Need to formulate national security policy, says NN Vohra

New Delhi, April 30

Former J&K Governor NN Vohra today advocated having a national security policy that has all components of security framework in place. It should address how each component co-relates, what its command structure is, who is answerable and in case of contingency, what the response would be, he said.

He was speaking at the 4th General K Sundarji Memorial Lecture organised by the Mechanised Infantry Centre and School (MIC&S) of the Indian Army and the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).

General Sundarji wrote something on this in the 1980s, said Vohra, adding that the government never considered it relevant to have such a policy. “In the absence of such a policy, there is a mental hesitation and there exists a vast freedom of making ad hoc decisions,” he added. Vohra, who was a part of the Kargil Review Committee, said the committee suggested having a pool of officers who would spend their entire lives in the security-related ministries such as Defence, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs, and intelligence agencies.

Vohra, who served in the Ministry of Defence for eight years, including as the Defence Secretary (March 1990 to April 1993), said: “General Sundarji was a far-sighted Army officer.” During his tenure as the Army Chief (1986-1988), General Sundarji carried out ‘Operation Brasstacks’ and spoke about the gaps in war fighting and rewrote the Army manual.

On history of the armed forces, Vohra said: “I don’t see any reason why the Henderson Brokes report on the debacle in the 1962 India-China war cannot be sent to all training academies and be de-classified.” There should be no hurry in reducing the number of operational commands from the present 17; the Chief of Defence Staff should take his own time, he said.

Vohra, who has also served as the Union Home Secretary

(April 1993 to May 1994) mentioned “chronic problems” the nation faces. “The North-East is seeing ethnic clashes, some of these are pre-1947 and some are backed by foreign agencies. Second is the demand for Khalistan abetted by Pakistan. Groups are carrying out a subversive propaganda that the movement is not dead. Pakistan perpetuated terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir; drugs and arms smuggling, fake currency and illegal immigration are among the other problems,” he said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs needed to shed all non-security duties and become the nodal authority for security all over the country, he said. The Central Armed Police Forces should not be called for election duty, said Vohra, warning that long internal security duty for the Army was changing the character of the troops. The Army should step in only in case foreign-backed insurgency was being fomented, he said.

Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande underscored the foresight of General Sundarji and highlighted his vision in the fields of digitisation of the battlefield, information warfare, technology infusion, conventional strategies and force structure, reflected in his work, “Vision 2100”. Lt Gen Subrata Saha (retd), former Deputy Chief of Army and member, National Security Advisory Board, delivered a talk on “Modernising India’s Armed Forces: Lessons from Gen K Sundarji”.