AK Antony became the country's Defence Minister more than seven years ago. During this long stretch, he has done little that we can be happy about. He will leave behind a weak India, with the task of his successor clearly cut out.
What can one say about a man who believes he did a splendid job when actually he never took ownership for his work? He is AK Antony, India’s longest serving Union Minister for Defence who assumed office on October 26, 2006. His years in office were unusual times when on the one hand, India faced the dilemma of a two-front war.
On the other hand, India’s upbeat economy provided the opportunity for building indigenous defence industry by not segregating public and private sector companies, but by viewing them as a whole: National defence industry. Mr Antony failed India’s defence at this crucial juncture.
On external threats, his singularly important work was to ensure that within available annual resources ($49 billion in 2013-2014) the Armed Forces were best prepared to deter Pakistan and China, two adversaries with disputed borders. This required his regular interaction with the three service chiefs (Chiefs of Staff Committee), the Director General Coast Guard, and the Prime Minister Office for synergy to provide maximum bang for the buck. His success would have discouraged Pakistan from unabashed infiltration across the Line of Control and China from its successful military coercion in north Ladakh. And the moribund COSC, in the absence of a better higher defence organisation would have got a fresh lease of life.
On indigenous industry, he let the bureaucrats rule the roost rather than take the bull by the horns himself and push the excruciatingly slow defence procurement procedure which neither spurred the foreign companies to bring genuine technology into the country nor the indigenous private sector to participate whole-heartedly.
Defence exports which are the litmus test of industrial progress remain as abysmal as they were when he took office and charmed the world with his indigenisation mantra. Unfortunately, while India lost, Mr Antony personally won; he did not hesitate to blacklist foreign companies on the slightest of complaint even when it slowed, stymied or froze defence modernisation.
Yet, on the opening day of DefExpo 2014 (February 6) in Delhi, a few months before he demits office, Mr Antony, declared that “the Armed Forces were ready to face any situation 24x7”. According to him, “Every country realises that India is strong militarily so they want to exercise with us. Moreover, all foreign defence companies have opened offices in India”. This is a self-defeating logic.
Friendly foreign countries want to do military exercises with India because with the risen China, the ‘power pivot’ which has shifted to Asia needs to be balanced through collective security. And, given the shrunken global defence market, foreign defence companies recognise India as a lucrative business hub; it does little indigenisation and its defence capability building needs have grown.
Mr Antony also highlighted full utilisation of annual defence budgets as his achievement. “We have no unutilised defence allocations in last four years. This year we have already spent 92 per cent of capital budget and the remaining will be spent before the end of financial year”, Mr Antony boasted. When asked, he admitted that a large chunk of 2013-2014 capital budget (Rs 7,900 crore) had been diverted to revenue head to pay salaries to personnel.
This is unprecedented and alarming to say the least. Take the Army (with maximum capital budget amongst the three services) which has Rs 85,000 crore of critical equipment deficiencies which are yet to be made up. (Remember the letter by former Army Chief, General VK Singh, to the Prime Minister in April 2011, which got leaked to the media that the Army was unfit for war.) With the new raising of the mountain corps underway (80,000 troops), the Army’s revenue or salaries budget will increase further at the cost of its capital or acquisitions budget. So, while the Army’s numbers will increase, its ‘hot war’ fighting edge will erode further.
Mr Antony could have avoided this had he interacted with the COSC when General Deepak Kapoor first spoke about a two-front war in January 2009 and had presented the two-phase accretion plan (two mountain divisions followed by a mountain corps) to the Defence Ministry. Because Mr Antony did not do so and the COSC never prepared a combined services paper on threats from China and Pakistan, it has been free for all.
Each service has done what it perceived best, not necessarily to counter external threats but to enhance its own parochial interest. For example, instead of rationalisation and consolidation, the Army’s focus has been on accretion of forces (empire building), which is counter-productive.
Moreover, the Army’s gaze has unfortunately turned inwards rather than outwards at a time when external threats have multiplied. It has fenced the LoC and has adopted an anti-filtration instead of an offensive posture giving succour to the Pakistan Army at a time when its western border is in turmoil. This is not all. The Army Chief, General Bikram Singh has recently called for the paramilitary manning active (Bangladesh) border to come under Army’s operational control. Now if the Army continues doing paramilitary and policing tasks, who will do its job and why is the country spending huge finances to maintain the 14 lakh force?
The Indian Navy’s story is similar. Since the 26/11 terrorists attack in Mumbai, it has taken on the overall responsibility of coastal defence. Its expensive frontline warships have been pressed on coastal defence roles causing enormous wear and tear to them. If this was not enough, the Navy is involved in anti-piracy constabulary missions in a big way.
As an Admiral told me, “During these missions, the warship radars are switched off, there is no training, and for months the forces are on a wild goose chase in circles”. It is because of these secondary roles causing flogging of warships and little maintenance that as many as 10 warships have met with accidents in recent weeks. It is anyone’s guess how much operational training the Navy would be doing under these circumstances. This is what Mr Antony has not asked the Navy Chief, Admiral DK Joshi.
The Indian Air Force, which has the advantage of enormous flexibility with no footprints on the ground, is also in dire trouble. While its lift capabilities have increased, its combat edge especially when it alone can provide dissuasive deterrence against China has eroded precariously.
It claims to have 34 combat squadrons, when actually it has no more than 29 squadrons (which include old MiG-21 and MiG-27 aircraft) for two fronts. More than the resource crunch which all could foresee coming, it is Mr Antony’s hands-off approach that has resulted in a question mark over the acquisition of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. The French Rafale aircraft was declared lowest bidder (L-1) in the MMRCA contest in January 2012, yet negotiations are nowhere near fruition.
Had Mr Antony taken interest, rather than allowed the bureaucrats to meander, it would have occurred to him that the definition of L-1 itself had expanded to include life-cycle-costs, and hence the defence procurement procedure needed amendment. This would have resulted in parallel talks with the other technically compliant contestant, Eurofighter, and the IAF would have been saved the operational anxiety.
In simple terms, Mr Antony leaves behind a weak India with the job of his successor clearly cut out.
(About the Writer: Pravin Sawhney is a former Indian Army officer and now Editor, FORCE, a newsmagazine on national security)
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