NATIONAL DEFENCE MESSED UP - POLITICIANS, THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM - INDER MALHOTRA

     THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE BY A RENOWNED JOURNALIST, INDER MALHOTRA, IS POSTED BELOW FOR THE BENEFIT OF INFORMATION OF ALL VETERAN BROTHERS:-
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WITHOUT doubt the Vice-Chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal P. K. Barbora, is a maverick. Or else he would not have been speaking out so bluntly as he has done. For this he has predictably drawn flak. Those who criticise him for speaking out of turn while still being uniform do have a point. But there is a bigger and more worrying question that needs to be answered: Isn’t every word of what the intrepid Air Marshal has said absolutely accurate? Must the grim state of affairs he has exposed to the light of day be brushed under the carpet again?

Let us leave out the controversy over women as fighter pilots that he started; the Air Force can sort this out. But no more time should be wasted before coming to grips with the key problem: the messing up of national defence by the way politicians and political parties of all hues and the political operate. Other factors, of course, aggravate this depressing situation. The military itself seems to be reluctant to plan for the long term. To compound this, the 3 Services habitually change their “qualitative requirements” all too often. “Firewalls” between the defence forces and the insufficiently informed civilian bureaucracy of the Ministry of Defence can delay proposals unduly.

It is true that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), despite the good work it has done, is unable to make good its tantalising promises, as the fate of the main battle tank and the Light Combat Aircraft so eloquently underscore. No fewer than 450 LCAs should have been produced by now to replace the IAF’s earlier workhorse, Mig-21. Not one has entered service yet! This enables the Service Chiefs to demand imports of the latest and best equipment from abroad rather than rely on indigenous production. Consequently, 62 years after independence India has to import 70 per cent of all military hardware.

However, when all is said and done the main cause of unconscionable delay in decision-making is political. At a time when they need to be vigilant against both China and Pakistan, the Indian armed forces are not properly equipped. At one level, it is this country’s alarmingly contentious political culture that is at work. Whichever party may be in power, its adversary in the Opposition resists vehemently all decisions to acquire weapons and equipment. And when the power sea-saw goes the other way, the roles of both sides are immediately reversed.

Suspicions of massive corruption in every lucrative defence transaction, which cannot be dismissed out of hand, have undoubtedly contributed to the virtual gridlock. But no corrupt person — politician, military officer, bureaucrat or arms agent — has ever been brought to book. Indeed, the classic Bofors case that contributed to Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in the 1989 general election is a telling example of how India handles the gift of the grab in defence purchases. Without an iota of doubt there was corruption in the purchase of Bofors 155 mm gun. The amount distributed was Rs 64 crore, which is small beer compared with the amounts that are merrily changing hands these days.

Moreover, seven governments have come and gone since Bofors burst on the Indian scene with the force of a mini-nuke. These have included one that vowed to “expose the guilty men of Bofors” within 15 days but couldn’t do so during the 11 months it lasted. Another that ruled for six years was long on the promise to mete out just deserts to the “culprits” but woefully short on performance.

The story became steadily worse. Some people did make money but the gun they bought was excellent, as became evident at the time of the Kargil War. However, so shocking is our defence management and so inflexible our procedure that after putting a blanket ban on any further dealings with Bofors, the government made no alternative arrangement to either buy from elsewhere or manufacture domestically ammunition for the large number of Bofors howitzers.

So when the crunch came, we had no Bofors ammunition, and had to buy it at three or four times the normal price. No one is sure that the ammunition situation is any better today. Finally, as the fish begins to rot at the head, unacceptable delay in decision-making on defence takes place at the top — at the level of the defence minister and his cabinet colleagues. Sadly, India has not always been well served by its defence ministers. Some of them didn’t have a clue to their critically important charge. Ironically, the cleverest of them, V.K. Krishna Menon, did a lot of damage in his arrogant ways. No wonder, during the border war with China in 1962, the country spent more energy on ejecting him from South Block than on beating back the invaders.

Some times, prime ministers have made the cardinal mistake of taking over the defence portfolio themselves and leaving it to a handpicked minister of state to run it. In Arun Singh, Rajiv Gandhi had an MoS of competence but the two were then drifting apart. P. V. Narasihma Rao left the Defence Ministry to the tender mercies of Mallikarjun whose best friends never claimed that he had any knowledge of matters military.

Today’s Defence Minister, A. K. Antony, is a senior Congress leader burdened with some party chores unrelated to his official duties and a fine man. But his knowledge and experience of security issues is limited. Moreover, his overriding concern for probity and transparency in defence acquisitions is leading to indecision. Against this backdrop, let me cite just one example of the resultant havoc. After careful consideration, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had invited offers for 126 multi-role warplanes this country needs. The United Progressive Alliance that has been in power for more than five and half years fully agreed with what the National Democratic Alliance had done.

However, has the desperately needed acquisition of the 126 aircraft moved an inch forward? Meanwhile, the prices of these magnificent machines are piling up as does the ticking meter of a taxi.
As far back as in 1963, the government had planned to have an air force of 64 squadrons. Later, for want of resources, the target was lowered to 45 squadrons. Today, the air force consists of only 39 squadrons of which only 30 are combat squadrons. Indeed, The IAF now is no better equipped than it was in 1962 but we boast of being a “global player”.

(SOURCE : THE TRIBUNE)

OPERATIKON BLUE STAR - MISSING ARTICLES FROM GOLDEN TEMPLE : AN EXSM FOR PROBE BY JUDICIAL COMMISSION

     THE FOLLOWING NEWS ITEM IS POSTED BELOW FOR THE BENEFIT OF INFORMATION
OF ALL VETERAN BROTHERS:-
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An ex-serviceman of Payal has raised the issue of the “missing articles” from the Golden Temple during Operation Bluestar in 1984 and their controversial recovery thereafter.Dissatisfied by the “half-baked” reply of the SGPC to his application filed under the RTI Act in this regard, he now wishes a judicial commission to initiate an independent probe.

As ex-serviceman Joginder Singh Goraya tried to gather information under the RTI Act from the SGPC in June this year regarding the “status of recovery” of each and every item, including gold and gold ornaments, silver and silver ornaments, precious stones, semi-precious stones and pearls, government currency notes, coins, FDRs, paintings, photos, manuscripts, documents, articles, books, files, photographs, etc taken into custody by the Army at the time of Operation Bluestar, the SGPC replied that the books related to Sikh history of Research Board Amritsar and the handwritten manuscripts had not been recovered as yet and that attempts were being made to get them back, specifying at the same time that the ones recovered had been kept with the Sikh History Research Board. Further the reply stated that as per the information gathered from the Golden Temple, Amritsar, the list of articles recovered after military action through district administration has been prepared and kept. Also, that the record of the things before the military action has been completely destroyed and that there is no record left any more.

As the applicant was left craving for more by the SGPC regarding the position of the “recovery” of the “missing specified” articles, records and valuables during Operation Bluestar, he now wants the government or the judicial commission to undertake the probe at the earliest. Goraya alleged that while the Union Ministry of Home Affairs gave him an exact and detailed report of the articles and valuables “returned” to the SGPC when demanded through the RTI, the SGPC on the other hand failed to do so.
 
(SOURCE - THE TRIBUNE)