India has four taskforce on national security but still doesn’t have a comprehensive idea of what national security means, according to an international expert.
Delivering Dr Kamal Aravind Endowment Lecture here on Friday, Dr Surjit Mansingh, a Visiting Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at The George Washington University, Washington, highlighted India’s foreign policy constraints and said that the country has continuing uncertainty over how to develop its national power.
“This is due to lack of grand vision on what national security means,” she said.
This is mostly due to dearth of intellectualism which is usually centred around New Delhi. Although now in place like Chennai the intellectualism is growing but it has yet to be developed, she said.
She also said that there is a constatnt denigration of India’s armed forces as they are left out of the planning process.
“India’s neighbourhood is too fragile and one can’t afford to neglect the defence forces,” said Surjit, who was also a former professor of International Politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The absence of defence forces in planning process has come to such an extent that nobody takes India’s nuclear deterrence seriously, she said.
Surjit also hit out at lack of manpower in foreign missions. “India has 162 foreign missions which is manned by 700 people which is woefully inadequate when compared to China which has 4,000 people,” she added.
She also highlighted how Indian foreign policy shaped after the Cold War by citing examples from Nehruvian era and said India after losing the 1962 war failed to gain global recognition from 1963 till now. “Only now India is capturing the international attention,” she said
