Industry

It is not just feasible in a world to be isolationist where globalised trade is the norm in all verticals, including weapons and weapon systems

Partnership is Paramount

INDIA, ACCORDING TO THE Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is the world’s largest importer of arms at 14 per cent for the five-year period 2011-15, despite the Narendra Modi ‘offensive’ of ‘ Make in India’. This trend is likely to continue for some more years to come. Why? The obvious answer is that no foreign original equipment manufacturer (OEM) would want to transfer high-end technology which they have created and developed with substantive investments in terms of money, time and research and development efforts. The second reason why this scenario is unlikely to change in the immediate future is that India is not ready yet to grasp these high-end technologies, despite the ‘indigenous push’. These are technologies created over long periods of intensive research and development and are not easily transferable.

NASCENT DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL BASE

While the ‘Make in India’ initiative is laudable, the defence industrial base is too nascent to even think of such high end technologies that the foreign OEMs have patented. And the armed forces, in many an instance, has insisted that there should be no compromise on quality of weapons and weapon systems, thus leaving no option but to import. The armed forces, rightly or wrongly, do not want weapons from Indian firms that have no track record in defence manufacturing. Every effort should be made to ‘indigenise technologies’ but to say that India will want to ‘indigenise’ all the technologies is not only far-fetched but also impossible. The approach then has to be a mix of import and domestic production with latter to be scaled up as the defence industrial ecosystem falls in place.

INTENT AND CAPABILITY

Understandably, we need not be a 70 per cent import dependent nation, but at the same time we can never aspire to be a 100 per cent self-sufficient nation. It is not just feasible in a world to be isolationist where globalised trade is the norm in all verticals, including weapons and weapon systems. It is not surprising that till date not one large domestic weapons project has been awarded within the country as there is a huge gap between ‘intent’ and ‘capability’. Indigenisation will have to be in phases as there is no ‘overnight’ quick-fix solution and OEMs will be amenable to such a situation, lest we drive them away. Since it is a interconnected world of give and take, the government of the day understands this predicament and has said it would allow imports as they would be critical for India’s defence preparedness. Continued on page 24...