The Narendra Modi government apparently does not know when it is ahead, and why not to retard the country’s rise by a self-inflicted wound that may appear trivial — such as changing the name of the country — but is not.
The Modi government is reportedly threatening to do something recklessly foolish that will leave everyone befuddled, scratching their heads in incomprehension. In the instant case, it is the Modi regime’s prospective re-branding of India as Bharat. Of course, I was quite happy that the country was being named after me, but disappointed to learn from the official spoilsports — S Jaishankar and Co., who rather warily explained to the Press that it is the alternative moniker for the country mentioned in the very first line of the Constitution — “India, that is Bharat…”, etc. Then Sanjeev Sanyal, economic adviser to the PM, educated us TV newswatchers on history stretching back to God knows when and the birth of the “Bharati empire” originating in present day Haryana, and whatnot. All this was informative and enlightening, but I still felt a little uneasy, my immediate concerns being practical.
My unease was with the name Bharat, my name and touted as possibly the country’s as well. Years of my early adult life spent in California had accustomed me to Westerners, even well meaning ones, routinely mangling my name. Scouring my memory, I cannot recall a single American from among my friends, fellow students, girl friends, class mates, project colleagues, and professors in all my years as an undergrad and grad student at the University of California and, later in life, professional acquaintances and, generally, lay people I met over the decades in Western countries, getting my name right. Despite extended personal tutorials from me the most the best among them could manage was a variation of “Baharat” (with empasis on RAT pronounced as in rat, the rodent). My friends, showing less patience, just called me “Brat” (with the snarky among them suggesting this abbreviated form fit my personality better)!
The trouble Westerners have with this word is because the aspirated “bh” is missing from the English language — look up the Oxford Dictionary (and, as far as I know, from any known European language)! Therefore, try as hard as they might, Westerners invariably will mispronounce it. Beyond a point, I discovered, it was futile to correct them, and even less to badger them to get it right. Asians — Arabs, who also can only say Baharat, but Chinese, otherAsians in the Sinic sphere, are in many respects worse, and I could never, and still cannot, make out whatever they call(ed) me (in seminars, conferences, etc) and short of being directly addressed or tapped on the shoulder, I always fail(ed) to respond.
This post is a cautionary one for the “President of BAHARAT” — whatever that is, who is set to dine with G20 dignitaries and fated hereafter — if the name sticks — to hear Western pooh-bahs standing up to give a toast and tripping right away on the word and, amidst much embarrassment among natives of this land present on the occasion, generally making a mess of the intended goodwill, as well!
It is obvious that prompted by the RSS, the change of name for the country from the G-20 platform was a trial balloon sent up by Modi. Many foreign delegates getting an invitation from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the high dinner may have done a double take, wondering if by mischance their planes had landed in the wrong, but for some reason dressed up, country and they were missing out on the G-20 confab happening in India. If it was a balloon, it has fallen flat. Best to keep Bharat for domestic consumption where it belongs and makes sense, and then only in domestic political discourse. Because commercially some have taken this name changing move seriously enough for wags to twitter that Indigo airline, for instance, would be rebranding itself as ‘Bhago’! In other words, ‘Bharat’ will be the butt of unending jokes. Not to mention the enormous cost — as in literally tens of billions of dollars to advertise the change worldwide, and on all mastheads, crests, on government stationery, etc., only for non-South Asians to mutilate it any way.
INDIA is an extraordinarily evocative historical name derived from the word Sindhu that was persianised to ‘Hindu’ as Sanyal mentioned. Recall why the legendary leader of the XIV Army, Field Marshal William Slim, considered the greatest field commander in the Allied ranks in the Second World War, when offered the post by Nehru of Commander-in-Chief, India, declined saying that Pakistan was no more a part of the India his army would have to protect. But that’s a historical piffle compared to the fact that over several millennia literally millions of peoples everywhere, and especially in the modern era, have been familiar with ‘India’ and relatively few with ‘Bharat’. Reviving an ancient name for the country for the heck of it, or to get back to cultural roots, is all very well as an RSS-BJP hobbyhorse until it runs up against reality, and then it will be an incalculable diplomatic and all-round disaster.
A Bloomberg story mentions the economic cost to the country that Modi did not factor into his decision to overnight demonetise high denomination currency notes. The political, diplomatic, and economic costs of the name change will be unimaginably higher. For one, as has been pointed out, Pakistan, presently in the depths of despond, could rightly claim India as its name, as a co-successor state to British India, and make a new and fresh start, at our nomenclatural expense, ride on the goodwill and visibility India has generated over time even as we curdle in our own reduction to ‘Bharat’, and this when the country is set to make an economic leap. American and Japanese companies and Saudi and UAE sovereign funds are keen on investing massive amounts of monies in India. Will they be as enthused to do so in Bharat?
There is universal goodwill and name recognition attached to ‘India’ that Indians have benefitted immensely from. Think IT. India is an incomparable and unmatched supernumerary brand. Pettily then, does Modi really want to cut off the I.N.D.I.A political opposition’s nose to spite India’s face by promoting ‘Bharat’? Wouldn’t it be better if he approaches the Election Commission to reject the INDIA name for the opposing coalition gunning for him in the 2024 general electionsr?
The Harvard development economist Lant Pritchett has called India a “flailing state”. A key attribute of such a state is that it often does not know why it is doing what it is does (or, why else would it flail?). In any case, such a state often ends up hurting itself, its cause. In this context, what’s worse than a deep, irreparable and self-inflicted wound than changing the name of the country just when it is finally taking off? It is nothing like changing the Indian Navy’s flag — removing the St George’s cross from its ensign. No one has quite explained why such a formal name change is necessary or even right other than as an RSS-Modi brainwave of the moment that the country can well do without.
Let Bharat remain the common currency in the realm of internal politics and in the language of cultural discourse. But, otherwise, let India be India. “India” carries heft, has a full history behind it, and the name resonates expansively worldwide. It is ludicrous to give up so much for relatively so little. Let it be. Let India just be.
New Delhi is all decked up in Indian calender art aesthetic — an eyesore to many. The G-20 summit will crown the many ministerial meetings on numerous subjects (energy, terrorism, etc) held in the past few months, imaginatively, in different cities all over the country to showcase regional cultures and artifacts. These meets were well received. The summit hosted by India scheduled for next weekend (September 9-10) follows Narendra Modi’s chairing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (virtual) summit in July this year, and is expected to be the highpoint of the Prime Minister’s “be everywhere” diplomacy. To be seen is to be recognised, and the G-20 Meet has been targeted by Modi as the event that elevates him to the pantheon of the ‘Big 4’ (the other three being Biden, Putin, Xi).
So, trust the Chinese President-for-life, Xi Jinping, to rain on Modi’s parade. And then pour odium on it.
At the Johannesburg BRICS (15th) summit, Modi and Xi met on the sidelines and vowed speedily to disengage forces on the disputed border. However, the military level talks at the Lieutenant General and Major General fora, predictably, got nowhere with the PLA unwilling to move from its blocking position on the Depsang Plains and permit Indian forces to patrol Indian areas. Half a week later, Beijing issued its “standard map” that showed all of Arunachal and Aksai Chin within China. The release of the map on the eve of the G-20 summit was less because it said anything new by way of China’s expansionist revisionist territorial claims than as an “in your face” insult to Modi guaranteed, Zhongnanhai hoped, to provoke a lot of negativity in the host nation, roil the atmosphere, and pitch Modi’s big moment into the ditch.
The Chinese map has upset countries across the board. The Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea littoral protested the sea expanse covered by the 9-dash line as an abomination, as Delhi had done the Chinese notions of the Line of Actual Control. Beijing did not spare its quasi-ally Russia either. Notwithstanding an accord signed around 2002-2003 to share control of the disputed Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, the map shows the entire island as Chinese territory. 1969 witnessed armed contestation for this island.
Xi followed up this show of his regime’s tactless intemperance by first hinting and then confirming he would not be attending the Meet. With Russian President Vladamir Putin too pulling out as he had done from the BRICS summit, Xi’s decision was a gut punch to Modi’s plans for showcasing this big bash with all the world leaders in attendance, as curtain raiser to next year’s general elections. India has not used Modi’s participation in various summits as leverage, as Xi and Putin have routinely done. Our PM seems happy to go to anyplace he is invited for anything.
Not satisfied with dumping on India, Xi’s minions presently meeting in a resort in Manesar (outside Delhi) with other G-20 counterparts to stitch together a consensus document by September 6 for release as Joint Communique at the end of the confab on September 10, the Chinese reps prevented common views form emerging on other contentious issues. The Ukraine war is the principal issue widening the rift within the G-20. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister standing in for Putin at the summit, has demanded that his country’s viewpoint be reflected in the document if there’s any mention of the Ukraine conflict. The US and the West are just as adamant in desiring that Moscow and Putin be held accountable for the supposed human rights excesses perpetrated by the Russian military. Having earlier wagged a finger at Putin — “This is not an era for war”, Modi finds what he considered a fairly innocuous remark to have snowballed into Russian suspicions of Delhi increasingly doing things to please Washington. It has motivated Moscow to stick by its demand even more. Xi backs Putin and between them will highlight by their absence, that China and Russia may be outnumbered at this forum, but that Modi is a prevaricator and unreliable as partner — the very conclusion, ironically, the US and the West have been urging Delhi to avoid giving the impression of because of its noncommital stance on Ukraine!
The condition of no give by either side on Ukraine has been compounded by a similar chasm growing between the two sides on the “carbon peaking” matter. Except here India, China and the Global South are nagging the US and the West for bigger investments in technologies, schemes, and financial outlays to “green” the environment. Absent a consensus, the final document will have no definite financial commitments by Western countries nor timelines to achieve carbon emission minimization standards, with China, more eager than India, to hold the West’s feet to the fire on these Climate matters.
But Xi did more, stabbed Modi deep in his back. Beijing has taken umbrage — and this is particularly hurtful to Modi because he planned to make “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” — all the world is one family, that he has evoked time and again all over the world, at the Indian government’s making this the underlying theme of this G-20 summit. The Chinese have rejected this sanskrit phrase-concept whole, and asked that it not be mentioned anywhere in any Summit document! Of course, Modi has repeated it endlessly to emphasize the core of his approach to inter-state relations, stressing a uniquely benign view of the international system, and of India’s role in it. Beijing, however, wants none of it, because it sees in this construct a competitor to China’s own Tianxia system of “order under the heaven” and, being strategic minded, fears that universalising and legitmating this idea would diplomatically advantage India. Modi may reiterate the phrase in his G-20 address but, if Beijing succeeds, it will have no G-20 agency.
Combine this with the possibility that the G20 “sherpas” in Manesar will fail to paper over the division on a host of issues, and we have the very real possibility that there will be no Joint Communique — which hasn’t happened in G20 summits in recent memory, and will be perceived as something of a debacle for Modi who has so far adroitly straddled the divides.
However the summit turns out, India’s non-reaction to China’s cartographic aggression which will be seen as symbolizing India and Modi’s timidity will be the subject of hushed talk between visiting heads of government and their retinues. China is the common concern of great many countries, and especially Asian states on the frontlines facing an inordinately assertive proto-hegemon.
So, what should Modi and the Indian government do to recover for the country a bit of its elan and to repair its reputation that China has tarnished?
Firstly, treat Xi’s stand-in — Premier Li Qiang with the barest protocol and no red carpert, and absoultely no ceremony, with, perhaps, an Under-Secretary at the China Desk in MEA if not someone even lower in the ranks, to greet a disembarking Li, and his plane parked in some remote part of Palam airport. Secondly, Modi should avoid any contact with Li and barely recognise his presence at the summit, and in the inevitable photograph of the summiteers, place him in the last row at one end!
Thirdly, and this is the big deal — something the Indian government has apparently not learned after dealing with Beijing going on 70 years — fight cartographic fire with like fire. Having issued the map, Beijing proceeded to goad Modi and India. The map, Beijing claimed, was no big deal and advised India not to “over-interpret” it, in other words, not to get worked up about it. Whether this injunction against over-interpreting referred to the map itself or to the fact of its release, insultingly, on the eve of the G-20 summit, was not clear. In either case, it was a resounding public slap to Modi’s face — after all it is the Indian PM who has been solicitous, doing the running after Xi gig (and not the other way around). The Ministry of External Affairs reacted in the worst possible way — its spokesman called such map changing shenanigans an “old [Chinese] habit”, thereby derating the significance of the event. After all, if something is called an “old habit”, the person or entity charged with it is painted as a cantankerous sort of acquaintance bent on mischief whose bad behaviour is tolerated because, well, he can’t help himself! It is thusly that Xi has staged his repudiation of the Modi regime and its desire for an amicable border solution.
With the offending Chinese standard map showing Arunachal and Aksai Chin as constituent regions of China, India should during the two days of the summit upload a map of Asia showing Tibet in a colour different than the one for mainland China. And likewise depict Taiwan as an independent country, keeping in mind that Beijing vehemently protested the visit August 8 by three Indian retired Armed Services Chiefs of Staff to Taipei. It is Xi’s Taiwan sensitivity that Delhi needs to trample on. Hereafter, the ‘One China’ concept, moreover, should be no part of Indian foreign policy at least not until Beijing hews to the ‘One India’ concept inclusive of all Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and Northern Areas, which idea Modi should articulate, perhaps, at the plenary session of the G20 summit
Whether anybody in the PMO/MEA/GOI likes it or not, the tension Xi has deliberately stirred in Sino-Indian relations will be Banquo’s ghost at the G-20 grand dinner.
Actually, the map is only the latest show of China’s contempt for India, and Modi in particular. Recall how Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai’s foreign minister, visiting Beijing in February 1979 was greeted — the PLA pointedly launched its military operation against India’s friend — Vietnam. But the Vietnamese being Vietnamese the irregulars that first came into contact with the advancing PLA Group Army were actually quite enough to teach the Chinese a lesson — they so bloodied the lead PLA formations, the great helmsman, Dengxiaoping, who recognized the drubbing for what it was, simply declared victory and got the PLA the hell out of Vietnam! It is a solution the Indian military can’t even dream of.
Trust the ridiculous public sector Doordarshan to screw it up. Just as the lander got to within metres of the moon’s surface, instead of focussing the cameras on the approaching lunar surface captured by the onboard cameras, you had the DD idiots focussing their cameras on a simulated picture! Is there no end to Doordarshan’s lack of professionalism?
This massive coverage/visual snafu by the Doordarshan fools was compounded by having Prime Minister Modi speaking from — and going on and on a bit, from Johannesbrg, rather than having the cameras staying and relooping the Vikram camera sequence with the puffs of moondust as the lander’s qaudrupod feet settled on the moon. The PM could always have spoken a little later after the people had seen again and again the camera capturing the actual lunar touch down. It is time that in future Space missions private sector TV companies are allowed to report live from the control room than leave history in the making to be visually botched by the still amateurish Doordarshan.
That said, the mission was spectacularly successful also because it highlighted ISRO’s penny-wise, pound-wise approach of getting the most from the monies invested in the Chandrayan mission. What NASA does for billions of dollars, ISRO achieves for tens of millions — that is the cost differential that can’t be beat. The Chandrayan success also stands out even more in the context of the failure of the Japanese Hakuto-R moonlander in April this year, and because of the Russian Luna 25 mission, in a hurry to beat Chandrayan-3 to the lunar South Pole, that was victimised by the short cut it opted for. Instead of transitioning through a succession of progressively lower elliptical orbits before detaching the lunar module, it tried hardbraking from a height and crashlanded to Moscow’s embarrassment.
India has signed the Artemis accords (initiated in October 2020) when Modi recently visited Washington — the country becoming the 27th signatory of an agreement that has established “rules of the road” for Space ventures. With Russia and China forming their own group for cooperating in, and coordinating, their Space activities (that Pakistan, for instance, wants to join), there is now a democracy versus autocracy schism in Space exploration. This competition doesn’t augur well for anyone. Because remember, India’s geosynchronous orbit satellite injecting/deep Space launch rocket system is based on the Russian cryogenic engine design whose transfer the US did everything in its power to derail, even pressuring Moscow to desist from handing over ready rockets and associated technologies to ISRO.
The most consequential decision Modi made, which has brightened the prospects of India emerging as a truly substantial Space power, is to privatise much of the Space sector. Considering the quite extraordinary leap by young high-tech companies that have come up in the field in the last ten years — Agnikul Cosmos, Spaceroot (which won an international NASA competition for moon rover), Bellatrix, Pixxel, Satellize, Dhruva Space, et al, setting up their own launch and satellite design and production facilities, and augmenting the big corporates already in the business of helping out ISRO — L&T, Godrej Aerospace, etc., the public sector giant will soon be given a run for its money. And India will gain massively. In the ISRO-led Space ecosystem, some 500 small and medium companies are producing stellar technologies economically.
Once India acquires economies of scale in all aspects of Space technology, it will be unbeatable in that no country, least of all those from the West, will be able to compete on cost-proven quality terms. It is an edge the country needs to preserve (for launching low earth orbiting satellites, in particular) and a capability that needs continuous enhancement — a job private capital can help throttle up by investing hugely in Space tech companies and startups.
The two-day 15th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa starting tomorrow (Aug 23) and is a featured event in the busy international calender for many reasons. One of its members, Russia, has been embroiled in a conflict with Ukraine over territory habited by Russian-speaking people who have been fighting a secessionist insurgency with Kyiv for a couple of decades now and which fact, Moscow asserts, strengthens its claims on the said Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Russia has territorially gained what it wanted and is now sitting tight, letting the Ukrainian forces bash their heads against the 20 km-wide mined and otherwise fortified defensive barrier Russia has consolidated since late 2022. But President Vladimir Putin will be absent because there is a warrant out for his arrest for crimes against humanity (in Ukraine) that South Africa, as host and a signatory to the law, can in theory enforce. The Russian leader apparently doesn’t care to risk an incident and will send his usually imperturbable foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in his stead.
The Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula in short, is an anomaly in that he is an avowed socialist at a time when Leftist leaders the world over are becoming extinct! He replaced the rightwing Jair Bolsonaro, being re-elected but this time because of his more tempered socialist rhetoric. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains ensconced in India for the same reasons that other conservative politicians have found traction elsewhere in the world — there being a general disbelief among voters that the state is the solution to country’s problems. (It is also the reason why the I.N.D.I.A bloc in Indian domestic politics is facing so much skepticism. Just curious, but can a political party call itself INDIA under the law, because commercial entities are barred from using ‘India’ in their company or product names? Strangely, the BJP-led NDA government has not sought a ruling from the Election Commission on this inappropriate name-issue by a gaggle of opposition parties because it is clear the name is a political ploy at confusing the voter — Can voting for INDIA be against India? Someone in Rahul Gandhi’s coterie apparently first thought of using India as acronym and then came up with the convoluted words to fit it! Clever but is it legal?)
Other than the BRICS Five, 50 other leaders, are expected to attend the events “as friends of BRICS”, with discussion being directed by the host country towards considering the subject — “BRICS and Africa”, and how the organization can help African countries in their economic betterment and development programmes.
The main issue for the summiteers to sort out is whether to expand BRICS into, what many conceive it — with China in the van, as a counterweight to the Western bloc of nations led by the United States with its own First World views of reality. Many countries — 40 so far, have shown an interest in joining, with 23 of them even submitting formal applications. The sudden spurt in BRICS’s popularity may be because there’s the potential of its emerging as a major economic and trading bloc, and who wants to be left out of that? Already, BRICS accounts for 42% of the world’s population and 23% of the global wealth (GDP). Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador-at-large for Asia and the BRICS, speculated that one of the chief reasons for the popular demand to join is because “countries are being forced to take sides” on the Russo-Ukrainian war. “Countries in the South don’t want to be told who to support, how to behave and how to conduct their sovereign affairs”, said Sooklal. “They are strong enough now to assert their respective positions.”
In other words, BRICS and BRICS enthusiasts in the Global South and the non-West international community at large, are coming round formally to adopting India’s attitude to the ongoing conflict best expressed by the external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, in 2022 at the Globsec Forum in Bratislava. ‘Europe has to grow out of the mindset’, he declared, ‘that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.’ This is, perhaps, the statement with the greatest clarity that Jaishankar has issued during his tenure so far as foreign minister. Such plain speaking, as I have always advocated, is exactly what is needed when dealing with the US and the European states. Because there’s no ambiguity, there’s no likelihood of wrong interpretation and misunderstanding, and so India for the first time won respect and diplomatic leverage, and the more obvious ways of pressuring New Delhi ceased. It has left the country free to pursue its interests as it sees fit whether in purchasing energy or armaments from Russia and, in the bargain, winning Moscow’s appreciation. The global village saw what happened and decided what’s good for India is good for them as well!
This is the first instance actually of India showing leadership and staking a substantive position other countries have come to rally around.
Regarding the expansion of BRICS, which China is pushing for, India has every reason to be suspicious. New Delhi has not opposed an expanded BRICS but is insisting on fleshing out in detail the admission rules and conditions, and the metrics to decide an aspirant member’s observer status and, in time, full membership. For instance, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE all want to join BRICS. Having Riyadh and UAE, with whom India has established warm relations, in the outfit may be no bad thing. Except, these two Arab states are getting close to China, and also subsidising Pakistan’s financial profligacy and propping Islamabad up, perhaps, to ensure their supposed access to its ‘Islamic bomb’. Prospectively, a Saudi-UAE-China group would be a major headache for India and even pose a strategic problem. As would an Islamic bloc, should relations turn sour, of Turkey-Saudi-UAE supported expediently by China. India has to be mindful of such possibilities and propose a semi-permanent cadre of ‘observer status’ countries for consideration to full membership in, say, ten years time — a sufficient period to judge how these states behave and, more importantly, how and what BRICS issues they side with China on.
It always makes sense to be apprehensive of Beijing. China has time and again used bilateral and multilateral fora to talk around Indian interests, reduce them, and make monkeys out of Indian leaders, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru. Modi too burned his fingers by trusting President Xi Jinping and imbibing a little too much of the Wuhan and the Mahabalipuram spirits than was safe.
The other major issue that will be bandied about is the de-dollarisation of the global economy, which is a strategically sensible thing to realize. Freeing the Indian economy from the grasp of the US dollar would endow Indian foreign policy with more latitude than it has enjoyed to-date, and help to conserve the country’s hard currency reserves. New Delhi is already setting up channels for trade in local currencies, such as the rupee-dirham transactions for trading in energy with the UAE, and hoping that de-dollarised trade can be regularised with other friendly countries in the neighbourhood as well. Intra-BRICS trade in local currencies or in currency other than dollars would give this alternative trading scheme a huge kick-start. And the recently established New Bank — a BRICS institution, would be the facilitator. But again the proverbial ‘fly in the ointment’ is China. The Asian Devevelopment Bank with majority Chinese equity is an economic creature of Beijing. One would hate to see this happen with the New Bank. Here the monied Arab states would offer a real alternative to China’s capitalisation of this bank. May be ‘observer’ status, with promise of conversion to full BRICS membership, for Saudi Arabia and UAE can be bartered for seed funding of this bank.
More strategically, Modi should hold private and personal discussions with Lavrov, Lula, and Cyril Ramaphosa with securitising BRIS (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) with a view to blunting China’s hegemomic agenda. In my 2015 book — Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), I made the case for such an informal military cooperation arrangement that will create a quite extraordinary air-naval security net covering the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (Indian peninsula-Simonstown-Rio de Janeiro) entirely free of Western involvement, expectations and encumbrance. Time to push, this more potent, ‘secret’ agenda! Because Modi has to bear in mind that China is India’s main and only credible threat. This is the real value add-on.
Whatever happens in Johannesburg, Modi and his team better prepare to play hardball and not allow Beijing to roll over Indian interests. Again.
Until yesterday, the Western media reported how the Ukrainian counter offensive was galloping along, steadily pushing the Russian troops eastwards, and how it was just a matter of time before the lead Ukrainian elements would break through the three-tiered defensive barrier the Russian began putting up in the autumn of 2022, and head for Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov. How having thus affected a disjunction between the Russian forces holding the northeastern and eastern ends and the others the south, the Ukrainian army would exploit the tactical successes to widen the breach and, also imperil Russian-held Crimean Peninsula and the upper part of the Russian-controlled Donbas region, and pose a danger to the Russian ports and bases on the Azov coast.
And then, all of a sudden, everyone in the West — governments, thinktanks, media, seem to have run smack into the reality wall. For the first time today the leading propagators — New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, AP, CNN, et al, of this American line of the Ukrainians winning that was always more wishful thinking than hard facts, began singing a different tune. They reported glumly that the Ukrainians had in fact made little or no progress in their counteroffensive, that their advance is, for all intents and purposes, over what with the Fall rains approaching that would turn much of the countryside into slush.
Sure, Ukrainians may still create a sensation here and there by having drones strike Moscow buildings, or missiles sink Russian warships in the Black Sea. But on the ground, the Ukrainians are essentially stuck where they are presently, failing to make even a dent in the Russian barrier of mines, trenches, tank traps, anti-tank munition pits, and drone-launching posts along what’s now the new 1,000 km long eastern border of Ukraine.
Except, this virtually impenetrable barrier erected roughly on the line Kupiansk-Bakhmut-Donetsk-Vuhledar-Kherson was firmed up by the summer of 2022, that is within 4-5 months of Putin initiating the “special military operation” that began in the Donbas region with a lax and liesurely advance by Russian armour which stalled because of the fight in the Ukrainians the Russians did not expect. It nevertheless achieved Putin’s war aim of annexing the eastern Ukrainian “oblasts” with Russian-speaking people — Donetsk and Luhansk, which provided a land bridge linking Crimea and the Russian mainland, and will help Russia to consolidate its absorption of these parts of Ukraine claimed by Moscow.
True, this was Putin’s Plan B. Plan A went spectacularly wrong on the very first day of the war on February 24, 2022. The Russian combined arms operation featuring fighter-bomber aircraft, parachuted Spetsnaz Special Forces, and a fleet of assault and transport helicopters were supposed to quickly capture the Antonov airport on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, take Kyiv, install a friendly government there, like the one in neighbouring Belarus, which would then cede the Donbas belt to Russia. Except, the Ukrainian National Guard unit posted at the airport hunted down the Russian paracommando, shot up a whole bunch of the incoming assault helos with Igla manpads, and deterred Russian Su-25 close air support aircraft from making low-level bombing/strafing runs by accurate anti-aircraft fire.
In fact, by end-March 2022, Moscow having gained most of what it wanted offered a peace deal to Ukraine in negotiations held in Minsk and in Istanbul which Kyiv initially accepted, but later rejected under American pressure. As far as the US is concerned, Ukraine offered an opportunity to mire the Russian military in an unwinnable war, isolate it in the international community, weaken it economically, and hurt its image and military reputation (as it did by helping the Afghan mujaideen — with Pakistan’s assistance — run the Russian occupation troops out of Afghanistan in the 1980s). Whence the US-NATO policy of arming Ukraine to the teeth such that it would become a “porcupine” — hard for Russia to swallow. The trouble is a porcupine is more suited to defence than offence!
But considering what the Russian objective was, all this massive arming of Ukraine — some $47 billion worth of arms transfers in the past one year alone with more to come, even F-16s by this year end, will make not a whit of a difference, because of one singular Ukrainian deficiency that Kyiv cannot speedily rectify, namely, disparity in the military manpower strengths.
Russia’s population is 144 million versus Ukraine’s 44 million; the former has 900,000 men under arms and two million in reserve, the latter 209,000 serving and 900,000 reservists. As of April 2023, Ukraine’s war toll was 15,500-17,500 killed in action and 109,000-113,500 wounded. Moreover, 23.8 million Ukrainians sought refuge in neighbouring countries, a good portion of this lot being youth avoiding military service. With Russia imposing attrition warfare, Ukraine has so depleted its manpower resources, it is anybody’s guess how much longer it can hold out. And no, there’s no question of US-NATO landing troops to fight Ukraine’s war. This was clear from the beginning, but US-NATO’s cynical policy of fighting to the last Ukrainian is literally coming true! There’ll soon be no Ukrainians to fight the war!
The absence in Ukraine of a sizable military age manpower pool is so elementary, but fatal, a weakness, Washington, in its eagerness to stick it to Russia, predictably missed it.
Ukraine’s war woes apart, its President Volodomyr Zelensky’s extraordinary wartime leadership is awe inspiring. What he has excelled in is in consistently besting the Kremlin on the public relations front. His exploitation of the international, especially US media, is exemplary in that it created this phantom prospect of a victoriuos Ukraine out of thin air and then sustained it with his government’s adroit image and influence management.
But, as I mentioned in my first post on this blog at the outset of this conflict, nothing but nothing was going to prevent Russia from achieving its geostrategic objective of annexing the Donbas corridor. This the Russians did last year. They have been in a holding pattern ever since. There’s good reason why the US, NATO (and China) have quailed at the possibility of tangling with the Russian army. It is slow to get going, but once it does there’s a relentlessness to its efforts that no military can match. That’s why America would rather Ukrainians do the fighting. After all, what does Washington have to lose except more Ukrainians?
The mystery of the draft joint communique featuring mention of the deal for three “Scorpene” submarines and 26 navalised Rafale aircraft, which mention went missing from the final document issued at the end of the state visit to France by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is now solved. The reason was that there were too many submarine technology-related points that needed additional technical-level talks to sort out.
Still, President Emmanuel Macron will be exceedingly happy with the sweetheart deal he managed to secure from Modi, and the French ‘Naval Group’ overjoyed. Naval Group is successor to DCNS (Direction des Constructions Navales S).
The French Company on its website welcomed the “announcement regarding the extension of the Indo-French partnership and the objective to explore more ambitious projects to develop the Indian fleet and its performance. Mazagon Dock Shipbuliders (sic) Limited (MDL) remains our natural partner.” “This decision is a testimony”, it continued, “of the Indian Navy’s trust in the industrial cooperation we have established, and”, without flinching at the irony of it, reaffirmed “the success of the transfer of technology achieved under the P75 programme for six submarines, which were built entirely in India by MDL. The ‘Make in India’ policy in the service of Indian sovereignty (“AatmaNirbhar”) has been at the heart of the P75 programme, as well as other activities developed by Naval Group and its Indian industrial partners to provide the Indian Navy with the most modern naval defence technologies.” The CEO of the Naval Group Pierre Eric Pommellet, on his part, added that the deal would “further strengthen our 15-year submarine building cooperation, which is a major element of the Indo-French strategic partnership developed over the past decades. Naval Group and its partners will be fully mobilised to meet the expectations of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and the Indian industry to fulfil the needs of the Indian Navy”. ( https://www.naval-group.com/en/naval-group-welcomes-announcement-made-indian-and-french-authorities-regarding-extension-indo )
Let’s consider why Paris is elated, Naval Group exultant, and the success claimed for the “transfer of technology” entirely bogus.
At the time of commissioning in January this year of INS Vagir — the fifth and penultimate conventional sub of the Scorpene-class license-produced at the Mazgaon Dockyards Ltd (MDL), the Chief of the Naval Staff , Admiral Hari Kumar, praised the fast paced sub production — Vagir being the third such vessel inducted in the last two years, and referred to this achievement as “the coming of age of India’s shipbuilding industry, and the maturing of our defence ecosystem.” “It is also a shining testimony”, he added “to the expertise and experience of our shipyards to construct complex and complicated platforms.”
Not sure what the naval chief was talking about when he brought up the country’s shipbuilding industry and the maturing ecosystem because the Scorpene programme has added mighty little to the industrial capacity — unless the MDL DPSU’s penchant for screwdrivering things together is considered a great advance, and not an iota to the country’s atmanirbharta capability.
One wishes our armed services chiefs were more candid; if that’s not possible, at least not make misleading statements.
Facts:
1) Project 75 Scorpene project has suffered huge time and cost over-runs. It has taken ten more years than planned and cost nearly twice as much.
2) Project 75i — a supposedly indigenous project featuring a creative melding of the best design and operational attributes of Western (German HDW 209, French Scorpene) and Eastern (Russian — Foxtrot, Kilo) submarines the Indian Navy has experience of, is delayed by 10-15 years. The delay is due to the navy’s inability to setttle on specifications — single or double hull, diving depths, etc.
3) With the Scorpene project ending and 75i yet to get going, the navy needed a bridging solution and decided an additional three units of the Scorpene would do.
4) Except, the French Company DCNS it had originally contracted with, now Naval Group, has terminated the Scorpene line, and professed itself unable to provide the SKD/CKD kits for MDL to assemble — NOT MANUFACTURE, the three additional Scorpenes.
5) Instead, the French firm offered, and navy quickly accepted, an adapted, conventional, version of its Barracuda nuclear powered attack submarine (SSN). And the Defence Ministry nominated MDL to assemble the three boats. This despite Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s public commitment that there will be no production contractors by “nomination”. Meaning, for any production contract there will be competition. That’s how much Rajnath Singh’s words matter.
6) The Barracuda design could, however, be shrunk only so much. Compared to the Scorpene’s hull diameter of 6.3 metres and displacment of 1,650 tons, the adapted Barracuda’s is 7.2-7.5 metres, and 2,500-2,800 tons respectively. Barracuda SSN displaces some 5,300 tons. In other words, the three new ‘Scorpenes’ contracted for are NOT Scorpenes, only better.
7) That’s fine! Except, this upgrade also means rocketing unit cost. The navy acquired the six original Scorpenes at roughly Rs 6,000 crores each. The new “Scorpene” — adapted Barracuda, will cost Rs 11,000 crores per boat. That is almost double the cost — and this, mind you, is just the ‘base price’. There’s no hint anywhere of progressively lesser cost as would be expected for subsequent submarines after the first one!
7) Because it is a new submarine, the old Scorpene manufacturing jigs and wherewithal at MDL will have to be discarded for far more expensive replacements for conventional Barracuda sub assembly.
8) The French don’t have an operational AIP (Air Independent propulsion) system for increasing the range of submarines. So these conventional Barracudas will have to be equipped with the DRDO-designed and developed AIP which, incidentally, is good to go — what a relief! It will necessitate structural changes and, prospectively, yea, additional tens of millions of Euros in French pockets. (The first of the Scorpene subs, INS Kalvari, is coming in for refit in 2025, and will be equipped with the Indian AIP system.)
9) And, a shocker, really?! There has been NEAR ZERO transfer of submarine technologies over the years by DCNS (Naval Group) to MDL. The sixth and last of the Scorpenes to roll out from MDL assembly line by 2024 will have LESS THAN 3%, yes, THREE PERCENT by value of indigenous technology– relatively trivial stuff like cables, mounting lugs, hatches, and minor electrical equipment.
And all along the Government of India, the Ministry of Defence, and the Indian Navy have been trumpeting the Scorpene programme as furthering the country’s indigenous submarine design and production capability. Who is responsible for drafting such one-sided contracts? Will anybody in the navy and defence procurement loops in the Indian government be held accountable for this fiasco? Of course not. But wait…
10) The deal for three new mislabelled Scorpenes — derated Barracudas, will likewise have ZERO transfer of technology. But worse, why the doubled cost?
11) Well, because, Naval Group has to amortize their costs for developing the Barracuda SSN — absolute imperative now, especially after the Australian navy abruptly cancelled the contract worth 50 billion euros for six of this SSN in September 2021, and ruptured relations with France, an ally. The Aussie navy apparently belatedly realised it preferred the US/UK offer of an AUKUS nuclear sub. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called it “A stab in the back”. Macron recalled the French ambassador from Canberra. The French feathers were unruffled only after the government of Anthony Albanese agreed in June 2022 on a “fair and and equitable settlement” of 555 million euros (US$ 584 million) with Naval Group, that ended the decade-old Australian deal for the Barracuda SSN. That still left much of the invested costs unrecouped because the French Navy indented for only six, with the first joining service in 2022. But there came India to the rescue of foreign defence industries once again!
12) May be, there is some secret understanding that Modi reached with Macron for the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission ( Commissariat a’ l’energie atomique et aux energie alternatives) and Naval Group to part with the technology for the 150MW miniature nuclear reactor powering the Barracuda SSN for our own indigenous SSN project. Is there such a deal? This is something many retired naval persons have been bandying about for a while. Should it actually materialize, then all this expensive farce about submarine tech transfer, etc may be worth it. But knowing the French and how they have dealt with India over the past 65 years from when IAF bought the Fuga-Mysteres in the Fifties, don’t hold your breath! There may be, to mangle metaphors, dross at the end of the tunnel, not gold!
13) But August 1st is when Defence Ministry will open the bids for Project 75i — and there are two parties in the contest: MDL partnering Naval Group, and the Indian private sector Larsen & Toubro (L&T) partnering Navantia, the Spanish ship building firm. And one can predict that MDL will likely bag the contract. Why? Because of its lower bid. But why will MDL’s bid be lower? Because MDL as a defence public sector unit has had periodic “capacity enhancements” worth thousands of crores of rupees over the years, courtesy Defence Ministry, most recently, for Rs 300 crores. These, as far MDL is concerned, are part of the sunk costs it need not factor into working its bid. MDL-Naval Group, will, in effect, produce the same Barracuda in additional numbers, three already contracted for in Paris by Modi, with six more as Project 75i! Neat, nah?
And because MDL will cross-subsidize, particularly the labour costs which make up 17% of the submarine production cost, and come up with the lower bid to win the Project 75i contract. After all, MDL and Defence Ministry do not have to answer for such investments — it is the people’s, Indian tax payer’s, money. And who gives a damn how it is spent?
On the other hand, a private sector firm’s investment in design and production infrastructure has to be profitable because the management is accountable to its share holders, and it has to be factored into the contract costing before making the bid. Money borrowed by the government on sovereign terms is for MDL free money. For a private sector company credit comes at hefty interest rates. Even so, notwithstanding the institutional hurdles, L&T has made a success of manufacturing the strategic Arihant-class nuclear powered ballistic missile firing submarine. But it may lose a patently unfair contest for Project 75i sub rigged by the government for MDL to win. It is the same MDL, by the way, that has been run by retired Vice Admirals and produced many conventional submarines — German HDW 209s and French Scorpenes, with absolutely nothing to show by way of cumulative capability for design and technology innovation.
How can India become self-sufficient in military hardware if the far more productive and technology-wise innovative private sector is thus deliberately hobbled and frozen out of the competition?
But, why reform the existing procurement system? Carry on as usual, let foreign defence companies — poor rich things! — make money at India’s expense. India is rich and can upkeep a dozen foreign defence industries, as it has been doing over the past 40 years. And, Hey! DPSUs — MDL, et al — carry on screwdrivering and delaying the prospects of an “atmnirbhar Bharat”! And GOI, do continue making the same mistakes!
[Prime Minister Modi and US President Biden in a deep clinch in Washington]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Munnabhai-type “jaddoo ki jhappi” is what, in my 2018 book (Staggering Forward), I called a “diplomatic innovation”. It has succeeded beyond measure. After close encounters of this kind with the Indian PM, no Western leader has failed to show warmth in return, which gets reflected in the diplomatic successes Modi has enjoyed. For foreign leaders, moreover, what’s not to like about Modi especially if his visits bring in their wake huge defence and technology sales? It is like a rich visiting uncle leaving behind goodies. So, Western leaders have learned heartily to reciprocate with personalised touchy-feely treatments of their own.
The good vibes between India and the US and France is reflected in the windfall deals for the Boeing Company of Seattle and the French Airbus corporation that have led to their order books being filled by private airlines in India. The Tata Company’s Air India’s order of 220 planes worth some $34 billion –10 wide-body B777X planes, 20 wide-body B787 planes, and 190 narrow-body B737MAX planes, with an option for an additional 20 B787s and 50 B737MAXs, and for another 250 aircraft from Airbus — 34 A350-1000s and six A350-900s, and 140 Airbus A320neo, 70 Airbus A321neo for $36 billion. These contracts will keep Boeing and Airbus afloat for the next 40 years at least. Not to be outdone, Indigo, the private sector company accounting for over 30% of the Indian air travel market, placed the single largest order in history — 500 single aisle A320s from Airbus costing $50 billion. This is atop a previous equally humungous order according to which 480 Airbus planes are still to be delivered to Indigo! Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia justified these deals by saying “India’s flag has to fly in international space”. (https://www.business-standard.com/industry/news/air-india-does-pre-delivery-payment-to-boeing-for-aircraft-cfo-hejmadi-123060900782_1.html).
No one told this poor sap of a minister that almost all the aircraft thus procured by Air India and Indigo will mostly ply the Indian skies. So, for jhanda ooncha rahen hamara in international space, he will have to look elsewhere.
But emphasis on the wrong angle is characteristic of the Indian government, Indian political and industry leaders, government officials, and military officers alike. They all seem incapable of seeing beyond their noses. I have been making this point for some 30 years now that, like China, we should only strike deals for high-worth passenger aircraft as a means to acquire not just select aviation technologies but manufactiring jigs, CAD/CAM, and production skills and competences like process engineering instead of periodically doling out $40 billion here, $50 billion there, and leaving it to the aircraft vendors to throw crumbs at us in exchange — a unit in Hyderabad for MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) operations, promises to offtake minor aircraft assemblies (doors, etc.) from Tata factories in India, etc. Instead of acquiring the capacity to produce whole passenger aircraft, New Delhi is satisfied with fractional returns on very large buys abroad.
China instinctively went big from the start, even as the Indian government has not learned the basics of negotiations of getting something very substantial for buying something big. Having taken 10 years to negotiate the first deal, the always strategic-minded China secured in 1985 from the California-based McConnell Douglas aircraft company, a co-production deal for 26 medium haul MD-80 passenger aircraft for around $800 million. Of this order, 25 were to be assembled in China by the Shanghai Aviation Corporation (SAC) and only ONE aircraft was to be bought off the shelf! As part of this transaction, American engineers and technicians were required to be on the SAC factory floor training and skilling Chinese project managers and workers who thus learned on the job from experts. This contract had provisions for the Chinese Company buying out the entire MD-80 production line and wherewithal if increased domestic air travel required it. Soon enough, McConnell Douglas sold off its entire passenger aircraft business to China until now when it produces its own modern, single aisle, passenger aircraft — the Comac C919 to outfit its many domestic airlines.
In contrast India — apna watan — forked over billions upon billions of dollars — as if money was going out of style — for aircraft wholly produced in the US and France that will generate employment and upkeep the aerospace industries in these countries, and there’s no one to ask if Indian private sector airlines should be permitted to cut such deals with hard currency from the national reserves that produce zero returns to the country in terms of aircraft tech and manufacturing technologies.
Hardly to be wondered then that Biden was all solicitous and smiles and laid it on thick when Modi went to the White House a fortnight back. Elated for Boeing, Biden crowed to the press that the Indian order would create a million additional jobs in America. Eager for even more custom this time in the military aviation field and also to tie India’s security to America’s national interests, the US President approved the sale of the GE 414 jet aircraft engine along with the transfer of 80% of its technologies. The 20% non-transferrable constitute critical tech apparently not covered by the iCET (Intiative for Critical & Emerging Technologies) recently inaugurated with much fanfare.
So which GE jet engine is actually on offer? Is it the vanilla 414 model with 98 kiloNewtons of thrust with afterburners that originally equipped the F-18E/F Super Hornet for the US Navy, or the new EDE (Enhanced Durability Engine) variant which can produce 15% more thrust but at the expense of lesser engine life? The EDE’s augmented thrust with afterburner would be 108.7kN, near enough to the 110 kN mark Indian designers have mandated for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft and for the naval 2-engined Tejas for aircraft carrier operations. The increased thrust of EDE is due to the second low pressure turbine within the engine made from ceramic composites, which reduces the weight by a third and results in a more robust jet engine with the capacity to operate without the need for cooling air. This last quality, in turn, results in aerodynamics and fuel consumption-wise a more efficient power plant for combat aircraft. Tradeoffs-wise, the EDE makes more sense. Can India wheedle the EDE out of Washington even with the nontransferrable 20% in tact?
[Modi embracing French President Emanuel Macron in Paris]
France is an old hand at this game. No sooner was the GE 414 promised by the US, the ever nimble Quai d’Orsay immediately upped the ante. It promised that its jet engine maker, Safran (the old SNECMA — Société nationale d’études et de construction de moteurs d’aviation) would assist India to design and produce a completely new 110 kN engine in the centre of excellence it intends to establish in India for the purpose. The engine is expected to be ready inside of 10 years and, project wise, be time- and cost-competitive with the GE 414 programme. The bonus is that the Safran deal will be minus the Damocles’ sword hanging over any defence deal with the US — the threat of activation by Washington of the US International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) law, because Paris is not so legally constrained. This is of crucial importance, and was cleverly hinted at by French ambassador Emmanuel Lenain in a recent press interview (Times of India, Junly 1) when he mentioned “sustainability and autonomy” as the prime attributes India seeks to ensure with its foreign defence contracts and which aims, Paris claims, its deal furthers.
The reality is between US legislative activism and White House’s momentary interests, no defence contract is safe from countermanding by the US Congress. There’s no legal sanctity to any contract signed with any US Company or even a G2G (government-to-government) deal for militry goods. India suffered in the past because of it. President Ronald Reagan was compelled to rescind, for example, the deal for US supply of low enriched fuel for the lifetime of the light water reactors at the Tarapur nuclear power station because US nonproliferation laws subsequently promulgated by the US Congress required him to do so. Because the Reagan Administration felt losing India’s confidence would irreparably harm bilateral relations, it persuaded the French government to replace it as fuel supplier. A different administration with a different take on the US national interest could just as easily have shrugged its shoulders and pointed to its inability to do other than implement US law. This might happen again, at any time in the future with the GE 414 contract.
There’s no elasticity in the US system if the White House or the US Congress wants to be punitive even when third parties are involved. Thus in the wake of the 1998 nuclear tests, President Bill Clinton sanctioned India, instantly grounding the Indian Navy’s Sea King anti-submarine warfare helicopter fleet, for instance, because its engine had US-made components! It is this uncertainty that will always dog every US-sourced military equipment in Indian employ and which Ambassador Lenain not so obliquely referred to. The Modi regime should have these facts in mind.
What would happen if the US Congress decides post-414 deal to punish India for, say, not supporting this or that US policy line? The fact that India may have forked over billions of dollars for the GE 414 engine and for its transfer of technology would mean nothing. This is something Pakistan, ostensibly America’s then closest regional partner, for example, learned to its utter consternation. In the 1980s, the Benazir Bhutto government paid up some $370-odd million for additional F-16 strike aircraft only to see new American legislative action negate that contract, resulting in the contracted aircraft — parked for years at a Nevada base and rotting in the sun — remaining undelivered to the Pakistan Air Force, and the money not returned to Islamabad until 30 years later when, given the inflation rate, the value of $370 million had shrunk to low three figures!
What in theory also commends the Safran proposal is that it will be an entirely new design possibly involving materials, such as ceramic composites, and AMCA/Tejas in mind, that it will comply with the stealth features in their designs. The project, moreover, will come with its full supply chain and scheme to manufacture all ancillaries in India. Safran is embarked on producing a jet engine for France’s 6th generation fighter aircraft with afterburner thrust of 125 kN, so it has the design and production nous to help India meet its 110kN engine milspecs. And, most significantly, Paris is offering the 20% of critical tech not included in Washington’s GE 414 tech-transfer deal — the single crystal turbine blades for the jet engine, and other tech.
But, and there is a big but here. GTRE had a consultancy contract with Snecma to help the Kaveri engine get over the hump. When it came to the crunch, according to Indian sources, the Safran-parent, Snecma simply backed away from helping in any meaningful way. And Snecma took a very long time doing it puting the Kaveri in a freeze for the duration until Modi’s 2015 decision to buy Rafale powered by the Safran M-88 engine when the issue of whether Kaveri would work became moot.
To prevent France and Safran/Snecma from again playing us for fools, the contract the Indian government signs should be so tightly drafted by the Indian Ministry of Defence (MOD) — something it is actually incapable of doing if previous contracts with foreign vendors are any guide that have favoured foreign vendors at every turn when it came to realising full ToT (Transfer of Technology) — that it will list, in the minutest technical detail, every technology ranging from every small component to big assemblies, inclusive of critical tech, such as single crystal turbine blades, etc.. The contract should also be framed in an iron-clad time table for tech transfer that’s to be followed, detailing when and to which Indian agency each technology will be transferred to the fullest extent, and by which date. There should be no let, leave, latitude or flexibility in any provision or clause that could permit Safran to wriggle out of contractual commitments. And that each clause and provision of the TOT agreement, running possibly into thousands of pages. has to be legally enforceable under international law which Safran will have to agree to, with imposition of severe financial penalties in case the French Company defaults on any TOT clause/provision for any reason at any time, or causes the engine project time and cost overruns.
It may be safely said that no agency in the Indian government has the requisite contract writing expertise. And hence how to make up for this institutional deficit of the Defence Ministry should seriously worry Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, and the country. Because the lack of technical and domain knowledge, familiarity with legal minutiae and drafting skills not only in MOD but in all of the Government of India, has resulted in defence TOT deals in the past costing India very, very dear. But that’s another topic altogether. Suffice it to say, GOI will have to get drafting experts from somewhere, but from where, is the big Question. Absent this, will India not again be fleeced, and get stuck with awful vendor-favouring TOT contract that reinforces India’s reputation as a sucker?
The desperate need is, therefore, for an agency of government that monitors and polices all contracts any ministry or department of government has with any foreign vendor/Company for anything that involves an outgo of hard currency. The Pentagon, for instance, has a College to train military officials in the procurement loops in the nuances of drafting country-specific, interest-specific, contracts and commercial agreements and methods of monitoring the delivery of contracted for items. When the skill-deficient MOD officials go up against professionally trained US and French civilian and military officials in negotiating the actual TOT deals which side, do you reckon, will have the upper hand?
President Emmanuel Macron will no doubt be smarmy, and try and trump Biden’s welcome in Washington for Modi with an even better show befitting the chief guest at the Bastille Day celebrations on July 13. Macron is lucky the Sans-coulottes — the underclass that initiated the French Revolution in 1789, and until three days ago virtually closed down Paris to protest the police shooting of an Arab youth, have stopped rioting, because cancelling the festivities would have been a bad start, considering how much Modi loves colour and spectacle combined with personal gestures of intimacy, and how much is at stake for the French defence industry.
That is because Macron means to push government-to-government deals not only for the Safran engine, but also for the Barracuda conventional submarine tech for the Indian Navy’s Project 75i boat, and for more IAF purchases of the Rafale combat aircraft to fill the Service’s 126 MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) requirement by whatever name it is called these days. So, Macron will try his damndest best to make and keep Modi happy! He will be conscious of the fact that the last time the Indian PM visited Paris in 2015, one of his predecessors, President Francois Hollande, came away with the foot-in-the-door deal for 36 Rafale aircraft.
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But, what are the larger politico-strategic considerations of the three parties — India, the US and France, which will come into play when New Delhi decides specifically which aero-engine offer to accept?
The US government has finally come around to accepting, forty years after Reagan’s Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s trip to New Delhi to convince the Indian government to buy American military hardware in a bid to displace Russia as India’s main arms supplier, that New Delhi will not budge if advanced tech was not transferred. And even then, the US hesitation in parting with, what it deems, its military high technology crown jewels is evidenced in the GE 414 jet engine deal excluding the single crystal turbine blade tech, etc. As far as, the Biden Administration is concerned the time is now to finally get India in its corner, and the situation with an America-friendly Modi needs to be taken advantage of. A deal like this, even with its shortcomings, many Indian experts contend, will cement mutual trust, and be the proverbial ‘Open Sesame’ for accessing more cutting edge American technologies. It is the means, many believe, to equalize the security situation with a tech-wise rampaging China. They apparently are unaware, however, that even NATO allies get to use only derated US equipment, so India cannot realistically expect to be favoured more than NATO member states.
Still, a fuller military supply relationship with the US can be expected more comprehensively to deepen the bilateral relationship and fetch India collateral benefits– bigger US investments in the Indian economy and infrastructure buildup, trade preferences, a leg-up in the fab and semiconductor design and production business, etc. Moreover, with AUKUS limping along and the military aspects of the India-US-Japan-Australia Quadrilateral stalled by India’s slow stepping on the issue, the security prospects of containing China in the Indo-Pcific look bleak. Washington hopes the real benefit to the US, following on the opening in the defence tech field, will accrue from New Delhi playing ball. The calculation is that substantive cooperation particularly in Space and semiconductor only nominally flagshipped by the 414 deal, will hand Washington what it has long craved — a hard lever to influence Indian foreign and security policies, a means it believes Moscow with its arms pipeline to India used to shape Indian actions, especially during the Cold War.
France is desperate for India to buy into the French defence industry for two reasons. One, that it will help France remain strategically relevant in the Indo-Pacific. And secondly, because of the hope that increased miltech closeness may lead, in the future, to more extensive use by the Indian military of its bases in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, and in its Indian Ocean island territories at St Pierre on Reunion Island which, in turn, will help defray Paris’ high costs of maintaining a military presence east of Suez.
France has the technology and ergonomically crafted weapons platforms to offer which Indian armed services appreciate and are partial to. Paris is rumoured to be ready to also pass on submarine nuclear power plant technology, etc. — the sort of tech that will simply not be available from the US for love or money. It is this tech Modi should extract from Macron. Force “sustainability and autonomy”, moreover, will be less of a concern with French-sourced armaments. But, to be fair, the C-17s, C-130s and the P-8I armed maritime recon aircraft have not so far faced difficulties with respect to servicing and spares support. But, frontline fighter aircraft are a different proposition altogether. And, in any case, India needs the assurance, which no US Administration of the day in Washington can provide, that the military goods India buys will not be subjected to ITAR. So that’s an insurmountable problem.
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A truly nationalist Indian government, however, would take a different tack. Instead of the binary choice his government is facing, Modi should remember why India’s uninvolved stance on the Ukraine conflict has raised India’s political standing and stock, secured it leverage with the US and the West and Russia, and why every major country wants to court and cultivate it. Not rushing into any one technology paddock is the way to go. The purchase of S-400 air defence system and the contract to buy 2 Grigoryvich-class stealth frigates and to produce two more in the Goa shipyard, has reassured Moscow. So the Russia end is holding up.
Hopefully, Modi will exploit to the fullest India’s being in a unique position to call the shots and carefully pick and choose as between US and French technologies and their direct and spillover industrial benefits just so the technology deficiencies of the country are rapidly filled — these being the missing elements that are required to build on capabilities already in the country that, in turn, will ensure progress towards achieving atmnirbharta. Signing up for prohibitively expensive deals for whole systems, as I have iterated over the years, is wasteful and makes neither economic nor national security sense.
India should instead show interest in just the Barracuda submarine design from France and then play off the French DCNS Company producing it against the German ThyseenKruppMarine firm peddling its HDW 214 submarine, and select tech not available in India, like optronic mast, say, from the leading US company, L3Harris. Biden could be asked to help out here by removing restrictions on the level of tech issues, which he will do to retain Indian goodwill. With tech deficits filled in this way, there won’t be tech voids, and the existing submarine production capability, starting with converting a basic design into engineering drawings, can take over. If Larsen & Toubro can manufacture strategic platforms like nuclear powered ballistic missile-firing submarines, building the techwise less demanding conventional subs shouldn’t be difficult. Likewise, specifically the French single crystal turbine blade tech can be bought for full and complete indigenisation to advance the indigenous Kaveri jet engine because GTRE (Gas Turbine Research Establishment), Bangaluru, it should be noted by Modi/PMO, has already successfully tested and developed single crystal blades for helicopters. The Kaveri jet engine is the future of Indian combat aviation, not a new Safran engine for Indian use.
This is the way to proceed. But this methodology of buying bits and pieces of technology and integrating them with the in-country design, development and industrial capability and process will, of course, be opposed by the three Services. They will come up with hundreds of reasons why such an approach is risky and produce unreliable armament systems, and why buying the Barracuda submarine whole, the Rafale whole, the F-18/Rafale-M carrier aircraft whole, and this whole and that whole will be in the country’s national interest. 60 years of such thinking has reduced India to a pitiable technology and arms dependency. The crux of the issue is the Indian military’s unwillingness to trust indigenous technology and wholly homegrown weapons systems. There’s a simple solution for removing any such resistance: Fire the top echelons of the military leadership that doesn’t accept this new method of procuring armaments and military technology. The rest of the cadres will get the message and fall in line.
One wishes the Modi sarkar will show guts and wisdom and, keeping atmnirbharta firmly in mind, make the right choices. That will mean going against the imports-driven thinking of the myopic Indian policy establishment and military. There’s a price to pay for atmnirbharta, of course, and the nation is prepared to pay it. It needs Indian leaders to put rhetoric into practice and implement atmnirbharta on a warfooting, and not just yap about it.
India’s not accepting the 414 deal will not be a killer and will not affect the US fab/semiconductor deal, nor will not buying whatever Macron has to offer in an aggregated form, if the Modi government simulataneously ups its game on the economic front: Stops talking about administrative reforms and speedily simplifies the regulatory mess relating to land acquisition and labour laws that continues to discourage and deter Foreign Direct Investment and Western and Asian Companies from relocating their manufacturing units en masse from China to India. Such an Indian reform will end up freeing India, the US, Europe and the rest of the world from the Chinese supply chain stranglehold and even win Modi the world’s gratitude.
On the arms front, it should be made clear to the US and France, that India proposes to go in this new direction by buying specific technologies, and never again whole systems or weapons platforms, and that the sooner they accept this new way of India conducting its procurement business, the better their prospects of selling what India wants. India succeeded with this approach — “the technology mission mode” — in Space systems, Missiles, nuclear weapons — when no foreign technology could be secured from anywhere. No further evidence is needed to prove this approach will work just as well with respect to every conventional military-use system.
[General Anil S. Chauhan at his ceremonial investiture as CDS]
At the United Service Institution of India yesterday, General Anil Singh Chauhan, Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) delivered the Major General Samir Sinha Memorial Lecture. Tasked with integrating and theaterising the 19-odd military commands, he pretty much confessed that the job was beyond him. He talked of integrating logistics, communications, intel and everything else under the sun, but not about theaterizing the operational commands. Apparently, he thinks this task unachievable at least in the foreseeable future.
As senior officers and military veterans in the audience rolled their eyes knowingly at what General Chauhan did not say, the message got through with a bang. Does it come as a great big surprise to anyone? No. But one did not expect Chauhan to give up so publicly, so easily, on an initiative the Narendra Modi government has put much store by.
As a fairly low key type, Chauhan simply cannot replicate his predecessor the late General Bipin Rawat’s modus operandi of bullheadedly propelling the theaterisation programme, trampling on long nursed sensibilities without giving it much thought. Like, for instance, his dismissing the air force as a “support arm” and. collaterally, its longtime opposition to changing the status quo. It instantly steeled the IAF’s negative attitude to what Rawat was trying to do.
Then again, Rawat never made any bones about his Gurkha officer’s (5/11 GR) attitude to solving a problem — beat it down! Reflecting this attitude of pushing on regardless, he had by August 2021 readied the first of the theatre commands for operations. The Maritime Integrated Command, headquartered in Karwar, controlling the fighting assets administratively with the Western Naval Command, the Eastern Naval Command and the Andaman & Nicobar Command, was all set to go. A Vice Admiral was even selected to be its first Commander-in-Chief (CINC). And then the roof caved in.
IAF was not responsible for it. The senior babudom — the civil servants, was. The bureaucrats’ concern, as always when dealing with the military, was with protecting their positions in the pecking order, the ‘Warrant of Precedence’. To be fair, there was and is a problem with it that neither Rawat nor any agency of the government or military had bothered to address until then. A CINC of a new Integrated Command would be 4-star rank. How and where would he fit in? On the same rank-level, would he be senior, equal or junior to the Services’ Chiefs of Staff? That could possibly be resolved by jigging the seniority issue into an inter se seniority metric, even though the officers in the three services are in differently sized cadres, and get promoted and rise in different timeframes. Still, there may be a way to resolve it.
The problem is knottier when civil servants come into the picture. In the prevailing system, the Defence Secretary, the head babu in the Ministry of Defence, is junior to and below the three Services chiefs in the Warrant. Would the newly appointed integrated theatre commanders — enjoying the same 4-star rank status as the services’ chiefs, also outrank the Defence Secretary? Could they be placed at the Additional Secretary level but senior to the AdSec in the warrant? The Indian Administrative Service, allergic to any hint of demotion, raised hell and stopped the theaterisation initiative in its tracks. Since August 2021 there’s no advance on that front.
The question is how did General Rawat get as far as he did in realising the Maritime Integrated Command without resolving the Warrant-related issues? Did he subsume a special dispensation, courtesy his fellow Pauri Garhwali, Ajit Doval — the National Security Adviser? If so, why can’t Chauhan — a Gurkha officer (6/11 GR) and another native of Pauri Garhwal, revive it?
Whatever the way out of this mess, one thing is clear. The diminutive General Chauhan’s nice, aggreeable, soft talking, dull and discursive method, is not working. But, at least, he is not consigned to the basement of South Block as General Rawat initially was, when appointed as the first CDS. That, I suppose, is progress.
Security Wise 