Tent Camel!

10 May 19

We all know the parable where an Arab was halted for the night in a windy night over the dunes, when his camel asked him if it could keep its head snug inside the tent! Then the camel extends to itself the hospitality of the tent and when it enters the tent fully, the canopy folds and now both the Arab and his camel are at the mercy of the elements.
India had just reviewed her stated policy of being a Blue Water Navy by 2020, by axing the Naval projection of the requirement of an additional aircraft carrier.https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/budgetary-woes-put-india-s-supercarrier-ins-vishal-on-hold-119050600047_1.html

For long the Mandarins and the Military have been at loggerheads, for the moneybags felt that one per coastal navy was more than enough, though the only proven asset of the entire military as a express instrument of offensive capability remains the INS Vikrant which saw action in 1971 off the shores of now Bangladesh!(The scrapping of INS Vikrant is in view the abandoning of a mother in her old age, instead of making her a museum to cherish our naval history! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGvJnLFS2Kg) It is also that short war when India had anxious moments over the reports of an US Naval Carrier Group task force entering the Indian sphere of influence. So for reasons unknown or not clearly conveyed a policy decision taken first in 1990s and then ratified in 2010s was given the short shrift by the present government, which ideally could have postponed this decision until after 23 May for this was a strategic one, not a day to day routine affair. Or was it so?
We are in the midst of a raging controversy over whether aircraft carriers serve as private taxis to India’s VVIPs, an unseemly diversion according to me, about such a weapons platform that India has seen being effectively used against and for in her Zone of Influence. With China our nearest neighbouring contestant for influence in the Indian ocean, going on a building spree, planning for PLAN to have five carrier groups, not to mention the conversion of numerous atolls and islands in the South China sea into air fields by artificial islands modified from reefs, why was India’s modest requirements not seen favourably by her powers that be? There were two if not three basic military assets experienced by Indian military that China lacked, the first was high altitude warfare aka Op Meghdoot where Indian troops showed skills to conquer peaks at breathtaking attitudes, theatre level air formation flying which the IAF just demonstrated afresh in context of a pan India exercise they conducted last year, and the Indian Navy’s ocean going capacity, swinging from coast to coast on an air craft carrier group. Is there a design in how this NDA government has first truncated the in principle sanctions for Mountain Strike Corps (MSC)in 2015, under late Shri M Parrikker, as Rakshya Mantri, and now this in 2019 under Shrimati N Sitaraman, the present incumbent? In between the IAF has suffered the grief of scrapping of its MMRCA deal which was abrogated by sudden announcement in France in 2015 by Shri N Modi, the Pradhan Mantri of 36 Rafale air craft deal? The significance of each of these self depreciating steps in defence preparedness was how on each occasion the attention was diverted by narrative, the Shekatkar Committee recommendations for downsizing the military was backdrop for the MSC, the Rafale Anil Ambani crony capitalism/ nepotism was backdrop for dropping the 186 Rafale MMRCA deal for mere 36, and now this naval jaunt jamboree of late Rajiv Gandhi is smokescreen for the nixing of the Blue Water Navy!
When Dr MM Singh as then Pradhan Mantri advocated that the cloth be cut to the extent material was available, the voices of reason argued that the material must be suffice to cover the vitals, that the cloth could not be a handkerchief where a towel was called for! Still, the comments of the PM never became a political hot potato. Likewise today too, in the present regime, the issue of self inflicted depreciation of military strength, is not a political issue. Few and far, are voices like Col Ajai Shukla’s, like Admiral Arun Prakash, or Lt Gen Panag’s. Mr Rahul Gandhi who is so fond of holding pressers dime a dozen on Rafale scam, has not once been asked whether he would recommend the full complement once sought and approved by Government to the IAF!
While we can criticise PM Modi for politicking over military and muscular foreign policy, we can see it as laying a platform for future discussed and deliberated military and national foreign policy, because if suddenly the INC has roped in Lt Gen Hooda to create a vision document for national military strategy, it was not wishful design, it was in response to Mr Modi’s relentless jingoism. More than Mr Modi, I aver that his cabinet and his team of bureaucrats have not been able to perhaps properly brief the PM on national strategy issues which has led him to overlook key decisions that have happened on his watch which are diagonally opposite the stated aim of Mr Modi to empower the military! More importantly, by their erroneous directions, Mr Modi has been forced to lend his voice to issues of controversy which are either not of his stature as incumbent PM or are refuted by professionals with their knowledge which places the PM in unenviable poor light.
Mr Modi is like the Arab, suffering from his misplaced sympathy for his camel. India’s defence preparedness suffers from the lack of ‘tent-age’, from being forced with ‘faux choice of either man or camel’ and coming up short in a storm that is surely coming ashore!

For long the Mandarins and the Military have been at loggerheads, for the moneybags felt that one per coastal navy was more than enough, though the only proven asset of the entire military as a express instrument of offensive capability remains the INS Vikrant which saw action in 1971 off the shores of now Bangladesh! It is also that short war when India had anxious moments over the reports of an US Naval Carrier Group task force entering the Indian sphere of influence. So for reasons unknown or not clearly conveyed a policy decision taken first in 1990s and then ratified in 2010s was given the short shrift by the present government, which ideally could have postponed this decision until after 23 May for this was a strategic one, not a day to day routine affair. Or was it so?
We are in the midst of a raging controversy over whether aircraft carriers serve as private taxis to India’s VVIPs, an unseemly diversion according to me, about such a weapons platform that India has seen being effectively used against and for in her Zone of Influence. With China our nearest neighbouring contestant for influence in the Indian ocean, going on a building spree, planning for PLAN to have five carrier groups, not to mention the conversion of numerous atolls and islands in the South China sea into air fields by artificial islands modified from reefs, why was India’s modest requirements not seen favourably by her powers that be? There were two if not three basic military assets experienced by Indian military that China lacked, the first was high altitude warfare aka Op Meghdoot where Indian troops showed skills to conquer peaks at breathtaking attitudes, theatre level air formation flying which the IAF just demonstrated afresh in context of a pan India exercise they conducted last year, and the Indian Navy’s ocean going capacity, swinging from coast to coast on an air craft carrier group. Is there a design in how this NDA government has first truncated the in principle sanctions for Mountain Strike Corps (MSC)in 2015, under late Shri M Parrikker, as Rakshya Mantri, and now this in 2019 under Shrimati N Sitaraman, the present incumbent? In between the IAF has suffered the grief of scrapping of its MMRCA deal which was abrogated by sudden announcement in France in 2015 by Shri N Modi, the Pradhan Mantri of 36 Rafale air craft deal? The significance of each of these self depreciating steps in defence preparedness was how on each occasion the attention was diverted by narrative, the Shekatkar Committee recommendations for downsizing the military was backdrop for the MSC, the Rafale Anil Ambani crony capitalism/ nepotism was backdrop for dropping the 186 Rafale MMRCA deal for mere 36, and now this naval jaunt jamboree of late Rajiv Gandhi is smokescreen for the nixing of the Blue Water Navy!
When Dr MM Singh as then Pradhan Mantri advocated that the cloth be cut to the extent material was available, the voices of reason argued that the material must be suffice to cover the vitals, that the cloth could not be a handkerchief where a towel was called for! Still, the comments of the PM never became a political hot potato. Likewise today too, in the present regime, the issue of self inflicted depreciation of military strength, is not a political issue. Few and far, are voices like Col Ajai Shukla’s, like Admiral Arun Prakash, or Lt Gen Panag’s. Mr Rahul Gandhi who is so fond of holding pressers dime a dozen on Rafale scam, has not once been asked whether he would recommend the full complement once sought and approved by Government to the IAF!
While we can criticise PM Modi for politicking over military and muscular foreign policy, we can see it as laying a platform for future discussed and deliberated military and national foreign policy, because if suddenly the INC has roped in Lt Gen Hooda to create a vision document for national military strategy, it was not wishful design, it was in response to Mr Modi’s relentless jingoism. More than Mr Modi, I aver that his cabinet and his team of bureaucrats have not been able to perhaps properly brief the PM on national strategy issues which has led him to overlook key decisions that have happened on his watch which are diagonally opposite the stated aim of Mr Modi to empower the military! More importantly, by their erroneous directions, Mr Modi has been forced to lend his voice to issues of controversy which are either not of his stature as incumbent PM or are refuted by professionals with their knowledge which places the PM in unenviable poor light.
Mr Modi is like the Arab, suffering from his misplaced sympathy for his camel. India’s defence preparedness suffers from the lack of ‘tent-age’, from being forced with ‘faux choice of either man or camel’ and coming up short in a storm that is surely coming ashore!