Arising out of these challenges is the issue of India preparing itself to meet them in terms of next generation weaponry which will incorporate information technology, microelectronics and sophisticated sensors. The private sector in India is today far ahead of defence production establishments in capabilities in these areas. Therefore, planning to involve private sector in such defence production should start right now.

Till now security planners in India were attempting to carry out their tasks on the basis of their past experience or what they learnt from the industrialised countries. Often there was a time lag in absorbing the experience of industrialised countries after analysing what would be applicable to our security environment. As mentioned earlier, our understanding of national security was not future oriented. Even in the rest of the world where countries have a strategic tradition, the common saying till recently used to be that generals were used to preparing to fight the last war. It is no longer possible to deal with the problems of national security on the basis of past experience though that experience is very valuable as a learning process. Today's national security challenges call for thinking ahead to anticipate which state and non-state actors entertain hostile intentions towards our state, our society and our value systems and what they are likely to do and to devise ways and means of checking them. Therefore, it needs future oriented research into international, national, political, social, economic and technological developments to keep abreast with the thinking of potentially hostile state and non-state actors. This is why in other countries national defence universities have been established to keep a step ahead of the potential adversaries. Unfortunately, the recognition that national security today calls for high intellectual inputs and is not a routine bureaucratic management exercise by both people in uniform and civilians is yet to develop in this country. That raises further questions of training, periodic refresher courses, updating of knowledge and information for officers in the defence and intelligence services and to the civil servants. The present culture of generalism has become outdated and counter- productive.

There will be many in this country who will ask whether all this is necessary and whether these steps will not lead us towards becoming a garrison state. I am a liberal and totally abhor violence in any form. I am committed to good government, democracy, equal opportunities to all, affirmative action to speed up upward mobility of hitherto disadvantaged sections of society, an equitable economic order, secular and casteless society, total elimination of corruption and maximum human rights to every one. The issue is how to move towards that world. A section of our people argues that we should set an example to promote that world. I agree wholeheartedly. However, we are not living in an island continent without the rest of the world actively impinging on us. We cannot afford to ignore the intentions of others, benign and hostile towards us. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, lying on his bed of arrows, while in the process of choosing the moment of his death taught Pandavas the principles of statecraft. He told them: "Nobody is anybody’s friend. Nobody is anybody’s enemy. It is the circumstances that make enemies and friends."Thousands of years later, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, reenunciated the dictum in words which every students of international relations is taught: "There is no permanent friend, there is no permanent enemy." If the world is to be reshaped and values of peace, freedom, international cooperation and justice are to be promoted only the strong can do it and not the weak. One should have a realistic assessment of the international situation as it exists not as one would like to fantasise it to be. The international community has legitimised the nuclear weapons and the use of force without declaring war. When countries are harassed by international terrorism and proxy wars, by narcotics traffic and organised crime often posing as noble causes, the international community often looks away. In trying to counter these efforts to wreck and derail our development process, no doubt, excesses often occur. There can be no disputing that they should be curbed. But that cannot be done by abdicating the basic responsibility of the state to counter and overwhelm the criminal and anarchistic forces. There are genuine grounds to complain that the problems of use of force in a fair and just manner with restraint and effectiveness have not been addressed. But that is part of the overall problem of indifference to issues of national security, incompetence and mediocrity in governance.

The cabinet secretariat resolution No 281/29.6.98/TS dated April 16, 1999 stated: "The Central Government recognises that national security management requires integrated thinking and coordinated application of the political, military, diplomatic, scientific and technological resources of the state to protect and promote national security goals and objectives. National security, in the context of the nation, needs to be viewed not only in military terms but also in terms of internal security, economic security, technological strength and foreign policy. The role of the council is to advise the Central Government on the said matters."

If the National Security Council (NSC)is not able to fulfil the role prescribed for it that becomes a challenge to national security. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse why it has not been able to fulfil that role and what could be done to ensure that the NSC can play that role.

The NSC and Cabinet Committee on national security have two distinct and complementary roles. The NSC has to look to the future. According to the cabinet resolution, the NSC is to cover external security, security threats involving atomic energy, space and high technology, trends in the world economy and economic security threats, internal security, patterns of alienation emerging in the country, especially those with a social, communal or religious dimension, transborder crimes and intelligence coordination and tasking. Broadly, it covers the areas I had earlier enumerated and those posing security challenges.

This task of the NSC cannot be carried out without dedicated staff which will have adequate expertise and will be able to develop holistic future - oriented perspectives and submit them for deliberations of the NSC. In the light of those deliberations, the NSC will advise different ministries and organisations to come up with their policy recommendations. Those in turn will be considered by the Cabinet Committee for National Security and decisions taken thereon. Unfortunately, this has not happened and the NSC has not functioned effectively in the absence of a fully developed staff support. The present NSC staff was the old JIC staff with some marginal additions. That staff has to discharge its earlier function as the intelligence assessing body at a time when failure of assessment process has been under intense criticism. Further, the same staff provided secretariat support to National Security Advisory Board, the Kargil Review Committee and the four taskforces set up to review defence management, intelligence, border management and internal security. It is quite obvious that an adequate thought has not been given to develop an appropriate staff for the National Security Council to function effectively.

The NSC must have a regular time table to meet on a prescribed day every fortnight at the initial stage and once a week a little later. The members of the NSC will arrange their tour programmes keeping that regular meeting in view. The NSC should have a comprehensive intelligence briefing in each meeting to be followed by a discussion. The Chiefs of Staff and Intelligence Chiefs and the concerned secretaries should attend these meetings. These discussions should be free for all ministers and officials. It is quite possible that the discussion that follows would generate perspectives for studies, sensitise the NSC to anticipate future situations and promote more intensive interaction at the top levels of bureaucracy. At the initial stage with a staff which is new and still to acquire expertise it may be necessary to set up task forces to come up with studies on various issues. In this respect, the recent experiment of setting up task forces is a valuable one. In about two to three time a reasonably well trained staff will be in place. Simultaneously, a number of autonomous think tanks have to be encouraged and research in universities on national security issues should be supported.

One of the problems we have is the national security management is not looked upon as a long term issue in which the capabilities have to be developed over a period of time. The NSC or the Prime Minister should hold regular periodic meetings once in three or four months to brief other parties in the Parliament and keep them informed through regular supply of literature. The NSC secretariat should also ensure that when major policy statements are made, they are made available to all political leaders and bureaucrats and they should be informed that was the Government's policy and no pronouncements should be made in adhoc and off-the-cuff remarks by the official hierarchy. This is the right moment to make an effort to make the NSC work effectively. India is entering an era in which it is called upon to play a global role and is poised to enter into a high growth trajectory. Therefore, it is the responsibility of this Government to lay strong foundations for a national security planning structure and to start training cadres who will later on man the posts in that structure.

The development of the awareness to initiate these tasks constitute the core challenge to our national security. The present stop-go attitude of casual approach to it in normal times and fingerpointing at the time of crisis, has got to change by leadership efforts. Bringing about these attitudinal changes, setting up an appropriate national security planning structure and organising the training of cadres are very difficult tasks. There is no point in just listing out various security challenges if the country continues to lack the mechanism to assess the long-term implications of each one of those and to plan our responses to them.

These vital challenges of bringing about attitudinal changes towards our national security and taking steps to get the NSC working have been neglected far too long. The country cannot afford to continue this way much longer without paying high costs. Let me hope that the leadership will pay immediate attention to these basic challenges.