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| INS Airhant, the nuclear powered Submarine (Credit: The Hindu) |
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| INS Vikrant, the aircraft carrier (Credit: PTI) |
In the last 3-4 days, India has made significant achievement in the field of maritime security. On one had we have activated the nuclear reactor on board the INS ARIHANT and today the indigenous aircraft carrier, INS VIKRANT was launched. What are the importance of these developments?
If we look at the launch of INS Vikrant today at Kochi and the India's first nuclear powered submarine INS Arihant, together they represent a very significant accomplishment for the country and not just for the Indian navy because both the nuclear submarine and aircraft carrier can be described as national projects because they combine many institutions, many parts of the technological endeavor of the country and taken together, the symbolic significant is in the fact that both of these are quote on quote indigenous efforts. Meaning that the designing and building an aircraft carrier is a very complex process. The fact that the aircraft carrier INS Vikarant is being launched today in Kochi by the Defence Minister marks a certain punctuation as far India's capability in ship building is concerned. Concurrently if you recall that the INS Arihant was also being designed and built in India and is also very complex technology. Meaning that submarine building by itself is a relatively complex. To embark upon nuclear propulsion for a submarine meaning a nuclear boat as it is called, would be yet another level of complexity. In India's case, people haven't realized that we are perhaps the only country in the world that ---ad--have moved towards building what is called as an SSBN, meaning a nuclear powered submarine that is also capable of carrying a ballistic missile. Because most countries that have gone down this path have started by building conventional submarines, then they have moved to nuclear propulsion and then they have moved to what is called as the SSBN, that has been the traditional trajectory. So in India's case, it was a very ambitious leap to get into the SSBN in the very first stage and the reactor going critical there is also very significant because if we recall, India has been under very severe technological sanctions since 1974 particularly in the nuclear domain. So our scientists, our technologists, design engineers and everyone who has contributed to Arihant have made a very important contribution under very adverse circumstances and that really is the significance.
We should however note in both these cases is that these are only the preliminary phase because they will have to go through extensive sea trails and after that their ordnance (missile, fighter aircraft whatever) has to be integrated. So we still are a few years away before either platform becomes operationally credible and they are formally commissioned. Only then we can use the prefix "INS" before them. At the moment, neither of them has been commissioned.
How can we build on these capabilities that we have developed indigenously?
These two achievements are modest. One doesn't want to over interpret the fact that India is building an indigenous aircraft carrier today in 2013. Because many technologically advanced countries have already proven their ability to carry out such tasks. For instance, if we look at the global hierarchy US, Russia, GB, France, Japan in Asia have build such carriers. So in every country, we can see that the aircraft carrier as a symbol of having arrived at certain levels of technological and industrial competence. India has reached that point just now. Similarly for the Arihant, not many countries in the world are capable of building nuclear submarines. There are only 5 countries until now: US, Russia, France, Great Britain and China. India has just reached that particular level. The challenge is to make a very detailed and objective study as to how is it that India has acquired the ability to design and build an aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine. India doesn't have the same degree of success when it comes to other items of military inventory for example the main battle tank or for that matter the light combat aircraft or the artillery gun. Though India is proud of its achievements, but it has not been able to even produce and manufacture what you might call as a personal weapon. We have paramilitary weapons all of whom need small arms, light weapons and we have state police! So one would have thought that for India, this would have been a very major challenge, but for a variety of reasons, we have not been able to do that. We should learn the right lessons. If we can do it in this sector, here everybody has contributed meaning apart from Indian Navy, shipyards, in the case of aircraft carrier, SAIL has done a very good job in providing the right steel. Various other Public Sector units and also the private sector has made very important contribution in both areas meaning both in the nuclear submarines, as also in the aircraft carrier and the academia meaning universities, IITs. So it is an example of a very credible committed collective effort. So if we can do it in these two areas, we have to ponder over what is it that we can derive as lessons that we can take into other sectors.
In the last few months, there has been a debate on the indigenous vs foreign. So like now we have made these significant achievements in the indigenous industry, How can we see the decision of the the Defence Ministry to come up with a policy that the indigenous products would be a priority?
As a country that came out of the colonial experience, we were almost totally deindustrialized by the time you come to 1947. But today the reality is that India is perhaps the world's largest importer of arms because China which also used to import arms, has now acquired a very high level of self sufficiency through its indigenous efforts. The reality even in the case of Navy, for a warship, there are 3 characteristics that we have to consider:
1) A warship must float (whether it is a surface ship or a submarine)
2) It should then move (So we need propulsion)
3) It must fight (need ordnance: missiles, guns, radars, torpedoes etc)
In the case of India, while we are reasonably happy in the ship building about our ability to make a platform float meaning that we have the steel, we can build the hull, we can do various other things to be exterior. The current estimate is that we have reached about 80-90% in terms of the ability to make a platform float. In terms of propulsion also we have been doing reasonably well, we have got some competence in the Indian private sector as far as engines and the gear boxes are concerned. We have reached about 50-60%. But the most critical part to make it fight the ordnance, the surveillance, the guns, radars etc., we are well below 20% also. In the critical areas of ordnance viz., precision, radar surveillance, India is still dependent on foreign supplies. So that is the real challenge that across the board we have to acquire appropriate technological capability invest in R&D because these are all the kind of areas that no country will share willingly. Design of ordnance is a very very closely guarded area, so for a country that has the kind of human resource, the kind of competence that we do, we have to find that collective will. So far it has eluded that except in some areas like nuclear area, missile area and certain other areas. Here again we have to acknowledge role played by our scientist, technologists, academics and other people who have contributed. So we have to build on that. But for that, we need the appropriate ecosystem, unless we have all the institutions working in the way that they should, it will be very difficult to acquire these levels of competence across the board. Both in the cases of the aircraft carrier and the nuclear submarine, we have to look at the efficiency with which they have been built, the efficiency with which the funds have been utilized. So from the entire ecosystem, from the highest level of decision making to the man on the shop floor who is actually cutting steel, everybody has to operate and work in a manner that would allow much higher levels of both efficiency and commitment. Arihant and Vikrant are the symbols that should encourage us in that direction.
By the end of this year, we are scheduled to get INS Vikramaditya from Russia by the end of this year. By the end of 2018, we'll have the Vikrant ready by which time, the INS Virat would also be operational. How significant it would be to have 3 aircraft carriers operating at the same time?
We already have INS Chakra leased from Russia operating with us. Now Airhant also coming up. Should we looking at building more nuclear submarines?
That's very much absolutely needed. You cannot have just one SSBN or just one SSN. It has to be a part of the series. Funds permitting, India would be able to continue with the SSBN, the Arihant class and there is a plan to follow on with more than 2 vessels but that is also driven by funds. So it comes back to that basic point that if India's overall military function will be driven by India's economic health meaning that if our GDP growth rates are sustained, then we can allocate more funds for the defence sector, then all these programs would be sustained appropriately.
^This is a transcript of the Spotlight program broadcasted on AIR on 12/08/2013. It can be accessed here.
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