Rafale deal: Defence as important as development

In fact India's geographical location is a major irritant to Islamic fundamentalists as it disallows them to create an Islamic Emirate running from Central Asia to West and East Asia without discontinuity.

Couple this with the fact that India is entirely dependent on import of energy and multitude of other products through the seaborne trade.

Therefore, as the second fastest rising economy in Asia, New Delhi will require a modern military with deep offensive capabilities to act as a formidable deterrence.

It is strange that we expect our police and para-military forces to fight with lathis or outdated rifles, while the Maoists and the external actors who support them attack with the latest automatic weapons and are equipped with satellite phones.  

To successfully maintain the unity of India, as well as defend the growing strategic interests within the region and beyond, rapid modernization of the Armed Force is a necessity.

In short term, import of the latest weapon platforms is vital. In the long term, by acquiring the sunrise defence technologies and setting up profitable joint ventures with the western partners is the promising route.

This will create a win-win situation -- military can be equipped with modern weaponry, India can grow as a defence manufacturing hub, it will create millions of new jobs, impart skills in the hands of the young population, facilitate expansion of strategic footprint, and earn huge foreign exchange subsequently, through export of state-of-the-art weapon platforms.

In the 1980s, a useless debate by various vested interests was conveniently thrown up for allocation of funds between the defence of the country vis-a-vis the development.

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The argument given was since we are a poor country, we cannot afford to allocate sufficient funds for modernization of the armed forces. The debate hinged on a falsehood of 'defence' or 'development'.
 
Of course, rulers neither developed nor defended the nation!

As India finally shifts gears to acquire the western defence technologies once again, the old debate between defence of the country versus development to halt the modernization of the armed forces is being thrown up by various lobbies.

In the last two years we have witnessed that actually there is no paucity of funds. The amount plundered in CWG or 2G scam is large enough to buy many modern weapon platforms which the defence services are in dire need.

A house of IAS officer in Madhya Pradesh has coughed up Rs.300 crores worth of black money. In this country, they don’t steal a few thousands or a few lakh any more, but merrily rob the government exchequer in crores.

Rs.20 crore worth of black money was recovered on raiding the lowest rung of the government hierarchy i.e. a peon's house. The loot of the government treasury in the recent past shows that this country is extraordinarily rich!
 
Therefore to argue that India does not have sufficient funds for either defence of the country or development is misleading. Both activities can move simultaneously without hindrance, provided we can put an end to the huge siphoning of the funds.

The gullible, overlook a simple fact that if the Union of India is not defended, there will be nothing left to develop. Therefore to equip the armed force with latest defence technology and weapon platforms is as important as economic development and urbanization of India.


Bharat Verma, a former Cavalry Officer is Editor, Indian Defence Review. He frequently appears on television as a commentator, and is the author of Fault Lines and The Indian Armed Forces

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Courtesy Indian Defence Review