In 20 years, the National Security Council has evolved from a little-known entity into one of India’s most important national security decision-making institutions. How and why did it come into existence, and what exactly is its role?
Background Paper No. 7
By Ammar Nainar
Ammar Nainar is Junior Fellow and Program Assistant with the Observer Research Foundation America.
Within the past four years, India has engaged in aerial combat with Pakistan and has confronted a large military stand-off with China over their disputed border, resulting in casualties on both sides. These clashes with other nuclear-armed powers underscore how national security decision-making in the world’s second-most populous country, third-largest military spender, and sixth-largest economy is of critical importance. Although several aspects of Indian foreign policy and national security have been subjected to detailed study in recent years, the evolution and role of India’s top national security decision-making body – the National Security Council (NSC) – has rarely been given sufficient attention. When discussed at all, India’s NSC is often criticized for its infrequent meetings and organizational status in a parliamentary democracy.
As an apex advisory body headed by the Prime Minister (PM) and comprising of the Ministers of Finance, Defense, Home and External Affairs, the NSC was established between December 1998 and April 1999 to conduct long-term planning and integrate tools of statecraft. But in the years since, it has managed to institutionalize important policy and decision-making structures, the latest being the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff. It also provides an organizational lens to understand the responsibilities of the National Security Adviser (NSA), one of the country’s most important national security officials. Finally, the NSC captures both formal and informal mechanisms for coordination on critical security-related issues within the Indian government. For all these reasons, a better understanding of its origins, roles, functions, and responsibilities is necessary.
The Origins of India’s National Security Council (1947-1999)
Although relatively new, the NSC had important antecedents. At independence, India immediately grappled with a series of foreign policy crises which required coordination across government agencies. A Defense Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) was set up after the Junagadh crisis in September 1947 consisting of the prime minister and key ministers, and was supported by the Defense Minister’s Committee, the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The DCC later became the Emergency Cabinet Committee after the 1962 India-China border war. Thereafter, as Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri established the Prime Minister’s Secretariat in June 1964, secretaries to the prime minister began playing a greater role in managing foreign policy issues. They convened the senior-most bureaucrats from different ministries – known as secretaries – through a mechanism known as the Committee of Secretaries (CoS). The Policy Planning and Review Committee (PPRC) established in 1966 within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), was modeled along these lines and consisted of secretaries from the MEA, Commerce, and Defense Ministries besides the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The JIC coordinated intelligence assessments collected by different agencies.
From the late 1960s, debate grew within India’s strategic affairs community about improving high-level national security decision making and institutionalizing coordination. P.V.R. Rao, the former defense secretary, argued for an independent “National Security Authority” to be headed by the prime minister and supported by the service chiefs and the foreign and defense secretaries. At a September 1968 seminar at the defense ministry-backed Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA), the idea of “setting up a National Security Council (NSC)” was first proposed. IDSA formally presented its NSC proposal to the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), which in 1970 unsuccessfully recommended the creation of a “National Security Planning Council.” IDSA’s director K. Subrahmanyam subsequently wrote that the Cabinet Committee on Defense be “re-designated” as the National Security Council to formulate national security objectives and integrate foreign, defense, technology, and economic policies.
In the 1970s, various ad hoc coordinating groups were established, some of which complemented the PPRC under politician-diplomats like D.P. Dhar and later G. Parthasarathy. Both were trusted advisors to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. When the Janata Party came to power in 1977, a “Senior Secretaries Committee” was established under the Cabinet Secretary consisting of the foreign, defense, home, finance secretaries and service chiefs to plan for long-term defense requirements. In 1980, Indira Gandhi returned to office and re-appointed Parthasarathy as PPRC chairperson, under whom the institution was used to establish “direct contact” between the prime minister and senior bureaucrats. It existed until 1985 when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989), replaced it with small issue-based inter-agency committees, such as on the Sri Lankan civil war and nuclear policy. His Minister of State for Defence Arun Singh, created a “Strategic Planning Group” under the prime minister’s leadership but it never met. Later on, a Defence Planning Staff was established in 1986 to streamline the armed services’ planning processes, although it faced constant turnover of personnel.
The 1990s: Short-Lived Experiments
In 1990, Prime Minister V.P. Singh, motivated by serious concerns of a potential Pakistani nuclear weapons test, organized a National Security Council to foster an “integrated approach to policy-making as it affects national security” in August 1990. This NSC – comprising the prime minister and Ministers of Finance, Defence, Home, and External Affairs, with other cabinet ministers and chief ministers invited to meetings if required – was supported by a Strategic Core Group (SCG) headed by the cabinet secretary and involving military chiefs, intelligence heads, and the relevant secretaries. The SCG in turn was to be supported by a separate secretariat. Even though established by a Cabinet Resolution, the NSC was not “institutionally integrated,” the SCG met only twice, and it eventually became a “defunct body.” In the immediate aftermath of the Bombay blasts in March 1993, the Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Secretary (FS) prepared position papers to revive and restructure the NSC. The foreign secretary also advised the creation of a “National Security Advisor” (NSA) position within the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
The mid-1990s saw heated debates in the Indian parliament on the need for an NSC. Responding to this concern, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao made a detailed statement during a general debate at the Lok Sabha (lower house) in December 1995, where he argued that a British model of cabinet committees dealing with national security issues was preferable to the U.S. model based on a “presidential form of government.” Therefore, Rao felt that “specific committees or group of ministers” could be “set up for different aspects of national security” and this “flexible arrangement” would also call for the “inclusion of chief ministers, members of parliament” and other strategic affairs experts. In March 1996, Rao fended off questions from future prime minister I.K. Gujral and future foreign minister Sushma Swaraj on the establishment of an NSC. Though, Gujral was still keen to establish an NSC as External Affairs Minister, the MEA opposed it due to vested bureaucratic interests.
In April 1998, the new Vajpayee government formed a task force under the chairmanship of K.C. Pant – a former Defense Minister -- to work out the constitution, role, and functions of an NSC. It examined the national security policy-making structures of different countries including the United States, UK, and France. There was an immediate impetus. India needed command and control structures to manage its nuclear deterrent, and an NSC it was believed would assuage global concerns about India’s May 1998 nuclear tests and demonstrate responsibility. In June, the task force recommended the formation of a NSC with its own secretariat as well as the appointment of a National Security Advisor. Initially, the preexisting JIC was transformed into the NSC Secretariat with no additional staff, although a National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) of strategic affairs experts and former diplomats was constituted in late 1998. On April 16th 1999, a cabinet resolution notified the establishment of an NSC comprised of the prime minister and Ministers of Defense, External Affairs, Finance, and Home Affairs plus the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (a now defunct position). Additionally, a Strategic Policy Group (SPG) was established for inter-agency coordination between relevant secretaries, with a staff to be led by a National Security Advisor. The NSC’s membership is similar to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) which is constitutionally the highest decision-making body on national security issues.
As this overview shows, India did not lack inter-departmental structures for coordination and decision making before the permanent establishment of a National Security Council in 1999. These roles were assumed by a series of cabinet committees, committees of secretaries, and ad-hoc advisory groups established in response to crisis situations or set up by prime ministers to elicit advice from few trusted people. The PPRC Chairpersons were, for instance, perhaps the closest forerunners to the National Security Advisor position. There was also robust parliamentary debate on the formation and organization of a NSC. But the establishment of the NSC in 1999 was merely a beginning to institutionalized national security decision-making in India. Therefore, the NSC structure, like its U.S. counterpart, involves three interrelated elements. The National Security Council (NSC) itself, the National Security Advisor (NSA), and the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).
The Evolution of the NSC after 1999
The NSC witnessed intense activity during its initial years. In June 1999 during the Kargil War in Jammu and Kashmir, the NSCS assessed Pakistan’s objectives, provided intelligence assessments, and coordinated between the military, civilians, and political leadership. Following the war, the Kargil Review Committee on December 1999 recommended the appointment of a full-time NSA (Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, was dual-hatted), and providing regular intelligence briefings to the NSC members and secretaries. Drawing on these committee findings, a smaller NSC Group of Ministers met 27 times between April 2000 and February 2001 to brainstorm measures to reform India’s national security management. By June 2001, the NSA also began chairing the Intelligence Coordination Group (ICG) which was created then to oversee and sanction the tasking of intelligence collection by different agencies. This enhanced mandate by 2002 brought the NSCS as a special unit into the PMO to assist the NSA and the NSC.
Subsequently, the NSC and its support structures were used in various forms to elicit advice and coordinate whole-of-government approaches to functional security issues. In June 2003, Prime Minister AB Vajpayee tasked the NSAB to prepare a report on the “merits and demerits” of deploying Indian troops to Iraq. Under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, National Security Adviser J.N. Dixit coordinated India’s disaster relief operations during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In August 12 2005, the NSC met on the domestic political situation in Nepal. Furthermore, the NSCS now consisted of three wings; the JIC (revived in 2006) and a policy and defense wing. It also hosts the Strategy Program Staff which supports India’s Nuclear Command Authority. By 2008, the SPG would convene via bi-monthly “Deputies meetings” between the NSA, Cabinet Secretary and CCS secretaries to tee up issues for the NSC’s consideration.
Moreover, border infrastructure was deliberated by the NSC in April 2010 which later resulted in the creation of an Empowered Committee on Border Infrastructure (ECBI) headed by the Cabinet Secretary. Around October 2012, a cyber security wing (CSW) was created within the NSCS to define a cyber security architecture and outline the roles and responsibilities of different agencies in this regard. By 2015, this culminated in the creation of a National Cybersecurity Coordinator within the NSCS. In 2015, the NSCS prepared a note and convened a meeting to deliberate on the risks posed by sensitive Chinese investments to critical infrastructure. In the case of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in fall 2021, the NSCS was involved in contingency planning efforts and consultations with intelligence officials from the U.K., United States, and Russia. More recently, a National Maritime Security Coordinator has also been appointed within the NSCS to ensure governmental coordination on maritime issues.
Understanding the NSC, NSA, and NSCS
The NSC often receives criticism for merely being an “incarnation” of the CCS. However, as a deliberative body which seeks to engage in long-range planning, it provides a forum to deliberate cross-cutting issues like border infrastructure and policy making reforms which the CCS otherwise cannot provide. The latter is a “sanctioning body” dealing with immediate issues pertaining to defense procurement, law and order, and foreign policy, and is thus limited. Additionally, the NSC has the flexibility to involve military service chiefs – as members of the SPG – in its meetings especially during non-crises situations. This serves to potentially enhance civil-military interaction. Therefore, the NSC – unlike the CCS – has become an appropriate structure to drive whole-of-government action on functional security issues. Moreover, the NSA has emerged to become the “principal advisor on national security matters to the Prime Minister”. The NSA staffs the prime minister on national security engagements, reconciles differences between bureaucratic agencies, manages the nuclear deterrent, collates policy options, and oversees their implementation during various national security crises. To date, five individuals have been appointed to that role. Three – Brajesh Mishra, J.N. Dixit, and Shivshankar Menon – came from a career in the Indian Foreign Service, and brought their diplomatic experiences to the position. Two others, M. K. Narayanan and Ajit Doval, were career civil servants with intelligence backgrounds, and focused more on internal security.
Finally, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), is staffed by civil servants and diplomats loaned for short-term assignments, as well as non-career government officials. They prepare “policy papers” for the NSA and foster interagency coordination. Additionally, the NSCS has also begun to play a role in liaising with foreign counterparts, including such diverse partners as Russia, Iran, South Korea, Vietnam, Bahrain, and Mongolia. Its staff participate in cyber security and counter-terrorism dialogues with the United States, Japan, Israel, and the European Union. The first-ever India-France dialogue on Maritime Security cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region was led by the then Deputy National Security Advisor in January 2016. The Colombo Security Conclave was resuscitated in 2020 where the Indian NSA and his deputies meet bi-annually with their counterparts in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Mauritius, and Bangladesh.
Short History, Deepening Roots
India’s experiments and experience with apex-level national security coordination mirrors that of others, including the United States in the early years of the Cold War. Until 1944, the U.S. president informally coordinated national security policies. That year, the State, War, Navy Coordinating Committee became the first “inter-departmental body” with its own secretariat, focused on civil-military coordination and post-war planning issues. The National Security Council was conceived with a vague mandate only in 1947. What came about through compromise has now morphed into the principal forum for the U.S. President on national security issues. Still, it was not until the 1960s that the National Security Adviser evolved to become the president’s “principal staff officer” on national security issues. As in India – where some NSAs came from a diplomatic background and others from intelligence – U.S. national security advisers’ roles tended to reflect their personas: staff assistants, policy heavyweights, or bureaucratic coordinators. Structured meetings involving principals’ committees and deputies’ committees were formalized under George H.W. Bush and continued by Bill Clinton. The NSC therefore was institutionalized more than forty five years after its creation.
The Indian NSC on the other hand was institutionalized in a shorter timeframe. In October 2019 it was brought under the Government of India’ Allocation of Business Rules and thus entrenched within India’s national security bureaucracy. But India's NSC is not yet completely analogous to its U.S. counterpart in several respects. Whereas the NSC is now the “strategic engine” for U.S. national security policymaking, India’s – as former deputy NSA Arvind Gupta observes – is not yet “indispensable to government functioning.” That will require further evolution, institutional development, and the nurturing of coordinating mechanisms and deliberative traditions over a lengthy period of time. Nevertheless, the fact that India’s NSC has become a critical component of India’s national security decision-making in just two decades is a matter of some significance.
The author is grateful to Tanvi Madan and Sameer Patil for their comments and feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Any errors that may remain are the author’s alone.