New Delhi: A new collection of essays edited by three senior journalists — Manoj Joshi, Praveen Swami and Nishtha Gautam — delves into India’s national security aspirations, particularly during and after the mid 1990s.
Published by Bloomsbury, the book titled ‘In Hard Times: Security In A Time Of Insecurity’ will be released on 22 November on SoftCover, ThePrint’s online venue to launch non-fiction books.
The book — which consists of essays by experts such as political analyst Sanjaya Baru and Lt Gen. D.S. Hooda (retd) — discusses how, since the mid 90s, it was assumed that India would progress on a growth trajectory sufficient to modernise its security capacities and be on par with China. But the reality has been otherwise.
Readers also gain perspective on why India needs a national security strategy for hard times. The book states that India’s priority should be to lift vast numbers of its people out of abject poverty, even if the strategies of global superpowers like China and the US, economically more developed, can aim at being global powers.
The authors also outline what India has going for it: the shift in power eastwards, the strength from technology and the country’s demographic profile.
In the light of upheavals caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the essays bring to light challenges that India faces and ways in which to tackle them. They point toward the urgency of a fresh national security strategy.
“The overall idea is to engender an informed public debate on the crisis that confronts India’s national security in the hope that such discussion will propel policymakers to begin serious discussions on the way forward,” states the introduction.
Discussions on strategy
From Baru’s landscape survey to a granular analysis of India’s security scenario by Takshashila Institution’s Pranay Kostahane, the book includes contributors whose “views have helped shape discussions on strategy”.
Arun Prakash, former flag officer of the Indian Navy and chief of the Indian Naval Staff, talks about India’s overall maritime capabilities, while retired Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur reflects on the doctrinal changes needed to rethink how the country’s airpower capabilities should be moulded for the times ahead.
“Contributors to this book have not hesitated to call a spade a spade. But neither have they thrown in the towel in despair. What they have sought is to craft solutions that require purposefulness and teamwork and, in certain cases, get the nation to bite the bullet. At the end of the day, nations, like tailors, must cut the coat according to the cloth,” Joshi says in the book’s afterword.
The authors also highlight that national security is an area that needs constant nourishment. There is no final word. Transformative events like Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine testify to this.
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