US citizens, and military, economic and technological dominance
over the international system. Most Americans would consider this
arrangement a benign suzerainty. Toe best brains from all over the world

A Polycenlric World 401
are coopted into the US. Therefore the common American wonders why
is not the world grateful to them for their undertaking this task of
promoting unipolarity in the interest of peace, stability and prosperity
for the entire humanity, only reserving the superior standard of living to
the American people and international decisio11-mak:ing on economic,
commercial, military and techoologica.1 spheres in the hands of the US.
The Americans do not think their demand is unreasonable.
The problem is that the Chinese, the Russians, the French, the lodians
and in a muted manner the Germans and the Japanese call this hegemooism
and find it •rnaruptable. 1bey invoke some ideas, which were originally
sponsored by the Americans, tll8t there should be their own representation
in any decisiora-mak:ing binding them. There must be checks and balances
in international governance as in national ones. Five per cent of the
world's population should not make decisions binding on the rest of the
95 per cent without fully involving them and giving weightage to them.
In history, the imperial system endured when there was a balance of
power or when the system bad no immediate rival capable of challenging
it. A unipolar system covering the entire globe is without precedent. The
US cannot resort to war to punish a rival like China or Western Europe.
While the US economy will continue to be the most sophisticated one,
with the rise of China and other Asian economies, the US share of global
economy is bound to decline. Even as the US maintains its lead in techno-
k>gy, with the rise in the skills of the Asian people there is every possibility
that its lead will narrow. The US may be able to sustain its role as leader
for the next few decades, but its weight compared to the combined weight
of other powers which resent US unipolarity will certainly go down. As
its share of world trading shrinks, its dominance over rule-making for
world trading is bound to suffer. The role of global policeman, which is
implied in unipolarity, is beyond the United States' resources and
capabilities. Empires decline when they overstretch themselves.
•••
•
In tandem with the growth of a multipolar world are the growing limits
oo sovereignty that recent decades have demonstrated A clear instance
of this was during the coup directed against Gorbachev io the erstwhile
Soviet Union in 1991.
At the time, India, China and Vietnam declared that the happenings
there were an internal affair to be settled by the people of that nation.

The memben of the EU and NATO, however, openly came out in support
of President Gorbachev and demanded his restoration to power. Getiil>vlY
was cautious since the Soviet troops were still on its soil, but others
openly took s\des. Though the Chinese were meticulously concct, their
sympathies were obviously with the hardliners. Iraq and Libya did not
hide their glee at Gorbachev'• fall. In the event, the coup failed and
President Gorbachev was back at the helm. As far back as the 1930s,
Jawaharlal Nehru approved of an international brigade being raised to
fight for democracy on the Spanish Republican side against General
Franco. He condemned the non-interventionist attitude of the British
government, which in effect meant passively allowing a democratic
country being subverted. He as Prime Minister of independent India
proclaimed that in case freedom was in peril or justice was denied, India
would not be neutral. He did not hesitate to denounce the authoritarian
takeovers in Nepal and Pakistan.
The Socialist COW1tries during the Brezhnev era adopted the doctrine--
named after him-of limited sovereignty. There were interventions in
Hungary, Czechoslovakia and attempted intervention in Poland in the
name of international socialist st>lidarity. The Islamic coontries blatantly
interfere in the internal affairs of other nations under the justification of
upholding the interests and welfare of the Ummah. The US and the
western democracies use the human rights issue as leverage to intervene
in other nations' internal affairs. Major powers have not been inhibited
in the past from initiating action against other nations or from supporting
a particul31 side in civil conflict situations. The US baS also reserved to
itself the right of intervention in the countries of the western hemisphere.
US interventions in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Nicaragua and .
Panama are well known. The French have intervened in a number of
Francophone African countries, Chad being the best known; Gabon,
Benin, Central African Republic, Djibouti and Comoros were less well
known. France keeps a dedicated intervention force for use in Franco-
phone African countries. The British, after decoloniz.ation, responded to
calls for help from Mauritius and Kenya.
Instances of developing nations resorting to such interventions were
Syria in Lebanon; Cuba in Angola; Egypt in Yemen; Iran in Oman;
Turkey in Cyprus; Libya in Chad; India in Nepal (1952), Sri Lanka
(1971), and Maldives (1989); and South Africa in many of its neighbours.
Israel intervenes almost like a major power without worrying about the
UN or international opprobrium.

A Polycentric World 403
There have also been many covert interventions. Well-documented

successful CIA exploits were toppling Mossadegb of Iran, AJ'benz in
Guatemala, Lumumba of Congo, and Allende in Chile. Less well known
Soviet exploits were toppling Rubaiya Ali in Yemen aod Sardar Daud in
Afghanistan. The international community bad been demanding inter-
vention in South Africa and brought about sanctions. At that stage some
countries used to argue that such sanctions were counterproductive.
The doctrine of non-intervention in other nations' internal affairs was
no doubt meant for the protection of smaller and weaker nations against
the actions of the larger and more i,owerful ones, and found a place in
the UN Charter. It is one of the five principles of Panch Shila. The Non-
Aligned Movement repeatedly stressed non-intervention in the domestic
affairs of nations during the cold war era. But in today's increasingly
integrating and highly intemationali7.Cd community of states, which have
adopted the human rights declaration, it is difficult to maintain that we
are not at all concerned with what is happening in the domestic politics
of other nations. Can we with any credibility take the line that India is
neutral between authoritarianism and democracy, military dictatorship
and popular rule, and theocratic regimes and secular societies? That
would be a mockery of our commitment to democracy and secularism.
There is a vast gap between the profession on intervention in domestic
affairs and reality. There is also a vital difference between the expression
of preference and even commitment to certain values, and actual interfer-
etice in other nations' domestic affairs.
Some experts in international law have pointed out that where a
situation in a nation spills over its boundaries and threatens international
peace, the UN has the necessary jurisdictiQn even under the present
Charter to intervene. India's intervention in Bangladesh in 1971 and air-
dropping of food supplies on Jaffua in 1987 were justified on similar
grounds. So also Tan7JlJlian military action to topple ldi Amin and the
UN intervention in the Congo in the 1960s. There has been significant
evolution in the concept of domestic jurisdiction since the UN Charter
was drafted. The adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights by the
Ul'.-1, issues of ecological pollution across borders, global ecological
damage, narcotics traffic, international terrolism and narco-terrorism,
money laundering of drug proceeds, evolution of concepts of women's
and children's rights, dealing with global epidemics, etc. are slowly
extending the jurisdiction of the international community at the expense
of exclusivity of domestic jurisdiction of nations.

During the colonial days, when imperial rule was defended on the
ground that it provided good govemmeot for the people of the colonial
countries, the nationalist reply used to be that good government was no
substitute for self-government. In recent years, the industrial powers have
started to prescribe criteria of good governance for eligibility for aid.
The Japanese put forward these principles as cooditionalities for Pakistan
in the early 1990s. The German authorities were expounding the same.
The G-7 countries, too, seemed to have decided upon this common
approach. At the Commonwealth summit in Harare where Britain and
Canada pressed for the adoption of this criterion. the Malaysian Prime
Minister criticized this new intrusion in the internal affairs of developing
countries. Though this is an attempt by the western democratic powers
to mould and shape the international community to conform to their
values, it constitutes a significant departure from their earlier policy,
when any tyrant could obtain large-scale financial and military support
from them ifbe declared himself to be anti-communist.
Intervention of the type against Iraq ( 1991), following its aggression
against Kuwait, is a unique case. Saddam Hussein managed to unite
most of the world against himself. Any other leader of a developing
nation showing himself to be as aggressive and mindless as be did, is
unlikely. That kind of intervention may, therefore, be ruled out. There
are four other categories. The first is peace enforcement. This would call
for military intervention in a civil war situation, as in former Yugoslavia.
The second is a peacekeeping intervention, where a force is introduced
between two warring factions to separate them and keep them separated
when they have agreed to a cease-fire. The UN has undertaken this in the
past. The third type of intervention is economic sanctions. The last is the
intervention of the type France undertakes in Francophone countries or
the US did in Grenada. In all these interventions, the intervening party
will have to consider the cost of its action against the stake in restoring
peace. If the cost is likely to be very high, the probability is against
intervention. This happened when 250 marines were blown up in Lebanon.
The right to legislate for the lifestyle, interpersonal and inter- and
intra-organintional aspects of its own people is the crux of sovereignty.
It was generally expressed through defence and foreign policies. After
decolonization, economic development policies too became major
vehicles of projecting sovereignty. Currency and tariff barriers are visible
symbols of a nation's sovereignty. Now there is a tendency towards
integration. Nations demonstrating this trend are surrendering a part of

A PolycenJric World 405
their sovereignty to a European parliament. They are agreeing to

harmonize their foreign and defence policies into a common one. They
(except the British) are also adopting a common social charter. They are
also agreeing on a common currency and setting up a single central bank
(about which the British have reservations). All the European countries
are now members of the CSCE, where the region's security problems are
discussed before taking collective action. Also, more countries from
Eastern Europe and Nordic areas are keen to join the European Union.
The world of today is shrinking. It is easier to reach capitals of other
nations than some parts of one's own country. The transportation and
information revolution have brought peoples of nations together and made
perishable consumer goods of one country available in others. One
country's newspapers are read in other nations' capitals early in the
morning, and more newspapers are printed and distributed transnationally.
TV is another medium breaking barriers. No country can fix the value of
its currency ignoring the rest of the world Tariff barriers have to be
negotiated. Legislation of one country influences that of its neighbours.
Global trade negotiations and arms limitations are eroding certain vital
conventional notions ofsovereignty. The UN has been a solvent ofsover-
eignties. The concepts of crime against humanity, universal declaration
of human rights, global conventions on ozone depletion, climate change
and biodiversity are further catalysing the dissolution of sovereignty. A
continent-size state like the Soviet Union could not ~thstand tbe pressw-es
of this globaliz.ation process, and collapsed. China, too, has to adjust to
this process.

41
~ehru's wntribution
to Strategic Thinking
In a polyccntric world, where Iodia'lt inl>clleot suc:ngdn

are incn:asingly being acknowledged to reckon It amoog tbe major powas,
it is a pleasant surprise to recall that Nehru bad his peaspective right
even before the cold war started. He wrote in Tl,e Dtscovery of India,
which be penned in AlvnNfnapr prison:
Forpuina pieaent problems then for a while and looting ahead, India emerges
• a 11trong united state, a federation of free uoits ultimatelr ~-•«hid with our
oeigjlboun and playing an imponant part in- world affiiin. She is one of the very
few C011111ries, which have the resources and capacity to stand on their own feet.
Today probably the only such countries are United States and the Soviet Union:
China and India are potentially capable of joining the group. No ocher country
taktn singly apart from these four actually are potentially in such a position. It is
pouible of coune that large federations or groups of nations may emeige in
Eluope or ellewbere and form huge multina!ional Sllltes.
In the years following August 1947, in attempting to build a hl>eral
parliamentary democracy in the Indian nation-state, Nehru faced a
daunting task. He had to use force to quell the communal riots. He bad to
dispatch the Army to Kashmir to prevent the Pakistani raiders ovemmning
the state. (He had the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi.in the use of military
force in Kashmir., Again, the Army bad to be used to foil the Nimn's
attempt to secede from India. Nehru bad to face large-scale riots for the
separation of Andhra, on the Maharashtra-Gujarat-Bombay issue and on
the question ofBengalis in Assam. Secessionism made itself felt in Tamil
Nadu, Kashmir, and Napland There were terrible food shortages in
1951- 52 in the South and, subsequently, in the North. The countzy faced
a severe balance of payments crisis in 195~57 and subsequently. Over
and above all these factors were the rising external threats from China
and the arming of Pakistan by the US. The western powers sided with
Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Up to 1952 India also bad to face
communist insurgencies. After 1956, when the Congress party passed

Nehru 's Contribution to Strategic Thinking 407
the "socialist pattern of society" resolution, the emergence of the Swatantra

party signalled the opposition to centraliz.ed planning-die pernlit, licence,
quota raj, as Rajaji ·called it. There were also fears about Nehru not
getting a worthy successor.
In all these daunting circumstances, India was able to sustain itself as
a democracy and build itself in conditions of relative stability because
Nehru adapted India to·the changing cm.umstances. When sections of
our people were advocating Stalinism and Maoism, others were denounc-
ing multi-party democracy as a western value not suited to India, and
there were strong advocacies for either totally controlled economy or
free market, Nehru steered the country along an optimal middle path of
democracy and mixed economy. In the period after 1958 he was intensely
· interested in decentralization and Panchayati raj as a means of taking
democracy down to the grassroots level. In terms of economic policy, at
that stage India could not have had a complete free market economy.
G.D. Birla went to the US in 1963 to plead for Bokaro Steel Plant in the
public sector since Indian private sector at that stage could not afford
such large investment. Pakistan, which allowed foreign investment in the
I950s and '60s, did not accomplish large-scale industrialization. Nor
had Iran and Turkey been able to industrialize like the East Asian Tigers
much later. There is, therefore, no basis to argue that the Indian decisions
ofthe 1950s and '60s were wrong and alternative strategies would have
led to faster industrialization.
The Nehruvian vision and the policies of linguistic states, secularism,
reservations for Dalits, tribals and backward classes, focus on develop-
ment and a functioning democratic government helped to consolidate the
Indian nation-state. In Tamil Nadu, the secessionist feelings ebbed away
as the people agitating for separation found that they could reach power
through the ballot box. Permitting the Communist parties to function
freely and to get elected to office also resul.ted in their staying on the
parliamentary road Secularism was, on the whole, an antidote, though
not a totally effective one, to communalism playing havoc with politics.
In the early years of independence, Nehn• made it clear that no Foreign
Minister would deserve to be in office unless he conducted the foreign
policy of the country keeping in view its national interests. He felt that
the cold war was not an ideological one between capitalism and commun-
ism, as it was claimed to be, but more a power struggle, and the gap
between the two ideological systems was bound to get bridged. Nehru
stands vindicated as against Mao Zedong, who asserted that no third
road was available and that a choice had to be made between communism

408 Sliedding Slubbokth.s
and capitalism. Nehru also said that while he would try to keep the
country out of a war, in case it was difficult to keep out of a major war,
India would join that side which safeguarded its interests. He had decried
and refused foreign military assistance for India during the 1950s; but
when the Chinese attacked India he accepted military assistance from
the US, UK and the Commonwealth countries. Nehru was clear in his
mind tlw Indian foreign policy would be determined by Indian .national
interest and not by ideology. His initial silence on the Soviet action in
HlDlgaiy (he subsequently denounced it mildly), and India not voting
against the USSR in the Security Council were linked up with India's
need for the Soviet veto in the Security Council on the Kashmir issue.
India followed a similar policy of not condemning the Soviet Union in
the UN when that country invaded C:zecboslovakia. When the Soviet
Union intervened in Afgbani!QD in 1979 India abstained from a vote on
the resolution condemning that country.
In grand strategic terms, Nehru's greatest contribution was the doctrine
of non-alignment, which was more than a foreign·policy concept and bad
elements of national security considerations as well. It was non-alignment
tbBt made it possible for India in 1962 to receive military aid both from
the West as well as from the Soviet Union. Non-alignment over a period
of time reduced the initial hostility of the Stalinist Soviet Union towards
India. Nehru also foresaw that in spite of the Soviet Union's hostility of
that time, its being our neighbour would in due course lead to our
undertaking commoo tasks with them. From the mid-I 950s the Soviet
Union and India moved closer to each other as they came to reali1" the
nature of Maoist China's ambitions.
Nehru's second most important contribution was his equation of
defence. He clarified this formulation in his speech in the Lok Sabha on
21 March 1956:
What is the equation of defence? In what lies the strength of a people for
defeoce? Well, one thinks immediately about defence fon:es--army, navy, air
force. Perfectly right. They are the spear points of defeoce. They have to bear
the brunt of any attack. How do they exist? What are they based on? The more
technical armies and navies and air forces get, the more important becomes the
industrial and technological base of the country. You may import a machine or
an aircraft or some other highly technical weapon and you may even teach
somebody to use it, but that is a very superficial type of defence because you
have not got the technological background for it. If spare parts go wrong, your
whole machine is useless. If somebody from whom you bought it refuses to
supply a part of it, it becomes useless, so that in spite of your independence you
become dependent on others, and very greatly so.

.
From that point of view probably there are very few countries in the world
that are really independent, able to stand on their own fet'I against the military
strength of others. Therefore, apart from the army, navy and so on, you have to
have an industrial and technological background in the country. ...
The equation of defence is your defence forces plus your industrial and
technological background, plus, thirdly, the economy oftbe country, and fourthly,
the spirit of the people.
Did Nehru neglect defence preparedness? Between 1949-50 and 1962
the strength of the Indian armed forces almost doubled, from 280,000 to
550,000. The Indian Air Force with seven combat squadrons at the
beginning of Independence expanded to 19 squadrons by 1962. During
this period India acquired through imports the following items of major
equipment:
Air Force
230 Vampire aircraft produced under licence from UK in India
104 Toofani aircraft from France
182 Hunter fighter-bombers from UK
80 Canberras from UK
110 Mysteres from France
55 Fairchild Packets from USA
16 An-12s from the Soviet Union
26 Mi-4 helicopters from the Soviet Union
Navy
3 R-class destroyers
3 Hunt-class destroyers
2 Cruisers
3 Leopard-class frigates
3 Blackwood-class frigates
2 Whitny class anti-submarine frigates
I Aircraft carrier
Army
180 Sherman tanks from the US (Though they were of World War II
vintage, with upgradation they were serviceable even in the war of
1965.)
over 300 Centurion tanks (to equip an armoured division)
164 AMX-13 tanks (with 75 mm high-velocity guns pw-chased from
France)
Simultaneously efforts were made to establish a defence production

410 SMddulg Sliibboleths
bue and license-manufacture facilities in India were obtained from foreign

countries for the following equipment
Gnat interceptor aircraft ~ UK
HS-748 transport aircraft from UK
Allouette belicopters from France
MiG interceptors from the Soviet Union1
L-70 anti-aircraft gwi ftom Sweden
Vijayanta tank from UK-
Sbaktiman trucks from Germany and Nissan one-ton truck and
Jonga-jeeps from Japan
Brandt mortars from France
106 mm recoilless guns from USA
Sterling carbines from UK
Avro transpon.aircraft
Wireless sets from different countries.
Thanks t.o the five-year plans Nehru initiated and the foundations for
defence R&D and production he laid, the country is today a significant
military factor and to a great degree this has been achieved by following
essentially the path he prescribed, namely, to develop the industrial and
technological strength and the economy and to build the military
capabilities on these pillars. Our nuclear and missile capabilities, which
no doubt have considerable military significance, were derived mostly
from civilian technologies, and, thereby, the country avoided large and
wasteful investments in solely military-oriented R&D programmes.
At the time Nehru formulated his equation of defence in 1956, and
later following the Chinese aggression, there was considerable pressure .
on him to sbengthen the country's defences th.rough large-~e import
of military equipment In 1956 following Pakistan's absorption !nto
western military alliances and the known plans of the US to equip
Pakistani forces with modem equipment, there was considerable concern
I. Nehru initiated the development of the first Indian supersonic aircraft in the
Hindustan Aircraft Factory, Bangalore the HF-24 Marut. That it was not pursued
vigorously further was a different story and the next Indian-designed supersonic
aircraft bad its test flight in January 200 I, 37 years after his death. Tom: were al.so
delays in obtaining self-loading rifles. Partly this was due to decision-making delays
in the Anny HQ. So was the case in obtaining the manufacturing licence for 120 mm
Brandt mortar. However, the Anny was short on transport and signal equipment. The
first was due to the Anny's refusal to accept Tata's TMB lrucks as they were not
four-wheel drive and Defence Minister Krishna Menon 's avcnion to the Indian private
sector.

in the country. Similarly, in 1962, following the Chinese aggression,

some influential voices advocated that the country should switch over to
full defence mobilization and development plans must be deferred.
To his great credit, Nehru stuck to his approach of the symbiotic
relationship between defence and development even after the Chinese
attack, when there was considerable pressure on him to cut down on ~
five-year developmental plan. As he explained to the meeting of the
National Development Council on 4 November 1962:
For people to say that the Plan must be largely scrapped because we have
trouble and invasion to face bas no meaning to me. It shows an utter misunder·
mmdiog of the situation. It is war effort that requires the Plan.
The basis of the Plan is to strengthen the nation, and to increase production.
Nothing is required more than production when you have such a problem to
face. I am leaving out the military aspect, which is for our experts and soldiers to
deal with. But the civil aspect is an essential part of any war effort of this kind.
The civil aspect is important, production is important, training of technical
personnel is important.
It becomes important to look at the Plan as an essential part of our effort.
Therefore all idea of giving up the Plan, which some people in their short-
sightedness suggest, is very wrong. However, we shall have to examine the
Plan, stick to essentials and somewhat slow down those things that are not
essential now.
He reiterated this approach in the Lok Sabha on 8 November 1962
while moving the resolution on the Chinese aggression. He said:
What is war effort? People think of the soldiers on the front, which is perfectly
right. They are bearing the bnmt of the danger. But in the kind of struggle in
which we are involved, every peasant in the field is a soldier and every worker
in the factory is a soldier. Our war effort essentially, apart from the IICIUal
fighting done, is in ever greater production in the field and the factory. · It is an
effort which depends greatly on our development. Today, we are much more in a
position to make that kind of effort in the field and the factory than ten or twelve
years ago. We are not still adequately developed. I hope this very crisis will
make us develop more rapidly.
Anyhow, we have got to face this emergency and the way to face it is to
profit by it and march ahead with the development programme at a faster rate
than we might odlerwise have done. That is the way to look at it. This is the
aspect which we should lay stress on--«> profit by the emergency and strengthen
OUtSelves. It is no doubt a menace that we have to face but there is another side
of it; it is one of the greatest opportunities that you have to raise the level of the
oatiou in every way.
It was mostly the equipment he had procured that stood us in good
stead during the Pakistani aggression in 1965. Similarly, when the country

412 Slieddbrg Sliibboleths
bad to augment its defence efforts following the Chinese aggression, he

did not hesitate to give up some of bis basic commitments for the sake of
national security and WU prepared to accept military aid from foreign
countries (free of cost), a step be bad always resisted up to 27 October
1962. Yet be maintained a basic balance between defence effort and
development. Subsequently, in 1965 when the country got embroiled in
a war, Nehru's basic idea was echoed by bis successor who attempted-
though it was not followed successfully-to give a defence orientation
to planning and gave the country a very expressive slogan, "Jai Jawan,
Jai J<isan".
Nehru's farsighted warning about dependence on foreign military
supplies was proved in September 1965, when the UN imposed an arms
embargo on both lodia, the victim of aggression and Pakistan, the
aggressor. Since Pakistan was even more reliant on external military
supplies than lodia that country came very close to military collapse
because of the embargo. That lodia failed to exploit that factor is a
different story.
Nehru's third most important contribution is through bis own stature,
personality, policies, and procedures be adopted which ensured that the
lodian armed forces would remain apolitical-a significant achievement
in the developing world of today. His unquestionable popularity among
the masses, bis institution building, bis style of handling of the democratic
institutions and bis keeping the armed forces away from the rough and
tumble of politics laid the foundation on which the entire civil-military
relations in lodia continue to be built. It was fortunate that most of bis
successors too were tall political leaders with unchallengeable legitimacy
except for a very short interval. The complexity oftbe lodian democratic
structure made it impossible for any thought to be entertained in any
quarter in the military to imitate some of our neighbours or nearly 50 out
of 100 newly decolonized regimes. Sufficient checks and balances were
built in terms of manpower policy and officer recruitment and training to
ensure that the armed forces would continue to be professional and
apolitical. ·
On the obverse side, however, Nehru failed to think through the
dimension of coercive diplomacy in the post- World War Il era. There
were very few among bis political colleagues, among civil servants (both
in defence and foreign ministries and in intelligence service) and among
military bureaucracy who could engage him in debate and stimulate and
shape bis thinking in that vital area. He did not himself initiate steps to
encourage such debate. He did communicate, but it was '8 one-way

Nehru's Conlribulion to Strategic Thinking 413
communication. He communicated his views, assessments, goals;

ambitions, values, etc. but did not listen. He and his colleagues never
bothered to have regular systematic briefing of intelligence assessments.
Had they done so, divergent views might have been expressed and the
assessment machinety might have done its job.
Also, having formulated the equation of defence in terms of the anned
forces' capabilities based on the country's economy and technology, and
having espoused centraliz.ed developmental planning, he failed to include
defence planning within the overall economic ·and technology planning
for the country. A rationale for this dichotomous approach is not to be
found in any of his writings or speeches. The only plausible explanation
is in the artificial delimitation of jurisdiction between the Planning
Commisllion (dealing with so-called Plan expenditure) and the Finance
Ministry and Finance Commission (dealing with all non-Plan expenditure).
In 1963 in his Rajya Sabha speech Nehru referred to the inadequacy of
transport for the armed services: there would have been no cause for
complaint if the production plan of civil and military road transport had
been planned in an integrated manner. The same is true of border roads
development and aviation industry. Sadly, this initial mistake, which is
an aberration from Nehru's equation of defence, had led to a mind-set
among our planners, and Lal Bahadur Shastri's efforts to give a defence
orientation to planning got derailed in 1967~8.

42
The lliusory
Disarmament Dividend
In 1981, a UN report on the relatiooship between disarm-

ament and development stated:
The world can either continue to pumie its race with characteristic vigour
8J1llS
or move comci0111ly and with deliberate speed towanls more S13ble and balanced
social and economic development within a more sustainable international
economic and political order. It cannot do both. It must be acknowledged that
the arms race and development are in a competitive relatinmbip, particularly in
terms of resources but also in the vital dimension of attitudes and pm:eptions.
Conventional thinlcing used to be that if the industrialized nations,

which spend around 85 per cent of the world's military expenditure,
were to cut back on anns, those resources could become available for
developing nations to accelerate their development Some suggested that
the money saved could be applied to alleviate the debt problem of heavily
indebted developing countries. The then French President Giscard
d'Estaing suggested, in the first UN special session on disarmament, a
levy on countries which were spending heavily on armaments. This levy,
be said, should be made available for the development of developing
nations. The final document of the UN conference on the relationship
between disannament and development, held in New Yode during August-
September 1987, stated:
Resources released as a result of disarmament measures should be devoted to
the promotion of the well-being of all peoples, the improvement of the economic
gap between developed and developing countries. These resources should be
additional to those otherwise available for assistance to developing countries.
The release of additional resources for the civilian sector is in the interest of
both industrialized and developing countries, as it would mean the stimulation
of economic erowth. trade and investment. Among developing countries, this
could also mean additional resources to meet pressing socio-economic needs,
while in the developed countries it could contribute to the achievement of the
goals of social welfare. However, worlcing towards the release of resources
--.,
The lllusory Disannamem Dividend 41 5
through disarmament is not enough; an intemanooal development strategy is a

vital stabilizing element in international relations.
Toe disarmament dividend may be obtained in a variety of forms. These
could include trade expansion, technological transfers, the more efficient
utilization of global resources, the more effective and dynamic international
division of labour, the reduction of public debt and budgetary deficits, and
increased flows of resources through development assistance, commercial and
other private flows or transfers of resources to the developing countries.
During the conference itself some developed countries made it clear
that there could be no guarantee on the level of resources that would be
transferred to develop~g countries. When they expressed this reservation,
cuts in defence expenditure were not realistically anticipated. But now
that reduction in defence expenditure is becoming a reality, what are the
chances of transfer of resources?
For the US, the first priority will be to reduce its budgetary deficit with
the new resources available. Russia will apply its resources to alleviat.e
its harsh economic conditions. For the West, economic aid by way of
credits and investments to the East European COlllltries in their imme-
diate neighbourhood would have a higher priority than assistance to the
developing world American and West German participants in a seminar
held in Delhi on I November 1989 involving participants from India,
USA and West Germany, made this abundantly clear. Some developing
countries fear that the focus on East.em Europe may be at the expense of
the present level of ODA (official development assistance) flowing to
developing COlllltries. In the US, some quarters expect that with reduction
in defence spending and consequent budgetary deficit, the US economy
may be able to become more competitive vis-a-vis Germany and Japan.
After the end of World War II, the countries involved had to face the
problems of converting infrastructure from military to civilian use. The
US faced similar problems after the Korea and Vietnam Wars. Specific
problems also occurred when a large-scale weapon programme was
cancelled: Britain did when it cancelled the TSR-2 aircraft in the early
I 960s; the US when the B-1 bomber was cancelled during the Carter
Administration. In the west.em economies, such conversion is left entirely
to the market forces. Of late, as some West European countries have
started reducing their defence expenditure, governments are attempting
to discuss the problem of adjustment with the trade unions to ensure
minimum disruption.

416 Shedding Sliibboleths
In centrally planned economies, such as China and the USSR which

were also shortage afflicted, the attempt was to cany out such redeploy-
ment within the framework of planned production of civilian conswnption
goods. The result, however, was hardly dazzling, given the.absence of a
freely operating market mechanism and the poor knowledge ofmarketing
techniques in centrally planned economies.
For a long time, the issue of conversion of milit&Jy-related resorm:es
to civilian purposes remained largely academic, and a distant vision. But
after the Soviet Union cut its defence expenditure by 15 per cent, and
announced its objective of reducing its defence manpower by half a
million men, the US also reduced its defence outlay marginally in real
terms for fiscal year 1991; further cuts in defence expenditure were seen
as possible in the coming years. Reduction in the defence expenditure of
NATO and Warsaw Pact also took place.
The UN Centre for Disarmament convened a meeting of a small group
of experts at the UN headquarters on~ December 1989, on the problem
of conversion of milit&Jy industry and resources to civilian uses. This
was to be a preparatory conference to plan for an international conference,
to be held in Moscow, 26--30 June 1990. The participants came from the
US, the USSR, UK, West Germany, East Germany, Japan, Italy, Sweden,
India, Brazil, and the ILO.
The consensus in the meeting was that the problem was not an ethical
question of reducing defence expenditure in order to release resow-ces for
development, or one of progress towards general and complete disarma-
ment. Those very desirable developments were quite some way off. The
forthcoming modest reduction in defence expenditure was likely to
generate a number of opportunities that needed immediate attention. The
transition to a world of lesser annaments, desirable as it was, was not
cost-free.
An immediate issue was what was to be done with the armaments
retired. There would be strong temptation for some countries to sell their
surplus arms to the developing world for cash. This bad to be prevented.
(Discussions were already taking place for selling surplus MI-A2 tanks
to some developing countries to replace their MI-Al tanks)
Just like the INF missiles, conventional weapons could also be
destroyed under international verification, but the cost would be prohi-
bitive. The additional costs that the US and the USSR bad to incur in
destroying the INF missiles under verification were higher than the cost
of maintaining those missiles for a few years. Also, the destruction of
hundreds of missiles on the ground resulted in large-scale environmental

The Illusory Disannamenl Dividend 417
pollution. The people of the areas where the missiles were destroyed
would have none of it. What was to be done with the nuclear warheads
(the fissile material) retrieved from the missiles? The question was yet to
be decided. (There was a suggestion to bum them in civilian reactors.)
The Soviet Union announced the goal of cutting military manpower
by half a million, but the process was slow. Demobiliz.ed men and their
families had to be found alternative living accommodation and jobs.
Even in a thriving economy, creating half a million jobs virtually overnight
is a tall order, let alone a wobbling economy like the Soviet one in its
last days. There was already resentment among the demobiliud. This
was only the beginning; bigger manpower cuts by the Soviet Union and
East European countries were expected.
Alternative uses had to be found for various military-related facilities
such as barracks in military stations, naval and airfield facilities, storage
depots, etc. These tend to be away from civilian areas. Their conversion
would need forward planning.
In recent years, the military industry bas tended to become increasingly
specialiud. Military lines of production, therefore, are not easily convert-
ible to civilian lines of production. Some work had been done to identify
various analogous civilian technologies to which military industrial
personnel working in different defence industries could be transferred,
after some retTaining. But the factory, machinery and tooling would need
to be replaced for producing civilian goods. There would be a period of
gestation, when money would have to be spent on retraining and replacing
of plant and machinery and retooling, without any production of goods.
This would necessitate either a high domestic rate of savings and
investment or flow of foreign investments.
In the defence industry, the customers are solely the defence forces,
and the armed services determine the demand The new civil industries
would envisage a new relationship between the producers and customers,
and also in servicing follow-up. Competitive marketing techniques play
a vital role in determining the size of the market for civil products. The
problem would arise of employing highly specialized personnel, used to
rich remuneration.
This might induce technological mercenaries from the developed world
to migrate to affluent developing countries to help build sophisticated
weaponry, especially the oil-exporting and other relatively high GNP
developing nations. (One might recall the outflow of German technicians
to the US, USSR. Argentina and Egypt after World War II.)
•••
•

418 Slieddillg Shibboleths
The Human Development Report 1994, authored by the UNDP, says it

is difficult to ttack where the peace dividend funds went Developing
nations should have cumulatively saved some $125 billion during 1987-
94 on peace dividend, it says, but most of the savings appear to have
been committed to reducing budget deficit and to DOIHlevelopmental
expenditure rather than to social development or environmental improve-
ments. A working paper of the IMF, by Daniel P. Hewitt, entitled "Military
Expenditures: International comparison of trends" (May 1991), bas
answered the question:
Analysis of central government budgetary allocations from a more limited sample
consisting of over 50 developing countries indicates that many of these natiODS
lowered their military expenditure as a proportion of central government
expenditure in recent years. Owing in part to higher interest coscs, developing
nations bad to alter their allocations of central government expenditure between
different sectors in the l 980s. In general, governments accommodated the high
interest costs by both increasing overall central government expenditure somewhat
and reducing expenditure on other items--primarily military expendiiw-es and
expenditures on economic services. In contrast, social expenditures were insulated
from 1e11enchment in a majority of these countries. On au average the share of
social expenditure in the budget did not change and in many countries expenditure
on social services increased as a share both of the budget and the GDP.
In other words, most of the disarmament dividend was paid to the IMF
and other institutions, to repay debt instalments and interest.
India's defence expenditure, as percentage of GDP declined from
4.04 in 1986-87 to 2.4 in 1993-94; and as a share of central government
expenditure from 17.02 percent in 1987-88 to 14.69 percent in 1992-
93. What happened to the Indian disarmament dividend? It was swallowed
up by interest payments, which rose from .Rs 809 crore in 19804!1 to
Rs 7).97 crore in 1988-89, and Rs 20,064 crore in 1992- 93. The interest
on external debt rose froin Rs 1).42 crore in 1988-89 to Rs 3,622 crore
in I 992-93. Subsidies on fertilizers and food distributed through the
public distribution system rose from Rs 7,859 crore to Rs 10,188 crore
in the revised expenditure for 1992-93. Since the budget deficit rose
from Rs 5,504 crore to Rs 11,486 crore in 1990-91, and came down to
Rs 9,060 crore in 1992-93, all savings on defence were more than offset
by the budgetary deficits. According to the Economic Survey 1993-94,
the developmental outlay as percentage of GDP fell from 34.6 in 1989--
90 to 33.2 in 1990-91, and 32.4 in 1991-92. The new plan outlay on
social services came down from 2 per cent in 1989-90 to 1.8 per cent
next year and I. 7 per cent in the year after. These are the compulsions
on debtor nations like India. Even creditor nations like Saudi Arabia
·,
The Illusory Disamuunem Dividend 419
have turned into debtor nations because of their heavy defence

expenditure.
••••
Reduction of existing arms will not result in a reversal of the arms race
and long-tenn defence cuts unless development of new weapons is
discontinued under international verification. Opposing such verification
will be military-industrial complexes, and lobbies of highly skilled R&D
personnel earning high salaries in defence research. It has been estimated
that defence R&D engages more than a quarter of R&D personnel all
over the world, and incurs a larger share of R&D expenditure globally.
If the industrialized nations do indeed move in the direction of increasing
arms reduction and cooperation, developing nations will have to follow
suit. But that day is perhaps light years away, for the following reasons:
I. The arms expenditure in the developing world is highly skewed. Of

over a hundred developing nations, most of the military spending in
terms of aggregate expenditure is concentrated in some two dozen nations,
a significant proportion of them being the oil-exporting nations and those
with relatively high per capita GNP. Most of them rely on import of
arms from developed nations. Nations like China, France and Sweden have
been arms suppliers not in pursuit of policy but for commercial earnings.
2. An overwhelming majority of developing nations face inter- and
intra-state tensions. This problem is likely to persist for quite ~me time.
3. For most developing countries, defence expenditure relates to
military personnel and import of arms, and most of them have an acute
problem of unemployment. Any hasty decision to reduce armed forces,
the most organized force in these countries, may result in seizure of state
power by the armed forces. Half of the developing nations are already
under military or military-dominated governments.
4. Among developing countries only China and Taiwan, India and
Pakistan, North and South Koreas, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Brazil and Argentina
have significant defence industrial potential. (Israel and South Africa have
not been counted among developing countries.) Except the two Latin
American countries, the others have major unresolved security problems
for which negotiated settlements have to be found independent of reduc-
tion of tension in the industrialized world. This development, devoutly
to be hoped for, will take time to come about. When it does, the lessons
of conversion of the industrialized world would apply to them as well.
Original from
43
The Futility of War
In the wake of the Napoleonic wars, the German strategist

Karl von Clausewitz fonnulated the maxim often quoted by politicians
and military men: "War is nothing but the continuation of politics with
the admixture of other means." The politics that he meant was international
politics conducted by the rulers. Nation-states were then just evolving.
Germany had not even unified nor Italy. The sole function of the rulers
was to provide security from external and internal threats. Almost all
states, with the exception of the United States on the other side of the
Atlantic, were monarchies, including France after the Revolution. War
became politics by other means to those rulers who were pursuing an
aggressive policy vis-a-vis other states. At that stage of evolution of
technology and strategy of war, it was a limited affair between forces
mobilized by two states. The battlefield was generally outside inhabited
areas, and there were few non-combatant casualties and little collateral
damage to property. Once an armed force of one side was defeated, the
victor could threaten to impose unbearable suffering on the defeated
people through pillage, loot, murder, and rape if they did not accept his
terms. They did so. ln most of those ,vars, the prize of victory was
territory and, often, transfer of wealth.
Technological and other political changes have transformed the basic
character of war and its use as an instrument of policy. Improvements in
communication and transportation facilities made it possible to field
hundreds of thousands of soldiers in battle, resulting in continuous fighting
across the entire territory of the country under attack. Clausewitz empha-
sized economy in the use of force, and decisions to be reached in battles.
These were possible in the environment of bis times.
With improvements in war technology, civilian non-combatant
casualties started increasing, and collateral property damage became
unavoidable. The American Civil War was the first major war in which
the civilian population suffered as a direct consequence of war. (Indirectly,
casualties occurred earlier in the thirty-years war, which reduced the
...
The Flllility of War 421
German population by 30 per cent and the city of Moscow was burnt
down to deny it to Napoleon.) General Sherman's march through.Georgia
is remembered even today. Though World War I produced 15 million
casualties, the ratio of military-t<rcivil casualties was 20 to I. Civilian
casualties increased with the advent of aircraft with the capability of
penetrating deep into enemy territory and dropping bombs. It was argued
that since industry supported war effort, workers produced materials,
laid roads and railways that transported them and power stations supplied
energy, all these were legitimate targets for destruction by aerial bombing.
In reality, it amounted to the systematic killing of non-combatant civilians
and the destruction of both industrial and residential property. In World
War 11, the non-combatant casualties far exceeded the combatant ones,
with two-thirds of those killed and wounded in the war being civilians.
The legitimiz.ation of such bombing logically culminated in the use of
nuclear weapons. One bomb achieved what a thousand bombing raids on
cities could.
In the post- World War II period, the lethality of weapons increased,
and so did their reach. The ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties
rose to 5-to-l in the Korea War and 20-to-l in the Vietnam War. There
was also deliberate ecological damage caused by the use of chemical
defoliants. Notwithstanding all the claims about the accuracy of bombing
in the Gulf War of 1991 there appears little doubt that civilian casualties
exceeded combatant losses lllllllY times over.
But war does not make sense as an instrument of policy, if there is no
worthwhile gain or costs will not be commensurate to the expected results.
There can also be extremely costly miscalculations. Hitler's calculation
that the benefits of the war would justify its costs misfired when he
attacked the Soviet Union. He had a plausibly justifiable assessment that
the Red Army, with its leadership decapitated by Stalin, would be no
match for the supremely professional Wehnnacht (the German Army);
he came very close to success. Similarly, the Japanese started the war on
the calculation of swift occupation of Allied colonial territories and the
Philippines would permit them to negotiate terms for continued access to
raw materials that the US embargo denied them. Neither calculated that
the Allies would go for the unconditional surrender formulas. Such a
total war had not happened before since Carthage was overrun.
In the nineteenth century and till the mid-twentieth century, when the
age of colonialism ended, the 'riches and status of nations in the inter-
national hierarchy were popularly deemed to be linked with the area
under their control: the mineral wealth, the territories, the number of

422 Sltedding Sltibbolnlu
subjec1s in the empires and the indlntriatizarinn of wt11opolitan countries.

The imperial powers denied the raw matcriah from lheir colonial domaim
to lheir rivals. a reason why Ge11muy and Japan wanted to acquiie empires
on the model of Britain and France. Today, Japan smd Gemwiy have
proved that the ranking in the hierarchy of nations largely depends upon
the skills of their people. their wodc ethic, and the extent of value addition
the workforce can make to the goods and services they produce.
There also used to be a concept of a just war in the Christian Europe.
Islam (which means peace) has its coocepc of jihad, the holy war. The
Bbagavad Gita in Hinduism preached the concept of Dhanna Ynddba
(the ethical war), though Hindu scriptures proclaim •A.himsa Paramo
Dhanna' (Non-violence is the ultimate ethics); so does BJJddhism. Yet
Buddhist and Hindu kings have waged wars. While there may be PIJIIICA'S
of differences, most religions have upheld the value of non-violence and
have attempted to fonnulale coocepts of just war, but the followers of
those religions have mostly observed them more in the breach than in
conformity. Another cynical facet is that there are few just wars, just as
there are very few wars between equals.
Five million tons of explosives-more explosives than manufactured
ever before-were dropped on the peasant nations of Indochina without
any regard to principles ofjus in hello. Stalin and Mao Zedong murdered
tens of millions of people on the justification of creating an egalitarian
and just social order and the new man. Some 20 million people died in
the period 1950-1990 in the developing world in inter- and intra-state
violence. A significant proportion of the casualties were inflicted in wars
in the developing world in which developed nations were involved (Korea,
the Indochina wars, anti-colonial wars in Algeria, Indonesia, Cyprus,
South Yemen, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mo:zambique, etc.).
History has also exposed the speciousness of claims that a war is
fought for the hallowed principles of freedom or fair play. The British
Prime Minister in 1995 talked of World War U having been fought for
freedom and against tyranny. The war did lead to those results, but that
was not what was intended in the first place. It was a traditional balance-
of-power war that Europe had been used to over the previous centuries.
Most people were not moved by the plight of the Jews, and did not think
it necessary to join the fight for freedom even when Britain stood all
alone with just the English Channel separating it from the Wehnnacht
Nor did it tum into a people's war-as the communists portrayed it all
over the world-after Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union. It
continued to be classical European balance-of-power war, where some

The Fudlily of War 423
of the European countries bad empires, and another set of European

nations and Japan wanted their empires. 1 The US did not join the war to
defend treedom, though perhaps President Roosevelt wanted to: Japan
and Germany declared war on the US, leaving it with no choice. The end
of war in Europe only marginally extended freedom and democracy to
West Germany and Italy. The West was prepared to tolerate denial of
freedom and democracy in Spain and Portugal and in all developing
countries with authoritarian rule which sided with them in the cold war.
The world must be grateful to the people of Britain, who stood up
heroically against Hitler, the people of the Soviet Union, whose sacrifice
was unparalleled, and the industrial might of the United States, for winning
the war. But the flip side of the picture is that so long as the West
European nations gloried in their empires, it was only natural for Hitler,
Mussolini and the Japanese militarists, and even Stalin (in East European
territories}, to emulate their models. Those empires were created with the
holocaust of Red Indians in America. the aboriginal people in ON:ania, the
blacks in Africa, and the native populations in South America So long as
empires built on violence were deemed legitimate, others followed suit
••••
With or without nuclear weapons, war is no longer a viable instrument of
policy in Europe. The Europe of today is vastly different from that of
1939-45. There are atomic power plants and there are chemical industrial
plants everywhere. Synthetic materials are extensively used in buildings
and in many articles of everyday use, including clothing. Any nuclear
power plant hit will produce a Chernobyl, even if hit with a conventional
explosive. So would every chemical plant hit produce a Bhopal (1984)
raised by two or three orders of magnitude. Air crashes and house fires
have proved that more casualties are produced by pyrotoxins emitted by
burning synthetic materials than by the fire itself. None of these
phenomena can be confined in space and localized in effect. One may
recall what happened when a few tons of chemicals from a Sandoz plant
spilled into the Rhine river in the late 1980s.
The Gulf War of 1991 highlighted the cons~quences of high-
technology conventional war. The oil slick caused in this war was the
largest in history, with an estimated 3~ million barrels of oil spread
I. The Allies proclaimed the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms: but they
applied only to the white man. Britain closed the Burma Road, the lifeline to China
struggling apinst Japan, under the latter's intimidation.

424 Slteddillg Slubboletlu
over the sea surface. The long-term •ia•n•ge it wouJd have c.111sed to
envirooment, and its impact on marine life, buds .md beal:bc:s did DO(
receive adequate publicity. Also, the forces ranged againu Iraq r.lai;;nl
to have destroyed Iraq's chemical weapon production and storage
facilities. Those chemicals would have escaped into the atmosphere if
the plants had been active. Bombed and destroyed oil refineries and
pc:bochemical installations also would have released vast quantities of
toxic substances both into the atmosphere and on the ground, possibly
also contaminating water sources. Some 2500-3000 sorties a day of
Allied aircraft burning 1500 tonnes of fuel, and the enormous quantities
of munitions exploded both by the attacken and defenders would have
released over a certain .esb ict.ed area the cod products of combustion
and explosions, and they in tum would tend to drift as well as settle
down. The sustained intensity of raids and bombing exceeded all previous
records of raids over Germany, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
In the Gulf War, by targeting the infrastructure of a COUD1ry it could
be bombed back into the pre-industrial age. Iraq was only a partially
industrialized country. There was gross asymmetry in capabilities. But a
war between two European countries could, in a matter of days, reduce
hundreds of millions of people to pre-industrial conditions, even in a
non-nuclear conventional war. In a nuclear war, hundreds of thousands
of people will be killed in a moment, and those who survive will envy
the dead. In a high-technology conventional war between equally matchoo
adversaries, millions of people will be suddenly thrown into the pre-
industrial age, with water supply and sewerage systems crippled, power
systems destroyed, communications disrupted, and the entire infrastruc-
tural fabric rent to tatters. More people will suffer for long exposed to
disease and lack of fuel and food supplies. Some scenarios have been
written about a post-nuclear attack situation. With some imagination.
scenarios can also be written about a Europe where many of the cities
are simultaneously reduced to the status of Baghdad, Basra and Kuwait
What happened in Iraq was a vastly scaled down version of the air-land
battle originally planned for Europe, with only one side using its weapons.
No political, military or economic objectives are worth risking such a war
in the industrialized area of the world. Therefore, the chances ofsuch wars
being fought among the developed countries are becoming increasingly
remote. This realiz.ation, not yet received wisdom, is likely to influence
the strategic and political establishments in developed countries.
It has also been demonstrated that, unlike before 1945, people will
not accept occupation docilely. Continued occupation is far <:<>stlier than

The Futility of War 425
initial invasion. This is the lesson of anti-colonial wars, Vietnam, Afghan-

istan, and Cambodia. The sole exception----the occupation of West Bank
and Gua-is in fact beyond the capability of Israel, and i" made possible
only because the US is footing the bill.
In the post-World War Il era there were a number of wars between
developed nations and people of the developing world. Almost all these
anti-colonial wars ended in the developed nations losing the war and
having to withdraw. The more famous of these were the two Indochinese
wars (against the French and the Americans), the Indonesian liberation
war (against the Dutch), the Algerian War (against the French), the
Mozambican and Angolan wars (against the Portuguese), the Cyprus and
the South Yemen ones (against the British) and the Afghanistan War
(against the Soviet Union). They caused immense casualties among the
people of the developing countries but the occupying developed powers
had no choice but to go.
There were two wars between developed and developing countries
fought as set-piece conventional war, unlike the anti-colonial campaigns
where the developing side resorted to insurgency. These were the wars
in Korea and the South Atlantic. In Korea, the Chinese at enormous
human cost were able to fight the Americans to a stalemate. In the latter
case, the Argentinians lost to the British.2
A war between an affluent and militarily significant industrialiud
power and a developing nation is bound to be disastrous for the latter. In
the earlier years, there was not much difference in weapon capabilities
of a developed nation and those of a developing nation importing its
annaments. But since the 1970s, this has changed. The weapon develop-
ment cycle has speeded up, with the result that the developing nations
will not be able to get the latest weapons developed in the industrialized
nations. Secondly, a number of technologies which act as force
multipliers---apecially in electronic and counter-electronic measures,
lasers and thermal imaging devices may not be available to a developing
nation. Then come the satellites for surveillance and intelligence gathering
and communications, enhancing the effectiveness of the armaments of
the industriali7.ed nations which have access to them. Lastly, a number of
2. It is difficult to classify the Israeli-Arab wars. If Israel is treated as a developed
countty, then the 1967, 1973 and 1982 wars should also be treated as wars between
developed and developing countries. The 1956 war took place when Israel could still
be considered a developing countty and there was also the participation by Anglo-
French forces. While the 1967, 1973 and 1982 wars resulted in victory in military
terms to the developed countty, in I 982 Israel bad to withdraw from the occupied
territory in Lebanon when the occupation becanv cost-ineffective.

426 Sheddillg SJ,ibbolerlu
l)'lteml which are u1111lly not talked aboid, dcayplioo ""'"'IJllten, Elint
and Sigint satellites, and AWACS ain:raft funber tilt the advantage in
favour of the developed nation. If eqi.;pment capabilities are grossly
1JDtqt1al in this magnitude, better training, motivation, expe.imce, and
beuJe hardening NMnnot match the equation.
A war between two developing nations is still feasible and falls within
the Clausewitzian framework. A war between a highly industrialiV'11
COIDltry and a developing nation at subsistence level of economy,
e,pccially if it w a large population and can afford high casualties, can
result in stalemate or defeat for the former. While aggression of powerful
nations against weak and small nations can be cost-effective, other wars
of aggression attempting to change the status quo, especially by
developing nations, are not likely to be so. The industrialiud adversary
will not cornrnit the mistake of occupying the country with troops but
just lay waste the infrastructure and totally disrupt the functioning of the
society. That war is fought on the terms of the industrial power and not
on those of the developing nation. The industrialiud nation inflicts
enormous damage and pain on the people of the developing nation at
dispcoportionately lesser and affordable cost to itself-a cost cornrnen-
lUl'lte with the stake it w in the outcome.
Unfortunately, there is always a time-lag when a strategic reality
rnateriali.zes and its implications are understood by military and political
establishments. This happened in World War I and World War II. In the
post- World War U period the military and political establishments of
the powers concerned underestimated the power of nationalism in
Vietnam, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Afghanistan. Those who talked
of Finlandization of Europe never seem to have asked themselves bow
Yugoslavia, or for that matter Iran, was able to defy the Soviet Union.
For these reasons, peace is likely to continue to prevail in Europe even if
all the countries shed nuclear weapons. The Soviets could take that risk
not because NATO is inherently virtuous and non-aggressive, but because
mothers in NATO countries did not coosider that rolling back Cornrnimisrn
in Eastern Europe was an objective worth the sacrifice of their sons
(these days, even daughters). The US withdrew from Vietnam and Beirut
not because it could not have prevailed in military terms. For the local
people the cost in human lives, even if it were in millions (Vietnam) or
tens of thousands (Lebanon), was worthwhile. For the outsider, even a
fraction of that cost in terms of casualties was not worthwhile to secure
obtuse foreign policy objectives on distant shores. The Soviets, too,
discovered this fact of life after eight years in Afghanistan.

The Futility of War 427
Gorbachev talked of the concept of defensive defence. While military

power is still highly relevant to hold together composite nation-states
threatened by ethno-nationalist secessionism, against adventurism of
neighbouring politico-military establishments who still entertain ideas of
military conquest, and against the threat of use offon:e by major powers,
military power as an instrument to acquire additional territories or
subjugate alien populations is no longer viable. ·
There is general disapproval of disproportionate use of fon:e and
infliction of large-scale collateral damage in military operations. Tele-
vision cameras and satellite communications project all instances of the
use of fon:e directly into the living rooms all over the world Even limited
number of casualties are not acceptable to legislatures for causes which
are not immediately relevant to the national security or safeguarding the
vital national interests of nations.
The increasing economic integration of the globe has profound
influence in nations thinking about the use of fon:e. Even in cases where
there are no direct economic sanctions-which arc, in any case, recognized
increasingly as non-viable-there are indirect costs. These costs have to
be evaluated against gains expected out of the use of military fon:e. For
all these, and many more reasons, there is a secular trend towards military
power becoming less relevant.
The first Non-Aligned summit declaration did point to the futility of
war. The participants resolutely rejected the view that war, including the
cold war, is inevitable as it "reflects a sense both of helplessness and
hopelessness and is contrary to the progress of the world". They affirmed
their "unwavering faith that the international community is able to organize
its life without resorting to means which actually belong to a past epoch
ofbuman history". The declaration further said, "Aware that ideological
differences are necessarily a part of the growth of human society, the
participating countries consider that peoples and governments shall refrain
from any use of ideology for the purpose of waging cold war, exen:ising
pressure or imposing their will." That declaration was discarded as
rhetoric. Peaceful coexistence has been talked about by various leaders.
But when people like Mao, who talked of power flowing out of the
barrel of the gun also subscribed to the concept of peaceful coexistence,
it lost much of its credibility. In late 1989, during his visit to Bonn,
President Mikhail Gorbachev and Chancellor Helmut Kohl joined in a
declaration that war could no longer be used as a tool of politics. The signi-
ficance of this statement lay not only in its being rnade in Germany, from
where von Clausewitz hailed, but in its being the first such declaration

428 S.'terldillg Slubboktlas
made hy leaders of two militarily significant powers----not just a rhetorical

formulation by a group of militarily feeble nations pleading with the
powerful. u was the case with the Belgrade Non-Aligned declaration of
1961.
••••
Even so, if a war is thrust on a nation, should its people be overawed by
the adversary's might? Nehru bas a thought on this. In The Discovery of
India be wrote:
Much u I bated v,,ar, the prospect of a Japanese invasion of India had in no way
frigblmed me.
At the back of my mind I was in a sense auracted to this coming of war,
boml>le as it wu to India For, I wanted a tremendous shake up, a personal
experience for millions of people which would drag them out of that peace of
the grave that Britain had imposed upon us, something that would force them to
face the reality of today and to outgrow the past which clung to them tenaciously,
to get beyond the petty political squabbles and exaggeration of temporary
problems which filled their tb.inds, not to break with the past and yet not to live
in it; realiu the present and look to the futw-e-.(0 change the rhythm of life and
make it in tune with the present and the future.
The cost of war was heavy and the coosequences full of uncertainty. That
war was not of our seeking but since it had come it could be made to hardeo the
fibre of the nation and provide those vital experiences out of which a new life
might blossom forth. Vast numbers would die, that wu inevitable, but it is
better to die in war than through famine, it is better to die than to live a miserable
hopeless life. Out of death, life is born afresh and individuals and nations wbo
do not know how to die, do not know how to live. Only where there are graves
are there resurrections.

Index
I 962 debacle 4n I, 7n2, 44, 72-4, 172, Alagesan, O.V. 349, 350n2
179, 181,205, 216-17, 21~21, 225- Alfven, Hannes I04
6, 236, 267, 31 ~27, 337, 356, 357, Algeria 131
411 Algeria War 422, 426
and development of India·s security Algiers Treaty (1975) 158
policy 20 Ali, Rabmat 213
1965 War 162, 194,205,208,237 Ali, Tariq 305
intelligence failure 27, 27nl, 75 Allende, Salvador 403
1971 War 56, 74, 75, 123, 171, 205, overthrow 82
208,229,235,268,314,328-30,339, al-Takriti, Salab Omar Ali 166
348,373 Ambassador's Journal 337
intelligence failure 27 American Civil War 420-1
and production of strategic literature Amnesty International 387
16 Amritbalingarn 26
and US intimidation 136 Andenon, Jade 8 I
1990s 14~50 Andreotti, Julio 291
Andropov, Yuri 153
Abdul Kalam, A.PJ. 39, 40 Antony, Ian 42
Abdullah, Farooq 338 ANZUS 106
Abdullah, Sheikh 336 apartheid
Abedi, Agba Hasan 304, 305 and UN 395
Abid Hussein 163 dismantling 149, 150, 168
Abu Nida! 304 APEC 378
academic institutions, role in strategic Apsara 96, 134
debate 12 Arab-Israel conflict 150,201, 212n6,
academics role in strategic policy- 425, 425n2
making 13 ARF, purpose of 45
Adam, Sherman 98 Arias, Oscar 255
Afghanistan 131, 150, 172, 174--7, 188, Arif, K.M., Gen. I 97
196,202,216n7,231,236,237,286, Arjun tank 34, 39, 49, 55
287,300,301,304,331,338,373, Armed Forces personnel 60-7
387,403,408,425,426,427 cadre reviews 60-1
•Agenda for Peace' 269, 386 manpower policy 48
Agni40,222,225, 312 promotions 63-4
tests stalled 58 rank structuring 61
Abmediyas, riots against (1953) 284 rapid turnover 20
AIDS 131,297 retired (ex-) 46, 6~71 , 328; and
air-land battle 161, 162 research 14
Akasbi, Yasubi 386nl arms bazaar 54-9
'Aakbri Badia' 75, 338 arms control agreements 117, 2~10,
Aksai Chin 218, 219, 226, 308nl 212

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A u1tn ,;.:. 'Jf"JJC(.f l<A". t/J fren(.h nl.k:lc:ar Boion :9ll
tt="'rni lf.11, Bofon gun deal and SIRJU 53
A .. , rr•h~. v,inr nary exer"= J 11. J 12 Bofon scaodal 55. 57
Averell llammaan-l.>unc.tn •,and;-• Bohr. Sicls 104
rfHHlilfl ll7 Bolsbe\ik = ·olulioo 180
A 71Z, Sart.1J 31,s Bombay blasu ti 993 I IO'), 303
bordc.- feocing 214
ffal,,-..r, ~a,rullah. Maj. Gen. 175 bolder roads dev·~dopuw.u
............. 2...--0. 221
t,,•l•nu: r,f power 4'i I Bosnia peacekeeping 38S-7
l>'•l•ncc r,f p<,wer wan 422 J Boutros 13ou!ros--Obali 269, 387
fl(:(.kc:t, 'fhoma., 351 Brazich Apocalypse 280a2
111;,ck ·r hunder, (.Ip. 2!1/ln2 Brandl, W. 2 12
f!amford. Jame, 711 Brar, Gen. 16
flandaranaikc. S. JI S Brassiacks, Op. 85, 194, 195, 204,
flancrJcc. Su~hital 22 206n2,207-8,218,238,338
lhnl(ladc,h 4'13 Brazil nuclear piogJ■ome I IOnl
fj,\l(C' 127, 136 Brezhnev. L. I 80
Barlow, k1chatd 1311 Bmhnev doctrine 157, 402
llarrc . Siad 171 Brodie, Bernard 129, 145
IIC-C'I 2HIJ, 104 5 Brobi, A.K. 343
lkazlcy, Kim 307, 308 Brudtland, Harless 256
lkclhovcn 400 Bruzinski, Z. 25, 270
llcl(. A•lam, <icn. I3k, 14 1, I65, 193, Brundtland, Gro 378
2 n. Joo. 341 Bulganin 96
lkrlin cri,i• 123 Bull, Hedley 136
llcrlin WYII 119,201,214,331 Bundy, McGeorge 144
llcrlu,con i, Silvio 29() Bundy, William 229
llcmn<lollc. C'ount 2H2 bureaucracy 50, 53, 34S-55
llcthc, lfun• 93 generalist orientation 20, 30
llcvnn, Ancurin '15 non-attention to strategy 14
l ~ U e n. 329 turnover I0, 30

Index 431
and defence policy 8 no-first-use 209o3, 223

and ))l'Omotions 61 - 2 nuclear quest 96-9, 243
and retirement 11 nuclear test and India 135
and yes-men 28 nuclear threat 222-4
Bwnham, Forbes 81 nuclear threats against I 23
Bush, George (Sr) 250, 330, 380 policy zigzags 184
tactical weapons 223
Cabinet Committee oo Political Affairs China-Bunna border 218, 219
21
China-India border dispute 219, 327
Cali drug cartel 373 ChimHndia relations 183, 186, 216--28
Canada nuclear policy I 05-6 China-India tension (1987) 216--22
Carlucci, Frank 237 China-Soviet border dispute 219
Carter, J. 25, 137,173,234,236,243, China-Soviet relations 72, 96-7, 98,
274
149, 169--70, 173, 181, 183, 187, 243,
Carthage 421 322
Castro,F. 118, 282,298 China-US relations 192, 241-4
CBMs 50 China-Vietnam clash (1979) 179
Ceausescu 171 Chirac, Jacques I 06
CFE agreement 129 Chisbti, Gen. 344
CFE treaty 149 Christopher, Warren 397
CbanaJcya 7 Church, Catholic I 25n3
Chandrashekhar 140, 349o2 Churchill, W. 73, 79
Charles, Prince 84 CIA 24, 76, 169, 282, 295, 304, 403
Chaner 77 156, 212 activities 81-2
Chaudhri, J.N., Geo. 16, 64 narcotics coonectioo 296
Chavan, Y.B. 16,237, 328--9, 348, 350 and arms deals 57
chemical war 421 Clark, W. 195, 197,270
chemical weapons Clifford, Clarlc 304
ban 133 climatic change 257--64
use 158, 161, 165 Clinton, Bill 91, 249o2, 250,251,373,
Chen Yi, Marshal 97, 99,216, 324, 325 387
Cheney, Richard 122 CNN 357
Chequerboard, Op. 221 Coast GIWd role 306--7
Chernobyl 423 Cohen, Stephen 3, 140
Chiang Kaishek I 7 I Colby, William 282
Chibber, M.L., Lt Gen. 71 Cold War43
Chief of Defence Staff 66 Nehruoo 407
appoint 28 Coleman, Lex 281-2
Chile Coles, Paul M. I04
CIA in 82 Coll, Steve 103
military coup 282 collateral damage 420
Cbioa 178-92, 231 Colombia corruption 292
corruption in 291 Committee for Defence Planning (CDP)
defence expenditure 45, 190--1 22
economic diplomacy 234, 243 Committee on Disannament 126, 127
example of using economic clout 25 Committee on Present Danger 14
Islamic resurgence 186-8 conditionalities and aid 404
naval expansion 185, 307, 309-12 confidence building 119

432 Index
Congo403 dcmopapbic pressura future 326

peacekeeping 386, 391 Deng Xiaoping 98, 154, 178--92, 216,
secession 308n I 225, 319, 324, 325, 326
Coomar Narain espionage ring 51 Desai, Moraiji 120, I~. 137, 138,
convption 56, 289-94 193nl, 337, 348
and intelligence 84, 85 dc:teueuc.: doctriocs 94, 95, 100, 101,
coup prospecu 66, 67-8 118, 144-5
Cousins, Frank 95 dcteneoce stabiliz.ation 156
Craft of Jn1elligence, 'Tltt! 18 Deutach, John 113, 114
Cranston, Alan 235 Devc Gowda 365
Craxi, Bettino 290-1 Ohan, Ram 349n2
CSCE 149 Dbaria, Mohan 349n2
CTBT 126, 142, 143, 230 Dhruva 138, 141
and China 224 Dibb, Paul 309
Cuba missile crisis (1962) 24, 118, 123, Diem, Ngo Dinh, killing 282
145,325,357 Digvijay, Op. 218
Cuellar, Javier Perez 390 disarmament dividend 19
Cultural Revolution 154, 179, 181 , 183, illusory 414-19
187,324 disarmament vs. arms control 1l 7
culture, lndia11 emphasis on 5, 6 Discovt!ry of India, 'Tltt! 406, 428
Cumming,, Samuel 56 'discriminate detemoce' 190, 269-7 1
Curve of Binding Energy, The I09 divisiv'i tendencies 267
C-zechoslovalda 156, 212 Dixon, Sir Owen 334, 3~
Soviet intervention 408 Dobbins, James 397
'Czechoslovakia Spring' I 57 Dobrynin, Anatoly 328
DROO 161
D'Penha, H. 349n2 fimctiooing 30-1, 34, 35, 39-40
Dalai Lama 189, 223, 255 Dulles, Allen 78
Darnodaran, A.K.. 23 Dulles, J.F. 156
Das, Mohan 349n2 Dumni, Asad, Gen. 300, 30 I
Dave, P.K. 348, 349n2, 350
Dawn and Dusk 324 ccologica1 threats 18, 378
de Mello, Fernando Collor 289-90 ecological future 326
defence and industrialization 45 economic sanctions futility 388--9
defence debate Economist, Tltt! 271
lack of 49, 50 Eisenhower, D.E. 98, 123, 234
in the West 49 Emergency 67, 83, 348--SO
in the US 48--9 energy
defence effort, inevitability of 19 conwxtrum., 260-1
defence expenditure 42-53 route security 314
cuts 203 seauity 242, 307
verification 203 Enola Gay 90
defence information, supply 48 Enmprt.,e I~, 329, 330
defence planning components 46 missiOII against 1ndia 25
defence portfolio, neglect of 20 Eqhmd, Sigvard 104
defence production 29--41 F.ritrea referendum 269
defence R&D 29--41, 45, 49, 55 Estimates Committee of Parliament,
demographic changes 263--4 1992 report 9-10

Index 433
Ewatom llO and UN 384

Europe in Vietnam 173
autonomy movements 266 German unification experience 149,
integration 405 155-6
Excom (J.F. Kennedy's) 24 Germany's role in nuclear material
smuggling ll On I
Faiz Ahmed Faiz 343 Germany-US relations 390n4
Fallaci, Oriana 181 Giap, Nguyen, Gen. 169, 181
Falklands Wu 95, 123, 425 Gibraltar, Op. 194
Fuouk, King, coup against 55 Gill, I.S., Maj . Gen. 329
fast breeder reactors l I3n2 Gingrich, Newt 9 I
FB176 glasnost 153, 154,157,212
Fiji coup (1987) 315,316 Glenn, John 234
Force Without War 123 Goa 32- 3, 234, 308nl
Forth Protocol, The I 02, I 09 Goedie 400
France and NATO 94 Golden Crescent 296, 297
France nuclear quest 94-5 Golden Triangle 296, 297
Frank Church Committee 282, 298 Goodpaster, Gen. 270
Fukuyumaru 108 Gopal, s. 135
fundamentalism 5 Gopalaswami, R.A. 348
fusion power, Homi Bhabba on 134 Gorbachev, M. 43, 114, 179,180,212,
future likely developments 255-71, 217, 427
378-9, 397-405 assessed I 51- 7
threats I 8-19 China's view of 153
coup against 359, 401
Gaddafi, M. 118 peace initiative, role of academicians
Galbraith, J.K. 67, 337 in promoting 12
Galtung, Johann 364 Gowda, Deve 140
Gandhi, M.K. I 82 Great Leap Forwud 181, 228
Gandhi, Indira 10, 57, 67, 135-8, 140, failure 97, 324
211,337,345nl,348,373 green revolution 29
myopic policies 26 Greenpeace 279
neglect of defence portfolio 21 Griffiths, William 4n1
and defence planning bodies 21 Gromyko, Andrei 153
and support to LITE 26 GSQR (general staff qualitative
Gandhi, Rajiv 10, 22, 140, 196, 206, requirements)31 - 2,34
207, 210, 211, 338 Guhan, S. 349n2
assassination 28 Gujral, I.K. 140, I 95
myopic policies 26 Gui, Hamid, Gen. 176, 177, 342
and 'imperial prime ministership' 25 GulfScenario, The I09
and support to LITE 26 Gulf War (1991) 122, 123, 149, 158-
Gang of Four 179, 180, 183 67, 171,172,245,262,270,271,359,
Gates, Robert 141, 193, 194, 196, 197, 374,399,404,421,423,424
198 and India's mistakes 163-6
Gauhar, Altaf 300 Gunther, John I 78, 3 I 9
General Belgrano 313 Guyana, CIA in 81
Geneva Protocol (1925) 133
genocide Hahn, Otto I 04
Haile Selassie 171

434 Index
Hardgrave. Robcn 11 ICJ advisory opiaioo 4JII nuclear

Harrison. Selig 229 wapons leplity 12~
Ha.,san. Gui. Gen. 344 ldi Amin 403
Ha.,san, Khalid 304 IDSA 7, 51 - 2, 194,328, 3SO
hawala 83 dispulc with SlPRI 51-2
Hawk trainer sale IO India 55 f01mding 15-16
Hazratbal shrine 335 publialioo difficulties 17
Heiltal, Mohammed 167 l!ando6' with Sa-vices 16
Heltmatyar, Gulbuddin 174, 175, 176. °""
If I Aua.ublaled 304
177, 300 USS 309
Helms, Richard 82, 282 md India's defea0e cq,enditure SI
Helsinki Accord 156, 2 12 Ode, Fred 130, 270
Helsinki Declaration (1975) 119 Illusion ofTri-,,1, 167
Henderson Brooks report 326 i,npcriA)ism 421- 3
Heri1A8e Foundation 235 defence 404
Heroin in Pakistan: Sowing tlte Wind respect for 400
300,302 impo.t lobby 29
Hersh, Seymour 99, 139, 193, 194, 197 In Retrospect: TM tlrlfN>' aNi Lessons
Heseltinc, Michael 36, 66 ofY'ldltam 169
Hewitt. Daniel P. 418 India
HF-24 project 29 acliievements 361 - 70
Hindu growth rate 42 c:onvptioo 293--4
HirohilO, Emperor 79 glory 406
Hiroshima and Nagasaki 90 'hegemonic ambitiom' 3
Hitler, A. 400, 421 independent stl!IC'A: 4o I
Ho Chi Minh 169, 170 missile policy approach 143
Holloway, Adm. 270 naval needs 313-16
Hong Kong 184, 188, 191,241,297 need for naval strengthening 311- 12
Hoover, J. Edgar 83-4 neighbours, teDsioos with 43--4
Hosoltawa 250-1 nuclear deterrcoce arguments 142
hostage talt.ing 273-6 nuclear doctrine, principles of 143--6
HRW 387 nuclear option, Bhabba •s oppositioo
Hua Guofeng 179 IO 135
Human Development Repon (1 994) nuclear programme I IOol, 127
418 nuclear policy 222-4, 232
human rights and interventionism 402, nuclear policy, George Taoham on 6
403 nuclear quest 134-46
Hungary uprising 157 space programme 229
Hungary, Soviet intervention 408 strategic debate, cacophony in 13
Huntington, Samuel 285, 270 strategic ))CTSpcctive, absence 3-17
Hussein, Mushahid 139 strategic thinking, paradoxes of 4
Hussein, Saddam 103, 233,359,388, view of other nations 4, 5, 7
389,404 world-view S; contractions ~
and UN 391- 2
IAEA 101, 103, 103n3, 104, 110, 132, and weapon exports 58--9
167 India's China War 356
Homi Bhabha's opposition to 134 •India• s Future Strategic Role and
Power Potential ' 3

Index 435
Indian Anny history 205 Iraq-Iran War 58, 150, 158, 160, 161,
Indian Ocean 307, 308 165, 286, 314, 373
Indian approach to 3, S ISi 175
'Indian Strategic Culture, The' 3 Islamic fundamentalism 171, 230
Indian Strall!gic Thought: an Ismay, Lord 36, 73
Interpretive Essay 3 Israel
India-Pakistan border 333n2 hijaclcing nuclear material 110
India-Pakistan War 44 nuclear programme 126
India-US intelligence collaboration 82 nuclear quest 99
indigenous anns production 410-1 I smuggling nuclear material I I 3
Indonesia, CIA in 81 Israel-Arab conflict 274
Indonesia-India relations 3 I 2 Italy
lndo-Soviet Treaty (1971) 217,223 CIA in 82
INF Treaty 149, 212, 224 eotruptioo 290--2
Inga Thorsson committee I 9
insecurity following wars 44 Jagan, Cheddi 81 - 2
Inside Asia 319 Jaguar- Mirage controversy 54
instability 264-9 Japan
institutional memory, lack of 28 CIA in 82
insurgency 277 eotruptioo 289, 29 l
iniegrated missile development naval expansion 306
programme 39-41 nuclear option 251 - 2
intelligence 72-86, 215, 279, 320 nuclear policy 102-3, 129
assessment in defence planning 2~ Japan-US relations 245--52, 390n4
collection in the US 24, 7H Jarring. Gunnar 334-5
compromising 56 Jba, L.K. 135, 223, 330
failures 27 Jharkhand 268nl0
functioning 25 Jiang Qing 180
leaks, causes 85 Jiang Zemin 191
services deficiencies 20 jihad 186, 284-8
turf battles 76 Jinnah, M.A. 288
value 79 Johnson, L.B. 234
intelligence agencies in assassination joint defence proposal 214, 214n7
282-3 Joliot-Curie, Frederic 99
International Campaign for Tibet 223 Juoejo, M.K. 207
inter-services integration, failures 27 just war 422
interventionism 402-5 NP315
IPKF 61,229, 238,331
IRA 276,277 Kabashi, Assem 112
Iran 403 Kahn, Hennan 36
nuclear programme 244 Kahuta 139, 197, 210n4, 211
nuclear quest, alleged Russian Kaifu 249
scientists' role 101- 2 Kairoo, Pratap Singh 294
Iran-Contra affair 24, 295, 304, 305 KAL flight 007 (shooting down) 80
Iran-US relations I I 8, 172 Kamaraj 348
Iraq Kanemaru, Shin 292
nuclear prog,amme I06-7 Kang Shang 325
nuclear reactor bombing ( 1981) 112 K.anishlta bombing 279

436 Index
Kant. Krishan 349. 349112 Lall, 1{_8, 329, 350

Kao Kang affair (China) 179 Lamh,Awcair356
Karim, Afsir. Gen. 16 I usd•!e, Colonel 169
Kashmir 139, 140, 165, 187, 188, 195, Lansen. Cbister 104
202,212.232, 233. 234,285, 308nl, Law of the Sea 395, 396
331-40. 342--3. 356. 357,360.362. LCA 29, 32, 34, 39, 49, 53, 55
384,408 le May, Curtis, Gen. 123
mislakes in 26 League of Nations 373, 395
and China 186, 188 Lebanon 425n2, 426
Kashmir. The Disl'f'led Legacy 356 Lee Teng Hui 241
Kaul, B.M., Gen. 72. 236, 320 u::ninism-Stalinism-Maoism I SO
Kemp, Geoffrey 229 Leventhal, Paul I 09
Kennedy, J.F. 81 - 2, 99,118,217,234, Li Peog 178, 179, 191
298, 322 Liberty bombing 80
Kennedy, Robert 84 Lin Biao, Manha.I 179, 183, 216, 324,
KGB in India 82 325
Khalistan campaign 26, 109, 277, 278 Liu Bocbeng. Marsh,; 326
Khan, Ayub 66, 82,213.214, 343 Liu Sbaoqi 181, 183, 324, 325, 326
Khan, A.Q. 139, 195, 196 Lockerbie 279, 281, 296
Khan, Akbar, Maj. Gen. 342-3 Lockheed 56
Khan, Amanullah 339 Starfigbta" 55
Khan, Ghulam Ishaq 140, 193, 300, 344 London Supplia's Club IOOnl, 107
Khan, Liaquat Ali 342 Long Man:b 183
Khan, Tikka 344 Long, Simon 186, 187
Khan, Yahya, Gen. 343, 373 long-range planning, absence 30, 34,
Khan, Yakub 195 36,44-5,47
Khan, Zafarullah 332n I long-term security policy, absence 20
Khashoggi, Adnul 56 low-intensity conflict 68, 210
Khrushchev 96, 180-3, 201, 324, 325 Lown, Bernard 255
Khrushchev Remembers 324, 325 LTTE359
kickbacks S4-7. 59 l.odia's support to 26-7
)(jm II Sung 118 Lumumba, Patrice 282
King, Martin Luther 83, 366nl
Kissinger, H. 25, 56, 82, 119, 170, 235, Maastricht Treaty 378
243,251,270,308nl,310,330 Macao 241
Kohl, Helmut 155,427 MacArthur, Gen. 162, 173
Korbel, Josef 333n2 Macfarqubar, Roderick 325-6
Korea 171,421,422,425 MacMahon Act 95
Korea War 98, 161, 173 Mafia 292, 297
and UN 383, 391 and intelligence 84
Kothari, D.S. 39 Maguire, Mairead 255
Krcisky, Bruno, as arms salesman 55 Major, John 55, 266, 276
Krishnamachari, T.T. 83, 294 Mandal Commission 213
Kwnaratunga, Chandrika 366 Mondale for C/tangr 123
Mandela, Nelson ISO, 373
la Fontaine 161 Manekshaw, FM 7, 74
Lal, P.C .• ACM 27, 330 Manhattan Project 89, 92, 93, 97
memoirs 16 Marior, James 363
-
Index 437
Mao Zedong 178, 179, 180, 225, 319, Mossadegb 403

324,326,400,407,422,427 Moynihan, D. 82, 93
appraisal 181 MTCR40
blunders 181 Mujibur Rahman, Sheikh 343
megalomania I 84 coup against 27
on nuclear war 98 Mukherji, N.K. 22, 348, 350
Maran, Murasoli 349n2 Mullick, B.N. 72, 73, 74, 83,216
Marcos, F. 298, 305 My American Journey 122
maritime affairs 306-16 My Lai massacre 193nl
Marshal, George, Gen. 79, 92 My Year.s with the lAF 27, 330
'martial' races 69 Mylroie, Laurie 166
Masoud, Ahmed Shah 175 Myrdal, Ava 104
Mauritius-India relations 3 I 5
Maxwell, Neville 324, 356 Nadkarni, Adm. 196
Maxwell, Robert 85, 289 Nag Chaudhuri, B.D. 39
McCarthyism 170 Nagaland 281n2, 331,362
McMahon Line 2 I 8, 2 I 9, 226 Nakasone, Yasuhiro 103
McNamara, Robert S. 23, 118, 169, Nambiar, Salish, Gen. 385
170, 237 Namibia decolonized 150
Medellin cartel 296 Napoleon 400
media killing 283
management 35~ Narasimbam, C.V. 349n2
and strategic debate 12 Narayanan, M.K. 349n2
Mehta, Harshad 294 narcotics 292, 295-305
Mehta, Jagat 13 and arms trade 298
Meitner, Lise 104 and coven operations 298
Menem, Carlos 380 and India 302- 3
Mengistu, Col 171 and insurgency 297
Menon, V.K. Krishna 39, 72,216,320, oarco-terrorism 231, 234
334, 410nl Nasir, Javed, Geo. 342
Menon. M.G.K. 39 Nasser, G.A. 159
Mestiri, Mahmood 174, 176 National Ignition Facility 128
Mikoyan 96 National Security Agency (USA) 24,
Mikoyan, Anastas 182 77, 78, 80-1, 84
Mikoyan, Sergo 182 National Security Council 22, 25, 141
military exercises, need for 204-6n2 National Security Council (USA) 24
military expenditures: international national security doctrine, absence 9
comparison of trends 418 nationalism 131,169,363,426
minimum nuclear deterrence doctrine 8 NATO 95, 104, 105, 156
missile development 47 naval expansion non-existent 8
missile programme 55 Naxalite 278
Miyazawa, Kiichi 245 Nayar, Kuldip 139, 195
Miz.oram 281n2, 331, 362 Nehru, J. 72, 73, 98, 127, 183, 216,
Mohammad Umar 175 225, 320, 321, 323, 326, 347, 353,
Moiseyev, Mikhail, Gen. 60 356,358,369,402,428
Mondale, Walter 173 even-banded approach 4n I
money laundering 297 failings 413
Monroe, Marylin 84
Original from
438 Index
ignoraoc,c of llllional security 11811ft8

planning 65 prolifcnlioo 94--116
Mao's anack on 183 tenOrism I 09-16
neglect of defence ponfolio 21 tests, India's 5lmxl on 126---7
pragmatism and vision 406--13 test ban 126---8
and non-alignment 37 I threats 98, 122- 3
Nicaragua 295 weapon-free :r.ooes 120-2, 203;
Nie Rongzhen, Marshal 96, 98 India's opposition to 137
NIEO 376 weapons lcplity 102, 124-6
and enba..oetoeul of security 20 NIICkor Am 11On I
Nimitz 241 Nuclear Energy Search Team (NESl)
Nixon, R. 25, 123, 234, 243 109
NMML 356 Nye, Joseph S. 78, 24 7
no-first use 143--o
Non-Aligned Movement 427 O'Leary, Hazel 107
obsolescence 371-81 Oakley, Robert 139, 191, 196, 197
non-alignment 161, 162,164,226,408 OAU Charter 269
as strategy 7, 7n2 obsolescent belief systems, danger of
non-military threats 403 18-19
and UN 394 offensive defence, lack of thinking in 16
non-official dialogue, role in suategic OIC 287, 288, 376
inter11etion 12 'On the Nuclear Edge' 193
Noorani, Zain 206 opium war 296
NORAD 106 Oppenheimer, Robert 89, 90, 93
Noriega, Manuel Antonio, Geo. 295--6, Organization for Strategic Services
304,305 (OSS) 169
North Korea nuclear programme I 03 Origins ofCiJtural Revo/Ulion, '11le 325
North, Olivet, Col 295, 298 OSA 358
Norway role in nuclear material OSCE 125
smuggling IIOol ostpolitik 212
Norwegian Nobel Committee 2SS Outlaw Bank, T1ie 304
no-war pact offet 214, 21407, 338
NPT 94, IOI, 103, l03o3, 105--7, Packard Commission (US) JS
I IOnl, 117, 121, 122, 124-6, 130, Pak.istan
132n4, 143,203,223,230,249,313, CIA in 82
375, 392115 corruption 289
and India 136 coups 341--4; and nuclear dangers I I S
nuclear heroin-Kalashnikov culture 172
condescension IOOol, 107 in Gulf War 165
control and submarines I I6n3 nuclear collaboration with China 10,
disannarneot 117- 18, 131-3, 146 139
era 89-93 nuclear programme I07, 110, 11On I,
fusion energy 26 I 06 126, 137-40
issues, westetn slant in 1O nuclear terrorism scenario I09
material smuggling 110-13; from self-perception 213
formet USSR 111; transport I I3n2 and narcotics 299-302
non-proliferation 242, 243 relati<los with China 187
policy, cacophonous 9; hush-bush relations with India 19, 20, 43, 331-

Index 439
40; border solution 337--40; CBMs PTBT 127

201-5; non-crisis of 1990 193-8; Pueblo capture 80
WIIIS 175 Pugwash movement 92, 117
relations with US 11, 233, 235-6 Puzzle Palace, 11,e 78
Palit, D.K. Maj. Gen. 16, 194, 323, 326,
337 Qian Xuesen 98
Palme, Olof 104, l04n4 Quari Sanqiang 99
as anns salesman 55 Quernoy Matsu crisis 98
Panama 295
Panch Shila 403 R&D factors for high cost 30
Panikkar, K.M. 322 R&D lobby, failings 30, 34
Pant, K.C. 58, 135 Rabbani, Burhanuddin 174-7
Paris summit declaration 149 Rahim, Air Marshal 344
Parliamentarians for Global Action I I 'Rajaji' 353, 407
Partbasarathi, G. 23, 136 Rajcswar, T .V. 349n2
partition 26608 Ramachandran, M.G. 349n2
Patel, Vallabhbhai 353 Ramanna, Raja 24, 39, 137, 194, 196
Pearl Hart>or 79, 91 RAND Corp. 3, 104, 105, 397
Peng De Huai dismissal 179 Rao, P.V. Narasimha 21 , 140, 348,
Pentagon Papers 24 357nl
People's War 181 Rao, P.V.R. 16, 348
Perestroilca 151, 157, 179 Rarotonga Treaty 121
Perlcovich, George I 94 Rashid, Ahmed 176
Perry, William 243, 249n2 Rawalpindi conspiracy ( 1951) 342
Phibul Songgram. Marshal 169 reactive defence policy, limitation 15,
Pillars of Fire I09 16,20
PL480 29, 234, 368 Reagan, Ronald I 73, 234, 236, 274,
PLA 178,319 275
PMO, centralization in 13, 21, 56--7 defence policy, academic influence
Pokhran-1 (1974) 27, 29, 107, 136--8, in 14 ·
140--2, 223, 229 Red Brigade 275, 292
Pokhran-11 ( 1998) 222 Reddy, Sanjiva 137
Pol Pot 170, 171, 190, 373, 384 refugees 264
Poland 152, 156, 212 regional commissions helping UN
political parties funds audit 82 functions 393
politicians and lack of specialization 20 Reichauer, Edwin I03
politicians and policy-making 13 religion and nationalism 267
Pollack, Jonathan 3 religious fundamemalism 256
polycentric world 379- 80, 397--405 research institutions and politicians,
Powell, Colin, Gen. 12-3, 60, 118 distance between 14
Prawitz, Jan I 04n4 Rodrigues, General, interview to 11,e
Premadasa, President, anti-India Pioneer 8
attitude 26 Roosevelt, F.D. 79, 92, 234
Pressler Amendment 139,213,233 Rose, Sir Michael, Gen. 385
Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism I 09 Rosenbergs 93
prime ministeT keeping defence Rotblat, Joseph 92
portfolio, disadvantage 21 Rusk, Dean 243
privacy, right to 84 Russell, Bertrand 211
Original from
440 Inda
Rudlcrf'ord. Loni 29 Sunla Ap.;.a...ut (1972) 213, 308nl,

Rwanda 387 335, 337, 338, 384
Sing•pin: formation 268
Sabpl. Labbmi, C-0!. 349112 Singh. ArjlD. ACM 322
S-khamv, Ancni 261 Singh. Arun 14, 22, 23, 161
Simper, Emeslo 292, 373 Singh. Depinder, Geo. 16
S-.Son Option. TM 99, 19301, 235 Singh. Jujit 51 - 2, 161
sanctions 404 Sinah, Swann 330, 333o2, 337
Sarabbai, Vikram 135, 223 Singh. V.P. 140, 194, 212
Sudesbpaode, Gaw.al 16 SIRRI and India's defcoce opc,oojture
Sirin. H.C. 72, 348, 3SO 51-3
Sarowiwa, Keo 373 Six-Nation lnitialive (early 1990s) 11
Saaar, Abdul 197 srnal lpo" 131
Saudi Anbia 285 Smithsonian lnati1111e 91
arms purchuea 55, 57 SNEP 223
lfflorism in 280-1 o2 Solidarity 152, 156, 212
Sclr«tbog-A 110 Somalia peacekeeping 171, 384, 386,
Seborg, Glrm I04 392
seces.sionisl 111CNe111C111a 268-9 Sotltlt30S
security Soulb Africa aucleu piopamme 100-
components 20 1, I IOnl
cOOl:q)ll8 Sou1b Atlantic W• (1982) 309, 313
policy-making lacuoae 20 Soudl Pacific NWFZ 106
policy structure 18-28 sovereignty, limill 401- 2
and development, symbiocic space programme 29
relationship 44, 45 Spector, Leonard 197
self-reliance in defence production 30 Sri l.anka
Seminar 321 intelligence failure 75
savices non-involvcolCllt in defence operations and strategic literalUre 16
policy-making 8 relations with 315, 360
Seychelles coup 315 lfflOrism 281 o2
Shah of Iran 171 Slalin 180, 182,400,422
and kickbacks 59 'Star Wm' programme 118
Shah, A.B. 4ol academic influcoce in 14
Sbahi, Agba 236 Start attack I 59
Sharif, Nawaz 141, 289, 300 START 149
Shanna, V.N., Geo. 195, 196, 197 state reorganimtioo 363-4
Shastri, Lal Babadur 135, 142,222, Stimson, Henry 79, 283
412, 413 Stockholm accord 213
on defence plannios 46 Stracey, E.L. 349o2
Shalt al-Arab 158 strategic debate, lack 7-8, 9
Shining Path 297 strategic doctrines, obsolescent 13 1
Shultz, George 24 strategic literature 16
Siachen 221 Stuart, Douglu 398
Siegal, Mark 233 Stumpf, Waldo 1~1
Siegbahn, Manne 104 Subnunanwn, C. 70, 348
sigint, value 81 efforts to promote defcoce planning
Sikkim 308n I 21
Silkwood, Karen 113 Subrawardy, H.S. 343
.. Dlgltlzeo by Google Original from

Index 441
Sukarno 312, 395 Tibet 186, 187, 189, 227

attempts to un-t 81 cultural suppression I89
Swnduroog Chu 219,220 nuclear weapons in 223
Sundarji, Gen. 7, 8, 14, 70, 145, 161, TIFR 134
194, 197 Tlatelolco Treaty 95, 121
'Surya' missile 212 Tokyo tenor (1975) 272ol, 273
Suslov, V. 183, 184 Tonkin Bay incident 198n3
Svedberg, Theodore I 04 Topaq, Op. 338
Swaminatban, Ammu 349n2 'Towards a New Power Base in Asia'
Swaminatban, Srilatha 349n2 309
Sweden Trail of the OctopMS, 77ie 281
duplicity on nuclear disannament 124, Trinity test 89, 134
124n2 Trivedi, V.C. 136
neutrality 104 Trudeau, Pime 105-6
nuclear prognunme 103-5, 126 Truman, H. 78, 234
nuclear stand 129 Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Sweden witlwul the Bomb I 04 (South Africa) 277
Tube Alloys project 96
Taiwan 184, 188, 191,231, 241-4 TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front)
Taiwan crisis (1996) 249 26, 75
Taiwan Straits 242 Tutu, Desmond, Bishop 255
Taliban 174-7
Tanaka • Kakuei 291 UK nuclear quest 95
Taoham, George K. 3 Ulam, Staioslaw 93
on lodiao nuclear policy 6 UN
Tarapur 136, 138 Charter 403
Tashkent agreement ( 1966) 360 conference on human environment
Tata Trust 134 (1972) 125
Tawaog 219,220 efficacy 269
Taylor, Theodore I 09 financing 394-5
Tehran embassy hostages 274 performance 382-96
telq,hooe tapping 79, 83-4 Security Council 98, 383-4; expan-
Teller, Edward 93 sion 376, 385; permanent seat in 4;
terrorism 272- 83 reorganization 38~91
Thapar, P.N., Gen. 72 special sessions on disarmament
Thatcher, Margaret 55, 291 (1978) 105, 120, 129, 137, 138;
Thimayya, Gen. 217, 321-2 (1982) 375
think-tanks 16, 48 and disarmament 117, 124
bureaucracy's aversion to 11-12 and peacekeeping 384--7
foreign, and disinformation about UNDP on lodia's defence expenditure
India SI 51
and strategic debate I0 United Services lostitution journal 15
Thornton, Tom 357 United Services lostitutioo national
threat assessment, lack of long-tenn security lecture (1992) 7
petspeciive 14 Uruguay Round 377, 378
Tianaomen Square massacre 178--80, us
188, 242 Commission on Long-tenn Integrated
Tibbets, Paul 90ol Strategy 245

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t,, ,')t.:o~c-:-, m k.an I... 3 \\.ajc,d. SbeildJ IJacim 366
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wt,;1 :, i'CTl(..t v,IJ41br,nwon .., ,th 11,·q Juixing 3:4-S
I'~ "u.n l',11. II I •••
111l1::hi!-c-rll(,.,C v,11.J,.,r~urJO w ith L'K 79 fut1lrty 161. 420-$
'"''')' ,,, 1hc: l'..:,fil 3 J(J 11 and C00logy 4 ~
m.1c k:u c•l)<TJrf'K"fJI> 1,n rrx:,u:..IJy and CIJ\·i1cwo1ocal da1+wr :!.6.:!
d..-Jh.-11~,:d people 11/7 War in w Higl, HiMal,,ya 3:3. 33-
P"'••" • I 17 Ill •,.-ars of cooscicoce' 2~ I
"'""''''•«.Jlf1orn1<.. cc.,odJtu.JrD 366ol \\'ann· Treaty 156-7
•ll•t.c~•• d1•l,'l!uc ,. ,lb Ru,..• and WashinglOO. Geoigre 372
C't11"" 11 ,.eapoo de>·elc,pn-211 .ad dmoge of
•nd l;S pc..:ckc:eping 3~7 doctrine 47
rd•tum• with lndlll 3, 4n I , 2 JIJn4, Weinberger, Cnprr 2◄, 237
21 X, 22'1 41), 1wnt n.ovy cxcrci- West Bank 425
l I I, l I 2 Westland belicoptas 55
' I:', Str•t.cgy for the A,ia Pacific, A' Westmoreland, Gme,al 330
)'Jij WHO 124, 263
I IS J"j)an dcfi:111:c agreement 243 WiIson, Harold 95
I)',', f,'n1,•rfJril'e 123,314 Wisc!, Elie 255
Il'>SI< Wohlstcner, Albert 270
collap,,c 150, 151 7 Woodrose, Op. 28ln2
coup attempt 116 Woodward, Bob 76
chauvini,m in rc:publ ics 151, 154, 155 Woolsey 141
Jdi:11cc planning. lon11-ran11c 24 World Court project 124
rda11<>11, wi!h India 217 World Trade Ceoler bombing (1993)
lh,uri dash 17'1, 21'1, 327 175, 273
1/,tinov, M•rshaJ 205 World Trade Organiz.ation 242
Vujpaycc, A.I!. 137 Xia Yan 180, 181

Vt'il. Th,· 76 Xinjiang, jihad 186-8
Vc11kataruman, R. 24, 41,223,225 Xodja, Envcr 171
cffons to have structured planning in
dcii:ncc 22 Yamamato, Adm., killing 283
Vcnk1lluruman, S.A. 293 Yang Chengzong 99
Ver, Fchian, ( icn. 2911 Yang Shangkun, Marshal 178, 221
Ver11hesc, (ieor11c 360 Yeltsin, Boris 154, 155
Vessey, (icncral 270 Ycvstafyev, General I I 5
Vienna t'onvcntion of the Law of Yousef, Ramzi 175
Treaties 1211 Yugoslav breakdown 268
no-ti rst-usc 128 ··30
Victnwn 131. 157, 162, 168 -73, 262, Zagoria, Donald 4n I
421, 422, 425, 426 Zaheer, Sa.ijad 343
Zangger, Claude IOOnl, 107

Index 443
Zarb-e-Momin exercise 195 death 341-2

zero.base budget 50 and CIA 82
Zhao Ziyang 179 Zimmermann telegram 330
Zhou Enlai 178,183,218,319, 320, Zorin-McCloy joint declaration 117
324-6 Zuckerman, Lord 129
Zhu Zhoogli 324 Zumwalt, Elmo, Adm. 330
Ziaul Haq, Gen. 11, 80, 175, 206, 210,
214,286,299,304,305,337,338,
344


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heddinj

D1g1t1zeo by Google Orlgmal frcm

SHEDDING SHIBBOLl!'ll!S: INDIA'S EVOLVING STRATEGIC O UTLOOK

Copyright C 2005, Author

D1g1t1zeo by Google Orlgmal frcm

Tbe Sbakti tests and the developments thereafter, such as

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norms laid down in the Constitution. Perhaps this total preoccupation

New Delhi K. Subrabmanyam

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To say that K. Subrahman~ereafter, to save space,

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nuclear test, causing the usual concern, consternation, confusion, and

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bowlers-fairly frequent initially-such as that a company of Mukti

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in taking a clinically pragmatic rather than an ideological or a didactic

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diplomatic energy. When Jawaharlal Nehru first propounded the doctrine

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of warfare? A3 KS points out gently, these patriotic souls were oblivious

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No less depressing is the complete absence of any worthwhile change

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readers can have no idea of the daunting circumstances in which he

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this wide-ranging book. The critically important, if also controversial,

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appreciated) effort to educate his compatriots in the complex and often

(at 1957 prices). Rrmarkably, China mobilimd resources of this magnitude

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methods of taking decisions on nuclear policy and strategy then existing.

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the compulsion to be rigorously selective and terse. Yet each of KS's

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But when a PanAm or 1WA airliner is exploded, they reali7.e it is inter-

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because he was arrested in Norway. Major Zahooruddin Afridi and FIL-

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On matters of particular interest to this country are KS's two short,

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told Cbavan that instead of making the fighting in West Pakistan a

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In late I 993 KS went to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of .Adminis-

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In his charming piece 011 "Conuptioo Worldwide" KS bas several

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