THE INDIGENOUS ARMS STRUGGLE

For more than a decade, India has topped the global charts as the world’s largest arms importer. This year, too, was no different. On March 13, the Stockholm Institute of Peace Research International (SIPRI), which tracks global arms transfers, certified India as having bought 12 per cent of all the weapons exported in the world between 2007 and 2017. India spends roughly $5 billion (Rs 32,000 crore) each year on arms imports.

Barely 10 days after the SIPRI report, on March 23, the ministry of defence unveiled its new Draft Defence Production Policy to promote domestic production by the public sector, private sector and MSMEs. The MoD last unveiled such a policy in 2011, even if it wasn’t as detailed. As the saga of continuing import dependence shows, the story hasn’t changed much since then.

The new draft defence production policy aims to turn India into an indigenous producer of defence hardware in seven years, i.e., by 2025, and to achieve a turnover of approximately Rs 1.26 lakh crore or around $26 billion, additional investments of nearly Rs 70,000 crore and employment for 2-3 million people.

The SIPRI’s annual reports are a cause for great embarrassment in South Block, which knows its implications. A sustained dependence on imported weapons could constrain the country’s foreign and security policies and stunt the growth of its defence-industrial base. This is one reason why China, briefly the world’s largest arms importer before India took over in 2007, rapidly moved out of this club. China is today among the world’s top five defence exporters producing an array of combat