'Complacency on national security in leaders'

Dehra Dun, Apr 24: Former Union Minister Arun Shourie todaylamented that a sense of complacency had crept in among India'sleadership over national security concerns.

Delivering a guest lecture at the Indian Military Academy (IMA),here, Mr Shourie said the leaders were feeling secure in general,ostensibly because of the fast growth of the economy witnessed duringthe past few years on account of economic liberalisation.

However, the country was without any strategic policy at present.

''Serious problems are being ignored even though they are justround the corner. The way Islamic extremism is taking shape especiallyin the wake of the failed American adventure in Iraq and re-entry intoAfghanistan by Taliban forces, very likely, India would be the nextmajor target of the terrorists, as it is a natural and soft target forthem.'' He said that the long term strategic ally of India, Russia,too, had become weak to such an extent that it was playing the role ofa junior partner to China in most projects in the Central AsianRepublics. On the other hand, China continued to spend a large part ofits resources on preparing for a war. From that point of view, Chinawas emerging as a serious threat to India's dreams of global greatness,he added.

Mr Shourie said that China controlled so much of South East Asiaand was economically much greater part of the world that only a fewcountries dared to speak against it. In fact, China was the largestholder of US Government Bonds. It had foreign exchange reserves of 1.2Trillion Dollars and was easily in a position to damage the Americaneconomy. ''India, on the other hand, have only 200 Billion dollarsworth of foreign exchange reserves, about which Indians feels veryproud'', he said adding that most countries of South East Asia dependedgreatly on China for their economic prosperity.

He recalled that Mr John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister,had always been known as a strong leader who minced no words whenspeaking on international affairs. However, during the past 5 years, hetoo had become silent about China as, now, Australia was increasinglybecoming ever more dependent on China for its mining sector. Australianprosperity had made it subservient to China, he added. He said thatIndian security concerns were certainly compounded by the role Chinawas playing in South East India, South Asia (especially in Pakistan)and Central Asia.

Mr Shourie said that India was surrounded by a number of ''failedstates'', like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal and to some extent Pakistanand Bangladesh. ''These failed states meant that a ready base isavailable in these countries for terrorist activities, which could beeasily directed against India'', he said.

He asserted that much of Bangladesh territory was already out ofthe control of its regime. In Nepal, governance had fallen, and some ofthe Indian political parties were busy glorifying the Maoists that hadcome to the power there. He said that Sri Lanka continued to wage a waragainst LTTE, reminding that it was in fact former Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi who had started to lend moral and strategic support toLTTE, though it boomeranged later. In Myanmar, everything from defenceto administration and commerce, was being controlled by China.''Myanmar has become a Chinese Colony to a great extent,'' he added.

Pakistan was at present pre-occupied with its internal problemsbut even at the best of times, it always directed its aggressiontowards India. There was a lull, but it could be a strategic one.

Islamic terrorism had spread to the whole of East Africa with Somalia and Ethiopia facing the brunt of it.

Mr Shourie lamented that with the ever increasing danger looming largeover India, unfortunately, governance in India was weakeningcontinuously over the past few years. In the sixties, India had justone party's cohesive rule. By the nineties, the coalition era had come.The NDA Government led by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an 11 partycoalition, while the Manmohan Singh led UPA Government was a coalitionof 14 parties. While NDA was led by BJP with a strength of 180 seats,Congress had a strength of only 145 in the UPA.

''This was a sign ofthe weakening of India. The fear, therefore, was that in future acoalition could well be feasible without the presence of the two majorparties, Congress and BJP. That would be a most dangerous period andsecurity concerns would multiply several times.'' To overcome this, heasserted, the retired defence personnel would have to raise theirconcerns more strongly and openly.

Reminding the gathering that he and Mr Jaswant Singh had expressedserious concerns over the US-India nuclear deal he said that theirconcerns were blatantly ignored by the UPA Government. ''But when thesame concerns were raised by the scientific community of the nation,the Prime Minister had to listen and he had to go back on certaincommitments made before the US Administration'', he said.

UNI