Opportunity in a Crisis

There has been some good news amid the India-China standoff which did not get the attention it should have. ISRO will now involve private industry in India’s space program. While this is not a new development in itself, it is a significant step forward as the government now wants Indian industry to benefit from its space program. This shift in policy will immensely benefit the private industry. The technological ecosystem will get a boost due to this. Of course. making a policy and implementing it are two different things in India. And never the twain shall meet has been the adage which has been followed. The Indian space industry is as old as independent India, but the government has been reluctant to involve the private players. Earlier It was due to the stated policy of socialism which made the government and the bureaucracy suspicious of private industry. Profit making was considered a necessary evil.

Much the same has happened in the defense sector. The defense procurement procedure has been muddling along with frequent change in directions and directives. There has been and still is a reluctance in the bureaucracy to promote indigenous defence production, All the governments till now have said that self sufficiency in defence production is their stated goal but there is no action on the ground. Seventy years after independence India still imports most of its defence equipment.

The current stand off against the Chinese has served to emphasize these lacunae. India has gone for a slew of emergency purchases from the US, Russia and Israel. Artillery shells, anti-missile defense systems, air to air missiles and others. The status quo has not changed at all.

As is the case in our civil industry, there is a serious lack of research in the defense industry as well.  Only now the DRDO, GTRE, HAL the OFB and other government establishments have started applied research for defence equipment. Some encouraging green shoots can be seen. The AESA radar for the Tejas, the Astra air to air missile, the different ballistic missiles, NETRA AWACS, the LCH etc.  Today the need is to have an ecosystem where technology is perfected for specific applications. But technology does not get developed in a vacuum. The forces should  use the equipment that is currently manufactured by our industry. This may not be one hundred percent up to the specifications demanded by them, but once the equipment is used and the feedback from the forces is taken and worked upon, within a few years India will have an ecosystem which will nurture development of advanced technology. Refusing to use indigenous technology and demanding perfection does not go together. In the current spat between India and China there is an opportunity for our forces to use all the equipment available and start the process of perfecting it for their future use. The LCH, LUH, various ICVs and armoured vehicles right down to the assault rifles made by domestic manufacturers should be bought by the forces and used as frontline equipment.  These may not be the most ideal technically and will be a compromise at best, but perfection in defence manufacturing will never be achieved unless the industry, the forces and the government are fully and equally committed to it.