India has no shortage of reporters covering politics, business, sport and city administration. It has only a few reporters who look at defence; and the innate secrecy attached to the business doesn’t help unearth information. There are questions like: Are you helping the enemy by talking about some piece of equipment not functioning, or being in short supply? And are you affecting the morale of the troops by reporting skullduggery in sub-standard defence purchases? The result of a combination of these and other factors is that the country is told precious little with regard to the state of its defence preparedness.
The annual spit-and-polish parades down Rajpath give the impression of a disciplined force; but is that the reality? The navy does itself proud when its warships protect Indian shipping in the world’s sea lanes and blow up pirate craft. But an Arjun tank was put on display on Republic Day many years before the first such tank was handed over to the army. The air force routinely loses aircraft and pilots while undertaking training sorties. And it takes a Pay Commission fracas for people to realise how officers in uniform get a raw deal when compared to civilian counterparts. That all is not well with the forces is also evident to anyone who casts even a cursory glance over the government’s annual financial statements. The share of defence expenditure in GDP has been very low (given the threats the country faces) for many years; even worse, large sums allocated as capital expenditure (for procuring defence hardware) go unspent year after year. It is obvious from this that the forces are not getting what they need, but that is at best a dim awareness for even the better-informed.
So it is just as well that recent newspaper reports have laid bare the pathetic state of hardware acquisition, the shortage of spares, the cannibalisation of equipment to make up for this, the resulting impairment of fighting capability, and much else. The problem is not confined to one force, but affects all three services: India has not ordered fighter planes, or submarines, or howitzers, for many years on end. The country should not have to wait for a defence equivalent of the Mumbai terrorist attacks before this situation stands exposed before the public and pressure is put on the government to take corrective action. In fact, even Kargil demonstrated the shortage of key equipment, and desperate purchases being made when the battle was already on.
It is often said that, ever since the Bofors scandal two decades ago, defence officers are reluctant to take decisions on purchase orders for fear of a subsequent witch-hunt. This is as lame an excuse as you can get after 20 years have passed. More than one defence minister in this period has talked of setting the system right, but the story has not changed, of budget provisions lapsing because money is not spent. There is more to the problem—changing specifications midway through a procurement process (often enough, designed to suit one supplier or other); lengthy testing procedures; lack of financial clearance; supplier misconduct, as seems to be the case with the Gorshkov re-fit; and so on. Whatever the reasons, it should not be beyond the capacity of the government system to address the issues and set procurement right, so that the country does not have an under-equipped defence force that cannot do its job if and when the time comes.