What about admiral Joshi’s bosses?

With a year left before the end of his term as Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Admiral D.K. Joshi decided to call it quits, accepting moral responsibility for the series of well-publicised mishaps that has plagued the Navy during this and the previous year, of which the worst was the August 2013 explosion that sank nuclear submarine INS Sindhurakshak in the safety of its harbour in Mumbai. Till today, the Ministry of Defence has been silent on the causes of the blast, although Defence Minister A.K. Antony was quick to rule out sabotage within hours of the incident, presumably on the basis of his skills in telepathy.

Another submarine, INS Sindhugosh, escaped being scrapped after it almost ran aground in low tide a month ago, again in Mumbai harbour, and now two gallant submariners have paid with their lives for the negligence or worse that caused a battery leak in yet another submarine, INS Sindhuratna, about 50 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast. As Admiral Joshi pointed out to A.K. Antony, many of the Navy’s submarines are by now antiques, suitable less for operations than for being displayed in a maritime museum.

Since the 1980s, successive governments have been in a pell-mell rush to purchase expensive imported weaponry, so much so that India has become the largest buyer of weapons in the world, displacing even China (with its four times bigger economy) or cash-rich states such as Saudi Arabia. The private sector in India has been kept off defence production, even while foreign companies have expanded their presence in Delhi, gaining influence not simply in the corridors of government, but in sections of the media as well. The clout of the arms lobby is reason enough to wonder whether the removal through an induced resignation of an upright officer was motivated by the desire on the part of international lobbies to ensure that a more pliable person be appointed as his successor. Too many in the armed forces are these days falling prey to the blandishments of international arms manufacturers, thereby making India dependent on countries such as Russia, France and now the US for super-critical defence equipment.

However, much more than those in uniform, it is the bureaucratic establishment and their political overseers who are to blame for the flood of expensive imports into the armed services, and for the neglect of domestic capabilities, especially in the private sector. The mess in the Navy was created not by Admiral Joshi but by those actually in charge, the Minister of Defence and the Defence Secretary. It is these two who ought to quit, rather than Admiral Joshi.