PAKISTAN: POWS

Prisoners Of War, And Fate

A carpenter’s discovery of a ’71 PoW off Oman nails Pakistan’s constant denial

CHANDER SUTA DOGRA

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282409

The Lie Of The Land

• Evidence of PoWs in Pakistan has been surfacing now and then, in the form of stray letters, testimonies of spies, discovery of urns of ’71 PoW ashes and now the discovery of a PoW inmate in Oman
• India’s time and again presented Pakistan with a list of 54 PoWs
• But it has consistently denied the presence of any PoWs
• During the Agra summit in 2001, President Musharraf denied any PoWs, but Kargil PoWs were in their custody, and released in 2004.

***

Truth finds ingenious ways to manifest itself. And time, it has often been seen, is of no consequence in its pursuit. For long, 41 years to be precise, Pakistan has been denying it has any prisoners of war (PoWs) in its custody. Now, for the first time, there’s evidence to suggest that when Pakistani leaders say “No PoWs in our jails”, they are speaking only half the truth. What they don’t tell you is that many who were taken prisoner in the 1971 war could have been shifted to remote areas in friendly countries to escape detection. Following a most fortuitous series of circumstances, evidence of the presence of one such soldier—Sepoy Jaspal Singh of 15 Punjab Regiment and a PoW of the ’71 war—has come from Masirah island, 15 kilometres off the coast of Oman, which houses a military base.

The news of Jaspal Singh’s incarceration in what is called Purana Jail in Masirah was brought by Sukhdev Singh, a poor carpenter from Dugri village of Ropar district in Punjab. Sukhdev had gone to Oman in 2010 for work, as part of which he was sent to Masirah for some repair work at Purana Jail. Jaspal Singh, now around 70 years of age, approached him on seeing a turbaned Sikh. “He asked me which village I was from. When I told him, Dugri, he said it was his in-laws’ village,” Sukhdev told Outlook. “He would be serving tea and doing odd jobs for officials there. Though he looked like a Muslim with a skullcap and long beard, he spoke to me in Punjabi and told me the names of several people from my village. Over the next few days, very slowly, meeting me for not more than five minutes at a time to escape notice from his minders, Jaspal told me about the December 3 operation near Hussainiwala in which he was captured, his regiment’s name and details about his family.” He also told Sukhdev that four more soldiers had been captured along with him in the course of the operation, when a bridge near Ferozepur collapsed, leaving two companies of his battalion stranded on the other side of the river. All five PoWs were kept in Pakistan jails for five or six years and three shifted subsequently to Masirah jail. Jaspal does not know the whereabouts of the others.

Hope Lives Jaspal Singh’s wife Baljit Kaur, living a widow’s life all these years. (Photograph by Ekta Sharma)

When he returned in July this year, Sukhdev immediately contacted Jaspal’s family, comprising his wife Baljit Kaur (who has been living a widow’s life all these years) and two sons. After several futile visits to the district sainik board office, the family got in touch with Lt Col S.S. Sohi (retd), who runs an NGO for ex-servicemen in Mohali. Sohi first contacted 15 Punjab regiment as well as the battalion’s commanding officer during the war, Lt Col A.S. Cheema (retd). Cheema confirmed the enemy attack on the evening of December 3, 1971, wherein they suffered the loss of three officers and many others. Jaspal had been reported missing and presumed dead since then. Sohi then informed CoAS Gen Bikram Singh, and although the latter has not responded so far, the matter was brought to the notice of the Indian embassy in Oman through some retired officers working for the repatriation of Indian PoWs. Capt Arjun Nair, the Indian defence attache in Muscat, has affirmed that the embassy has issued a note verbale to the Omani government requesting details of personnel incarcerated in Masirah island, and consular access. The ambassador has also informed the Omani foreign minister and sought assistance in locating the missing persons.

“Though he looked a Muslim with skullcap and beard, he spoke to me in Punjabi and knew people from my village.”

Evidence about the presence of Indian PoWs in Pakistan has been surfacing off and on, either in the form of an odd letter smuggled out of prison, debriefing of intelligence agents returning after serving sentences in Pakistan jails, and in 2005, when a human rights activist reported seeing 30 urns of ashes of 1971 PoWs lying in the Kot Lakhpat jail of Lahore. Based on these fragments, the government had compiled a list of 54 PoWs which it repeatedly presents to Pakistan but whose government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge PoW presence. As G.S. Gill, brother of Wg Cdr H.S. Gill whose plane was shot down over Badin in Dec ’71, says, “It is up to our government to do something more than accept their word.” Many of the PoWs would have died, which is why many in the government, and sadly in the defence establishment too, see it as a fruitless exercise, not worth pursuing actively any more. What hasn’t died, however, is hope in the hearts of the PoW’s next-of-kin, who haven’t given up on some definitive information on their loved ones. Sukhdev’s story has reignited this hope.

It shows up in the words of Simi Waraich, daughter of Maj S.P.S. Waraich, also from 15 Punjab, who went missing in the same Hussainiwala attack and whose name is on the government list of 54 PoWs, “This is the first-ever solid evidence we have after so many years, and its significance has still to hit government functionaries. If the government acts decisively, it can nail Pakistan’s lie once and for all, because now we have definitive proof that our PoWs had been shifted elsewhere.”

Simi and a handful of people from the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association (MDPRA) have met every single spy returning from Pakistani jails, and had in 2007 (seeOutlook story), on the invitation of President Pervez Musharraf, visited several Pakistani jails to search for their kin. “Pakistan’s lies have been proved time and again,” says Simi. “During the 2001 Agra summit, President Musharraf said they did not have any Indian PoWs, but events proved that Sepoys Jagseer Singh and Mohammed Arif, captured in the Kargil war, were in their jails; they were released in 2004. Why should we then believe their bland negation? It is also sad that while our government is facilitating the US army to trace remains of their ww-ii casualties, and Bangladesh to retrieve DNA samples of their ’71 war dead, it does little to follow up leads like this which can help us find our still alive PoWs.”

In fact, on the insistence of the MDPRA, the government formed a tri-service committee for missing defence personnel headed by a vice-admiral a little over a year ago. However, as Simi points out, “It has almost no teeth, hardly ever meets and has not been provided the means to investigate leads like this one. It has not made any effort to get in touch with the next-of-kin like us, who have collected evidence over the years. Even now, it is we who have on our own informed them about Sepoy Jaspal Singh. They do not even have the report compiled by us after our 2007 visit to Pakistan.”

Sukhdev, meanwhile, goes about earning his living, oblivious to the import of his testimony. Jas Uppal, a US-based human rights lawyer, who has taken up the case of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian spy on death row in Pakistan, and shot off letters to the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about the existence of Jaspal, said of Sukhdev, “He is an international witness, whose safety is the duty of the Indian government. He has brought evidence of a war crime and needs to be protected.” Is anyone listening?

 

Moderator's Comments:

 

A GREAT SHAME ON INDIAN MILITARY TOP MOST BRASS. EVERYONE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT CHETWOOD HALL CREDO!! BULL SHIT!!

 

IF MILITARY LEADERSHIP FORGETS ITs POWs WHY SHOULD THE POLITICIANS AND DIPLOMATS DO ANY THING!!VERY SAD COMMENTARY INDEED AND WE SHOULD HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME FOR NOT DOING ANY THING TANGIBLE TO TRACE OUR SOLDIERS AND AIRMEN.

DON'T WE KNOW PAK LEADERS ARE THE BIGGEST LIARS!! THEY LIE TO US, THEY LIE TO THE AMERICANS, THEY SHIELDED CRIMINALS LIKE OSAMA BIN LADEN, THEY LIE TO THEIR PEOPLE AND EVEN THEIR OWN SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS (They did not even agree that their dead in Kargil were Pakistani soldiers) AND WE TAKE THEIR WORD!!

WHY CAN'T THE PM TAKE IT UP HIMSELF INSTEAD OF TALK ABOUT VISITING PAKISTAN !! WHEN RUBIA WAS ABDUCTED THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT BENT OVER BACKWARDS!!

Harbhajan Singh
Lt Gen

 

 

Brajesh Mishra, India's first NSA, as I knew him

Last updated on: September 29, 2012 16:38 IST

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/brajesh-mishra-indias-first-nsa-as-i-knew/20120929.htm

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/brajesh-mishra-indias-first-nsa-as-i-knew/20120929.htm

Senior analyst B Raman assesses Brajesh Mishra's role as India's first National Security Advisor, his part in the 1998 nuclear tests, the Kargil  conflict and more.      

Brajesh Mishra, who was the National Security Adviser to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee [ Images ] between November 1998 and May 2004, passed away on Friday night. He was 84 and belonged to the 1951 batch of the Indian Foreign Service.

He became famous in May 1970 when he was heading the Indian embassy in Beijing [ Images ] as the Charge d'Affaires. At the traditional May Day function at Beijing, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong shook hands with Mishra, conveyed his greetings to our PM and President in that order and said, "We cannot go on quarrelling like this. We must become friends again. We will become friends again."

Mishra sent a detailed report on it to the Ministry of External Affairs. A few days later, an account of Mao's friendly references to India, which came almost eight years after the Sino-Indian war of 1962, leaked out to the Indian media which added some masala to it while flashing it, saying that Mao smiled at Mishra when he made his observations. This was followed by feverish speculation regarding the significance of Mao's smile.

The truth was Mao never smiled at Mishra when he made his observations, but "Mao's famous smile" and its significance became an exciting narrative in the history of India's relations with China and the role of Mishra in it. An authentic account of what happened that day in Beijing was written on December 2, 2009, for the website of the Chennai Centre For China Studies by G S Iyer, who was then the only Chinese-knowing member of the staff of the Indian embassy in Beijing. He subsequently became India's ambassador to Morocco and Mexico before retiring from the Indian Foreign Service.

Mishra again hit the headlines in the beginning of 1980. But under a different context. He had been posted as India's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York by the Morarji Desai government. He was occupying that post when the Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. There were reports that the Charan Singh government, which was then in office, had misgivings about the Soviet invasion and was disinclined to support the Soviet action.

Indira Gandhi [ Images ], who returned to office as the PM in January 1980, had Narasimha Rao sent to New York to support the Soviet action. Mishra read out before the UN General Assembly a prepared text not disapproving of the Soviet invasion.

During in his retirement days, Mishra was reported to have told his close friends that he read out the statement on orders, but was not in agreement with its text. Shortly thereafter, he took premature retirement from the Indian Foreign Service and joined the staff of the UN Secretary-General. He left the job and returned to India in 1987 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party [ Images ] in 1991 to help it establish a foreign affairs cell in its headquarters. In that capacity, he used to advise BJP leaders on foreign policy matters and assist them during their meetings with foreign dignitaries.

Mishra and Vajpayee came close to each other during this period and Vajpayee developed immense trust in Mishra's judgement and advice. When Vajpayee took over as the prime minister in March 1998, he appointed Mishra as the principal secretary. In that capacity, he headed the Prime Minister's Office and co-ordinated its functioning.

Mishra played an important role in the deliberations that preceded the decision of Vajpayee to authorise India's nuclear tests of May 1998. The credit for maintaining the secrecy of the decision and of the preparations for the tests should go to the political leaders of the BJP, who were involved in the decision, Mishra who supervised the execution of the decision and Dr Abdul Kalam and his scientists who carried it out.

The Central Intelligence Agency was totally taken by surprise by the tests, which led to considerable friction in India's relations with the United States and China.

Mishra committed a major faux pas while drafting a letter from Vajpayee to then US President Bill Clinton explaining why India carried out the tests. The letter referred to India's fears of a possible threat from China as a reason for the decision. The US State Department mischievously leaked that letter to the US media, thereby adding to the friction between India and China. It spoke well of the diplomatic skills of Mishra and the pragmatism of Beijing that they did not allow this aggravation of friction to permanently damage the bilateral relations.

Shortly after the nuclear tests, Vajpayee, on the recommendation of a three-member committee on national security headed by K C Pant, decided to revamp the national security infrastructure. As part of this revamp, a post of the National Security Adviser was created. The National Security Council created by V P Singh, which had become dormant, was revived and a National Security Council Secretariat and a National Security Advisory Board of non-governmental advisers were set up. Vajpayee asked Mishra to hold additional charge as the NSA. Thus, he wore two hats -- as the principal secretary to the PM and as his NSA.

K Subramanyam, the strategic affairs expert, was appointed the first convenor of the NSAB. Even at that time, questions were raised by some regarding the wisdom of one individual, however capable, wearing both these hats. It was reported that the Pant Committee was in favour of an independent NSA. So was K Subramanyam, who, on two occasions, had publicly expressed his misgivings about combining the two posts of the principal secretary to the PM and NSA. He felt that as the principal secretary, Mishra would be so preoccupied with running the PMO that he would not be able to devote adequate attention to his job as the NSA. Mishra strongly felt that if the same officer held both the posts, he could prevent conflicting advice on national security matters reaching the PM.

During this period, I had written a number of articles stressing the need for the revival of the covert action capability of the R&AW that had been downgraded by I K Gujral when he was the prime minister in 1997. Mishra, who had read these articles, sent word to me through his office that I should call on him during one of my visits to New Delhi. I did so in 1999. He referred to what I had been writing on the need for the revival of the covert action capability and said, " You don't have to convince me. I was convinced long before you were, but the prime minister is not in favour of it. We have to go by his wishes."

Subsequently, I had occasion to meet him three times. The first occasion was alone in his office. On his own, he referred to criticisms being made about Vajpayee's decision to ask him to hold additional charge as the NSA and said, "I do not want any confusion in the advice reaching the PM on national security matters. It is better that all advice on national security goes to the PM from this office."He was sitting in his office as the principal secretary to the PM.

My next meeting with him was as a member of the special task force for the revamp of the intelligence apparatus headed by G C Saxena, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing and the then governor of Jammu and Kashmir  the Intelligence Bureau and the R&AW. He replied, "I do not see all the reports of the IB. Hence, I cannot comment on its performance. I see all the reports of the R&AW, which works directly under me. When I was in the IFS, I used to think negatively of the R&AW. Now I think positively of it. I am regularly seeing its work and capabilities. It has been doing very well." His remarks were an indirect confirmation of the speculation then circulating in New Delhi that  L K Advani, the then home minister, had kept him out of any active role in supervising the performance of the IB.

My fourth meeting with him was just before the elections of 2004. There was some criticism in sections of the media about his role as the NSA. It was alleged that he had not implemented many of the important recommendations made by the various task forces on national security set up by the Vajpayee government after the Kargil conflict of 1999. He had invited some of us for a briefing on the recommendations that had already been implemented. The briefing was given by the National Security Council Secretariat. He wanted us in our individual capacities to explain to the media and others regarding the action already taken by the government.

Some of the recommendations of the G C Saxena Task Force had related to the state police and the coordination between the central intelligence agencies and the state police. Sections of the media were speculating regarding these recommendations. Some state police officers had contacted me and said that the Government of India had not kept the state governments in the picture regarding these recommendations. I mentioned this to Mishra at this meeting.

Mishra replied, " Raman, you don't know what problems I have been having sorting out the quarrels among the central agencies regarding the implementation. Let me sort them out first. I will then sort out the recommendations relating to the state police."

I consider the brilliant manner in which Mishra handled the diplomatic consequences of the nuclear tests as his greatest achievement as the NSA. The Clinton administration was very petulant. China was furious. The European Union was not very sympathetic. Only Russia was sympathetic. Many of us feared that India would be confined to the diplomatic doghouse. The fact that India was not and that our relations with these countries again improved spoke very highly of the way Mishra handled the sequel. He also saw to it that a nuclear doctrine was drafted, approved and put in place within a year of the tests.

He travelled a lot in this connection as a secret emissary of Vajpayee and I was given to understand that the R&AW played an important role in assisting him through its web of liaison relations with the countries, which were angry with India over the nuclear tests. I had personally heard Mishra pay high tributes to the assistance from the R&AW in this regard. He handled very creditably the sequel to the Kargil conflict with Pakistan and the sequel to the attack on the Indian Parliament. 

However, there was some criticism -- not invalid in my view -- of what was seen by many as his mishandling of the Kandahar hijacking and the case of Major Rabinder Singh, the CIA's mole in the R&AW, who managed to escape to the US in 2004. 

He was allegedly totally unaware of the details of the crisis management drill to deal with hijackings that had been laid down in the 1980s when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were prime ministers. It was alleged by people in New Delhi, who were not ill disposed to Mishra, that he was confused and did not know how to handle the situation. As a result, the hijacked plane managed to take off from Amritsar airport, leave the Indian airspace and reach Kandahar. We lost control of the situation and had no other option but to concede the demands of the hijackers.

There was an inexcusable delay on the part of the R&AW in alerting Mishra that Rabinder Singh was suspected of working as a CIA mole and was under surveillance. Initially, the R&AW kept not only Mishra, but also the IB in the dark. In fact, the moment they developed suspicion about Rabinder Singh, the R&AW should have alerted the IB and asked it to mount a surveillance on him. When the case was belatedly brought to the notice of Mishra, one would have expected him to lose his temper for not keeping him informed and order that the surveillance be handed over to the IB. He did not do anything of the sort. He seemed to have gone along with the R&AW's decision to keep the IB in the dark and advised the R&AW to be discreet in its surveillance since he was worried that any embarrassment could damage his efforts to develop a strategic partnership with the US.

There is no other way of explaining his silence on the R&AW keeping the IB in the dark except to believe that he did not want Advani to prematurely know about it lest he complicate matters. Those were the months before the 2004 elections when Mishra's style of national security management had started coming under criticism from some of his usual detractors as well as others. He apparently did not want any premature publicity to add to his difficulties.

To quote Amar Bhushan, the then head of counter-intelligence and security in the R&AW, who had written an account of the case under the cover of a fiction titled 'Escape To Nowhere', " Coming from a diplomatic background, he (NSA) is naturally apprehensive of the adverse impact of the investigation on bilateral relations. He may be wondering why we make such a fuss about the restrictive security when senior officers routinely talk and exchange ideas among themselves." Amar Bhushan also quotes C D Sahay, the then head of the R&AW, as telling him after a meeting with Mishra, " He thinks that the case has been badly handled and its gravity blown out of proportion. He is of the view that we should have dealt with the case administratively as soon as we knew that he (Rabinder) was making conscious efforts to elicit unauthorised information from his colleagues."

Right from the beginning since Mishra took over as the NSA, there was an impression that he was feeling out of depth in internal security matters. He hardly had any influence over the state governments. His word and advice carried little weight in the state corridors of decision-making. R N Kao, who shared this impression, had suggested to Vajpayee the creation of a post of a Deputy National Security Adviser under Mishra to be filled up by an IAS or IPS officer well-versed in internal security management. According to Kao, Vajpayee appeared to be amenable to accepting the idea. By the time the post was created, Kao was dead. It was filled by another retired IFS officer.

There was another reason why Mishra was weak in internal security management. Advani, who looked upon himself as the internal security Czar, was disinclined to give Mishra any substantive role in it.

(The writer is the additional secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, and, presently the director of the Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies.)

Vajpayee’s ultimate cold warriorMishra has been described as a ‘hybrid between Chanakya and Henry Kissinger’ — a man with a ‘steel stomach’, with the ability to strip through the rhetoric and focus on key issues.RAJ CHENGAPPA

A file photo of Brajesh Mishra with then Prime Minister AB Vajpayee. Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120930/edit.htm#3

WHEN I spoke to Brajesh Mishra last month, he was as usual brusque and precise in his answers. He never suffered fools or foolish questions and could be intimidating to those unfamiliar with his manner. Despite his failing health, his memory remained razor sharp. I had checked with him whether during the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistan had conveyed a nuclear threat to deter India from launching a full-scale war. Mishra said India had no evidence that Pakistan would carry out a first strike but confirmed that India had kept its nuclear weapons in a state of readiness, just in case. He then disconnected the phone.

Mishra, who died on Friday, just a day short of completing 84 years, was India’s first National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee from 1998 to 2004. Just 50 feet of red carpet separated his room from that of Vajpayee in South Block and whenever the Prime Minister was there, Mishra was at hand. The degree of influence he wielded with Vajpayee and his closeness to him drew comparisons with the relationship the legendary PN Haksar had with Mrs Indira Gandhi during her first tenure as Prime Minister.

A Jawaharlal Nehru University professor once described Mishra as a “hybrid between Chanakya and Henry Kissinger”. He was known as a man with a “steel stomach”, with the ability to strip through the rhetoric and focus on key issues. The immense power he wielded with the twin posts and his access to Vajpayee saw him face severe criticism.

In an article I wrote for India Today in 2000 I had termed him as a ‘supercrat’ and talked of how increasingly he was looked upon as a “control freak” and “a lone ranger.” I also mentioned that Vajpayee’s Mr Troubleshooter, with his background as a former Indian Foreign Service officer, was out of depth in economic matters and it was beginning to tell on the efficacy of the Prime Minister on domestic policy issues.

I met Mishra soon after the article was published. He was visibly upset. But all he did was to point his index finger to his forehead and wiggle it to indicate that he thought his critics were “pagal”. His supporters pointed out that the attack on Mishra’s style of functioning was part of a proxy battle to get at the Prime Minister. It was apparent that Vajpayee trusted him intrinsically and resisted all pressure to move him out or clip his wings.

That sort of trust and respect was hard earned. Mishra’s finest hour was during the 1998 Pokharan tests, where he played a large part in convincing Vajpayee to go ahead with the explosions early in his tenure. The timing of the tests not only caught the world by surprise but also many of Vajpayee’s Cabinet colleagues. Mishra was part of the inner circle that knew when. So secret were the timings that Vajpayee briefed his Cabinet colleagues, including LK Advani, only a day before the tests.

Mishra’s assessment to Vajpayee, that if India played its business and political cards well it would weather the international storm over the nuclear tests in six months, proved to largely correct. Mishra had predicted that Pakistan would go ahead with its own tests and end up facing serious economic consequences. That the US would clamp sanctions on India, but he was confident the Indian economy was resilient enough to withstand the sanctions. That Russia, though uncomfortable with the tests, would back India. But his advice to Vajpayee to target China in a letter that the Prime Minister wrote to then US President Bill Clinton soon after the tests proved to be embarrassing when it was leaked.

After the tests, Mishra continued to play a key role in the decision-making process. At the height of the Kargil conflict he met his US counterpart, Sandy Berger, and reportedly delivered a message from Vajpayee to Clinton. Mishra remained tight-lipped about what he really communicated, but it is believed that Vajpayee had indicated to Clinton that India was readying itself for a full-scale war with Pakistan if the US was unable to convince Pakistan to withdraw from the heights.

I do have a personal story of Mishra that would demonstrate the clout that he wielded as Vajpayee’s Man Friday. I remember that when I had obtained exclusive pictures of the 1998 Pokharan tests, including that of key Indian atomic scientists and APJ Abdul Kalam disguised in army fatigues at the test site, it was Mishra who took the decision to allow me to publish them. As far as I know, he took it without consulting the Prime Minister — such was the confidence he enjoyed. I never did thank him. I am doing so now.

raj@tribunemail.com. 

__._,_.___

India’s Military Modernization: Plans and Strategic Underpinnings

September 26, 2012 by Team SAI  

By Gurmeet Kanwal

As a key player in Asia and a large democracy with which the United States shares common interests, India is emerging as an important U.S. strategic partner. There is a broad national consensus in India on the contours of this emerging relationship with Washington, particularly with respect to enhanced defense and civil nuclear energy cooperation. During his visit to New Delhi in June 2012, U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta identified India as a “linchpin” in Washington’s emerging “rebalancing” strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. While there was no reaction from the Indian government, it is clear that these two large democracies need to work together militarily in order to maintain freedom of the seas in the Indian Ocean region and to ensure peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific more generally. Should China experience political instability or behave irresponsibly in asserting its territorial rights—as it has shown a tendency to do in the South China Sea—both India and the United States will need strong strategic partners to face worst-case scenarios effectively.

In order to meet future threats and challenges and achieve interoperability with U.S. and other friendly armed forces for joint operations in India’s area of strategic interest, the Indian military needs to modernize and create force structures that are capable of undertaking network-centric warfare on land, at sea, and in the air. Gradually, but perceptibly, the Indian armed forces are upgrading their capabilities, enhancing their kinetic effectiveness and command and control, and improving interoperability. This brief analyzes the threats and challenges that India must address, the measures being adopted to modernize the country’s armed forces, and the strategic underpinnings behind this slow but steady modernization effort.

Preparing for a Two-Front War

South Asia is among the world’s most unstable regions due to the ongoing war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In addition, growing fundamentalist terrorism; creeping “Talibanization” in Pakistan; political instability in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka; unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang; narcotics trafficking; and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons are also destabilizing factors. Unresolved territorial and boundary disputes with China and Pakistan, over which India has fought four wars; internal security challenges in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the northeastern states; and the rising tide of the Maoist insurgency in the heartland further vitiate India’s strategic environment. Further, many Indian security analysts worry that China is engaged in the strategic encirclement of India through its nuclear and missile nexus with Pakistan; the sale of military hardware to Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka; and a “string of pearls” strategy to surround India with naval bases in the northern Indian Ocean region.

India-China relations are stable at the strategic level. Resolution of the territorial dispute is being discussed by India’s national security adviser and China’s vice foreign minister, military confidence-building measures are holding up, bilateral trade has increased to $60 billion, and both countries are cooperating in international forums like the World Trade Organization and the UN Climate Change Conference. However, the relationship is more contentious at the tactical level.

For example, China refuses to issue proper visas to Indian citizens of Arunachal Pradesh, Beijing denied the commander-in-chief of India’s Northern Command a visa for an official visit because it believes that J&K is a disputed territory, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been making frequent forays across the Line of Actual Control into Indian territory simply to push Chinese territorial claims. China has also rapidly developed military infrastructure in Tibet to allow for quicker induction of troops and their sustenance over a longer period of time. Another destabilizing factor is the large Chinese presence in the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. These developments do not augur well for long-term peace and stability.

The prevailing strategic environment has forced India’s armed forces to prepare for the possibility of a “two front” war, while the army and other security forces are engaged in fighting an ongoing “half front” internal security war. Even though the probability of conventional conflict remains low due to steadily improving relations and military confidence-building measures with China and Pakistan, this possibility cannot be completely ruled out. Nuclear deterrence also plays a positive role in conflict avoidance, but the prevailing wisdom in India is that there is space for conventional conflict below the nuclear threshold.

There is now increasing realization that unless India takes immediate measures to accelerate the pace of its military modernization, the gap with China, which is only a quantitative gap at present, will soon become a qualitative gap, given the rapid rate of PLA modernization. Likewise, the slender edge that the Indian armed forces now enjoy over the Pakistani armed forces in conventional conflict is being eroded as Pakistan is spending considerable sums of money on its military modernization under the garb of fighting radical extremism. [1]

Although the Indian armed forces have drawn up elaborate plans for modernizing and qualitatively upgrading their capabilities for future combat, including the ability to secure the sea lanes of communication and project power in India’s area of strategic interest, the pace of modernization has been slow due to the lack of adequate funding, delayed decision-making, and a low-tech defense industrial base. India’s defense budget is pegged at less than 2% of its GDP at present, and the bulk of the expenditure is on the revenue account—that is, pay and allowances, rations, fuel, oil and lubricants, ammunition, and vehicles. [2] Very little remains in the capital account to be spent on modernization. In the case of the army, spending on modernization is as little as 20% to 25% of total capital expenditure in 2012–13.[3] According to Indian defense minister A.K. Antony, “New procurements have commenced…but we are still lagging by 15 years.” [4] Nonetheless, an inadequate defense industrial base—imports constitute 70% of defense acquisitions—and bureaucratic inefficiency, rather than lack of funds, are the main causes of the slow pace of modernization. India is expected to procure defense equipment worth $100 billion, most of it imported, over the next two five-year plans. Simultaneously, however, efforts are being stepped up to enhance indigenous capabilities and thereby reduce India’s dependence on imports by an order of magnitude. The following three sections will survey India’s modernization of its army, navy, and air force.

Army Modernization: Enhancing Capabilities without Reducing Manpower

With personnel strength of 1.1 million soldiers (6 regional commands, a training command, 13 corps, and 38 divisions), the Indian Army has kept the nation together through various crises, including four wars since independence, Pakistan’s “proxy war” in J&K since 1989–90, and insurgencies in many of the northeastern states. [5] Given its large-scale operational commitments on border management and counterinsurgency, the army cannot afford to reduce its manpower numbers until these challenges are overcome. Many of its weapons and equipment are bordering on obsolescence and need to be replaced. The next step would be to move gradually toward acquiring network-centric capabilities for effects-based operations so as to optimize the army’s full combat potential for defensive and offensive operations. The army is also preparing to join the navy and the air force in launching intervention operations in India’s area of strategic interest when called on to do so in the future.

Lieutenant General J.P. Singh (retired), former deputy chief of the army staff (planning and systems), stated in an interview with the CLAWS Journal that

“the critical capabilities that are being enhanced to meet challenges across the spectrum include

battlefield transparency, battlefield management systems, night-fighting capability, enhanced firepower, including terminally guided munitions, integrated maneuver capability to include self-propelled artillery, quick reaction surface-to-air missiles, the latest assault engineer equipment, tactical control systems, integral combat aviation support and network centricity.”

[6] The army’s mechanized forces are still mostly “night blind.” Its artillery lacks towed and self-propelled 155-mm howitzers for the plains and the mountains and has little capability by way of multi-barrel rocket launchers and surface-to-surface missiles. Infantry battalions urgently need to acquire modern weapons and equipment for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations to increase operational effectiveness and lower casualties.

Main battle tanks (MBT) and infantry combat vehicles (ICV) are the driving forces of India’s conventional deterrence in the plains. This fleet is being modernized gradually by inducting two regiments of the indigenously developed Arjun MBT and importing 310 T-90S MBTs from Russia. A contract has also been signed for 347 additional T-90S tanks to be assembled in India. The BMP-1 and BMP-2 Russian ICVs, which have long been the mainstay of the mechanized infantry battalions, need to be replaced as well. The new ICVs must be capable of performing internal security duties and counterinsurgency operations in addition to their primary role in conventional conflicts.

Artillery modernization plans include the acquisition of towed, wheeled, and self-propelled 155-mm guns and howitzers for the plains and the mountains through import as well as indigenous development. The Corps of Army Air Defence is also faced with problems of obsolescence. The vintage L-70 40-mm air defense (AD) gun system, the four-barreled ZSU-23-4 Schilka (SP) AD gun system, the SAM-6 (Kvadrat), and the SAM-8 OSA-AK, among others, need to be replaced by more responsive modern AD systems that are capable of defeating current and future threats.

The modernization of India’s infantry battalions is moving forward but at a similarly slow pace. This initiative is aimed at enhancing the battalions’ capability for surveillance and target acquisition at night and boosting their firepower for precise retaliation against infiltrating columns and terrorists hiding in built-up areas. These plans include the acquisition of shoulder-fired missiles, hand-held battlefield surveillance radars, and hand-held thermal imaging devices for observation at night. A system called F-INSAS (future infantry soldier as a system) is also under development.

One infantry division has been designated as a rapid reaction force for employment on land or in intervention operations and will have one amphibious brigade and two air assault brigades.

Similarly, the Indian Army proposes to substantially enhance the operational capabilities of army aviation, engineers, signal communications, reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition branches in order to improve the army’s overall combat potential by an order of magnitude. Modern strategic and tactical level command and control systems need to be acquired on priority for better synergies during conventional and sub-conventional conflict. Plans for the acquisition of a mobile corps-to-battalion tactical communications system and a battalion-level battlefield management system likewise need to be hastened.

Despite being the largest user of space, the army does not yet have a dedicated military satellite for its space surveillance needs.

Cyberwarfare capabilities are also at a nascent stage. The emphasis thus far has been on developing protective capabilities to safeguard Indian networks and C4I2SR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance) from cyberattack. Offensive capabilities have yet to be adequately developed. All these capabilities will make it easier for the army to undertake joint operations with multinational forces when the need arises and the government approves such a policy option.

Naval Modernization: Major Fleet Expansion

The Indian Navy’s ambitious Maritime Capabilities Perspective Plan seeks to dominate the Indian Ocean region by acquiring blue water operational capability while effectively countering current and emerging threats closer to the coastline. There is a perceptible shift in emphasis from an increase in the number of platforms to the enhancement of capabilities. According to a report tabled in the Indian Parliament in the last week of April 2012 by the Standing Committee on Defence, the navy’s modernization plan seeks to achieve the following objectives:

• Augment airborne maritime surveillance, strike, anti-submarine warfare [ASW] and air defence capability through induction of shore-based aircraft, integral helos, carrier based aircraft, space based [assets] and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], along with suitable weapons and sensors.
• Develop ASW capability through induction of suitable platforms, weapons and sensors.
• Build adequate stand-off capability for sea lift and expeditionary operations to achieve desired power projection force levels, influence events ashore and undertake military operations other than war.
• Induct assets and develop suitable infrastructure to augment forces available for low intensity maritime operations (LIMO), protection of off-shore assets and [for] coastal security.
• Induct force multipliers like satellite based global communications, reconnaissance and network enabled platforms to achieve battle-space dominance capability and perform network centric operations.
• Induct state-of-the-art equipment and specialized platforms for special forces to enhance niche capabilities to conduct maritime intervention operations and other envisaged roles.
• Develop support infrastructure in island territories to support the planned force levels as well as support infrastructure for ships/submarines/aircrafts at ports and airbases. [7]

According to Admiral Arun Prakash (retired), former chief of naval staff, India’s naval modernization plans are designed to meet the following aims:[8]

• Acquiring a capability for maritime domain awareness in the area of responsibility, including space-based surveillance, maritime reconnaissance, airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), and UAVs
• Developing the capability for expeditionary and joint warfare, supported by special operations
• Acquiring reach and sustainability through long endurance, tankers, turnaround facilities in friendly foreign ports, and longer intervals between maintenance cycles
• Acquiring modern capabilities in fields of tactical aviation, ASW, anti-air/anti-missile, land-attack, mine countermeasures, and electronic warfare
• Networking ships, submarines, and airborne platforms via satellite
• Committing to self-reliance and indigenization, with the objective of harnessing national strengths in shipbuilding, engineering, electronics, and IT

The Indian Navy has two operational fleets—the Eastern Naval Command and Western Naval Command—and has proposed to center both fleets around an aircraft carrier. Eventually the navy plans to graduate to three carrier battle groups. The INS Chakra, a nuclear-powered submarine leased from Russia, will join the fleet later in 2012, while the INS Arihant, the first of three to four indigenously designed and developed nuclear-armed submarines, is expected to become fully operational by late 2014. India has also begun to induct Russian Nerpa-class submarines, which will give the navy a much-needed fillip to the submarine fleet and considerably enhance sea-denial capabilities. Three stealth frigates have only recently been added to the fleet.

The Indian Navy’s modernization plans, though much delayed, have thus finally begun to pick up steam. Pointing out the navy’s role as a key facilitator in promoting peace and stability in the Indian Ocean region, Defence Minister Antony observed while commissioning a stealth frigate in July 2012 that the present operating environment of the Indian Navy “dictates that we balance our resources with a strategy that is responsive across the full range of blue and brown water operations….The maintenance of a strong and credible navy and strengthening cooperation and friendship with other countries to promote regional and global stability is the need of the hour.” [9]

The Navy plans to expand to a fleet of 150 ships in the next ten to fifteen years, with 50 warships now under construction and 100 new vessels in the acquisition pipeline.

The navy is also engaged in setting up operational turnaround bases, forward-operating bases, and naval air enclaves with a view to enhancing India’s surveillance efforts in the Indian Ocean region. Plans for accretions to the naval aviation fleet are likewise progressing smoothly:

Boeing 737 P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft have begun to be inducted, and 5 additional Kamov Ka-31 AEW helicopters will be added to the existing fleet of 11 helicopters. Further, the navy’s amphibious landing capability has been enhanced considerably by the acquisition of the INS Jalashwa (ex–USS Trenton) and other landing ships, and additional capabilities for amphibious warfare are being rapidly developed. As a result of these efforts, the Indian Navy is on the cusp of acquiring the capabilities necessary to join key strategic partners such as the U.S. Navy in safeguarding the sea lanes of communication in the northern Indian Ocean and ensuring unfettered freedom of the seas for trade and commerce.

Air Force Modernization: Air Dominance and Force Projection

Until recently, India’s traditional strategic sphere lay between the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca; but with India’s global footprint expanding, the Indian Air Force should be ready to serve wherever the country’s future strategic interests lie. The air force is gearing up to provide the strategic outreach that India needs as a growing regional power and to project power where necessary in order to defend vital national interests. According to Kapil Kak, a retired air vice marshal and senior defense analyst, although there is a gap between vision and capability with regard to shaping India’s strategic neighborhood, forward movement is now visible. In his view, the modernization plans of the air force are aimed at achieving the following objectives: [10]

• Air dominance and control of the air
• Deterrence, by both denial and punishment
• Long-range offensive reach—penetration, precision, persistence, and parallelity—in simultaneous operations at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels
• Strategic air-lift capability for power projection through both hard and soft power, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations and diaspora evacuation
• Build-up of capability for coercion
• Acquisition of force enablers and multipliers and related combat-support systems, including networking for tri-service command and control
• Capability of conducting cyberspace and information operations
• Indigenization of future capabilities for design and development

From a sanctioned strength of 39 squadrons, the Indian Air Force is down to 34 squadrons at present, due to decades of neglect, but hopes to enhance its strength to 42 squadrons by 2022. Yet plans to acquire 126 multi-mission, medium-range combat aircraft—in order to maintain an edge over the regional air forces—are stuck in the procurement quagmire. Tejas, the indigenously designed light combat aircraft, which is expected to replace the obsolescent Mig-21, is still a few years away from becoming fully operational. India is also developing a fifth-generation fighter jointly with Russia and aims to fly it in 2015.

New fighter bombers include a fleet of 272 Sukhoi-30 MKIs, half of which have already been built. AEW aircraft are being acquired from Israel as well as being developed indigenously. India has also acquired 6 C-130J Super Hercules aircraft for its special forces and will likely order 6 more from the United States. C-17 Globemaster heavy-lift aircraft are also likely to be acquired shortly, which will take India’s defense cooperation with the United States to a new level. Although a contract has been signed with a Swiss firm for 75 Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer aircraft, India’s fleet of jet trainers continues to be deficient. In the rotary-wing category, the indigenously manufactured Dhruv utility helicopter has entered service. The air force is also in the process of acquiring medium-lift transport helicopters and attack helicopters.

In keeping with developments in the region, India’s strategic forces are also modernizing at a steady pace. The Agni-I and Agni-II missiles are now fully operational. Immediate requirements include the Agni-V intermediate-range ballistic missile, which has a 5,000-km range, and nuclear-powered submarines with suitable ballistic missiles to provide genuine second-strike capability. As noted above, the INS Arihant, India’s first indigenously built nuclear submarine, will likely become fully operational by late 2014. While India’s emphasis is on mobile missile launchers, a small number of hardened silos are also being constructed.

The armed forces do not currently have a truly integrated tri-service C4I2SR system suitable for network-centric warfare, which would allow them to optimize their individual capabilities; however, plans have been made to develop such a system in the next five to ten years. In fact, all new weapons and equipment acquisitions are now being planned on a tri-service basis to ensure interoperability.

India’s Quest for Strategic Outreach

Given its growing power and responsibilities, India has been steadily enhancing its expeditionary and military intervention capabilities, which have been amply demonstrated in recent times.

During the 1991 Gulf War, India airlifted 150,000 civilian workers, who had been forced to leave Iraq, from the airfield at Amman, Jordan, over a period of 30 days. This was the largest airlift since the Berlin airlift at the end of World War II. During the 2004 tsunami, the Indian armed forces were at the forefront of rescue and relief operations. Over 70 Indian Navy ships transported rescue teams and relief material to disaster zones in less than 72 hours, even though the country’s eastern seaboard had itself suffered considerable casualties and damage. Likewise, Indian Navy ships on a goodwill visit to European countries during the Lebanon war in 2006 lifted and brought back 5,000 Indian civilian refugees.

From the ongoing modernization plans described above, it is evident that India is preparing to join the world’s major powers in terms of the ability to undertake out-of-area contingency operations. Further, the acquisition of SU-30 MKI long-range fighter bombers with air-to-air refueling capability, C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, and airborne-warning-and-control-system and maritime-surveillance capabilities over the next five to ten years will give India considerable strategic outreach.

New Delhi has consistently favored military interventions only under a UN umbrella. Though that position is unlikely to change in the near term, India is likely to join future coalitions of the willing even without UN approval when vital national interests are threatened and need to be defended.

Shiv Shankar Menon, India’s national security adviser, stated in a speech in August 2011: “As a nation-state India has consistently shown tactical caution and strategic initiative, sometimes simultaneously. But equally, initiative and risk-taking must be strategic, not tactical, if we are to avoid the fate of becoming a rentier state.” [11] He went on to mention that India was cooperating extensively with other militaries to fight piracy off the Horn of Africa. Such cooperation will increase in the future as India adds to its intervention capabilities.

Given that India faces complex strategic scenarios and is located in an increasingly unstable neighborhood, it is in New Delhi’s interest to encourage a cooperative model of regional security and work with all friendly countries toward that end. At the same time, New Delhi finds it pragmatic to hedge just in case worst-case scenarios—such as the collapse of China or China’s use of military force for territorial gains—begin to unfold and threaten India’s economic development or territorial integrity.

The increasing emphasis on maritime cooperation, particularly with the United States, is part of India’s continuing efforts to fulfill growing obligations and responsibilities as a regional power. New Delhi is now working to cooperate with all the major Asian powers in order to maintain peace and stability in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific more generally, though without aligning militarily with any one power.

Toward this end, the armed forces are working together to achieve joint warfare capabilities for intervention operations in India’s area of strategic interest. In sum, a rising India will soon become a net contributor to security in the Indian Ocean region, together with strategic partners such as the United States.

Nonetheless, India’s modernization plans are moving ahead at a very slow pace. Policy paralysis in New Delhi due to the vagaries of coalition politics in a parliamentary democracy, along with the reduction in the defense budget as a share of India’s GDP due to sluggish growth in the economy, has further exacerbated the difficulties in increasing the pace of modernization.

 However, the process is certainly underway, and there is hope that it will receive bipartisan support across the political spectrum because of the realization that no alternative exists for addressing emerging threats and challenges but for India to quickly modernize its armed forces.

India’s military modernization, however slow it might be, will lead to a qualitative increase in defense cooperation with the United States and other strategic partners by enhancing the capabilities of the Indian armed forces for joint coalition operations, if they are in India’s national interest.

Overall, India will gradually acquire the capability to act as a net provider of security in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. This positive development will allow strategic partners like the United States to reduce their military commitments to the region to a limited extent. Hence, India’s modernization efforts will enhance and further cement U.S.-India relations.

Gurmeet Kanwal is a Delhi-based defense analyst and former Director of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. This article first appeared in nbr.org.

 

Moderator's Comments: 

 

Good article. Worth reading

However, some additional aspects need to be discussed as well.

1.  Modernization cannot be open ended. It has also to be focused towards foreseeable threats.

2.  India’s most potent threat is from China. To counter this, India will have to fight in the high Himalayan Mountains. Where with all required for facing China must be discussed and receive focused attention.

3. The Indian establishment seems to be talking about intervention with a sizable force abroad. Let us take a leaf from China. Till now they have not intervened militarily any where. They have focused on Economic development and recently stepped up military modernization. Making intervention abroad is one thing but then supporting the forces and getting them out another. Let us not forget lessons learnt from IPKF Operations in Sri Lanka.

4.  India’s biggest weakness has been INTELLIGENCE. With accurate and timely intelligence, even inferior forces can win victories or deter aggression. This aspect needs to be the FIRST ITEM in any discussion on modernization of India’s Armed Forces.

 

5.  CITIZENS ARMY. India cannot economically afford large Armed Forces to face two and a half front operations. (half front for insurgencies and terrorism. These are not going to go away as the future political and governance scenario is developing). The Military and in particular the Army should press for large territorial Army units for the East, extending to Leh Ladakh in the West for deploying along the Tibetan Border. The locals knowing the area and acclimatized will be a great asset for defending against any adventure by China. We need to think out of the box for requirement of forces for two and a half front confrontation and defending far flung areas along  the Himalayas and in the East in particular.

 

Harbhajan Singh

Lt Gen

 

 

 

Money does grow on trees, Prime Minister

The Hindu

Jaswant Singh

There is no way we can take lightly the Prime Minister’s recent address to the nation. It was, unarguably, an exceptional step for him to take, renowned as he is neither for his loquacity, nor for his oratorial skills. Why then did he mount his Rocinante of ‘91 vintage and futilely lance opponents of his policies by alleging that they were “spreading canards”? Also, which Sancho Panza on his staff persuaded him to use this insulting noun? But for this, his otherwise rather nondescript address would have been best left to its inevitable fate of oblivion. Not, however, now.

Telephone call

First: this rather admonitory “money does not grow on trees”. Just a day after this astonishing, also so unneeded, reprimand, I received a telephone call from a retired soldier colleague, who had served with me as my tank driver, sharing with me for many years my tank lean-to shelter at night. I save his name lest he be nagged by the otherwise inefficient Intelligence Bureau. “Sahib”, he said in his thick Shekhawati dialect and accent, “please educate the PM that money does actually grow on trees and plants; we get all our fruits, vegetables and animal feed and also firewood from a ‘tree’. So tell him to think of the farmers, not of the ‘foreigners’, who over two centuries back came as a company and took away our land. Not one ‘biswa’ [a measure of land] was left to us”. I promised him I would do so, but advised him not to disturb his retired life over such depressing thoughts, for just as our ‘dhabas’ defeated a rather cocky Colonel from Kentucky, US of A, India will defeat this, too. And not one word of this anecdote is made up.

Therefore, next to the fabled merits of multiple retail shops of (in)famous names.

Please reflect first on the merits of India’s unorganised and widely dispersed retail trade, explained with admirable clarity and succinctness by S. Gurumurthy (“‘Reform’ at Nation’s Cost,” New Indian Express , September 20) : “The unorganised retail trade in India represents the traditional, community-centric, low-cost … employment intense retailing that includes, but is not limited to, kirana shops, owner-run-general stores, paan-beedi shops, convenience stores, and hand-cart and pavement vending. In this model a whole family works in one shop and a whole community is engaged in the trade in a defined area. Most advocates of corporate … and retail firms … ignore [this] critical contribution of the [existing system] to the Indian economy and society (emphasis added). This “multi-layer retailing is the most decentralised economic activity in India after agriculture. Second, it constitutes almost 98 percent of the total trade with an estimated 12 million outlets. In contrast, organised trade accounts for just 2 percent. Third, it is the largest employment provider after agriculture, employing an estimated 40 million people”. In contrast, the world’s largest retail chain, Wal-Mart, employs just about five lakhs. Fourth, being “self-employed … with their families”, this activity comprises “120 million people”.

It is “retailing that continuously generates … huge community-based entrepreneurship”. And then “it contributes over 14 percent of India’s GDP, while all [the] companies in the BSE 500 Index, put together is some 4 percent”. Also that the “unorganised retail segment has been growing at an average rate of over 8 percent a year for the last eight years (1999-00 to 2006-07). … second only to construction …” Let us consider seriously that “if [this] social capital link to retail trade is unsettled, the entire distant and remote supply chain will suffer over a period, disturbing the social equilibrium and the organic social links that have evolved over … centuries”.

There is then a further ‘canard’ spread by our dear PM and his ilk, suggesting that concerns like ‘Walmart’, and others of that variety, overflow with the milk of human kindness and act only out of empathy and compassion for India’s farmers and poor. Gurumurthy very effectively comes to our assistance here, too, the evidence, even in the U.S. being to the contrary: “Walmart entered in Austin neighbourhood of Chicago in 2006. And by 2008, some 82 of the 306 small shops had closed down.” Further, “the Economic Development Quarterly study found the closure rate around Walmart location at 35-60 per cent.” Such studies in the U.S. reject the UPA’s assertion that FDI in retail does not hurt small shops. On job creation, a January 2010 report titled ‘Walmart’s Economic Footprint’, prepared for the New York City Public Advocate, says that “Walmart kills three local jobs for every two it creates”. Jayati Ghosh, an eminent Indian economist cited by Karan Thapar, asserts that “one Walmart store in India will displace 1400 small retail stores costing 5000 jobs”. This, too, is dismissed by the government as “meaningless”.

Misplaced view

As for Walmart offering better prices, please recognise it does not buy or pay for goods over the counter. It purchases the nation’s next harvest in futures market and fixes farm prices. It also “imports cheap goods and destroys local production like it has done in the U.S.” And an outstanding example of this is provided by President George W. Bush, who gratuitously observed “that [rice] prices had gone up because newly prosperous Indians had begun eating more”. In truth, as detailed by USA Today (April 23, 2008) and CNN (April 24, 2008) the “California Rice Commission and USA Rice Federation” denied there was a “shortage of rice”, explaining that it was because ‘Sams Club’ (Walmart’s wholesale division) was holding ‘huge stocks’, and ‘pushing up the prices’.

Two UPA government reports — of the Planning Commission Working Group on Agriculture for the XI Plan (2007-2012), and the 19th report of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Food (2006-2007), to Parliament — “themselves nail the lie that Walmart will link farm-gate to its gate and make Indian farmers rich”.

There is then that absurd assumption that this variety of capital inflow is the answer to our present trade and current account deficits. First, this is neither true nor tenable. Secondly, whose misgovernance/absence of governance has brought about this situation? Please do not place all blame on the ‘global situation’ when you do not hesitate to pat your back about crossing the 2008 fiscal obstacle course. “The trade account deficit of about US$150 billion and the current account deficit exceeding 3 per cent of GDP is very alarming and may lead to a balance of payments crisis of much graver nature than the 1990 position”. It is this continuous pressure on the “trade account and the sudden withdrawal of funds by FIIs from the stock market that has weakened the Indian Rupee”, (Rs. 16 in 1991 to as low as Rs.50 per U.S. dollar) during the UPA-2’s Rule, resulting in a “devaluation of more than 300 per cent”. (Thus becoming) one of “the major causes of imported inflation in the country during the past two decades”. Should our domestic savings, contributing almost 90 per cent of investments in the country, go down, which without fiscal and monetary incentives could well happen, and should the Investment to GDP ratio fall below 30 per cent, then surely we will revert to a ‘sub-Hindu rate’ of growth. That is why prime ministerial favours to foreign investors and step-motherly treatment to our dear desi s is so difficult to grasp.

Finally, a brief word about the totally wrong phraseology, to which all have by now succumbed. The measures recently undertaken are not in any sense ‘reforms’, and I am very glad our distinguished Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission has candidly and correctly said so. These, at best, are ‘administrative’ measures which the government has now, with much fanfare, announced. Misplaced again, for the first reform needed, the very first is ‘reform of government’, and reforming governance is vital so that corruption is minimised and efficiency in administration maximised. I am doing what I promised my soldier colleague I would do. Are the knights of “El ingenioso hidalgo …” listening?

(The writer is Member of Parliament.)

The U.S. experience proves that big retailers like Walmart are destructive for the community and will not generate the benefits that India has been promised