Watch the full video (above) of a discussion on the book ‘Navigating the Labyrinth: Perspectives on India’s Higher Education’, edited by Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta.
The panel discussing the book comprised Pankaj Chandra, Apoorvanand Jha, Devesh Kapur, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The discussion was moderated by Anubha Bhonsle.
By Shyam Saran
In the recent general elections, national security has emerged as a major political issue. However, the discourse over national security has been limited to dealing with specific security-related episodes such as terrorist attacks at Pathankot, Uri and Pulwama on the Line of Control with Pakistan; the stand-off with Chinese forces on the India-Bhutan-China border; and the security operations in the disturbed state of Jammu and Kashmir. A holistic discussion of India’s national security rarely occurs in the public space or even within the government. The Indian state does not possess an overarching national security strategy (NSS) that comprehensively assesses the challenges to the country’s security and spells out policies to deal effectively with them; of course such a strategy must be executed within the parameters laid down by the Constitution of India and the country’s democratic political dispensation. In the absence of an overall strategy, the state relies on ad hoc responses of questionable utility. Moreover, it possesses no mechanism that permits it to learn from its experiences. Ad hocism also neglects the broader political, social and economic context within which specific episodes must be located and understood.
A modern state confronts multiple and simultaneous challenges across several domains. National security cannot be confined to the use of the state’s coercive power to overcome domestic and external threats. For example, threats to domestic peace and stability may arise from economic and social grievances. A knee-jerk reaction may leave these grievances unaddressed while the use of coercive power exacerbates rather than ameliorates the situation. For instance, left-wing extremism in India is rooted in the persistent exploitation of tribal populations.
Similarly, the vulnerability of our borders is linked to a large-scale smuggling and contraband trade that permits channels through which terrorists and criminals find easy access. Such threats cannot be dealt with solely through enhanced military capabilities without addressing the drivers of illegal trade. It is recognized that the prolonged use of subsidies for ostensibly social welfare purposes creates arbitrage opportunities for cross-border smuggling. Such criminal activities often entrench powerful mafia groups with close links to politics. While groups of this sort constitute a serious threat to domestic security, the solution lies as much in the economic domain as in strengthening the state’s law and order machinery. The NSS will need to acknowledge such cross-domain linkages and policy interventions.
For a modern state operating in an increasingly globalized world, the line between what is domestic and what is external is becoming increasingly blurred. For example, terrorism is a threat to domestic security but may have external links. Dealing with terrorism may require not only domestic interventions but also action on the external front. Issues related to water security may involve dealing with neighbouring countries with which India shares its major rivers. Thus a combination of domestic and external interventions may be necessary. It is only within a comprehensive NSS that such complex inter-relationships between domestic and external dimensions can be analysed and coordinated policy responses formulated.
We live in a technology-driven world; new technologies such as the Internet and digitization are enabling powerful tools for states to enhance national security but also creating new and serious vulnerabilities and security risks. Cyber security has become a major concern and it is only through developing advanced technological capabilities that a state has a chance of defending itself against cyber attacks. The NSS would enable the identification of critical infrastructure that may be vulnerable to cyber attacks, and the development of human resources capable of identifying attacks and protecting and restoring critical systems. Anticipating cyber attacks and hardening systems against them become ever more necessary as economic and governance activities increasingly rely on digital technologies. Ad hoc responses would be grossly inadequate. A critical aspect is that in a democracy like India, the state’s use of advanced digital technologies for surveillance and intelligence gathering must not violate the citizens’ right to privacy and freedom of expression. There is a trade-off between enhanced security and the citizens’ rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and this must be clearly spelt out for the people of the country and well-considered solutions put forward. National security must not become a justification for a surveillance state. The danger of relying on ad hoc responses is that they may cumulatively lead to a predatory and authoritarian state that limits the exercise of democratic rights. The NSS must deal with this dilemma upfront.
Technological change and geopolitical shifts are also impacting India’s nuclear security. The country’s nuclear deterrent must deal with the challenge of two nuclear-armed neighbours: China and Pakistan. Furthermore, the nuclear domain is becoming closely interlinked with cyber and space-related capabilities. The development of India’s nuclear deterrent must take into account the impacts of such technological change. The overall nuclear security environment is also being affected by geopolitical shifts with the gap between the US and Russia on the one hand and China on the other reducing significantly. The older nuclear order anchored in bilateral US-Russia arms control arrangements is now unravelling because China remains outside these arrangements. A new nuclear order is becoming essential as we move into a world of multiple nuclear states. India will need to determine what role it should play in the shaping of this new nuclear order.
Ecological degradation and climate change have significant impacts on national security. There may be direct consequences of the melting of glaciers on the deployment of troops at high-altitude locations on India’s mountainous borders. Sea-level rise as a result of global warming may inundate naval bases along the coasts. There may be large-scale migration of populations from low-lying coastal plains towards higher ground, and this may lead to social disruptions and economic distress, undermining domestic security. Therefore, the NSS must anticipate the consequences of ecological degradation and climate change, and formulate coping measures.
Another oft-neglected dimension of India’s national security that must be integrated within the NSS is strategic communications. It relates to the indispensable need, particularly in a democracy, to shape public perceptions through constant and consistent public outreach and to provide a channel for public opinion or feedback. This would enable the government to explain its policies, garner public understanding and support, and review and adjust policies on the basis of feedback received. This has become a far more difficult and complex challenge due to the spread of social media, the phenomenon of fake news, and the instant nature of news gathering and dissemination. Governments need to stay ahead of the news cycle, establish credibility as a source of authentic and reliable information, and shape public opinion rather than be reactive all the time. National security may be adversely impacted by the spread of false news by hostile elements within and outside the country using social media. This will require strong and advanced cyber capabilities, which may have to be constantly upgraded to keep pace with rapid technological advance.
An NSS for India needs to take a comprehensive approach, encompassing domestic and external and economic and ecological challenges, highlighting the inter-linkages and feedback loops among them and on that basis formulate a coherent template for multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral interventions. Such a template would serve as a guide for a whole of government approach, ensuring that intervention in any one domain does not contradict or even negate intervention in another domain. It is only by having a big picture constantly at hand that contradictory and wasteful policies can be avoided. We should move towards a pattern of governance where interventions in one domain reinforce interventions in other domains.
Drawing up an NSS for India must be a key item on the agenda of the new government. This may be tasked to a group of eminent persons from different disciplines who could consider India’s national security in its multiple dimensions. In a democracy, an NSS should be citizen-centric and must reflect the values and beliefs of the people; at the same time, it must seek to raise public awareness of and shape public perceptions about national security issues. The proposed NSS must take the Constitution of India as its guide and its objective should be the safeguarding and consolidation of India’s democracy. This approach would, for example, reject intrusive governmental intrusions into the lives of ordinary people, violating their rights enshrined in the Constitution.
In every domain of national endeavour there must be pursuit of excellence and high standards to enable India to compete successfully in a highly competitive and globalized landscape. Islands of excellence cannot be sustained in an ocean of mediocrity and low quality. This need not conflict with properly designed policies for affirmative action designed to reduce and eventually eliminate the consequences of long-standing social and economic disabilities suffered by sections of India’s citizens. What is critical is the state’s capacity to design, execute and evaluate interventions in different domains, and for this the institutions and processes of governance may need to be altered and strengthened. New institutions may be required to deal with newly emerging challenges. This, too, must be included in the NSS.
Previous exercises undertaken to promote national security could serve as useful reference material for the NSS. These include the Kargil Review Committee report (2000), the Report of the Naresh Chandra Task Force on Security (2012), and the document entitled ‘Building Comprehensive National Power: Towards an Integrated National Security Strategy’ prepared by the National Security Advisory Board (2015). Only the Kargil report has been made public. It is recommended that these reports and the NSS prepared by the new government should be public documents and open to public debate and review. A well-informed, vigilant and educated public opinion is the best assurance of national security.
Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:
Listen to the audio recording of the presentations (above) addressing two fundamental legal issues that need to be resolved in order to ensure the effectiveness of a 2015 climate agreement. These include i) resolving the precise legal form this agreement will take; and ii) determining the legal nature of the ‘nationally determined contributions’ Parties are expected to submit in the context of the 2015 agreement.
The seminar features Dr Lavanya Rajamani, Research Professor at CPR; Ambassador Chandrashekar Dasgupta, IFS (Retired) and Former Indian Negotiator; and Luther M Rangreji, Associate Professor, Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asia University, and also Former Indian Negotiator.
For additional resources, visit the dedicated page.
Despite the potential of cities to foster a low-carbon energy transition, the governance of energy in India broadly remains within the purview of central and state governments. However, the Smart Cities Mission, a new urban scheme launched in 2015, gives Indian cities new powers to govern energy, a surprising departure from previous urban and energy policies. We argue that this shift is significant and we therefore raise three questions: 1) what kind of energy projects are planned and what does it reveal about the cities’ vision towards energy? 2) does the Smart Cities Mission foster a low-carbon energy transition and if so, how is this transition envisaged? 3) and finally, what are the rationale and the drivers behind this apparent shift?
To address these questions, we build on a database of projects and financing plans submitted by the first 60 cities selected in the Smart Cities Mission. We find that cities have earmarked an immense 13,161 INR crore (~1.4 billion GBP) for energy projects, with most funds dedicated to basic infrastructure, primarily focused on enhancing the grid and supply. Cities also proposed projects in solar energy, electric vehicles, waste to energy and LED lighting, indicating their appetite for low-carbon projects. While cities were given institutional space to prioritise certain technologies, their interventions were conditioned by centrally sources of financing which were limited to certain mandated technologies. A focus on technology, rather than planning, undermined the role of cities as strategic decision-makers. What emerges is a dual faced reading of the Smart Cities Mission, indicating the potential and pitfalls of contemporary decentralized energy governance in the Global South.
The full working paper can be accessed here.
Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘Options for Afghanistan: The Trump Tweets and After’ featuring Saad Mohseni (Director, Moby Group); Tahir Qadiry (Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, New Delhi); Jayant Prasad (former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); Amar Sinha (Member, National Security Advisory Board and former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); Gautam Mukhopadhaya (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR and former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); and chaired by Jyoti Malhotra (Editor, National and Strategic Affairs, ThePrint).
On September 9, 2019, a draft interim agreement, reached after nine rounds of talks between US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban was abruptly called off by President Trump through a tweet, ostensibly on account of the death of a US serviceman in a Taliban suicide attack. In the tweet, President Trump also revealed that he had secretly invited Taliban leaders and President Ghani separately to Camp David to clinch the talks under his personal supervision. This too was cancelled.
The talks, which the Afghan government has not been part of but has been regularly briefed on, centred primarily on a partial timetable for a withdrawal of US troops from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days, and the kick-starting of intra-Afghan talks in two weeks as part of a composite package that the US maintains. This package includes guarantees that Afghan soil would not be used against the US, a comprehensive ceasefire, and intra-Afghan talks leading to a peace agreement between the two sides, and possibly an interim government. Its suspension took place against a background of a wave of violence in Afghanistan that included major offensives against key provincial capitals and suicide attacks in Kabul, weeks before a delayed Presidential elections scheduled for September 28, 2019.
The panel organised by CPR discussed the status and contents of US-Taliban talks, as well as the importance of the September 28 elections.
The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.
The media coverage of the panel discussion can be read in ThePrint and The Hindu.
CPR scholars have closely followed these developments and analysed the geopolitical implications for India. Read the curated analysis below:
Gautam Mukhopadhaya writes in Outlook India about the need to create a stable environment for the upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan. Calling the USA’s proposed deal with the Taliban ‘a recipe for chaos’, Mukhopadhaya highlights that India must not hesitate in supporting the elections as that will be a huge morale booster for Afghans.
Gautam Mukhopadhaya writes in The Hindu about how ‘the suspension of US-Taliban talks has opened the space for the holding of Afghan presidential elections and a window of opportunity for the international community and India to reset their approach to peace and withdrawal.’ He highlights that the outcome of the election ‘could provide a stronger foundation for talks with the Taliban that are Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled, and not as dictated from Washington, Islamabad, Doha or Moscow.’
Gautam Mukhopadhaya also appeared in an interview with The Wire where he analysed Donald Trump’s decision to call off talks with the Taliban, highlighting what was wrong with the Khalilzad deal and what India should do next.
Gautam Mukhopadhaya appeared in an interview with Strategic News International analysing the stalling of US-Taliban talks. Additionally, Mukhopadhaya delivered a lecture on Democratisation in Afghanistan organised by The International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In August 2019, G Parthasarathy wrote in The Hindu Business Line about how a phased out withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan will give the Afghan army and ethnic militia time to be well-armed and trained to face the Taliban. Parthasarathy further highlighted that if ‘Southern Afghanistan is destabilised, Pakistan’s own stability will face challenges from across the Durand Line.’
In July 2019, Brahma Chellaney wrote in DailyO about how Donald Trump’s Faustian bargain with the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban will seriously impinge on India’s regional interests and security, especially in the Kashmir Valley. Against the backdrop of Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir conflict and other actions such as barring oil shipments from Iran and raising India’s energy-import bill, expelling India from the US Generalised System of Preferences, and mounting a trade war to secure Indian concessions, Chellaney highlights that India should be deeply concerned about Trump putting India at risk by emboldening Pakistan.
In the third instalment of a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air’, Professor Navroz K Dubash examines the elements of a long-term plan that could address the root causes of India’s air pollution crisis.
We are in the midst of that season in north India, when air quality debates die down, and parents send their children out to play. After all, the air quality index suggests “moderate” and “poor” air days, with hardly a “very poor” or “severe”. Of course, at moderate levels, the level of PM2.5 is still 2.5-3.5 times the World Health Organization (WHO) safe levels, and poor is 3.5-5 times higher. But given what Delhi feels like in the winter months, February and March seem positively inviting. After all, one cannot worry about air quality all year round, right?
Unfortunately, wrong. We may have no option but to send our children out to play, but we should also be simultaneously working hard on long-term solutions. During the apocalyptic winter months, justifiable cries of alarm translate to reactive measures: an (ineffectual) firecracker ban, throwing money at “Happy Seeders” to stop crop burning, and periodic bans on truck traffic. Some short-term response measures are needed for emergencies. But to make a real dent in the air problem requires measures to address the deep-rooted causes and not simply react to the symptoms. This is best done when we are not in panic mode.
The recent National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) is a missed opportunity to establish a long-term strategy. It sets a target without a realistic road map, proposes a city-based approach that downplays regional effects, and adopts a something-for-everyone approach rather than prioritising action. In the midst of election season, formulating a serious approach to air quality plan remains a missed political opportunity. So, what are elements of a long-term plan that truly starts the long, slow business of addressing root causes?
First, a truly effective strategy will place the challenge of ensuring compliance and enabling enforcement at the heart of pollution regulation. Too often, actions are written as if enforcement is a secondary challenge when it is actually primary. For example, to limit industrial pollution, will a combination of monitoring technology, strengthened laws, and enhanced capabilities of pollution control authorities work? Or is the enforcement challenge so great that we should simply force industries to switch to cleaner, if costlier, fuels, which may be easier to monitor? The answer is not entirely clear, but this is the question that should inform strategic policymaking.
Second, many pollution sources need multifaceted responses. For example, waste burning may best be addressed by upstream shifts in consumer behaviour, to limit waste at source. Transport emissions need a mix of public transport investments, behavioural change in transport patterns, and new transport technologies such as electric vehicles. Reactive solutions, such as banning waste burning or certain forms of transport, are but band aids.
Third, many solutions require negotiated solutions to political and economic challenges. Crop burning is unlikely to be solved by a technical solution if not burning crops costs more. The resolution lies in political negotiations around cropping pattern shifts, agricultural support policies and water use policies. Political negotiations take time and need to start now, before pressure for quick fixes sets in.
Fourth, a city-by-city approach is invariably limited. Much pollution occurs outside cities — by industry, brick kilns, power plants and crop burning. City boundary based regulation only encourages emissions leakage such as relocation of industries to the outskirts. India has to develop regulatory institutions that operate at the level of the regional “airshed”.
Fifth, we need to pick a short list of big wins to demonstrate progress and rally the public. But equally, these need to be carefully selected and maximally supported rather than the current scattershot approach. The Ujjwala scheme to provide clean cooking gas, introducing Bharat Stage VI fuels, improved power plant regulations and investment in public transport are three winning medium-term solutions. A strategic and limited set of such solutions need aggressive action.
Let us not fool ourselves. North India’s air pollution will not improve substantially for at least a few years. The scale is too large, the pollution patterns too entrenched, and the enforcement challenges too deep. But this time frame of years will stretch to decades if we do not lay the groundwork now. Reactive, limited and short-term action taken in the panic of the winter smog won’t even put us on the path to a medium-term solution. We have to keep our eye on the ball, even when the air appears clear, and invest in the necessary long-term technological, institutional and political changes.
Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research. This is the third article in a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air.’ The original article, which was posted on April 4, 2019, can be found here.
Read more in the Clearing the Air series:
The Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research is delighted to share its PAISA for Panchayats report. This research extends AI’s PAISA methodology to track fund flows, and implementations processes at the rural local government level.
Watch the video above where TR Raghunandan, Advisor to AI, explains the motivation behind undertaking this research, the main findings and recommendations to the government, as well as AI’s plans to extend this work to other states in India.
This research focuses on understanding the state of fiscal devolution to rural local governments, and answers two key questions:
By analysing fund flows in 30 Gram Panchayats in Mulbagal taluk, Kolar district, Karnataka, this research shows that despite the state’s pioneering efforts in improving intergovernmental fiscal transfers, the system clearly falls short of Karnataka’s vision for effective devolution to Panchayats.
To read the report, click on the links:
Since 2010, the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research has been tracking social sector spending in India in key programmes. Last month, it released four papers that tracked budget and fund flows in elementary education, public health and Panchayats. These included:
A detailed discussion on the implications of the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations on social sector spending, and what should be the key research questions, going forward, followed. CPR president Pratap Bhanu Mehta moderated the discussion. The full video of the panel discussion can be viewed above.
Watch the full video (above) of the inaugural panel of CPR’s new series, Talking Rights Seriously, on ‘Informational Privacy in India: Aadhaar and Beyond’, featuring Meenakshi Arora, Dr Arghya Sengupta, Zoheb Hossain, Vrinda Bhandari and Ananth Padmanabhan.
The panel discussed the recent Supreme Court verdict on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and the scheme in general, and its implications for the right to informational privacy. The Aadhaar scheme, formally rolled out from 2011 to enrol citizens for the world’s largest digital identities project yet, has attracted considerable public debate and attention. The scheme’s journey through the past seven years places spotlight on various challenges faced when attempting to overcome governance chokepoints through technological means. Of these, the biggest challenge by far has been the rights challenge as no State initiative can bypass constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to achieve any social goal howsoever desirable. While upholding the fundamental character of the right to privacy in this regard and acknowledging the inherent tension between a datafied society and this all-important facet of human dignity, the Supreme Court in Puttaswamy (2017) also articulated a broad framework to think through and arrive at constitutionally permissible and impermissible tradeoffs. The Aadhaar verdict (2018) is the first real application of this framework and hence critical to India’s rights jurisprudence.
The panel brought together senior lawyers and experts who have contested and defended the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act before the Supreme Court, to share their insights on various aspects of this verdict pertaining to informational privacy.
Meenakshi Arora is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
Dr Arghya Sengupta is Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Zoheb Hossain is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
Vrinda Bhandari is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
The session was moderated by Ananth Padmanabhan, Fellow, Technology & Society Initiative, CPR.
The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.
About the Series
The Indian Supreme Court has been actively engaged of late with recognising the right to privacy including informational privacy as part of fundamental rights, laying down the contours of free speech and expression in the internet era while revisiting the law of sedition, adjudicating the constitutional validity of criminal laws that are vestiges of a long-gone Victorian era, sensitising personal laws and religious customs to the idea of gender equality and personal freedoms, and framing the scope and meaning of the right to life and personal dignity within the broader context of socio-economic rights that make life meaningful. Similarly, Parliament has begun playing a more active role in this rights discourse by cementing the position of socio-economic rights, hitherto considered part of the non-justiciable directive principles of state policy, within the firmament of statutorily enforceable rights.
With this background, the Centre for Policy Research is starting a new series, Talking Rights Seriously, conceptualised as a discussion platform to critically examine important judicial verdicts and legislative interventions addressing the theme of rights in India.
Watch the video (above) of an in-depth panel discussion on the concepts integral to the realisation of the Right to Education (RTE), drawing on international experience as well. The discussion focused on the socio-political context; the framing of the ‘rights’ debate; the role of non-state actors; the historical evolution of the RTE Act, and the legal issues surrounding its implementation in India. Experts from the Unites States and Colombia also shared their experiences, providing for cross-learning.
For a summary of the discussion, access the report here.
The dedicated event page can be visited here.