WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2003
No Longer At Sea: Smooth Sailing for Indian Navy
The mid-November interaction between warships of the Indian and Chinese navies off Shanghai created significant waves and the import lay in the symbolism of this bilateral engagement.
Here were the two Asian giants estranged till recently over the 1962 war and the 1998 nuclear tests tangoing together. While this augurs well for the Sino-Indian relationship, the more strategic waves made by the Indian Navy seem to have gone largely unnoticed.
In June this year, the African Union held its summit in Mozambique and India was approached to provide security cover which was extended by way of deploying ships in Maputo . This was done unobtrusively yet effectively enhancing India 's credibility in the politico-military domain.
It is not often that a foreign military presence is invited in such a manner and this track record is in keeping with the locale-sensitive manner in which the Indian military has completed the task entrusted to it whether under UN aegis as in the case of Congo and elsewhere or independently as in the case of Somalia.
What is germane is the underpinning provided to India 's overall diplomatic effort in one part of Africa by such trans- border military efficacy. This presence of the Indian Navy in the southern Indian Ocean is an extension of the current orientation of the navy to sail into the wild blue yonder.
Consequently, this year, Indian naval ships made 53 calls in foreign ports and, over a six-week period, the Indian tricolour was making its presence felt in all three navigable oceans of the world.
However, one should not overstate the capability of the Indian Navy - it is still the Cinderella service in a security matrix with an abiding fixation on the land borders and the threat from Pakistan .
It is also germane that the Indian Navy was deployed to escort US ships in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the bilateral naval relationship with the US Navy is one of many that India is now nurturing.
This ability to sustain its presence in waters that India deems of strategic relevance and the manner in which international naval cooperation is being pursued is a reflection of the quiet confidence that this service has acquired over the last two decades.
Much of this stems from the little known fact that in an imperceptible manner, the Indian Navy is becoming a builder's navy, that is to say more platforms are now being built within Indian shipyards, whereas earlier they were being imported.
And the strategic feather embedded here is the impressive achievement that India today is one of the few nations that has the wherewithal - albeit modest - to design its own warships.
Much of this credit must go to the political determination and personal obduracy of the much-maligned Krishna Menon, defence minister during the 1962 debacle, who believed that India could build its own ships when even the professionals in the navy were sceptical.
But beginning with knowhow obtained from the UK , India built its first major man-of-war in 1972 and gradually made a design progression from the Leander frigate to the Giri class to the Godavari and now the Brahmaputra .
With this and the rich experience of operating ships of Soviet origin, the navy's design bureau graduated to indigenously designing the Delhi class of guided missile destroyers and a Khukri class of corvettes.
India 's innovative skills of metaphorically doing more with less often compelled by a paucity of resources is evident in the Delhi class. When the ship visited ports in South East Asia , visitors were convinced that the Delhi was imported from the US .
And the US Navy, in turn, was intrigued how a vessel of that tonnage could operate two helicopters, a provision that they could not do on similar ships.
But, one must also draw attention to the glaring deficiencies in the current profile of the navy and its support structure. As of now a major warship like the Delhi class takes over a decade from the time the keel is laid to the time it is commissioned or operationally inducted into the navy.
This is well above the global norm and such time and cost overruns are a reflection of the work culture that obtains in our public sector shipbuilding yards.
This is an issue that is prickly but India 's legitimate strategic aspirations in the maritime domain will remain still- born if this shortcoming is not redressed.
At the larger national level, the strategic potentialities of the silent service need to be nurtured in a calibrated manner and the politico-military opportunities maximised prudently.
Many developing nations in the Indian Ocean littoral would welcome assistance by way of acquiring patrol vessels and fast attack craft to provide for their own maritime security. India has the ability to provide these platforms in a more affordable politico-military manner than any other supplier and such strategic planning could advance our credibility in areas still not on the global radar.
But this would call for a more robust mari- time diplomatic posture and India 's traditional reticence in harnessing its military capabilities in furtherance of a strategic politico-diplomatic objective needs to be overcome.
C Uday Bhaskar
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