Kargil fall-out

THE CONSTITUTION OF a ``Group of Ministers'' is the first of what are likely to be many steps towards conducting an exhaustive review of the national security system. Such a review became inevitable after the Kargil Review Committee, which submitted its report to the Government a few months ago, chose to recommend a re-examination of the national security system ``in its entirety''. Within this omnibus recommendation were contained a series of proposals relating to a wide range of subjects such as nuclear policy, counter-terrorist operations, intelligence gathering, border management and the interface between the civil authority and the armed forces headquarters. While a few of the suggestions were specific and action-oriented (acquisition of more high altitude unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, and reduction of the age profile of the army), the rest were essentially open- ended recommendations that further studies (by independent experts) be conducted in certain broad and diverse subjects related to national security.

Therefore, the principal task of the Group of Ministers - chaired by the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, including, Mr. George Fernandes (Defence), Mr. Jaswant Singh (External Affairs) and Mr. Yashwant Sinha (Finance) - is likely to be the setting up a number of other groups or committees to study one issue or another. If the recommendations of the K. Subrahmanyam-headed Kargil Review Committee are heeded in full, then the resources of a number of independent military and strategic affairs experts are going to be tapped for conducting this exercise. Such a wideranging review is arguably a periodic necessity and probably, in the present circumstances, an acute need. It is another matter that the terms of reference of the Committee - which was restricted to reviewing the events that led up to Kargil and recommending measures to safeguard the country against such armed intrusions - do not strictly support or bear out recommendations of such a broad and sweeping nature. Evidently, Mr. K. Subrahmanyam and his fellow members worked on the premise that Kargil should not be treated as an isolated incident but something which must be analysed against the background of Pakistan's proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir and recent changes in the security environment. One result of adopting such a perspective are recommendations which are seemingly unrelated (or at least not directly related) to the Kargil conflict - for example, the suggestion that India bring out a white paper on nuclear policy. Quite remarkably, the report suggests that an important (if not the main) purpose for such an exercise is to establish that the BJP Government was not the sole architect of India's nuclear weaponisation programme. Rather, it is to demonstrate that the programme, which Mr. Subrahmanyam clearly believes had a wide consensus, was the result of policies followed by successive Indian Governments from the time of Indira Gandhi.

It is not at all clear why the task allotted to the Group of Ministers was not entrusted to the National Security Council which was set up in November 1998, in the wake of the Pokhran blasts. Constituted with the very purpose of taking a holistic view of the country's security needs, the NSC is chaired by the Prime Minister and made up of five Union Ministers - four of whom are already represented in the Group of Ministers. Whatever the reason for ignoring the NSC, now that a nodal body to implement the Kargil Review Committee's multifarious recommendations is in place, the task is to ensure this is done as expeditiously as possible. ``Procrastination'', as the Committee's report warned, ``has cost countries dear''. Moreover, it is important to remember that almost 500 Indian soldiers lost their lives during the Kargil conflict. If the Subrahmanyam Committee's recommendations help in ensuring that an armed intrusion of that nature is never repeated, then the most fitting tribute to the memory of the slain soldiers would be to see they are quickly implemented.

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