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Defence and development are supposed to be the twin facets of national security. The correlation is quite evident in contemporary international politics where security is being redefined with equal emphasis on defence and development. However, a similar correlation is yet to emerge in India. In this context, the constitution of the Naresh Chandra Committee on the review of national security is a welcome step. One of the major challenges before the committee would be to establish a harmonious linkage between the defence and development requirements in a national security doctrine and making them complimentary rather than competitive. 

It is a well known fact that the Indian debates on defence and development have been separate and compartmentalized without any attempt to link them. This great divide is further complicated by the total domination of the national security discourse by defence experts and the marginalization of development economists. This approach has been aided and abetted by the political class that does not take developmental aspects of security seriously, allowing themselves to be guided by strategic and defence experts on these matters.

The end result is a one sided and parochial perspective that is unfortunate for two reasons. First, it pushes the vital developmental aspects of national security under the carpet of relative insignificance. Rarely do we hear our security experts showing their concern over near incessant flooding in Assam and Bihar or for that matter the famine deaths in South India. It doesn’t matter to most of them if India still has millions who go hungry every day or remain undernourished. When an Amartya Sen attempts to define these developmental issues as ‘security concerns’, there are no takers in the mainstream.

Second, there is too much emphasis on military matters. Often, the issues are emotionalized and metamorphosed into ‘holy cows’ where questioning their logic is deemed irrationality. Witness for example, the demand for raising the defence budget to 3 percent of the GDP or expansion in the officer cadre of the armed forces. Both the demands are quite in contrast with the contemporary global trends.

Things would have been better had there been an institutional attempt to correlate defence and development issues. Defence being a non-plan expenditure, the Planning Commission has largely kept out of defence matters and does not prepare the defence five year plans by itself. Similarly, the National Development Council also does not touch defence five year plans. Ironically, this arrangement does not make the armed forces happy since the defence five year plans suffer in terms of timely approval, resource commitment and plan execution. No wonder the services have recently demanded the constitution of a defence planning commission. The finance commissions have also given a marginal treatment to defence issues and have suggested the progressive trimming of future defence budgets to curb fiscal and revenue deficits. The National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) too, going by the contents of its sponsored annual publication on India’s national security, perhaps treats defence and development as watertight compartments.

The annual report of the MoD too does not delve into the developmental aspects of security while describing the threat environment. Ditto for several government commissioned committees and commissions on defence reforms, which did not explore a possible correlation of defence and development in their reports. The only exception has been the V K Misra Committee on ‘curbing of wasteful expenditure’ that has been mindful about optimization of the defence budget. The committee’s recommendations, if implemented, can spare the Government from the burden of sparing additional resources hitherto meant for development.

In recent times, the government has been talking of ‘inclusive growth’ in its policy statements. Accordingly, the focus, as the Prime Minister often says, should be on the marginalised sections, sectors and areas that are lagging behind. However, if the dream of ‘inclusive growth’ has to become a reality, it must be linked to defence policy of the country. While the 13th Finance Commission has recommended the curbing of defence budget to 1.76 per cent of the GDP by 2014, more needs to be done so that resources are not a problem for either defence or development. For example, the diplomatic aspects of defence have to be accorded more weightage and the country should engage its neighbours in various forms of military diplomacy. Simultaneously, the services should be encouraged towards internal resource generation in non-sensitive areas.

If India is to have affordable and sustainable defence, there is no escape from defining ‘development as security’, both at a policy and strategy level. There is a need to broaden the concept of national security to one that encompasses defence and development as twin elements. Concurrently, strategies need to be identified that seek the progression of both without one compromising the other. Perhaps here lies the challenge for the Naresh Chandra Committee when it sits to draft a national security doctrine.

The views expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of India.