By Nitin Gokhale
Government reversals at the polls are likely to see task force recommendations put on the backburner.
The rout of the ruling Congress party in four recent provincial elections, including one in the national capital of Delhi, has effectively put paid to any hopes that defense reforms will proceed any time soon in India.
Even at the best of times, the government headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now in the last six months of its second term, has been reluctant to alter the country’s defense management architecture.
Now, with the Congress party’s moral and political authority further weakened after the severe electoral setback, Singh and his status quoist Defense Minister AK Antony are likely to put recent recommendations by a veteran group of strategic thinkers and former government bureaucrats permanently in cold storage, despite a half-hearted attempt to kickstart the process a month ago.
The Naresh Chandra Task Force on National Security, given the mission of recommending changes in national security apparatus, submitted its report in 2012. More than a year later, in October this year, the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC), comprising India’s three service chiefs, came up with a blueprint for implementing some of the main recommendations in the Task Force report and sent it to the Prime Minister’s Office for a final decision.
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