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George
Tanham--A Great Friend of India
KS
Correspondent
April
has been bad news for India. It lost two great friends. One, Ambassador Robert
Blackwill’s spirited defence of India on the issue of cross-border terrorism
cost him his job. Secondly, George K. Tanham (1922-2003), who passed away
recently, was more concerned about India than India's own strategic elite. Prof.
George K. Tanham, associated with Rand Corporation, was a longtime friend and
scholar on India. He died on March 29, in Washington, after a prolonged cardiac
illness. George
and Kathleen Tanham saw India as their second home. His home in Strasburg,
Virginia was often visited by India's elite. Tanham was deeply concerned about
lack of strategic culture in India. This made India vulnerable to proxy-wars and
frequent imperialist blackmail. It also retarded its march as a rising global
power. George
Tanham, in a seminal essay, "Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive
Essay", published in 1992, had tried to explore the reasons which denied
India its strategic culture. He made a study of cultural and historical factors
that shaped Indian strategic thinking. He found Indian elites, "show little
evidence of having thought coherently and systematically about national
strategy". Prof.
Tanham believed history was a poor guide for understanding Indian strategic
thought because "Indian history is often dimly perceived and poorly
recorded". He added until fairly recently "Indians knew little of
their national history and seemed uninterested in it". George
Tanham outlined four key elements, which influenced Indian perceptions on power
and security. The experience of the British colonial rule nurtured in Indian
thinkers a pre-disposition toward a predominantly defensive, land-dominated
strategic orientation. Geography lent Indian thinking an "insular
perspective and a tradition of localism and particularism". The discovery
of history by Indian elites in the past 150 years have also influenced Indian
strategic thinking. Lastly, a key element in Indian elite thinking has been the
primacy culture in its world-view and the "assumed superiority" of
this culture. This path-breaking study has been republished in a
volume--Securing India. Prof.
Tanham, born in Englewood, New Jersey, was trained as a historian at the
universities of Princeton and Stanford. He took part in action during second
world war. After the war, he joined the teaching staff at the California
Institute of Technology. In 1955, he moved to the prestigious Rand Corporation,
which he served till his death. He distinguished himself by bringing out an
excellent study on the dynamics of Counter-Insurgency warfare.
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