The Hindu Business Line : Defence spending and related issues

The inability of parliamentarians and the civil society to ask the right questions at the right moment is bedevilling the formulation and implementation of the right Defence policies suited to the occasion and context. The truth is that the representative bodies and the public are yet to be taken into confidence on the basic parameters for a correct appraisal of the country's security environment, says B. S. Raghavan.

AS JULIUS Caesar was walking towards the Capitol in Rome on the fateful day of his assassination, one of the well-wishers is said to have insistently pressed him to read a petition which, he said, touched the Emperor the most. Caesar scornfully pushed him aside, saying: "What touches us ourself (sic) shall be last serv'd!"

Insofar as India's Defence management is concerned, a quick glance at the commentaries on the recent Budget in the media and public fora reveals that, though Defence so vitally touches all of us, being irrevocably linked to the nation's security and survival, it has not been served at all, leave alone being last served! Except specialists engaged in study of issues connected with national Defence and security, others skirt round this particular area. Even in Parliament, matters pertaining to Defence are discussed only sporadically and cursorily, with the Government sharing with members only the minimum information necessary to have the grants of the Defence Ministry approved.

This is a strange situation because in scale and magnitude of the government's outlay and expenditure, Defence occupies a position next to that of interest payment. With a million-strong army, an air force with 35 combat squadrons and a two-fleet navy, India's Defence spending has been registering a perceptible rise from Rs 55,661 crore in 2002-03 to Rs 65,300 crore in 2003-04, vaulting to Rs 77,000 crore in 2004-05, a 27 per cent jump overall, and a steep 60 per cent in the provision for capital expenditure from Rs 20,953 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 33,483 crore this year.

Skimpy mention

Between 2002-03 and 2003-04, while the total development expenditure rose a 4.8 per cent, the total Defence expenditure jumped 15 per cent. (In terms of percentage of GDP, however, India's Defence expenditure for 2004-05 is 2.5, much lower than China's 6 and Pakistan's 5.5.) These few salient indicators are all that is necessary to grasp the importance of citizens taking an active and sustained interest in maintaining the efficacy of the Defence apparatus and cultivating an awareness of the inter-connected and synergistic functioning of the three main Services and the organisations meant to keep them in the finest fettle possible.

And, yet, Defence finds nothing more than skimpy mention, if at all, in important official documents on the activities of the government. Normally, in conjunction with the Budget session, annual reports of all ministries are submitted to Parliament; this year even that practice has been given the go-by. The Tenth Plan is totally silent on Defence outlays. The National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) has this just one cryptic sentence: "The UPA Government will ensure that all delays in the modernisation of the armed forces are eliminated and that all funds earmarked for modernisation are spent fully at the earliest."

The speech of the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, presenting the 2004-05 Budget, is also in no way indicative of its high importance. All he could bring himself to do was to recall the NCMP's one-liner and mention the increased allocations. That was all: Lump it or leave it. No further explanation or elaboration.

However, the Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has chosen to be a little more forthcoming on the why's and wherefore's of the whopping increase in the Budget provision. What he has disclosed is not comforting. Looks as if instead of being used for any new deals for arms or equipment or modernisation, the entire provision of Rs 33,483 crore for capital expenditure would be used up to pay the outstanding bills of the previous government and Rs 44,000 crore out of Rs 77,000 crore for running expenses would go to meet the salaries and pay increases for the officer cadre.

Mr Mukherjee has already served notice that he would be going back to the Finance Minister by October for more money. And well he might. He is indeed left with no other choice considering that the actual amounts due to be paid for deals already made by the previous government add up to a minimum of Rs 50,000 crore, which is Rs 16,517 crore more than the Budget provision (see table)

Critical questions

Even this additional information makes people no wiser about some of the core issues pertaining to the country's Defence. Some of the critical questions for which no definitive or satisfactory answers have ever been available are: Are available resources put to the best use possible? What deficiencies in Defence procurement have resulted in the Defence Ministry surrendering Rs 9,000 crore, meant for the purchase of modern weapons in 2002-03? What mechanisms are in place to ensure that there is maximum bang for every buck spent, and wasteful expenditure is curbed? What is the justification, nature and quantum of subsidisation in the various concessions and facilities provided? What happened to those high military brass caught in Tehelka tapes and, in what manner, vigilance has been stepped up to guard against similar occurrences? Is there continued and purposeful coordination among the Services, their intelligence outfits and other various branches? What steps are being taken to guard against excessive deployment of defence forces for internal security duties as a convenient surrogate of the civil police?

Some of the subterfuges governments employ to tuck away military expenditure under innocuous heads are beyond the ken of even experienced Budget-watchers. To cite just a few: Contingency funds may be used for paying military debts or repairing military hardware; military budgets may be supplemented with funds diverted from unspent allocations for social sectors; or military activities may be categorised as peace operations or public security activities, paid out of police or social welfare budgets.

In sum, the general attitude of everyone not belonging to the charmed circle of insiders in the Defence Ministry and Services headquarters is to leave this esoteric domain to the judgment of the government which is presumed to know what is the best Defence policy and strategy for the country. An idea of the immense harm that can be caused by exploiting people's ignorance of Defence matters by the governing establishment can be had from the reports of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the US and the Hutton and Butler Committees in the UK, which vividly document the way those two countries were dragged into an indefensible and illegal invasion of Iraq on false pretences.

Defence preparedness and strategic readiness were very much the issues in India in the case of the Chinese attack in the North-East in 1962 and the Pakistani incursion in Kargil in 999. China looked all set to overrun all the North-Eastern States when it declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrew. It was touch-and-go in Kargil, until the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, saved the day for India. The military had to fight the Pakistani forces on very unequal terms; reportedly, the two top jobs of Northern Command headquarters were held by officers who had neither commanded a brigade, division or corps in that Command nor were familiar with the terrain, and were directing action banking on aerial surveys in helicopters. Some of the controversies arising from those hostilities are yet to die down.

Blind spots

There is no way the sovereign stakeholders, "We, the People", can come to an independent conclusion on what went wrong and whether the proper lessons have been drawn because till today successive governments have not encouraged any kind of a national discourse on the findings of in-house committees (Henderson-Brooks on the Chinese invasion, Mr Arun Singh on the working of Defence establishment, K. Subrahmanyam on Kargil) pointing to the blind spots in its vast military machine and intelligence setup which could compromise national security.

The inability of parliamentarians and the civil society to ask the right questions at the right moment is bedevilling the formulation and implementation of the right Defence policies suited to the occasion and context. No policy can pass muster unless it is integrated with the security environment and draws on the suggestions made in the course of a full-fledged debate in Parliament and the country.

The plain truth is that the representative bodies and the public are yet to be taken into confidence on the basic parameters for a correct appraisal of the country's security environment with the result they find themselves excluded from the process of determining whether the Defence planning and performance as well as the restructuring and reforms undertaken in 2001 (with many loose ends still to be tied up) are in tune with the security environment based on the application of a fresh and open mind.

(To be concluded)