India
laments loss of defense guru By
Mohan Balaji
With the death of
Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam this month at the age of
82, India has lost its greatest strategic affairs
expert and the author of its nuclear doctrine. As
testament to his influence, Subrahmanyam has at
times been compared to Chanakya, the ancient Hindu
statesman and philosopher, and Henry Kissinger,
the former United States secretary of state.
Subrahmanyam died in Delhi on February 2
after a long battle with cancer. Offering his
condolences to Subrahmanyam's family, Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh said, "It was with great
sadness that I learnt of the passing away of your
father K Subrahmanyam, who was one of the
country's leading security experts and
strategists."
Starting his work at the
Ministry of Defense in the early 1860s,
Subrahmanyam's career in public service spanned many
decades. Subrahmanyam,
who was the founding director of the New
Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and
Analyses, had no ideological trappings and
practiced realpolitik.
He is credited with
helping rebuild India's confidence in world
affairs after its crushing defeat in the war
against China in 1962. Working at the Defense
Ministry, Subrahmanyam witnessed first-hand the
failures of India's first premier Jawaharlal Nehru
and defense minister V K Krishna Menon in that
conflict. Observers say the disappointment of
losing the war against China affected Nehru
profoundly, and he was to die just two years
later.
Subrahmanyam's influence is seen as
key in helping India's third premier, Indira
Gandhi, lead the country in the defeat of Pakistan
in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. That
victory over Pakistan gave a new lease of
political life to Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter.
Rahul Gandhi, the general secretary of the ruling
Congress party and Indira Gandhi's grandson,
attended Subrahmanyam's funeral.
Much like
Chanakya, K Subrahmanyam was seen as a pragmatic
realist. He advised India's foreign and strategic
policymakers not to toy with the United States
during the Cold War. An early advocate of a
nuclear deterrent capability, he vehemently
opposed India signing either the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty.
Subrahmanyam welcomed the 2007
India-United States nuclear deal, which
established full civilian nuclear cooperation
between the countries, and consistently said close
relations with the US were vital for India's
security architecture, particularly in regards to
the rise of China.
During US President
Barack Obama's visit to India in November last
year, Subrahmanyam said the US would continue to
need India's know-how and entrepreneurs if it were
to stay ahead of China in technological and
economic terms.
Throughout his career,
Subrahmanyam was appointed variously as
chairperson of the Prime Minister's Task Force on
Global Strategic Developments, the Kargil Review
Committee - formed after the brief 1999 war
between India and Pakistan - and the National
Security Advisory Board. He also founded the New
Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and
Analyses.
He was a consulting editor with
the Times of India and his articles are believed
to have had significant influence on India's
foreign and defense policies, particularly its
decisions to hold nuclear bomb tests from 1974 up
until 1998.
As a scything observer of
current events, he often lamented India's lack of
a "strategic culture", and he tried to remedy this
in his three decades of mentoring India's
journalists, politicians and bureaucrats.
Born into a family of modest means on
January 24, 1929, in the town of Tiruchirapalli in
the state of Tamil Nadu, Subrahmanyam was, like
Chanakya, a member of the Brahmin caste. He went
on to study a master's in chemistry at the Madras
Presidency College through a scholarship before
being appointed to the Indian Administrative
Service.
After serving as a Rockefeller
Fellow in Strategic Studies at the London School
of Economics in 1966, he returned to India to act
as director of the newly created Institute for
Defense Studies and Analyses, a position he held
until 1975.
Between 1974 and 1986,
Subrahmanyam also participated in a number of
United Nations and other multilateral study
groups, chairing discussions on issues such as
Indian Ocean affairs, disarmament and nuclear
deterrence.
Though a person of great
intellect, Subrahmanyam was a grounded and humble
person who renounced accolades. In 1999, he
refused Padma Bhushan (India's third-highest
civilian award), saying that the work of
journalists and bureaucrats could not be measured
by the state.
Subrahmanyam is survived by
his wife, Salochana, three sons and a daughter.
One of his sons, Jaishankar Subrahmanyam, is
India's ambassador to China; the second, Vijay
Subrahmanyam, is a secretary in the central
government; and the third, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, is
a renowned historian and now a professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
At
a time when India is ascending in global affairs,
Subrahmanyam's insight will be sorely missed.
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