When India got it all wrong

India at Risk

Author: Jaswant Singh

Publisher: Rainlight, Rs 595

It is gratifying to see a veteran political leader critically examining India’s security policy, especially its mistakes, misconceptions and wrong moves, not through angularities of the saffron party he belongs to but in a near objective manner. The author enjoys high reputation in political, diplomatic and academic circles. Being an ex-serviceman, he is also familiar with the country’s ground realities, geopolitical compulsions and external pressures on its vast borders with not-so-friendly neighbours. A parliamentarian of repute, he had the distinctive advantage of having simultaneously held the portfolios of the Minister of External Affairs and of Defence, in addition to Finance. This provides him an insight into India’s security risks in a broader perspective. This is well reflected in the volume under review. A scholarly stamp is very much visible in the work.

The range and dimension of the author’s narration is broad-based and wide and his objective is “an enquiry” rather than “any judgmental interdiction”. As he spells out in the Preface, “Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The result is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.” It must be said to the author’s credit that he does not entertain any illusion on this count.

India’s has been 66 years of turbulent period of “internal and external conflicts”. Regrettably, as a nation we have been poor learners of our mistakes whether these related to Pakistan’s invasion in 1947-48 or China’s betrayal in 1962.

Jawaharlal Nehru then lived in his own unrealistic world of idealism, dreaming of ‘Asian solidarity’, an ‘Asian civilisation’. Well, emotion-packed idealism cannot stand the test of harsh realities. A sensitive human being, the author rightly states, “Nehru did not have the knowledge of the solutions”, nor had he “the instincts of a decisive ruler either”. No wonder, the country has had to pay a heavy price for that indecisive and dreamy period of India’s foreign end security policies.

Interestingly, the bugle of alarm on the Himalayan blunder of 1962 was first blown by then Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. In his lengthy letter of protest written to Nehru on November 7, 1950, he clearly states: “We have to consider what new situation now faces us as a result of disappearance of Tibet as we knew it and the expansion of China almost up to our gates. Throughout history we have seldom been worried about our north-east frontier”.

Jaswant Singh has discussed a number of mistakes and misconcepts in conducting foreign policy and security matters from the first challenge (1947-49) from Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir, to the Himalayan conflict to the 1965 India-Pakistan war to New Delhi’s lightning campaign in then East Pakistan leading to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 and the Simla conference (July 1972). He says: “The Bangladesh victory was so singular an achievement that it ought to have sufficed, internally, to keep Indira Gandhi and the Congress party comfortably in office for years on end, enabling her to manage the affairs of the country with ease. But, as events unfolded, a different reality began to emerge and events then altered course”.

What followed was “destructive decades”. During those turbulent years the country grappled Emergency and the subsequent defeat of Mrs Gandhi’s Congress in the 1977 poll. Then came the Janata Government’s “self-willed destruction” between 1977-1980. Mrs Gandhi returned to power. This was followed by yet another period of domestic turmoil. The “Operation Bluestar” in Durbar Sahib (June 3, 1984), Mrs Gandhi’s assassination (October 31, 1984) and anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi are among the darkest periods of Indian democracy. Of course, the Congress returned to power under Rajiv Gandhi with record 404 seats in the Lok Sabha. Later we saw a series of events that showed Indian going “wrong”, even in the pursuit of its Sri Lankan policy. The author has put such operational flaws in right perspective. He says: “Indian state, despite desiring a regional power status and despite being keen on safeguarding national interests, does not have the stamina to stick to controversial policies in an adversary ambience”.

Equally relevant is the author’s attributes of “greater failure” — “the lack of cohesion in the operational aspect of Indian policies and harmonious coordination between different agencies of the Indian state in dealing with the crisis. Here, “the fault lies in the incapacity of the political leadership of the time alone”. He is right. The absence of visionary, well-focused and sustainable leadership has been a major tragedy of the Indian polity.

Singh has also discussed India’s challenges of the new millennium, including India’s nuclear muscle and the Pokhran explosion, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s efforts to mend fences with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, the Kargil episode and the Agra Summit. I was, however, curious to read his own assessment of the Kandahar episode during the NDA regime. I fully understand the compulsions of that daunting policy challenge of saving 161 men, women and children and their terrible agony of being confined in the hijacked aircraft for eight days and seven nights in exchange of release for three hardcore terrorists. No democratic government could have allowed 161 passengers to be blown off by the Taliban. The choice was clear, but I am still unable to digest whether it was necessary for Singh to accompany the released terrorists in the same aircraft! The author has his own explanation. He wanted to be around during those agonising hours.

In the last chapter, the author discusses the challenges of governance, non-proliferation, terrorism and economy. Interestingly, he talks of post-1885 and the ‘disarming of India’ by the colonial masters which, he feels, has a direct link with India’s strategic culture. I do not agree with his simple inference. Strategic culture requires a clear-headed, well-focussed and determined leadership with a mindset of ‘India First’. Of course, we are faced with a variety of internal threats — ideological, religious, political or social, based on rising unemployment, Maoist strain etc.

As it is, terrorism will continue to pose a serious challenge to the country. It is a multi-dimensional challenge that calls for new thinking and new responses, both technological and non-technological. For him, India’s foreign policy has been trapped between lines: The Durand Line, the McMahon Line, the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control. He says to achieve autonomy, we have to first find an answer to this strategic confinement. Perhaps we have to wait for his yet another book for right answers to his concept of ‘strategic confinement’. He has rich academic, diplomatic and political background to provide us honest answers. For the present, this book will do the needful.

The reviewer is former editor, The Tribune