A Sinking Feeling: Navy’s Modernisation Stuck in MoD’s Backwaters

Over-reliance on foreign suppliers is a stumbling block in India’s shipbuilding capability, writes a former C-in-C.

In any country with a maritime history and tradition, building the first indigenous aircraft carrier would be an event of great significance. More so if the new ship reincarnates the most popular carrier that served the country for nearly four decades. Yet, when the new INS Vikrant was launched in 2013 and undocked after superstructure work today at the yard in Kochi, the event went virtually unnoticed. What does it say to those who dwell on esoteric subjects related to maritime strategy and the increasing potency of Chinese maritime forces?

In the context of China’s latest White Paper on its intentions, inter alia, to commence aggressive deployment in distant waters, the emerging challenges of Look East policy and the realignment of US maritime assets to the Asia-Pacific region, we may like to reassess our priorities.

The Good News

First, the good news. Despite the lack of incentives for shipbuilding in India, defence yards at Mazgaon in Mumbai, Goa and Kolkata have made significant contributions to our navy. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, corvettes, missile vessels, landing craft, off-shore patrol vessels, survey vessels and tankers have all been built in India.

This is worthy of appreciation given that all the necessary ingredients for warship building were absent when the decision to build in India was vigorously pursued by the naval leadership. Consequently, we now have a reserve of skilled manpower, improved infrastructure, a sound design capability and numerous ancillary/medium and small industries to support logistics for building. Our modernisation programmes have progressed, albeit at snail’s pace.

The Chinese Leapfrog

The Chinese, in the same period leap-frogged by placing emphasis on manufacturing, modernisation of infrastructure and indigenising weapon-sensor technologies. A liberalised economy, which commenced the process at least a decade before our attempts, implemented rapid decision-making structures and requisite infrastructure to achieve desired results.

Creation of skilled labour was carefully inter-woven with expertise borrowed from the ruins of the erstwhile Soviet Union. High-grade Soviet scientists and researchers who were on sale on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad after the breakup of USSR along with extremely skilled labour and industrial managers were transported to China to oversee critical manufacturing processes. The consistent economic high growth empowered the planners and leaders to deliver platforms in quick time. Financial resources were the least of the impediments with an envious reserve of dollars.

The ‘Yawning Gaps’

India’s tatterdemalion outlook was caused by her inability to rapidly reform and implement policies, critically, in the infrastructure space. Equally, it is not the lack of legerity of the naval staff that is in question but the sheer decision-making structure of the Ministry of Defence which could not and cannot deliver without professionalising the components of the ministry and, more importantly, in the absence of an informed political leadership at the helm.

How often do we see a defence minister able to hold his own in high-level discussions on matters of national security. If neither the bureaucracy nor the minister is able to comprehend administrative, technical and logistic conundrums, how will decisions be made on time?

It is in this context that reading and understanding the yawning gaps in the allocation of business rules and transaction of business rules of the MoD becomes a mandatory function of the political head of the ministry. If according to these rules, the defence secretary is solely responsible for the defence of India and the service chiefs are not even mentioned in passing, how will the system function without accountability. Let us, therefore, correct the basic rules of authority-responsibility-accountability chain. Reportedly, a serving naval chief recently resigned in disgust for this very reason.

Now, the bad News

The bad news on indigenous shipbuilding programmes is that propulsion, weapons and sensors of these potent platforms continue to depend on foreign suppliers. In short, the platform’s ability to move and to fight can be throttled by suppliers who change colours. How can this be corrected? Making DRDO accountable and providing financial resources to competent industries in India along with level playing fields to experiment with future technologies is a medium term solution.

Aircraft and marine propulsion systems are complex and demanding on performance. Like the Chinese did, if skilled and reasonably priced labour along with high quality infrastructure are made available to known giants in the field, demographic realities of Europe and Japan may tempt them to commence manufacturing in India. This aspect has been ably tackled by our prime minister during his carefully chosen visits abroad. This is the bottom line of ‘Make in India.’

(The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief, Souther Naval Command)