Kargil Review Committee
The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) was set up by the Government of India on 29 July 1999, three days after the end of the Kargil War. The committee was set up "to examine the sequence of events and make recommendations for the future".[1][2][3]
Over a hundred senior military, civil service and intelligence officials, politicians, including former prime ministers, diplomats and journalists were interviewed by the committee over a period of five months. The report was completed on 15 December 1999 and was tabled in the Parliament of India on 23 February 2000.[4][5][6] Certain parts of the final KRC report, such as the findings, have remained confidential.
The Committee found numerous flaws on multiple level of intelligence collection, operational strategies and procedural sharing of data.[7][8] As per the KRC's recommendations, a Group of Ministers (GoM) and several task forces were set up to do a complete review of the Indian security system. The GoM subsequently conducted a comprehensive review of the entire security apparatus. This became the first review of its kind in independent India's history to be made public, although in the interests of national security, the government initially redacted several parts. The recommendations of the KRC report and the GoM report led to far-reaching changes in the Indian security apparatus.
Background[edit]
The Kargil Review Committee laid out the context of the report. They noted that the national security system in the country had seen very little changes since the 52-year-old framework outlined by Hastings Ismay and recommended by Louis Mountbatten. In these 52 years, India had undergone the Sino-Indian War, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, as well as increased nuclear danger, the Cold War, persistence of the hybrid war in Kashmir for more than ten years, and a revolution in military affairs elsewhere.[9]
India tried major defence reforms following the Sino-Indian War in 1962, but these did not address national security in a holistic way. They decided to assess defence needs on a five-year basis, leading to the First Defence Plan. The Ministry of Defence and, subsequently the Department of Defence Production, Defence Research and Development Organisation and services headquarters, set up planning cells and units. A Joint Intelligence Committee was also formed. The Directorate General of Defence Planning Staff, composed of officers of various services, was formed to synergise defence planning under the Chiefs of Staff Committee in 1986.[10]
The committee consisted of:
Brajesh Mishra, the national security advisor at the time, assisted in the establishment of the Kargil Review Committee.[11]
Following the Kargil Review Committee report, a Group of Ministers (GoM) was set up by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on 17 April 2000 to consider the recommendations in the Kargil Review Committee. The GoM consisted of the ministers of home affairs, defence, external affairs and finance. Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Advisor, was also assigned as a special guest to the meetings of the GoM and the Cabinet Secretariat provided help to the group.[15]
The GoM established task forces, as suggested in the KRC report:
The GoM came out with its own report "Reforming the National Security System".[16] It was submitted to Prime Minister Vajpayee on 26 February 2001.[17]
Among the recommendations in the Kargil Review Committee report, the following have been implemented:
The Kargil Review Committee also recommended that the government find ways to reduce the pension expenditure, which has not yet been implemented.
From among the recommendations in the GoM report, the following have been implemented: