Rahul Bedi 
Chandigarh: India’s oldest military think tank, the United Service Institution (USI) in New Delhi, is broke and seeking contributions from its patrons.
In an appeal to its 15,000-odd military and civilian members, retired Major General B.K. Sharma, head of the 155-year-old USI requested ‘suggested contributions’ of Rs 10,000 from each associate, as unlike other think tanks, the Institution had not received funding from either the Ministry of Defence (MoD) or the respective service headquarters. This, he said, was despite numerous attempts by the USI to seek financial support at ‘the highest levels.
Sharma’s February 18 letter to USI members goes on to state that despite financial constraints, the Institution continued to operate on a limited budget, funded primarily via membership fees, project revenue and rental income from events – mostly defence-related – on its sprawling four-acre premises on Rao Tula Ram Marg, close to Delhi airport. The USI also operated 30 well-appointed three-star level residential rooms, seven service apartments and a well-appointed restaurant, according to the Trip Advisor travel portal, all of which were seemingly well patronised.
However, other than being denied any official bursary, USI’s financial corpus had been adversely impacted by the 2019-21 COVID-19 pandemic, and degraded further by low bank interest rates, thereby reducing its finances to ‘precarious’ levels, the letter said. This, in turn, had led to the USI’s management enforcing ‘stringent austerity measures’ like voluntary reduction in pay, freezing of dearness allowances and increments and hiring essential staff to manage the Institution on a contractual basis.
But despite such enduring frugality, the Institution was facing an ‘existential crisis’ that urgently needed an infusion of funds to remedy, Sharma stated, and enable it to continue perpetuating its lead role in furthering strategic culture within the military and addressing contemporary and future knowledge needs in the security realm.
However, in contrast, other defence think tanks, Sharma added, like the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS), all in Delhi were all monetarily supported by the three services and the MoD.
Besides, independent India’s oldest security think tank – the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies (MPIDS) – whose boundary is contiguous to the USI campus that was founded 60 years ago in 1965, continues to be ‘fully funded’ by the MoD via an Act of Parliament, Sharma said, but omitted to mention that even the USI was located on land granted by the Union government on a nominal lease. Numerous other military and security think tanks were privately funded by corporate houses, the two-star officer said but the USI, he added, had ‘consciously refrained from accepting funding from sources that might compromise its unique character’.
‘Institution’
The USI was established by British explorer and geographer Major General Sir Charles Macgregor in 1870 in Simla (later Shimla), the colonial government’s summer capital, to further the interest and knowledge in the art, science and literature of the defence services. At the time it was deliberately dubbed an Institution and not an Institute, as the former was a larger, more formal organisation with a broader mandate, involving research, education, social functions, and public service. An Institute, on the other hand, was usually more focused on education, training, or research in a specific field or discipline.
The Institution was initially housed in Simla’s Old Town Hall, but moved thereafter to the nearby British Indian Army headquarters, considering its close founding links with it. In 1908, it acquired its own premises near Combermere Post Office in the heart of Simla, and interestingly one of the officers who served as its secretary in the 1930’s was Major William Joseph Slim – later Field Marshal Viscount Slim – who in his later years was christened ‘Slim of Burma’ for his remarkable leadership in the bloody Burma Campaign during World War II against the Japanese.
After Independence, the USI, like many other institutions in the divided military of the newly created countries, attempted to function jointly, as the USI of India and Pakistan. Consequently, the first four issues of the still prestigious and seminal quarterly USI Journal after Partition were published conjointly. But after hostilities erupted over Kashmir in late 1947, this bonhomie evaporated and the USI became wholly Indian and in recent years has been headed by two or three-star Indian Army officers.
The USI Journal, for its part, dating back to 1872, also remains the oldest such publication in Asia, serving as a platform to freely discuss military matters and strategy and related issues by defence personnel, irrespective of rank. The respected journal also publishes highly researched monographs by members, amongst others, that are widely regarded.
Financial woes, however, led to the Institution selling its Simla headquarters, and under the supervision of the Oxford-educated lawyer Colonel Pyara Lal – who served as USI secretary for 30 years till 1987 – it moved base to Kashmir House in Lutyens Delhi, where it remained till 1996 and thence relocated to its present address.
The USI also houses the Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation which is focused on researching and analysing domestic and global security matters, in addition to simulating strategic scenarios as well alongside the Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research. And, since the late 1950’s it has offered preparatory courses for officers taking the competitive entrance examination for entry to the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington in Tamil Nadu, to further their military careers. The Institution has also long hosted events in collaboration with the Centre for UN Peacekeeping Forces, as India remains one of the largest contributors to the blue-helmeted force.
And more recently, in collaboration with the Indian Army, the USI launched Project Udhbhav (genesis) to ‘synthesise ancient wisdom with contemporary military practices to forge a ‘unique and holistic approach to address modern security challenges. Udhbhav aims to exploit India’s 5,000-year-old civilisational legacy to help the country’s armed forces ‘comprehend its enduring connect, relevance and applicability in modern times’ in courses managed at and by the USI.
‘Contributed little or nothing’
Meanwhile, a cross-section of military veterans lamented the USI’s monetary woes and the financial indifference towards it by the MoD and the services, despite its hoary legacy and impressive curriculum vitae, compared to other officially bankrolled think tanks with ‘questionable credentials’.
“These seemingly high-profile think tanks had contributed little or nothing to determining long-pending security concerns like formulating a National Security Strategy (NSS) or creating Integrated Theatre Commands (ITCs) and the closely related issue of the operational powers of the Chief of Defence Staff in managing this jointness,” said a retired three-star Indian Air Force officer. Unlike in many Western countries, where think tanks work closely with government agencies, the synergy of their Indian equivalents was ‘heavily circumscribed’ and they had ended up reducing themselves to mere ‘talking shops’, he remonstrated, declining to be named.
These think tanks included the MoD-funded MPIDSA and three service-sponsored CLAWS, NMF and CAPS. Supplementing them further was the high-maintenance, but low-performance CENJOWS, created in 2007, to ‘rise above sectoral and departmental legacies and to examine joint warfare and synergy issues in their entirety’. However, many military personnel agreed that all these ostensibly cerebral organisations, normally hyperactive in conducting seminars and discussions on global strategic matters and national defence policies, were more or less absent from the critical NSS and ITC formulation loop.
Analysts too argued that all their collective research had failed in translating into major actionable policy recommendations. They said that these think tanks were dominated by retired military personnel with minimal representation from academia, diplomats and policy experts, which resulted in tactically or operationally focused analyses, rather than those focused on wider strategic challenges. Over years, these think-tanks had also become peripheral to the MoD by focusing on issues merely of academic interest, rather than those in the larger security realm.
“Almost all Indian think tanks were risk-averse,” said a veteran two-star Indian Navy officer” and more often than not, adopted a cautious and status-quo approach, paranoiacally avoiding bold recommendations”. Also, their quality of research was debatable, due primarily to an absence of peer reviews which, even if executed, were largely subjective in their approach, he said, also refusing to be identified. Hence, without strong analytical frameworks, many of the think-tank reports tended to be opinion-driven rather than evidence-based, he stated.
Or, possibly lacking talent and chutzpah, these think tanks, unlike the USI, had of themselves simply opted out of the broader security equation, confident that irrespective of their output their funding would inescapably continue.