October 2022 was an exceptional month for Indian Defence with multiple activities demonstrating the nation’s strategic and defence industrial capabilities. The successful test of the K 15 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile was followed by the Agni Prime an advanced version of the series which is canister based and mobile.
India also got the second Chief of Defence Staff. After much delay and speculation, General Anil Chauhan took up the mantle that has been vacant after the untimely demise of General Bipin Rawat in December last year.
There were umpteen recommendations to the new CDS who has kept his own counsel so far unlike General Rawat who was always upfront with new ideas and projections. Perhaps a softer approach may be essential to achieve tangible results in the field of jointness to avoid ruffling too many feathers in the inter service domain.
The Def Expo 2022 held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from 18 – 21 October was another seminal event because this was for the first time restricted purely to India companies – including joint ventures of foreign OEMs.
A turnout of 1300 far exceeded that of other defence trade shows in India and augurs well for interest being shown in the sector by large number of private enterprises including start-ups.
A fourth positive indigenisation list was published on the occasion and progress on the previous ones pronounced. Importantly, India Ministry of Defence (MOD) overcame the dilemma of fielding Western and Russia defence companies in the same tent so to say given extensive sanctions on the Russian defence industry post launch of the Ukraine War in February.
A follow up of DefExpo 2022 was foundation laying of the Airbus Tata joint manufacturing plant for the C 295MW military transport aircraft in Vadodara Gujarat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 30.
The joint venture which has been in the offing for some time now is fructifying and will provide a fillip to military as well as civilian aircraft manufacturing in the country. This is the first private sector aerospace manufacturing ecosystem in India, the other military aircraft manufacturer being that of the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
A week or so earlier the Indian Air Force formed the first squadron of the Light Combat Helicopter named Prachand in Jodhpur on the Western Border while a new airfield is also to come up at Deesa in Gujarat.
Indeed, to the layman these are gigantic achievements in the field of defence yet there is a need for a sobering thought and not allow the narrative to seize reality.
For firstly these are progressions mainly in the field of strategic testing and defence production. These do not in most cases add to build up of capabilities of the Indian armed forces in the near term with continuing critical shortages in combat aircraft, submarines, artillery guns and so on.
A stark reminder that India’s defence R & D and industry is unable to produce even an indigenised assault rifle or a carbine and requires collaboration. The much vaunted K 15 SLBM is also constrained by range of 750 kms.
The sad loss of a number of lives in two back to back accidents of helicopters of the army aviation during the month is also a grim reminder of concerns in safety of these machines and precious lives of trained pilots.
Clearly the narrative of indigenisation of defence production needs to be translated to capability building of the Indian armed forces, the teeth edge of national security as we enter a new era of strategic competition with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) making rapid strides in emerging as a 4.5 generation force “intelligenised,” force. Indeed, invalidating the status quo on the Line of Actual Control in the past two and a half years by the PLA is a reminder of the way ahead where ground reality and not narrative will make a difference.
Greater investment in defence capability building, prioritisation and streamlining, overcoming duplication in procurement and obtaining more bang from buck is the way ahead.
The narrative is good for public morale, but the hard nosed planners in the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing are unlikely to be impressed and will seek real time factuals through deployment of own resources such as the Yuan Wang 5 and 6 in the India Ocean Region.
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