India’s policy makers have never been short of ambition, especially in defining India’s technology vision. The blueprint for post-Independence India’s development, formulated as early as the 1930s by the Congress party, essentially sought to leapfrog the conventional development process on the back of rapid advances in science and technology. The establishment of the Atomic Energy Agency in 1948 to harness nuclear power for development was just one example of this vaulting ambition that led to the setting up of four research reactors within a decade. A modern domestic aircraft industry that would design and build both commercial and military aircraft was another.
Six decades later, it is clear that India has come nowhere close to realising these grand ambitions. Nuclear power that was expected to supply 20 per cent of India’s electric power needs contributes a measly 4 per cent. The aircraft industry’s disappointing performance with regard to indigenisation has resulted in India still relying on imports for virtually all its needs in both commercial and military aircraft. The Light Combat Aircraft is still some distance away from being inducted into the air force.
Air Commodore Jasjit Singh’s Indian Aircraft Industry is a comprehensive review of six decades of the Indian aircraft industry. The book’s richness derives not merely from the author’s distinguished service spanning three decades in the air force and 14 years as Director of the Institute of Defence Studies, but also from his intimate involvement with some of the most vital decisions that have shaped the air force as it currently stands. The author’s encyclopedic knowledge is reflected most vividly in the chapters on the development of the aircraft industry during the Nehru era and the fracture of self-reliance in the years that followed.
The 1950s were heady days, when flush in the glow of freedom, India set out to take what it considered its rightful place in the world. The aircraft industry was no exception. Self-reliance was the watchword as the government set about trying to transform the erstwhile Hindustan Aircraft Ltd from a glorified repair and maintenance shop to an institution, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, capable of designing and constructing world-class aircraft and the avionics that would equip it. Rapid industrial development, in particular the development of a robust machine tool industry, would neatly support this ambition.
The development of the HF-24 Marut by a team of designers led by the redoubtable Dr Kurt Tank of Messerschmidt fame epitomised this grand ambition. If successful, it would have been the first modern combat aircraft to be built anywhere in the developing world. Above all, it was a project with a vision for the future to create a cadre of experienced designers, develop wide-ranging manufacturing capabilities and mutually reinforcing institutional networks. It was to be the game changer in indigenous aircraft development and production.
Somewhere in the early 1960s the wheels came off. The HF-24 project was abruptly abandoned. The inability to develop an engine was probably the dominant reason. It is remarkable that nothing even close in ambition was attempted for the next two decades when the first steps to develop an indigenous multi-role plane was taken up. The struggle to produce a viable engine continues to this day, with the first generation of Light Combat Aircraft slated to use GE-404 and 414 series engines. Some things, it would seem, never change.
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What explains the two lost decades for aircraft design and manufacture in the country? It would have to be more than the inability to design an engine, which in any case only a few countries have successfully managed. An obvious explanation is the troubled strategic environment in the neighbourhood, following the war with China in 1962 and that with Pakistan three years later. Given its precarious economic situation in the 1960s, India could ill-afford the luxury of simultaneously developing its own aircraft and importing planes to maintain combat readiness. However, while indigenous development of a Main Battle Tank and a nuclear submarine was initiated in the 1970s, corresponding plans for a combat plane had to wait for a decade more.
While rich in information, the book is parsimonious on many conceptual issues that could provide a clearer perspective on the problems that impede the growth of a vibrant aircraft industry in India. For example, why have institutions that provide continuity and focus in times of rapid change not evolved in India? What prevents the air force (and the army) getting involved with the DRDO and similar institutions at the design stage itself so that little time is wasted because the stakeholders are not on the same page? Is the manufacturing sector in India fundamentally limited in capability to make the vision of a domestic aircraft industry untenable in the foreseeable future? In fairness to the author, the book does fleetingly allude to these issues, but a deeper explanation is what one would expect from somebody of the author’s eminence. The author’s insights on these fundamental questions would be invaluable, especially to the serious student of India’s defence industry.
Some brevity in the earlier chapters would enable the book to quickly get to the point, enhancing its readability. For example, the discourse on India’s economic history prior to the British is heart-warming, but also very well-documented. All else aside, the book makes an important contribution to the historical study of an industry that raised visions of glory only to atrophy with the years. As with so much else in India!
INDIAN AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY
Air Commodore Jasjit Singh
Knowledge World Publishers Private Limited, New Delhi
293 pages; Rs 880