LEADER ARTICLE
One Man, Two Tasks: Brilliant Diplomacy vs Neglected Security

It is not often remembered that early in April 1998, the NDA government appointed a three-man task force to examine the setting up of a national security council, and make recommendations accordingly.
It was headed by K C Pant, had Jaswant Singh as a member and Air Commodore Jasjit Singh as member-secretary. It recommended a national security council headed by the PM and consisting of six members, five ministers and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.
It had a three-tier secretariat, headed by a national security advisor, impliedly of cabinet rank. The NSC''s secretariat was so structured as to liaise and coordinate with ministries, intelligence agencies, armed forces and the whole gamut of research institutions and think tanks.
The NSC''s operational scope was quite comprehensive. It is a different matter that the NSC failed from the very start. While the Pant report provided for close links with intelligence agencies, it did not recommend the abolition of joint intelligence committee (JIC) or the conversion of that organisation into the NSC secretariat.
Even today the Pant committee model is a good starting point to review and strengthen the NSC.
What was finally announced was a complete mockery of an organisation. I described it in this paper thus: "A mountain in labour produces a dead mouse".
The NSC made Brajesh Mishra NSA with cabinet rank. I believe Brajesh Mishra''s services to this country are unparalleled and his contribution to making this country a global player far exceeds that of any other public servant since Independence.
He brought about a cohesion and purposefulness in India''s interactions with the great powers and totally changed the international perception of Indian diplomacy. Our major problem was that two of the world''s greatest powers, US and China, not to mention our partitioned neighbour, never believed that this nation ever had the will to power.
Both in 1971 and 1974, Indira Gandhi demonstrated her will to power but she could not sustain that image. The general impression of India was that it was a minor global player.
The international diplomatic community could not maintain a realistic conversation with Indians, who were generally comfortable with platitudes.
Brajesh appears to have set out to achieve six objectives. One, the world must reconcile itself to Indian nuclear and missile weapons.
Two, India should improve its relations with the US and persuade that country to accept that there was a mutuality of strategic interests between the two democracies.
Three, India should see to it that its relations with Russia, which were damaged by Yeltsin but sought to be revived by people like Primakov, were back on course.
Four, India should exploit the manoeuvrability provided by Europe, particularly Germany and France. Five, India must deal with China and Pakistan realistically.
And six, Every effort must be made to persuade Japan to shed its inhibitions about India, so that once US-Indian relations improved, a ''Look East'' policy could be adopted.
Such a comprehensive worldview with an active role for India as a global player was not Brajesh Mishra''s original contribution. Such views started developing incipiently in Indira Gandhi''s time when, following the Cancun summit, she started making overtures to Reagan, with an extensive high level Track-II dialogue.
Some of the higher level military agreements with the US were signed then. Rajiv went a step forward and called the Indian diaspora the country''s brain bank. He began the initiative with China in 1988 and Pakistan in 1989.
Narasimha Rao established ambassadorial relations with Israel and unleashed the Manmohanomics revolution, the bedrock of our integration with the globe. Both Indira in 1983 and Narasimha Rao in 1995 came very close to nuclear testing.
If, finally, the BJP showed the guts to do it, it was in part because of the comfortable foreign exchange balance built up by Manmohanomics. Therefore, Brajesh''s very successful projection of India as a global power was not just a parochial agenda of the BJP but a national one which had been evolving since 1980s.
This was an India asserting itself in the post-bipolarity era in a world of one hyper power and six other balancers, each one of which, including China, is very keen to beat the others in establishing closer relations with the US.
While Brajesh was officially the NSA, he did not pay much attention to the real job of national security planning. Years ago, he admitted to Vir Sanghvi that the two jobs he was holding had to be separated, but that this would have to wait. But it never happened. It is now for Mani Dixit and M K Narayanan to undertake that task.
Brajesh was in the Henry Kissinger mould, the Lone ranger. While Brajesh may have failed in one half of his task as a national security advisor he was a huge success when it came to projecting India to an international community, which in the last 50 years never thought much of this country.
Give that credit to him. That he was allowed to neglect the major part of his job and no NSC member would hold him responsible for it, is a very sad reflection on our political system.
That was the result of a very personal relationship between the PM and the NSA, and which, fortunately, is unlikely to be replicated. The prospects for an effective NSC in this government are, therefore, bright.