‘Mission Arihant’ Accomplished, Still a Long Way to Go

INS Arihant brings strength to existing Indian fleet yet self-reliance is still miles away, writes C Uday Bhaskar.

India’s first indigenously designed and built, nuclear-propelled, missile-capable submarine, the ARIHANT, has successfully completed its sea trials off Visakhapatnam in the Bay of Bengal. According to media reports the ‘boat’ is likely to be commissioned soon – that is getting formally inducted into the Indian Navy - and will then acquire the prefix INS.

This is indeed a definitive triumph for India and this achievement is both a tribute as well as testimony to the perseverance of Team India – which includes the Indian Navy, the Atomic Energy Commission, the DRDO, the public and private sector agencies and the academia that were involved in this three-decade marathon.

Limited Budgetary Allocation

Yet this achievement merits scrutiny in the run-up to the annual budget, when the priorities of the Modi government in terms of allocation for the defence sector would come to the fore. It may be recalled that in February 2015, when the current government presented its first budget, the defence allocation was Rs 2,46,727 crore, or a little over US $ 40 billion.

This allocation is expected to sustain our military capability that is mandated to manage a broad spectrum of security challenges. These include managing the nuclear-missile domain (WMD or weapons of mass destruction), defending national integrity and safeguarding our territory, and the low-intensity conflict cum internal security (LIC-IS) compulsions – the latter manifesting itself in the form of the Mumbai terror attack of November 2008 and the recent Haryana Jat.

Another Feather in the Cap

• Big defence accomplishment for India as Arihant gets ready for operations, after an effort over three decades.
  
• Despite the Arihant feat, India’s allocation for defence not sufficient to cover the broad spectrum of security challenges.
  
• Arihant submarine is the pinnacle of techno-strategic prowess as it is capable of providing credible second-strike capability.
  
• Submerged deep in the ocean, the submarine can launch a nuclear-tipped strategic missile over thousands of kilometres.
  
• Despite this commendable achievement, India continues to be the world’s largest importer of military inventory.
  

Accomplishing the Feat

The Arihant is a remarkable technological achievement in a relatively arid national military design and manufacturing eco-system. Few countries in the world have mastered the ability to design and build an SSBN (ship submersible ballistic nuclear), and this acumen is restricted to the five countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council – USA, Russia, France, UK and China.

The traditional route to the indigenous SSBN has been an arduous one. Those who accomplished the feat before us began with designing and building conventional diesel submarines first and then graduating to the nuclear propelled submarine (SSN) and then finally embarking on the SSBN.

For a variety of  reasons that can only  be indulgently described as ‘Indian’ – with valuable assistance from Moscow, Delhi in the early 1980’s with PM Indira Gandhi at the helm took this enormous leap of faith to invest in the SSBN that is now the Arihant. This happened at a time when India did not have the capability to design and manufacture an automobile let alone a submarine!

The SSBN is the ultimate pinnacle of techno-strategic prowess as it is capable of providing what is referred to as credible second-strike capability in the WMD deterrence matrix. Submerged deep in the ocean, the SSBN can launch – undetected – a nuclear-tipped strategic missile over thousands of kilometres.

Once acquired, this was deemed to be the ultimate strategic capability and though expensive, no nation is willing to forego or voluntarily dilute its reliance on this platform in relation to its profile and autonomy in the global strategic arena.

Long Awaited Indigenisation

India will tread the same path, but there is a big difference. Despite this very commendable achievement, India remains the world’s largest importer of military inventory. A recent report highlighted the rather embarrassing statistic that in 2014-15, Delhi accounted for 14 percent of global arms exports and China was a distant second at 4.7 per cent.

In short, while India can be proud of the Arihant, the country still imports items as modest as revolvers and automatic rifles like the Kalashnikov. The Indian artillery gun (Bofors replacement is still a work in progress after 25 years) and the list of platforms that India does not design or manufacture is rather long.

India is yet to acquire proven indigenous capability to design and build its own submarines, and the loss of two Kilo class boats (acquired from Russia) over the last three years has led to an alarming reduction in numbers. The shortcoming extends to the non-lethal sector as well, where India is unable to design and manufacture world-class bullet proof vests and helmets with the necessary technological sensors – which are now routine inventory items even for police forces in the most of the world.

These are more complex issues that warrant the most urgent and sustained parliamentary attention, but the national security discourse in the parliament has been hijacked by emotive issues and reduced to lighting candles for martyrs and the height of the flag-post for the tricolour – alas!

The challenge for the Modi-Parrikar combine is to reduce that tangible difference in the domestic military manufacturing domain – through the ‘Make in India’ initiative – in the two years’ time that this government effectively has.

(The writer is a leading expert on strategic affairs. He is currently Director, Society for Policy Studies.)

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India is Far From Catching Up to China In Submarine Race

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