By Nantoo Banerjee
The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointing clearly on India’s severe ammunitions shortage leading to its military’s ability to defend the country not beyond 15 to 20 days against a foreign attack is rather chilling. The CAG report, presented in Parliament, also points out the failure of India’s defence manufacturing industry to maintain its production targets of high technology products and its massive and critical reliance on foreign supplies. India, from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, has relied on foreign supplies to defend the country for reasons best known to the Congress Party which ruled the country for over five decades. India’s massive defeat at the hands of China in 1962 had little impact on India’s defence manufacturing and import policies. Things hardly changed in the last 53 years since the Indo-China war.
On the contrary, China built its arms industry as one of the world’s most formidable outfits on all the three fronts – army, navy and air force. Ironically, India continued to be overwhelmingly dependant on military hardware and equipment import. India’s Ordnance Factories (OFB), currently the country’s second largest defence manufacturer after Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), is a British era venture. Only three Indian defence manufacturers — HAL, OFB and Bharat Electronics (BEL) – feature in the world’s 100 top war equipment production companies, outside China. The production of all the three Indian armament manufacturing concerns showed a big dip in 2013-14 while defence imports continued to go up. HAL was the biggest Indian defence-ware manufacturer with a turnover of only $2.4 billion, followed by OFB ($1.8 billion) and BEL ($900 million). They occupied the 42nd, 54th and 82nd positions respectively in the world’s top 100 war equipment producers’ list, prepared by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The list was, however, conspicuous by the absence of producers from China. Going by separate international reports and statements made by China’s armament exporters, the Chinese defence output could be the second largest outside the US and Western Europe. China’s defence production in 2013-14 was estimated at over $70 billion. The global arms sale in 2013-14 was a little over $402 billion, excluding China’s.
At the Africa Aerospace and Defence Expo in last September, weapons buyers from across the continents flocked South African Air Force Base at Waterkloof in Pretoria for shopping. They were most impressed by the display by the Chinese defence gear giant, North Industries Group Corp. (Norinco) whose marketing style stumped even some of the world’s biggest and most established names in the war equipment business. The Chinese promotional display was simple and had everything for every prospective buyer – from basic defence gear such as rifles, howitzers, laser-guided bombs, armored personnel carriers, tanks and drones to state-of-the-art systems. Over three decades since Deng Xiaoping and the Communist Party founded Norinco after a humiliating border war with Vietnam that ended in a stalemate, the Beijing-based company sits atop a military-industrial complex that increasingly rivals the U.S. war machine in firepower and influence. Reportedly, Norinco’s sales expanded faster than any other major defense company in the world over the last seven years, surpassing the world No.1, Lockheed Martin Corp., maker of the F-35 fighter, and General Dynamics Corp., which produces Abrams tanks.
Norinco’s $60-billion-plus annual turnover and 275,000 employees embody the clout of China’s defence industry as the government pours hundreds of billions of dollars into the People’s Liberation Army and induces Mao-era weapons makers into growth-driven conglomerates. China’s other leading weapons makers include Aviation Industry Corporation, Poly Technologies Inc. and China South Industries Group Corp. Norinco is the biggest of them all. China overtook France in 2013 to become the world’s fourth-largest arms exporter. Norinco’s growth parallels China’s world class network-equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. and mobile-phone producer Xiaomi Corp. Aggressive pricing and solid technology helped them compete globally. For instance, Norinco’s MBT-3000 tank boasts similar firepower and speed as the Abrams, but costs only around $4 million, compared with $6.9 million for the American model. Russia and China are the world’s cheapest and among the most reliable arms manufacturers. As a result, the arms industry in both the countries continues to grow while SIPRI reported about two per cent fall in global arms sale during 2013-14.
Quizzically, India seemed to have learnt nothing from its humiliating defeat at the hands of China, 53 years ago. India also fought Pakistan at least four times since independence. The nuclear powered Pakistan army has remained most unpredictable maintaining a near-continuous war-like situation along the LoC for years. The Chinese and Pakistani lessons did not induce India to develop a strong, world-class defence equipment manufacturing industry over the period following the Chinese example especially after its Vietnam war. Instead, India chose to remain increasingly dependent on war equipment import despite the risk factor involved in pursuing such a policy. India is the world’s largest defence importer. Long serving Congress prime ministers such as Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh always encouraged arms import. The chiefs of staffs of all the three military services and bureaucracy worked closely with the government to push the cause of controversial arms import. And, after retirement, several of them turned agents of foreign arms exporters to India. The government had seemingly ignored the established fact that the arms trade is the most corrupt of the global businesses riding on kickbacks varying from seven per cent to 15 per cent as various country reports suggest.
A modern domestic defence industry can’t be built overnight. In a democratic system where the political leadership in the government undergoes periodical changes, a strong domestic defence manufacturing policy can succeed only if it gets a national political support irrespective of the colour of the government and the leadership. Can the present government bring about a radical change to prioritize and overhaul the domestic defence manufacturing sector to fundamentally protect the country’s sovereignty, integrity and ensure lasting economic growth? (IPA Service)