The cat must catch mice

The shutting down of India's missile development programme, 25 years after it was begun but with some of its projects yet to deliver satisfactory results despite a huge escalation in budgets and a 15-year time extension, will be a severe embarrassment for the government and probably a matter of some relief to the defence services. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), for which this has been a flagship programme, like the equally troubled Arjun battle tank, will now face a fresh barrage of questions about the quality of its work, its inability to achieve customer (the defence forces) satisfaction, and about its repeated failure to work within budget and agreed time limits. However, there is no sign as yet that the premises on the basis of which the DRDO embarks on its grandiose projects will be subjected to fresh scrutiny.

Quite apart from the delays and the cost over-runs, which can be forgiven to some degree because of the learning process involved in complex and difficult projects, the missile project "" started by the redoubtable APJ Abdul Kalam, who went on to become the President "" failed to deliver the promised missiles in some cases, and had accuracy problems in others. The army, air force and navy reluctantly accepted a token number of missiles, just as the army had done in the case of the Arjun tank, but were keen on alternatives. That is because it is generally acknowledged that Pakistan, which has depended for its missiles on China and North Korea, has the drop on India in this area. Indigenisation does of course offer many advantages in theory, but when the defence forces have been obliged to buy Israeli missiles because they couldn't get the promised domestic options in time or were not happy with what they got, the theory is of no use. Similarly, despite the Arjun, the mainstay of the armoured corps continues to be Russian tanks.

The problem with ambitious projects like missiles, tanks and aircraft is that their successful development and manufacture depend crucially on the support base provided by a sophisticated engineering industry and an equally if not more sophisticated design and development capability. For most of the past three decades, this has simply not existed in the private sector, with some honourable exceptions like Larsen & Toubro and Godrej. The effort to get around this limitation by creating dedicated, government-owned facilities has not worked because of the predictable problems of government-run industrial and technological establishments. It is ambitious in the extreme to try and build an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, as has been going on for a decade and more, especially when one considers the effort put in by Tata Motors in designing and building a contemporary car from scratch a decade back. In other words, the difficulties in the way of such complex projects are what should have been expected.

None of this should mean that India must give up trying to develop an indigenous defence manufacturing capability. The country's industrial and technological establishment is growing in size and sophistication, and its arms needs are large enough to justify domestic manufacture. However, there has to be proper and judicious use of private sector (including foreign) capabilities through proper sourcing and through joint ventures. Unfortunately, the formally adopted policy of turning more to private enterprise is still being resisted in practice by the people in charge of executive decisions. Old habits die hard.