Has ‘intellectual arrogance’ gripped India’s national security managers?

Unlike their counterparts in the armed forces for whom courses intertwine with their career prospects right from their very inception to senior leadership, the ones that the civil services have to attend are not connected in any manner to any upward movement in their services. Therefore, even as an Indian armed forces officer’s fate is determined by the fact that he successfully competes for and completes professional courses such as “Defence Services Staff College”, “Higher Command” and “National Defence College” there is nothing comparable in the civil services.

To that end, a person who joins, say, the Indian Police Service (IPS) would — unless something terrible befell the officer by way of misdemeanour of a truly serious kind or one in which integrity was compromised — reach at least a “three-star” rank without having to pass anything equivalent to what say a Brigadier in the Indian army would have to race for and attain. I mean one would have to just look around and see the number of Additional Director General of Police ranks in the country and the ones in the Indian army that terminate as a Colonel or a Brigadier.

Indeed, it is wondered whether there would ever be a National Security Adviser (NSA) in India from the annals of domain specialisation. Would there ever be the likes of Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice or Jake Sullivan in India? In other words, would the Indian state ever see a retired three-star Indian armed forces officer in the chair of the NSA, not to talk of lowly “conflict analysts” who the India system simply tolerates! But what about a true blue-blooded Lieutenant General of the Indian Army who has spent his entire career first as a young officer combating insurgency and terrorism in the North East and Kashmir, then (having passed all the requisite courses which test one’s professional competence — lest the readers are not acquainted, they must take a peep into the rigours that characterise even getting into the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington) a posting in either the Line of Control, Line of Actual Control (LAC) in inhospitable conditions followed by either a posting in the People’s Republic of China as a Defence Attaché or in exceptional cases to complete the Higher Command or the even more prestigious National Defence College course in challenging places such as the United States, China, Australia or even Indonesia? Finally, the truly deserving three-star general — after a lifetime of rich experience in India’s national security management and having out-runned others in the same service — ends up as an Army Commander of an important command such as the Northern Command and implements all the security imperatives that he is called upon to perform.

It is for the reader to discern whether such a person is more qualified in every sense of the word to be the NSA of India than someone whose sole claim to fame is a single posting in an intelligence agency either in Kashmir or say in Mizoram? It is in doubt whether the person manning the position of the NSA and by default that of the Special Representative for boundary talks with China has ever been to Asaphila, Hot Springs or Sangcha.

Now, readers might turn around and ask that it’s not necessary for the NSA to visit every disputed area in the India-China border in order to be a good Special Representative or a negotiator. Indeed, there is probably no need for it. But, one is referring to qualification here. Who would be the person better endowed for holding the post of NSA? One with a better knowledge of the ground by dint of what has just been proffered above by way of the rigours in the Indian Army or a person who sees a disputed area as a red dot on a map in the Operations Room in South Block or S.P. Bhawan? It is being asked of the readers to provide three points whereby an IPS officer — notwithstanding his theoretically touted “operational” abilities — is better than a General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of an Indian Army command which necessitates that the incumbent must visit and take correct stock of the areas that was referred to above in the LAC, had been part of the Joint Working Group for boundary talks with China and had even commanded an Indian army brigade such as the one in Lohitpur when it comes to being a Special Representative for boundary talks with China?

This author has spent the last two decades with people from both services and he can hold his hand to his heart and say that even a Colonel attending the Higher Command course in Mhow or Secunderabad is far more knowledgeable than his counterpart in the IPS/IAS in both strategy and tactics. As for diplomacy, it is this author’s view that it can never be taught. If diplomacy can be tutored then one could not have thought of a better diplomat than the late, revered Atal Bihari Vajpayee who neither went to Mhow or Hyderabad to attend professional courses. Yet he was once chosen by an equally judicious prime minister to head the Indian delegation in 1994 to Geneva and conclude a diplomatic triumph on the Kashmir issue. But that took a PV Narasimha Rao who understood the importance of Vajpayee and the need for India to “talk in one voice” when it came to countering the nefarious designs of Pakistan.

This author confesses that the Indian armed forces impress him in every which way that they have gone about their duties in India. Indeed, they are the only force in the country that works. Yes, they have constituted the mainstay of much of this author’s interactions and interfaces but this author is entitled — as an observer — to pass a value judgement about the chasm of difference between even an average Indian armed forces officer and members of the other services in India. It is also important to understand the reasons for the distinction that is being made.

The fact of the matter is that the members of the civil services in India have — after clearing a rigorous examination conducted by the UPSC — seldom sought further acquisition of knowledge. It is not immediately known whether the colonial hangover is responsible, but people who enter the civil service have taken it upon themselves that they are the chosen few. Entries of others are not only looked down upon but prohibited. Incidentally, it is wondered whether the reader is aware that there are many in the civil and police services of India who could not clear the Services Selection Board (SSB) which is a prerequisite for entry into the Indian armed forces! Have people ever felt that there should be a similar delinking of the written examination and the interview that characterises the entry into places such as the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy for entry into the civil services as well?

A candidate for entry into the Indian Army has to separately clear the UPSC examination and the SSB (the SSB incidentally is not a 30-minute interview, but a three-day affair which closely tests a candidates physical, psychological and adaptability to the calling that he/she wishes to enter namely the Indian armed forces) and is not tailored in the manner in which a candidate for the civil/police services acquires a wondrous score in his/her written examination and still gets to be a topper in the service despite the fact that he/she is awarded poor marks in the interview.

In other words, the civil/police services are crammed with crammers. No wonder there was — it is recollected — a hilarious wall writing in the washrooms of the Jubilee Hall in Delhi University that once prophetically announced “99 per cent perspiration, 1 per cent inspiration”. This author has already alluded to the fact that there have been toppers in the civil/police services who have failed to make the grade in the SSB which an Indian armed forces officer has to clear before he/she enters a military academy.

In any event, this piece of writing is primarily about India’s national security. But it was important for a general reader to know the India that they are living in, the difference between the Indian Army and the civil/police services. It is also important to know that the NSA of India is/will be always a member of the civil services. In fact, it might even be worthwhile to dig out the background of some of the top policymakers of India and find out whether there have been any SSB rejects from among their midst.

The disappointment about the manner in which India’s national security is being managed presently is, therefore, not only about the incompetence which eggs it onto dangerous ends, but the superiority complex that has come over the people who are charged with the task of guarding India’s national security. There are no easy answers to correct this malaise. For Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh, of the 1959 Batch of the Indian Police Service, was perhaps right when he lamented that an “intellectual arrogance” of a severe kind has gripped the national security managers of present-day India.

The author is a conflict analyst and author of several bestselling books on security and strategy. Views expressed are personal.

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