Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam (19 January 1929 — 2 February 2011) was an Indian international strategic affairs analyst, journalist and former civil servant. Considered a proponent of Realpolitik, Subrahmanyam was an influential voice in Indian security affairs for a long time. He was most often referred to as the doyen of India's strategic affairs community, and as the premier ideological champion of India's nuclear deterrent. His son S Jaishankar was appointed India's External Affairs Minister in 2019.
Subrahmanyam was a key figure in framing and influencing Indian security, nuclear policy and in advocating Indian nuclear positions on the global stage, both as a policy work and as a journalist. He was the second director of the New Delhi–based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. He is also noted for having steered several Indian government committees and commissions of inquiry, including the Kargil Review Committee after the Kargil War. Subrahmanyam was a major advocate of the 2007 Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, adding some heft to the Manmohan Singh government's championing of the deal in the face of much opposition.
He was afflicted by cancer in his final years, and died of a cardiac arrest at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 2011, where he had been hospitalised for lung and cardiac problems.
Early life and education Subrahmanyam was born on 19 January 1929 in a Tamil Brahmin family and grew up in Tiruchirapalli and Madras. Enrolling at Presidency College, he received an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Madras in 1950.
Career overview Civil Services During the final year of his MSc studies at University of Madras, Subrahmanyam appeared for the IAS Exam (Civil Services Exam) held by the UPSC in 1950 and stood first among those who opted for the Indian Administrative Service. He was duly appointed to the Indian Administrative Service in the batch of 1951. He was allotted to the administrative cadre of Madras Presidency and was transferred to the Tamil Nadu cadre when that state was created in 1956. During the course of his career in the civil service, he served in several remote districts of undivided Madras precinct and Tamil Nadu, as well as in various capacities in New Delhi, including as chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, as Member, Board of Revenue, Government of Tamil Nadu; Home Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu; as Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, New Delhi, and as Secretary for Defence Production in the Ministry of Defence.
Strategic Analyst In 1965–66, he sought mid-career study leave, and was selected as a Rockefeller fellow in Strategic Studies at the London School of Economics in 1966. On returning to India, he was appointed Director of the newly created Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi, a position he held until 1975. He then went on to hold a number of senior positions in the Government before returning as Director of IDSA in 1980. In 1987, he returned to England as a Visiting Professor and Nehru Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. Between 1974 and 1986, Subrahmanyam served on a number of UN and other multilateral study groups, on issues such as Indian Ocean affairs, disarmament and nuclear deterrence; he also participated at various Pugwash conferences as a senior member. Subrahmanyam is the author or co-author of fourteen books. These include The Liberation War (1972) with Mohammed Ayoob about the Bangladesh Liberation War, nuclear Myths and Realities (1980), India and the nuclear Challenge (1986), The Second Cold War (1983) and Superpower Rivalry in the Indian Ocean (1989) with Selig S Harrison.
Journalism Subrahmanyam was also well known as a frequent commentator and columnist in several Indian and international newspapers.Page xxiv, Chellaney, Brahma, "Securing India's future in the new millennium", Orient Blackswan, 1999 After retiring from government service in the late 1980s, he served as consulting editor and policy expert with various Indian publications. These included The Tribune, The Economic Times and The Times of India. Subrahmanyam was on the editorial board of The Times of India when India conducted the 'Shakti' nuclear tests in 1998 and the largely centrist paper famously withheld his comments, temporarily, while it condemned the weapons tests. Some of his writings in the press have been compiled and published in two volumes.
Role in Indian nuclear and security policy
Nuclear doctrine
Subrahmanyam was appointed the Convenor of India's first National Security Council Advisory Board (NSCAB), established by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998. The board drafted India's Draft nuclear doctrine, which governs all policy aspects with regard to usage and deployment of India's nuclear arsenal. Its most significant aspect was the declared 'No first use' policy, and the consequent directive that India's nuclear weapons would largely be oriented around a second strike capability. Subrahmanyam had been an old proponent of India adopting a no first use posture, arguing for it right after the Shakti tests in 1998, and even earlier in 1974. The nuclear doctrine was adopted by the government of India soon after.
Kargil Review Committee and controversy Subrahmanyam was appointed Chairman of the Kargil Review Committee in 1999, an inquiry commission set up by the Indian government to analyse perceived Indian intelligence failures with the Kargil War. The committee's final report (also referred to as the 'Subrahmanyam Report') led to a large-scale restructuring of Indian Intelligence. It, however, came in for heavy criticism in the Indian media for its perceived avoidance of assigning specific responsibility for failures over detecting the Kargil intrusions. The committee was also embroiled in controversy for indicting Brigadier Surinder Singh of the Indian Army for his failure to report enemy intrusions in time, and for his subsequent conduct. Many press reports questioned or contradicted this finding and claimed that Singh had in fact issued early warnings that were ignored by senior Army commanders and, ultimately, higher government functionaries.
In a departure from the norm the final report was published and made publicly available. Some chapters and all annexures, however, were deemed to contain classified information by the government and not released. Subrahmanyam later wrote that the annexures contained information on the development of India's nuclear weapons programme and the roles played by Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and V P Singh.
Task force on strategic developments In November 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Subrahmanyam to head a special government task force to study 'Global Strategic Developments' over the next decade. The Task Force examined various aspects of global trends in strategic affairs and submitted its report to the Prime Minister in 2006. The report has not yet been released in the public domain and is presumed to have been categorised a classified document.
Influence on national security and defence policy
Subrahmanyam's pioneering policy work is generally accepted to have left a lasting, even if sometimes controversial, impression on Indian strategic thinking and foreign policy. Its substance is still being debated, even as it is recognised to be firmly located in the pragmatist and realpolitik traditions. Many of his positions, particularly those he articulated on India's nuclear choices, have often led to Subrahmanyam being dubbed a policy 'hawk' and 'hardliner'.
Indian Nuclear Programme
Subrahmanyam is mostly identified as the premier ideological champion of India's nuclear programme and its exercising of the nuclear weapons option—which began with India's first 'peaceful' Smiling Buddha nuclear test in 1974 and culminated with the 1998 'Shakti' series of weapons tests, both in Pokhran, Rajasthan. His polemics, articulated over five decades, on India's development as a nuclear nation, with civilian and weapons capabilities, have proven both influential and contentious with supporters and detractors alike—of nuclear development and nuclear disarmament. His strong views and trenchant criticism of the inherent inequalities of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty regimes are widely known and referenced, as well as being heavily commented on. He often used the term 'nuclear apartheid' to decry this situation and routinely lambasted the five established nuclear states for forcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on everyone else while refusing all proposals for nuclear disarmament, including one proposed by India in 1986. He also coined the phrase 'nuclear ayatollahs' to refer to the western non-proliferation lobby that routinely chided India for pursuing a nuclear programme; and later for finalising an accord on nuclear co-operation with the US in 2007.
The so-called 'Subrahmanyam Formula' was widely used, especially in the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, to support India's entry into the nuclear club, despite the country's non-violent Gandhian origins and foreign policy roots in Nehruvian pacifism. The formula did not see any contradiction between striving for socio-economic progress and considering large-scale military development for a developing nation like India. Indeed, strategic deterrence, in which a small but effective indigenous nuclear arsenal would play a key part, was seen as vital to balancing things out in an unequal world carved up by Cold War geopolitics. This ingenious and apparently paradoxical stand has been adversely commented upon, being dubbed 'moral exceptionalism' on non-proliferation by several commentators.Unknown Significantly, Subrahmanyam also argued that Pakistan too should look to develop a limited nuclear programme of its own – to establish its own deterrent against conflict. This was met with great suspicion in Pakistani circles, and seen variously as an insult or a challenge. He also concluded in the 90's that India needed only 150-odd warheads to achieve minimum deterrence.Page 486, Tellis, Ashley J, India's emerging nuclear posture: between recessed deterrent and ready arsenal, United States. Air Force, Rand Corporation, 2001. And that this had been achieved by 1990, a point noted by many as a good reference to India's nuclear stockpile.
In 1979, as Chairman of India's Joint Intelligence Committee, Subrahmanyam authored a Cabinet note arguing for the resumption of India's nuclear weapons programme. The programme had been shut down in 1977 by Prime Minister Morarji Desai on his assuming office, largely on account of seeking to return to India's pacifist foreign policy roots. Subrahmanyam's note was prompted by Indian Intelligence's latest estimates of progress in China and Pakistan's nuclear programmes. It was discussed and shot down in a Cabinet meeting, principally by Morarji Desai and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then India's External Affairs Minister. Ironically, Vajpayee would go on to immediately authorise the 'Shakti' series of nuclear weapons tests on becoming Prime Minister in March 1998.
1971 Indo-Pakistani War