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January     Last updated:January 20 : 7:00 p.m.

Thirty Years Ago

Wanted A National Commission On Defence

By all accounts national security should figure prominently on the platforms of election. If that is agreed, there should be a demand that the next Government at the Centre should set up a National Commission on Defence. Amidst the prevailing high thinking and pep talk, a suggestion of this kind may appear strange. But I venture to believe that security is basic to existence and that a people must survive before they can function. No matter who comes to power, the question of security will plague the entire spectrum of governance. It will colour ideology, impinge on foreign relations, direct the application of resources, and determine how much of the good things of life we can generate.

Security will be the crucible of national endeavours. I suggest that it is imperative to subject this crucible to the scrutiny of a non-partisan body. The first thing that the proposed Commission should be called upon to do is to re-examine the perspective of defence. Twenty-three years ago we became independent and took the reins of defence in our hands. If you turn over the pages of the reports of the Ministry of Defence issued during this period, you find that for all these years the defence planners have been pre-occupied with Pakistan. A change came in 1962, when China was also included. And so for nearly a decade both China and Pakistan have been the bogey. This may have been the right thing, but it is now time to say that it is not the only thing. Fresh look on the world's strategic landscape is inescapable. The Indian Ocean is closer to us than we thought and Southeast Asia is convulsed into a new reality. Our horizon of foreign relations has extended beyond the old North Western Frontier or the McMohan Line. Our capabilities have grown.

The nature of arms, military relationships, and the role of Super Powers have all been transformed. And yet if you take the latest report of the Ministry of Defence, all that seems to matter is Pakistan, China and their permutations and combinations. All the world may have changed but that of our defence planners is lying stagnant. Static Thinking Of Our Defence Planners Even here things are far from credible. One recalls that during the elections of 1967, when we were still licking the wounds of the Indo-Pak War and China had already embarked on its nuclear stockpiling, we were told that everything would be done to counter the threat from traditional foes. We have meanwhile been through with the First Defence Plan and have inaugurated the Second. But we have yet to know how precisely efficacious these Plans are.

The euphoria resulting from the notion that we "won" against Pakistan of course subsided very soon, when it was realised that Russia was the only winner in that war. Since then Pakistan has not only rapidly made up its losses but diversified its sources of supply. And so far as combat planes are concerned it has struck some remarkable deals; with its present fleet of bombers obtained from China and the United States it has acquired an edge over us in the field of air power....

January 16, 1971