Author : Deepak Sinha

Originally Published 2018-08-09 07:00:32 Published on Aug 09, 2018
National security: A call to arms

Over the past six months there have been a slew of parliamentary reports criticising the government’s handling of our defence preparedness. The latest, released on July 25, being the Parliamentary Estimates Committee’s draft report on ‘Preparedness of Armed Forces: Defence Production and Procurement’.

This report has noted that the defence expenditure at 1.6% of GDP in 2017-18 was the lowest since 1962 when the India-China war was fought and observed that “in the current geo-political scenario, India cannot afford complacency with regard to defence preparedness”. It further went on to point out that the share of capital procurement budget in the defence budget has been continuously declining and “decrease in capital expenditure has an adverse impact on the modernisation process of armed forces, and can compromise the safety and security of the country”. This report further reinforced the adverse findings of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence which had submitted its 41st report in March this year.

These committees, despite being headed by BJP stalwarts, must be congratulated for having placed national interest above politics and unequivocally condemning this government. However, the time for polite warnings is long past and the Committees should have gone even further, given the grevious repercussions of this state of affairs on our sovereignty and security, and given a call to arms to occupy battle stations, not that such a situation is new to us. One may recall that Field Marshal Manekshaw required the best part of nine months to scrounge together a force to give us that famous victory in 1971, and twenty eight years later, during the Kargil conflict, General VP Malik, the Army Chief, was once again forced to concede that “We shall fight with whatever we have,” the price for which we paid in blood.

Though comparisons tend to be odious, but if they are to be made with the 1962 situation, we would do well to remember that the equipment held by the Services at that time, for most part, were of World War II vintage, or just about two plus decades old. Today, on the other hand, we are holding fighter planes and artillery guns, including even the Bofors, are over half a century old. They could easily occupy a pride of place in any display of vintage equipment, and are not weapons that any modern self- respecting military should go to war with. Add to this the indigenously manufactured sub-standard assault rifles verging on the obsolescent and submarines without torpedoes. If that were not enough, we also have an acute shortage of serviceable equipment, spares and ammunition.

Thus, for any of the committees to have arrived at a conclusion other than what they have, would have been downright ridiculous and laughable, to say the least. It is no wonder then that Mr. Modi refuses to come clean on what compromises he was forced to make at Wuhan over the Doklam issue while his ministers continue to prevaricate about the ground situation at Doklam. While this government may want to give a positive spin on the issue, at least till the general elections, the truth about allegations of Chinese occupation of most of the Doklam Plateau are already in public knowledge with even members of the US Congress expressing concerns on the issue.

All of this is but to be expected when a government gives short shrift to its military and is hell bent on reducing its prestige and reputation. Is it any wonder then that the Services suffer from debilitating deficiencies in their officer cadre to the tune of 20% with even higher deficiencies in training establishments, despite endemic unemployment that haunts our young. One can conclusively conclude that since Independence, seventy-one years ago, our soldiers have been seen and treated as expendable commodities, to be maintained at rock bottom costs. How is it possible that let alone weapons, this country has not been able to provide them with even reasonably decent footwear or even a ballistic helmet? Agreed, we live in a developing country with competing needs on our meagre resources, but it is shameful to expect our soldiers to defend our honour with outmoded implements. The alternative, in such circumstances, if confronted by a larger more aggressive bully, as we are, is to cave in and grovel, as Mr Modi has done, with finesse one must add, at the feet of the Chinese president. Surely, this can hardly be a strategy for success or national policy if we hope to be seen as a respectable power worthy of being seated at the high table.

All of this does not take away from a larger question that we need to ask ourselves, answers to which we have refused to face squarely all these years. Why is it that in these past seven decades there has never been a period in which this nation could claim to have a modern well equipped military juggernaut to enforce its will? We would do well to remember that shows of military power at Republic Day parades are nothing more than farcical displays of bravado and while they may well fool some of our citizens, they certainly don’t fool our neighbours.

It is time our political establishment got over its fears that a strong, modern and powerful military is a threat to their longevity and ability to retain power, especially given the endemic corruption and lack of governance that we seem incapable of rectifying. But the fact is, if nothing else, our military has shown time and again that it has always been obedient to its civilian bosses and done everything in its power to ensure, that it protects our democratic ideals and sovereignty at whatever the cost to itself.

Finally, they need to get over their complacency, based on the false premise that being a nuclear power ensures the protection of our national sovereignty and borders and makes a conventional military redundant, best maintained as a militia capable of dealing with the small insurgencies and insurrections that afflict our border regions. The stark truth is – a weak military forces the government to repeatedly make what appear to be small compromises to our national interest and way of life until we are left with nothing worth defending. Pakistan seems to be a perfect example of this as it slowly but inevitably heads towards becoming yet another province of China. Surely, whatever may be the abysmal depths that our political establishment has descended to, none of our leaders would consider emulating Pakistan’s example? That should be reason enough for them to focus on upgrading the military’s capabilities. After all, the Indian soldier does not lack courage, but arms.


This commentary originally appeared in The Times of India.

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Author

Deepak Sinha

Deepak Sinha

Brig. Deepak Sinha (Retd.) was Visiting Fellow at ORF. Brig. Sinha is a second-generation paratrooper. During his service, he held varied command, staff and instructional appointments, ...

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