Career diplomat Arvind Gupta who is the director-general of Delhi-based think tank, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), is man of ideas. He wants to take the institute, which is in its 49 years of existence, to the new heights of excellence. Parachuted from the ministry of external affairs (MEA) where he continues to serve as additional secretary to head IDSA, he is trying to breathe new energy into the institute at this critical juncture when India visibility in the world affairs grows. In an interaction with Trithesh Nandan, he says that there needs to be more interaction between the government and think tanks. He also talked on the issues related with the latest University of Pennsylvania survey on global think tanks.

As a diplomat who has served at Indian missions abroad and handled a number of assignments in the MEA in different capacities, Gupta feels that policymakers have to take initiative in having regular interactions with the think tanks.

India has been projected high for its role in the world affairs by the global strategic thinkers. Evident from some of the global reports, the Indian think tanks are not placed in the same league. What ails our think thanks?
The new report by the University of Pennsylvania, which got attention, has some problem with methodology. As far as the ranking is concerned, one has to take it with a pinch of salt. We have seen that some obscure think tanks are ranked very high. As per the University of Pennsylvania’s 2012 Global Go to Think Tanks Report, the IDSA’s ranking is 11th in Top 45 Think Tanks in China, India, Japan and RoK (South Korea); 54th in Top 100 Non-US Think Tanks worldwide and 105th in Top 150 US & Non-US Think Tanks. IDSA has also been ranked as 16th in Best 40 Government Affiliated Think Tanks; 23rd in Best 40 Policy Study/Report produced by a Think Tank in 2011-12 and 29th in the List of 35 Think Tanks with the Best Use of Media (Print or Electronics).

To the second part of your question as to what ails them; yes, in terms of rigour, resource and outreach, more work needs to be done. Also, the cumulative impact of the report on the public policy has to be seen. The Indian think tanks have to go some way, so that they become as important as leading think tanks of the world. I would like to emphasise that we lack in inter-disciplinary approach. A think tank needs four major things: ideas, human resources, funding, communication and outreach.

A US intelligence report released on December 10 said America will no longer be the world’s sole superpower by 2030. Asia will surpass the US. Do you think that Indian think tanks are ready to compete at the global stage?
On the global stage, India is the flavour of the day. People see India as a rising power and are keen to understand its world view, strategies, approaches and policies, etc. We have been asked questions like what India’s grand strategy is, where India is headed and how serious India is about itself. Think tanks can be good interlocutors with the external world. IDSA is regularly sought out by foreign scholars for interaction, joint research and bilateral seminars.

The number of think tanks — and think tank culture — is growing in India. The role that the think tanks play is to critique the government policy, look towards the future and generate alternative policy options. Indian think tanks will have to come up with some kind of assessment on how India sees the new world order.

You sound optimistic about the growing number of think tanks in the country. But does the government take such institutes seriously?
The government has not interacted with the think tank community extensively so far. But that mindset is changing. I think they are beginning to engage with us through participation in our seminars, roundtables and conferences. They are beginning to give us studies which are relevant to them. They also read our policy analyses. But I would not say that whatever we suggest is immediately taken up by the policymakers. We also have to make our research policy relevant. I think it is an evolving process. The need for having a think tank was realised in the wake of 1962 and 1965 wars. That’s how the IDSA came into existence. The government has now taken a number of good steps towards enhancing its engagement with think tanks. Such engagement is never enough.

I would like to see deeper engagements because think tanks are factories of ideas.

There are two levels of engagement — bureaucratic and parliamentary. At the bureaucratic level, it seems that the process is on. What about the level of discussion with the parliamentarians? Does the interaction happen? Do parliamentary standing committees call experts at think tanks?
In India, this practice has not evolved to the extent as in the United States where engagement between think tanks and the government is very robust. Occasionally, our scholars have been invited by the parliamentary standing committees. Recently, one of our scholars wrote a backgrounder on the nuclear liability bill and was invited by the standing committee. Many parliamentarians know about the IDSA. In the past, some of them were part of our executive council. Late KC Pant, the former defence minister who passed away in November, was involved with the IDSA since its inception and was a member of the executive council from day one. Pant, Jasjit Singh and K Subrahmanyam (both former directors of IDSA) were involved in recommending the set-up of the national security council (NSC) in the late 1990s.

You mentioned that Indian think tanks lack rigour and influence. Can you elaborate?
It is true that we have to continuously improve the quality of our reports and study materials. If you see think tank reports of some other countries, these are rigorous and based on a huge amount of research. Their researchers go all over the world to collect material and interview people of highest esteem. They also get access to government archives. Then they write their reports. The fault necessarily is not of Indian scholars. We can’t provide such facilities to our scholars. So we are at a disadvantage. The funding and resources are always a problem. This comes in our way sometimes. But things are beginning to change. I would say rigour in research has to improve.

Think tanks largely thrive on generous funding. But there is hardly any culture of funding from the Indian corporate?
This is relatively an underdeveloped area. Very few corporate have set up serious think tanks in India barring exceptions. Funding is a big problem for Indian think tanks. This gap is normally filled by some foreign foundations in the form of projects or reports. There is a debate whether you should have foreign funding or not. These are legitimate concerns that need to be debated. As far as IDSA is concerned, we have taken conscious decision not to take foreign funding or even corporate funding. We get all our funding from the government. We have collaboration with our counterpart research institutes.

As the IDSA is completely dependent on government funding, do you get the same degree of freedom to debate, analyse, criticise and publish issues of strategic importance in a frank and forthright manner?
Autonomy, independent research and objectivity are like oxygen for a good think tank to function. Independent research is necessary for the credibility of a think tank. Though the IDSA gets funding from the government, it has maintained the autonomy in terms of independent research. We are free to choose our own research agenda. Our scholars write on variety of topics putting forward a range of views. Even policymakers ask us to generate out-of-the-box thinking. On that front, we don’t have a problem and are quite autonomous.

You raised the issue of lack of an inter-disciplinary approach in India.
I think that is one of our lacunae. We need a multi-disciplinary approach to research; otherwise we will be discussing problems from a narrow perspective. And today in the era of the globalisation, the problems are multi-disciplinary. So our focus should also be in the same way. But this is the problem of our universities and they will have to solve it.

But are colleges and universities sources to think tanks?
You are right. Think tanks depend upon students from the universities. The quality of teaching and research that the universities do is reflected in what we do. If a researcher comes to a think tank like ours, he or she has a huge platform to improve on research methodology. Here the exposure is fantastic. You meet the world’s best researchers; policymakers have excess to world’s best research materials. The writings are peer reviewed by world’s best academics. So, in few years, you gain hands-on experience.

There is perception that India should think from its home-grown perspective to solve problem, not taking cue from the research ideas emanating from abroad. What do you think?
There is an ongoing debate in the strategic community on how we can develop an Indian point of view on critical issues. In fact, people want to know the Indian perspective and not how Indians react to western views. The need for an Indian viewpoint is accepted. How to do is a very big challenge I think it must start with the universities. We must teach students our strategic culture and thought. Not many people are working on such issues. They must also be trained in critical thinking.

Our research is heavily influenced by western thoughts and English language. In IDSA, we are adopting a new way to relook at our past thinkers. Recently, we organised a workshop on Arthashastra where several scholars came and discussed how it is applicable to the contemporary world. People talk about western thinkers like Machiavelli, but why don’t people talk in the same way about Kautilya? Framing a proper Indian perspective, understanding, and interpretation and redressing the knowledge gaps is one primary objective of our projects. We always stumble against the barrier of language. We don’t know our own languages. Few people know Sanskrit, for example. They cannot access the classical texts in original. There is not much translation. The universities are not picking up serious research topics. We are hoping that we will be able to build a strategic vocabulary, which is Indian.

But most of the think tanks are based in Delhi. Don’t you think that more think tanks should come up in far-flung areas?
There is obviously need for more think tanks in India. India has, however, the third largest number of think tanks. It should not be that think should only be in the strategic affairs but also in economic affairs so that they can focus on socio-economic issues.