Ex-NSA Shiv Shankar Menon seeks Parliamentary oversight for national security bodies

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 2

Former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon on Thursday backed Congress leader and former Union Minister Manish Tewari’s plea for Parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies.

Launching Tewari’s book on 10 national security situations that have impacted India in the last 20 years, Menon pointed out that with the exponential rise of security challenges over the past 20 to 25 years, India has built up a series of national security institutions. It now needs to be ascertained whether they are integrated and how institutions of national security have changed over the years.

Speaking at the launch, the Congress leader disclosed that the Government had been stonewalling his questions in Parliament on China on grounds of national security. “It is not just Subramanian Swamy alone. Every question I asked has been refused on grounds of national security. It is a blanket attempt not to disclose anything on China,” he observed, adding that the Government will brief the Opposition on the situation in September last year. “Every time we ask, we are met with a wall of silence,” he complained.

“It is surprising that 20 years after Kargil, Chinese similarly intruded across a broad swathe of the frontier. How was it undetected? Why was no responsibility ever fixed? In Parliament there has not been one substantial discussion,” he said.

Though the pre-launch publicity of the book was dominated by Tewari’s observation that the UPA government should have explored kinetic options against Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks, the author pointed out that this was his personal observation. That moment had presented the Indian state’s “quintessential dilemma on the use of conventional power that is efficacious against non-state actors”, he clarified.

Tewari was, however, unimpressed by the Modi government’s surgical strikes. Such strikes had been going on for a long time but this was the first time the Government took ownership for such a military action.

“The question which the BJP should be asking is whether the actions they initiated brought about substantive change in the behaviour of the Deep State of Pakistan,” he pointed out.