Table Of ContentDEFENDING INDIA
Also by Jaswant Singh
NATIONAL SECURITY: An Outline of our Concerns
SHAURYA TEJO (with S. P. Bhatia)
Defending India
Jaswant Singh
Deputy Chairman
Planning Commission of India
New Delhi
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-27193-1 ISBN 978-1-349-27191-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-27191-7
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22066-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Singh, Jaswant, 1938-
Defending India / Jaswant Singh.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index
ISBN 978-0-312-22066-2 (cloth)
1. National security-India. I. Title.
UA840.S45 1998
355' .033054--dc21 98--42210
CIP
First published in India 1999 by
MACMILLAN INDIA LTD
315/316 Raheja Chambers, 12 Museum Road,
Bangalore 560 001
ISBN 978-0-333-93210-0
This edition is available only in India.
© Jaswant Singh 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1999
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with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
Dedicated to the
soldiers, sailors and ainnen of India
CONTENTS
Introduction viii
Acknowledgements xxvii
Preface xxix
1 Strategic Culture 1
2 Armed Forces 61
3 Independent India's Military Operations 142
4 Defence Spending and Force Structure 213
5 The Future 265
Index 295
Postscript 306
vii
INTRODUCTION
This book is a significant contribution to the growing
debate in India on national security and the country's
role in the emerging international system. The author,
Mr Jaswant Singh, now the Deputy Chairman, Planning
Commission is the political leader of highest standing
to address the issues of security and foreign policy
in the last 50 years of Indian independence in
an analytical way in a book and not as a compilation
of speeches. Since the party to which he belongs,
the Bharatiya Janata Party, has overtaken the Congress
Party in the votes polled in the country and in
the seats in the parliament Mr Jaswant Singh's
views are bound to have ever growing influence
on future security policy evolution. The book is
very timely with its appearance at a time when
there is a discontinuous change of power in Delhi.
While there is worldwide recognition that with the
end of the Cold War and emergence of a unipolar
system which is under pressure to be transformed
into a polycentric one there is an imperative need
to evolve a new flexible framework for foreign and
security policies for major powers like India, large
sections of this country's political, bureaucratic, academic
and media elite still find it difficult to free themselves
from the shibboleths of the last three decades.
viii
Jawaharlal Nehru formulated nonalignment as the
optimum security and foreign policy strategy for
a country like India in a nuclear bipolar world.
Though he himself did not articulate it in that
way nonalignment was in fact a modernized version
of the classical balance of power in a bipolar world
locked in hostility but unable to go to war because
of the existence of nuclear weapons. China too
played the balance of power game; firstly aligning
itself with the Soviet Union against the US and
then with the US against the Soviet Union. But
its way of playing the game was radically different
from India's. Unfortunately in this country whether
it is Gandhiji's nonviolent struggle against the British
colonialism or Nehru's nonalignment the strategies
which are eminently justifiable on the basis of
strict rationality have been diluted by mixing them
with moral choices and in the process the further
evolution of strategic thought has been smothered
by platitudinous verbiage. Gandhiji's nonviolent credo
did not stand in the way of his strongly supporting
the use of the Indian Army in Kashmir nor did
Nehru's nonalignment prevent him from accepting
military assistance from both US and the Soviet
Union in 1963 when the country's security compUlsions
demanded it. Both Gandhiji's nonviolence and Nehru's
nonalignment have been sought to be used by sections
of our political class as alibis for not thinking
through the problems this country faces as the
international environment changes continuously. The
views of Gandhiji and Nehru were converted into
a kind of dogma ignoring that those living in the
present cannot find solutions for their problems on
the pronouncements of the leaders gone by, however
eminent and farseeing they might have been, and
those leaders themselves would not have approved
of such escapist behaviour. That is particularly unfortunate
in India which does not have a tradition of prophethood
or belief in dogmas among the overwhelming majority
of its popUlation. Not only did Jawaharlal Nehru
ix
put aside the puristic interpretations of nonalignment
in 1963, so did Indira Gandhi in 1971 when she
concluded the Indo-Soviet treaty to create a sense
of deterrence for the Chinese and the Americans.
Nonalignment was meant to give such options when
crises situations' demanded them. It is understandable
the Americans could not distinguish the nuances
of difference between nonalignment and neutrality
but it is unfortunate that many Indians too failed
to do so. The essence of nonalignment was the
freedom of exercising options on the basis of perceived
national interests. Nor was the Indian policy on
Afghanistan - private disapproval of Soviet intervention
and publicly refraining from condemnation - a violation
of nonalignment. Even as the US was arming Pakistan
and being permissive of Pakistan acquiring nuclear
weapons with China's assistance it would have been
utter folly to have alienated the Soviet Union, the
only source of reliable arms supply to India.
Nonalignment was meant to be a national strategy
to serve India's national interest. It was not intended
to be a moral code of conduct in international
relations as was sought to be interpreted in the
post Nehruvian era. Mr. Jaswant Singh's analytical
quest is therefore to be welcomed as an attempt
to carry on the Nehruvian approach without making
Nehru a prophet. In the Indian tradition the best
way a pupil is expected to repay the teacher is
to excel him. A true Nehruvian should try to advance
India's national security and interest by adapting
Nehru's strategy for a bipolar world to one most
appropriate for a polycentric world. That must necessarily
begin with a critical analysis of pluses and minuses
of Nehruvian policy and more so of its deep frozen
version in the decades that followed after his death.
Mr. Jaswant Singh's is an attempt to do that.
In the recent times Mr George Tanham's provocative
monograph published by the Rand Corporation which
highlights that India does not have a tradition of
strategic thought has initiated a very healthy debate
x
