It was a workshop with a difference.
On October 20, India's top national security experts put their heads together to discuss national security management and learn from the recent intelligence failures of the United States, United Kingdom and Russia.
B Raman, a security expert and rediff.com columnist, had convened the workshop, which witnessed two hours of lively discussions on five papers -- two on the Indian intelligence scenario and three on the lessons from the experience of the US, UK and Russia.
The audience comprised six retired directors and two retired additional directors of the Intelligence Bureau (including the recently forcibly retired K P Singh), three retired chiefs and four other retired senior officers of the Research and Analysis Wing, including Vikram Sud, A K Verma and Girish Chandra 'Gary' Saxena, three retired chiefs of the Aviation Research Centre, four retired chairmen of the Joint Intelligence Committee, one retired director-general of Military Intelligence, three ex-ambassadors, a retired counter-terrorism expert of the army, a retired air marshal of the Indian Air Force and half-a-dozen journalists.
The most significant aspect of the conclave was that it was held at all. K Subrahmanyam, the doyen of the strategic analysts' community, said such a summit of retired intelligence officers and the users of their intelligence would have been unthinkable in the past.
He also drew attention to the fact that deliberately or unknowingly, the conclave coincided with the 42nd anniversary of China's attack on India, which he described as the result of India's first major intelligence failure.
The main speakers were former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra, once the most powerful man after then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and K Subrahmanyam.
In his keynote address, Mishra revealed how the chiefs of the IB and RAW used to keep each other in the dark about the intelligence that they were passing on to him. Besides, various agencies hid their shortcomings too.
He said these agencies must coordinate their efforts. He emphasised on the importance of human intelligence over technical intelligence.
He also touched upon the touchy issue of the intelligence community providing information to suit the government of the day.
K Subrahmanyam was highly critical of the lack of seriousness in the political class to national security management. He cited the example of how the National Democratic Alliance government had set up the National Security Council with great fanfare in 1998 but never convened it thereafter.
He pointed out that our parliamentarians have not found the time to discuss the report of the Kargil Review Committee, which he headed, even five years after it submitted its report.
Parliament has also failed to discuss the reports of the four task forces set up by the NDA government to recommend steps to revamp the intelligence agencies, internal security, border management and defence management.
He described the NDA government's decision to replace the Joint Intelligence Committee with a NSC secretariat as a retrograde step, which has damaged the quality of the analysis of even the available intelligence.
The present United Progressive Alliance government, he said, is dealing with national security management in the same ad hoc manner as the NDA government.
One of the speakers pointed out that the discussions, which were meant to be a brainstorming exercise, tended to become autobiographical with some speaking on their tenures and/or accomplishments. There was hardly any self-criticism.
But one of the participants stunned the sober audience by describing one of the Indian intelligence agencies as 'moth-eaten British legacy'.
There were differences amongst the gathering on whether India needs to draw any lessons from the experience of the USA, UK and Russia.
The practice in the USA and the UK of the intelligence chiefs submitting reports to suit the decisions already taken by their political masters came in for strong criticism. Strangely, it was made out as if such instances of intelligence chiefs dancing to the tunes of their political masters were more an exception than the rule in India.
The Obeserver Research Foundation, which organised the event, proposes to submit a report on the salient points of the discussions to the policy-makers in the government and to publish the proceedings of the workshop in an edited form for the benefit of the public.
