My editorial column in November issue of Geopolitics....... Right Angle An empathetic defence minister Prakash Nanda Like any government of the right of centre persuasion, the Narendra Modi- government in India is inevitably confronted with the two challenges of defence and development. Both the goals are equally dear to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), but then the problem with a developing country such as India, and that too at a time when the global financial health is not in best of conditions, is that finding resources for a strong defence is a tricky and sensitive matter. India needs speedy economic development, and it is equally imperative that its armed forces are stronger than ever before to face the myriad challenges in a volatile region from Australia to South Africa on the one hand and from Japan to Israel on the other. This region, marked by terrorism, hegemonic ambitions and religious extremism, needs to be stable and peaceful for the promotion and consolidation of India’s vital national interests. There cannot be any two opinion that from a long-term point of view, defence and development of a country are two sides of the same coin. India cannot be a big economic power if its security environment is not healthy enough. Highly developed economies such as Japan or for those in West Europe may not be great military powers, but the fact remains that their economic development after the World War II has been critically dependent on the American security umbrella. India, fiercely proud of its strategic autonomy (and rightly so), does not have this luxury of having a protective umbrella. It is heartening to note against this background that recently the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the Ministry of Defence(MoD), under the leadership of defence minister Arun Jaitely , has cleared purchases worth Rs 80,000 crore (about 1400 million dollars), including six submarines worth Rs 50,000 crore. DAC has also approved purchase of 8,356 Spike anti-tank guided missiles and 321 launchers from Israel, worth $670 million The Modi government had earlier given a green signal to acquire Boeings Chinook and Apache helicopters in a deal worth $2.5 billion. And now there are strong indications that by the end of this year, the government will ink the agreement on the 126 fighters for the Air Force, under the MMRCA deal with Rafael of France. The deal is estimated to cost almost $20 billion. The second feature of the Modi’s governments defence acquisition strategy is to indigenously develop military equipment as part of its broad Make in India strategy. The decision to build six submarines in India at a cost of about Rs 50,000 crore is at a sharp variance from the hitherto followed approach of sourcing military equipment from outside. The important point is that the Modi government, unlike the previous regime of the United Progressive Alliance, seems to be sensitive to the interests and long-term goals of the armed forces. At least, it is listening to them while chalking out the military strategies and tactics, evident in dealing with the provocations from the sides of Pakistan (the firings across the international border) and China (intrusions into the India-controlled territories). Even on matters of arms acquisitions, the Modi government has made the meeting of the DAC, the highest decision making body of the MoD on defence purchases, a monthly affair. Under the UPA regime, the DAC meetings were highly irregular, being held once in several months. The DAC, set up in 2001 as part of the post-Kargil reforms in defence sector, is headed by the defence minister and includes the defence secretary, chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO), and , what is really important, the chiefs of all three services, the real and ultimate users of the arms. Ironically, though the country needs a full-time defence minister, in finance minister Jaitley, who is holding the dual charge of defence, the armed forces have some additional comforts, howsoever temporary these may be. If the recent history is any indication, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) usually plays the spoiler role in the acquisition process of the MoD. The MoF, which has its own defence wing, does have the authority to scuttle the acquisition plans under the plea of economising the expenditure. But this is not going to be a problem as long as the defence minister happens to be the finance minister as well. Of course, this is not exactly a new phenomenon. During the previous regime of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh was the minister for both defence and finance. And Singh has been on record to have said that this feature, temporary though it was, proved to be extremely beneficial to the MoD. Coincidentally, both Vajpayee and Modi belong to the BJP! As is wellknown, one of the principal woes of Indian armed forces has been that though they cherish and salute the most cardinal feature of our democratic polity – the political supremacy over the military – the bureaucrats, rather than the political executive, dominate and dictate the military. And that, in turn, has been due to the fact that Indian political leaders have hardly any expertise or interests in military matters. Even in the bureaucracy, there has been barely any specialist of military issues, barring rare exceptions such as late K Subrahmanyam (with whom I had once the fortune of working in a leading newspaper in his post retirement days) and P R Chari. In other words, the generalists in the MoD and MoF have always preserved their advantageous position against the military encroachment. As a result, India continues to remain one of the few major countries where headquarters of the three services are not officially integrated into the Indian government and remain “Attached” or “Subordinate” offices. Nor for that matter we have a Chief of defence Staff (CDS) to provide single-point advice to the minister of defence. Modi talks of good governance. And the Indian military needs good governance like never before. In fact, higher reforms have been a pressing need of the country for a long time. The Indian armed forces need a sympathetic Prime Minister but they should have an empathetic defence minister and an equally empathetic finance minister. Fortunately, Jaitely is playing that role at the moment. But what happens when he sheds one of his portfolios? This is a worrying question because all said and done, Modi seems to be struggling in finding really talented persons to be his major cabinet colleagues. --------------------------
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:34:18 +0000
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