Rajya Sabha TV — ‘The Big Picture’ panel discussion first aired Dec 16, 2016 night on the appointment of COAS, involving former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, Maj Gen GD Bakshi (retd), Bharat Bhushan, and myself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjTRJJiM8Ro
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As straws in the wind go, the moving in September this year of Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat, GOC-in-C, Southern Command, as Vice Chief pointed to his promotion as the next COAS after Dalbir Singh Suhag. The stated reasons for ignoring seniority and bypassing Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, a post that has been the stepping stone for the last three army chiefs, and in favour of Rawat are plausible enough. Insurgency and China being the two main threats the country faces, having a COAS who is intimate with the operational issues confronting the army in J&K and on the LAC (Line of Actual Control) and dealing with the Tibetan plateau-entrenched PLA (People’s Liberation Army) as the sharp end of the Chinese wedge advancing southwards in the subcontinent, is useful.
Assuming the talk that Bakshi is to be nominated as the first four star Chief of Defence Staff is a lot of fluff to blunt the criticism attending on Rawat’s selection, his (Bakshi’s) being sidelined along with the third COAS candidate on the seniority list, P. Mohammad Hariz, respectively of the armoured corps and mechanized infantry, perhaps, signals the Indian government’s realistic assessment that these instruments of mobile warfare constituting the three “strike corps” are too terrain specific (desert and plains) to be militarily useful and, therefore, increasingly passe, and the officers promoted from these formations too limited in their operational skills and ambit to provide the sort of well-rounded qualities that are necessary in army chief.
As I have argued for over two decades now, because nuclear weapons and an ambiguous N-tripwire have made the kind of rolling tank-on-tank warfare in vast, relatively vacant, spaces of the kind last seen in the 1965 War impossible effectively to prosecute, it is time to rationalize the army force structure. This would require in the main, the consolidation of the three strike corps into a single composite corps and a number of independent armoured brigades, and the shifting of the redundant manpower and materiel to forming three full offensive mountain corps desperately needed to vigorously handle China.
The question, however, is if the Modi government was determined on discarding the seniority principle as a means of making the selection process less predictable and those in the running less timid because too afraid to make mistakes and risk losing out, was Rawat the best choice? I know of an IAF chief who, owing to his date of birth and date of service entry knew as a Squadron Leader boasted he would occupy the top post and took care, during the rest of his career, never to make any tough decisions, and it paid off.
All appointments as Armed Services’ chiefs of staff are political. In a democratic setup moreover such appointments reaffirm the primacy of the political authority which picks and chooses from among a slate of equally qualified three star rank officers. Because it is a political decision, the government of the day is free to alight on any metric for selection that it chooses. In the Indian milieu, the precedent of emphasizing seniority was established, unfortunately, by an army man. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had wanted Lt Gen Rajendrasinhji to be the first Indian to hold the post of “Commander-in-Chief, India”. This offer was turned down by Rajendrasinhji, the erstwhile Maharajah of Jamnagar, of 2nd Lancers and Mechili fame, on the basis that Lt Gen KM Cariappa deserved it more as he was senior in service. Even so, when defmin Sardar Baldev Singh asked about what should matter more in military promotions — merit or seniority, Nehru had advised that the danger of stressing seniority at all was that, in time, it would edge out considerations of merit. This, alas, is what’s happened.
So no one can cavil at Rawat’s anointment as COAS or the government’s overlooking Bakshi’s candidature. But if Modi had really wanted to make a political-military splash, Hariz would have been a better choice. Why? The very fact of selecting Hariz would have completely and instantly won over the Indian Muslims — the section of Indian society most resistant to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s political charms and which, because of the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, is most distrustful of Modi. The first impact of Hariz’s selection would have been the demolishing of the opposition parties in the upcoming UP state elections. Minus the Muslim vote bloc, the Congress, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh-Akhilesh Singh — Yadav pater and fils, and the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati, would all have been politically disemboweled, which effect would have endured into 2019 and the general elections. It is the sort of action that would have spoken stronger than a thousand election rallies, and decisively reordered the political firmament.
Hariz as Indian Army chief would also have had a sobering effect on the Pakistan Army. I argued long ago that Pakistan would have most to fear an Indian Muslim officer’s elevation to COAS, whenever that happens. He will be more motivated to showcase his patriotism and take no nonsense in particular from Pakistan. What that would mean in real terms is hard to predict, but suffice to say GHQ-Rawalpindi would be especially careful not to give him and India offense. In this respect, Hariz’s mechanized infantry background would have been an additional reason for Pakistani caution. Pakistanis would have been mindful of the fact that the bulk of the mech infantry in the Indian army, and Hariz’s own professional focus, has been to prepare to affect deep sweeps into Pakistan in time of hostilities. True, Hariz is a Malyali Muslim from Kozikode District and not a Punjabi mussalman, or a Muslim from UP and Bihar, which would have had a more visceral effect in Islamabad. But it would have been a Muslim as Indian COAS and that doubtless would have had lasting impact, who knows, possibly for the better.
Sometimes a government’s knowing just whom to pick to serve what larger political purpose can turn out to be crucial to the country’s interests.
Reproduced below from ‘Indiafacts.org’, is a view by Tufail Ahmad, dated 17 December 2016, on the contents of my book — ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’ at http://indiafacts.org/trial-of-manmohan-singh/. Ahmad, a former BBC correspondent, is the executive director of the Open Source Institute, New Delhi, and author of ‘Jihadist Threat to India – The Case for Islamic Reformation by an Indian Muslim’.
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I have strong reasons to call for the trial of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and key members of his foreign policymaking team.
By Tufail Ahmad
I have strong reasons to call for the trial of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and key members of his foreign policymaking team such as Shivshankar Menon, Salman Khurshid and M.K. Narayanan for treason against India’s national interests along with crimes against our future generations. In my hand is Bharat Karnad’s book, “Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)”, and each paragraph I read resembles a distress [call alerting us to the fact] that these leaders mauled India’s national interests consistently, disturbingly and deliberately, and subordinated this nation of 1.3 billion souls to the interests of adversarial states like China and Pakistan. While Karnad’s 552-page book will need a long review, this review article focuses on how the foreign policy team led by Manmohan Singh crushed and crippled India’s global status and ambition in the world.
If you are a youth under 25 constituting about 55 percent of Indians, this nation belongs to you and your children more than it belongs to my elders or to my generation nearing 50. So, it’s essential for you to know how these Indian leaders engaged in crimes against India while being in power. Manmohan Singh was the prime minister for ten years from 2004. While our ancients taught us that India should be the Vishwa Guru (world leader), Manmohan Singh, as the prime minister, wrote in 2007 that India “does not desire to be a global superpower.” Shivshankar Menon, who served as the national security adviser to Manmohan Singh for four years till 2014, dismissed “status”, “prestige” or “any other goal” that could appear as “popular or attractive” for India.
In this book, Karnad slays the “delusional strain” among India’s foreign policy thinkers right from Nehruvian days and reveals how a host of our leaders from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh was practically working for China and other enemies of India. When India was offered a membership of the UN Security Council by the US and Russia separately, Nehru wrote: “Informally, suggestions have been made by the United States that China should be taken into the United Nations, but not in the Security Council and that India should take her place in the Security Council. We cannot, of course, accept this as it means falling out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China not to be in the Security Council.”
The book reminds us how India is being told even now to be a “responsible power” and a “net security provider” – limited to shouldering the agenda of foreign powers. Its revelations are also consistent with the information in public domain, based on the statements of those involved in the underground of Track-II diplomacy with Pakistan that Manmohan Singh was close to handing over PoK – the Pakistani-occupied Kashmir – formally to Pakistan as part of a U.S.-brokered pact, notwithstanding his statements to the contrary. This is a betrayal of India, especially since there is legal clarity that people born in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, both being part of Jammu & Kashmir, are Indian citizens. Due to the criminal silence of Indian leaders, we don’t even see them as ours.
From the mid-1990s, the United States initiated a policy to build relationships with India and other Asian nations to meet the challenge of the rising China. It is being seen as the containment of China based on the principle of balance of power. However, speaking in Beijing, the capital of India’s adversary, Manmohan Singh attacked “the old theories of alliances and containment” as “no longer relevant.” This statement was consistent, writes Karnad, with Shivshankar Menon’s “contemptuous dismissal” of balance of power as “very Nineteenth Century” – the “underlying conceit” being that “India can do without allies and partners.”
In 2011, Menon lambasted nationalist Indians for “much loose talk about India as a potential superpower.” There is a line of thinking that as long as some Indians travel by bullock carts and bicycles, India should not embark on a mission to Mars, or build cars and motorbikes. Menon defined India’s posture as that of “strategic restraint” and saw it as a distraction, stating: “Eliminating poverty and realizing India’s potential will be the focus of our efforts – not external entanglements, arms races or other such balance of power distractions.” What if India achieved a great power status, the author asks, Menon asserted: “that would be fine.”
This line of argument was also articulated by Salman Khurshid, who served as the external affairs minister from 2012 onwards. Addressing an Oxford university audience, Khurshid spoke highly of India’s “softly-softly approach” in its foreign policy. “We do not assert ourselves,” Khurshid said, “by intruding, dictating, or imposing.” When China warned India not to collaborate with Vietnam in offshore oil exploration, external affairs minister SM Krishna responded, notes Karnad, “with fighting words to the effect that the South China Sea is not China’s sea” but Menon qualified it by saying India would consider such a role in “the Indian Ocean and our neighborhood” only and if “it contributes to India’s own transformation.” If it appears Menon’s sole purpose to serve Chinese interests first, the Indian interests second.
When contentious points emerged in the India-US relations during his tenure, Manmohan Singh diverted India’s foreign policy objectives to non-issues and domestic matters. This diversion is seen in five points outlined by Manmohan Singh at a meeting of Indian ambassadors in 2013: i) foreign relations will be shaped by India’s “development priorities”; ii) the Indian foreign policy should ensure “wellbeing” of India which should be the “single most important objective”; iii) India should work for “beneficial relations with all major powers”; iv) India must “create a global and security environment beneficial to all nations”; v) “our values” such as “democracy and secularism” should be the basis of ties with India’s neighbouring states.
In the anarchical society of states, where ambassadors are willing to break each other’s nose to protect their nation’s interests, these five points were worthless words from a prime minister unable to defend India’s interests. This cowardice was termed as “the Singh Doctrine” by Sanjaya Baru, the prime minister’s media adviser. In February 2006, when Manmohan Singh was also the external affairs minister, his ministry prevented the Indian Navy from attacking pirates who seized a ship flying the Indian flag; and his government chose to pay ransom to free the Indian citizens. As detailed in the book, Indian Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash was bitter about this surrender of the Indian state before a handful of pirates and cowardice of Manmohan Singh.
Karnad’s book has numerous incidents on how army and navy officers were humiliated by the team led by Manmohan Singh. Shivshankar Menon spoke against Admiral D.K. Joshi, who was asked a question about how the Indian Navy would respond if China seized Indian warships deployed in South China Sea to protect Indian energy assets jointly owned with Vietnam. Admiral Joshi gave a standard response that “rules of engagement” will apply whenever India’s “right of self-defense is impeded” – but Menon issued a statement in Beijing saying Joshi was “misled” and the Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement to the effect, observes Karnad, that “New Delhi is more mindful of Chinese sensibilities [than the Indian military is].” The crimes by Manmohan Singh’s team do not cease here. The author narrates another incident: In its intent, the 2010 Operational Directive issued by defence ministry to the military services designated China as the main threat but it was quickly “diluted” by Salman Khurshid who described as China as “major concern” and Pakistan as “part of the Chinese picture” – as if Khurshid was watching a Bollywood movie.
During the tenure of Manmohan Singh, an attempt was also made to revive Nehru’s now-irrelevant and inconsequential foreign policy through Nonalignment 2.0, a quasi-official document supposed to serve as a vision document authored by Congress party’s parasites. At a function to release the document in 2012, M. K. Narayanan, the national security adviser to Manmohan Singh from 2006 to 2010, stated that India must avoid “too activist a [foreign] policy” and that hard power – i.e. military power – is not “necessary” for India because becoming a great power is “an unaffordable luxury.” In line with this thinking, India’s junior external affairs minister Shashi Tharoor conceived “Pax Indica” – a treatise on soft power meant to serve the interests of foreign powers and sell to them “India’s sense of responsibility to the world.”
In this excellent book, Karnad also investigates the responses of the counterfeit liberal writers like Amartya Sen, Ramachandra Guha, Minister Jairam Ramesh and others. Sen lambasted India for the 1998 nuclear tests and dismissed them as “the thrill of power.” Guha, who sells himself as a historian, is quoted as saying: “India will not become a superpower”; and since it is poor, “India should not even attempt to become a superpower.” Jairam Ramesh is quoted as saying by Karnad that India’s great power aspiration is “dangerous.” The author reminds such writers and thinkers that if poor economic conditions were an acceptable reason, the sixteenth-century England would not have funded the enlargement of the Royal Navy on the path to becoming a great power. While subject-matter experts will read Karnad’s book, it must also be read by India’s youths enrolled in Indian institutes of technology and management. At this point in time, India’s defence will benefit the most from non-experts and new ideas.
NDTV 9PM news report this evening carried a story about a gaggle of retired air marshals and such trooping to the CBI Court to show solidarity with former IAF Chief ACM SP Tyagi whose police custody was extended for several more days. There were references and Twitter talk about a military service taking years to build up only to have its reputation torn up in a matter of a few hours. Tyagi has been arraigned on the charge of massive corruption in the Agusta Westland VVIP helicopter case, along with — other sissy-ish-named relatives, “Julie” and such — and a couple of other senior air force officers involved in Tyagi’s conspiratorial activity.
This was strange behviour from these former airmen, to say the least. Instead of showing loyalty to the IAF, making the case that the rotten apples needed to be discarded and the procedures that make for such scams overhaauled to render the procurement processes completely transparent, and pledging to cleanse the Armed Service of its taint for graft and corruption, we witnessed the sorry sight of these IAF stalwarts, including another Air Chief (Anil Tipnis) and several ex-AOC-in-Cs, etc. affirming their personal loyalty to Tyagi, almost condoning his nefarious actions. What does this say about the prevailing military ethos and ethics? Rather than isolate Tyagi socially, distance themselves and, more importantly, the IAF from the alleged wrongdoer, and make an example of him by hoisting him up as a pariah who had dishonoured the Service, there were his seniors and colleagues pleading his innocence before television cameras, implying that he was being vilified, unfairly and improperly treated, and hauled up for having done no wrong. Really? And, in any case, does this display of misplaced loyalty not go against the grain of IAF’s institutional attitude to corruption evident in the current CAS ACM Arup Raha’s statement that Tyagi’s doings had besmirched the Service’s name?
There was always corruption in the armed services (as elsewhere in government and society). But it had never reached the levels it has in recent times when corruption by seniormost officers is so so brazen and blatant, it is virtually perceived by many of them as a perquisite of the jobs they do. In an earlier, more innocent, time even a whisper of wrongdoing was enough to end end a military career. These days it almost seems a badge of success at climbing the slippery ladder.
The question arises: How does a “Bundle” Tyagi become CAS? Is there no scrutiny done by CBI of the records of the top ten officers theoretically in the running for the top post of service chief before the selection is formally made? Given the corruption that is now fairly routine in military circles, committed albeit by a relative minority of officers who are known to everybody, it may be a good idea for the CBI to do a thorough examination of their carryings-on in strategicall-significant posts (in the procurement decision loop, for example) they occupied, and stations and bases they headed, and the reputations they had garnered during these stints. That said, a corrupt Service Chief can clean up, make investigations difficult by co-opting his juniors in scams, etc. Even so, corrupt officers leave a tell-tale trail up from the time they are Squadron Leader rank or equivalent. Like the stink left by skunks, it is easy to follow. Only the names of officers cleared by CBI on a probity index should be cleared for appointment to two, three, and four star rank in the military. Corrupt military officers can hurt the national interest deeply in lots of ways. By, for instance, stretching the country’s arms dependency status well into the future.
After all, armed forces personnel who can feather their own nests by facilitating the purchase of this or that piece of military hardware, perhaps, pre-chosen by the politician cabals of the day, can just as easily sell India’s war plans, force disposition schemes, and anything else that is deemed of value to India’s enemies. These persons in uniform have an unseen label of “purchasable” hung around their necks and, hence, are the biggest threats to national security. Time has come for a deep weeding out of the corrupt from the military’s highest leadership echelons.
The proverbial “well-placed” source informs me that the Indian Embassy in Moscow has been told by the foreign affairs cell of the Russian defence ministry that, given the close military communications interlinks the Narendra Modi government is seriously considering signing with the United States vide the prospective CISMOA (Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement), Kremlin will not be able to risk continued high-level strategic military cooperation with India. Such warnings have been issued in the past. (See, for instance, https://bharatkarnad.com/2016/04/15/has-pm-modi-developed-cold-feet-over-the-logistics-agreement-with-the-us/; https://bharatkarnad.com/2016/07/18/russian-terms/, et al)
But now, it seems, the Putin regime is serious. It anticipates that the Modi government will compound the problem caused for Russia by LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement) that, as has been argued here will substantively compromise India’s sovereignty (see https://bharatkarnad.com/2016/09/02/has-india-put-its-sovereignty-at-stake-by-signing-lemoa-with-us/), by now also accepting the CISMOA.
Moscow has indicated in no uncertain terms that, because India’s generally third world communications infrastructure precludes “selective sharing” of communications, meaning a system with separately operable digital streams that cannot be breached, it will be foolhardy to cooperate and collaborate on advanced military technology programmes and underway projects.
For a start, this about pays put to upgrading the IAF’s Su-30MKI fleet of some 272 aircraft to the “Super Sukhoi” standard. FGFA is of course out, even assuming the government sees merit in keeping the Russians engaged with this project, something that may not suit the IAF, which is apparently keen on going fully Western with the French Rafale — an aircraft of the same 4.5 generational category as the indigenous Tejas LCA, and the antiquated US F-16s (as is the Indian Navy with F-18s of like vintage). It is another matter, as elucidated in an earlier blog, that these buys are at the expense of the Tejas and Su-30 MKIs — with the Modi govt prizing “diversification” of supply sources more than economic or operational sense.
But even more, INS Chakra-Akula SSN on lease may be recalled by Russia on the basis that its own navy is in need of it for Atlantic patrols, and the second Akula-II (Iribis) that was on the table also for lease to the Indian Navy, logically, will stand withdrawn. How the India Navy will then manage to deter the Chinese Navy from growing its presence in the Indian Ocean, is hard to fathom.
Worse still, the Russian participation in the Arihant-class SSBN construction programme underway in the special nuclear-powered submarine building facility in Vizag too may be terminated. That it will hurt the production of the 2nd and the 3rd Arihant-class boats is not in doubt. The question is to what extent and with what effect?
Any chance the US — our new found “strategic partner” of choice — will help out? Not the remotest chance, considering it has not shared nuclear sub building expertise and techniques with its closest ally, the United Kingdom, forcing the Royal Navy to build its own Vanguard-class SSBNs armed albeit with the US Poseidon SLBMs.
India will soon discover that, to paraphrase an old American TV ad about not fooling ‘Mother Nature’, it is not nice to rile Papa Bear!
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On strategic issues, the Modi government’s decision to test fire a second canisterised Agni-5 is only spoiled by the authorities describing it to a phenomenally illiterate Press/media as an “ICBM”. Whatever else it is A-5 is NOT an intercontinetal-range ballistic missile. What it is is an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) able to carry a warhead 8,000 kms. The ICBM appellation for the A-5 is a Chinese ploy to prompt the usual complacency in GOI and the Indian military, ‘coz genuine ICBM range is 12,000 kms.
However, should the A-5 payload constitute MIRVs (multiple independently-targetable vehicles) then the farthest MIRV-ed N-warhead would still be slightly outside the ICBM envelope. Except the Indian MIRV design and prototype has been on the shelf collecting the metaphorical dust for some 15 years now awaiting from New Delhi the green-signal for rapid development and testing (the change from Manmohan Singh to Modi at the helm making no difference whatsoever). So, if PM Modi and defmin Manohar Parrikar want to retain a semblance of credibility for their A-5 “ICBM”, they better immediately approve accelerated development and testing of the indigenous MIRV technology to extend A-5’s reach rather than, as is usual, boast of some weapon as something which it manifestly is not.
Further, news reports suggest that the A-5 “ICBM” post-second testfiring will be inducted into the Strategic Forces Command. The induction decision, however, presumes the second test on the anvil of the canisterised A-5 will be fully successful and that it will be fired to its extreme range, which is the only reasonable way to validate the fact that it can actually reach its stated range and perform as IRBM. Another testfiring, like the first one on January 30, 2015, on a depressed trajectory won’t do.
Besides, canisterised A-5 is a different type compared to the mobile Tatra truck borne TEL (transporter-erector-launcher) system which, so far, has had two tests. So a third test-firing is mandated of the TEL A-5 as per the Kasturirangan principle, again to extreme range. Because so far no A-5 IRBM — TEL or canister, has been physically validated as hitting a target at the far end of its stated range.
Secondly, induction of a missile after only two testfirings ignores the cost-related standard recommended by the R Kasturirangan Committee, which requires three successive tests of a missile-type to be successful before it is inducted into SFC. Indeed, it will inspire a great deal of confidence in the canister-borne A-5 if it is in fact fired to 8,000kms in terms of impacting our main adversary, China’s thinking, especially if the Chinese can see and track the A-5 from liftoff to splashdown deep in the southern Indian Ocean. Short of such openly verified capability, the A-5 — India’s most potent missile will be as hobbled, perceptions-wise (and perception is what nuclear deterrence is predicated on) as the “thermonuclear” arsenal India supposedly possesses. Based on the one test of a fusion device which was a “fizzle” (S-1 in 1998 tests) and without the resumption of open-ended testing, proven high-yield fusion weapons in the Indian inventory are, for all intents and purposes, no good.
The A-5 induction controversy was unfortunately seeded by the former DRDO head Dr Avinash Chander who, after the firing of the first canisterised Agni-5 in January 2015 was quoted by the press as saying “One more test-firing of the Agni-V is required. After that, the objective is to begin induction by end of this year if possible.” ( See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Giant-leap-Agni-V-Indias-1st-ICBM-fired-successfully-from-canister/articleshow/46074237.cms) Not clear why he thought only two test launches are enough to certify a missile type as operational in violation of the Kasturirangan standard. In any case, the Modi government seems to have cottoned on to his conclusion. But surely if the GOI desires not to have a question mark hang around the A-5 and means to enhance its credibility, it will do as suggested here — test fire the canisterised and TEL A-5s to near about 8,000 kms.
Tyagi — literally translates as “someone who sacrifices”. Ironic, isn’t it, that an air force chief by this name (SP Tyagi), reeled in by the Central Bureau of Investigation for corruption and graft, has sacrificed his Service’s reputation on the altar of the “filthy lucre”? It is a precedent of sorts. Other Service chiefs in the past escaped similar fates, often by the proverbial whisker and, on more than one occasion, because the government and political leaders of the day were concerned about the negative impact on the Indian military, and its reputation, of marching off bribe/commission takers among senior beribboned, bemedalled, brass to jail. The tainted lot among the flag-rank officers in the three armed services are known to their comrades and colleagues, and many agencies of the government. Whether military officers should be held to a higher standard pf propriety than politicians, civil servants, judges and, if so why, are issues that have not been discussed publicly or debated widely. Do the armed forces personnel not reflect the flaws and foibles of the Indian people at-large? If the people tolerate corruption, are willy-nilly, parties to it, why should one expect military officers sprung from such a society to be any different?
The haw-hawing “Bundle” Tyagi is easy to pillory. But what about Service chiefs, and two and three star rank officers, who are less brazen, less conspicuous, fly under the radar and take care to spread the loot around to juniors in the loop by way of material goodies and career rewards (good postings, lining them up for promotions), thereby making these downstream beneficiaries at once complicit and less likely to rat on them should scams and questionable transactions during their stints ever get probed by civilian authority, and who have never been collared? And what about Service chiefs who engineer the promotions of junior officers just so a favourite or a close relative is eventually in the running for the top post (which will become evident soon in one of the services), and how the concerned service thus ends up losing some really stellar talent? Or, how about the top boss using his regimental affiliation to use jawans to man his spouse’s textile exports venture?
Worse, if one well regarded retired one-star officer is to be believed, corruption in the military is now so systematized, the higher up one progresses the fatter the monthly “envelope” apparently gets from contractors and sundry types doing business with the army and various commands, say. Is it any surprise that many toppers in the merit list at the IMA, Dehradun, for instance, prefer the Army Service Corps and Army Ordnance Corps as first choice (as civil service entrants do the revenue service, customs & excise, income tax)? The problem became serious enough for Army HQrs some decades back to decide that the Service and Ordnance Corps-wallahs would have to pull time in the front lines fighting insurgents in Kashmir and in the Northeast, rather than cultivating large nest eggs in the rear areas. On this issue, should ASC and Ordnance be at all offered as arms choices for officer-cadets at the stage of passing out?
Or consider that the fount of corruption in the Indian defence aerospace imports sphere — the London-based Choudhrie Family, owes its wrong kind of preeminence to a former chairman of HAL — BK Kapur who used the first of the large combat aircraft import-cum-licensed production deals involving the MiG-21 in the late-’60s to set his wife’s side of the family up — with Shudhir Choudhrie presently in the van, as arms middlemen with intimate connections into the ruling political families. Thus Shudhir’s niece is married to Kamal Nath’s son (see http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-shudhir-choudhrie-india-s-mover-and-shakers-in-defence-deals-1968457). In fact, it is the country’s complete dependence on imported armaments from aircraft to pistols that established a number of middleman “dynasties” in New Delhi, including the late ADM SM Nanda’s son former Lt Cmdr Suresh Nanda, Abhishek Verma progeny of a senior Congress party person, MS Sahni, the Suresh Kalmadi-linked S Mulchandani, SV Khemka, et al (http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/india/indian-arms-dealers-the-defence-dynasty).
It is this umbilical cord between defence-related imports and corruption which is at the heart of all the country’s national security troubles, which I have sought over the years to highlight. The Congress Party regime of Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh was lax in policing for the obvious reasons that many in the ruling dispensation benefited directly from the arms trade. The BJP government of Narendra Modi has no reason whatsoever not to slice off this connection by simply terminating the arms import channel and, as this analyst has been urging for over two decades now, integrating the pubic sector defence industrial infrastructure under Indian private sector leadership and tasking the resulting, preferably, two competing combines to make everything needed by the military and, in the meantime, wielding dexterous diplomacy to balance power in the extended region, Asia, and the world.
After all, with open arms import sluice gates in the last 30 years, India accomplished little by way of hard power nor gained any international standing, but enriched a tiny band of empowered Indians and kept the defence industries of various countries afloat. By taking, even if belatedly, to the path of arms self self reliance — designing, developing, and manufacturing armaments and defence systems of all kinds to meet the country’s military and security needs and for exports, India will gain the stature it deserves. Messrs Modi & Parrikar should not be swayed by the Cassandras in the military and outside, who have grown lazy or fat on the arms commerce who will seek to frighten them. The nuclear-armed A-5s and Arihant SSBNs afford India precisely the safety, security and most importantly, the time during which to speed the build-up of a comprehensively capable indigenous defence industry to design, develop and produce entirely Indian military products for India’s use — without the charade of ‘Make in India’ policy. But this requires the sort of grand strategic vision missing in government.
This solution first detailed by me in a 1999 paper as member of the ‘Technology’ group tasked with Strategic Review in the first NSAB, hasn’t been acted upon since then, and won’t be in the future, perhaps, because too many in the armed services, in the bureaucracy and, of course, in the political class are infected by ‘Tyagitis’ — a malady that’s dragging the country down into the pits and, more significantly, because PM Modi seems to be only ultimately a small risktaker and not one who, demonetization notwithstanding, is a high-value disruptor, when disruption is what’s called for and incidentally something he promised in his 2014 election campaign. Recall his slogan — “The government has no business to be in business”? Ending the import culture, ethos, and milieu generally, which is long entrenched in Lutyten’s Delhi, is necessary because it is at the root of India’s problems. To do this will be to signal a very big change, and that apparently is beyond Modi.
The Navy was different from the Air Force and the Army because of its institutional tilt towards indigenization of equipment it used, especially major hardware such as capital weapons platforms. It had the warship directorate as part of Naval Headquarters that, over the years, has acquired the capability to design everything from fast patrol craft, corvettes, frigates, missile destroyers, to aircraft carriers. The only demerit on can point to in this respect has been the curious lack of confidence of the sub-directorate for submarine design that, despite designing and developing the Arihant nuclear-powered ballistic missile firing submarine (SSBN) with Russian assistance, still wants some foreign, preferably Western, firm to hold its hand in the prospective Project 75i — the indigenous next-gen conventional submarine. It’s mystifying that this should be so.
According to stalwart submariners like VADM KN Sushil (Retd), the 75i designers got stuck, unable to decide on things like the diving depth. More likely, the problem of designer-diffidence is, perhaps, due to submarine design unit being unsure it can translate the design into actual engineering drawings to pass on to the production unit. This was among the crucial aspects in which Russian help was sought and given by Russia on the Arihant. This lack of confidence in producing a wholly Indian designed conventional sub, — design to delivery, is bad enough. Now the Navy has gone a step further in the slippery slope of dependence on foreign suppliers.
CNS Admiral Sunil Lanba, rather than doubling the effort and the resources to correct any deficiency and speed it to operational status, has publicly rejected the navalised Tejas under development as “over-weight” and unfit for duty on the first India-made carrier in its final production stage, and indicated his Service will soon look abroad for a combat aircraft. The Navy thus joins the Indian Air Force which has distinguished itself less in war — recall that it lost four aircraft in the first three days of the 1999 Kargil border war, an astonishing attrition rate for any self-respecting air force, than for its perpetual reliance on whatever fighter plane is available from abroad for usually exorbitant price, resulting in helter-skelter acquisitions that have bequeathed to the country a force of such great diversity and so little sustained punch as to be a bad and costly joke. Now the Naval brass, like its IAF counterparts, will set its Service and the nation on the course of ending even the semblance of arms independence.
Is it just coincidence that Lanba is trashing the Tejas at just the time when the US Government, Pentagon, and the Boeing Company are well into a concerted attempt to sell the Navy on the virtues of its aged — the plane is already some 50 years old — twin-engined carrier aircraft F-18 Super Hornet, after successfully peddling the F-16 to IAF, again at the expense of the Tejas Mk-II? The selling-point of both these spendthrift deals that apparently made an impression on defmin Manohar Parrikar and broke down his commonsense resistance to buying these obsolete fighter aircraft is that their manufacture in India will helm Modi’s ‘Make in India’ program in the defence sector. That the F-16 and F-18 are unlikely to survive the first encounter against intelligent missiles, better manuevering aircraft such as the Su-30 or MiG-35, leave alone the more advanced Su-PAK FA, or modern air defence systems, seems to be nobody’s concern. So, the nation will soon have aviation arms — air and naval, outfitted with aircraft that’d have been cutting-edge in the 1970s!! This even as the PLA air force is pushing the toggle on its J-20 incorporating the advanced design features and technologies stolen/copied from the US F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning-II, and the Pakistan Air Force is in the process of inducting more J-10s and, should things work out with Moscow, in the future possibly even Su-30 or even MiG-35 — after all, United Aviation Co., of Russia has to make up for lost sales to India.
Navy was also once known for its ship-handling skills and for top class ship-shore logistics management. I remember the ex-CNS the late ADM SM Nanda telling me how it was routine for Indian naval ships exercising in the mid-50s with the Royal Navy off Malta, HQ (UK’s) Mediterranean Fleet, to be severely tested by the RN. Such as when he was asked by the shore authority to maneuver his ship, INS Mysore he was then commanding, into a purposely configured tight space bookended by two RN warships, which he managed to do smoothly, winning encomiums from the RN Fleet Commander and his underlings. They were unaware, Nanda chuckled, that he was a tugboat captain in Karachi harbour before signing up with IN. It was Nanda, it must be remembered, who rescued the Service’s reputation after its dismal inactivity under ADM BS Soman in the 1965 conflict with Pakistan, with a smashingly aggressive profile in both the eastern and the western theatres in the 1971 War, crowned by the daring and devastating naval raid by a force of Osa-class corvettes towed to missile range, on the Karachi port to disable the Pakistan Navy — a perfect but more destructive counter to the smalltime shell-and-scoot mission by Pak naval craft against Dwarka in 1965.
Where’s the fabled shiphandling, onboard weapons handling, and ship-to-shore logistics management competence of the Indian Navy gone? What has happened?
Since 2010, here’s the list of 17 major mishaps, the list reproduced below from Wikipedia, without comment:
1) In 2010, three crew members on destroyer INS Mumbai were instantly killed when an AK-630 Close-in weapon system went off as safety drills were not followed.
2)January 2011: INS Vindhyagiri, a Nilgiri-class frigate, capsized after a collision with a Cyprus-flagged merchant vessel MV Nordlake near the Sunk Rock light house, following which a major fire broke out in the ship’s engine and boiler room. Everyone on board was evacuated as soon as the fire broke out and hence there were no casualties. INS Vindhyagiri was later decommissioned.
3) August 2013: Blasts ripped through the torpedo compartment of the submarine INS Sindhurakshak while it was berthed at the naval dockyard off the Mumbai coast. Fifteen sailors and three officers were killed. Other sources state that a small explosion occurred around midnight which then triggered the two larger explosions. The disaster was thought to be the Indian navy’s worst since the sinking of the frigate INS Khukri by a Pakistani submarine during the 1971 war.
4) December 2013: INS Konkan, a Pondicherry-class minesweeper under the Eastern Naval Command, caught fire at the naval dockyard at Visakhapatnam while undergoing repairs. The fire engulfed much of the ship’s interior before it was extinguished. No casualties were reported.
December 2013: In the second incident in the same month, INS Talwar, the lead ship of the Talwar-class frigates of the Indian Navy, collided with a fishing trawler injuring four of the 27 people on board the trawler and sinking it. The fishing trawler was operating without lights. The captain of the ship was subsequently stripped of command.
5) December 2013: In the third incident in the same month, INS Tarkash, again a Talwar-class frigate, suffered damage to its hull when it hit the jetty while docking at the Mumbai naval base. The navy ordered a board of inquiry.
6) January 2014: INS Betwa, a Brahmaputra-class guided missile frigate, ran aground and collided with an unidentified object while approaching the Mumbai naval base. The sonar system of the frigate was cracked, leading to faulty readings and an ingress of saltwater into sensitive equipment.
7) January 2014: In the second incident in the same month, INS Vipul, a Veer-class corvette of the elite 22nd Killer Missile Vessel Squadron, was detected with a hole in its pillar compartment which forced the ship back into the harbour while it was on an operational deployment.
8) February 2014: On 3 February, INS Airavat, a Shardul-class amphibious warfare vessel, ran aground while returning to its home base at Visakhapatnam, causing slight damage to its propellers. Following the incident, its commanding officer, Captain JPS Virk, was relieved of command pending the findings of a Board of Inquiry.
(9) February 2014: On 26 February, INS Sindhuratna, a Kilo-class submarine, had a fire detected on board when trials were being conducted which resulted in smoke leading to suffocation and death of two officers. Seven sailors were reported injured and were airlifted to the naval base hospital in Mumbai. According to the naval board of inquiry, the fire was caused due to problems in the cables of the vessel. This particular incident led to the resignation of Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral D K Joshi on 26 February 2014, who owned moral responsibility for the incidents in the past few months.[28]
10) March 2014: INS Kolkata had a malfunction on board which led to a toxic gas leak killing Commander Kuntal Wadhwa instantly. According to the Indian Navy, the ship suffered a malfunction in its carbon dioxide unit while undergoing machinery trials, leading to gas leakage. Since the ship was not commissioned at the time of the incident, the enquiry into the mishap will be done by Mazagon Dock Limited, where the ship was constructed.
11) May 2014: INS Ganga suffered a minor explosion in the boiler room while undergoing a refit at the Mumbai dockyard. Four people suffered minor injuries. There was no fire and no equipment was damaged.
12) November 2014: A torpedo recovery vessel of the Astravahini class A-73 sank 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 miles, off the Vizag coast during a routine mission to recover torpedoes fired by fleet ships during a routine exercise. The accident resulted in the death of one sailor while four others were reported as missing however 23 other personnel were rescued by SAR teams deployed right after the incident.
13) March 2015: A Dornier Do 228 aircraft belonging to the Indian Navy Aviation Squadron 310, on a routine training mission, lost radar contact and ditched at sea about 20 nautical miles (37 km; 23 mi) southwest of Goa on the night of 24 March 2015. The aircrew on board the aircraft comprised three officers (two pilots and one female observer). The lone survivor, Commander Nikhil Kuldip Joshi, was picked up by a passing fishing boat. The bodies of the other two officers Lieutenant Abhinav Nagori and Lieutenant Kiran Shekhawat were recovered. Media reports suggested that the female observer could be the first woman in India’s military to die in active service. Meanwhile, a Board of Inquiry was ordered to establish the cause of the accident.
14) November 2015: INS Kochi, a Kolkata-class destroyer, conducted BrahMos missile test firings whilst the airspace remained open to traffic, due to a communication failure.
March 2016: A fire broke out on the soon-to-be decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Viraat which resulted in the death of one and the injury of three others.
15) April 2016: A sailor lost his leg while two others were injured in an oxygen cylinder explosion on board INS Nireekshak. The explosion took place on 16 April while a diving bailout bottle, a small 12-inch (30 cm) oxygen bottle that is carried by divers in their diving helmet, was being charged. The sailors were admitted in the Military Hospital, Trivandrum as the ship was on it way to Mumbai from Visakhapatnam.
16) June 2016: Two people, a sailor and a civilian contractor, were killed by a toxic gas leak that occurred during maintenance work in the Sewage Treatment Plant compartment during the first refit of the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya at Karwar. Two other people were injured and taken to the naval hospital.
17) August 2016: A minor fire broke out at INS Dega after a MiG-29K accidentally jettisoned one of its drop tanks.
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And then today you had the ill-fated Betwa, that last ran aground in 2014, and having undergone repairs, especially to its sonar system, was in the process of being floated back into the harbour from the drydock when, almost laughably, it tipped over and fell on its side, breaking its mast and possibly lot else.
With basic naval skills of this order, the Indian Navy doesn’t need enemy action to disappear.
This together with the virtual jettisoning of the naval LCA, the likely purchase of the aged F-18, and the search for a foreign partner for Project 75i, can the Navy any more pretend it is operations-wise, an equal of, and can strategically tackle, the Chinese Navy in its own Indian Ocean backyard? Or, even hold-off the minor Pakistan Navy whose Agosta B submersibles will soon be armed with Babar cruise missiles with conventional and N-warheads?
My participation in recent TV programs of possible interest:
Rajya Sabha TV, The Big Picture,on “Alarming border situation… Is this the new normal?”, Friday,Nov 25, 2016, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqrlToNIVXU
NewsX TV – “Why Wait to Say ‘No’ to Sartaj?”, Friday, Nov 25, 2016 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSH8Hb2Qu28
NewsX TV, Nation At 9, “As Modi woos Heart of Asia; cornered Pakistan keen to talk?”, Dec 2, 2016, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlojXvpdGK4
Times TV, Latitude, on “India-Israel Diplomatic Relations at a New High”, Saturday, Nov 26, 2016, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6-PuA9KfGM. (A portion of my take was excised in the program that was aired.)
The bureaucracy can’t be left out in the war on black money
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DEMONETISATION IS treating a symptom. The disease is systemic and grave, and relates to the institutionalised corruption in the vast, inefficient, wasteful and mostly ineffective administrative apparatus of the Indian state.
Consider what happened in Chennai after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise announcement on high-denomination paper currency. According to a person in the know, large stacks of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes held by the corrupt, bribe-taking bureaucracy, lower judiciary and the political class, instantly turned into waste paper. Unruffled, the triumvirate responded by simply sending bulging sacks of demonetised currency notes in their possession to contractors, influential litigants, and those seeking favours, with instructions to do the needful of converting the black money into white—however this is managed— and returning the laundered funds in like amounts. Assuming, reasonably, that this modus operandi was followed in the rest of the country as well, massive unaccounted-for sums in newly minted Rs 2,000 notes in the hands of civil servants (and politicians and the lower judiciary) will help cement the new black money economy, which Modi’s efforts at cleaning up cannot touch, unless his promotion of cashless transactions really takes off. But for the entire countryside and semi-urban concentrations to go online will take years, affording the underground economy enough time to consolidate.
In the 1985 centenary celebrations of the then ruling Congress party, Prime Minister Raijv Gandhi shocked the country by revealing that only 15 paise of every rupee spent by the Government actually reached the people in the form of some benefit or public service, while the rest went into paying the salaries and allowances of those manning the administrative structure, or was lost to leakage—meaning the routine siphoning off of public funds. Rajiv’s revelations did not account for the billions of rupees in ‘black’ extorted by officials up and down the central and state bureaucracies in the process of ‘serving’ the public. Predictably, no measures materialised to curb either of these menaces then, nor have any ameliorative steps been taken since, even as these problems have worsened.
A less regulated economy and a burgeoning consumerist culture after the 1991 reforms only motivated the triumvirate habituated to swilling at the public trough to put their snouts in deeper. It resulted, for instance, in the multi-billion dollar Commonwealth Games, 2G, coal auction, Embraer and assorted other scams of the Manmohan Singh era. With much larger amounts of monies coursing through a freer and more energetic economy, the illicit part has grown bigger. According to Gurcharan Das, former head of Procter & Gamble in India, other than the import- export trade, bribes to bureaucrats constitute the single biggest source of black money today. For an idea of the problem India is facing, consider this: some Rs 150 crore is reportedly extorted daily as bribes in just the Delhi Union Territory by the Transport Department and Traffic Police. Small wonder the black economy is estimated to be as much 30 per cent of the national economy.
RK Raghavan, former director, Central Bureau of Investigation, said in a recent op-ed piece that he was less worried about the corruption at the petty functionary levels—the beat constable, clerks, et al, which he claims is ‘part and parcel of the cutting edge of the administration’ than with ‘the rising graph of graft among Class I officers’, most notably in ‘key organisations’ identified by him as Income Tax, Customs & Excise, Enforcement Directorate, and even his own agency, CBI. The problem here is two-fold. Petty functionaries in Groups C and D (in officialese), the lowest paid categories, comprise nearly 60 and 30 per cent respectively of the government workforce of some 4 million, and deal directly with people. The Centre will find it difficult to monitor and mend their corrupt ways.
AT THE CLASS I officers-end, the trend since the 1980s has been for the Revenue Services to be the top choice of large numbers of the civil service merit-listers. With entrant- level officers steeped in cynicism and with an eye firmly on the main chance, the skyrocketing of corruption is natural. Moreover, the brazenness of senior officers in these ‘lucrative’ services is a lure for aspiring civil servants. It has long been a tradition among Income Tax Commissioners, for example, for their progeny at their weddings to be gifted gold ornaments by an endless line of supplicants. Modi would really stir things up in complacent official circles were he to order, for a start, the scrutiny of assets of retired senior officers in these Services over the last 40 years, while making active covert and overt surveillance a part of Service life hereafter, considering that the existing inhouse means of checking corruption—such as Vigilance Departments and state Anti-Corruption Bureaus— are ‘a joke’, as Raghavan puts it. It was Chanakya, after all, who long ago advised his king to mount a special watch on revenue collectors of every stripe, lest monies owed the state stick to their fingers.
But what makes civil servants audacious in their corruption is the certainty of escaping punishment. The procedural and administrative hurdles hampering the conduct of investigations into bureaucratic wrongdoing and ill-gotten wealth are daunting. These are put in place by the political class because it needs the help of babus to skim the cream off government contracts and otherwise manage the drip-drip denudation of the treasury. The Congress dispensation introduced a rule requiring the CBI to seek prior approval for investigating officers above the rank of Joint Secretary. The Supreme Court in May 2014 struck it down, with then Chief Justice RM Lodha ruling that ‘It grants absolute protection to corrupt officers from prosecution’, who he argued, ‘don’t need a shield like this merely because they are likely to be harassed.’
Notwithstanding such legal constraints, certain state governments, such as the one in Tamil Nadu, have made prior permission mandatory.
The question, therefore, arises: How is it possible that Central and state governments often act in such matters against the public interest, and, far from trying to minimise corruption and increasing accountability in government, provide safety to corruption facilitators among civil servants with a slate of rules and regulations which these babus themselves help draft?
The villain is a provision in the Constitution, Article 311, which provides those on the public payroll fairly comprehensive protection. Subsection 1 of this Article states plainly that ‘No person who is a member of a civil service of the Union or an all India service or a civil service of a State or holds a civil post under the Union or a State shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed’. Subsection 2 adds that ‘No such person… shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry’ in which he is ‘given reasonable opportunity’ to refute the charges. This pretty much precludes, in practice, any kind of punitive action. Short of treason, serious defalcation and evidence of corruption so blatant or massive that it’s hard to ignore, an accused civil servant can get away with everything else.
Moreover, the due process for dismissal or removal from service, or reduction in rank, is so onerous, time- consuming and rife with dilatory procedures that, should an accused officer take recourse to them, he can ensure he retires with full and generous pension before he has exhausted his legal options. A concerned government can, however, compulsorily retire civil servants with questionable records of probity, propriety and performance after 25 years of service—by when, of course, they would already have done their damage. This doesn’t solve the problem, but the Modi regime has used it to rid the higher bureaucracy of deadwood and corrupt officers.
Crooked and dishonest civil servants, ranging from peons to government secretaries, cannot easily be ejected from service because the CBI needs to prove their guilt when what is required is for the accused to prove their innocence—which is the line along which Article 311 should be amended if the country is to be saved from black money-fuelled corruption.
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Published in ‘Open’ magazine, 2 December 2016, at http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/comment/the-311-problem
An isolationist American President Donald Trump will shrink the United States’ role and military presence abroad, and will be disinclined to assist India to deal with China or any other threat.
This is not a bad thing to happen considering the Indian government, which has relied on Washington since 2000 for succour, will be compelled hereafter to bank on its own wit, political will, initiative, and national resources.
Unfortunately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has only laced the foreign and defence policies from the Manmohan Singh-era with some showmanship, but otherwise stayed with the old script.
Modi has not defined national interest, articulated a strategic vision, or followed hard-headed policies to bolster national security. What the country has witnessed is a lot of summitry, Pakistan bashing, inattention to big-power imperatives, the “same old, same old” subservience to the United States and accommodation of China, and continued emphasis on imported armaments furthered, ironically, by Modi’s signature “Make in India” policy.
No geopolitical drive is discernible in Modi’s approach. Stitching together a coalition of rimland states in the east to ring-fence China is floundering because of India’s faintheartedness in “speaking up” on the South China Sea dispute, delaying the transfer of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile to Vietnam owing to US pressure, and reluctance to engage in meaningful military cooperation with Japan.
Meanwhile, China has swiftly encircled India land-ward, is delivering on the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and, seaward, has taken over Maldivian islands four nautical miles from the Lakshadweep chain. In comparison, India struggles to connect the Indian northeast with Myanmar, forget achieving anything as grand as the Ganga-Mekong connectivity announced by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in Vientiane 16 years ago.
To India’s west, the development of the critical Chabahar port, railway and roads northwards remains unimplemented, pending Washington’s approval. Linking Chabahar to Russia’s Northern Distribution Network will outflank CPEC and the prospective Chinese naval presence on the Baloch coast, and provide India access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and Indian trade a cheaper land route to Europe. India has lost the first mover’s advantage in Iran and its goodwill.
The baleful US influence on strategic policy is reflected in India seeking entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and civil nuclear cooperation deals with all and sundry premised on its not conducting new nuclear tests, even when these are urgently required to obtain a credible thermonuclear arsenal and, at least, notional strategic parity with China. It has resulted in Modi postponing the test-firing of long-range, canisterised Agni-5 and sea-borne K-4 and K-5/K-6 missiles.
Further, foreign reactors are being bought at the expense of modernising the Indian nuclear weapons design and production complex, including the construction of the second Dhruva reactor to produce weapon-grade plutonium, which is progressing at a snail’s pace.
It mirrors the situation in the defence sector where rather than have the Defence Research & Development Organisation transfer the design and technologies of the formidable 4.5 generation Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to a consortium of Indian private and public sector companies to rapidly productionise, develop variants, induct in IAF and market the plane globally, the Modi government’s approach will likely kill this indigenous plane.
Moreover, bending to American advice, Modi is shunning Russian hardware – the Indian military’s mainstay, in favour of obsolete Western equipment. Jazzing-up, 1970s vintage, US F-16s and F-18s, earmarked for license production under “Make in India” policy, is akin to dressing up a crone as teenager and “Make in India” being reduced to cobbling together any old item locally.
It is prompting foreign firms to unload worn-out production lines for antique aircraft, etc. for hefty moolah, and private sector firms to join defence public sector units in assembling 50-year old fighter aircraft and such, involving screwdriver-level technology.
The indigenous design, research and development and industrial capabilities in both the nuclear weapons and combat aviation fields are also being strangled as scarce resources are diverted to mindless, cost-prohibitive buys ($6 billion for a 1000MW nuclear plant, Rs 59,000 crores for just 36 Rafale combat aircraft!). When the import option was unavailable, India produced advanced strategic systems – nuclear weapons, the Arihant-class nuclear powered ballistic missile-firing submarine, and Agni missiles. So making conventional armaments is not problematic.
It needs Modi to show faith and confidence in Indian talent and capabilities, shutdown the arms-import channel, including license manufacture deals, that has institutionalised corruption, force the armed services to take ownership of indigenous weapons projects, and hold concerned bureaucrats, service chiefs, department and project heads accountable for bringing nuclear and defence projects in on-time and under budget. Such steps, alas, are not in the offing.
Haphazard arms procurement, highlighted by the commitment of some $70 billion since 2014 to purchase (with mid-life upgrades) an assortment of aircraft and other military goods, is exacerbated by the absence of a mechanism in the government for prioritisation and the arbitrary handling of competing military demands.
Thus, monies are found for the Rafale acquisition because Modi announced it, but the raising of 17 Corps for mountain offensives against China is lagging behind for want of funds. It reinforces the skewed threat and military orientation, resulting in meagre funding of wherewithal for the China front, and in capital-intensive armoured/mechanised forces to subdue Pakistan whose total annual budget only slightly exceeds India’s defence expenditure.
There is much that is woefully wrong with the national security system, some of it attributable to Modi’s policies, but nothing that is not rectifiable.
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Solicited by the Hindustan Times for the ‘National Security System’ topic in its ‘Make a Change’ – section, and published on Saturday, Nov 26, 2016, at http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/pm-modi-s-security-policies-for-india-imperfect-but-can-be-rectified/story-5iGmzbvWYJ8tFXOUhNA2nN.html
Security Wise 