atmanirbharta

The Asymmetric Indo-US Technology Agreement Points to India’s Weak R&D Culture

The willingness of the US to provide India some technology without expecting reciprocity is gratifying. But is it not one-sided, with India getting technologies it has not been able to develop by itself?

The Indo-US joint statement issued a few days back says that the two governments are going to “facilitate greater technology sharing, co-development and co-production opportunities between the US and the Indian industry, government and academic institutions.” This has been hailed as the creation of a new technology bridge that will reshape relations between the two countries.

What is on offer

General Electric (GE) is offering to give 80% of the technology required for the F414 jet engine, which will be co-produced with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). In 2012, when the negotiations had started, GE had offered India 58%. India needs this engine for the Light Combat Aircraft Mark 2 (LCA Mk2) jets.

The Indian Air Force has been using LCA Mk1A, but is not particularly happy with it. It asked for improvements in it. Kaveri, the indigenous engine for the LCA under development since 1986, has not been successful.

So, India has been using the F404 engine in the LCA Mk1, which is 40 years old. The F414 is also a 30-year-old vintage. GE is said to be offering 12 key technologies required in modern jet engine manufacturing which India has not been able to master over the last 40 years. The US has moved on to more powerful fighter jet engines with newer technologies, like the Pratt & Whitney F135 and GE XA100.

Also read: As Modi Leaves for State Visit, India and US Officials Place Defence Cooperation at Front and Centre

India is being allowed into the US led critical mineral club. It will acquire the highly rated MQ-9B high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles. A semiconductor assembly and test facility will be set up in Gujarat by Micron Technologies by 2024, where it is hoped that the chips will eventually be manufactured. The investment deal of $2.75 billion is sweetened with the Union government giving 50% and Gujarat contributing 20%. India is also being allowed into the US-led critical mineral club.

There will be cooperation in space exploration and India will join the US-led Artemis Accords. ISRO and NASA will collaborate and an Indian astronaut will be sent to the International Space Station. INDUS-X will be launched for joint innovation in defence technologies. Global universities will be enabled to set up campuses in each other’s countries, whatever it may imply for atmanirbharta.

What does it amount to?

The list is impressive. But, is it not one-sided, with India getting technologies it has not been able to develop by itself?

Though the latest technology is not being given by the US, it is superior to what India currently has. So, it is not just optics. But the real test will be how much India’s technological capability will get upgraded.

What is being offered is a far cry from what one senior US diplomat had told me at a dinner in 1992. Discussing the New Economic Policies launched in 1991, the diplomat got riled at my complaining that the US was offering us potato chips and fizz drinks but not high technology, and shouted, “Technology is a house we have built and we will never let you enter it.”

Everyone present there was stunned, but that was the reality.

The issue is, does making a product in India mean transfer of technology to Indians? Will it enable India to develop the next level of technology?

India has assembled and produced MiG-21 jets since the 1960s and Su-30MKI jets since the 1990s. But most critical parts for the Su-30 come from Russia. India set up the Mishra Dhatu Nigam in 1973 to produce the critical alloys needed and production started in 1982, but self-sufficiency in critical alloys has not been achieved.

A Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 and a Sukhoi Su-30MKI operated by the IAF. L: Wikimedia Commons/Jyotirmoy895, CC BY-SA 4.0. R: Wikimedia Commons/Mike Freer, GFDL 1.2.

So, production using borrowed technology does not mean absorption and development of the technology. Technology development requires ‘know-how’ and ‘know-why’.

When an item is produced, we can see how it is produced and then copy that. But we also need to know how it is being done and importantly, why something is being done in a certain way. Advanced technology owners don’t share this knowledge with others.

Technology is a moving frontier

There are three levels of technology at any given point of time – high, intermediate, and low.

The high technology of yesterday becomes the intermediate technology of today and the low technology of tomorrow. So, if India now produces what the advanced countries produced in the 1950s, it produces the low technology products of today (say, coal and bicycles).

If India produces what was produced in the advanced countries in the 1980s (say, cars and colour TV), it produces the intermediate technology products of today. It is not to say that some high technology is not used in low and intermediate technology production.

The high technologies of today are aerospace, nanotechnology, AI, micro-chips and so on. India is lagging behind in these technologies, like in producing passenger aircraft, sending people into space, making micro-chips, quantum computing, and so on.

Also read: India’s Global Tech Alliance Choices Will Reduce Its Relevance In Its Own Neighbourhood

The advanced countries do not part with these technologies. The World Trade Organisation, with its provisions for TRIPS and TRIMS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Trade Related Investment Measures) consolidated the hold of advanced countries on intermediate and low technologies that can be acquired by paying royalties. But high technology is closely held and not shared.

Advancements in technology

So, how can nations that lag behind in technology catch up with advanced nations? The Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow pointed to ‘learning by doing’ – the idea that in the process of production, one learns.

Schumpeter suggested that technology moves through stages of invention, innovation and adaptation. So, the use of a product does not automatically lead to capacity to produce it, unless the technology is absorbed and developed. That requires R&D.

Flying the latest Airbus A321neo does not mean we can produce it. Hundreds of MiG-21 and Su-30 have been produced in India. But we have not been able to produce fighter jet engines, and India’s Kaveri engine is not yet successful. We routinely use laptops and mobile phones, and they are also assembled in India, but it does not mean that we can produce micro-chips or hard disks.

The GTRE GTX-35VS Kaveri engine on its testbed. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Jagan Pillarisetti. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Enormous resources are required to do R&D for advanced technologies and to produce them at an industrial scale. It requires a whole environment which is often missing in developing countries and certainly in India.

Production at an experimental level can take place. In 1973, I produced epitaxial thin films for my graduate work. But producing them at an industrial scale is a different ballgame. Experts have been brought from the US, but that has not helped since high technology is now largely a collective endeavour.

For more complex technologies, say, aerospace or complex software, there is ‘learning by using’. When an aircraft crashes or malware infects a software, it is the producer who learns from the failure, not the user. Again, the R&D environment is important.

In brief, using a product does not mean we can produce it. Further, producing some item does not mean that we can develop it further. Both require R&D capabilities, which thrive in a culture of research. That is why developing countries suffer from the ‘disadvantage of a late start’.

A need for a focus on research and development

R&D culture thrives when innovation is encouraged. Government policies are crucial since they determine whether the free flow of ideas is enabled or not. Also of crucial importance is whether thought-leaders or sycophants are appointed to lead institutions, whether criticism is welcomed or suppressed, and whether the government changes its policies often under pressure from vested interests.

Unstable policies increase the risk of doing research, thereby undermining it and dissuading industry. The result is the repeated import of technology.

The software policy of 1987, by opening the sector up to international firms, undermined whatever little research was being carried out then and turned most companies in the field into importers of foreign products, and later into manpower suppliers. Some of these companies became highly profitable, but have they produced any world-class software that is used in daily life?

Expenditure on R&D is an indication of the priority accorded to it. India spends a lowly 0.75% of its GDP on R&D. Neither the government nor the private sector prioritises it. Businesses find it easier to manipulate policies using cronyism. Those who are close to the rulers do not need to innovate, while others know that they will lose out. So, neither focus on R&D.

Innovation also depends on the availability of associated technologies – it creates an environment. An example is Silicon Valley, which has been at the forefront of innovation. It has also happened around universities where a lot of research capabilities have developed and synergy between business and academia becomes possible.

This requires both parties to be attuned to research. In India, around some of the best-known universities like Delhi University, Allahabad University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, coaching institutions have mushroomed and not innovative businesses. None of these institutions are producing any great research, nor do businesses require research if they can import technology.

Universities and technology companies in Silicon Valley enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship. Photo: Ben Loomis/Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-2.0.

A feudal setup

Technology is an idea. In India, most authority figures don’t like being questioned. For instance, bright students asking questions are seen as troublemakers in most schools. The emphasis is largely on completing coursework for examinations. Learning is by rote, with most students unable to absorb the material taught.

So, most examinations have standard questions requiring reproduction of what is taught in the class, rather than application of what is learned. My students at JNU pleaded against open book exams. Our class of physics in 1967 had toppers from various higher secondary boards. We chose physics over IIT. We rebelled against such teaching and initiated reform, but ultimately most of us left physics – a huge loss to the subject.

Advances in knowledge require critiquing its existing state – that is, by challenging the orthodoxy and status quo. So, the creative independent thinkers who generate socially relevant knowledge also challenge the authorities at their institutions and get characterised as troublemakers. The authorities largely curb autonomy within the institution and that curtails innovativeness.

Also read: The Dissenting, Questioning Citizen is Now the Enemy of the State

In brief, dissent – which is the essence of knowledge generation – is treated as a malaise to be eliminated. These are the manifestations of a feudal and hierarchical society which limits the advancement of ideas. Another crucial aspect of generating ideas is learning to accept failure. The Michelson–Morley experiment was successful in proving that there is no aether only after hundreds of failed experiments.

Conclusion

The willingness of the US to provide India some technology without expecting reciprocity is gratifying. Such magnanimity has not been shown earlier and it is obviously for political (strategic) reasons. The asymmetry underlines our inability to develop technology on our own. The US is not giving India cutting-edge technologies that could make us a vishwaguru.

India needs to address its weakness in R&D. As in the past, co-producing a jet engine, flying drones or packaging and testing chips will not get us to the next level of technology, and we will remain dependent on imports later on.

This can be corrected only through a fundamental change in our R&D culture that would enable technology absorption and development. That would require granting autonomy to academia and getting out of the feudal mindset that presently undermines scientific temper and hobbles our system of education.

Arun Kumar is a retired professor of economics at JNU. He most recently authored Indian Economy’s Greatest Crisis: Impact of the Coronavirus and the Road Ahead (2020).

Drone Purchases from US Approved Weeks Before Modi State Visit

The Indian government’s publicity on ‘Atmanirbharta’ or self reliance has anyway been a hardsell, especially as Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s report in March revealed that India imports the maximum amount of arms globally.

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government’s decision to approve a tri-service proposal to acquire 31 MQ 9-Predator B armed drones from the US has come on the eve of the Prime Minister’s state visit to the US on June 21.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by PM is reported by several news outlets to have given a nod to General Electric manufacturing F-414 jet engines in India through 100 per cent manufacturing route in collaboration with HAL on June 14.

The Times of India writes that the defence ministry approved the major acquisition of 31 weaponised drones from the US on Thursday, clearing the decks for the formal announcement of the mega project during the PM’s visit to Washington.

Reuters reported that India will buy 31 drones made by General Atomics worth slightly over $3 billion, citing a source. India’s defence ministry did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

This is said to be the first major purchase after Indian Navy acquired 24 MH 60 R anti-submarine warfare helicopters from the US three years ago, reports The Hindustan Times. The newspaper notes that the last major acquisition was done on the eve of the former US President Donald Trump’s visit to India.

Reuters says that the US government had approved the sale of 30 drones to India over two years ago, but the Indian defence ministry “had been sitting on the decision.”

However, it makes a note of the timing of the approval when it writes, “Once dates for Modi’s four-day US visit starting June 21 were finalised, the Biden administration started nudging India to show progress on the deal.”

It is thought that the drones will predominantly be used by the Navy in the Indian Ocean Region. Both of India’s traditional adversaries, China and Pakistan, have sophisticated air defence systems that “can limit the use of the drones along India’s land borders.”

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI’s) report in March revealed that India imports the maximum amount of arms globally. The findings dented the Indian government’s publicity around Atmanirbharta or self-reliance. The report said that India accounted for 11% of total global imports in the 2018-22 period. Its exports in the corresponding period declined.

The Predator drones only add to this list of more weaponry from abroad that India relies on for its defence needs.

There is no clarity so far of provisions for transfer of technology or of manufacturing in India.

Will Modi’s State Visit to the US Bring News on Deal for Predator Drones?

While negotiations over the Predator had proceeded since 2016, the purchase had still not received Acceptance of Necessity clearance by the Ministry of Defence. Another stumbling block could be the Indian Navy’s insistence to incorporate 60% indigenous content into the weapon system under the atmanirbharta initiative.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US next month has fuelled speculation in security circles concerning the possible announcement of materiel buys and enhanced defence cooperation between Washington and New Delhi during his June 22 visit.

The most obvious, and possibly the only outright US buy on the anvil for India were 18 weaponised General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) Sea Guardian/Predator high altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for an estimated $1.5-2 billion.

Pared down from an earlier requirement of 30 UAVs – priced at around $3-4 billion – these 18 armed drones would eventually be acquired via the US Foreign Military Sales route, and divided equally between India’s three services, to meet their respective operational needs, an official source said. If confirmed, India would be the first non-NATO state to receive armed UAVs for possible deployment along its restive northern and western borders and in the strategic Indian Ocean Region.

In recent years, Indian military planners have stressed the need for Predator UAVs to counter China’s and Pakistan’s Wing Loong II medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAVs, powered by turbocharged engines. The Chinese-designed UAV, provided to Pakistan, has an operational envelope of 20 hours and is capable of attaining speeds of 370 kmph.

In contrast, two non-weaponised Sea Guardian maritime variants with an endurance of over 30 hours in all types of weather, had been leased by the Indian Navy (IN) in 2020 – initially for a year, but later extended by another three years, to 2024 – to supplement the force’s surveillance operations over the Indian Ocean Region, executed by its Boeing P-8I Neptune long-range maritime multi-mission fleet. The two UAVs – based like the P-8Is off the east coast at INS Rajali in Tamil Nadu – were also the first lot of military equipment to be leased by India under revised provisions incorporated into the Defence Acquisition Procedure, 2020 (DAP-2020).

Industry sources, meanwhile, said senior Pentagon and State Department US officials had ‘jumped through multiple hoops’ to approve the Predator sale to close strategic ally India, as they considered its transfer to be an ‘article of faith’ to further cement bilateral defence ties. “The Pentagon remains sanguine over some kind of announcement to advance the Predator contract during Modi’s visit,” said a senior industry official in Delhi. It’s the only major US materiel acquisition in the pipeline, and if progressed would go a long way in boosting collaborative military confidence on both sides, he added, declining to be identified.

But for India, peculiar hurdles in furthering the Predator deal endure.

The IN, which is the lead service in negotiating the UAV contract, had recently declared that even though it was ‘actively pursuing’ their buy, it wanted manufacturers GA-ASI to incorporate 60% indigenous content into the weapon system under the MoD’s atmanirbharta initiative, aimed at indigenising India’s materiel needs by reducing imports.

We are still pursuing the ‘Acquire Predator drones project’, declared former IN Vice Chief of Staff Vice Admiral S.N. Ghormade in February, “but we are seeing how it can be indigenised and whatever facilities can be built (for it) in India.” He went on to state that procurement agencies were working with indigenous firms and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to ensure that 60% of the UAV’s contents were sourced locally.

Military analysts and a cross-section of senior service officers expressed disbelief and amazement over the intent to ‘indigenise’ the Predator, possibly one of the world’s most advanced hunter-killer UAVs, as such superior levels of technological expertise were simply not available locally. One senior IN officer said that ever since the MoD had first issued its letter of request (LoR) to the US in June 2016 for the Predators, the UAVs were conceived of exclusively as an ‘outright purchase’, with no hint whatsoever of incorporating any local content into it.

Such an eventuality would doubtlessly encompass domestically-sourced components and sub-systems integration onto the UAVs, which GA-ASI had reportedly not considered in talks with the IN and other Indian officials over the past seven years. “The question of incorporating indigenous content into the UAVs arises only if they were made in India,” said a former MoD official. It does not apply to off-the-shelf materiel, he declared, refusing to be named and added that such a condition would doubtlessly ‘bamboozle and flummox’ US suppliers.

The MoD had initiated the Predator procurement days after India’s induction into the 35-nation Missile Technology Control Regime that entitled Delhi to formally receive such weaponry. Furthermore, India signing the long-pending Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement with the US in October 2020 to facilitate the bilateral exchange of geospatial data, satellite imagery and sensor data, too had smoothed Delhi’s way towards first leasing the two UAVs for the navy and later acquiring the armed version.

Nonetheless, while negotiations over the Predator had proceeded apace since 2016, official sources said its purchase had still not received Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) clearance by the MoD’s Defence Acquisition Council. The AoN is one of the initial steps in India’s byzantine DAP-2020 before the concerned acquisition is progressed over the succeeding 11-12 time-consuming steps.

A file photo of Narendra Modi and Joe Biden. Photo: The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

More announcements

In the meantime, media reports indicated that the joint production and manufacture of combat aircraft engines, infantry combat vehicles, howitzers and precision ordnance for them, all of which were discussed recently in Washington at the 17th meeting of the US-India Defence Policy Group (DPG), too could be announced during Modi’s US visit.

The government’s Press Information Bureau declared that both sides reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral defence ties at the May 17 DPG meeting, co-chaired by defence secretary Giridhar Aramane and US Under Secretary of Defence Colin Kahl, and deliberated on ways to develop this (somewhat moribund) co-operation further. They also decided to launch INDUS-X, ahead of Modi’s arrival, under the aegis of the initiative on Critical Emerging Technologies (iCET) agreed upon by the two sides in February, to foster partnerships between their respective defence innovation ecosystems.

The iCET, for its part, was merely a ‘warmed up’ Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) launched by the US and India in Delhi in 2012 after four years of negotiations, but one which had failed miserably in even remotely achieving its goal of furthering defence co-operation between the two newly emergent strategic allies, shorn of bureaucratic hiccups from either side. The Initiative was aimed at ‘altering’ the ‘transactional nature’ of the defence relationship into a ‘collaborative venture’ as the US had sold India $20 billion worth of military equipment since 2002.

Primarily, the DTTI encompassed four ‘pathfinder’ projects like the joint development of Mobile Electric Hybrid Power Systems and Integrated Protection Ensemble Increment 2 clothing for protection against chemical and biological exposure with the DRDO. Two additional DTTI programmes – AeroVironment RQ 11 Raven hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicles and roll-on/roll-off intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) modules for the Indian Air Force (IAF)’s 12 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 transport aircraft – had elicited a lukewarm response from local vendors and were quietly withdrawn.

Thereafter, in June 2015 India and the US extended their 10-year bilateral Defence Framework Agreement to mid-2025 to further strategic and military ties, but also to provide the framework for progressing the DTTI and its supposed ‘transformative’ potential. And, a year later in mid-2016 DTTI added the Digital Helmet Mounted Display and the Joint Biological Tactical Detection System projects to its list, but the two prospective endeavours progressed little beyond the discussion stage. Several proposals under DTTI accomplished little or nothing, before lapsing into oblivion.

The iCET, for its part, comprised six broad areas of cooperation on the ashes of the DDTI, involving co-development and co-production in critical emerging technologies in defence, space and next-generation telecommunications – including 6G networks. Artificial intelligence and semiconductor know-how, in addition to other vital sundry areas of engineering, science and biotechnology too were included.

Perhaps some of these enterprises would be announced during Modi’s visit, but all eyes will, doubtlessly, be on the more tangible Predator deal – in keeping with the US dictum of “Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”, better known by its ANSTAL acronym.

For the Defence Establishment, Materiel Acquisition Schedules Are Seemingly Timeless

It seems that in a country where the word for today and tomorrow – kal – is paradoxically the same, nobody is concerned with materiel procurement deadlines to modernise the military.

Chandigarh: Neither the Ministry of Defence (MoD) nor the three armed forces appear, in the slightest, to be concerned with timely materiel procurement deadlines in order to further the military’s continually delayed modernisation and to meet existing and emerging security challenges.

It seems that in a country where the word for today and tomorrow – kal – is paradoxically the same, and where accompanying time limits of parson and tarson – the day after or the third day or thereabouts – remain equally nebulous, both these establishments tended to pursue a seemingly timeless defence equipment acquisition schedule.

Alongside, the MoD had also periodically scrapped innumerable tenders for operationally critical equipment over the past decade, due mostly to the services qualitative requirement (QR) overreach for equipment and allegations of wrongdoing and corruption, most of them unproven. This, in turn, had forced all three services to either continue employing obsolete kit, or simply manage without it.

In 2018, for instance, the Indian Army (IA)’s Vice Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sarath Chand had compellingly informed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence that 68% of the force’s in-service platforms were in the ‘vintage’ category, compared with 24% considered ‘current’. Merely 8%, he declared, were regarded as ‘state of the art’ for the world’s second-largest army that faced the prospect of a two-front war with belligerent and collusive nuclear-armed neighbours.

Little, however, had changed in the intervening four years, not only for the IA but also for the Indian Navy (IN) and the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Meanwhile, the list of all such equipment procurement delays, essential for all three services to sustain operational efficiency and to deter adventurism by China and Pakistan, is almost endless and beyond the confines of editorial space to variously catalogue. But a handful of glaring, and somewhat embarrassing examples cited below, illustrate this blatant and near-total disregard for equipment acquisition timelines, plagued by the constant see-saw scuffle between the MoD and the respective service headquarters.

More recently, the hype surrounding the atmanirbharta or self-sufficiency route to make good this persistent materiel shortfall remained at an embryonic stage. Other than major technological challenges, it faced bureaucratic ambiguity in pursuing and securing its aims. And though breaking free of import dependency doubtlessly remains the preferred option for India’s military in sourcing diverse equipment, there was little acceptance in official circles that it was, according to industry officials, a timely, costly and arduous endeavour.

“The bleak reality is that almost all military acquisitions are running perilously late,” said Amit Cowshish, former MoD financial advisor on procurements. Complex Defence Acquisition Procedures, lack of clarity by the services in formulating their individual equipment requirements and a hidebound bureaucracy, were collectively responsible for these recurrent postponements, he added.

Also Read: The Game of Snakes and Ladders That Is India’s Defence Acquisition Procedures

However, the most blatant and ongoing instance involves the IN’s long-overdue critical Project 75 I (India) – or P75I – to indigenously build six ‘hunter-killer’ diesel-electric conventional submarines (SSKs), to bolster the forces declining underwater assets. The programme was initially accorded acceptance of necessity (AoN) approval, the first of multiple procurement steps in 2007 by the MoD’s Defence Acquisition Council headed by the defence minister.

It involved one of two shortlisted indigenous shipyards collaborating with an overseas submarine manufacturer to build these boats to supplement the IN’s 15 SSKs, of which 11 were all between 20 and 34 years old, with several due soon for retirement. Years passed and P-75I lingered on, necessitating an AoN recharge several times, with no result. Consequently, the project was rekindled by the MoD through a request for information (RfI) for the proposed boats a decade later, in July 2017. Four years later, in June 2021, a tender or request for proposal (RfP) was dispatched for the SSKs to two domestic submarine builders-Mazagaon Dockyard Limited (MDL) and Larsen & Toubro.

Representative image of Indian Navy officers on board during the commissioning ceremony of P-75 INS Karanj submarine in Mumbai, on March 10, 2021. Photo: PTI/ Shashank Parade

Meanwhile, between the issuance of the RfI and the RfP, several overseas original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from France, Japan, Spain, Sweden and more recently Russia declined to participate in the P-75I programme for a variety of complicated reasons like ‘unworkable’ IN QRs for the SSKs design and impractical project completion timeline restrictions. Prospective overseas vendors also railed against RfP clauses stipulating near unlimited performance and delivery liability upon the foreign technology partner, without any executive control over the manufacturer.

Consequently, P75-I is presently in limbo, 15 years after it was first mooted; but according to media reports it is ‘under evaluation’, a euphemism that equalled further adjournment in the project.

And even if all these hurdles were to somehow magically disappear imminently, naval veterans said the IN would only receive the first SSK eight-ten years hence, if not later. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), on the other hand – with which the IN is vying to dominate the strategic Indian Ocean Region (IOR) – currently employs 66-odd diesel-electric and nuclear-powered and nuclear-attack submarines, and was on course to exponentially boost these numbers.

Furthermore, the IN had floated a RfI for 57 multi-role carrier-borne fighters (MRCBF) in flyaway condition over five years ago, in January 2017, to operate off INS Vikrant, the indigenous carrier that was commissioned into service earlier this month, as the existing Russian MiG-29K/KUB combat fleet had proven operationally inadequate. Subsequently, the MRCBF requirement was pared down to 26 naval fighters, including eight twin-seat trainers, reportedly due to financial considerations, and the platform choice was narrowed down to France’s Dassault Rafale-M’s and US’s Boeing F/A-18 Block III Super Hornets, following ‘demonstration trials’ recently by both manufacturers.

Thereafter, no RfP has been issued, despite Vikrant’s commissioning, further delaying the crucial MRCBF purchase, despite ample lead time of several years for this purchase. Former IN Chief of Staff Admiral Arun Prakash told Reuters on the eve of Vikrant’s September 2 commissioning that due to India’s ‘typically disjointed decision-making process’ the selection of carrier-based fighters had gotten ‘de-linked’ from the carrier project, and that a decision on it was yet to be taken. “We knew the ship (Vikrant) was likely to be commissioned this year, hence the selection process, as well as negotiations for the fighter should have started well in time, perhaps three to four years earlier,” the former naval aviator argued.

And even in this instance, if wondrously the IN and the MoD did somehow manage to fast-track the MRCBF acquisition, it would take 3-4 years before deliveries of the shortlisted fighter would begin, by 2026-27 or perhaps even later. However, till then Vikrant would have to ‘make do’ with the inefficient MiG-29K/KUBs.

In comparison, once more, the PLAN, currently operates three aircraft carriers with a complement of some 40 fighters and helicopters each. Eventually, it aims on deploying at least two, or even three additional carriers by 2030, with each platform and its combat air arm an improvement on the ones commissioned earlier.

IAF, Army procurements also meet similar fate

In the meantime, the IAF had issued a RfI in April 2019 for 114 fighters medium multi-role fighters (MMRF) to make good its fast-depleting combat squadrons, whose numbers had dropped to a perilous 28-29, from a sanctioned strength of 42. Over the next two to three years, these are expected to decrease even further to around 25 squadrons, as the IAF retired four squadrons of its 70-odd legacy MiG2 ‘BIS’ ground-attack fighters, sharply reducing the force’s numerical platform superiority over Pakistan, leave alone China. Some of the IAFs six-odd Jaguar SEPECAT squadrons, comprising around 120 platforms, too were nearing the end of their Total Technical Life and also scheduled for superannuation.

Of the 114 MMRF, 18 of the shortlisted fighter type would be imported directly, and the remainder built locally under a transfer of technology. Last October, Air Chief Marshal V.K. Chaudhuri declared that several vendors had responded to the IAFs RfI and that the entire acquisition process was being progressed. Little had occurred since, akin to the IAFs 2008-09 proposal, amongst several other unrequited acquisitions, to procure multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) to extend its fighters’ operational reach. Talk of leasing MRTT, as a cost-saving measure, too remains stillborn.

The IA, on the other hand, which has been operating without close quarter battle (CQB) carbines since the mid-1980s, has still not made good this deficiency. Repeated, ineffectual and stop-go attempts over years by the IA and the MoD, especially since 2008 to procure a replacement for the licence-built 9mm Sterling 1A1 sub-machine gun variant dating back to 1944, had all failed. Consequently, this had pushed the army’s overall requirement for CQB carbines which the force desperately needed for counter-insurgency operations, to over 450,000 units.

The IA’s recently announced emergency procurement of light, air-transportable tanks to augment its firepower in Himalayan regions like Ladakh, was first mooted 13 years ago, in 2009, soon after military planners shifted their strategic focus from Pakistan, to the security threat posed by China.

An Indian Army convoy moves along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir’s Ganderbal district June 18, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Danish Ismail

Consequently, the army had, at the time received several responses to its global RfI for 200 wheeled and 100 tracked light tanks, weighing 22 tons each, but thereafter no formal tender was issued. The entire proposal, like several others, was shelved because of the army’s indifference and competing financial claims by existing T-72, T-90 and Arjun main battle tank ventures. Once again, the IA’s and the MoD’s inability in the timely prioritisation of acquiring and inducting such a platform had adversely impacted the ongoing military face-off with China along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh.

A similar unresponsive fate had greeted the army’s Battlefield Management System and the interfacing Tactical Communication System, as well as the Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) programme, all launched between 2005-09. The former two projects lapsed through disinterest, while the latter has seen a peripheral revival in recent days under the atmanirbhar scheme, but remains countless years away from fruition.

As stated earlier, the list of missed deadlines and overall lackadaisical approach to equipment buys is never-ending, and unfortunately in inverse proportion to the Indian military’s operational need for it. It also evokes a ditty by Gloria Pitzer, a US-based attorney that sums up the country’s defence and military establishment’s overarching attitudinal approach to acquisitions:

Procrastination is my sin.
It brings me naught but sorrow.
I know that I should stop it.
In fact, I will – tomorrow!”

The Game of Snakes and Ladders That Is India’s Defence Acquisition Procedures

These practices, now presided over by the DAP 2020, have become difficult for ordinary mortals – much less the foreign vendors – to either comprehend, manage or execute.

Lured by India’s heightened spending on military acquisitions and the accompanying initiative to manufacture defence equipment locally, many overseas armament vendors, sensing good business opportunities had parachuted into India. But with the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan or self-sufficiency mantra replacing the earlier ‘Make in India’ enterprise as the new refrain for achieving self-reliance in defence production, many of their landings have turned out to be hard and brutal.

No wonder that many such foreign companies look increasingly like Alice, the bewildered seven-year-old child in the 19th century apocryphal fantasy tale, wandering aimlessly at a garden party, awaiting the providential appearance of the white rabbit to magically lead them to the promised Wonderland of India’s vast and fabled arms market.

But their illusions and make-believe are soon shattered as they navigate, often for years at a time, the bottomless maw of the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s bureaucracy, its foibles and exaggerated sense of importance. A former Indian Army Chief of Staff had accurately likened India’s defence acquisition procedures to the popular children’s game of Snakes and Ladders.

General V.K. Singh had asserted in 2012 that all files dealing with military purchases invariably slipped back to the start from the top, just as the end appeared imminent, much like the many counters that slid rapidly down the board in Snakes and Ladders, following a roll of the dice.

Unfortunately, little has changed in the intervening decade.

Also Read: The Deadly Alphabet Soup That Is India’s Defence Acquisition Procedure

On the contrary, these practices, now presided over by the MoD’s 657-page Defence Acquisition Procedure, 2020 (DAP 2020) have become even more convoluted, riddled with frequent changes and exceptions, difficult for ordinary mortals – much less the foreign vendors – to either comprehend, manage or execute.

For, this magnum opus that governs all three services’ capital acquisitions, begs the obvious question: what about the acquisition policy, or are India’s military procurements guided merely by the garbled procedures? The answer is expectedly complicated; for the DAP 2020, that came into effect in October that year, is a dense and complex mix of policy and procedure, fortified by official ‘precedents’ and widely differing interpretations of the legalese, in keeping with the hybrid legal system India practices.

Oh, come on, most would say, that’s nothing but mere nitpicking. After all, what’s the harm if policy and procedure are intertwined? Theoretically, none. Except that, while policy needs to be firm and unwavering over a long period, procedures need to be flexible to be able to serve the purpose for which these are made in the first place. However, when both get inter-laced, as in DAP 2020, which is the eighth ‘revised’ procurement manual in the last two decades, India’s risk-averse bureaucracy, pursuing the path of least resistance, elevates procedures to the level of policy, making them altogether inflexible and intransigent.

BrahMos Aerospace at the Defexpo India in 2020. Photo: brahmos.com

To put it in a nutshell, this interlocked concept of policy-cum-procedure, or bureaucratic ‘jalebi’, remains the bane of the MoD’s decision-making process and the death knell of many a materiel acquisition programme which, in turn, have adversely impacted India’s long-delayed military modernisation. Playing ‘safe’ is invariably the name of the game, though to be fair, given the environment, it is understandable to some extent, as even the slightest error runs the risk of being pounced upon by rivals, if not the government watchdogs, with dire consequences.

Accustomed to straightforward dealings and relatively more flexible and consultative business culture in their respective countries, many vendors operating in India are often driven to the brink of despair – exceptions notwithstanding – while attempting to interact with the civilian and military bureaucracy in South Block and the adjoining ‘Bhawans’ and hutments housing various Service Headquarters and their respective Directorates. Inside these unprepossessing premises the ability to put across a point of view, obtain information, or resolve an issue without being talked down to by the officials can be a lurid experience, bordering at times, on the cathartic.

The entire experience is memorable, to say the least.

To begin with, securing an ‘audience’ with the ever-busy ‘concerned’ defence officials is troublesome, requiring infinite patience, persistence and at times even invoking favours. But having somehow managed access, these interactions are, in most instances, perplexing. For, when not being talked down to and talked-at, the hapless vendors are inundated with bombastic and unending accounts centred on the ‘wondrous’ features of DAP 2020 and countless ‘reforms’ effected by the government to promote the ease-of-doing-business.

The disquisition on the high level of domestic defence engineering prowess and soaring domestic materiel exports which presently account for 0.2% of the global arms exports, amongst diverse other longwindedness, is guaranteed to positively stun the visitors into somnolence.

Each official in these multi-tiered decision-making labyrinths has a different take on what is needed, and what really is expected of the vendors. The latter are also summarily informed that they would have to unquestioningly transfer state-of-the-art technology to domestic Indian companies under the MoD’s ever-changing goalposts for equipment, whilst bearing responsibility for the end product, albeit without providing them any control over the manufacturing agency. All vendors’ suggestions stemming, in many instances, from vaster experience in executing defence contracts around the world, are tersely dismissed as either trivial, insignificant or irrelevant in the Indian context.

Fearful of losing lucrative contracts and subscribing to the dictum that the customer is always right, few vendors challenge the MoD’s viewpoints, even at the risk of playing second fiddle to the Indian companies, which now are increasingly becoming the ‘prime vendors’ for most domestic defence contracts. Those who do dare disagree or even remotely question their interlocuters, are immediately ‘educated’, often in hectoring or patronising tones, depending on the need of the moment, about the virtues of ‘co-development and co-production’. Logic and practicality are trumped by the unspoken diktat of India’s infallible bureaucracy: be reasonable, do it my way.

On a handful of rare occasions when these ‘senior officials’ feel cornered by some uncomfortable question during a seminar or roundtable discussion, they straight-facedly respond varyingly by declaring that there is either no ‘immediate solution’ or that it was a larger issue that needed ‘due consideration’, or deliver the ultimate trump card that ‘it was a good point’ and leave it at that. Some not-so-senior officials, on the other hand, concede that the concerned query was simply ‘above their pay grade’ and needed further attention at a ‘higher level’.

Unable to ignore the ‘potential’ of India’s military equipment needs, but weary of its three Ps –(acquisition) personnel, policies and procedures – potential vendors should perhaps heed Albert Einstein’s advice in their dealings: If your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another, before you follow either, decide first whether you have a better head or a better heart.

If that presents a dilemma, the alternative is to suspend belief while dealing with the Indian MoD’s civil and military bureaucracy and follow Oliver Cromwell’s maxim: trust in God but keep your powder dry.

Amit Cowshish is a former financial advisor (acquisitions), Ministry of Defence.

Spotting the Truth and the Hype About INS Vikrant’s Domestic Sourcing of Material

While media paeans rightly acclaimed the fact that 76% of the carrier’s overall ‘float’ content was local in origin, it is also true that nearly 70% of its ‘fight’ content and an equal proportion of its ‘move’ category is imported.

New Delhi: The commissioning into service of INS Vikrant, the Indian Navy (IN)’s first indigenous aircraft carrier-1 or IAC-1, has seen frenzied celebrations over the country’s proficiency in domestically sourcing material, systems and components to successfully build the 43,000-tonne platform.

Official and media paeans over Vikrant’s construction by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) were right in acclaiming that 76% of the carrier’s overall ‘float’ content was local in origin. This included 23,000 tonnes of warship grade steel, 2,500 km of electrical cables and 150 km of specialised pipes, all of which were obtained from scores of domestic private and public sector manufacturers and micro, small and medium enterprises.

Other internally procured equipment provided to CSL for integration, included rigid hull boats, air conditioning and refrigeration plants, anchor capstans, galley and communication and combat network systems, amongst other assorted kits that comprise Vikrant’s 14 decks and support its 1600-strong crew, including 200 officers. The warship also incorporates an elaborate medical complex, comprising a modular operation theatre, dental centre, specialised cabins for future women officers and kitchens that serve an assortment of cuisines.

However, one of the initial impediments in IAC-1’s Project 71 programme centred on sourcing AB/A steel, after efforts to import it from Russia were abandoned in 2004-05. To overcome this, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’s Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) in Hyderabad and the public sector Steel Authority of India or SAIL jointly developed three types of steel for the carrier, ultimately supplying some 23,000 tons of it to CSL, and using it thereafter for other naval platforms, including nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Varying in thickness from 3 mm to 70 mm this steel included DMR 249A for the carriers hull and body, while the more resilient DMR 249B variant was used for the flight deck that takes repeated beatings from the impact of 15-18 tonne fighter’s landing frequently upon it. The third steel type – DMR Z25 – was used for flooring in many of Vikrant’s compartments housing heavy equipment, like engines and generators, as it was capable of withstanding compression and decompression emanating from these apparatuses.

Nevertheless, despite the nearly seven-year delay in Vikrant’s construction and a sixfold rise in its building cost to Rs 20,000 crore, CSL competently employed the modular integrated hull outfit and painting (IHOP) technique in IAC-1’s construction. This included the latest shipbuilding techniques, which comprised readying 874 composite compartment blocks, each averaging 250 tons that incorporated most of Vikrant’s machinery employed for navigation and overall survivability.

The extended postponements to Project 71, on the other hand, were due primarily to CSL not receiving the carrier drawings from the under-staffed New Delhi-based Warship Design Bureau – earlier the Directorate of Naval design – on time and complex and bureaucratic equipment import procedures. A paucity of specialist welders and marine technicians and a road accident in 2014, involving one of the trucks transporting the warship’s imported generators to CSL, only multiplied these hold-ups.

Also Read: ‘Ensign of Blue Water Navy Should Reflect Chola Maritime Heritage, New Design Is Uninspiring’

The indigenousness ends there

But the widely applauded indigenousness of Vikrant ends here, as nearly 70% of its ‘fight’ content and an almost equal proportion of its ‘move’ category is imported, adding substantially to its escalated building cost and taking the sheen off the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s and IN’s indigeous claims. The former grouping includes 30 fighters and assorted helicopters, which Vikrant will eventually embark after completing flight trials, ahead of becoming fully operational and deployable as a battleworthy platform some 15 months from now, by end-2023.

Vikrant’s fighter component will, for now, comprise Russian MiG-29K/KUB fighters and Kamov Ka-31 ‘Helix’ early warning and control (AEW&C) helicopters and Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky MH-60R multi-role rotary craft. The 26 multi-role carrier-borne fighters (MRCBF), including eight twin-seat trainers, that the IN plans on acquiring, to supplement and eventually replace the operationally deficient MiG-29K/KUBs, too will be imported. The navy is presently evaluating France’s Rafale (M) and Boeing’s F/A-18E/F ‘Super Hornet’ fighters for acquisition, in a long-delayed move that has triggered harsh criticism from senior service veterans.

Former IN Chief of Staff Admiral Arun Prakash, for instance, told Reuters on the eve of Vikrant’s September 2 commissioning that due to India’s ‘typically disjointed decision-making process’ the selection of carrier-based fighter got de-linked from the carrier project, and a decision on it was yet to be taken.

We knew the ship was likely to be commissioned this year, Admiral Prakash stated, and hence the selection process, as well as negotiations for the fighter, should have started well in time, perhaps three to four years earlier. He also said that while Vikrant had successfully undertaken sea trials, aircraft operations were yet to commence. “One hopes it will be a success story all the way,” the highly decorated aviator added.

Retired IN Captain Kamlesh Agnihotri from the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi echoed Admiral Prakash and told Reuters that since the air wing was the main weapon of any carrier to render it operational and not having one was a ‘critical shortfall. It also prevented the carrier from being ‘exploited optimally’, he added.

Furthermore, Vikrant’s Aviation Facility Complex that includes arrestor gears, short-take-off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) systems for launch and recovery of fighters, and related diverse flight handling equipment – yet to be fitted onto the carrier – was from Russia’s Nevskoe Design Bureau. The carrier’s two aircraft lifts, used to house fighters three decks below the flight deck for storage, servicing and to be armed and bring them back up again, were from the UK, while the ammunition lifts were of US origin, and the aircraft hangar doors were Swedish.

Vikrant was also armed with 32 Israeli-origin Barak-8 Medium Range Surface-to-Air missiles (MR-SAMs) that are manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited in collaboration with Israel Aerospace Industries(IAI)-Elta. These, in turn, were supported by the Israeli EL/M-2248 MF-STAR multi-function active electronically scanned array radar, which too is reportedly yet to be fitted onto Vikrant.

In this undated file photo, the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) Vikrant sails in the sea. Photo: PTI

Additionally, the carriers ‘move’ function was powered by four US General Electric LM-2500 gas turbines manufactured at the multinational’s Evendale plant in Ohio, but tested by the Industrial & Marine Gas Turbine Division of the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited under a previous agreement. Collectively, these turbines generate 88MW or 120,000 hp that provide a maximum speed of 28 knots or 52km/hour to the carrier that has an operational endurance of 7.550 nm or 13,900 km.

Moreover, Project 71 also featured essential input from several foreign shipbuilders like France’s DCNS – now Naval Group – in the 1990s to audit CSL and Italy’s Fincantieri, to oversee Vikrant’s design and propulsion system integration in a $30-40 million contract agreed in mid-2004. Although the technical segment of this arrangement has been completed, Fincantieri’s association with Vikrant was committed to continuing through the duration of its sea trials to its commissioning, but it’s not known whether this relationship has concluded or continued. Spain’s state-owned Navantia shipbuilders were also believed to have been marginally involved in providing design expertise related to the carrier’s air groups integration.

Also Read: Positive Indigenisation Lists and the Truth About India’s Self-Reliance in Defence Equipment

Future expansions needed

“While it’s admirable for CSL and Indian industry to have contributed notably and successfully to Vikrant’s float aspect, their success in the move and fight category that is vital to all carriers is greatly restricted,” said a retired two-star IN officer. This needed expanding for any such future platform to qualify as an inclusive indigenous platform, he added, declining to be identified for commenting on such a sensitive matter.

Despite the government’s continuing hype over the atmanirbharta initiative to indigenously source defence equipment, India’s defence industrial complex still remains one in the making. And, despite the involvement of private manufacturers over the past two decades, it is one with relatively competent engineering skills, but limited developmental expertise, and an inordinately high dependence on imported systems and components like engines, radar and electronic warfare units, amongst others.

The import content, for example, in India’s three showcase indigenous platforms – the Tejas light combat aircraft, Arjun main battle tank and Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter – all of which were developed after interminable delays and massive cost overruns, averages 50-60%.

Consequently, all three platforms, in accordance with the MoD’s frequently revised Defence Procurement/Acquisition Procedures, stand disqualified as ‘indigenous’ due to their high import content. And, even the IN, for its part, credited with doggedly localising its warship building, compared to the indigenisation affected by the two other services, had emerged largely as a systems integrator, as demonstrated to a large degree by Vikrant.

Perhaps, it’s time for the MoD and the armed forces to look at indigenisation with an element of practicality and realism.

At the Red Fort, Modi Unveils an Extraordinary Edition of His Personality Cult

The demagogue has convinced himself that the nation can be talked up and talked out of the ruler’s mistakes and mis-steps.

The prime minister who unfurled the National Flag at the historic Red Fort 75 years ago was a man whose political persona had been consecrated by nearly a decade-long incarceration in British jails, by an intimate discipleship of the greatest moral leader of the 20th century, by a joyful immersion in a soul-uplifting struggle and the comradeship of a nationalist movement.

The prime minister who presided over the 75th-year celebration is a man whose political personality has been shaped by the narrow theology minted in Nagpur, by the petty factionalism inherent in the Sangh Parivar and the Jan Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party – and by an extraordinary self-centredness.

If anybody was expecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give an honest account of our national journey these past 75 years, they would have been rudely jolted within a few minutes when Nehru was excluded and Savarkar was included from the catalogue of those whose vision steered India towards freedom. Personal pettiness and ideological partisanship continue to define the man. As a dedicated soldier of the Sangh Parivar, the prime minister naturally sought to rewrite the national narrative of last 75 years, a nuanced exercise in exclusion and inclusion.

That, of course, is a prime minister’s prerogative on August 15.

Apart from this, the overwhelming impression that Prime Minister Modi managed to convey this year from the Red Fort was that he remains the greatest demagogue this part of the world has seen in a long, long time.

His command over spoken Hindi, his practiced theatrics, and his delivery remain undiminished.

And, there was no mention, no audit, no assurance about all the problems confronting the nation: the staggering unemployment, crushing inflation, sore and sullen minorities, unbowed Kashmiris and unsettled Kashmir, Chinese ingress and breaches along the border, distrust and discord between the Union and the States; and, an overweening, ‘maximum’ government.

A demagogue does not allow his audience to connect with reality; the simple trick is to keep the citizens distracted from problems and inflictions. The phenomenon acquires a dangerous edge when the demagogue convinces himself that the nation can be talked up and talked out of the ruler’s mistakes and mis-steps.

Unsurprisingly, the country was treated to an elaborate dream-sequence. The leitmotif was ‘sankalp’ (resolve).

There is a nice ring to the word, foreign to the Khan Market Gang’s ears but equally incomprehensible to the masses. But the cant has its own seductive charm – as much for the canter as the canted.

The prime minister displayed remarkable physical stamina as he unflaggingly beat his own drum, alternating between the cacophony of megalomania and softer, more statesman-like notes. If the camera had not caught a senior cabinet minister nodding off, the television audience would have concluded that the prime minister had executed one more mesmerising performance with aplomb. The world is already in awe of ‘Naya Bharat.’ And, unprecedented national glory and civilisational pride, we were told, were just round the corner – all that is needed is for the people to fulfil their duties and responsibilities as citizens.

Also read: What Is This ‘New India’ That BJP Speaks of?

As a self-satisfied authoritarian, Prime Minister Modi smugly equated himself and his own government with the nation; the government’s initiatives and innovations were palmed off as instances of national resolve and commitment. There was no hint of the need to build a national consensus behind the strings of ‘sankalps.’ No one need be surprised at this quiet outbreak of political arrogance.

Notice was served that Modi’s India would not allow itself to be judged by outsiders or by non-indigenous values, ideas or yardsticks – that he and his parivar will define for the rest of us. We must henceforth revel in being inward-looking; our glorious civilisation will be our guide and inspiration. Of course, this invocation of national pride and atmanirbharta (self reliance) is nothing but his way of getting the country to come to terms with the mediocrity of the past eight years.

Towards the end of his speech, of course, the prime minister gave up the struggle to sound like a statesman; his visceral cockiness reasserted itself. From his not-so-soaring heights, he descended rapidly to the familiar themes of an election rally: ‘corruption’ and ‘family-based politics.’

Our ever-reliable television presenters instantly pointed out that the prime minister was targeting the Congress party’s first family. The hallowed pulpit of the Red Fort was used to score political points. An even subtler message was to the youth: if there is unemployment it is because ‘dynastic politics” has so deeply seeped into our institutions that its ill-effects have driven ‘merit’ out of society. People were exhorted by Modi to inflict the pain of ‘social boycott’ on the ‘corrupt’ in public life.

Also read: Modi’s Attempted Image Makeover After COVID Debacle Has Morphed into Worrying Sycophancy

The path of salvation, according to the prime minister, lies in the youth reposing their faith and support in him and his leadership.

As the nation crosses a major milestone, the prime minister probably deserves to be congratulated for a first-rate oratorical performance; his constituency – and his television anchors – have been given enough reasons to believe that their man has not lost his touch. For the next few weeks, social media circuits will be cranked up overtime to paint the prime minister as a saviour hard at work, putting to good use the energy of a new collective consciousness.

Seventy-five years ago, Nehru and his comrades began the work of creating, for the first time in a millennium, a pan-Indian political community, that too anchored in the magical power of an enfranchised citizenry in a nascent democracy bound by the rule of law and not the divine right of a monarch, foreign or native. Seventy-five years later, a self-obsessed prime minister has glibly sought a reaffirmation of his personality cult.

The next few years will decide if India still remains committed to Nehru’s democratic dreams or has allowed itself to be blindsided by Narendra Modi’s authoritarian solutions.

IAF’s Claim About Indigenisation Raises More Questions Than Give Answers

Experts said it was surprising that the IAF continued to import tyres and batteries for its fighters and helicopters for decades despite an advanced domestic vehicle manufacturing industry.

Chandigarh: The Indian Air Force (IAF)’s recent claim that it was in the process of ‘indigenising’ tyres and batteries for its Russian Su-30MKI fighter fleet and Mil Mi-17 ‘Hip’ helicopters is reminiscent of an earlier assertion by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of having locally developed an assortment of military-grade nuts, bolts, screws and washers.

Air Marshal Vibhas Pande, who heads the IAFs Maintenance Command in Nagpur, declared earlier this week, that the force planned to domestically manufacture tyres and batteries over the next three years for its ‘critical’ aircraft and to scrap all such imports.

The three-star officer told reporters at a seminar in Pune on July 20 that the IAF had also developed the technology to re-tread tyres for the IAF’s Soviet-era Ilyushin Il-76 ‘Gajraj’ strategic transport aircraft, which were inducted into service 1983 onwards, and that the expertise was being employed ‘effectively’. He added that the IAF’s maintenance command had achieved 95% self-reliance in sourcing spares locally for various platforms as part of the MoD’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, thereby effecting savings of Rs 600 crore, but declined to elaborate.

Air Marshal Pande’s hyperbolic claim rivalled that of the MoD’s December 2021 brag that it had indigenised some 2,500 assorted items under its atmanirbharta (self-reliance) policy of indigenising defence equipment requirements for the Indian military. Other than the aforementioned nuts and bolts that were part of this catalogue, the MoD list included gaskets, pins, hoses, sealing rings, rivets, clamps, plugs, elbows, valves, nozzles, pipes and jets for fitment onto miscellaneous defence kits.

In some instances, different sizes of the same item were listed separately to stretch this inventory. Amusingly, different types and sizes of sealing rings accounted for more than 200 items as part of the MoD’s much-touted indigenisation plans, in what was obviously an elaborate public relations endeavour to broadcast its avowed aims and ambitions to further its Atmanirbhar Bharat policy to secure self-sufficiency for the country’s defence equipment needs.

“Boasts by the IAF of having indigenised tyres and batteries for fighters and transport aircraft and helicopters were ironic and laughable, as the force had formed its dedicated Indigenisation Directorate around 2007 and followed it up with more grandiose announcements in early 2016 with a much-hyped Indigenisation Roadmap,” said a senior IAF officer. All these were relatively low-tech items which should have been indigenously developed and produced long ago to reduce import dependency but were not, he regretfully added, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Other veteran officers concurred.

Many said that for the IAF and the MoD to continue importing tyres and batteries for its fighters and helicopters for decades, despite an advanced domestic vehicle manufacturing industry was ‘surprising’, to say the least. But having remedied this belatedly, they stated that there was little need to stridently publicise such marginal developments, especially at a time when the IAFs dependence on importing spares and subsystems for its Russian-origin platforms endured, but was severely hobbled by embargoes following US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine in a brutal military campaign that continues.

These punitive sanctions had jeopardised the procurement of spares and sub-assemblies for the IAFs Su-30MKI’s and MiG-29 UPG fighters, IL-76 and Antonov An-32 ‘Cline’ transporters, Mil Mi-17 variants and Mil Mi-25/35 ‘Hind’ attack helicopters, alongside a host of other Russian equipment and ordnance. And though the IAF maintained that it had ‘adequate’ reserves of spares and line replaceable units for these platforms to last out the next 12-14 months, it would need to take drastic measures thereafter, to either source them domestically or, at a stretch, find alternate suppliers overseas. This remained critical for the IAF to maintain operational readiness at a juncture when India faced persistent Chinese military aggression along its disputed Himalayan border in eastern Ladakh.

Meanwhile, Air Marshal Pande’s announcement regarding the IAF finally managing to indigenously obtain tyres for Su-30MKIs and Il-76s and batteries for Mi-17s was somewhat curious and indicative of the glacial pace of the MoD’s atmanirbharta programme. These projects, alongside 18 other airborne systems and equipment were first announced by the IAF in its 10-year Indigenisation Roadmap in 2016. And, what is even more remarkable is that it took another six years to achieve this relatively basic goal with assistance from private manufacturers, despite the MoD’s loud proclamations of furthering atmanirbharta and losing no opportunity to flaunt it, however trifling.

According to this Roadmap released by then Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, the Su-30MKI tyres were outsourced to the Madras Rubber Factory or MRF, in Chennai, the aircraft batteries to HBL Power Systems in Hyderabad and the technology to re-tread Il-76 tyres to the Elgi Rubber Company in Coimbatore. All three programmes were under IAF supervision, collaboration and oversight.

The remaining 19 items catalogued in the ‘Roadmap’ comprised radar warning receivers, counter measuring dispensing systems, mission computers and multi-function displays for Su-30MKIs, aviation grade oil and lubricants for different aircraft, ejection seats, radio sets and identification friend or foe (IFF) systems, amongst others. However, according to Air Marshal Pande, it would take another three years for the tyres and batteries to become operational on essential IAF platforms.

Surprisingly, three of these items catalogued in the Roadmap were for MiG-27ML ‘Flogger’ ‘swing-wing’ ground attack fighters, all of which were due then for imminent retirement and were eventually ‘number plated’ or phased out soon after, in late 2019. Many of the other entities on this listing too were mid or low-level technologies that could easily have been produced domestically years earlier, considering India’s escalating industrial prowess and infusion of advanced machinery backed by skill and technical expertise.

“The mantra of the MoD and the armed forces seems to be to take credit for mundane achievements so long as they have a veneer of indigenousness,” said a retired three-star IAF fighter pilot. They all seem to be collectively getting carried away by a desire to please the government through feeble claims of atmanirbharta, he lamented, refusing to be identified.

One Year Later, Whither Atmanirbharta in Defence?

In hindsight, it appears that the proposal was not only untimely but one that smacked of false bravado.

Over 12 months after being announced by India’s federal government, the raft of defence industry reforms and policies lie in tatters. As do the aspirations of the vocal strategic community and domestic defence industry which, at the time, gratuitously and dutifully hailed what they termed as ‘path-breaking reforms’.

A reality audit is called for of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s grand plans, revealed at a press conference last May to corporatise all the 41 units of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), a phased ban on materiel imports and a separate capital budget for domestically sourcing military equipment for services’ modernisation. A hike in the cap on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the defence sector from 49% to 74%, via the ‘automatic route without prior governmental approval, completed the finance minister’s magical package.

Firstly, corporatising the OFB that produces an assortment of munitions, tanks, howitzers and rifles in addition to other varied armaments and military kit comprised the major plank of Sitharaman’s economic package aimed at achieving atmanirbharta or self-reliance in meeting the country’s defence requirements.

Forgotten

But it all seems forgotten today and, in hindsight, it appears that the proposal was not only untimely, but one that smacked of false bravado. It is now obvious that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) itself was not clear about how to corporatise the OFB’s vast network of 41 units spread across the country, many inherited from the British colonial government after independence. Besides, the MoD seems to have little or no stomach to deal with the inevitable hostile riposte from either OFB workers, or its management staff, headquartered in Kolkata, or both.

In fact, similar half-hearted moves in 2015 had been steadfastly opposed by the OFB’s 70,000 strong unionised workforce and were summarily abandoned. There appears to be little or no evidence that circumstances had altered in any way to meet Sitharaman’s aspirations.

The government was, no doubt, egged on to take the step of OFB’s corporatisation by the community of vocal strategic experts, comprising retired service officers, and the MoD’s know-all civil servants with their exaggerated notions of intellectual superiority and omnipotence. Ironically, both these groups who never tire of pillorying India’s nine defence public sector units, or DPSUs, for their inefficiency and technological overreach, sought the OFB’s corporatisation into a mirror image of the DPSUs, further perpetuating incompetence.

It’s a reality that corporatisation cannot transmogrify ordnance factories overnight into industrial giants producing state-of-the-art materiel. Besides, apart from a massive administrative reorganisation – not an easy undertaking for the MoD’s largely clueless bureaucracy – huge investment would be needed to upgrade the ordnance factories’ infrastructure and research and development capabilities, which the penurious MoD can ill afford.

Alongside, the order raising the FDI cap to 74% was issued in September 2020 with several riders that almost nullified the promise of automatic investment, at a time when monies received by India’s defence sector, after it was opened to overseas investment in 2001, stood at a paltry $10.05 million. Over the next three months, till December 2020, this amount increased to $10.15 million, less than even what a small nation like Uganda has cumulatively invested in India.

BrahMos Aerospace at the Defexpo India in 2020. Photo: brahmos.com

Data for subsequent quarters is not available on the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) website, making it difficult to assess the impact of the government’s decision on India’s atmanirbharta mission in defence. Empirical evidence, sketchy industrial data, and equally imprecise published accounts, however, suggest that major foreign investment into India’s military sector is highly unlikely, due not only to the MoD’s complex Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020, but also to the continually changing policy framework and arbitrary decisions to suit domestic interests.

Earlier in August 2020, the newly formed Department of Military Affairs (DMA), tasked more with managing service matters than industrial promotion, notified a ‘negative list’ of 101 military platforms and equipment whose import would be banned in a phased manner, the last ban coming into effect in December 2025.

The DMA declared that in keeping with MoD policy, these proscribed items would hence be sourced locally to further the government’s atmanirbharta initiative. The embargo on 69 of these 101 items was to have been activated by end-2020, and for another 11 by December 2021; but information on the entire exercise remains opaque, rendering it difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at definitive conclusions on the anticipated outcome.

But the critical aspect of this entire policy is whether domestic industry can supply the ‘banned’ items by conforming to continually changing specifications, which the military is notorious for, with regard to the equipment it buys. More importantly, however, is the issue of when the cash-strapped MoD will eventually opt to buy this equipment to make it financially viable for local industry to series build it.

Ostrich like

Paradoxically, indigenous defence vendors, desperate for MoD orders to sustain themselves, had also welcomed Sitharaman’s decision to allocate a separate provision in the capital budget for local procurement. But ostrich-like, they chose to gloss over the reality that this outlay would be part of an already stressed capital budget which is Rs 77,182 crore less than what the services had demanded in fiscal year 2021-22, and barely enough to pay for the committed contractual liabilities. In keeping with Samuel Beckett’s eponymous play, India’s defence industry seems perpetually to be waiting for Godot.

For now, the deadly second wave of COVID-19 that has ravaged India has handed the government an alibi for delaying Sitharaman’s ambitious proposals. But these circumstances are not perennial, and sooner than later all these ill-conceived policies, announced without adequate thought given to either their efficacy, feasibility, or advantage, will come to haunt the MoD that seems to have lost touch with reality and workability of its ideas.

Imprecise ideas, announced sporadically, with no strategy to execute them, can lend momentary plausibility to their declared objectives, but tend to run out of steam thereafter. According to Bobby Unser, the American race car champion who died earlier this month in Albuquerque, New Mexico ‘success is where preparation and opportunity meet’.

Sadly, both are missing in the MoD’s policy reforms announced last year, as appears their eventual implementation.

India’s Russian Deals To Build Assault Rifles and Light Utility Helicopters in Jeopardy

India’s two much-hyped joint ventures (JVs) with Russia are floundering over costs, flawed planning and overreach on achieving ‘atmanirbharta’ in the military sector.

Chandigarh: India’s two much-hyped joint ventures (JVs) with Russia to licence-build assault rifles and light utility helicopters (LUH) are floundering over costs, flawed planning and overreach on achieving atmanirbharta or domestic self-sufficiency in the military sector.

Industry officials said the collaborative Indo-Russian Private Limited (IRPL) to supply India’s military 750,000 Kalashnikov Ak-203 rifles and India-Russia Helicopters (IRHL) established to deliver 200 Kamov Ka-226T ‘Hoodlum’ LUHs to the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) stand jeopardised for broadly analogous reasons.

Both the rifles and the LUHs are badly-needed to fill operational voids, presently being managed either through emergency imports, or via creative jugaad or innovation, at a time when all three services, especially the Indian Army, faces enduring challenges in a volatile neighbourhood. The requirement for LUHs is even more dire, as they are badly-needed to replace the IAF’s and the AACs obsolete and accident-prone licence-built Chetak (Aerospatiale Alouette III) and Cheetah (Aerospatiale SA-315B) helicopters dating back to the mid-1960s.

Also Read: India Is Still Throwing Good Money at Hopeless Military Programmes

“The responsibility for these continuing setbacks lies equally with the services for their flawed planning and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for its rigid and byzantine procedures that few can comprehend and even fewer implement” admitted a former defence ministry official. Instead of following a practical and realistic approach to military capability development, the services and the MoD are forever engaged in a tussle that obviates its attainment he added, declining to be identified as he was fearful of repercussions, despite having retired.

The Ak-203 saga began after the Army’s wholly impractical multi-calibre assault rifle tender was eventually terminated in 2015 after five fruitless years of trials and evaluations following a flawed qualitative requirement (QR) formulated by the Infantry Directorate for the weapon system. The proposed rifles were intended to replace the indigenously developed Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) 5.56x45mm assault rifles that entered IA service in the mid-1990s, but were seriously flawed and ultimately declared ‘operationally’ inadequate by the force in 2010.

After the disastrous multi-calibre procurement was rescinded the Army, yet again amazingly re-ignited deliberations over which calibre rifle – 5.56mm or 7.62mm – it operationally required. Its ponderings that were interspersed with attempts to source an assault rifle from the state-run Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), however, failed. But four years later, in March 2019, just ahead of the general elections a few weeks later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated an OFB facility at Korwa near Amethi to licence build 750,000 Russian Kalashnikov Ak-203 7.62x39mm assault rifles with collapsible stocks.

A Russian AK-103 Assault Rifle, from which the AK-203 rifles are derived. Photo: Burnyburnout/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

The JV to implement the project followed an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) that was signed soon after in which the OFB had a 50.5% stake in IRPL, the Kalashnikov Group 42% and Russia’s state-owned arms export agency Rosonboronexport, the remaining 7.5%.

The intent was for IRPL to import some 100,000 AK-203’s for around $ 1,100 (Rs 81,000) apiece to meet the army’s urgent operational needs, followed by the licensed production of the remaining 650,000-odd units. Almost immediately, un-reconcilable price differences and technology transfer issues emerged, which industry sources said could not be resolved even during defence minister Rajnath Singh’s recent Moscow visit in September. This, in turn, led to the MoD instituting a ‘Costing Committee’ in September to try and resolve the ‘unreasonable and unacceptable’ rifle contract price reportedly being demanded by Russia. For now, it’s not clear whether this committee’s report has been submitted to the MoD, and if so, what has been the outcome. But the reality is that the Ak-203 deal remains unsigned and the bulk of the IA continues to operate the inefficient INSAS rifles while frontline units employed on counter-insurgency operations (COIN) are dependent on imported weapons.

The Russians were also reportedly demanding a royalty of $200 per Ak-203 rifle produced by the JV, making it an astronomical licence fee of $130 million for 650,000 units, in addition to the cost of erecting the plant, the bulk of which would be borne by OFB. The JV is expected to annually produce 70,000 Ak-203’s, initially from knocked-down kits and later by localising components and sub-assemblies to indigenise production to further the governments Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

But contractual problems did not end here.

The OFB is believed to have costed each licence-built Ak-203 rifle initially at around Rs 86,000, amortised over time to average around Rs 80,000 per unit. Embarrassingly, in comparison the import of a repeat import order for 72,400 assault rifles from the US-based Sig Sauer in early 2019 and late 2020, to meet the IA’s urgent operational needs, was considerably cheaper.

Official sources revealed that Sig Sauer’s SIG716 rifle priced at $990 (Rs 72,782) each in 2018 had emerged as L1 or lowest bidder in response to the IA’s tender, besting rivals Israel Weapon Industries and Abu Dhabi’s Caracal International that quoted $1600 and $2000 for their ACE-1 and CAR 817 assault rifles respectively. This was between Rs 13,218 and Rs 7,218 cheaper than that projected by the OFB for each Ak-203 that was really a derivative of the original Ak-47 dating back to 1947.

The obvious price differential which, when extrapolated over 650,000 rifles led to concern and raised eyebrows amongst cautious MoD officials, fearful of adverse publicity if they signed off on the inequitable rifle deal, despite government eagerness to do so to further atmanirbharta.

Cost disparity in LUH JV also

Meanwhile, the Ka-226T LUH deal that was initially announced during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India in December 2014, following which the IRHL JV was later formed, too awaits closure. This included the direct import of 60 LUHs, assembling 40 and building an additional 100 platforms, in which the indigenous content was to have gradually increased. Of these, 135 Ka-226Ts were intended for the AAC and 65 for the IAF.

Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi. Photo: Reuters

But over the past six years, seemingly unbridgeable differences had emerged even in this contract, as a consequence of which the deal is precariously perched, poised for possible termination. These disparities concerned not only the overall project cost, but also the quantum of technology Russia was willing to transfer to IRHL in which Russia’s Rostec Corporation has a 49.5% stake and India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) the remaining 51.5%.

One of the prime issues, however, is that the per unit cost of 140 indigenously produced rotorcraft would be nearly double that of 60 similar platforms which are to be procured in flyaway condition. Industry officials estimate the price of each indigenously produced twin-engine Ka-226T helicopter, under a technology transfer to be around $11 million apiece, compared to around $6 million for one manufactured in Russia. Differences over this cost disparity had endured, even as Russia is looking to provide 140 helicopters in kit form to the JV for local assembly at the special IRHL facility that is under construction at Tumkuru, 74 km north of Bangalore for around Rs 50 billion.

India’s MoD, for its part, is insisting on significant technology transfer to IRHL make the Ka-226T’s under its Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative to develop indigenous helicopter building capability and to reduce import dependence. According to the HAL-led IRHL the JV would ‘localise’ the 140 platforms in four phases. The first would involve 35 helicopters with 3.3% indigenisation, going up to 15% for the next 25 Ka-226T’s. Indigenisation for the subsequent 30 helicopters in the third phase would increase to 30%, rising eventually to 62.4% for the last 40 platforms, a proposal that is believed not have found favour with Moscow.

Despite India’s six-decade-long relationship with Moscow to meet its materiel requirements, immense price differences over directly imported and licence-built equipment, have persevered.

Also Read: Defence 101: Atmanirbhar Bharat Will Need More Than Another Official Declaration

In July 2006, for instance, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) castigated HAL for licence building Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKI multi-role fighters for almost twice the amount it would have cost to import them directly. The CAG revealed that the total cost of locally building 140 Su-30 MKI’s projected by the MoD in 2002 was $4.91 billion but it nearly doubled to $8.71 billion soon thereafter.

“Indigenisation comes at a high price that includes heavy investments in acquiring land to erect manufacturing facilities, building plants and training manpower to operate them,” said former MoD acquisitions advisor Amit Cowshish. It may be cheaper to import the platforms, but then dependency on the original equipment manufacturer persists, he added.

In yet another related development, the MoD has once again approached Caracal International of the UAE for a lesser number of close quarter battle (CQB) carbines after calling off the earlier tender in September for 93,895 of its CAR 816 5.56x45mm carbines for an estimated $110 million.

The CAR 816 CQB carbines, which were shortlisted in October 2018 over the rival F90 model fielded by Thales of Australia, were intended to replace the army’s OFB-built 9mm Sterling 1A1 sub-machine guns, dating back to the 1940s whose production had been discontinued nearly two decades ago.

These carbines, a vital requirement for IA units on COIN deployment, were being acquired under the Fast Track Procedure (FTP) that was mandated to have been concluded within 17-18 months of the tender for them being issued in March 2018. CAR816 deliveries were scheduled to have been completed by August 2019, but instead, the MoD opted to call off the deal for unknown reasons, some 13 months after that delivery deadline expired.

Industry officials told The Wire that inexplicably, in early December the MoD had once again invited Caracal to bid for the reduced number of CQB carbines, but the outcome of the proposal is under consideration.

In conclusion, atmanirbharta to meet India’s materiel requirements, it seems is an expensive and arduous matter and certainly not a quick fix or a magical silver bullet as many in government seem to believe.