A question of identity

It was here that a six-member core group of the NSCAB conferred with Satish Chandra, Secretary of the NSCS, every second day of the Kargil crisis. At the end of each session, a set of recommendations — usually on a single sheet — would be sent to Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Advisor and thereon, to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. “We have been told that 80-90 per centof our advice was taken and it helped the Government formulate its decisions,” a member of the core group now says.

Therefore, whether it was the handling of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Sartaj Aziz’s visit, sending a PMO official to the IMF headquarters or the decision to give an Islamic burial to unclaimed bodies of Pakistani soldiers, crucial inputs were being routed to the PMO almost every day from Sardar Patel Bhavan. And even now, the NSCAB’s core group meets occasionally to advise the Government on prickly post-war issues.

The one-year term of the NSCAB comes to an end on December 3 and already, there is speculation about its reconstitution by the new regime. Several members have been complaining that the group is too large; others say the generation gap needs to be bridged — since just five members are under 50 years of age (mostly, the professional journalists) and the remaining all over 60 years — among them former defence chiefs, home secretaries, foreign secretaries and police chiefs.Several members claim the occasional outbursts at Board meetings and the exchange of personal innuendos were more a result of the generation gap than any ideological differences.

Economist Sanjaya Baru, who heads the group on economic security, sums up the NSCAB’s crisis for carving out an identity, “Getting the right inputs from an advisory board is important and not its size. But, yes, it may have been useful getting in so much information from the past for the NSCAB’s first year. In future, so many senior people may not be needed.”

But what is being described as the “unwieldy, cumbersome” composition of the NSCAB has led to some prominent members saying (privately, of course) that they were at the point of resigning. Few expect such dramatic developments to take place but recall how immediately after the BJP Government fell, two members had tendered their resignations. One member rescinded when it became clear the Government wasn’t changing and that the Vajpayee Government was getting caretakerstatus. The other resignation, that of a former diplomat, was filed in the PMO but two weeks later, he was asked to withdraw the letter and return on the Board.

While NSCAB members treat the subject of these resignations and the reported “ego-clashes” as strictly taboo (“we’ve signed an oath of secrecy”,“we’re not supposed to even give out names of all members” are some reactions), they are willing to be drawn into a debate on its evolving role. Former Air Chief Marshal S.K. Mehra feels the NSCAB needed a permanent status and a better secretariat. “There has to be something less temporary to make the experiment work,” he says. “And instead of working like part-time consultants, members of the Board should work on a full-time basis.”

Another member felt that while a good beginning had been made, something more “tangible” was needed now. He said one suggestion given to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a full meeting of the NSC was the establishment of an Institute of South AsianStudies. There, has, however, been no movement for setting up the Institute. Another point of criticism has been that while the Advisory Board has been meeting regularly, the same cannot be said about the National Security Council, which is headed by the Prime Minister or the Strategic Planning Group (SPG), the bureaucratic body set up at the same time as the NSCAB.

Others like former Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit say that the NSCAB should never be seen as an adjunct of Government. “We need to give detached advice and even a quasi-Government body will not be able to do that. What we are experiencing in the Board is just some teething trouble but what is important is that some practical beginning has been made.”

A practical beginning, yes, and with the August 16 release of the draft nuclear doctrine, the first public acknowledgement of the role of the NSCAB. Writing of the doctrine was first of two tasks assigned to the Board by Mishra (during the first meeting of the Board’s plenary). The doctrine, askimpy six-page document, was the final version of earlier eight drafts prepared after months of heated, even acrimonious debating. The drafting was done by one of the five sub-groups of the NSCAB and had been submitted to the Government two months before its actual release.

The public release of the doctrine so close to the general elections annoyed some members who say they are going to raise the “betrayal” at the next meeting of the plenary. But while members say they were oblivious about the release, others claim to have been informed by the Board’s convener, Dr K. Subramanyam. As one member put it, “Once we have submitted a document to the Government, they can do what they like with it. Ours is a purely advisory role and we even need not be informed about what use the doctrine is being put to.”

With the nuclear doctrine out, members of the the NSCAB are gearing up to complete their second major task: drafting the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Members of four sub-groups — on internal security,external security, economic security and science and technology are drafting the document. NSCAB members say the SDR will cover some highly specialised areas of security. To name a few: patterns of migration in the North-East; geo-strategic threats in South Asia; politicising the police forces and the impact of nuclear postures of neighbouring countries.

Some 60 research papers have been written with Subramanyam and a few other members expected to sift through the voluminous reports and prepare the SDR’s first draft. Says Dixit,“The SDR can become the basis for the new Government taking decisions on all security-related matters. We will be giving a series of options and recommendations in each section of the document.”