Plassey , Mir Jafar and Greed : Will Privatisation of Defence Lead To India Again Losing The Next War Without Fighting It ?
Rajiv Upadhyay 
India is repeatedly demonstrating that it has not learnt any thing from its long history of slavery.
We all are aware that how Clive used greed to bribe Mir Jafar , commander of Nawab Siraj ud daulha’s army with just an offer to be made the Nawab of Bengal. Mir Jaffar switched sides in the middle of war and Clive won the battle of Plassey thus starting two hundred years of British slavery.
Greed in Defence can be extremely corroding.
We are now hearing that Ambani has tied up with Rolls Royce for manufacturing aircraft engine . We have Adani defence . Earlier we had Anil Ambani company getting the Rafale order .
We know how US government has become a prisoner of its Military Industrial Complex . Wars are being started just to increase the sale of weapons . John Kenneth Galbraith , a former US Ambassador to India , was the first to coin this term MIC and warned of a coalition of vested interests within the state and industry that promoted the military power in the name of “national security” for their interests. Galbraith’s theory of giant corporations helps us understand the role of military corporations in the MIC.
In a poor country like India , the MIC of large corporations will depend on foreign technology and really become a Trojan Horse for their masters . Private sector is great only when there is a strong competition and a fair government acting as judge . Otherwise what did Ambassadors and Fiat gave us in research or development ?
Indian politics has become so dependent on black money that Blackmoney generators will become the masters of the government and ultimately be the remote control behind the government . B.K.Nehru in his famous book Nice Guys Finish Second had explained it so well .
There can be exceptions like Bharat Forge gun or Tatas or even Mahindras but by and large our large corporations are risk averse and hate competition . They will not spend on defence research but go for tie ups with multinationals . We can let Drone and Cyber Security type equipment be made in private sector. DRDO can develop and offer developed technology as at present .But our DRDO /HAL/GTRE /ISRO/BARC /Bharat Dynamics should be given more freedom and budget and trusted the way Srimati Gandhi did with Dr Kalam . A vital step is to remove the self serving Babus from Defence because they are the agents of Status Quo and an anathema for research . Politicians are comfortable with them because of mutual understanding of needs . But nation owes its backwardness in defence technology to them .
It is not that PSUs do not have faults . They have same people with same vulnerabilities . But little slow progress and delay has to be weighed against the repeat of Mir Jafar history of losing the next war without even a fight and lessons from the American Military Industrial Complex .
We can not have the next ten Prime Ministers chosen by foreigners under the guise of Indian Military Industrial Complex .
Indian Defence Must Remain With The Government Bodies.
