I assumed, however, that India would go in for a cruise missile sub which the Charlie is. But it has actually gone for a ballistic misssile one. That makes sense because the greatest advantage of a boomer is when it is a nuclear weapons platform.
Monday, July 27, 2009
My December 1991 article on India's nuclear submarine project
To the best of my knowledge this was the first article written on the project. As you can see, I argued that the Indian design is based on the Charlie II. The current information suggests that I am right.
I assumed, however, that India would go in for a cruise missile sub which the Charlie is. But it has actually gone for a ballistic misssile one. That makes sense because the greatest advantage of a boomer is when it is a nuclear weapons platform.
I assumed, however, that India would go in for a cruise missile sub which the Charlie is. But it has actually gone for a ballistic misssile one. That makes sense because the greatest advantage of a boomer is when it is a nuclear weapons platform.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
India's boomer: The launch of the Arihant
THE dream of over a quarter of a century will be fulfilled today when Ms Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, breaks the coconut on the hull of India’s first indigenously constructed nuclear- propelled ballistic missile submarine — called a boomer in popular parlance — at a super- secret Naval base in Visakhapatnam.
At that moment, the 112- metre long black marine monster, now named Arihant ( destroyer of the enemy and it will only be "INS" Arihant after it is commissioned), will be pulled out of its lair — a covered dry dock, nearly halfa- kilometre long and 50 metre deep — where it has been conceived and grown. The building, called the Ship Building Centre at INS Virbhau, the Navy’s base in Vizag, is at the very end of the harbour.
The Indian Navy and the Defence Research and Development Organisation ( DRDO) have expended a great deal of treasure and sweat to reach this point. A year from now, after harbour and sea trials, the Arihant, with a complement of 23 officers and 72 sailors, will join the naval fleet.
What is so special about a boomer? Everything, if you see it from the point of view of the country’s nuclear deterrent.Because of India’s “ no first use” pledge, our weapons must survive a first strike for retaliation.
So the Arihant’s primary weapon is stealth. It can lurk in ocean depths of half a kilometre and more and fire the Sagarika from under the sea. The key lies in its nuclear propulsion. The nuclear reactor of the sub generates heat to turn water into steam in a generator which, in turn, drives the turbine generators which supply the ship with electricity and drive the main propulsion turbines and propeller. There is no stage which requires air or oxygen.
SUBMARINES can be detected by sonar, or sound ranging, and so not only has the Arihant’s propulsion system given a double shield, its outer hull is covered by thick rubber tiles studded with conical gaps that trap sound.
After the first trial of the steam cycle and turbines, the Arihant will be hooked up to the nuclear reactor. The reactor’s fuel rods are currently locked and sealed.They will be unlocked and neutrons will be introduced to start up the 85 MW pressurised water reactor. The reactor will work continuously for anything up to 10 years till the fuel runs out.
Arihant’s construction got underway in 1998 with Larsen & Toubro machining 13 sections of the hull at its plant in Hazira to a design provided by the Malakit design bureau of Russia. These were then taken in a barge to Vizag and outfitted with their respective equipment — missile launchers, combat information systems, torpedo tubes, ballast tanks, living spaces, sonars, steam generator and turbine and so on. Then they were welded into three distinct sections. The first contained the sonar equipment, torpedo tubes and control systems. The second section comprised of the combat information systems and an array of electronic equipment, accommodation as well as the ballistic missile launchers. The third section, distinct and specially shielded, comprised of the reactor and the steam turbine and gearings.
Considering that India began its first project for the sub in the late 1970s, you could well ask why it has taken so much time.
The first glimmer of this was visible when in the early 1980s the first project ran aground after spending some $ 4 million ( Rs 20 crore). The second project under the auspices of the DRDO worked on different assumptions, but even it has had a rocky ride.
The plan was for India to acquire the drawings of the Russian Charlie II submarine and fabricate it, and at the same time design its own 100 MW reactor. A new Advanced Technology Vessel programme was created. At the same time, in 1988, a Charlie II, renamed Chakra, was leased from the Soviet Union. The idea was to run it till we had made our own.
UNFORTUNATELY, the Soviet Union collapsed and there was no extension of the lease. By then we had created a number of facilities which included a special pier with a 60- tonne crane, radiation safety services, swimming dock, slipway and workshop, but the project remained in the doldrums.
This was the time, in the mid- 1990s, when the ATV organisation realised how much of a long haul it would be. Components and assemblies for nuclear- propelled submarines had to have a very high quality requirement, something the country lacked.
More troubling was the fact that the reactor made by the Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre, Kalpakkam could not make grade. Once again the Russians helped, quietly.
The big challenge for the engineers was to use the Charlie II design and modify it by adding one more compartment, the one that carried the ballistic missile tubes which increased its length by 10 m or so. But they managed this and earlier this year the reactor and propulsion unit was finally welded to the other two units. Many Indian companies have been involved. The uranium, enriched at around 20 per cent, has been provided by the Indian uranium enrichment facility at Ratnehalli, near Mysore.
India has another nuclear- propelled submarine en route in 2010, an Akula- class Russian attack submarine which differs from the Arihant which is a ballistic missile sub. Such subs are used to hunt down enemy submarines and ships. Curiously, no one seems to know who wants the Akula. The Navy brass insists it is not them. But the country is expected to spend $ 700 million ( Rs 350 crore) to lease it for a period of 10 years. But then this is what keeps the country’s defence purchases booming.
This article appeared in Mail Today July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
India's boomer
Back in 1991, I wrote what was probably the first article on India's nuclear submarine project also known as the Advanced Technology Vessel Programme in Frontline, a magazine owned by The Hindu group. I had said that the essence of the programme was that India would reverse engineer, with the help of Russian drawings, the Charlie II class of cruise-missile firing Soviet sub. The Indian side, I noted, would design its own 100 MW reactor to power the boat because the Russians were somewhat leery of the NPT, and, more important, the Indians wanted to demonstrate their reactor design prowess.
Tomorrow, Sunday July 26, Harsharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will launch the Arihant (it cannot be called INS Arihant till it is commissioned a year or so from now) from Ship Building Complex in INS Virbhau, the Indian Navy's shore establishment in Vishakapatnam.
Details made available to me suggest that my original report is essentially correct. The basic design is a Charlie or, as the Soviet designation termed it, Skat. However it has been lengthened another 10 meters from its original 102 meters to accomodate a new module-- a launcher system for the Sagarika ballistic missile it will carry.
It is 10 meters wide and can travel at a submerged speed of 24 knots and will have a complement of 23 officers and 72 sailors.
Its displacement is 6000 tons, though I am not sure whether this is the surfaced or submerged. I do know that at least 500 tons of this is pure ballast because of design problems. This has also slowed the top speed of the boat by about a knot or so.
Russian engineers have been around to help the Larsen & Toubro people build the pressure hull at Hazira. They have also provided help with the reactor. The DAE project failed and so the Russians provided two sets of the VM-5 pressurised water reactor. One was assembled at the Prototype Testing Centre at Kalpakkam and tested with its propulsive machinery. After it was proved, the second was assembled inside a stainless steel shielded shell and taken to Vizag where it was fused into the hull.
The boat was built from 13 sections shipped from Hazira which were then assembled into 3 sections. The first had the sonar and torpedoes, the second the Combat Management System, the living quarters and the ballistic missile launchers, and the third had the reactor and propulsion unit.
The Russians have also been associated with the design and development of the Sagarika a two-stage short ( 700 kms) range submarine launched ballistic missile. The main function of the boomer is to be part of the Indian strategic deterrent. Though it will have secondary weapons like the Klub, tube-launched land-attack missile and torpedoes.
In all liklihood. the construction of the second sub has already begun at the same covered yard in Vizag. But it will be a while before the long-range SLBM , an Agni derivative will be based on the boomer.
Tomorrow, Sunday July 26, Harsharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will launch the Arihant (it cannot be called INS Arihant till it is commissioned a year or so from now) from Ship Building Complex in INS Virbhau, the Indian Navy's shore establishment in Vishakapatnam.
Details made available to me suggest that my original report is essentially correct. The basic design is a Charlie or, as the Soviet designation termed it, Skat. However it has been lengthened another 10 meters from its original 102 meters to accomodate a new module-- a launcher system for the Sagarika ballistic missile it will carry.
It is 10 meters wide and can travel at a submerged speed of 24 knots and will have a complement of 23 officers and 72 sailors.
File picture of INS Chakra, the Soviet Charlie II or Skat 670 nuclear propelled submarine
Its displacement is 6000 tons, though I am not sure whether this is the surfaced or submerged. I do know that at least 500 tons of this is pure ballast because of design problems. This has also slowed the top speed of the boat by about a knot or so.
Russian engineers have been around to help the Larsen & Toubro people build the pressure hull at Hazira. They have also provided help with the reactor. The DAE project failed and so the Russians provided two sets of the VM-5 pressurised water reactor. One was assembled at the Prototype Testing Centre at Kalpakkam and tested with its propulsive machinery. After it was proved, the second was assembled inside a stainless steel shielded shell and taken to Vizag where it was fused into the hull.
The boat was built from 13 sections shipped from Hazira which were then assembled into 3 sections. The first had the sonar and torpedoes, the second the Combat Management System, the living quarters and the ballistic missile launchers, and the third had the reactor and propulsion unit.
The Russians have also been associated with the design and development of the Sagarika a two-stage short ( 700 kms) range submarine launched ballistic missile. The main function of the boomer is to be part of the Indian strategic deterrent. Though it will have secondary weapons like the Klub, tube-launched land-attack missile and torpedoes.
In all liklihood. the construction of the second sub has already begun at the same covered yard in Vizag. But it will be a while before the long-range SLBM , an Agni derivative will be based on the boomer.
Holding New Delhi's Hand
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has finished a workmanlike visit to New Delhi. The purpose of the exercise was to show an always nervous New Delhi that Washington still cared. All the things she said and did here were aimed at soothing India which is incensed at the attention being showered on Pakistan and Afghanistan. India does not really need the kind of attention that AfPak is receiving. They are like patients in an ICU with doctors crowding around. New Delhi, on the other hand, is as normal as you can be. But the American relationship is an important component of New Delhi’s world view and, indeed, self-esteem, and therefore there is need for their frequent endorsement on the part of the US.
Normalisation
Three major issues formed the basic content of the visit. First, the need to get over Cold War mindset, second, the need to add economic content to the relationship and third, to move on the people-to-people content of the relationship. US-Indian relations have had their ups and downs for the past sixty years. But since the end of the Cold War, it has been mainly the ups. There are remnants of Cold Warriors in the US, who still feel that Pakistan should have the primacy in India-Pakistan relations. Getting beyond the Cold War rhetoric was the important element in proposing the Indo-US nuclear deal, which has, in turn, led to the new set of agreements on technology safeguards and an end user verification agreement on acquisition of high-tech military equipment. With the nuclear pill that poisoned relations between the two countries having been safely digested, the game has shifted to a higher level.
The agreements arrived at during the visit have the potential of adding that vital economic content which has been slipping. Unlike the case of China, the two countries cannot build up volume and value by trade in natural resources like iron ore or consumer products. America is about Information Technology and high tech and the Clinton visit has gone some way in clearing the decks for high-tech exports to India ranging from aerospace components and products, to nuclear reactors and their control systems. There is, in any case, a limit to how much content governments of two largely market economies can add to their relationship. A major factor now, in any case, is the US economic situation. It will take another year or so before we can get a better idea of the new, post-crisis contours of the Indo-US economic relationship.
What happens now is a bit like what happened in the 1950s. Besides opening up military sales, the US will engage us deeply in a range of non-military areas even while enhancing their military cooperation with Pakistan. In this case the military cooperation is not so much to fight any third-party, but to pull Pakistan of out of a quagmire. It is quite clear that Islamabad will no longer get a blank check in that relationship to build up its military forces to fight India, as it did in the past.
The new non-military elements of the Indo-US relationship are spelt out in four of the give pillars of the strategic dialogue outlined-- energy, climate change, education, agriculture, and health and science and technology. The first “pillar” speaks of addressing nonproliferation, counterterrorism and military cooperation, the emphasis will be mainly in relation to terrorism.
This is the kind of a relationship took place in the 1950s and 1960s as well, and it led to the creation of the Indian diaspora in the US which has played such an important role in providing the content to the people-to-people relationship at present. It also led to an important modernization of the Indian industry and academe through the IITs and educational system and above all, it led to the Green Revolution. Revisiting these areas seems to be the premise of the new relationship and they are likely to yield a bountiful harvest. This will also add the strategically important people-to-people content from the practical exchanges of Indian and American students and scholars, engineers and architects, businessmen and bankers.
This will lead to a kind of “normalization” of Indo-US ties which will ensure that a large regional power like India will be factored into the South-west Asian regional calculus of the US, but be excluded from the larger picture. Which is all for the good because it will enable New Delhi to find its feet after the heady ride of the Bush years.
Envy
During the eight years of the Bush Administration, India was made to bat well above its league. This resulted in bad blood with China and a shade of exasperation in Europe. Beijing was suspicious that India was becoming part of the quadrilateral with Australia, US and Japan to “check” the rise of China and one result of this has been its Tawang tract googly which has blocked the Sino-Indian normalization process. The Indo-US subsurface cooperation reached a point where India was almost persuaded to assist the United States military occupation of Iraq by sending its own forces. The Indo-US nuclear deal was the capstone which ensured that India did get the most-favoured nation treatment, literally, from the United States much to the chagrin of its allies and our adversaries like Pakistan and China.
Broadening
Notwithstanding all this, India has to realise that there are finite limits to its ties with the US. Adding the tag “strategic” does little justice to the relationship between the world’s richest country and biggest military power and a third world country which is also the host of the largest number of poor and unhealthy.
Ties between the two can only work on an asymmetrical dynamic and it is useful for New Delhi to keep that in mind. In the coming months this will be important as we battle the United States effort to re-establish its hegemony through assuming the leadership of the climate change and non-proliferation agendas. In both these areas the two countries are likely to see themselves pitted against each other.
This said, it needs to be emphasized that the friendship of the United States is important for India and never more important than now. We are at the cusp of transformation and a good understanding with the US can be of great assistance in not only enhancing our security, but also improving the lives of the average Indian. If the retrospect tells us how important the Green Revolution has been, the prospect offers even more challenging opportunities in the development of energy technologies and biosciences. In that sense the more important aspect of the Clinton visit has been to broaden the agenda of our ties with the US from their usual obsession with terrorism and Pakistan.
Normalisation
Three major issues formed the basic content of the visit. First, the need to get over Cold War mindset, second, the need to add economic content to the relationship and third, to move on the people-to-people content of the relationship. US-Indian relations have had their ups and downs for the past sixty years. But since the end of the Cold War, it has been mainly the ups. There are remnants of Cold Warriors in the US, who still feel that Pakistan should have the primacy in India-Pakistan relations. Getting beyond the Cold War rhetoric was the important element in proposing the Indo-US nuclear deal, which has, in turn, led to the new set of agreements on technology safeguards and an end user verification agreement on acquisition of high-tech military equipment. With the nuclear pill that poisoned relations between the two countries having been safely digested, the game has shifted to a higher level.
The agreements arrived at during the visit have the potential of adding that vital economic content which has been slipping. Unlike the case of China, the two countries cannot build up volume and value by trade in natural resources like iron ore or consumer products. America is about Information Technology and high tech and the Clinton visit has gone some way in clearing the decks for high-tech exports to India ranging from aerospace components and products, to nuclear reactors and their control systems. There is, in any case, a limit to how much content governments of two largely market economies can add to their relationship. A major factor now, in any case, is the US economic situation. It will take another year or so before we can get a better idea of the new, post-crisis contours of the Indo-US economic relationship.
What happens now is a bit like what happened in the 1950s. Besides opening up military sales, the US will engage us deeply in a range of non-military areas even while enhancing their military cooperation with Pakistan. In this case the military cooperation is not so much to fight any third-party, but to pull Pakistan of out of a quagmire. It is quite clear that Islamabad will no longer get a blank check in that relationship to build up its military forces to fight India, as it did in the past.
The new non-military elements of the Indo-US relationship are spelt out in four of the give pillars of the strategic dialogue outlined-- energy, climate change, education, agriculture, and health and science and technology. The first “pillar” speaks of addressing nonproliferation, counterterrorism and military cooperation, the emphasis will be mainly in relation to terrorism.
This is the kind of a relationship took place in the 1950s and 1960s as well, and it led to the creation of the Indian diaspora in the US which has played such an important role in providing the content to the people-to-people relationship at present. It also led to an important modernization of the Indian industry and academe through the IITs and educational system and above all, it led to the Green Revolution. Revisiting these areas seems to be the premise of the new relationship and they are likely to yield a bountiful harvest. This will also add the strategically important people-to-people content from the practical exchanges of Indian and American students and scholars, engineers and architects, businessmen and bankers.
This will lead to a kind of “normalization” of Indo-US ties which will ensure that a large regional power like India will be factored into the South-west Asian regional calculus of the US, but be excluded from the larger picture. Which is all for the good because it will enable New Delhi to find its feet after the heady ride of the Bush years.
Envy
During the eight years of the Bush Administration, India was made to bat well above its league. This resulted in bad blood with China and a shade of exasperation in Europe. Beijing was suspicious that India was becoming part of the quadrilateral with Australia, US and Japan to “check” the rise of China and one result of this has been its Tawang tract googly which has blocked the Sino-Indian normalization process. The Indo-US subsurface cooperation reached a point where India was almost persuaded to assist the United States military occupation of Iraq by sending its own forces. The Indo-US nuclear deal was the capstone which ensured that India did get the most-favoured nation treatment, literally, from the United States much to the chagrin of its allies and our adversaries like Pakistan and China.
Broadening
Notwithstanding all this, India has to realise that there are finite limits to its ties with the US. Adding the tag “strategic” does little justice to the relationship between the world’s richest country and biggest military power and a third world country which is also the host of the largest number of poor and unhealthy.
Ties between the two can only work on an asymmetrical dynamic and it is useful for New Delhi to keep that in mind. In the coming months this will be important as we battle the United States effort to re-establish its hegemony through assuming the leadership of the climate change and non-proliferation agendas. In both these areas the two countries are likely to see themselves pitted against each other.
This said, it needs to be emphasized that the friendship of the United States is important for India and never more important than now. We are at the cusp of transformation and a good understanding with the US can be of great assistance in not only enhancing our security, but also improving the lives of the average Indian. If the retrospect tells us how important the Green Revolution has been, the prospect offers even more challenging opportunities in the development of energy technologies and biosciences. In that sense the more important aspect of the Clinton visit has been to broaden the agenda of our ties with the US from their usual obsession with terrorism and Pakistan.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
India is short of effective managers
Last Saturday’s accident on New Delhi’s metro site is not remarkable. Such accidents will occur, and have occurred, in infrastructure projects with lamentable regularity all over the world. What is remarkable, however, is the amount of hand-wringing over whether the 71-year-old E Sridharan, the director of the metro project, should resign or stay. Sridharan has had a wonderful innings as a manager of mega-projects and received some of the highest honours the state can bestow him.
He, perhaps, may actually want to retire and grow roses or whatever. But the overwhelming, almost hysterical, opinion that he should stay, points at the extreme paucity of managerial talent in the country, if not real live role models like him. Actually given India’s state of development, there ought to be no shortage of Sridharans. But there is. And that’s the rub.
Nowhere is the shortage of talent and experience more obvious than in the power sector. Every year, the sector falls short of its target for capacity addition. The 11th Plan target is 78,700 MW but, so far in two years of the plan, only 15,000 MW have been added. Contrast this with the 50 or so power plants of 2,000MW each that China adds every year — roughly one 2,000 MW plant a week. Indian power projects are perpetually stuck in some kind of a maze.
Power
Some years ago, 1997, to be exact, a person who is a top economic bureaucrat today, told me that lack of experience was the main reason why most of the eight power-plants, that were okayed with a sovereign counter-guarantee in the 1990s by the reform-minded federal government, failed to come up.
“We simply did not understand the complexity of funding and constructing large power plants,” the official lamely acknowledged. The worst example of official incompetence, and perhaps venality, turned out to be the prized Dabhol power project in Maharashtra. Everyone messed up everything in the project, from the original choice of LNG as the fuel for the power plant to the ridiculously high interest rates of the rupee and dollar loans for the project. It would seem that we have learnt some of the lessons, but simply not fast enough to meet the needs of a growing economy.
For the present, however, the government seems to be placing all its bets on the private sector. In UPA-I the government launched four ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) of which Reliance Power has bagged three and the Tatas one. UPA II is so far talking about another seven projects which would require investments of roughly Rs 20,000 crore each. The UMPPs are a giant step ahead of the counter-guarantee phase. They are based on competitive bidding and there are no sweet-heart deals that poisoned the Dabhol project. However, there are reports that the country may have saturated its ability to process these private-sector power plants. In the recent bidding, there has been a marked reluctance of the big global players to participate. As for the Indian bidders, they are obviously limited to Reliance and Tata and one or two other players who are yet to show their hand.
In these circumstances how can we meet the demand for power, especially the projections that have the country’s GDP growing at 8 or 9 per cent per annum ? Well, as of now, India is still lacking something, a fact that is becoming painfully manifest every summer. Indeed, with the demand for infrastructure projects increasing the shortage of skills — from the very top managers, to the lowly skilled workers — the ones who mix the concrete and set up the scaffoldings — is becoming apparent.
The answer is not the caricature response that “privatisation is the best”. Indeed, so severe is the problem that we need the best of all — private sector managers, as well as the technocrat-bureaucrat of the Sridharan or Mantosh Sondhi variety. Given the sheer size of power projects it is not surprising that some of the top private sector managers are those who have retired from the public sector. These are people who understand the ethos of government, but can also make it work for them and their projects. Indeed, this is yet another reason why deep reform is required in the country’s civil service, notably the premier Indian Administrative Service.
Security
Power and infrastructure are not the only sectors that are starved of truly skilled administrative cadre. There is, for example, the need for a national security cadre.
National security management — from managing the borders, to the intelligence services, paramilitary, armed forces — all require skilled administrators, ones who have ground-up experience and are skilled in getting things done. As of now the government simply does not recognise this as a skilled job.
Take the job of the Defence Secretary who has to manage India’s vast defence apparatus. The current incumbent, Vijay Singh is no doubt a seasoned and skilled administrator, but he had little or no experience in the massive job he was given. Prior to his appointment as Defence Secretary, he headed the department of Road Transport and Highways in the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways. And before that he was, Secretary, Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy in the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. His fleeting brush with security was a brief stint as Home Secretary to the Madhya Pradesh government. The Defence Secretary’s job was recognition for his long years in the service, but was it fair on him, or on the country?
The lack of a specialised security cadre affects the functioning of virtually every department of the government. It poisons the relations between the specialised cadre — doctors in AIIMS, engineers of the NTPC, police and intelligence officers, the army, navy and air force, scientists of the various government establishments — and the IAS officers who almost invariably head the departments these specialists are involved with.
The irony is that with its varied intake which ranges from humanities graduates to IIT-trained engineers, medical professionals and others, the IAS has a ready-made pool of top-class people who can be channeled into specialised cadres.
Instead, as the government reluctantly realises its shortcomings in critical areas, some departments, mainly the scientific ones, are often being reclaimed by specialists. But in other cases we see a relentless expansion of the IAS into other domains — aviation management, vice-chancellors, broadcasters, and seven store managers.
Specialisation
The task of creating specialised cadres within the larger civil service cadres cannot be done by anyone other than the political class. The civil servants are simply too powerful to be handled in any other way.
The Prime Minister has often spoken of the need for civil service reform. But the steps the government has taken so far are a bit of a joke. By the time he ends his second term, by 2014, Manmohan Singh will have been in office for 10 years.
No one will accept the excuse that he did not have the time or mandate to deliver what he had promised. Aware of this, he has set up a new Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure to monitor all projects above Rs 150 crore in value.
But monitoring is not the same thing as doing. And for that the government has to come up with answers to the basic problem — the lack of good managers.
It needs people who can direct massive projects to meet India’s vast infrastructure requirements, deal with the challenging national security needs of the country, and to run the ambitious social welfare programmes with the levels of efficiency that our situation demands.
This article appeared in Mail Today July 15, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Curious Silence on Defence Reform
In these past weeks, we have witnessed the happy sight of ministers falling over each other to come up with a “100 day” action plan for their respective ministries. Kapil Sibal and Veerappa Moily have come up with their versions of how they will reform education, law respectively. Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has already been on an overdrive ever since he was appointed to office and has, by all accounts, shaken the Union Home Ministry out of its slumber, and continues to do so.
But there has been a deathly silence from one ministry, the one which is by far the biggest in the country. Little or nothing has been heard from the Union defence ministry, either by way of a “100 day plan” or for that matter a 1,000-day one. Everyone is agreed that in A.K. Antony, the ministry has got an exceptionally honest minister. But that is saying little about his capabilities of doing what he was presumably supposed to do —make sure that the country’s armed forces are capable of meeting all possible combination of challenges within the constraints of available resources.
The silence of the Ministry and its “attached departments”— the Army, Navy and the Air Force — is baffling for two reasons. First, the fact that they are by far the biggest recipients of the country’s budget largesse — Rs 1,66,663 crore in Monday’s Union Budget for 2009-2010. (In contrast, the total allotted to education, health, roads and highways and rural development amounted to Rs 1,61,049 crore.) Second, that despite the vast expenditure (last year the armed forces received Rs 1,37,222 crore) the armed forces were not quite ready for war in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack. I don’t mean that individual components of the system could not have launched an attack on targets in Pakistan, but that India lacked the wider military capacity to obtain even a localised outcome.
Threats
On paper the increase of 34 per cent over last year’s allocation appears to be a dramatic answer to the challenges we face. But a closer look will tell us that it does not. The bulk of the money, 62 per cent, will be taken up in maintaining our 1.2 million armed forces, their pay and allowances and the increases promised by the Sixth Pay Commission. The money for modernisation, Rs 54,824 crore, is just 38 per cent of the total defence budget, and is below the 40 per cent figure for the first time in recent years.
But all this does not really matter. Whether we have this aircraft or gun, or this ammunition or not, matters little. To cite V.P. Malik’s unhappy remark, the armed forces would “fight with whatever we have.” But the issue is not the bravery or grit — our soldiers have repeatedly shown that they have both — but of the ability of the armed forces to extract a favourable outcome from an adversary.
The fundamental threats to India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity come from terrorism; insurgencies in the North East, Kashmir and “Naxal-land”; conventional armies of China and Pakistan; and from cyberspace to cripple India’s communications and commerce.
It would be a brave person, indeed, who would argue that our armed forces are ready to meet this hybrid threat. Take insurgency. Though our armed forces have been fighting them for an entire generation, we remain inadequately prepared — either in terms of training, doctrine or equipment to handle them.
India's defence Minister A.K. (Saint) Antony
We are probably better prepared to meet the Pakistani challenge, because that is all we seem to care about. Even so, as the post-Mumbai dynamics revealed, even that preparation is somewhat shaky. We seem to have dropped out of the China competition, and as for the more futuristic issues such as cyberspace, we are not there.
In recent years, New Delhi has sought to spend itself out of its military dilemmas. The international situation and our world standing is such that we do, more or less, buy the best that there is on offer. But the huge expenditure has not created the kind of military we need to deter our adversaries. In recent decades we have not really confronted a Chinese military threat, and as of now, we are unable to even deter Pakistan. Clearly, the problems lie less with the size and equipment of the Indian armed forces, but with their organisation and doctrine, and indeed, their mindset.
Organisation
Most observers will agree that in all these areas, the military, particularly the air force and the army, are stuck in World War II. Part of the blame for this lies with the armed forces leadership. But the primary responsibility for this state of affairs lies with the political class which has kept the armed forces in a mental reservation of sort, away from the hurly-burly of policy-making and the real world. The forces are periodically trotted out to do their thing — flood relief, aid-to-civil authority in maintaining law and order or to fight some
minor wars.
Because the whole effort is disjointed and poorly thought through, the outcomes range from poor to disastrous — the 1962 defeat, the lack of any significant outcome in the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, Kargil, the inability to provide significant intervention in the 2002 and 2008 crises. (India did win a famous victory against the Pakistan army in Bangladesh, but it performed indifferently against the bulk of the Pakistan forces in West Pakistan.)
Since the Kargil war there have been efforts to do something about it. There are many good thinkers in the army, navy and air force, and there are many excellent leaders. But their individual capabilities have been blunted by the obtuseness of the system as a whole. In today’s world, the name of the game is integration.
Leaders
The Group of Ministers report on the defence management of the country, would have broken the thralldom of the past. It would have created two top advisers — one civilian and the other military — to advise the defence minister. These two, the authors of the defence component of the GoM report expected, would lead the complete overhaul of the way our defence system is managed.
One, the Chief of Defence Staff, would lead the process of integration and overhaul of the three wings of the armed forces to provide an enhanced punch for the military. The other would integrate the armed forces with not just the civilian ministry of defence, but the entire government of India and create a system that would synergise the way in which we confront national security threats.
India desperately needs to modernise the way its armed forces think and operate. Advances in weapons and information technology have brought about changes that cannot be effectively exploited through a single-service mind-set. Indeed, war and its outcome go beyond things exclusively military. There are aspects — political, diplomatic and commercial — that require other actions and inputs.
Nothing has happened and the UPA is to blame, because this is not the task of the military and the civilian bureaucracy alone, but also the political leadership. Having done nothing for one term, all the indications are that in its second term, too, the UPA will ignore the imperative to reform and modernise the armed forces.
Does that mean that we must await another military disaster before something will be done? It probably does.
This appeared first in Mail Today July 10, 2009
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