Need to broaden National Security Doctrine canvas

THE government is expected to protect the citizenry from all kinds of natural disasters and man-made crises by undertaking a variety of measures, including diplomacy for maintaining geopolitical balance, preserving economic interests, protecting territorial integrity, demonstrating military power and, above all, exhibiting a firm resolve to improve the domestic security environment. The objective of any national security doctrine (NSD) has to be ensuring the wellbeing of the nation and its people.
On the recommendation of the task force chaired by KC Pant, the National Security Council (NSC) was constituted in 1998 as an apex advisory body on national security, headed by the Prime Minister and including the ministers of finance, defence, home and external affairs. However, the NSC has not documented the NSD till date, from which the stakeholders might draw their mandate and formulate strategies for tactical engagements. The NSD remains confined mainly to the national security schemes, focusing largely on military strategies and diplomacy in international relations.
In the draft National Security Policy prepared by Shyam Saran, former chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, in 2015, five key areas were identified for long-term planning and decision-making — domestic security, external security, military preparedness, economic security and ecological security. Though a broad national consensus on diplomatic engagements and issues of economic and ecological security has emerged, domestic security concerns have not risen above the political rhetoric and the agenda of electoral politics. It is disturbing to note that a difference of opinion on sensitive defence matters has started finding expression openly nowadays in the political and public discourse, underlining the need for having a consensus-based, documented NSD more than ever before.
Balancing of competing social and political ideologies, international diplomacy, military posturing and geopolitical interests are the key to formulating a meaningful NSD. Security experts of a conservative mindset often argue that in a multi-party democracy like India, it would not be easy to arrive at a consensus. Nor would it be desirable to discuss the nitty-gritty of the NSD in the public domain. This is perhaps the reason policy-makers could not frame a comprehensive NSD and it remained a closed-door affair, monopolised by the ruling dispensation.
Discussions on the NSD in India revolve mainly around traditional matters of international relations and military strategies; internal security issues do not receive the attention they deserve. The international community recognises the geopolitical worth of a nation mainly on the basis of its domestic security environment. In fact, a sound internal security ecosystem is the backbone of a credible NSD, and it deserves consideration at all times.
Illegal immigration through land and sea routes is a major threat to peace and stability in India. The Rohingyas and Bangladeshi migrants have settled in large numbers in the foothills and lower Himalayan regions without an effective interception by the security forces; the demography of these areas has changed within a couple of decades, posing serious security threats to domestic peace and social balance. What is disturbing is the fact that there is no systematic stock-taking of these illegal settlers and the security agencies do not even know the extent and locations of their settlements.
India cannot afford to ignore the early warning signals originating from European countries like France and England due to a change in their demography because of a missing population control policy; natives are suffering the ordeal of becoming ethnic and cultural minorities in their own homeland. Such indicators of discomfort and helplessness on the demographic front are already visible in some parts of India; maintenance of the demographic and socio-cultural status quo by adopting a well-stated population control policy has become relevant in the overall spectrum of the NSD.
Drug abuse is rampant throughout the country, especially in the North-East and border states of northern and western India. The much-hyped demographic dividend has already been neutralised by unemployed youth addicted to drugs for want of appropriate and adequate state policy interventions.
Fundamentalists and radical elements, who mislead people by resorting to misinterpretation of religion and conversions based on financial allurement in the name of freedom of religion, deserve strict sanctions. Discriminatory and derogatory religious mores and teachings which have a bearing on the domestic security scenario need to be discarded by spurring reforms from within the religion, or through befitting legal enactments.
Half of India’s soil cover is prone to floods every year, whereas adequate drinking water is not available in many parts during the summer months. Aquifers have been depleted mindlessly and the water table is going down every year due to a lack of water harvesting initiatives. Water shortage is posing an existential threat to civilisation the world over. Water resource management should be one of the main areas of concern for the national security stakeholders.
Social irritants triggering mass movements are infectious; we cannot afford to ignore the mass movement going on in Bangladesh on the issues of reservation and unemployment, as India is similarly circumstanced.
Therefore, a paradigm shift is required in the approach of policy-makers to broaden the canvas of the NSD and break away from the stereotypes. The superstructure of national security can only be raised on the bedrock of homeland security.