Kashmir Times, 11 September 2015
http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=44865
India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in a public lecture averred that India’s propensity to punch below its weight needed correction. India’s diplomatic and security shuffles ever since Mr. Modi’s election can be credited to India’s national security reset under Mr. Doval.
The
latest example of Indian operational footwork is the creation of conditions
under which Pakistan’s NSA was forced to cancel his trip to New Delhi. The trip
itself had a promising beginning going back to the very first ‘surprise’ by the
government in the invite to SAARC
leaders, including Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, for Prime Minister Modi’s
swearing-in.
India
roughed up the sheen with its very next move by calling off foreign secretary talks
with Pakistan last August. Even so, it yet again created space for a potential
opening in the joint statement of the two foreign secretaries at Ufa when the
two prime ministers met on the sidelines of the SCO meet in July.
Perplexing
move are in other areas as well.
When
in Paris, the prime minister made a step-back from ‘Make in India’ to short-circuit
the long drawn defence acquisition process in buying 36 Rafale aircraft
off-the-shelf. The sudden signing of a framework agreement with Naga
interlocutors is another example.
Whereas
these actions suggest decisiveness, could they also have an underside in a shortcutting
of the decision making process?
That
the NSA is in the driver’s seat is unmistakable. He has figured prominently in
what would otherwise be matters to be handled by the relevant institutions
rather than by intervention of the NSA.
Media
let on that the NSA was off, along with the then IB head, to Iraq
on a rescue mission for Indians numbering in the double digits reportedly taken
hostage by the ISIS. Could not this mission have been left to IB’s Asif Ibrahim
who has since taken over as Special Envoy for West Asia and AfPak region?
Doval
skipped the prime minister’s Bangladesh trip in order to organize the somewhat
belated ‘hot pursuit’ operation in Myanmar after Naga hostiles killed 18 army
men in an ambush in Manipur
in early June. Apparently, the Indian army chief was also in tow, overseeing a
tactical level action that could well have been left to the reputed corps
commander there.
Where
ordinarily the foreign ministry, in charge of Modi’s ‘Act East’ strategy, could
have stepped in, instead Doval went over to assuage Myanmar’s
hurt over possible sovereignty violations after the raid.
Another
controversy over ‘turf’ has been in his getting on the phone
for berating the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi and instructing
India’s high commissioner in Islamabad to tell Pakistan to lay off firing on
the Line of Control.
In
what could be seen as undermining state governments, including in the BJP’s, he
was spotted in Mumbai to supervise control over any backlash in the aftermath
of the hanging of Yakub Memon.
He queried Delhi Police on the Uber
cab rape case. Though the NIA was already seized of the case, he visited Burdwan
over the accidental blast there killed two alleged Bangladeshi bomb makers. In Kashmir,
a new strategy to keep Kashmiri youth from radicalism was attributed to him
after his visit there.
Clearly,
Doval is indeed a man of action, as the numerous hagiographical profiles
had it when he took over as one of Modi’s first appointees. However, Doval’s
numerous interventions bring under cloud his remonstrations of teamwork, reinforcing criticism of Modi running an over-centralised
ship.
Institutional
good health depends on due processes and cohesion. The NSA can at best play a
coordinating and facilitating role, and needs being self-effacing when about it
in order that a national security culture based on institutions rather than
individuals develops.
Concentration
of power and authority in the person leads to an avoidable premium on personality
factors, with an underside. Observers point to a Pakistan obsession
resulting from the NSA’s long stint under cover there that can potentially render
India’s Pakistan strategy awry.
More
significantly, ideology potentially contaminates strategic rationality. The
web-pages on culture and history of the foundation Doval headed for close to a
decade, Vivekananda
International Foundation, and that of his son,
the India
Foundation, reflect the Hindutva narrative. Ideology leads to a colouring
of perceptions of national interest, with corresponding knock-on impact on
national security.
Finally,
expertise necessarily implies narrowness. A forte for intelligence does not
necessarily imply operational dexterity or strategic finesse. Indian cultural
constraints and bureaucratic deference, compounded by Doval’s omnipresence from
the tactical to strategic level policy making and implementation, can result in
a dearth of practitioners willingness to ‘speak the truth to power’.
While
it is too early to write his report card or write-off Doval, a cautionary word can
prove timely. Policy entrepreneurship and individual hyper-activism are recipes
for personal and, worse, institutional failure with prohibitive national
security consequences.
