Defense unpreparedness - Who is responsible?

Indian Express | New Delhi | March 23, 2018 | Page 15

India’s defense budget for FY 2018-19 is a meager Rs 2.95 lakh crore, an increase by 7.81% over last year but  just about 1.58% of the GDP, the lowest figure since the 1962 war with China wherein it was 1.65%. 

• In the light of military threats from both Pakistan and China, the defence outlay is unlikely to completely meet the requirements defense forces. Even though several defense procurement projects were approved, large amounts of funds continue to be surrendered unspent from the capital budget in the past few years.
• China's defense budget is $175 billion i.e. nearly Rs.12 lakh crores. And their massive spending on modernizing armed forces, started 5 years ago, is nearing completion. In terms of capabilities & preparedness, India stands no where near China.
• India’s military equipment is ageing rapidly and replacements are not keeping pace. The budget will not even meet the army’s operational requirements and meeting the threats against China and Pakistan. 
• Deficiencies in ammunition have an adverse impact on the ability to sustain prolonged military operations. The ammunition and weapons stocks available last for less than ten days of fighting against the norm of maintaining 30 days stock. 
• The navy and air force services are no better off. The obsolescent weapons and equipment also affects the country’s defence preparedness as fighter and bomber aircraft are extremely difficult to maintain towards the end of the life cycle. Air force units are also equipped with obsolete equipment and depleting fleet. 
• While the Indian navy is far from acquiring the capabilities of a blue water navy, the People’s Liberation Army navy is getting ready to sail into the Indian Ocean.
• Modern wars are fought mostly during the hours of darkness, but a large number of the army’s armoured fighting vehicles, tanks and infantry combat vehicles are still ‘night blind’. 

The government sanctioned some funds to acquire the wherewithal necessary for combat readiness. Unless the remaining deficiencies in weapons, ammunition and equipment are also made up quickly, the management of the defence budget improves by an order of magnitude and the defence procurement process is streamlined further, thoughts of critical hollowness in defence preparedness will continue to haunt India’s defence planners.

It is strange that India thinks of military when compelled to plan for augmenting their protection against the adversaries. The fact of the matter is India is not war ready. We don't have ability and ammunition stocks for a two front war. At best we can defend from aggressors. The military modernization which was conceived in 2004 after exposure of weaknesses during Kargil war has not taken shape till now. Both UPA and present NDA governments are responsible for India's today's utter defense unpreparedness.

Defense Minister orders army to clean garbage!

 

• In just three weeks, the new Raksha Mantri, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, has moved from the top of the charts to below the mid-way point with her latest and only ridiculous order asking/ tasking the army to clean up garbage and litter in the high altitude areas, left behind by uncaring and uneducated tourists.
• Unless she understands and applies her mind to the legitimate tasks of the armed forces and their pride and ethos, she is unlikely to be accepted fully and the charts will keep sliding south.
• The recent cabinet reshuffle is the BJP plan for the 2019 General Elections and the appointment of the new Raksha Mantri (RM) is more in gender terms rather than abilities! There was a sense of relief that this government has stopped treating the Defense Portfolio as a temporary pastime for its cabinet ministers.
• It seemed that after three years of governance, Modi had at last learnt that Defense was neither a part-time portfolio, nor one for a light-weight leader.
• Modi rewarded a loser (Arun Jaitley) at the elections with the two most important portfolios, viz. Finance and Defense, possibly may be due to non availability of talent. He glossed over fact that the Jaitley did not like the military, as he blamed them for his losing the only election he fought in his long political career.
• Modi might have realized that giving two major portfolios to one person are fraught with danger. 
• Nirmala Sitharaman was a professional; was intelligent; dedicated; and possessed common sense. She had handled her commerce portfolio well but built up a positive reputation of a feisty lady who kept the rapacious bureaucracy in line and carried out her assignments quietly.
• Apparently this was done at the behest of PMO to clean up garbage left by tourists in high altitude areas and other sundry instructions regarding cleaning up military stations, cantonments and bases. These orders are absurd, to put it mildly. 
• The mandarins sitting in the PMO have issued a stupid and illogical order stating that the army will clean litter left behind by uncaring tourists in high altitude areas, obviously abandoning their operational tasks and training. It is the dumbest order in the last half a century, if not more. If you use the armed forces for carrying out non-military tasks, the result will be catastrophic.
• Since the Swach Bharat Abhiyan has made little headway, the government wants to boast of at least cleaning up the litter of tourists so that their propaganda machinery can at least save face by tom-toming this!
• Defence Minister, PMO and the MoD to rescind this absurd order immediately.

When you promote a good worker who turns out to be a bad supervisor, 

you end up losing a good worker and saddled with a bad supervisor.

Common sense tells us that there is no way 'Swach Bharat Abhiyan' in its present format can succeed despite a spend of Rs.200,000 crores between 2014-19 except that it provides a platform for massive publicity for Modi & BJP which anyway no one believes its tall claims. In the process degrading and demoralizing armed forces is unpardonable. Modi as Gujarat CM in his book 'Karmayog' of 2007 writes that scavenging was an 'experience in spirituality' for the Valmikis. Modi also describes scavengers assigned role in the caste order as a "job bestowed upon them by Gods" that outraged Dalit groups and Modi silently withdrew the book from circulation. Unless running water in taps provided, improved hygiene and drainage facilities created, solid waste management systems implemented, illiteracy eradicated, all sections of people brought above poverty line, the ills associated with poverty will continue to haunt us in some form or other. Until then reckless spending will only serve publicity and scandalous purposes. And Nirmala Sitharaman proved instantly unworthy of a ministerial position, not to talk of MoD, by signing that inapt order.

Essentials of Education

• The intellectuals will accomplish nothing if they fail to integrate themselves with the workers and peasants.
• The educational policy must cultivate a firm and correct political orientation, an industrious and simple style of work, and flexible strategy and tactics. 
• Educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture.
• Students and intellectuals should study their specialized subjects and must make progress both ideologically and politically, which means that they should study current events and politics. 
• Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul.
• People have to learn while teaching while serving as teachers. 
• To be a good teacher, one must first be a good pupil. 
• There are many things which cannot be learned from books alone; one must learn from those engaged in production, from the workers, from the poor and lower middle peasants etc.
• Education must serve proletarian politics and must be combined with productive labour. 
• The working people should master knowledge and the intellectuals should become habituated to manual labour.
• Destruction means criticism and repudiation. It involves reasoning things out, which is construction. There is no construction without destruction.
• While students main task is to study, they should in addition to their studies, participate in other things like industrial work, farming and military affairs. 
• The domination of schools by bourgeois intellectuals should by no means be allowed to continue.