‘As far as India’s defence preparedness or defence expenditure is concerned, India is shooting in the dark’ observed SandeepUnnithan, senior defence and strategic analyst. In fact, the Defence Ministry of India is devoid of any vision. Lack of strategic vision in the Ministry of Defence is costing India, her defence capabilities, he stressed.
Coming down heavily upon the Government’s policy on internal security as well as defence preparedness to thwart any external threat, SandeepUnnithan, the Deputy Editor of India Today, said internal security is another segment that is utterly neglected by the government, both, at the centre as well as in the states. Bureaucracy and bureaucratic attitude are the major hurdles in the security arrangements of India, he said.
Unnithan was analyzing the Union Budget 2013, from a defence perspective, at a gathering organized by the Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS), here. “Slash in Defence Budget: India’s Security at Stake” was the theme of the analytical deliberations. The session was presided over by the well-known banker and former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu. AkhileshBhargav, the Chartered Accountant and financial analyst, moderated the deliberations at the meeting. Secretary-General of FINS, Bal Desai welcomed the gathering and the guests.
Initiating the debate, Suresh Prabhu, in his presidential address, exhorted that the defence and security of any country, today, could not merely and only mean military preparedness. It has to be wholesome. Food Security, Energy Security, Water Security are important aspects as well, for a country of the size and stature of India. Security care on these frontiers also is very much needed, he added.
Sadly enough, India, however, is fragmented on every count, Suresh Prabhu lamented. There were 30 different ministries at the centre which dealt with the subject ‘Water’, in one way or the other, and therefore, no specific and coordinated policy on ’water’ could be formulated, he explained. This has weakened security on food and related fronts, he emphasized.
A hardcore banker and financial analyst as he is, Suresh Prabhu termed the Union Budget 2013, presented by the Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, as an “Utter Disaster”. ‘The finance minister needed to be given full marks for diagnosing the ailment accurately,’ he said, adding that, ‘growth is the keyword (Moolmantra) of this budget, though the minister had overstated the revenue and understated the income!’ There is a complete “disconnect” between the economic study and the financial provisions in the budget, he hammered.
Suresh Prabhu, analyzing the defence budget, pointed out that there was an urgent need for reviewing defence requirements. Keeping our armed forces motivated all the time is a big challenge and India is nowhere as compared to our immediate neighbours, he explained. Construction of roads and bridges and railways by China in our bordering regions needed to be understood seriously, Prabhu exhorted. India is a net importer of armaments and petroleum and India’s imports contribute largely to the global economy, he said, adding pungently, that, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was perhaps too worried about the sluggish world economy. He was pointing to the provision of large funds in the budget for imports of arms and armaments.
In view of the threats to national security, internally and externally, both, the Union Government and especially, the Union Finance Minister should give a serious thought, if India’s defence requirements could be manufactured indigenously, Suresh Prabhu advised.
SandeepUnnithan, the chief speaker, towing his line, mentioned that India lags behind in defence preparedness, despite the Kargil War Review Committee report and other such reports. The government had since not published the Kargil Review Committee Report nor implemented its recommendations, he said.
Neglect of our defence requirement began in 1987 and went on until 1999 and it cost the nation heavily. Our first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was of the view that India needed no military and it was the root cause for India’s security debacles, he explained. The, then President of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf surmised, holding on to this view, that India was in no position to fight a war in 1999 and forced the Kargil War. The resolute Indian armed forces, the Army, Navy and Air Force, however, proved Pakistan rulers wrong, once again. Following the incident during the NDA Government regime, Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had increased the defence budget by about28 per cent. Despite such steps, India lagged behind in defence preparedness, Unnithan explained. With a shortage of fighter squadrons in the Air Force and submarines in the Navy, India is unable to chastise China or tame Pakistan, he warned.
He was very critical of Indian bureaucracy. The bureaucratic maze in India takes not less than 8 years to process a project or a purchase order, making the proposal redundant by the time it is approved, he criticized bitterly. About a decade back, in 2005, China was the largest importer of arms and ammunition, Saudi Arabia ranked second and India was at third position, in the world rankings. Today the scenario is completely changed. India, by 2012, outranked China to be the largest importer of defence requirements, while China turned to be the sixth-largest exporter of arms, he said. ‘And days are not far away when India might purchase its requirement from Chinese Markets,’ Unnithan warned.
Indian Army has not changed since the Second World War of 1945, according to some of the former Generals of the Indian Army, Unnithan said. The USA reviewed and reformed its defence forces after 1987, but India never turned towards reforms in her defence forces, he lamented. Despite the dismal situation of Indian Armed Forces, every Defence Minister of India, during past few years have made wasteful expenditure to the tune of over Rs.5000 Crore, so far, he criticized. On the other hand, indigenous efforts of private manufacturers such as Tatas have been blocked, he said. Tatas have developed India’s first-ever indigenous field gun but its field tests have been blocked under the pretext of no proper test range was available in the country. The Government keeps on speaking of private-public participation, but in practice, it is aiming at foreign private sector only, Unnithan criticized. While countries like Israel and the USA were in ceaseless efforts to create employment for their own people by manufacturing and selling arms and other defencehardware, is the Indian government more concerned about unemployment in these countries than in India, he questioned. Mentioning China and South Korea, he said, these countries have transformed themselves from net importers of arms to self–sufficiency to exports. Following the footsteps of China, South Korea is also aiming at the arms market I India, he added. Spending more money, for defence purposes is not getting India anywhere from 1962 or 1998, Unnithan said. It only ends up in shooting in the dark, nothing has changed since Kargil, he added bitterly.
From a security point of view, India was investing neither in people nor in material strategically, he brought it out clearly, while replying to queries from the audience and added that India, rather reacted slowly to her defence threats. He stressed that an integrated policy on India’s internal and external security was the need of the hour. He also pointed out there was no shortage of budget for defence purposes or the armed forces. “What lacked was a clear perspective and policy”, he stressed. The result is our foreign policy is affected if no weapons or arms of global standards are manufactured indigenously, Unnithan explained. Arms purchase policy of India is nothing but ‘lose-lose policy’, he lamented.
Moderating the deliberations, AkhileshBhargav said the founding fathers of India had a different vision, not following that has cost India a loss of about 40 per cent of her landmass and yet, there was no change in our defence policy.
This event is available for viewers on FINS Youtube Channel.
