In New Delhi
THE rift between India’s foreign policy and national security establishments widened a crack this week, egged on by an eager media.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has always had an uneasy relationship with successive National Security Advisors (NSAs). The battles rage over turf, access to the prime minister’s ear and influence over policy. Typically for India, complex issues of service, rank and loyalty to the reigning party gods figure in the background.
The irritations between the incumbent NSA and the foreign policy establishment surfaced on Monday in the form of what appeared to be contradictory statements in a dossier of evidence into the Mumbai terror attack that New Delhi has handed Islamabad.
In a television interview aired on Sunday, NSA MK Narayanan appeared to suggest that the Pakistan, after initially pooh-poohing links between the Mumbai attack and those based on its own soil, seems to be having a good look at the material handed over by New Delhi.
“They certainly appear to be taking things seriously and at least they are proceeding in a manner that one would expect an investigative agency to proceed,” he had told the CNN-IBN news channel. “Pakistan has asked a number of questions, to which answers are being provided.”
Mr Narayanan went on to slam the Pakistani establishment, insisting he was certain that state elements must have had a hand in the attacks. Even so, India’s alert media was quick to sense a rift in the establishment.
That is because Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is standing in for the recuperating Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in most government matters, has been consistently targeting Pakistan for dragging its feet in the inquiry. They say it is evading a full and proper investigation even after the lone gunman taken alive proved to be a Pakistani national.
Other arms of government also have been targeting Pakistan, including Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Defence Minister AK Antony.
As recently as Tuesday, Mr Antony described Pakistan as the “epicentre of terrorism” – a phrase commonly heard from Indian leaders these days.
After Mr Narayanan’s comments hit the news, Mr Mukherjee was put in a spot. When reporters confronted him, he stood his ground.
“Whatever he said was in his own way. We have not received any official response from Pakistan on any progress made by them in their investigations after we sent the dossier to them,” Mr Mukherjee said.
Behind the irritations is a complex web of relationships in the ruling Congress party and government.
The post of NSA is a relatively new phenomenon in India, invented by the government of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Copied from Washington DC, it is a sign of the rising influence of America on Indian affairs.
Mr Vajpayee picked his Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra to be his NSA. Cool and formidable, the stiff-necked Mr Mishra virtually ran the government, often rubbing up against Home Minister LK Advani, the powerful No. 2 in Cabinet. On foreign policy, he often ruffled the Ministry of External Affairs but, as a former foreign service officer himself, every bureaucrat there was junior to him and therefore, intimidated.
When Dr Singh succeeded Mr Vajpayee, his initial choice for NSA also was a retired diplomat, Jyoti Dixit. But Mr Dixit died suddenly and Mr Narayanan, then in charge of internal security, was pitchforked into the job.
Mr Narayanan raises hackles in government for a variety of reasons.
For one thing, he is a policeman - a long-serving intelligence chief to three prime ministers. In the bureaucratic hierarchy deeply dominated by the Indian Administrative Service, the police come third in preference after the Indian Foreign Service.
Second, his loyalty to his political masters is unquestioned. In this case, it is Mrs Sonia Gandhi followed by PM Singh.
Heavyweight political leaders like Mr Mukherjee may have reason to fear that Mr Narayanan, to whom the various intelligence chiefs report, may be keeping a weather eye on him.
It is no secret that much as the Gandhi family finds Mr Mukherjee useful in government and in Congress party affairs, they are uneasy about his clout and fear his ambitions.