India has made it to Mars; the only others to have done the same are the Americans. Not only France, but the whole of Europe is nowhere close to that. Not even the Russians or the Chinese. Now, if one can make it to the Mars, one can also build fighter planes! Why would you pay Rs 1600 crore per piece for such a toy when you’ve made it to the Mars in less than Rs 7 per kilometre?
Apart from that, there are some pertinent questions: Have the French been our allies? When you have neighbours like China and Pakistan, you’ve to keep in mind your war or peacetime alliances. In this case, when was the last time the French supported an Indian war? Was it the 1962 war against the Chinese or the 1965, 1971, 1999 wars against Pakistan? Does France support India’s claim on Aksai Chin or the PoK or any other contentious issue with global ramifications?
France and its Tryst with Wars
The most brutal wars the world has seen are the first and the second world wars. France has been among the countries that faced the worst brutalities, defeats and occupations during the First World War. The entire world, from Britain, US, Canada, to New Zealand had to come to its rescue.
They were defeated at the earliest by the Germans during the Second World War. They have never won any modern-day war. Throughout their history, the French have tried to best the British and at times they have even succeeded in the fields of arts and literature... but not at wars.
Now that Britain is an ever-shrinking geography and a shrinking international power, what’s the logic behind falling for those who have been second to the Britishers in everything?
Has India Lost Russia as an Ally?
India is building fifth-generation fighter planes with Russia. Before the 1999 Kargil war, when the country got the arms and artillery support from Israel for the first time, the only major country supporting it in the time of war was Russia.
Be it militarily or diplomatically, the country has been on India’s side. No doubt, it had its own interest (but then everyone has). Now, when the US and the West (including France) has imposed sanctions against Russia for annexing Crimea from Ukraine and when its economy has dipped by a 0.3 percentage point, did India ever think that the most trusted ally will back Pakistan?
Russia for the first time has had a joint military drill with Pakistan. For the sake of respecting India and its concerns, it changed the venue of the drill which earlier was Gilgit Baltistan, which is an area of dispute between India, China and Pakistan. Now that Russia is probably turning away from India, who are the allies that India gained after buying the Rafale?
Will Rafale Turn out to be BJP’s Achilles Heel?
dPM Modi is quite ambitious about his Make In India campaign. Imagine what would have been the outcome if the $8.9 bn spent for buying 36 Rafales had been invested in boosting the R&D and manufacturing of the indigenous Tejas!
One can argue that we need fighter planes as the Indian Air Force is fraught with shortage, but then again, we’re not caught in a war.
On 13 April 2015, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that India would buy 126 planes for Rs 90,000 crore, which meant that the cost of a single Rafale would come to about Rs 715 crore, which after the finalisation of the deal reached Rs 1,600 crore.
Anil Ambani is a business partner to the company. When he became the partner, the attitude of the Indian politicians and the Indian media changed towards Rafale. Many media and social media analysts suggest that Rafale could be the Bofors for the BJP. It is an apt time that despite taking credit for it, the BJP should initiate the campaign that the deal was the brainchild of the previous government and due to the requirements of India Air force, it couldn’t cancel the deal. It could benefit the party in the future - but not the country.
(The writer is a journalist at a leading news channel and can be reached at @krishnatarun03. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)