Narayanan appeals politician to develop consensus on national security

Keep “national security” aloof of making unwanted election issue to attack and counter-attack upon among the political parties, instead they should evolve a consensus on it, as its criticism deteriorates the prestige of the country, said M K Narayanan, the National Security Advisor said on Wednesday here at the Air Force Auditorium.

M K Narayanan while delivering lecture on “Managing India’s National Security & Building a Consensus for the 21st Century” in the memory of Air Chief Marshal PC Lal also pointed out that challenges before us was to see whether we could evolve consensus on national security or not.

He evaluated national security issue with the economic reforms and said politicians need to bring the same consensus on our country’s safety as was laid on economic reforms some decades ago.

“The reforms have continued through successive governments. We need a similar consensus on national security,” Narayanan said.

Highlighting the national security issue at the backdrop of grave menace from Pakistan-Afghanistan border based terrorist camp, which he termed as the epicentre of terrorism; Narayanan said there was no change marked in the attitude of ISI, the mentor of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammad militant organisation responsible for spreading terrorism in India.

The territory of India is surrounded by the group of extremists people based in our neighbouring countries and the soil of Bangladesh is used against India by the fundamentals and radical group of Pakistan to terrorise our country.

On India’s relations with its neighbours, Narayanan said China and Pakistan posed complementary security challenges for India.

We should not forget that strong anti-India sentiments still exist in some pockets of Pakistan. Under these circumstances to avert any misshapenness, India needs to have consensus to deal with the problem existed since Independence.

“The challenge we face with Pakistan is that without compromising on our national security parameters. How do we enlarge our area of contact with Islamabad?”

Who do not want to see Pakistan a stable and peaceful country, in fact we are happy to see the re-establishment of democracy after 8 years of military rule and hope the continuity of newly elected government would quell the fundamentalists forces there.

On the question of Sri Lanka acquiring arms from Pakistan, Narayanan expressed his annoyance over it and said, "We have to ensure that India's pre-eminent position in the region is not compromised by Sri Lanka seeking arms from elsewhere."