‘Leakage isn’t an unmitigated disaster’

Retired Indian Navy officer says initial hasty response by DCNS could have been avoided

In spite of the reams of newsprint and hours of television debate that the ‘Scorpene leak’ has generated over the last fortnight or so, Commodore (retired) C. Uday Bhaskar of the Indian Navy still believes that the extent of the leaked information isn’t all that damaging.

Commodore (retired) Uday Bhaskar, who is currently the director of the Society for Policy Studies in New Delhi, spoke to Gulf News:

When the Scorpene leak first came to light, DCNS tried to say that the data was leaked at India’s end. Doesn’t this go against corporate ethics? Blaming someone without even checking who is responsible ... Yes it does … and to my mind, this was a case of hasty, panicky initial response by the French company. It could have been avoided. How damaging can the leak be for India’s navy? Has the future and battle-readiness of the Scorpene-class submarines been compromised? This kind of information, to the extent that one has seen in the media, is not damaging. However, the area that may have been compromised is the propeller/propulsion data. But even here, I would not describe it as an unmitigated disaster.

Should India scrap the entire contract with DCNS? No. That would be very imprudent and feckless. In this age of cyberhacks, online data theft, how secure are defence deals and defence hardware manufacturing? Both sides, the suppliers and the buyers, should have appropriate agreements in the contract.

They ought to have faith and trust in each other’s security protocol, carry out simulated hacking operations and ensure that critical data is kept within known loops, while at the same time maintaining a balance between data-sharing and dissemination on one hand and security stringency on the other.