K. Subrahmanyam, who died at 82 on Wednesday, was quite appropriately admired, even when he lived, for being the “guru” of strategic affairs pundits in the country.
In a manner of speaking he had trained them all, for it is the breadth of his writings that gave any meaning to the discipline and definition of strategic thinking in India.
It is hard to think of anyone in the field — scholar, journalist, administrator, or foreign and security policy practitioner — who did not grow up absorbing and being shaped by Subrahmanyam’s stupendous and creative output, even if they came to differ with him, on matters concerning India having nuclear weapons for the sake of buttressing the notion of a level playing field in strategic affairs on the world stage.
In truth, in the impact he had on the shaping and execution of policy he bears comparison with George Frost Kennan, the path-breaking American Foreign Service officer and diplomatic historian, who in an anonymous 1947 article in Foreign Affairs fathered the idea of the “containment” of the Soviet Union, which he regarded as an expansionist power. Subrahmanym wrote with analytical light on dispelling “nuclear apartheid”, an expression to be found in his early books about three and a half decades ago.
If at that stage his thoughts appeared theoretical in nature, in later years the retired officer of the Indian Administrative Service and self-taught strategic affairs expert expanded his ken to take in with élan and sure-footedness the demands of practical policy-making, particularly under prime ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, although he had long retired from government. Subrahmanyam fathered India’s strategic doctrine of “no first use”.
On two occasions, this writer had first-hand experience of the fact that his impact was felt well beyond the domestic scene. Exactly 12-years-ago this month, when Mr Vajpayee undertook his famous Lahore “bus yatra”, I was in that Pakistan city along with droves of Indian and foreign journalists to report on that historic episode. While exchanging introductions with a flock of Pakistani colleagues, I was briefly mobbed by excited and curious Pakistani journalists who mis-heard my name and thought I was the K. Subrahmanyam! I almost felt bad for letting on the truth post-haste and deeply disappointing the home country scribes. Another time- many years prior- at the USIS (now the American Centre) in New Delhi, an arrogant high-ranking US state department official was going on in a high-minded sort of way at a media meet about strategic matters and denouncing Indian positions without a trace of diplomatic tact. Subrahmanyam was sitting alongside the rest of us (I was surprised to see someone of his standing in that routine session with hacks) taking notes. He rose to ask a question and delivered a flawlessly constructed 10-minute analysis questioning the visitor’s premise. This made the dignitary squirm and exclaim in anger: “Subrahmanyam, I thought this was my press conference, not yours.” Yes, his name and theses on India and the nuclear question were by then known and looked upon with anxiety across the Potomac.