Indian Navy - Future Ready

The ‘sea blindedness’ and ‘continental’ mindset of Indian political class and bureaucracy have hobbled us. The fact that colonial powers like Britain, Spain, Portugal, Dutch, and French conquered and commercially exploited us by sea is lost on them. These countries, if taken in totality, have less than half the coast line we have (7516 Kms). Yet we have been colonized more from the sea than from land! So, instead of becoming a sea faring nation and outward in outlook. India has remained inward looking and insular in nature. It is to the credit of naval planners that they have built true blue water navy inspite of this mindset in 60 odd years. All this with patience and perseverance, and mostly without the benefit of any higher political direction (no White Papers, or Defence Reviews; not even approval of the recommendations of committees convened by the GoI)One could argue that this perhaps has been a blessingin disguise! Of late there has been some soul searching on whether the recent submarine accident could have been avoided, or has there been any setback to the blue water vision by spreading oneself too thin - embarking on ambitious carrier, nuclear propulsion program and 30 sub plans. It would seem that the diversion of (scarce) men, money and material can either do one or the other well. But not all. Hence ‘overreaching strategic ambitions’. Not so. All professional and blue water navies have had to cope with (or rather learn to cope with) rapid growth during its ‘scaling up’ stage - from coastal/littoral and sea defense navy to a blue water one. Recruitment at entry levels have to scale up. Training, induction and infrastructure also has to keep pace to ‘feed’ and constantly update the various arms of the navy whether it be pilots, divers, electrical/system engineers, artificers, long course specialist officers, cooks, etc. During this phase different parts of the Navy tend to grow at different rates – some faster, some over decades. That is natural. For e.g. (1) the nuclear submarine propulsion programme was conceptualized in 1967 with a feasibility plan prepared by the Navy & BARC, and went thru several fits and starts till 1980. It was only in 1984 that the program got its due budget, focus and political mandate. And now has come to its logical fruition. (2) On the other hand the aviation wing came off the starting block faster than any other arm with the original INS Vikrant (1961) coming in very early in the navy’s evolution (this is Naval aviations 60th anniversary), and the vision for subsequently embarking upon a 2/3 carrier navy being in the pipeline from the late 80’s (3) The 30-sub plan also has also been in the making from the late 90’s. But delays in decision making have dogged this plan from coming in on time. At the end they have all come together rather nicely. Therefore In isolation and in totality, naval planners seem to have cut their cloth according to their long term vision – not too much, or too little. For a country which is still a developing one with numerous resource constraints, a noisy and often time’s fractious democracy with several competing forces for scarce means. This is creditable. Naval Vision 3.0 My view, and I have held this for some time now, that the Indian Navy needs ideally 3 Battle Groups (BG’s). Two being CBG’s. One for the Arabian, ME & Mediterranean regions HQ’d in Mumbai/Karwar (lets call this command as CinC,AMEN) . One for the Indian Ocean and Littoral States (CinC,IOR) HQ’d at Cochin/Karwar, and one for the South Asia & Far East (CinC,SAFE) region HQ’d at Vizag and Port Blair. I know the 2+1 is the carrier tasking policy, but there will be times when all three carriers will be in active operational simultaneously. And when, 2+ 1 kicks in, then the capital ship of the third Battle Group will be a Nuke Sub or amphibious assault ship/Helo carrier. These BG’s will not only be there for deterrence and defence of the homeland and expeditionary operations, but more importantly, to ‘fly the flag’ from Vietnam to Venezuela – where significant Indian economic & commercial assets and interests are expected to lie in within the next 20 years. The soft power that is talked about by all. And which China with its hospitals ships and visiting warships to areas of their interest have been doing for some time, and of course the western powers perfected to an art form over the last 300 years! The fly the flag activities will be cross subsidized by the MEA, since this will form part of its outreach and ‘winning friends’ program. If and when India gets to the high table of the permanent member of the UNSC, this will be a hygiene factor. And if the roadmap and intent is laid out in advance, then an enabling condition.