The Dr A.P.J
Abdul Kalam committee was set up in 1995 to suggest reforms in India’s defense
technology environment, among various other objectives. The committee had set a
target for 70% indigenisation by 20051. The year is now 2019 and
that target is still far away.
Last week saw
the 9th group meeting of the India-US defense trade and technology initiative.
It is being considered as one of the landmark initiatives in India’s demand for
greater access to dual use technologies and joint development of critical
systems which could help in India’s quest for defense indigenisation, which has
been a long-drawn pursuit ever since the tragedy of 1962 war with China.
The defense
industrial base, which is at the core of defense indigenisation, is a peculiar
case in itself. In the last seven decades India has established more than 50
defense laboratories, roughly 40 ordnance factories and 10 defense public
sector undertakings and despite that India has not produced a single assault
rifle that can meet the global standards. What is interesting is that a nation
that can send orbiter to Mars and Moon, develop missile systems which can rival
the best in the world and be one of the few to have an anti-ballistic missile
system, is having difficulties in developing a pistol which can rival Glock.
Many governments
in the past have made attempts to increase the proportion of indigenous
products in our weapon systems to 70%, but for many years this has stayed at
roughly 30%, pushing India to the position of 2nd largest defense importer
after Saudi Arabia2. The government has taken initiatives like Make
in India for defence, creation of defense industrial corridors, offset policies
etc but it may take many years before they bear fruits, if any.
The problems
which plague the system are many, but it would be interesting to discuss about
the issues which manage to stay beyond the public gaze. One of the few such
things is an innocent document known as the National Security Strategy (NSS).
It is perplexing that a country with the 3rd largest armed forces in the world
and facing a range of external security challenges emanating from across the
borders, could never move ahead of the draft stage when it came to NSS. The
absence of NSS at central level translates into lack of coherence in execution
level, whether in dealing with China on boundary issue, Pakistan on terrorism, or
smuggling at Nepal and Bangladesh border. This gives the general impression
that our security handling is nothing but ad hoc and tactics driven, bereft of
any strategy.
In the US, NSS
is a document which broadly talks about the security challenges the US faces
and broadly outlines the way Uncle Sam plans to deal with those. The key role
it plays is that it initiates a debate about the broad strategic positioning
and provides guidance to the stakeholders, as well as holding the government
accountable. In India, before the elections, the Congress party had entrusted
Lt Gen (Retd) Hooda to come up with a draft NSS. This document had defined
national security in a very broad and inclusive terms with the guiding philosophy: “This strategy recognises the centrality of
our people. We cannot achieve true security if large sections of our population
are faced with discrimination, inequality, lack of opportunities, and buffeted
by the risks of climate change, technology disruption, and water and energy
scarcity.” 3
This has been
one of the most elaborate descriptions of national security in Indian context
coming close to the Chinese idea of comprehensive national power. It has been
reported that the recently formed defense planning committee headed by the NSA
has been tasked with the formulation of NSS, but what remains to be seen is
whether the government would bite the bullet and accept the draft that the
committee comes out with. In the absence of NSS there is absolutely no clarity
regarding what is the core at which our entire defense and strategic system
should converge. As of now the road to be taken remains nebulous, for both
government as well as private players.
Lt Gen (Retd)
Hooda’s NSS has also talked about bringing in cultural change in DRDO, which is
something which is needed by all the players, and not only DRDO. The major
institutional players in the segment have not seen any deep structural reforms
that would enable them to deliver products to meet the security scenario of the
21st century. The system, in which the consumers as well as the majority of
domestic suppliers are both units of government, has seen a very poor level of
coordination at both the inter as well as intra level. The suppliers, being
government entity, have reached a state of organisational callousness primarily
as they know they will survive even if their products are not sought any more
by the armed forces. This attitude has led to a situation where crucial
products are perennially in the stage of development (prime example being the
Arjun Main Battle Tank)4. The same can be said about the
organisational state of the ordnance factories, which have failed to deliver on
time, even when the technology was readily available, for reasons like
inability to timely expand the production capacities. On the consumer side,
reports have blamed the armed forces for repeatedly changing the design
parameters, leading to delays.
Another
fundamental issue, that plagues the system but rarely discussed, is an absence
of trust on the military as well the private sector. From the very beginning
the political class was vary of military coups which were a common thing in the
3rd world countries. To prevent this an elaborate structure was weaved in which
the responsibility for India’s defense was entrusted with the Defense
Secretary, who is a career bureaucrat and a generalist, and not with the
military. Even symbolically the military was given a lower position compared to
civilian counterparts, as can be seen from the Order of Precedence as well as
the status provided to the offices of the three service chiefs. Moreover, the
recommendation of many committees to create the post of Chief of Defense Staff
had fallen on deaf ears primarily because of the fear that it would become an
all too powerful institution. This absence of trust on military and reliance on
civilian bureaucracy has created a situation where the IAS and IPS, despite
being generalists, wield disproportionate influence over India’s security
issues, with the forces remaining as onlookers and not key drivers of critical
processes.
In case of
private sector, this attitude then was a result of a general leaning towards
socialism and not something specific to defence. Post 90s, while the distrust
of private sector from other streams of economy vanished, an element of
reluctance still lingers when it comes to defense. Overzealous scrutiny of
defense deals for political purposes has made the scenario worse.
The ability to
rely on self when it comes to defense is not something superficial, it would
need an overhaul of our strategic and defense thought as well as architecture.
A start can be made with the restructuring of DRDO along the lines of US DARPA
and kicking OFBs out of their bureaucratic quagmire. An element of enterprise needs
to be brought in with focus on diversification and exports, as has been
demonstrated by DPSUs like BEL. Lessons can also be learnt from countries like
France and Israel, who plough a significant portion of their revenues from
exports back into research and development, thus creating a self-sustaining
cycle. There are many good ideas which have been given by scholars and bodies
like IDSA which need to be looked into, but most importantly discussions about
important issues like defense need to be extricated from being reduced into
binaries of India vs Pakistan or India vs China.
Sun Tzu once
commented that the supreme art of war is
to subdue the enemy without fighting. This subjugation can never be
achieved with now and then shopping of weapons and technologies at
international markets, at the cost of a robust domestic defense-industrial
complex.
Written
by:
Anshuman Mishra
(anshuman.mishra@astra.xlri.ac.in)
References:
1.India Today. Manohar Parrikar to India Today
(2016) Available at: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/interview/story/20170306-manohar-parrikar-indigenisation-defence-ministry-public-private-sector-drdo-985868-2017-02-27
2.Ghosh, Ranjit. Indigenisation: Key to self-sufficiency and
strategic ability
3.Jacob,
Happymon. A blueprint for a national
security strategy/ The Hindu (23.05.2019)
4.Ghosh, Ranjit. Indigenisation: Key to self-sufficiency and
strategic ability
