The appointment of M K Narayanan as the interim National Security Adviser brings the recent story of India’s national security management round the full circle. It could also lay the basis for a redefinition of the job of the National Security Adviser as we have known in the last few years. It has been forgotten that Narayanan was present at the creation of the national security council system in India. He was the secretary of India’s first national security council that was formed in 1990. That experiment did not last too long. It was revived after the nuclear tests in 1998 by the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee with high visibility for the National Security Adviser. Narayanan’s appointment, even though it is being seen as a stop-gap measure, could become a lasting one as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rethinks the functioning of the NSA. The job description of the NSA, as the American experience shows, varies according to the nature of the political leadership, the correlation of forces within the administration, and the individual character of the adviser himself. Henry Kissinger, under Nixon and Ford Administration, expanded the NSA into a powerful and overbearing one that combined long-term strategic thinking, day-to-day security management and running the nation’s diplomacy, including crucial negotiations. As he ran into continuous friction with the State Department, whose traditional preserve has been the making of foreign policy, Kissinger ultimately took over the job of Secretary of State while holding onto the assignment of National Security Adviser. Since Kissinger, the NSA’s profile in Washington was lowered to simple policy coordination. But every American NSA strongly defended the interests of the White House and ensured that the views of the Chief Executive prevailed in the inevitable inter-agency battles. Narayanan’s appointment indicates that a large role in the conduct of foreign policy might not be at the top of Singh’s new job description for the NSA. That Brajesh Mishra and J N Dixit were both from the Indian Foreign Service, critics say, had created an impression, whether intended or not, that the NSA’s emphasis is on ‘‘diplomacy first’’. This led to a neglect of the other functions envisaged for the NSA, the critics add. Whether the criticism is valid or not is less important than the reality of it being made and some of it beginning to stick. Narayanan, a former chief of Intelligence Bureau, who has been advising Singh on internal security issues, is from the Indian Police Service. His designation as interim NSA has sent out the signal that belonging to the Indian Foreign Service need not necessarily put some one at the top of the list for succeeding Dixit. It is being said that the challenge for the new NSA—whether it is Narayanan or some one else—would lie in creating a stronger institutional structure around the NSA that will devote full energy to a range of tasks: long-term strategic planning, coordination of policy among different agencies, management of the nuclear arsenal, the modernisation of armed forces and the transformation of India’s border management to name a few, besides final decision-making on diplomacy. What about the negotiations with Pakistan and China that are at a delicate stage? Here again two views contend. One argues the NSA is best placed to generate political breakthroughs in the talks over long-standing problems with Islamabad and Beijing and points to the positive experience under Mishra and Dixit. The other insists that the NSA need not burden himself with the task of diplomatic negotiations and could hand them over to specially empowered envoys. By appointing an interim NSA, Singh has bought himself some time. When he makes the final decision on NSA, it is clear that improvisation rather than the precedents set by Mishra and Dixit that will guide Manmohan Singh.
