K. Subrahmanyam

Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam (19 January 1929 – 2 February 2011) was a prominent international strategic affairs analyst, journalist and former Indian 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Subrahmanyam was also well known as a frequent commentator and columnist in several Indian and international newspapers.

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.

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.

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.

In 1987, he returned to England as a Visiting Professor and Nehru Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.