THE ROAD TO INDIGENISATION

As the world’s second-largest importer of defence hardware, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent of all global annual defence sales.

- Sandeep Unnithan

It pours tens of billions of dollars in enriching the defence industries of its major arms suppliers—Russia, the US and Israel. Imported hardware does improve India’s combat potential—like when the Indian Air Force’s fleet of giant US-built C-17s rapidly airlifted its Russian-built T-72 battle tanks to Ladakh during the ongoing face-off with the Chinese—but it comes at a cost.

A country which cannot make its own defence hardware becomes, in effect, a net importer of military power at the mercy of its importers for spares and after-sales support, and is often unable to convert its national security strategy into combat power. Two contested borders with hostile nuclear powers China and Pakistan mean the threat is unlikely to subside in the near term.

A swadeshi military-industrial complex has been a decades-old quest for India. Yet the road paved with good intentions is littered with the carcasses of promising projects to build conventional submarines and fighter jets. There are, however, islands of excellence like radars, sonars and missiles where the country has become entirely self-sufficient. “We don’t need to ever import a missile again,” says Dr G. Satheesh Reddy, chairman, DRDO.

What has been missing in recent years is a consistent political push or a roadmap with deliverables. The BJP was the first political party to include the goal of indigenisation in its 2014 manifesto, but the Narendra Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative never took off for various reasons. Part of this is the dysfunctional monopsony within the sector—the government is the largest producer and the only buyer of defence hardware, and does neither very efficiently. This leads to the easiest option—imports.