Brahma Chellaney
Encyclopedia
Brahma Chellaney is a Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

-based Centre for Policy Research, an independent think-tank; a Member of the Board of Governors of the National Book Trust
National Book Trust
National Book Trust, is an Indian publishing house, founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education within the Government of India....

 of India; and an Affiliate with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. Until recently, he was also a Member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the External Affairs Minister of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Professor Chellaney is widely regarded as one of India's leading strategic thinkers and analysts, and is also a well-known newspaper and television commentator on international affairs. Stanley Weiss in the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

, for example, called him "one of India's top strategic thinkers," while The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 has described him as “a respected international affairs analyst and author.” He is very well known as a commentator on regional and international issues in the field of strategic affairs, including larger Asian strategic issues and non-traditional subjects like water security, energy security and climate security.

He is one of the authors of India's nuclear doctrine and its first strategic defense review. Those contributions came when Professor Chellaney was an adviser to India's National Security Council until January 2000, serving as convenor of the External Security Group of the National Security Advisory Board, as well as member of the Board's Nuclear Doctrine Group.

Education and career

Professor Chellaney holds a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in international arms control. After passing the Senior Cambridge
Senior Cambridge
The Senior Cambridge examinations were General Certificate of Education examinations held in Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Jamaica. They were preceded by the Junior Cambridge and Preliminary Cambridge examinations.-India:...

 examination at Mount St. Mary's School, India, he did a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 (Honours) from Hindu College
Hindu College
-India:*DRBCC Hindu College, Chennai*Gobardanga Hindu College, West Bengal State University, Gobardanga Dist., West Bengal*Gokul Das Hindu Girls College, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh*Hindu College, University of Delhi...

 in Delhi University and a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 from the Delhi School of Economics
Delhi School of Economics
Delhi School of Economics , commonly referred to as DSE or D School, is a centre of post graduate learning of the University of Delhi. The centre is situated in the university's North Campus in Maurice Nagar, and is surrounded by a host of other prestigious academic institutions of the country...

. A specialist on international security and arms control issues, Professor Chellaney has held appointments at the Harvard University, the Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...

, the Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

's School of Advanced International Studies and the Australian National University. His specializations include resource security, terrorism and nuclear issues.

He is also a newspaper columnist and television commentator. He writes opinion articles for the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

, Wall Street Journal, The Japan Times
The Japan Times
The Japan Times is an English language newspaper published in Japan. Unlike its competitors, the Daily Yomiuri and the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, it is not affiliated with a Japanese language media organization...

, The Times of India
The Times of India
The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...

, The Economic Times
The Economic Times
The Economic Times is an English-language Indian daily newspaper published by the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.. The Economic Times was started in 1961. It is the most popular and widely read financial daily in India, read by more than 8 lakh people...

, The Hindu
The Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...

 and Mint
MiNT
MiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...

. In 1985, he won the Overseas Press Club of America's Citation for Excellence.

Professor Chellaney was a potential contender for the post of India's National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (India)
The National Security Advisor of India is a member of the National Security Council , and the primary advisor to the Prime Minister, the Indian Cabinet and the NSC on internal and international security issues.-Overview:...

, had an opposition-led coalition come to power in India's nationwide elections held during April–May 2009. He remains active, however, in Track I and Track II dialogues.

Publications

Professor Chellaney is the author of six books, with the latest being Water: Asia's New Battleground (Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC). The book focuses on the steps necessary to avert water wars in Asia. The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow may be over water. Nowhere is that danger greater than in water-distressed Asia.

He is also the author of the international bestseller, Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan (HarperCollins, New York). In 2010, HarperCollins released a paperback edition of Asian Juggernaut. The book focuses on how a fast-rising Asia has become the defining fulcrum of global geopolitical change, with Asian policies and challenges now shaping the international security and economic environments. Asia's significance in international relations is beginning to rival that of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. With the world's fastest-growing markets, fastest-rising military expenditures and most serious hot spots, Asia holds the key to the future global order. The book examines the ascent of Asia by focusing on its three main powers—China, India and Japan. How the China-Japan, China-India and Japan-India equations evolve will have a crucial bearing on Asian and global security.

Asian Juggernaut has been translated into several languages, including Portuguese.

He is also the author of On the Frontline of Climate Change: International Security Implications (KAF, 2007), with Heela Najibullah. This is a study of the larger strategic ramifications of global warming. Given that climate change can only be slowed but not stopped, the book contends that the subject should be elevated to a national-security issue. It argues that Asia is likely to bear the brunt of climate change, making it imperative for Asian states to build greater institutional and organizational capacity.

Professor Chellaney has published research papers in International Security, Orbis, Survival, Washington Quarterly, Security Studies and Terrorism.

Asian Geopolitics

Professor Chellaney has authored the widely acclaimed book, Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan. The book established him as one of the leading international scholars on Asian strategic issues. The book highlights that Asia has not only the world’s fastest-growing economies, but also the world’s fastest-rising military expenditures, most dangerous hot spots, and fiercest resource competition.

Professor Chellaney’s research focuses on great-power relationships in the world and resource security challenges. In the Asian theater, he has focused on the significance of the ongoing power shifts for international security and Asian peace and stability. Asia is in flux, and the power equations between its major players are still evolving. Yet Asia faces complex security, developmental, and resource-related challenges in an era of sharper interstate competition.

His work highlights how Asia is coming together economically but getting more divided politically. Although Europe has built institutions to underpin peace, Asia has yet to begin such a process in earnest.

Water and Security

Professor Chellaney has done pioneering work on the link between the growing water stress in the world and long-term peace and security, with his latest work being the 2011 book, Water: Asia’s New Battlefield. In a number of previous papers and articles, he focused attention on the great resource dilemma the world confronts at a time of fast-growing demand for water, hydrocarbons, minerals, and other natural resources. According to his work, this crunch has given rise to a new Great Game centered on rival plans to secure a larger share of strategic resources. And the way oil shaped international geopolitics in the twentieth century, the competition over water resources is set to shape many interstate relationships in this century. In his words, “As the most pressing resource, water holds the strategic key to peace, public health, and prosperity.”

He has underlined the risks to peace by pointing out that upstream dams, barrages, canals, and irrigation systems can help fashion water as a political weapon — a weapon that can be wielded overtly in a war or subtly in peacetime to signal dissatisfaction with a co-riparian state. Even denial of hydrological data in the critically important monsoon season — when flooding is common — can amount to the use of water as a political tool. The exercise of such leverage, according to him, can prompt a downstream state to build up its military capabilities to help counterbalance the riparian disadvantage.

In his work, he has brought out Tibet’s unique triple role — as the world’s largest freshwater repository, as Asia’s main freshwater supplier (almost all the major Asian rivers originate there), and as Asia’s rainmaker (Tibet acts as an elevated heat pump in the summer and helps bring on the annual monsoon rains). As he has put it, “Tibet's vast glaciers and high altitude have endowed it with the world's greatest river systems. Its rivers are a lifeline to the world’s two most-populous states — China and India — as well as to Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries make up 47 percent of the global population.”

In his book, Professor Chellaney contends that Asia is at the center of the global water challenges at a time when water seems poised to outstrip oil as the world’s scarcest vital resource. Asia’s centrality is underlined by a simple fact: it has less freshwater per person than any other continent. Indeed, its per capita freshwater availability is less than half the global average. Yet, with the world's fastest-rising military expenditures, most-dangerous hot spots, and fiercest resource competition, Asia, according to him, appears as the most likely flash point for water wars — a concern underscored by the attempts of some countries to exploit their riparian position or dominance. Riparian dominance impervious to international legal principles, he has warned, can create a situation where water allocations to co-riparian states become a function of political fiat.

He has pointed out that there are water treaties between riparian neighbors in South and Southeast Asia but not between China and its neighbors, because Beijing refuses to enter into water-sharing arrangements with any co-riparian state. Yet, through its control of the Tibetan Plateau, China controls the ecological viability of several major river systems tied to southern and southeastern Asia. In fact, it is pursuing megadam projects on the plateau (including on the Mekong, Brahmaputra, Arun, Salween and other international rivers) and planning to launch massive inter-basin and inter-river water transfer schemes to take Tibetan waters northward in the third phase of its ongoing South-North Water Diversion Project.

He has argued that the way to forestall or manage water disputes in Asia is to build cooperative basin institutions involving all riparian neighbors. Such institutional arrangements must center on transparency, information sharing, pollution control, and a pledge not to redirect the natural flow of transboundary rivers or undertake projects that would diminish cross-border water flows.

Analysis of U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

Professor Chellaney stood out for expressing doubts about the long-term benefits of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, which was unveiled in July 2005 and ratified by the U.S. Congress in October 2008. "The deal's very rationale is fundamentally flawed because generating electricity from imported reactors makes little economic or strategic sense. Such imports will lead to energy insecurity and exorbitant costs," he argued in the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

. "India should not replicate in the energy sector the major mistake it has pursued on armaments. Now the world's largest arms importer, India spends billions of dollars a year on weapons imports, some of questionable value, while it neglects to build its own armament-production base. India should not think of compounding that blunder by spending billions more to import overly expensive reactors when it can more profitably invest in the development of its own energy sources."

Professor Chellaney criticized the Bush administration both for reneging on the accord's central plank as defined by the original agreement-in-principle—that India would "assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology"—and for progressively adding new conditions to make the deal more palatable to the nonproliferation constituency at home. "America's goalpost-shifting approach shows it will accept India at most as a second-class nuclear power," he contended.

His thesis was that the deal had been oversold by politicians both in New Delhi and in Washington. "Supporters in India have argued it will cement U.S.-India ties and facilitate technology transfers in fields beyond commercial nuclear power. Backers in the U.S. have argued the deal will make it easier for Washington to call on India as a counterweight to China's influence, and expand commercial opportunities for Americans. But none of these claims is entirely realistic," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "In short, the hype over the nuclear deal needs to be tempered by certain realities. First among these is that a durable U.S.-India partnership cannot be built on strategic opportunism, but rather must grow from shared national interests. In coming years, India will increasingly be aligned with the West economically. But strategically it can avail itself of multiple options, even as it moves from nonalignment to a contemporary, globalized strategic framework. In keeping with its long-standing preference for policy independence, India is likely to become multialigned, while tilting more toward the U.S."

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, several countries have frozen or scrapped plans to build new nuclear power plants, with Germany and Switzerland even deciding to gradually phase out all their nuclear plants. In India, grassroots opposition has grown to the building of new nuclear power plants. Against this background, it is doubtful that the U.S.-India nuclear deal’s much-touted energy benefits will materialize.

Coverage of Operation Bluestar

Professor Chellaney began his career as a journalist in his early 20s, working as the South Asia correspondent of the leading international wire service, Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

. Although he worked as a journalist only for a couple of years, he covered, as AP correspondent, the June 1984 Indian security operation, known as Operation Bluestar, to flush out heavily armed Sikh militants holed up in the sprawling complex of the Golden Temple
Harmandir Sahib
The Harmandir Sahib also Darbar Sahib , also referred to as the Golden Temple, is a prominent Sikh gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab . Construction of the gurdwara was begun by Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh Guru, and completed by his successor, Guru Arjan Dev...

, the holiest Sikh shrine. His exclusive coverage won him a prestigious journalism award—a Citation for Excellence in 1985 by the Overseas Press Club
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member...

, New York. Mr. Chellaney later finished his Ph.D. and entered academia.

Before the storming of Golden Temple
Harmandir Sahib
The Harmandir Sahib also Darbar Sahib , also referred to as the Golden Temple, is a prominent Sikh gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab . Construction of the gurdwara was begun by Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh Guru, and completed by his successor, Guru Arjan Dev...

 by Indian Army starting on June 3, 1984, a media blackout
Media blackout
Media blackout refers to the censorship of news related to a certain topic, particularly in mass media, for any reason. A media blackout may be voluntary, or may in some countries be enforced by the government or state. The latter case is controversial in peacetime, as some regard it as a human...

 was enforced. Brahma Chellaney of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 was the only foreign reporter who managed to stay on in Amritsar
Amritsar
Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...

.

His first dispatch, front-paged by the New York Times, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 of London and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, reported a death toll about twice of what authorities had admitted. According to the dispatch, about 780 militants and civilians and 400 troops had perished in fierce gunbattles. The high casualty rates among security forces were attributed to "the presence of such sophisticated weapons as medium machine guns and rockets in the terrorists' arsenal." Mr. Chellaney also reported that "several" suspected Sikh militants had been shot with their hands tied. The dispatch, after its first paragraph reference to "several" such deaths, specified later that "eight to 10" men had been shot in that fashion. The number of casualties reported by Mr. Chellaney were far more than government reports, and embarrassed the Indian government, which disputed his facts. The Associated Press stood by the reports and figures, the accuracy of which was also "supported by India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n and other press accounts" according to Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

; and reports in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

.

The government cited Mr. Chellaney's dispatches published in the New York Times, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 of London and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 to accuse him and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 of breaking the press-censorship order that had been promulgated in the state of Punjab. There were three reasons why no formal charges were ever filed. First, the government threat caused outrage in the journalism world and civil liberties organizations. The New York Times took the lead, carrying several editorials severely criticizing Indian authorities. In one editorial, titled "Truth on Trial—in India," it said Mr. Chellaney "provoked displeasure by doing his job too well." The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 Managing Editors Association, comprising editors of major U.S. newspapers, adopted a resolution calling on the Indian government to "cease all proceedings, under way and contemplated," pointing out that '"responsible Indian officials have corroborated Mr. Chellaney's news dispatches from Amritsar." Other media organizations also protested.

Second, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 and Mr. Chellaney took the case to the Supreme Court of India
Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...

, which set up a full constitutional bench to hear the matter. The government act was also challenged as "unconstitutional" by Maharaja of Patiala, Amrinder Singh, in a separate application filed in the Supreme Court. Third, Mr. Chellaney's reporting had been corroborated by several other Indian publications and by the army general who commanded Operation Bluestar, Krishnaswamy Sundarji. Sundarji, in an interview to the now-defunct Illustrated Weekly of India, confirmed Mr. Chellaney's death toll of nearly 1,200 in that operation. As a top editor of the Indian Express later wrote, investigations by the newspaper "found that what Chellaney had written was absolutely correct."

The pending preliminary investigations were formally dropped in September 1985. "Mr. Chellaney's only offenses were enterprise and accuracy," the New York Times editorialized, hailing the decision.

External Links

  • Syndicated commentaries: Columns internationally syndicated by Project Syndicate
    Project Syndicate
    Project Syndicate is an international not-for-profit newspaper syndicate and association of newspapers. It distributes commentaries and analysis by experts, activists, Nobel laureates, statesmen, economists, political thinkers, business leaders and academics to its member publications, and...

  • Japan Times: Columns published in The Japan Times
    The Japan Times
    The Japan Times is an English language newspaper published in Japan. Unlike its competitors, the Daily Yomiuri and the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, it is not affiliated with a Japanese language media organization...

  • IHT: Articles published in the International Herald Tribune
    International Herald Tribune
    The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

  • Stagecraft and Statecraft: Brahma Chellaney's Blog
  • Tweets: Brahma Chellaney on Twitter
    Twitter
    Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

  • Facebook page: Brahma Chellaney on Facebook
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