National Security Council: Reluctantly Created And Under-Utilised

National security issues continue to dominate the minds of policy makers in India though their contours have changed in the post-Cold War period. How well are we prepared to tackle the national security issues? Experts are of the opinion that by and large our elected representatives, who ultimately enforce accountability of policy makers through democratic instrumentalities, are themselves not much attuned to issues of national security. Security policy making has always been ad hoc in India. Since 1990s informed citizens have demanded the creation of a National Security Council for coordinated security policymaking. Though the then National Front Government led by V P Singh created it, it was really the BJP that launched the NSC, though reluctantly. Since then the UPA Government continued it on the statute book.But neither the BJP led NDA nor the Congress led UPA Governments utilized the NSC as an effective, coordinated and well articulated national security policy making apparatus. Both the Governments, however, used the NSC to have one more slot to accommodate one of their supporters in the high office of the National Security Adviser. The disastrous effects of non-utilisation of the NSC are discussed in relation to the decision-making on the Kargil crisis. The non-use of the NSC exposes the ad hoc nature of our security policy process. Consequently, more Kargil-like crises are bound to occur in the future.