Government fails to send representative to international security forum

NEW DELHI: India will go unrepresented at the prestigious Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), the annual security forum in Singapore that brings together defence ministers and top military officers from the Asia-Pacific region as well as other countries like the US, beginning from Friday.

Sources on Thursday said the government had failed to take a decision on sending any minister or Service chief for the three-day SLD, which is to be inaugurated by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and attended by US defence secretary Chuck Hagel, among others.

There is grudging acceptance that there was barely enough time for the Narendra Modi government, which took over only on Tuesday, to decide on India's participation at the security forum. Moreover, the country is yet to get a full-time defence minister, with finance minister Arun Jaitley holding "additional charge" of the defence portfolio.

But it is also felt that since the issue was among the first things to be flagged for Jaitley, when he took over at South Block on Tuesday, the government could have decided to send the minister of state for defence Rao Inderjit Singh or one of the three Service chiefs to the forum. "Now, it seems Indian high commission officials in Singapore will have to represent the country at the SLD," said a source.

"The SLD is a 'Track-I' security forum, which allows world leaders to network, discuss and fashion policy. India should take it seriously and send the defence minister or some other senior Cabinet minister there every year," said an expert.

A K Antony, during his eight-year stint as defence minister, did not accord much priority to the SLD. In June 2013, despite being in Singapore around the same time on way to Australia and Thailand, Antony avoided the SLD. It was left to then Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi to fill the slot. In 2011, it was junior defence minister M M Pallam Raju who did the same.

India is still to get its act together as far as military diplomacy is concerned in the critical Asia-Pacific region, which has emerged as the new strategic battleground between the US and China. While India has refrained from joining any multi-lateral axis in the Asia-Pacific that may be seen as a move to "contain'' China, it does remain worried about Beijing's expanding footprint in the region.