New Delhi: Conceived 58 years ago in 1967, reaffirmed by the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) in 1999 and with its foundation stone laid 14 years thereafter in 2013, the Indian Defence University (IDU) remains a work in progress.Its proposed 205-acre campus at Binola – 35 kilometres south of Gurugram on NH-48 and gifted by the Haryana government to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2012 – has little to show for it beyond a boundary wall and a perimeter road.All further construction remains stalled, pending parliamentary approval of the revised IDU Bill, which has languished with the cabinet secretariat for over two years.In its March 2025 action-taken report to parliament, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) expressed serious concern over the prolonged delay in establishing the IDU.The PAC also sharply criticised the MoD for its “trite and lax reply” regarding the two-decade delay, rebuking it for failing to clearly define the university’s scope and mandate, and for not providing credible cost estimates for its operationalisation.A broad cross-section of military veterans and strategic analysts also echoed the committee’s sentiments and alarm, stressing that a functional IDU remained essential to expanded strategic thinking and in institutionalising national security planning.Earlier, successive PSCs on defence had similarly chastised the MoD for analogous lapses, including delays in financial planning and conceptual clarity – issues lingering since the IDU was originally envisioned as the Indian National Defence University (INDU).The committees had collectively warned that such delays risked India missing a strategic opportunity to create a dedicated institution for developing national security thought, training future military leadership and reducing dependency on foreign military education.In the interim, the IDU’s operations continued from makeshift offices at Jodhpur House near India Gate – built by the British as stables and temporary World War II army barracks.A skeletal team of military officers and staff coordinated irregularly with the MoD and other stakeholders, while efforts to define curriculum, hire faculty or establish governance mechanisms remained sporadic and largely ad hoc.Random meetings on determining the university’s syllabus and faculty recruitment and related administrative systems also were reportedly infrequent and casual at best, official sources said.There was also the unresolved issue of ownership and organisational clarity regarding the proposed IDU. While the MoD had been formally tasked with establishing it, the armed services and various military think tanks appeared unwilling to take responsibility or show initiative in shaping the university’s academic vision and institutional framework.“So far, the IDU appears to be a parentless project,” noted Amit Cowshish, a former MoD financial advisor on acquisitions. “It’s waiting to be adopted, but nobody seems willing to step forward.”Other veterans noted that enthusiasm for the IDU had steadily ebbed under Prime Minister Modi’s BJP-led government despite its hyper-nationalist rhetoric on national security matters.The continued absence of such an institution leaves India poorly positioned to develop a robust strategic culture or credibly engage in global defence discourse, said a two-star Indian army officer. It’s a hiatus that needs filling to institutionalise strategic thought and to anchor India’s national security planning in a dedicated, future-ready academic framework, he added, requesting anonymity.Other senior retired officers too expressed concern over the persistent vacuum in India’s strategic thinking. They said that despite having multiple defence institutions and think tanks, India still lacked a formal National Security Strategy (NSS) – a glaring omission that underscored its reactive, often ad hoc strategic posture.They further argued that India’s strategic culture historically ‘shunned’ codified, forward-looking grand strategies common to mature democracies. Instead, it relied on a patchwork of political pronouncements, ministry-specific policies, service doctrines and sporadic and siloed inputs from government-aligned think tanks.This fragmented approach hampered clarity, prioritisation and institutional agility – shortcomings starkly evident in moments of crisis, like the aftermath of last month’s Operation Sindoor.Analysts maintained that this ‘piecemeal’ and ‘fragmented’ approach deprived India of strategic coherence. As, without an NSS, there was no unified framework to guide threat prioritisation, capability development or resource allocation in evolving crises.“The IDU, by its inclusive nature, was intended to correct this by institutionalising strategic education, fostering inter-service coordination and incubating doctrine,” said a two-star Indian navy veteran.“Yet 58 years after the idea for it was mooted, it remains a boundary wall and a plan on paper,” he declared, declining to be named, and added that “in a volatile neighbourhood, India could ill afford such strategic drift and free-wheeling”.The boundary wall of the proposed Indian Defence University near Gurugram. Photo: Screenshot from Google Street View.The intent to establish a national defence university followed the 1962 and 1965 wars with China and Pakistan, both of which exposed serious flaws in India’s defence preparedness, strategic planning and inter-service coordination. These conflicts highlighted the imperative of developing nuanced insights into regional strategic dynamics and strengthening civil-military engagement.The disastrous war with China and the ‘draw’ with Pakistan three years later also served as a stark wake-up call for newly independent India’s military, especially the Indian army, influenced largely by its World War II involvement and experiences.Military planners in Delhi at the time reasoned that an integrated, strategically minded and domestically focused approach to national defence was needed, and one which an NDU could advance. However, no formal move to institute such an organisation was instigated by successive administrations, but the concept lingered.Its germination and official endorsement were provided by the KRC, as the Kargil conflict in May-July 1999 too highlighted flaws paralleling India’s earlier campaigns, like the lack of integrated planning and the need for a more sophisticated strategic approach to higher defence management.Being a high-level politically-backed committee tasked with reviewing the entire spectrum of India’s security management, the KRC’s recommendations for an NDU carried significant weight and, above all, MoD ownership.Furthermore, the committee provided comprehensive justification for the NDU, outlining its proposed structure, functioning and the seminal role it was envisaged to play in improving India’s overall national security architecture.It specifically emphasised the need for joint training and education, bringing together officers from all three services and bridging the gap between assorted and competing stakeholders.The KRC’s recommendation for an Indian NDU received further traction when the group of ministers (GoM), led by then-deputy prime minister L.K. Advani, unanimously endorsed its establishment. This signalled high-level political consensus and urgency around addressing the systemic shortcomings in India’s higher defence management.The GoM’s support was critical – it translated strategic introspection into an actionable mandate – directing the MoD and associated departments to operationalise the university. Consequently, this university was envisioned as a crucible for joint military education, harmonising the training of officers from all three services and civil agencies, while promoting cross-disciplinary strategic thinking.But despite strong political foundations, the institution continued to be mired in bureaucratic inertia, with little visible progress over 25 years later.The momentum built by the GoM’s endorsement was soon lost as governments changed. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s BJP-led coalition was succeeded by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, which paid nominal attention to the IDU. However, it did secure a land allotment near Gurugram from the Haryana government.Under the subsequent Modi administration, some activity resumed – most visibly a boundary wall around the allotted 205-acre site – and in 2017, then-defence minister Arun Jaitley renamed the project from the INDU to the IDU, promising a detailed project report after cabinet clearance.Eight years on, that report remains elusive, emblematic of India’s chronic strategic inertia.Meanwhile, China and Pakistan have developed robust, influential NDUsAnd while India’s proposed IDU languishes, its two nuclear-armed neighbours and collusive allies – China and Pakistan – had long operationalised robust NDUs that are deeply embedded in their strategic cultures.China’s People’s Liberation Army National Defence University (PLA-NDU), established in 1985 under Deng Xiaoping, consolidated the PLA Military, Political and Logistics Academies into a single institution focused on comprehensive, integrated strategic education.Over the past four decades, the PLA-NDU has evolved into an institution vital to shaping Beijing’s military doctrines, technological priorities and national security thinking. It also instructed senior military officers and Communist Party members in varied aspects of maritime strategy, cyber and space warfare, and modern military logistics – directly fostering Beijing’s rise as a global power.The PLA-NDU also played an indirect but important role in shaping China’s White Papers on strategic thought via assorted inputs, hosted overseas strategic studies departments and military think tanks, and trained senior officers in national security, strategy and political-military doctrine aligned with Communist Party ideology.Among the key White Papers it assisted in producing are ‘China’s National Defence in the New Era’ (2019), ‘The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces’ (2015) and ‘China’s Military Strategy’ (2013).Pakistan’s National Defence College (NDC), on the other hand, was established in 1970 in Rawalpindi to provide advanced military education to senior officers of the armed forces and civil services. Modelled initially on the British Staff College system, it aimed to foster inter-service cooperation and strategic thinking.In 1995, the NDC was relocated to Islamabad, and in 2007 it was upgraded to the National Defence University, significantly expanding its academic scope to include postgraduate degrees and greater emphasis on national security studies, Indo-Pakistani dynamics, nuclear strategy, internal security and geopolitical shifts in the Islamic world.Today, Pakistan’s NDU serves as the country’s premier institution for professional military education and strategic policy research.Returning to India’s long-delayed IDU, veterans argued that the persistent postponement had severely hampered integrated civil-military thinking, curtailed academic rigour in defence policy formulation and deprived the country of a structured platform to cultivate future strategic leaders.For a rising power with global ambitions, they noted, the failure to establish the IDU simply undermined India’s pursuit of strategic autonomy and the development of coherent national security planning.