By Sumit Mukerji
The recent inauguration of the joint Tata Advanced Systems Ltd and Airbus for the C-295 transport aircraft final assembly line complex is a major step that India has taken to break away from the shackles of government controlled defence production and engage the private sector. Recovering from the tragic Partition in 1947 and left penniless by the British, the leadership, in its wisdom, kept poverty alleviation as a priority.
The 200 years of British rule was a sad blow of fate because, under the inexorable crush of British domination, India was unable to benefit from the surge that the industrial revolution brought. India has remained, and possibly even today, in the ‘catch-up’ mode vying for a place in the sun. Born out of poverty, with virtually no industrial base, the sudden jolt of the India-Pakistan War of 1947-48 brought national security into focus. But given the lack of any industrial growth at that time, the progression to acquire sufficient arms to protect our sovereignty was left to the government agencies or what became known as the ‘public sector’.
A quick look at the inventory energised the government to scale up the ordnance factories and attempt to develop its own air and sea power. But these take time, to establish infrastructure, to procure the essential raw materials and manufacture the requisite product. While ship building was an existing industry because of the long history of sea-faring traders, aviation was a new field ready to be exploited.
Established in 1940 by Lalchand Hirachand and Krishna Raja Wadiyar of the Kingdom of Mysore, HAL (then known as Hindustan Aircraft Limited) went into production of aviation spare parts in support of the US Army Air Force and in fact, built its first aircraft, a Harlow PC-5, during World War II. With the initial hurdles overcome after the 1947-48 war and a little consolidation, it was an opportune moment to move on and a sharp mind in the government decided to bring in Prof Kurt Tank, the famous aircraft designer and aeronautical engineer at Focke-Wulf. In the development of the HF-24, Hindustan Aeronautics got its biggest stimulus and infusion of this work ethos and culture which had made Germany such an industrial giant before, during and after World War II. But the momentum could not be sustained. Bogged down by bureaucracy, power play and labour unions who were encouraged by the socialistic approach adopted by the government, Hindustan Aeronautics was plunged into a downward slide from which it is still to recover and attain credibility.
This held true for the ordnance factories and the quality of the arms produced for the Indian armed forces has been pitiable, if not woeful. There was no second guessing as to why we had to turn to foreign sources and friendly nations to import military hardware. The succeeding 50 years since a modern jet fighter was produced by an Indian industry saw periodic wars, with the armed forces sustained by support from foreign countries. For the military industry, it was like the proverbial smell of blood for a bloodhound. We have pursued this path relentlessly, as the easy way out, rather than strive and develop a strong R&D base and a follow-up industry to manufacture indigenous arms and equipment.
The aircraft industry, since the start of aviation, has been in the forefront of technological development. The drivers have varied with the requirements of the user or the organisation. But as technology progressed rapidly and greater demands on performance and capability were necessary, it was undeniably evident that aviation and its core platform, the airplane, became the byproduct of niche technology. While educational institutions in India produced the talent (which was lapped up by the Western countries),there seemed to be no incentive to pursue the indigenous route for aircraft development because of the seemingly insurmountable bureaucracy that crippled growth in the desired time frame.
It may be of interest to know about Lockheed Martin’s famous ‘Skunk Works’, a pseudonym for Lockheed Martin’s ‘Advanced Development Programmes’, is responsible for creation of designs and undertaking research with ‘out-of-the-box’ and sometimes radical ideas. Rapid prototyping, simplistic environment (no overheads), high-risk tolerance and hiring ‘generalists’ (as they call them) are hallmarks of the set-up. A characteristic description of the Skunk Works is “a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects”. It takes courage and acceptance to promote such centres of research but the paybacks could elevate the industry manifold. Maybe we could take a page out of this book and create something like this of our own.
Over the years, the term ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) has become a natural part of our lexicon. It is also evident that new technology adapted into systems have enhanced performance and, in more cases than not, offset the asymmetry and tilted the outcome of a battle/conflict. There is no doubt that the biggest influencer which changed the pace of development was industrialisation coupled with the computer. But development essentially needs something more than an industrial surge. It needs the collective (with emphasis on the word collective) will of the people to strive towards self-realisation and a disposition to take pride in the country making progress. Rather than extracting hard work through educational upliftment, the people have been exploited by corrupt politicians and those professions which are labour intensive, like real estate and infrastructure development. It took two decades to start the process of developing a second indigenous fighter aircraft and it would be another two decades and more before the first productions would come off the conveyor belt with a product which still had so many foreign components that ‘indigenous’ actually felt like a misnomer. The time frames would also be indicative that the conceived technology could already be looking redundancy in the face! The facts may be difficult to digest, but unless we admit and address our shortcomings, true indigenisation will remain a pipedream.
Across the world, as technology developed and greater sophistication in computerisation became the basis for providing innovative solutions, it became evident that a major lateral fusion of components for civil and military usage was taking place. This has given rise to off-the-shelf availability of components and lateral exchange of technology, enhancing pace of development. Because of this the blurring between what is military and what is civil has offered up technology that may not have been accessible to either. The compression also throws up possibilities for India, with its extensive tech base, to be able to provide the expertise to those willing to partner with India. In fact, this would also provide the avenue to pursue niche technologies which have become the mainstay of superior machines and armaments. Large military industries, as they exist in the USA, Russia, France, Israel, Brazil and other countries known for their products, have overcome the huge burden of running a product line all by themselves and are extensively tapping small and medium industries to provide them the components, thereby becoming more of an assembly organisation who will roll out the final product.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was possibly the first to recognize the malady and take a bold decision to break the shackles of the bureaucracy and look for increasing the pace of development in India. Spanning many sectors, he understood the need for India to be not only self-sufficient but also self-reliant, especially in certain niche technologies. Quality industry had to be given a boost. The ‘Make in India’ project was a brilliant move by the government to garner foreign investment and technical development to put India on the path to self-sufficiency. His clarion call to industrialists of various countries to come and set up factories and manufacturing facilities in India, where construction space and manpower support were available in plenty, saw a huge surge of industry giants who came to survey and make their assessments. Alas, in international commerce and trade, two issues are very relevant – quality and reputation. Notwithstanding all its resources, India could not justify its standing on the international stage in either of these two areas. In the aviation sector, HAL’s reputation failed to provide the necessary comfort zone for the industry.
But Modi remained relentless in his pursuit to achieve not only self-sufficiency in defence equipment but to upgrade it to self-reliance through his ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ drive. There is no doubting the fact that any major developing country cannot be dependent on outside sources or friendly foreign countries, especially for items necessary for national security. The unreliability of international groupings and the fact that geopolitics makes strange bedfellows does not augur well for a country dependent on others for its defence needs. We learnt a tough lesson in 1974 and then in 1998 after our two nuclear tests when the US put India under sanction. It was necessary to tread this road alone, while retaining friendships across the world. India’s policy of non-alignment and geopolitical autonomy has held strong through some crises and is under strain in the present due to some major upheavals around the globe. We will ride this storm too. In the interim, safety lies in diversification. But will this give rise to trust deficit and a reluctance to part with technology?
The Indian Air Force has, through its long term perspective planning, always factored in obsolescence and the need to upgrade its fighting elements to ensure it meets the national security imperatives. But over the past two decades, the dwindling numbers of fighter squadrons has been evidence of the lack of anticipated replenishment. A fast-track acquisition of Rafale jets from France in 2015 provided the much needed support from the government. With HAL still lagging behind promised production (is it anything new?) of the Tejas Mk1A, let alone its promises to get the Mk2 ready in time and produce the AMCA prototype by 2030, the fighter squadron numbers are unlikely to see an upward trend. While the IAF is still trying to make good its inventory of fourth generation aircraft, the other major air forces (and especially China, who is in our concern window) have moved on to fifth generation aircraft and are tapping on sixth generation technology. The technological asymmetry with China is becoming an ever increasing threat. This is not a comfortable situation for national security.
While UAVs have been around for a long time, their utilisation has slowly but surely progressed from a mere surveillance tool to an aggressive and demonstrably destructive platform in the hunter-killer role. UAV employment was most prominently showcased in the war in Kosovo in 1999. Refinement of utilization and tactics as the war progressed, changed the dynamic perspective of UAV usage, basically by reducing reaction time from target identification to target prosecution – shortening the OODA loop. The UAV was here to stay. After a lull in UAV operational visibility, a systematic, coordinated UAV attack by Libyan Houthi rebels on the oil storage and processing facilities of the ARAMCO oil fields in Saudi Arabia brought UAVs into sharp focus, not only as an instrument of terror but also as an offensive weapon which could create major damage to ground facilities and elements. The whole perspective of the importance and employment of UAVs underwent a revisional upgrade and every country, it seemed, found it militarily sound to expedite development and/or procurement of these platforms.
But India seemed to have been left behind in this race too. While, presumably, the expertise exists, there does not seem to be any urgency to develop suitable indigenous systems. The IAF’s Meher Baba competition to promote and elicit talent to produce a suitable UAV (or two) has shown some sparks of brilliance but there seems to be inadequate progress. While the survivability of a UAV, in a contested airspace, as would exist in our context, is suspect, the need for adequate numbers and their effectiveness through wily tactics cannot be denied.
Why are the Indian armed forces and especially the IAF always in a race to play ‘catch-up’, both for suitable numbers of platforms as well as technology? Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat programmes are somehow not generating the requisite dynamics to make them effective in the short term. That India will become a major exporter of arms in the future is not in doubt. But in the visible future,will the technology gap inexorably drag us into the technology warp where we always need to strive, in a race against time?
