ABSTRACT

Conflict Resolution Research in India
Suba Chandran

 

Research on Conflict Resolution in India, is still in a primitive stage, as a part of its strategic thinking. For a long time, strategic thought in India was primarily remained the state domain. Strategic inputs outside the government came from research institutes and organizations funded by the government of India. Until the early 1990s, the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses remained the premier research institute working on Indian security issues and there were no independent organizations outside the state sphere. There were two other organizations - the United Services Institute (USI), India’s oldest ex servicemen’s organization and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), which also focused on security issues. These organizations were also funded by different organs of the state.

Second, lack of adequate funding for such independent initiatives was another reason for the absence of independent research organizations until the 1990s. The state neither directly funded nor encouraged external funding of independent organizations. Outside the state supported research organizations like the IDSA, USI and ICWA, and no independent research organizations existing, the responsibility for providing strategic inputs to the state were primarily left to academic institutions – colleges and universities. Besides funding them, however the government never shared any information with these research institutes or academic institutions.

It was observed in the late 1960s itself that “academic bodies have a major role to play in assisting the government to train a new category of expert personnel in national security and to ensure that the intelligent public opinion in the country is adequately informed to debate national security polices in a meaningful manner.” Unfortunately, the colleges and universities in India have also failed to provide and enlarge the much needed strategic space outside the state. The courses taught in these colleges were conventional in nature and could not provide any meaningful security analysis. Even today, there are only a few educational institutions which exclusively teach security studies in India. Most of the curriculum is either a part of the course on Political Science and International Relations or South Asian Studies. Even the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, the premier university of India, does not have an exclusive division or department teaching Indian security studies or Conflict Resolution.

Failure to impart research techniques at pre-university levels, in terms of collecting data, compiling, tabulating and analyzing is a major handicap in terms of building research as a career in social studies. Though research methodology is taught in many colleges as a course, it remains ineffective, consequently, independent researchers in social sciences, especially in defense studies take time to understand the complexities of undertaking research in an effective and optimum manner, exploiting the limited time and resources available.

Finally, formal interaction between the academic institutions and the state needs to be improved. This was realized way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but nothing much has been done at the ground level. Writing in the late 1990s, P.R.Chari comments that “a hiatus prevails between scholars and practitioners in this policy oriented discipline.” There were a few instances when such interactions between the two took place. Muchkund Dubey, India’s former foreign secretary, and Surjit Mansingh, former secretary to Indira Gandhi have both taught in the School of International Studies, JNU.

The paper aims to look into the above issues and make recommendations on how to over come the problems.

 

 

 

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