Establishment of a defence university in India was first suggested in an article that appeared in College of Defence Management Journal in 1978. The article evoked considerable interest and was often debated in academic circles of the services. However, there was little progress on ground and the matter lay dormant till resurrected in the wake of the Kargil War.

The Task Force constituted in May 2000 to review the Management of Defence observed that there was no synergy between academic research and the requirements of the Government. It felt that advisors to the Government in security matters needed a great deal more information and analysis, as defence policy formulation was a constantly evolving exercise owing to the ever changing nature and increased complexities of security threats and challenges.

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The Task Force, therefore, suggested that a National Defence University (NDU) be established to carry out research and impart education. It wanted some of the existing institutions to be affiliated to NDU. It also recommended establishment of a College of National Security Management, Information Resource Management and Maritime Security.

...training components towards the advancement of military officers in their careers - professional service training, training for joint operations/planning and training for combined military-civil leadership roles in national security policy and planning at the strategic levels.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) studied the Task Force report and concluded that university research in India in the field of defence was not managed, funded, or structured effectively. It further observed – “Whereas academic research is carried out more or less in a policy vacuum, official agencies undertake their policy making tasks in the absence of the wealth of information available with the academic community. There is a need to ensure that the Government’s policy and decision making processes are informed by the findings of rigorous analyses and research.” Therefore, it recommended setting up of NDU, which could undertake long term defence and strategic studies, as “the development of country/region specialisation along with associated language skills and studies in strategic areas need to be ensured.”

The Government accepted recommendations of GoM regarding the need to have NDU on 11 May 2001. A 13-member expert committee (Committee on NDU or CONDU) was constituted to examine the issue in its entirety. It visited the USA and China to learn about functioning of their defence universities and recommended adoption of the US model, albeit with modifications to suit Indian needs.

CONDU based its recommendations on the following two primary issues:-

Deficiencies in Existing Security Policy Making Mechanism. A primary requirement for the attainment of India’s national security aims and objectives is the existence of an effective and focused policy planning mechanism, which has to be long term, integrated and anticipatory in nature. The committee felt that national security policy architecture with formal processes and structure was needed to provide synergy between academic research in the field of security and the Government’s requirements for inputs for security policy formulation.

Training Needs of the Services. There are three training components towards the advancement of military officers in their careers - professional service training, training for joint operations/planning and training for combined military-civil leadership roles in national security policy and planning at the strategic levels. The committee felt that higher education in the fields of national security and security policy was non-existent in India.

CONDU felt that the above considerations necessitated establishment of Indian National Defence University (INDU). Its salient recommendations were as follows:-

• INDU should be established as a multi-disciplinary Centre of Excellence in the country in education and research on national security issues.
• The President of INDU should be a serving three-star officer of the armed services and the Vice-President should be an officer from the Indian Foreign Service. The faculty should consist of 70 officers from the armed forces and 65 from the civil services.
• INDU should have a mix of existing and new institutions. Three new institutions should be created for education and research on national security and technological issues. As part of these new institutions, a new “think tank” for defence and security issues should be established with a focus on policy-oriented research.
• Three existing institutions should be affiliated to it for award of degrees, while another existing institution should be upgraded.
• A War Gaming and Simulation Centre should also be established.
• INDU should accord recognition by awarding degrees, short-term diplomas, and credits for courses undertaken by serving personnel from the armed forces, paramilitary forces and officers from various civil services.

The estimated cost of establishment of INDU was pegged at Rs 226 crores in 2003-04, excluding the cost of land as defence land was proposed to be utilised for the purpose. The total expenditure was proposed to be spread over seven years. See box for the proposed outline structure.

It is learnt that the Finance Ministry has not cleared the project and wants the proposal to be deferred. It feels that existing facilities in Indian universities and defence training institutions can perform these functions with suitable augmentation and fine tuning.

Appraisal of CONDU Proposal

The Task Force had expressed its dissatisfaction at the existing state of research on strategic issues on four counts:-

• Limited research activities.
• Poorly managed, funded and structured research regime.
• Lack of orientation to public policy.
• Lack of synergy between research and official requirements.

The Task Force, therefore, suggested establishment of NDU. GoM accepted need for NDU purely for long term defence and strategic studies as it felt that ‘policy orientation and synergy between the academic community and governmental functionaries were lacking’. Other requirements like training needs of the services and distant learning were added later on by CONDU.

The primary thrust of CONDU has been that the Indian policy makers are bereft of advice from the academic community of well researched security concerns. It felt that research lacks in policy orientation and hence, suggested new facilities under INDU. CONDU, quite inexplicably, failed to identify underlying reasons for this infirmity. Had it done that, it would have realised that there was no shortage of well-run defence research institutes/centres and competent scholars. The root causes for the malady lay elsewhere, as given below:-

• India lacks a tradition of long term strategic thinking and policy planning. Even within the Government, there is a total indifference to advance planning.
• Policy makers are averse to accept external advice as they consider themselves to be fully equipped to take decisions in national interest.
• Day-to-day routine business takes precedence over futuristic thinking and planning.
• Individualistic and compartmentalised mindset of functionaries hinders wider consultations and dialogue. They are highly protective of their turf and consider collective decision making as an encroachment of their domain. They decline to share information with others.
• Functionaries lack knowledge and training to take defence related decisions.
• Finally, Indian functionaries resent criticism and difference of opinion. They do not take kindly to dissention and expect academicians to toe the official line. That is the reason why all Government-funded institutions get coerced into producing placid and non-contentious research studies. The value of such studies, therefore, becomes suspect.

India boasts of some of the finest institutions involved in research and analysis of strategic subjects in Asia (see accompanying boxes). The Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) and the United Service Institution of India (USI) have commendable track records. Full potential of these institutions has never been utilised by the Government functionaries. It is not known if these institutions ever failed to deliver when requisitioned by the Government for any specific study/analysis. CONDU has totally neglected the expertise, brain-power and infrastructure with these and other premier defence institutions.

Indian functionaries resent criticism and difference of opinion. They do not take kindly to dissention and expect academicians to toe the official line.

Recommendations made by CONDU can be grouped as follows:-

• Creation of additional facilities.
• Amalgamation of existing facilities.
• Corporate fellowship programme.
• Distant learning programme.
• Affiliation of existing institutions.

Creation of New Facilities

CONDU has recommended establishment of some additional institutes. Their envisioned role vis-à-vis available facilities has been examined in the following paragraphs. Creation of new research facilities through INDU ought to be justified only if the envisaged research and education functions cannot be performed by existing institutions.

National Institute of Security Studies. CONDU has sought establishment of National Institute of Security Studies for conducting required research programmes on all strategic issues of concern to the Government to enable it to take fully informed decisions.

These functions can easily be assigned to IDSA, which is considered to be the premier strategic and security studies think tank in India. Over the years the Institute has enlarged its focus of research from defence studies to cover issues of national and international security.

The Institute has a well-qualified multi-disciplinary research faculty of over 50 scholars drawn from academia, defence forces and the civil services. Its library has an excellent collection of more than 50,000 books covering national security, defence strategy, international relations, conflict and peace studies and related subjects.