It’s a matter of great credit to India that this week it successfully tested the AD-1 interceptor missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). One of the two interceptor missiles of DRDO’s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) System, this is capable of thwarting hits from China’s and Pakistan’s long-range missiles upto a 200km range. The credit is on two fronts, namely that this will boost India’s national security mechanisms in a remarkable way and that the nation’s own premier defence research establishment has developed this system, even granting that there might be some adaptations from technology developed by other nations.
India is making major strides of late in development, manufacture, use and marketing of defence technology It recorded a major leap in defence item exports from negligible levels in the past to a record Rs 13,000crore in the last financial year and hopes to raise this level progressively to Rs 17,000crore this fiscal. These are not high figures compared to the defence item/tech exports by big nations in the West or Russia. But, thanks majorly to the Make In India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there have been major strides in this money-spinning sector in recent years. Alongside, satellites made in India by ISRO and its units are now being sold to several nations and/or their launches are done by India via its technical prowess. All these are recent developments, in tune with the new strides in technology worldwide. Notably, India is still among the major importer/purchaser of defence ware, be it from the West or from Russia. The huge commissions in defence deals are well-documented and they got exposed for the first time in the 1980s as the Bofors bribe scandal erupted during the term of Indira Gandhi. Clearly, this lure was one reason why India, for seven decades after its independence, did not venture in any significant way to the defence equipment manufacturing field. During Jawaharlal Nehru’s time, the Heavy Vehicles Factory manufacturing fighter tanks was started in Chennai and an ordnance factory in Jabalpur. There was no further momentum even as technologies for warfare changed majorly. It is in this backdrop that Modi’s Make India now seeks to make a difference – a major difference at that.
Wars are now fought in the skies with missiles and the like, as was evident in the Iraq war and now in Ukraine. The land army, or soldiers on the ground, plays an all-important role, but wars are won or lost mostly by hits from the skies. Missile interceptor systems, thus, have great significance.
