6 - India

Summary

This chapter explores the origins and consequences of national security institution in India from 1947 to 2015. It first discusses the evolution of India’s institutions. It argues that the trade-off between good information and political security explains three major institutional changes: Nehru’s choice to abandon his inherited institutions in favor of fragmented ones that protected his plans to transform the domestic economy; the choice of post-Nehruvian leaders to shift toward siloed institutions that balanced continued threats from national security bureaucracies against new international security challenges from Pakistan and China; and Vajpayee’s choice to establish more integrated institutions as apprehensions about bureaucratic punishment lessened. The chapter then presents a medium-n analysis suggesting that India exhibited better crisis performance under integrated institutions than under siloed and fragmented institutions. Case studies tracing decision-making during the 1962 Sino–Indian War and the 2001-2002 Twin Peaks Crisis illustrate how these institutional changes affected the quality of information upon which Indian leaders based their crisis choices.