Intelligence needs reforms

Unfortunately in the NDA administration the autonomy of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the assessment body, was downgraded and it was treated as part of the NSC secretariat. This should be rectified. Every NSC meeting should start with an intelligence briefing to all members of the NSC and senior officials. The practice of every minister and senior official coming out with his own individual assessment on the rate of infiltration or level of terrorist violence in the Kashmir valley should stop.

There is an increasing demand that India and China should be invited to join the G-8 to make it G-10. It implies that India’s role in the global economy is becoming significant. Markets all over the world are sensitive to happenings elsewhere and the foreign direct investments into India are influenced by the continuous adjustments India makes to global economic trends. Besides, the stock market scams, the UTI crash, the localised regional food deficiencies etc in the last decade also highlight the need for a continuous economic assessment and for that to be placed before the NSC along with the fortnightly politico-strategic assessment. One of the areas to be monitored by the NSC is global economic trends and their impact on our security. It may be necessary to develop an institutionalised mechanism to carry out the assessment of national and global economic trends. It may have to be decided whether this mechanism should be in the finance ministry or the planning commission.

There is no doubt that the NSC secretariat should be expanded and there is a need for two deputy national security advisers even while making the chairman, JIC, who is now designated deputy to the national security adviser autonomous. The K.C. Pant Committee, set up by NDA government, in 1998, which included Jaswant Singh and Air Commodore Jasjit Singh as member secretary had provided a model organisational chart for the NSC secretariat. That could be a starting point to begin the reorganisation of the NSC secretariat.

It is also necessary at the initial stage to make it very clear to all ministries, departments and agencies that the NSC is not a super-government and is not meant to displace the policy-making functions of the ministries. It is only an advisory council, which looks at various trans-ministerial issues related to national security and is expected to focus attention on such issues to enable the ministries to come up with their policy options before the NSC. It will initiate action to get interministerial studies undertaken, monitor their progress and report to the NSC. This clarification is absolutely essential since there is a fear among ministries that the NSC may trespass on their legitimate turf.

In the long run, the NSC, if it fulfills its role, should bring about a change in the governmental culture. First it should make ministries look at issues globally, in the long term and holistically. Secondly, increasingly ministries may have to outsource many of their long-term planning projects to taskforces and expert groups. They should also get out of the habit of getting studies done by experts and then generalist civil servants nitpicking on them.

One of the problems this country faces in running the NSC is of the paucity of trained personnel in the subject — national and international security. In the US, the very best talents from universities are attracted to a career in this area. In India, a start has to be made and it would take some years to get qualified PhDs from universities if the NSC starts instituting fellowships right now.

There is a huge task waiting for the NSC: to influence the modernisation of the foreign service, defence apparatus and intelligence organisations, most of which are still functioning without any basic reforms in the last five decades. Modernisation in their cases involve their adapting themselves to India’s new role in the international community and to enable India to grow at 8-10 per cent and eliminate poverty by 2020.