India Must Become A Military Superpower First Without Waiting For Becoming An Economic Giant ?
Rajiv Upadhyay
India is not a militarily a weak country but it is surrounded by very powerful and evil neighbours . Also it has lost 2.5 :1 advantage over Pakistan achieved in seventies because of our criminal neglect of defence due to Neo Nehruvian night walker’s confidence in our diplomacy . Nehruvian ‘ Panchsheel’ has acquired a new and highly misleading name, ‘ Vishwa Guru ‘ . Its constant mantra like repetition and constant drumming by sycophants in media and bureaucracy the nation has been hypnotised into believing it to be actually true !
Not only that, China once our economic equal , has acquired more than 2.5: 1 military and technological superiority over us which is essentially required for offensive defence . Moreover after CPEC , China is now giving latest weapons to Pakistan thus bringing it at par with us or at least giving it a mutual destruction capability . Also like Krishna Menon had a disdain for army and made army construct houses and coffee makers , we brought in disasters like Agniveer scheme with a view to reduce army strength but at the same time increasing Para military police strength, a total waste of money . Why depute CISF at Airports or PSUs and reduce army ? .
In this era of utter neglect of defence, not only our air force fighter jets strength come down from 42 squadrons in Smt. Indira Gandhi’s time to just 31 squadrons now but we were always unprepared due to ammunition shortage etc at major terror attacks like Mumbai and Parliament. We are critically short of long range air to air and hypersonic missiles , nuclear submarines, mine sweepers , naval aircrafts , drones etc . In space and cyber warfare too we started late and are short of spy satellites . Chinese HQ 19, J 35 Stealth fighter and Dong hypersonic missile will make Pakistan unstoppable again .
Our border infrastructure is inadequate . We do not have Rapid Deployment Brigade . Even in mountains we need one more mountain division . Bangladesh is a new challenge . Government led by ignorant and vain Babus, and unconcerned Netas , diverted money to schemes like Free Ration to unprecedented 80 crore people . Also, defence procurement, out of vigilance fear or unstated desire for cuts, became a ten to fifteen years process . r Defence Secretary , an unnecessary ornamental post, became omnipotent while Chiefs were reduced to to just office boy status, by manipulating steps like protracted delay in ‘ One Rank One Pension scheme ‘ .
Our neighbours as well as the world respect only military power . We must acquire mutual destruction capability vis a vis China and 2.5 : 1 superiority over Pakistan both in numbers as well as technology . We have a historic disdain for power projection . This needs to change . Fortunately green shoots are visible in this area as can be seen in Armenia , Mongolia , Afghanistan etc . But premature and false show of force will be a disaster . USA with all its might, made Canada , China , Colombia revolt by its abrasive and unnecessary show of a non existent trading power .
We are growing too slowly at our 5.5 % real economic growth ( old formula ) and may never catch up with China or USA in the next fifty years even . It will be a disaster if we let our defence slip up again like 1962 . Also like Russia , China or Canada , we will have to go though an ‘ Agnipariksha ‘ of blackmailing and sanctions by a neo colonial West or China even . Only when we can come out victorious from these sanctions , we will become truly independent .
We won independence due to just good luck of British empire’s weakening by the second world war . It will be a disaster to hope for being lucky again to survive as an independent nation .
We must become a military superpower in the next ten to fifteen years .
